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Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a better measure of success than IQ. It entails being able to make sense of your own emotions and those of other people and to act correctly using these feelings. It includes the competence to take stressful emotions as captives to Jesus so you can take back inner peace. You don't need to be tyrannized by your feelings; you can develop true mastery over them and live in the Spirit! 1. We are sovereigns over our own inward state. God is not in charge of your inward state--you are. Absolutely every person in this life has been supplied a circle of influence wherein they may practice genuine authority. Where is it? It is right there within you! Your heart is the catbird seat. From it emanate all of the true issues of life. Your brain can tell you what's right, but if you fail to learn the right way to rule your own emotional life, you live defeated, rather than free. 2. We can truly master and manage our emotional states, rather than be mastered by them. Left to itself your inner state will often tend to overthrow your truer self. You don't have to let that happen! You have the power of choice. When you sense an emotion overwhelming you which you don't want to have, you can choose to do something about it. To gain this ability, you will have to get the knack of how to work with your emotions. 3. No one can put an emotion in you and keep it there. Nobody else holds the power to control what is in you--you do! You alone have the power to choose what remains in and what must leave. you can become able to stop accepting emotions that you don't like to have. This is vital to realize because if you blame other individuals or your situations for what you are feeling, you will never get free. God made it like this to make sure that no one can have command over your inner emotional state. This is between you and God. 4. You should not force your emotions or take no notice of them. Taking responsibility over your emotional state doesn't mean refusing to pay attention to feelings in you which you wish weren't there. You will need to frankly pinpoint what you are feeling and then do the right thing with that feeling. It doesn't help as a long-term strategy to push your feelings down and make out like they aren't there. They nearly always grow more powerful that way and overthrow you later. Nor is it right to bulldoze your feelings and try to subjugate them in your own strength. How can you battle yourself and hope to triumph? 5. Listen to your feelings, but don't take them for truth. Emotions are flagrant falsifiers! All negative emotions are being untruthful to you--every time they appear. Panic wants you to be terrified, or at least worried, but the Lord says, "Fear not." Who is lying? Bruised feelings want you to stay furious with someone, but Jesus says, "Forgive." Who is deceiving? Contempt says you're worthless, but God says " You're Mine." Who is deceiving? Always cast off the message of negative feelings, but watch out: Even positive emotional states will seek to deceive you at times. 6. Your deepest beliefs hold sway over your emotions. Emotions don't invade us without a reason. They arise out of "truths" that we passionately believe in our very depths. Many of these things are not at all in line with God's truth, but because we continue to believe them, we continue to feel them. These were imperfect responses we "learned" deep inside in our first few years--without God's Word and the Spirit of God to show us the Lord's way. That previous conditioning will hold our emotional life enslaved unless we learn to fight ! 7. Emotional victory comes through a truth confrontation, not a will power contest. The Bible says to grab those wrong thoughts at the core of our feelings and haul them as hostages to Jesus. Raise your emotions up to the light of Christ and choose to believe what He says to believe and do what He shows you to do with your feelings. What you actually believe and therefore what you feel is between you and God. Nobody, not even God, can transform your emotions or your beliefs without your consent. Every time you detect your inner life is missing its peace, don't be apathetic like a dime store "dummy." Exert your "emotional intelligence" by bringing every detrimental emotion (that seeks to control you) captive to Christ and be restored to fearlessness, peace and freedom--His emotional life. Your new life in Christ is His life in you! Steve Evans helps people learn how to live in the Spirit. Desire to learn more about emotional restoration and mastery? The main teachings from his popular seminar, Matters of the Heart, are completely free online. Begin now and be given your gift copy of his unusual ebook, An Illustrated Guide to the Spiritual Life.
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