Fresh Manna 
by Pastor Tim Burt

Have you ever started out your day feeling emotionally neutered? You know, just not feeling much of anything one way or another? Then wondered why you were feeling so emotionally flatline, wondering if something was wrong with you?

Unless you understood that your feelings are not always an indicator of anything truthful or real in your life, you could begin to wonder or panic, What is wrong with me?  Why don’t I feel like I love my spouse? Why don’t I like my job anymore? Why are my emotions so all over the map? Why aren’t I excited about anything? 

Feelings are fickle. You cannot trust them. Sometimes they and your emotions just don’t line up with life and how you think you should feel. So, let me give you a tip. Don’t spend much time thinking about them. If they line up with the moment great! If they don’t, then ignore them but respond to life and the moment you are in the appropriate way, regardless of how you feel. You will find out that your emotions or feelings will eventually follow your faith. They will eventually come around and line up with your appropriate thinking and what you know is right in your heart, if you will be led by God’s Spirit. Do that and your feelings and emotions will come around. Follow your feelings and you’ll say and do things you regret and actually create a bad day and worse!

I woke up tired feeling a little emotionally neutered this morning. I didn’t get much sleep. I thought, why do I feel so flatline? Then I thought, It doesn’t matter! I went out for my daily morning three mile walk (which I didn’t feel like doing.) Since I didn’t feel like being out there, I was just quiet as I walked. But then I thought, I don’t care how I feel, I am going to be used of God! (I began to pray over our neighborhood and city leaders (which I didn’t feel like doing.)

As I continued to walk and pray, I began to think about all the Lord had done for Renee and I over the course of our life. I began to feel overwhelmed with thanks. Suddenly words from Isaiah 1:18 rose up in my heart. “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.” I could sense the Lord affirming what I knew but was so thankful to hear from Him. “I have made you worthy.” Then I was reminded of the words from. 2 Cor. 5:21. “Jesus who had never sinned, died as a sinner for you, so that though Jesus you would become the righteousness of God.” 

I knew the Lord was affirming me at that moment for a reason. I knew the Lord wanted me to continue to pray with the authority of the name of Jesus for people in a very hard place. He instantly brought Isaiah 59:19 to my heart. “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” This verse was spoken to Israel. They had wandered from the Lord. The Lord was declaring that if He couldn’t find an intercessor to pray for the people, then He Himself would intercede and save those who would turn back to Him. He would raise up a standard against the enemy at a time when the enemy of their soul was trying to come against them like a flood.

In this special place with God this morning, He did have an intercessor—me. It made me so glad that I hadn’t caved into my feelings and skipped things that are important to my life, and more importantly, to the Lord. I was suddenly so aware of so many people fighting difficult battles. I began to pray for them.

God, through Jesus, made us the body of Christ in the earth. God wants to destroy the works of the devil and restrain evil. He uses us to pray to do so. He washed us and made us His righteousness so that we could and would pray and with authority over the enemy. This is His plan and purpose for you and I, the church, and never more than now.

Jesus said, “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”  In Luke 10:19
Jesus said, “…I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18

Jesus is the standard of how we live out our life moment by moment despite how we feel. It has little to do with feelings. Feelings are great when they line up, but when they don’t, we have to rise up in who we know we are and keep doing the right things. The Lord helped me do that today and guess what happened? I walked out the house feeling flatline and came home feeling energized and purposeful in the Lord! That is who we are to be as the body of Christ! Don’t let your feelings rule you! You rule your mind and emotions as you walk things out by faith. Your feelings will come around and line up as God breathes life into them!

Galatians 3:11 “… “The righteous will live by faith.”

In His Love,
Pastor Tim Burt

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Published by Pastor Tim Burt 
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