Before doing this study, please read the one-minute introduction: Facts or Feelings: Faith or Failure.
Genuine faith involves repentance, humility, obedience, and speaking truth in uncomfortable situations. These aspects of faith refresh, restore, and deepen our faith in Christ.
But they aren't always easy or comfortable. If we based our actions on feelings, we'd never do these things.
An article based on psychological studies showed that people are happier when they deny their wrong doing than when they confess it and repent. See People Who Never Apologize Are Probably Happier Than You.
An article based on psychological studies showed that people are happier when they deny their wrong doing than when they confess it and repent. See People Who Never Apologize Are Probably Happier Than You.
They may be happier, but they aren't healthier and they aren't sincere Christ-followers.
Repentance is more than mere words:
God wants us to feel ashamed of our sins:
James 4:6-10: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”
See Shame Leads to Grace.
God is close to those who genuinely repent:
Isaiah 57:15: “For this is what the high and exalted One says-- he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
Everyday we choose to follow our feelings or follow God:
Joshua 24:14-15: “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua made this statement with the Jews entered the Promised Land. They were being tempted to follow pagan gods.
Joshua made this statement with the Jews entered the Promised Land. They were being tempted to follow pagan gods.
What types of gods tempt modern mankind?
What makes serving the Lord undesirable to some people?
Why do some professing Christians “reconstruct” their faith to make a god in their own image?
What choice have you and your household made?
copyright, Gail Burton Purath, 2015, BiteSizeBibleStudy.com, edited and updated in 2026
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