This is the fifth article in the Mental Health Series, and it steps back to ask the foundational question — how should Christians actually view their emotions? The article first identifies two extremes Christians often fall into (emphasizing doctrine over feeling, or being swept along by secular psychology), and uses the analogy of passing a written driving test versus actually driving on the road to invite the Protestant tradition to keep growing in the area of emotional life. It then builds its case from the truth that God is a God of rich emotion and that we are made in his image, uncovering the standard of good and evil that underlies every emotion and the idols hiding in our hearts. Finally, it points to how the gospel rebuilds the security and sense of worth that the Fall destroyed — sanctifying emotion not by eliminating it, but by setting the heart ablaze in the right direction. Six concrete practices are included (naming emotions, an emotion-and-prayer journal, and more).
Speaker: Pastor Bond · Scripture: 创3:5;诗34:8
Pastor Bond · May 2026 · Compiled with Claude's assistance · Mental Health Series, Part Five
In the earlier articles of this series, we have covered anxiety, depression, suicide prevention, and anger (click here to see all the articles in the Mental Health Series). Many brothers and sisters have shared very encouraging feedback, and I am deeply grateful.
But before we continue further, I feel it is necessary to take a step back and address a more foundational question:
How should Christians actually view their emotions?
This is not an academic question. It directly shapes how you understand your own anxiety, anger, grief, and fear — do you treat them as enemies to be eliminated? As weaknesses to be suppressed? Or as signals to be heard?
Years of pastoral ministry have shown me a recurring pattern: Christians tend to fall into one of two extremes when it comes to their emotions.
This view holds that the core of faith is doctrine and truth. If you understand Scripture clearly enough — who God is, what the gospel is, how you are meant to live — your behavior and emotions will naturally follow.
This view is not entirely wrong — truth is certainly foundational. But the problem is that it reduces faith to a theoretical exam.
Think of it like getting a driving license. You may have memorized every traffic rule and aced the written test. But when you are actually on the road — a car suddenly cuts you off, or you are merging onto the highway in a downpour — your physical reactions, your emotional state, your split-second decisions do not draw on the answers you memorized. Theoretical knowledge is necessary, but knowing the rules of the road is not the same as being able to drive safely in real conditions.
Many Christians are in exactly this position: they have long since passed the written test, but when they hit the open road — conflict, pressure, loss — their emotions still spiral out of control. And then the self-condemnation kicks in: "I know what I should do, so why can't I do it?"
The other extreme is to fully embrace the language of popular psychology and hand over all questions about emotion to psychological solutions. Deep breathing, mindfulness meditation, journaling, cognitive restructuring — these techniques are not bad in themselves. But without a knowledge of God, they can at best help you manage your emotions; they cannot renew them. (Some schools of modern psychology — psychodynamic therapy, emotion-focused therapy, existentialist approaches — do go deeper than technique, exploring a person's inner value system, sense of meaning, and existential anxiety. But most are not grounded in biblical truth; they are built on humanist foundations. They identify the symptoms without finding the true root of the disease.)
It is like trimming the branches of a tree with a diseased root — the surface looks tidy, but the root problem is still there.
The Reformation bequeathed to us an incomparably precious heritage — justification by faith alone, Scripture alone, grace alone — these are the foundations of the church. The Reformers did their greatest work in the area of doctrine: correcting the medieval church's deviations in soteriology and authority, and calling the church back to the foundation of Scripture. For this we are forever grateful.
But the spirit of the Reformation is not "we have finished reforming" — it is "we must keep on reforming." We are not a Reformed Church (a church whose reformation is complete), but a Reforming Church (a church that is continuously being renewed).
In the area of emotional life, our tradition genuinely has room to grow. We are very good at doctrinal correctness, intellectual renewal, and reasoned confession of faith. But in the deepening and renewal of our emotional lives, there is a long road still ahead. We passed the written test long ago; the open road still demands more experience and training.
This is why we are writing this series: not to replace theology with psychology, or truth with feeling, but to help brothers and sisters experience the sanctification of their emotions — on the foundation of truth.
In many people's minds, God is a calm and detached being — the philosopher's God, rational, objective, governing the universe without any display of feeling.
But this is not the God of the Bible.
The God of the Bible is a God of extraordinarily rich and abundant emotion:
He rejoices: "Yahweh your God is among you, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing." (Zephaniah 3:17)
He grieves: "Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth… and it grieved him in his heart." (Genesis 6:5-6)
He is angry: "Yahweh is slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness." (Numbers 14:18)
He is jealous: "For Yahweh your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." (Deuteronomy 4:24)
He has compassion: "Like a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him." (Psalm 103:13)
When Jesus came to earth, he put God's emotions on full display: he wept at Lazarus's tomb (John 11:35), he drove out the money-changers in the temple courts with burning anger (John 2:15), in Gethsemane he said "my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death" (Matthew 26:38), and when he saw the crowds "he was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matthew 9:36).
A God with no emotion is not the God of the Bible.
"God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)
The reason we can feel joy, grief, anger, fear, and love — it is not because we are "fallen" or "too weak." We have such rich and nuanced emotions precisely because we are made in God's image.
Emotion is part of the image of God. It is not a byproduct of the Fall, not a defect to be eliminated. It is a gift God gave us — one of the marks of our likeness to him.
When something beautiful moves you to tears, that is the image of God within you. When you feel angry at injustice, that too is the image of God within you. When losing someone you love breaks your heart, that pain is not a sign of spiritual weakness — it is the authentic response of a bearer of God's image.
There is a pervasive myth in the workplace: that professionalism means being rational, objective, and emotionless. "Please don't bring your emotions into this discussion" — it sounds mature, but it is actually asking for something impossible.
No one can "leave their emotions behind," any more than they can leave their breathing behind. You can pretend not to have emotions, you can suppress them — but they do not disappear. They simply find another outlet: detachment, sarcasm, disengagement, or even physical symptoms.
True maturity is not "having no emotions." It is being able to notice your emotions, understand what they are telling you, and then choose wisely how to respond. That requires taking emotions seriously, not denying them.
I want to show you an angle you may never have considered.
In Genesis, Adam and Eve stood before the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eating its fruit would make them "like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). The story is about far more than "people sinned." At a deeper level, it is about this: from that moment, humanity began to judge what is good and what is not good by their own standard — no longer receiving God's standard as their own.
And every single emotion we experience is directly tied to this act of judging good and evil.
Think carefully:
Do you see it? Behind every emotion is a judgment about "good" and "evil." And that judgment — what is good, what is not good, what matters most — is your deep inner standard of good and evil. (Of course, emotions also have a biological basis: the amygdala governs fear responses, oxytocin influences social bonding, various hormones all play a role — as we touched on in our earlier articles on anxiety and anger. Emphasizing the "good-and-evil judgment" here is not to deny the body's involvement, but to point to the deeper layer beneath the emotion: what your heart cares about.)
This is why your emotions are not your enemy — they are actually the most honest mirror of what is inside you.
When losing a business deal leaves you devastated, your grief is telling you: this deal held a very high place in your heart.
When a single critical comment sends you into a rage, your anger is telling you: you place enormous weight on what others think of you — on social approval.
When your child gets a poor grade and you lie awake with anxiety, that anxiety is telling you: your child's academic performance occupies an enormously high place in your heart.
These things are not necessarily bad in themselves — business, reputation, a child's education can all be good. But when they occupy a place in your heart beyond what they deserve, when they become the highest priority of your life — in the language of faith, when they become idols in your heart — your emotional reactions lose all proportion.
Losing a business deal should not make you feel the sky is falling. A critical comment should not keep you awake for three nights. One bad test score should not feel like the end of the world.
But if these things have risen to near-divine status in your heart, then when they are touched, your emotional response will feel as fierce as if God himself had been offended.
Beyond revealing our standard of good and evil, emotions serve at least three other purposes:
Connection: Emotions help you build relationships. Paul wrote: "Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep." (Romans 12:15) When we enter into another person's emotional experience — sharing their joy, carrying their sorrow — the relationship deepens. Jesus weeping at Lazarus's tomb was his way of entering into the grief of Mary and Martha.
Motion: Emotions move you to act. Anger fills you with energy; fear makes you run faster than you thought you could; grief makes you stop and reflect. Emotions are the catalysts God designed to move us — not just to know what is right, but to actually do it.
Worship: Emotions lead you toward God. In joy, they lead you to give thanks; in fear, they lead you to call out; in grief, they lead you to seek comfort. Every emotion can become a path to God.
This may be one of the most frustrating experiences in the Christian life: you know exactly what you should do, and you still cannot do it.
You know you should trust God, but you still lie awake with anxiety. You know you should forgive, but you cannot let it go. You know losing your temper is wrong, but the next time it happens you are just as out of control.
Why?
Many people assume the problem is "not knowing enough" — so they need more sermons, more books, more training. As if once the knowledge is sufficient, the behavior will automatically follow.
This assumption draws on a basic premise of cognitive-behavioral theory: thoughts shape feelings, feelings shape behavior. Therefore, change your thoughts and everything else will change.
There is some truth in this framework — but reality is far more complicated.
Think about it: how many people know they should quit smoking but cannot? How many people know they should exercise but cannot bring themselves to do it? How many people know that overeating is harming their health but cannot stop?
Between knowing and doing lies a vast chasm.
So what can bridge that chasm?
A man who has smoked for twenty years hears every argument his family can make. He reads countless articles about the dangers. None of it works. Then one day the doctor points to a shadow on his lung scan and tells him his life is at risk if he continues — and the cigarette, very often, is finally put down.
What changed? Not his knowledge — he already "knew" smoking was harmful. What changed was emotion: for the first time, he genuinely felt the fear of death. The force that feeling carried far exceeded a thousand articles.
Change is never merely a rational decision. It requires your heart to be moved.
This is also why Jesus taught not only through argument but through story: the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the widow's two coins. These stories carry power not because of the information they convey, but because of the emotions they stir. When you hear that the prodigal son's father saw him while he was still far off, and ran to him, and embraced him, and kissed him — something in you is moved. That moment of being moved carries more transforming power than a hundred propositional statements that "God loves you."
So if our faith stays only at the level of doctrine — correct theology, correct interpretation, correct worldview — while the emotional dimension has never been touched and renewed by the gospel, our transformation as people is incomplete.
We may believe in our minds that "God is in control," but deep down we are still anxious about tomorrow. We may say with our mouths "I have forgiven," but the bitterness in our hearts is still fermenting. We may weep with worship on Sunday, and then go home and speak harshly to our spouse.
This is not hypocrisy. It is the misalignment between the faith in our heads and the feelings in our hearts.
True life transformation requires truth to travel the distance from the head down to the heart — it requires the gospel to be not only a proposition you believe, but a reality you feel.
Let us return to what we found earlier: behind every emotion is a standard for judging good and evil. Whatever you believe to be good, you will feel joy when you gain it, grief when you lose it, anxiety when it is threatened, and anger when it is violated.
So what does the gospel actually do?
The gospel does not give you a new set of "emotion management techniques." What the gospel does is fundamentally renew your inner standard of good and evil.
Apart from the gospel, our standard of good and evil is self-centered: my reputation, my security, my achievements, my approval, my sense of control — these are the "supreme treasures" of our hearts. When they are threatened, we feel anxiety; when they are damaged, we feel anger; when we lose them, we fall apart.
But the gospel invites us to do one thing: to make God himself the supreme treasure of our lives again — to make his glory our deepest longing and pursuit.
Paul wrote: "Yes, most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ." (Philippians 3:8)
But how can the gospel actually do this? What makes it possible for us to let go of the things we grip so tightly? To answer that, we need to first understand: why do we grip them so tightly in the first place?
In the Genesis story, when humanity was driven out of Eden, two things were utterly destroyed.
The first: security. In Eden, God was humanity's protector, provider, and companion. But outside Eden, people entered a world full of threat and uncertainty. The ground would produce thorns and thistles; bread would come only through painful toil (Genesis 3:17-19).
In this insecure world, we are compelled to clutch at anything that promises security — money, status, power, health, relationships.
We grip so tight because we fear losing; we fear losing because deep within, we know we are vulnerable, exposed, and unprotected.
The second: a sense of worth. In Eden, human identity was clear — we were God's precious children, members of his family, made in his image, the delight of his heart. But outside Eden, that foundation of identity was shattered. We went from being God's beloved children to being nobodies in the world's eyes — mere animals, beasts of burden, nameless faces in the crowd, disposable workers in the machine.
Our worth was no longer innate; it had to be rebuilt through social validation: degrees, income, titles, the approval and praise of others.
This is why we care so deeply about what others think of us, why a single critical remark can keep us up at night — because in this fallen world, social approval has become almost the only way we know who we are.
The loss of security and a sense of worth alone is enough to become the fatal weakness in our lives — the pressure point that the world and the enemy exploit without mercy.
But the gospel of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us an entirely new security and an entirely new sense of worth.
A new security. The gospel tells us: we are forgiven and loved. God the Father becomes our shelter again — he provides for us, protects us, guides us, walks with us, and defends us. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)
When you know that the ruler of the universe is your Father, when you know that nothing can separate you from his love (Romans 8:38-39), you no longer have to clutch those other things so desperately to feel safe.
Not because those things no longer matter, but because even if you lose them, the ground beneath your feet will not shift.
A new sense of worth. The gospel tells us: we are loved and precious in God's sight, the very apple of his eye. We no longer need the affirmation of others to know who we are, because the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross has already proven our worth to him — he was willing to pay with his life for you. "But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
When your sense of worth is built on this foundation, a critical comment loses its power to destroy you, and social approval is no longer the lifeline you cannot live without.
When God truly holds the highest place in your heart, your standard of good and evil is recalibrated. This does not mean you stop caring about work, family, or health — you will still care. But they are no longer your "supreme treasure." When they are threatened or lost, you will grieve — but you will not be destroyed — because the One you treasure most, no one can take from you.
This is how Paul could write from prison: "Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I will say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4). Not because he did not care about his circumstances, but because the One he cared about most — Christ — had not left him.
I need to be honest: the "sanctification of emotions" is not completed in a single moment. It is not that you have a breakthrough at a retreat or a conference, and from then on your emotional life is problem-free.
It is a process. A process of ongoing dismantling and rebuilding. A long, repetitive, and sometimes painful process.
You may feel the deep presence of God in prayer today, and then explode in anger over a small thing tomorrow. You may feel you have finally broken through in one season, only to find a few months later that the old problem is still there.
This is normal. The sanctification of emotions does not progress in a straight line but in an upward spiral: sometimes it feels like you have gone in circles back to the beginning, but in reality you are already at a higher level.
What matters is not whether your emotions "measure up" today, but your direction — are you continually bringing your inner life before God? Are you willing to let him examine your standard of good and evil? In failure after failure, do you keep returning to the Father's embrace?
I want to emphasize this: the sanctification of emotions does not turn you into a person without feelings. Quite the opposite — a person whose emotions have been sanctified should have more feeling than before, not less.
Because as your standard of good and evil draws closer to God's standard, you will feel deeper joy over what brings God joy, deeper grief over what grieves God, deeper anger at injustice, deeper heartbreak over lost souls.
Jesus was the most emotionally alive person who ever lived — his joy deeper than anyone's, his grief heavier than anyone's, his anger fiercer than anyone's, his compassion wider than anyone's. Because he loved his Father and his creation perfectly.
The sanctification of emotions does not cool your heart. It sets your heart ablaze in the right direction.
When anxiety, anger, or grief arrives, resist the first impulse to say "I shouldn't be feeling this." Try treating it as a signal instead: What is this emotion telling me? What has been touched inside me?
📌 Try this week: The next time you feel an emotional wave, do not rush to push it down or let it pour out. Pause for three seconds and say to yourself: "What is this emotion telling me?" You do not need an answer right away. Simply asking the question already moves you from being controlled by the emotion to being in conversation with it.
Naming is the first step toward stewardship. When God gave Adam dominion over the earth, the first task he assigned was naming the animals (Genesis 2:19-20). Naming means recognizing, distinguishing, bringing order. Your emotional life works the same way: when your feelings are an undifferentiated fog of "discomfort," you cannot manage them. But when you can call them by name, you begin to exercise real stewardship. Many people have an emotional vocabulary of only two words: "happy" and "unhappy." Every negative feeling gets lumped under "unhappy" or "uncomfortable" — like a patient who says "I feel unwell" but cannot say whether it is a headache, a stomachache, or chest tightness. If you cannot say where it hurts, it is very hard for the doctor to help you.
Increasing the granularity of emotional awareness is the foundation of emotional sanctification. "I'm unhappy" is too coarse. Try to be more precise: Am I anxious (worried about something that might happen)? Angry (feeling I've been treated unjustly)? Grieving (I have lost something)? Disappointed (the good outcome I hoped for did not come)? Ashamed (feeling I am not good enough)? Jealous (someone else has what I do not)? Hurt (I gave and was not seen)? Resentful (I cannot let go of a past wound)? Bitter (resentment that has festered over time)? Or suppressed (I have feelings but am not allowing myself to feel them)?
And each of these broad categories can be broken down further. Take the "anger" family — the range of intensity is enormous:
The "shame" family also has many faces:
Positive emotions need the same treatment. "Happy" covers a wide range:
"Pleasure" and "joy" are both positive, but they operate at different depths: pleasure may come from a good cup of coffee; joy can persist even through suffering. Learning to distinguish positive emotions helps you trace the footprints of God's grace and makes your gratitude more concrete.
"I'm a bit annoyed" and "I'm shaking with rage" both belong to the anger family; "a little awkward" and "feeling completely worthless" both belong to the shame family — but what they are telling you and how you need to respond are entirely different. Being able to distinguish them is like installing a more precise instrument panel in your inner life.
📌 Try this week: Each evening, spend five minutes writing a brief emotion-and-prayer journal — no long entries needed, just three sentences: ① What was the strongest emotion I felt today? (Use a specific word — not just "unhappy") ② What is this emotion telling me? ③ Bring this emotion before the Father in one sentence of prayer.
⚠️ A note: the purpose of the emotion journal is to know your emotions, not to dwell in them. If you find that writing makes you progressively more downcast and pulls you into spiraling thoughts, stop and turn to prayer. The journal is a tool; prayer is the destination.
When you notice an unusually strong emotional reaction, ask: what am I actually protecting here? Is it something God values, or is it my own idol? Is there something in my heart that has been placed where it does not belong?
📌 Try this week: When you feel a strong wave of emotion, take out your phone and type one sentence in your notes app: "I am protecting ______." Fill in the blank. Then write one more: "Has this thing taken a place in my heart above God?" You do not need to answer right away — writing it down is itself a form of facing it. Then bring it to the Father in prayer.
Do not be content with only "knowing" gospel truth in your mind. Ask God to let you feel his love, his faithfulness, his presence. When you read Scripture, do not only pursue information — ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart, so that truth can travel the twenty-centimeter journey from head to heart and truly sink in.
📌 Try this week: Choose a passage you know well (such as Psalm 23), and do not read it as a student studying a text. Read it slowly, repeatedly. After each sentence, pause and ask yourself: "Do I feel this?" If you do not, do not condemn yourself — simply tell the Father: "Lord, I know this is true, but I have not yet tasted it. Please let me taste it."
The sanctification of emotions cannot be accomplished alone. It must be practiced in real relationships — in the church, in a small group, in the family. When you confess a struggle to a brother or sister, when you voice your honest feelings in a group, when you choose to understand rather than explode in a moment of conflict — these are the concrete exercises through which emotions are sanctified.
📌 Try this week: Find a brother or sister you trust and share one recent emotional struggle with them — not vaguely ("please pray for me"), but specifically: "Lately I have been feeling ______ because of ______." Letting someone truly see you is itself the practice.
Finally, give yourself grace. The sanctification of emotions is the work of a lifetime, not a single exam. You will fail, you will repeat the same mistakes, you will feel as though you have circled back to the starting point. But please remember: the Father's gaze upon you is not the examiner's gaze on a candidate — it is a father's gaze on his child.
He knows you are learning, he knows you will stumble, and he knows he has more than enough grace to hold you.
📌 Try this week: When you find yourself in self-condemnation after another emotional failure, do not stay there. Say to yourself: "I fell again — but the Father has not left." Then return to him. The returning itself is growth.
In this age, secular psychology has given us many useful tools for understanding and managing our emotions, and we should use those tools with gratitude and discernment. But we cannot stop there.
As Christians, we have a deeper resource — the gospel. The gospel is not merely a set of doctrines about salvation; it is God's comprehensive renewal of our whole person — mind, emotion, patterns of behavior, and social relationships.
Your emotions are not your enemy. They are God's gift to you — a mark of your identity as a bearer of his image. Every feeling you have — joy, grief, anger, fear, shame — is revealing something that your innermost heart truly cares about.
And the gospel's invitation is this: let God recalibrate your inner standard of good and evil. Not to eliminate your emotions, but to align them more and more with God's own heart — so that he becomes your supreme treasure, and his glory your deepest longing and pursuit.
When the One you treasure most is the One who can never be taken from you, you have an anchor that no storm can move.
"Oh taste and see that Yahweh is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." (Psalm 34:8)
Notice: the poet does not say think about the Lord's goodness — he says taste it. Faith is not only a knowledge of the mind; it is a tasting of the soul.
May we all move from knowing that God is good to tasting that he is good.
Some concepts in this article draw on Untangling Emotions by J. Alasdair Groves & Winston T. Smith (Crossway, 2019), which explores from a biblical counseling perspective how to understand and face our emotions. If you haven't read it yet, it is highly recommended.
If you are currently experiencing specific emotional struggles, we invite you to read the other articles in this series for more practical help and resources:
👉 View all articles in the Mental Health Series
Baibaoshu Column · Mental Health Series
💬 After reading this article, if you have thoughts or questions, you are welcome to ask Pastor Bond:
- "Should Christians really take their emotions seriously?"
- "'God also has emotion, and we are made like him' — how does that change the way I see my own feelings?"
- "Does having my emotions 'sanctified' mean I will have no more negative feelings?"