Redeeming Emotions

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:18–20, ESV)

Valentine’s Day Special

I suppose it’s not easy to be married to a theologian. I mean, what other person talks about Romans 7 on Valentines Day? It’s not really romantic. Here’s this picture of the Apostle Paul struggling with his emotions. He wants to do the right thing, but doesn’t seem to be able to do it. He struggles with the realization that he keeps doing the very things he hates. Very romantic, right? 

Broken Emotions

Yet, I think we all resonate with Paul’s struggle, don’t we? We’ve all struggled with our inability to do what we want to do, and our tendency to keep doing the things we don’t want to do. 

We want to love our spouse in a God-honoring way, but find ourselves getting frustrated about ridiculous things. We don’t want to be angry and frustrated, but continue to find ourselves angry and frustrated. We don’t want to fight with our spouse, but we continue to fight about stupid things. We want to honor and love our spouse, yet find ourselves grumbling and mumbling in our hearts about them. 

Things don’t seem to work the way we want them to work. It’s because our emotions are broken. They have been infected with sin, just like the rest of the world. Just like the rest of God’s good gifts, our emotions have been co-opted by sin and used to bring about death and destruction. Like Paul we often find ourselves crying out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24, ESV). 

Redeemed Emotions

Paul answers that question by saying, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25, ESV). The only one who can truly rescue our emotions from their bondage to sin is Jesus Christ. It is through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension that we can find ourselves being renewed into the image of God—which means our emotions will also be renewed—redeemed. 

At the core of our struggle with sin is disordered/broken emotions—disordered loves. Sin works in us to love the wrong things. Through Christ, our loves are re-ordered rightly and we begin to love the right things in the right places at the right times.

Redeeming Valentines Day

As we begin to love the right things in the right places at the right times, it changes the way we interact with our loved ones on Valentines Day. It’s important that we show love to them rightly. We shouldn’t be showing them love to get something in return or to feel good about ourselves—that’s not truly love them, but ourselves. We also shouldn’t be going through the motions, doing what we have to do because we have to do it—muttering under our breath the whole time. 

No. Let us love our spouses from the heart—a redeemed heart—showing love and care for them because we love doing it, because we consider them more significant than ourselves (Phil 2:3-4). Out of the overflow of our redeemed emotions, our actions speak (Matt 12:34). Let us truly love our spouses on this Valentines Day.