Acting on our natural feelings

“If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other”. (Galatians 5:15 N.I.V)

If we let our feelings guide our actions, chaos ensues as everybody does what feels good to them without caring how it affects society or our relationship with God.  We create a society of “man eats man”, and our will and desires become our gods. In the letter to the Galatians 5: 19- 21, Paul sets out obvious acts of the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery (or corruption); idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

These sins are also given as the seven cardinal sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

Canon Frederic Donaldson’s version of the sins for modern times includes: politics without principles; pleasures without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; industry without morality; science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

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“Here’s what we know about life, I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and feel like punching a guy in the nose. That doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.” Rick Warren.

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