36
In the New Testament, love is more of a verb than a noun. It has more to do with acting than with feeling. The call to love is not so much a call to a certain state of feeling as it is to a quality of action.
- R. C. Sproul
35
All the great temptations appear first in the region of the mind and can be fought and conquered there. We have been given the power to close the door of the mind. We can lose this power through disuse or increase it by use, by the daily discipline of the inner man in things which seem small and by reliance upon the word of the Spirit of truth. It is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. It is as though He said, 'Learn to live in your will, not in your feelings.'
- Amy Carmichael
34
It is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. We will know Him by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. "And love means following the commands of God." "Do you love Me?" Jesus asked Peter. "Feed My lambs." He was not asking, "How do you feel about Me?" for love is not a feeling. He was asking for action.
- Elisabeth Elliot
33
Obedience means marching right on whether we feel like it or not. Many times we go against our feelings. Faith is one thing, feeling is another.
- Dwight L. Moody
32
You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the word which the Lord who receives sinners preaches to you.
- Martin Luther
31
Faith has nothing to do with feelings or with impressions, with improbabilities or with outward experiences. If we desire to couple such things with faith, then we are no longer resting on the Word of God, because faith needs nothing of the kind. Faith rests on the naked Word of God. When we take Him at His Word, the heart is at peace.
- George Mueller
30
Believe God's love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea.
- Samuel Rutherford
29
Human feelings change as the world changes. Their easy excitement can occasion a saint to lose his spiritual balance. Their constant disturbance can affect a believer's peace in his spirit.
- Watchman Nee
28
We must not concentrate overmuch upon our feelings. Do not spend too much time feeling your own pulse taking your own spiritual temperature, do not spend too much time analyzing your feelings. That is the high road to morbidity.
- Martyn Lloyd-Jones
27
What causes us to think of prayer as the last option rather than the first? I can think of two reasons: feelings of independence and feelings of insignificance.
- Max Lucado
26
But when the cross is working deeply a believer comes to know himself. He realizes how undependable are his ideas, feelings and desires.
- Watchman Nee
25
That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, 'Thou art my refuge.'
- George Macdonald
24
Sight is not faith, and hearing is not faith, neither is feeling faith; but believing when we neither see, hear, nor feel is faith; and everywhere the Bible tells us our salvation is to be by faith. Therefore we must believe before we feel, and often against our feelings, if we would honor God by our faith.
- Hannah Whitall Smith
23
The reason for our hurt feelings lies in the fact that we are not amenable to being treated as our Lord was and are loathe to submit ourselves to the will and ordering of God. Were we to deliver our natural energies to death and capitulate entirely to the Lord, our soul, though so nervously sensitive, would rest in the Lord and not misunderstand Him.
- Watchman Nee
22
Faith is not an instinct. It certainly is not a feeling - feelings don't help much when you're in the lions' den or hanging on a wooden Cross. Faith is not inferred from the happy way things work. It is an act of will, a choice, based on the unbreakable Word of a God who cannot lie, and who showed us what love and obedience and sacrifice mean, in the person of Jesus Christ.
- Elisabeth Elliot
21
Should we take the trouble to observe ourselves we will easily perceive how changeful are our feelings. Few matters in the world are as changeable as emotion. We can be one way one minute and feel quite opposite the next. He therefore who lives by emotion lives without principle.
- Watchman Nee
20
It makes a great difference in our feeling towards others if their needs and their joys are on our lips in prayer; as also it makes a vast difference in their feelings towards us if they know that we are in the habit of praying for them.
- Charles H. Brent
19
Often the children of God cannot rise up to answer the Lord's call to service simply because, though their physical condition is good, their feelings are low, cold, and reluctant. Or even when their emotions are quite high, passionate, and willing, they find themselves unable to serve the Lord because now the body reacts lazily. The disciples found themselves in precisely that situation in the Garden of Gethsemane: "the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. 26:41)
- Watchman Nee
18
True spiritual life depends not on probing our feelings and thoughts from dawn to dusk but on "looking off" to the Savior!
- Watchman Nee
17
Many falsely suppose that the feelings, which God has implanted in us as natural, proceed only from a defect. Accordingly the perfecting of believers does not depend on their casting off all feelings, but on their yielding to them and controlling them, only for proper reason.
- John Calvin
16
To enjoy sensuous pleasures daily is no evidence of spirituality. On the contrary, those who go on with God and disregard their own feelings are the truly spiritual ones.
- Watchman Nee
15
Loving others in a biblical manner involves your thoughts, words, and actions and is a sign of your being a disciple of Christ. Loving others biblically is dependent on your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and is not dependent on people, circumstances, or your feelings.
- John C. Broger
14
My movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.
- George Washington
13
Feelings are like chemicals; the more you analyze them the worse they smell.
- Charles Kingsley
12
Tenderness of conscience is always to be distinguished from scrupulousness. The conscience cannot be kept too sensitive and tender; but scrupulousness arises from bodily or mental infirmity, and discovers itself in a multitude of ridiculous, superstitious, and painful feelings.
- Richard Cecil
11
God often takes a course for accomplishing His purposes directly contrary to what our narrow views would prescribe. He brings a death upon our feelings, wishes, and prospects when He is about to give us the desire of our hearts.
- John Newton
10
These glorious things - words - are man's right alone. Without words we should know no more of each other's hearts and thoughts than the dog knows of his fellow dog for, if you will consider, you always think to yourself in words, though you do not speak them aloud; and without them all our thoughts would be mere blind longings, feelings which we could not understand ourselves.
- Charles Kingsley
9
There is nothing so deluding as feelings. Christians cannot live by feelings. Let me further tell you that these feelings are the work of Satan, for they are not right feelings. What right have you to set up your feelings against the Word of Christ.
- Charles Spurgeon
8
When you cannot rejoice in feelings, circumstances or conditions, rejoice in the Lord.
- A. B. Simpson
6
None but He who made the world can make a Minister of the Gospel. If a young man has capacity, culture and application, it may make him a scholar, a philosopher, or anorator; but a true Minister must have certain principles, motives, feelings, and aims, which no industry or endeavors of men can either acquire or communicate. They must be given from above, or they cannot be received.
- John Newton
5
The clothes we wear are what people see. Only God can look on the heart. The outward signs are important. They reveal something of what is inside. If charity is there, it will become visible outwardly, but if you have no charitable feelings, you can still obey the command. Put it on as simply and consciously as you put on a coat. You choose it; you pick it up; you put it on. This is what you want to wear.
- Elisabeth Elliot
4
Human nerves are rather sensitive and are easily stirred by outside stimuli. Words, manners, environments and feelings greatly affect us. Our mind engages in so many thoughts, plans and imaginations that it is a world of confusion. If we are favorably inclined to yield to the Lord, to take up His yoke, and to follow Him, our soul shall not be aroused inordinately.
- Watchman Nee
3
Our higher feelings move our animal nature; and our animal nature, irritated, may call back a semblance of those emotions; but the whole difference between nobleness and baseness lies in the question, whether the feeling begins from below or above.
- Frederick W. Robertson
2
I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
- Florence Nightingale
1
Learning how to love your neighbor requires a willingness to draw on the strength of Jesus Christ as you die to self and live for Him. Living in this manner allows you to practice biblical love for others in spite of adverse circumstances or your feelings to the contrary.
- John C. Broger