Two Questions That Change How You Feel About Your Feelings
Feelings are powerful. Sometimes they push us toward generosity and grace—a stranger’s kindness stops us mid-snap, or joy bubbles up unexpectedly during a hard season. Other times they pull us into isolation or bitterness before we even realize what’s happened. The question Pastor Josh White posed in his recent sermon isn’t whether we have emotions. It’s whether we’ve handed them the keys to govern our spiritual lives without ever stopping to ask: Are these feelings leading me somewhere good?
White opened with a question rooted in Colossians 2:18-19, where Paul warns against false teachers who wanted to disqualify believers by appeal to special experiences—visions, angelic run-ins, mystical encounters. These teachers were smug. They had seen things, felt things, been places spiritually that ordinary Christians hadn’t. And they let everyone know it. Paul calls this out for what it is: pride masquerading as spirituality. The feelings were real. The conclusions were catastrophic.
Question One: Do Your Emotions Build You Up—or God?
Here’s the first filter. When an emotion or experience shows up, ask: Who is being exalted here? Not in a simplistic, either/or way—plenty of emotions bless us personally while also pointing to God’s goodness. But the primary direction matters. Does this feeling drive me to worship, or does it feed my ego?
Isaiah gives a vivid contrast. In Isaiah 6, the prophet finds himself standing in the throne room of the living God. Seraphim are calling out “Holy, holy, holy.” Smoke fills the temple. The foundations shake. Isaiah’s response? Not “Wow, I must be somebody special.” He says, “Woe is me, for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips.” His vision of God’s holiness didn’t inflate him. It crushed him—and in that crushing, God met him with grace.
“Woe is me, for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
— Isaiah 6:5
The false teachers in Colossae had visions too. But instead of being humbled before a holy God, they got a bigger opinion of themselves. The experience became fuel for pride. That’s the danger.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians cuts to the heart of this tension. He lists what the flesh produces— enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger—and what the Spirit produces—love, joy, peace, patience. The flesh builds a person up by pushing others down. The Spirit builds God’s kingdom by producing fruit that draws a community together.
“The works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy.”
— Gal. 5:19-20
The warning cuts both ways. It’s easy to chase after experiences that make us feel spiritually elite—special revelations, emotional highs, dramatic answered prayers. But when those experiences puff us up instead of humbling us, something has gone wrong. The antidote isn’t rejecting emotion. It’s letting God’s holiness reorder our expectations.
Question Two: Do Your Experiences Isolate You—or Connect You to the Body?
The second question is just as searching. When an emotion or experience arrives, does it make you feel like you don’t need anyone else? Or does it expose how much you need to be grafted into the body of Christ?
Paul models the right response in 2 Corinthians 12. He received perhaps the most extraordinary experience any apostle had—caught up to the third heaven, hearing truths he couldn’t repeat. By every measure, that should have set him apart. He could have circled his wagon, leaned into the mystique, treated ordinary Christians as spiritually inferior.
Instead, God gave him a thorn in the flesh. Three times Paul begged God to remove it. God’s answer? “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul learned that the experience didn’t make him special—it made him desperate. And desperation for God’s grace is the most unifying thing that can happen to a person.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
— 2 Cor. 12:9
The body of Christ is designed so that no single member can claim independence. Paul drives this home in 1 Corinthians 12, using the human body as his analogy. The foot, the hand, the eye—each part is essential, and none can say it doesn’t need the others. That’s not metaphor. That’s structure.
“If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less part of the body. And if the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?”
— 1 Cor. 12:15-16
The false teachers in Colossians 2:19 had the opposite problem. Their claimed experiences made them “not hold fast to the head”—meaning Christ—and that disconnection severed their nutrition from the rest of the body. Isolation was the result. Pride and experience created a spiritual solo act.
Here’s the application: when emotions and experiences push you toward isolation—I’m fine, I don’t need the body, I have my own direct line—that’s a red flag. But when they draw you into deeper dependence on others, into honest community, into mutual accountability, something right is happening.
So What?
You can’t stop feelings from arriving. And you shouldn’t try to numb yourself into spiritual complacency. But you can ask better questions when they show up.
Before you let an emotion or experience determine your spiritual standing, run it through these two filters:
- Is this building me up, or building up God? Pride is subtle. It can dress itself up in spiritual language—visions, prophetic words, dramatic testimonies. But the test is always humility. Does this drive me to worship, or to self-congratulation?
- Is this isolating me, or drawing me into the body? Isolation feels spiritual sometimes. Like you don’t need messy human relationships. But the Spirit produces community. If an experience leaves you standing alone, something went wrong.
The late John F. Kennedy once said, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” It’s a great line. Here’s a reframe for the Christian life: Seek not what your emotions and experiences can do for you, but how God can guide them into his holiness and dependent relationships within the body of Christ.
Your feelings are real. God made them. But they’re a compass, not a governor. Point them toward a holy God. Let them draw you into the messy, beautiful interdependence of the local church. And when they don’t—when they puff you up or push you out—treat that as a warning, not a reason to double down.
Scripture References
- Colossians 2:18-19 — Paul warns against false teachers who disqualify through special experiences
- Isaiah 6:1-8 — Isaiah’s vision: humility in the presence of a holy God
- 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 — Paul’s thorn, God’s sufficient grace, power made perfect in weakness
- 1 Corinthians 12:12 — The body of Christ: many parts, one body
- Galatians 5:19-23 — The works of the flesh vs. the fruit of the Spirit
- Romans 15:13 — Benediction: God fills us with all joy and peace in believing