When Emotions Betray Your Faith | Season 10 | Bonus Ep 2

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SHOW NOTES:

Are your feelings leading you—or misleading you?

In this powerful bonus episode of Grab the Faith, we take a pause from our study in Habakkuk to examine something we all deal with: our emotions. What happens when disappointment, frustration, and unmet expectations start shaping our decisions?

Through Mark 14:3–11, we explore the contrast between a woman who honored Jesus with everything she had—and Judas, who allowed his feelings, selfish desires, and inner struggles to lead him down a path of betrayal.

This episode challenges us to:

• Examine what’s really in our hearts and minds
• Recognize emotional triggers before they control our actions
• Understand the danger of letting feelings override faith
• Remember that God is still God—no matter how we feel

Feelings are real—but they were never meant to lead your life.

Tune in, reflect, and ask yourself: Am I walking by faith, or am I stuck in my feelings?

Transcript

Welcome And Habakkuk Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey all, thank you for joining us here at Grab the Faith, where we try to grab the faith and run with it. Join us as we try to learn a little more, grow a little more, and live a lot more. I'm your host, Bobby Gentry Goodwin. Stay tuned for this week's episode. Good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to Grab the Faith. Welcome to Grab the Faith, the podcast where we try to grab the faith and run with it. Are y'all tired of hearing that? I don't know if you are, but I just want you to know what we're about, right? Every time I want you to know what we're about, why we are here. We are here to take our faith in real life and walk with God in our everyday and run a good race. Okay, so I just want to say welcome to all of those who have come back to tune in on these Bible study lessons, and welcome to all the new people who are joining me. You are welcome here as we learn about the good book, the good word of God. So last time or Easter, I put up a bonus episode, and this time I'm putting up a bonus episode. The bonus episode from the previous time was done by my husband, a sermon that we were just blessed by, and I wanted to share it with you all. But this time I will be talking with you and diving into Bible study again. Now, we have been studying the book of Habakkuk. I hope you've been enjoying that study. We have learned a lot, we have gleaned a lot, and I hope it's encouraging you. And for those of us that is living in the U.S., I'm telling you, this is a right now word, a rhema word for us. So this is a bonus episode, a break from the book of Habakkuk. And bonus means addition. And listen, I love that word. I love addition, right? If you have a house, you build an addition, right? And it just is generally a positive word. When you add in something on, you're adding value. And when I think about Jesus, not only do we get eternal life when we accept him, but we get some bonuses too. You know, we get the surety of our salvation, but there's some bonuses that come along with walking with Jesus. John chapter 10, verses 10 says, The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and they may have it more abundantly. And abundance just means more things. That's the bonus. You know, like even the bonus area. That's the bonus. If you ever played a video game, it's exciting to get into the bonus or bowling. But bonus in in this text, abundant means to the full, fulfilling to the full. What fulfills you this morning? What fulfills you this afternoon? What fulfills you this day? See, we can have things and not be fulfilled. We can have all the money in the world, all the cars in the world, all the biggest mansions, all the biggest bank accounts, all the pretty men, all the pretty women. We can have all of those things and still not be fulfilled. And that's exactly what we're going to be couching on tonight. See, walking with Jesus just wasn't good enough for him. And as we couch on the subject in your feelings, I just want to pause there. Are you walking with Jesus? Are you grateful to be called by the living God? Are you grateful to be chosen? I know that the sun isn't always shining in your life, but God has been good to you. He has fulfilled his promises to you and still fulfilling them. And there is fulfillment when you walk with God. See, happiness comes and goes, but joy, when we get the joy that only comes from walking with Jesus. And as we have been studying Habakkuk this season, we can take a look at him because he got in his feelings, okay? Habakkuk got in his feelings. Where are you, Lord? Okay. He got in his feelings about what he was seeing around him. And we've learned some things from that study. We learned that Habakkuk had some questions for God, and we learned that God had some answers for Habakkuk, but the answers was not necessarily what he wanted to hear. And we're going to be continuing in that journey in that study on how Habakkuk dealt with that. Because Habakkuk had feelings, but he wasn't all up in his feelings all the time. He didn't let his feelings get the best of him. And truth be told, we will continue in our next lesson in Habakkuk and learn how to position our hearts, how to experience feelings, but not have those feelings impact our experience of God. Because, honey, I don't know if you know this, but God is good. God is good in wartime. God is good in summertime. God is good in famine and God is good in abundance. God is good in sickness and God is good in health. God is just good, period. So before we continue that lesson in Habakkuk, I wanted to get to a stop sign, right? I wanted, as we pulling in and continuing on that highway, there's a red light here that I wanted to stop off. Because we're going to look at how Habakkuk handled it. But there are some other peoples in the Bible that did not handle it so well. That when they were faced with God's will and it wasn't in alignment with their will, they handled it in a way that I think we should learn from. So if you have your Bibles, today we will be couching in the book of Mark. Now, Mark is the shortest gospel of the four gospels. It is small and it's concise. It gets right to the point. He don't beat around the bus, y'all. He gets right to the point. And that's exactly what I plan to do tonight. After I said all that other stuff, right? That's exactly what I plan to do tonight. So if you have your Bibles, come with me to Mark chapter 14, verses 3 through 11. I'm so glad you're here with me. Come on, go to Mark chapter 14, verses 3 through 11, which says this. Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from the essence of nard. She broke it open, she broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head. Some of those at the table were indignant. Why waste such expensive perfume? They asked. So they scolded her harshly. But Jesus replied, Oh, won't Jesus step in to fight your battles, y'all? So Jesus, but Jesus replied, Leave her alone. Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. And a sidebar, we're commissioned to help the poor. That's not in the text, but I just wanted to give that sidebar. But you will not always have me, continuing on in verse 7. She has done what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time. I tell you the truth. Whenever the good news is preached throughout the world, this woman's deed will be remembered and discussed. Then Judas Iscariot, one of the 12 disciples, went to the leading priest to arrange to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted when they heard why he had come. Ooh, how about praying on your downfall? They were delighted when they heard he had come. Why he had come. And they promised to give him money. So he began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. We enter this Bible at a pivotal time in history. Jesus is preparing for his death. And hopefully, we all learned weekends ago. I talked about that sermon. Hopefully, we all learned weekends ago about the Jesus' death, his burial, and praise be to God, his resurrection. He didn't stay dead, honey. He rose. So from reading scripture that we've shared today, we find that Jesus is preparing for his death. Jesus knew his death was coming, and he had shared the information with his disciples several times. Not one time, not two times. He has shared it with them several times that his death was coming and that he was going to rise again. Just as he has shared with us, he's going to come back. Okay. He is sharing with us through the word of God that he's coming back. Oh, he's coming back again. Ain't we glad about that? He's sharing that with us now that he's going to come back again. There's going to be a second coming of Jesus Christ. And just like us, some of those disciples were somewhat hard of hearing. They were hard of hearing. They wasn't grasping what was going on. They wasn't grasping the message that Jesus was giving them. They have a hard time accepting the truth. Now, let me tell you, you know somebody who has a hard time accepting the truth. I know somebody who has a hard time accepting the truth. Sometimes people have a hard time accepting the truth. And sometimes it's even harder when we're faced with difficult situations. You know, sometimes people don't like to get bad news. They don't like to experience things that are negative. When they're expecting one thing and hearing another. Just like with Habakkuk, right? We've learned that he was looking around him and asked God some questions, and God gave him some answers that was pretty hard to swallow, pretty hard to accept. And it could govern our feelings when that happens, right? We can get caught up all in our feelings. And those feelings can govern our moves. See, but unlike his counterparts, one would say that Judas not only didn't see the writing on the wall, but he didn't see the right the wall at all. See, some of those disciples they didn't see the writing on the wall, they didn't hear and grasp what Jesus was saying. But Judas was a little different. He didn't not only grasp it, but he didn't see the wall at all. Judas was one of Jesus' 12 disciples, and he was the only one that wasn't a Galilean. But he was still chosen to follow Jesus. But listen, saints, he seemed to not only struggle with some of Jesus' teachings, but he struggled with Jesus himself. How do I know that? Because if you read the word of God, you'll find that Judas is a thief. And Jesus is clear in his teaching, and so is the word of God, about being a thief. So Judas struggled with some of the teachings and following some of the teachings of Jesus, but he also seemed to struggle with Jesus himself. Because Jesus had already highlighted, you know, some of those Ten Commandments, right? That you should not steal. He said that in Matthew 18 and 19. And you know, this piece really just laments on my heart because sometimes people struggle with Jesus' teaching and don't have a big problem with him. And then sometimes people don't have a big struggle with his teachings, but have a big problem with him. So that philosophy is I'm a good person, but I don't believe in Jesus, right? I don't believe in lying, I don't believe in stealing, I don't believe in killing, I'm a good person, but that Jesus I don't know so much about, right? Some people they really don't have a problem with Jesus, but they have a problem following his tenets, right? They love Jesus, they've accepted Jesus, they recognize Jesus, but they just don't live for Jesus. I understand people have been in both of those places, people have been in both at the same time, one or the other. But Judas, Judas seems to be stuck there. Let me let me just encourage you saying, don't get stuck. Don't get stuck. Things can be different. You can learn more about Jesus, you can experience Jesus differently. You don't have to get stuck, and you don't have to get stuck uh with his teaching. You can ask Jesus to help you. You don't have to be stuck. Maybe you have a lying problem, maybe you have a thieving problem, maybe you have an adultery problem, but you still love the Lord. But ask Jesus to help you, okay? We don't have to get stuck, but we find Judas here being stuck, right? And even when Jesus himself revealed that one of the disciples would betray him, all those other disciples didn't point to Jesus. I mean, to Judas, they said, Lord, is it I? You know, they were examining his themselves, and that's a whole nother Bible study lesson, how important it is to examine yourself. But back to our text. Judas, along with the other disciples, was sitting down in Bethany for this meal, enjoying a meal. And while at that meal, something incredible occurs. A woman comes, she breaks open a jar, a very expensive perfume, and anoints Jesus. And Judas, just like some of the other disciples, they didn't like it. They didn't like it. Judas wasn't the only one that didn't like it. Because as we read in the text, they scolded her. It didn't just say he scolded her, it said they scolded her. But if we we read in another gospel, it definitely says that Judas really questioned her. Why was it not used to gather money for the poor? This could have been sold and given money given to the poor. But Judas didn't like it for a different reason entirely. For him, it wasn't about the poor, he was worried about himself. And I think that's another good time to pause. As we think about dealing with disappointment, getting caught up in our feelings. When God doesn't give you the answer that you were looking for, or people don't give you the answer that you're looking for, or they're not paying attention to what you got to say, you get all caught up in your feelings. And I believe this shows us something important. Because when our feelings are hurt, when we are frustrated or even in disbelief, it's important to examine how we handle it. What we're thinking about, how we handle God's people, how we handle the news, right? Because Jesus had to step in on this woman's behalf, right? Jesus had to step in and say, hey, that's enough. When we're frustrated, when we're in disbelief, when our feelings are hurt, when people ain't listening to what we're saying, and we want people to pay attention and they not, it makes us feel a certain kind of way. What are we thinking about? This is the part of examining that's important. We need to examine our head and our heart. What is in our mind when that happens? Do we shut down? Do we go after them? Do we become argumentative? Do we say things that are negative about them? Like, what are we doing? What are we thinking? And why are we thinking that way? Are we thinking about the plan of God or our own plan? See, Judas came after this woman because he was thinking about himself. He wasn't thinking about God, he wasn't thinking about the poor, he wasn't even thinking about this woman. He was thinking about himself. Judas was caught up in his own plan, in his own practice, in his own agenda. And we witness real time what happens with that, right? Jesus had to come in and rebuke them and admonish them to leave that woman alone. And then he put extra sauce on it and let them know that she was doing a beautiful thing. Jesus informs those who assemble that this woman, the what she has done, is so beautiful that anywhere the gospel is preached, that's gonna be preached too. She was gonna be remembered for it. Not only was he gonna be able to steal, but now he's on blast, and it seems to trigger him. A trigger is an emotional space in him, emotional space that we can we can really get a sense of maybe it was something going on for him a long time, maybe this was the straw that broke the camel's back because we see Judas immediately in the scriptures leaving to go betray Jesus, and I can imagine he had thought about that before. I could imagine he had discontent in his spirit before. I could imagine that now this ain't in the text, but I could imagine that that little event was a hairpin trigger that got him so much so in his feelings. He said, You know what? I'm done with Jesus. I'm going. I'm going to these leading priests, and I'm about to turn against him. Listen, saints, we gotta be careful of our triggers. Because sometimes when we triggered, we act out of emotion and not out of logic or ration. We're not rational, right? We just jump in head first. And listen, when we have lived a life that has been full of disappointment, full of trauma, full of letdowns, sometimes it's a lot of things that trigger us. When we've had traumatic experiences, people have let us get down, people have betrayed us, people have abandoned us, people have let us down, we've experienced so much trauma. We gotta be careful not to pin that on Jesus. We gotta be careful that when that hairpin trigger gets activated, we're not looking at Jesus and blaming him for it all. See, we have some have had some terrible times. People have had some terrible times in their lives, even when they following Jesus, and they start living right. I've seen it time and time again. When people they've had some terrible times in their life, they turn their life over to Christ, they start following him, and then one bad thing happens, and they look at Jesus and say, Why have you betrayed me? Why have you not come to my rescue? Why have you let me down? Something happens that hairpin trigger that sets them back. And then not only do they look at Jesus and blame him, but they start to betray him. They ten steps back. They start living a life, going back to their old life, going back to their old ways, just because they're blaming Jesus. Saints, we gotta be careful about what we're thinking about. That we not playing the blame game, blaming Jesus for what man has done, blaming Jesus for things we have done, or even blaming Jesus for what society has done. See, here in my opinion, we see Judas doing something very dangerous. All that that was welling up in him, that he we don't see it in scripture, but all that that has been welling up in him, this may have been the hairpin trigger. He didn't talk to Jesus about it because it's not this not recorded in scripture. He's not going to Jesus, he's taking his matter into his own hands. He's not thinking about Jesus' open arm, he's not thinking about Jesus' grace or his mercy. Caught up in his feelings, y'all, thinking about himself. I could just hear him say, Jesus, why aren't you doing what I say? Jesus, why aren't you doing what I want you to do? We know Jesus, Judas wanted the money, and I suspect he wanted power, position, and authority as well. Judas had a misrepresentation of what it meant to follow God. See, he could have thought, and many many scholars say he thought Jesus was there to overthrow the Roman government. He could have thought Jesus was there not just to liberate, but to overthrow. And that's a big deal, saints. When we think what we know Jesus, what Jesus should do? Because the truth is we don't. See, in that movement many years ago, what would Jesus do? Everybody had W W J D, W W J G. What would Jesus do? They would talk to you. What would Jesus do? Honey, we don't know what Jesus would do. We have no idea. And thank God for that. I don't want Jesus to move like my finite mind. I want him to move that like God. I want him to move like he has all power. I want him to move like he's the creator of heaven and earth. I don't want him to move like I think I would move. Because his thoughts are above my thoughts, and his ways are above my ways. See, I think what Judas failed to realize is that even though Jesus has all power, he doesn't abuse that power. Even he himself has given us the choice to choose to serve him or to not. But he gives us a choice. Joshua 24 says this. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build, and you live in them and eat from vineyards and oligroves that you didn't plant. Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods of your ancestors' worship by the river Euphrates and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourself this day whom you will serve. Whether the gods of your ancestors serve beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. There's a choice. It goes on to say, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Who are you serving tonight? See, Judas made a choice. He left that dinner, headed to the leading priest, and arranged to betray Jesus to them. And I have to put another pin here because when we are disappointed, disparaging, downcast, divided on how God's will shows up in life, we have to sit with the kind of choices we make as a result. What do we do when we disappointed? What do our actions say about our faith? Because just like Judas arranged to betray Jesus, we arrange some things too. We arrange to go get drunk. We arrange to go where we shouldn't. We arrange to hook up with people we shouldn't. Just like Judas, we arrange some things. We make some plans out of spite. Well, if Jesus don't do this, then I'm gonna go ahead and do this. If he don't answer my prayer, then I'm just gonna give up. If it don't come like I think it should come, then I ain't gonna do it no more. See, we see Judas making some arrangements. And listen, saints, those arrangements pay off for him. Because ain't that like sin when we oppose God's will, when we step out of alignment of his calling and we get all up in our feelings and start going rogue, sometimes there's some initial payoffs. We don't have to be accountable, we don't have to be responsible, we don't even have to be respectable, and ain't nobody said sin ain't fun. It may seem fun at first, but those consequences, but that's what the devil does. He lies, he's the father of lies, and it shows he shows you, right? He shows you the glitter until you find out it ain't gold. He don't tempt us with what we don't want, he tempts us with what we do want. And look how he handled Judas, he provided someone who was already stealing with some money, and he had it. In other gospels, the devil entered Judas. Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus. Ain't that just like the devil taking you on a journey you didn't expect just because you got all up in your feelings? You get in your feelings too much and it governs your action, you'll end up in divorce court. You get in your feelings too much on your job, and you keep going off and keep doing this and keep doing that, you're gonna be without a job. You get up in your feelings too much, and you keep talking to your child like that. And you see that your child don't want to be around. See, listen, there is some consequences when we get up in our feelings. You get up in your feelings and you go back to that old lifestyle. Oh my. But finally, as Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus and betray Jesus, he did. We can't just leave it there. We gotta look at Jesus. Because even though Judas betrayed him, he didn't cast him out. He still was at the Last Supper. Even though Judas portrayed him, he didn't yell at scream at Judas when he came to the Garden of Gethsemane and gave him that faithful kiss. See, because unlike Judas, who get caught up in his feelings, Jesus don't change. His decisions, his decisions ain't flippity-floppity. Who he is, who he says he is. See, the decisions that we make impact us, but it never stops God from being God. And I said all that to say, so you can know this tonight, that no matter what decisions and choices you're making, whether you betray Jesus or you betraying yourself, whether you caught up at all up in your feelings, and you making some choices that that that you're regretting, or you've made some choices that you, or if you're triggered and life has given you negative things after negative and negative things, and then that answer prayer just and coming through in time or coming in your time, that doesn't stop God from being God. If you made some bad choices, God's still gonna be God. If you caught up in your things, God's gonna still be God. Even if you walked away from God, God is still gonna be God, just like just like Judas walked away, but God is still God. Please know that your choices don't stop God's goodness and it don't stop him from being God. God is true to himself. 2 Timothy 2 and 13 says, if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. God does not disown himself, but he doesn't disown you either if you accepted him. Let's be clear about that. See, I don't know if Judas ever really accepted him. He had problems with God's way, with Jesus' way, and had problems with Jesus himself. But if you really accepted him, know that he will never leave or forsake you. And if you don't know him, please know that there's no greater love than this. That man would lay down his life for a friend, and that's exactly what he calls us friends. Listen, saints, I hope this lesson was a blessing for you tonight, and I hope it encouraged you to think about your feelings. Think about how it can govern your actions, think about the choices that you've made, and above all, think about the goodness of the God you serve. May God bless you and may He keep you. I'll see you next time as we continue our study in Habakkuk.