Are Our Feelings Reliable In Religion?

Are you sure you are saved? Are you sure because of your “feelings”? You should know our feelings are unreliable.

Read the account of the selling of Joseph into slavery in Genesis 37:28-35. Notice specifically verses 34-35. Didn’t Jacob feel like Joseph was dead? Did Jacob’s feeling prove Joseph was dead? Obviously not! So feelings do not prove anything.

Acts 8:36-39 shows the eunuch went on his way rejoicing after he was baptized (saved). This shows us our feelings are simply reactions to evidence (or information) but are never the evidence itself. The account of Jacob also shows us our feelings are based upon information: if the information is false our feelings will be false.

And II Thess 2:8-12 proves we better not be deceived by our feelings. God will send us a strong delusion (i.e. feeling) if we don’t have a love for the truth. The passage reads, “And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be condemned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

You might feel like you are saved because a lot of people agree you are saved. Again, this is no way to tell. Matt 7:13-14 reads, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” If anything, large numbers on your side should hint to you that something may be wrong.

The only way to know you have eternal life is by what is written (I John 5:13). If you have done what the word of God says to do to be saved, then you can rest assured you are saved. God says a person must believe (Mark 16:16), repent (Acts 2:38), and be baptized (Acts 22:16) to be saved. Have you done what God says to do to be saved for the reasons He says to do it? If so, you are a Christian; if not, then do it. Let’s all be obedient to the Lord’s will (Hebrews 5:9).

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