(By Thor Knutstad)
The enemy’s deception has slowly and methodically traded real freedom (in us) for the worship of what I will call ‘Feeling Followership.’ But we know that our feelings don’t really free us – they often mislead us, they often distort the truth and they often bring us into deeper bondage when we live following the misguided sense of direction that comes from Feeling Followership.
Show me a man or woman enslaved by passions, feelings and desires, and I will show you a heart that is laced and bound with heavy chains of enslavement. False teachers deceive people into thinking that freedom is found and experienced in the idolatry of Feeling Followership, but they would never call it that. Oh, they never call it the adultery (unfaithfulness) or the idolatry (false worship) that it really is either. They never label it as license or liberty of the world; and they surely wouldn’t call it the legalism that it often represents in its many rules and manmade traditions. This is because the devil, though he appears to often work quickly, picks at our fleshly sin nature sometimes very slowly and patiently. This strategy, coupled with the wrong desires that cause confusion within us, serve to thwart God’s deeper work within our hearts. Feeling Followership promises freedom from the constraints God outlines in His Word, but ultimately real freedom is lost. During the downward process of Feeling Followership, freedom evaporates and bondage takes hold and roots deeply. While our hearts are held hostage in the deception of Feeling Followership, this soul-killing process that bathes in Satan’s great lies causes us to lose ourselves and become mastered by the very things that enslave us. Feeling Followership is a legion of demons invading the desires of the flesh. It is not real freedom. Feeling Followership is a deadly and dark path – a highway with few or any exits. Beware. Beware of the false teachers and false prophets who tickle your ears with Feeling Followership appeals. Beware of the lies – and behold the truth.
This truth is a person – His Name is Jesus, the Christ. And though He always comforts your pains and sufferings with an everlasting love, He will never call you to Feeling Followership. Instead, He will take you to places that you never wanted to go; He asks you to deny yourself and carry your cross like He did – so He can get you home - to eternity’s Heaven, unto holiness. Therefore, we must often forsake Feeling Followership, trading it for righteous actions and doings of holy moments that exemplify the Gospel and live out our real freedom. Let’s see Feeling Followership for the lie that it really is – Praise Him.
