MARCH,
2000 "Thermometer
or Thermostat?"
Love Lesson
-(March, 2000)
How
would you describe yourself? Are you a thermometer or a thermostat?
Someone that measures and reflects your environment or someone
who regulates your environment. How do you live your life? Are
you an emotional thermometer measuring others feelings? Do you
only react to things in your environment and in your relationships
by the input you receive? Do you let what others say and do cause
your emotional temperature to rise and fall?
Or are you
a thermostat - helping to set the climate in your home and environment?
Are you able to control the setting on your own thermostat? Or
do you ever wonder who is messing with your setting? Do you find
someone else regulating you so that you become like the blast
of hot air from the furnace? What happens as you enter the room
in the evening only to find your husband watching football, still,
and not paying attention to your toddler who is hurt and crying?
Or maybe you have that wonderful ability to enter a room in the
morning when you are tired and grumpy and bring a quick chill
to those around you.
We all tend
to let others regulate how we feel and what we do. It helps to
know that our emotions are directly related to what we think and
believe, and our actions quickly follow. But we, as human beings,
have a unique, God-given gift that we can employ right in the
midst of even the most emotionally charged situations. That gift
is the ability to choose. We have the freedom to choose our response
to any person or situation we encounter. Ask yourself, "Am
I using my freedom to choose or am I just reacting to my emotions?
Am I basing my choices on truth or false information and wrong
assumptions?"
I am sure
that many of you said that you do take time to choose. That is
very good. But even as we make these well thought out choices,
we need to be sure we are basing them on the truth. Think about
it…what is truth? What do you believe about yourself…about
others…about God's love for you…?
One definition
from the dictionary says that truth is conformity to an original
or a standard. Do you know that God's word says that it, the Bible,
is truth? The Bible also says that Jesus is the Way and the Truth
and the Life and that no one comes to God, except through Him.
Do you know that God loves you with an everlasting love? There
is no end to the love He has for you.
If you really
believed that was truth, would it change the way you thought and
felt and acted…toward God, yourself and others?
When you know
the truth it sets you free. If you know you are loved by God and
that the debt you owe for your sins has been forgiven and paid
by Jesus, then you can bet it will give you a new freedom in your
life!
So how is
the freedom to be used? Knowing the truth of God's love for you
is like allowing God to be the one to set your thermostat. You
will no longer have to fight over the controls because you have
given God control of your life. This will bring the peace and
love of God into you. And then as the thermostat in your home
and in all your situations, you will be able to bring the knowledge
of the truth of God's love to all those around you. You can start
regulating your life and your environment based on the goodness
and love of God rather than on your emotional reactions to things
that come upon you in life. No more believing a lie because now
you know the truth!
Try opening
a Bible, or click
here to
be connected with an online Bible. Start reading and believing
God's truth and let the goodness of God become part of your thinking.
He really does love you!!!
"Whatever
is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and
seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely
and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there
is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise,
think on and weigh and take account of these things, fix your
minds on them, and practice what you have learned." (Philippians
4:8 amp.)
Love,
Patty
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