Becoming Emotionally Fit Week 1

A biblical exploration into what it means to be emotionally fit with Joseph Wimbush.  

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Greetings, brothers. Welcome back to the Men's Devotional. My name is Brother Joe Wimbush. I'm from the Word of God Christian Center located in the great city of Fayeville, North Carolina. And we have started our new series called Fit for Duty. These past few months, we've already covered spiritual fitness, financially fit, and last month we just finished physical fitness. For the next few weeks, I will be covering emotional fitness. Amen. Let's get started. So, what is emotional fitness? Emotional fitness is the ability to understand, manage, and express your emotions effectively. It promotes mental wellness and the ability to withstand or recover from difficult situations in our daily lives. Mental fitness. Mental fitness is your mind processes and understands information we experience. Again, let me say that again. Mental fitness is how your mind process and understand information we experience. Emotional fitness is the ability to manage and express those experiences. So, what are emotions? What are emotions? Emotions are a God-given feeling that makes us feel pleasant or unpleasant. In other words, it's our human responses or our reactions. Emotions are a necessary part of our personality. They are neither good nor bad. You have a choice, however, how they affect you and others around you. Amen. Here are a few examples. We have fear, we have anxiety, we have anger, we have sadness, depression, guilt, shame, loneliness. Now those, as you well see, as you see, are all negative, all negative emotions. Negative emotions come from negative thoughts. During this time, during this this my discussion, we're going to go over those, the two main ones, which are for me, fear and anger. Amen. If you turn your Bibles to Proverbs 1 and 7, it reads, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and discipline. Proverbs 9 and 10 reads, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. 2 Timothy 1 and 7 reads, which we all should know this by heart by now, it reads, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a power, love, and a sound mind. So what is fear of the Lord? What is it? The fear of the Lord is true reverence to our God. It recognizes who He is, His power, His holiness, His authority, which leads to wisdom. It should lead us toward God, not run away because of our sins, but run toward Him. God, the Father wants us to draw near to Him. He wants us to trust Him, to obey Him, to love Him and to honor Him. Amen. The next one we're going to discuss is anger. Anger. So what is anger? Anger is the emotion that tries to protect us of what feels wrong or what feel what fears un what feels unfair. Again, if it's an emotion that protects us from what we feel may be wrong, somebody doing something wrong to us or unfair. Again, it's a part of being human. Now there are four four types of anger. I uh saw this on YouTube, uh a brother named uh Vlad Valid Subcheck. You'll see him here on YouTube, he's pretty good, and I agree 100%. Four types of anger. You have your justified control anger, you have your justified uncontrolled, you have your uncontrolled justified, and you have your unjustified correction. Let me start over. You have number one, you have your justified control, which is you're angry for a good reason and you stay in control. This is righteous and healthy anger. You have the second one is you have justified and uncontrolled. You have a real reason to be angry, but you lose control. You say something or do something that you will regret. You have you regret. You feel right about it, but you do or say something that all wrong, you're doing it all wrong. Unjustified and controlled. Your third one, unjustified and controlled, is where you're mad for no reason at all. There's no reason to be mad, to get angry, but you stay in control. You didn't lose your cool, you didn't blow your temper. You still have to repent. More than likely, you still have to repent, but you you you stayed cool. You uh avoided serious issues because you you didn't lose you didn't blow up, you didn't go off at your mouth. The fourth one, unjustified and uncontrolled. You're angry for no good reason and you lose your code. You lose your cool, you blow up, you get mad, you start talking, you start fussing for no reason, you're just mad. That's the worst. We've all we all been there. It wasn't justified and we lost control. We lose we we lost our coup. I've done it, I still do it at times and time, certain times. We're all human, but before we get that angry, we should ask ourselves is my anger godly justified? Or is it about me? Is it about my pride? Is it about my ego? Is it about my preference? These are the questions that you need to ask before you blow up. Okay. Next, as we look at Genesis chapter 4, verse 6 and 7. Why are you so angry? The Lord asked Cain. Why do you look so dejected? You'll be you will be accepted if you do what is right, but if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out. Sin is at sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master. So why do you think Cain was so angry? Cain would Cain Cain was angry, he got became angry because of his pride. He was upset with Abel because God accepted his offering and rejected his. So his pride made him so angry that he sinned. If you look at Ephesians, Ephesians 4 and 26, it reads, Be angry, but do not sin. Do not let the go the sun go down on your on your anger. This verse is saying that you can sin, just don't sin. You can be angry, correction. Just don't sin. Verse 27, Ephesians 4 and 27 says, Don't give the devil an opportunity. Don't give an opportunity. God told Cable, God told Cain, he must subdue, control his anger, and be master of it. He's telling you you and I the same thing. Be the master of your emotions, don't let your emotions master you. Jesus got angry when he entered the temple. He drove out all who were buying and selling in the house of God. That was justified. That's justified anger. God was angry with the Israelites several times after he had freed them from Egypt. He did all those miracle signs and wonders, and they still continued to bicker and complain. He was angry. He was so angry, a whole generation lost their lives. They left it, they stayed in the desert 40 years till one whole generation had died. What are you saying, brother Joe? I'm saying that we need to be careful of our responses when we're angry or any negative thoughts that we may be harboring. We need to, we need to we need to think about before we blow up. We need to ask ourselves those questions. Is it justified? Why are we so angry? Bad and negative thoughts produce bad attitudes, which cause negative emotions. We need to watch ourselves. It's easy to fly off the handle. It's easy to fly off the handle. But if you ask yourself those questions, is it justified? Really reel yourself back in before you lose control. And ask yourself those questions. Is it justified? Is it is it about me? And uh who am I hurting? Am I about to hurt someone? Reel those emotions back in. Go into your quiet corner, pray. Amen. Well, look, that's all I have for today. I hope you all got something out of it. Uh, I'll be back next week with a more positive note. We'll talk about positive emotions. So hopefully uh that'll lift you up a little bit more than today. I wanted to get the negative out of the way first. I pray that you enjoy your day. Thank you again for joining the men's devotional. Again, my name is Joe Wimbush. Have a blessed day.

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Thank you.