Taking Responsibility

Many Christians are more dominated by their emotions than by what they believe. They let their feelings
control how they act, instead of letting faith steer them. Seeing God’s will fulfilled in your life means
learning to obey Him no matter how you feel. After you have heard God’s direction and learned how to
follow His will, you have to1learn to be obedient to see His will fulfilled in your life.

I highly recommend that you obey God in every area of your life, even if you feel like you simply can’t do
what God is leading you to do. Trust God and follow His leading. He will never lead you to do something
you can’t do or somethingbthat isn’t in your best interest.

You can always do what God is asking you to do. You may lack the motivation but you can do it if you
really want to. Several years ago, my nephew came to me after he had received two or three speeding
tickets and was about to have his license revoked. “I can’t help it,” he said. “I just drive fast.” “That’s not
true,” I told him. “You can help it.” “No, honest, I can’t,” he replied. “If I was to sit in the back seat of your
car with a gun pointed at your head and threatened to pull the trigger the moment you go over 55 miles
an hour, could you drive less than 55?” I asked.

“Well, yeah, I guess,” he said. “See,” I said, “you can do it. You just lack the motivation.” Modern society
tends to avoid responsibility at all costs. Our culture is always trying to shift the blame onto someone
else or some exterior circumstance—anything other than accepting responsibility ourselves. People have
a tendency to excuse all kinds of behavior because no one wants to be responsible for their actions. The
real culprit,1we’re told, is the dysfunctional household we were raised in, our hormones, or our age,
whether we are a teenager or middle aged.

The truth is that there are always reasons why we are the way we are, but there are no excuses. To fulfill
God’s will, you have to accept responsibility in your life. You aren’t an evolved animal simply responding
to stimuli. You are a person created in the image of God, therefore you are responsible for your actions.
Quit blaming other people for your current situation. Maybe some terrible things happened to you in the
past, but you can accept responsibility for any wrong choices you have made in response and move on
with your life.

As long as you play the role of a victim, you will never be a victor. Philippians 4:4 says, “Rejoic in the Lord
always: and again I say, Rejoice.” I believe the reason He said “and again I say rejoice” is because He
knew people were going to think, He couldn’t possibly have meant always. Regardless of what you are
going through, God says you can rejoice. It doesn’t matter if you’re going through a divorce, someone
close to you has died, or if some other tragedy has struck your life.

God would be unjust to command you to “rejoice in the Lord always”—if it wasn’t possible. Jesus said,
“In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
He admitted that we are going to have problems, but He told us to be of good cheer. The word “rejoice”
is a verb; it’s an action, not something you possess. You don’t have to feel joy to rejoice in the Lord
because you always2have joy in your spirit, whether you can feel it or not (Galatians 5:22). You can
rejoice through gritted teeth or with tears running down your face.

We can do what God tells us to do regardless of how we feel. Once we start obeying God, we will
discover that we have a well on the inside of us that is full of the life of God. Rejoicing is like putting a
bucket down into the well of life in our spirit and drawing out the fullness of God. We may start rejoicing
through gritted teeth, but if we keep rejoicing we will draw out the life of God that’s inside of us. We will
experience real joy and peace. We can’t be led through life by our emotions. We have to be led by the
Spirit of God.

One thing that distinguishes an adult from a child is the fact that adults try not to base their decisions on
how they feel. As adults, we don’t always feel like going to work, but we do it because we know we need
to. We don’t always feel like being the parent; sometimes we want to be the child and want to fall down
on the floor, throw a fit, and shout, “I didn’t ask for this!” But when you’re a parent, you know you need
to be responsible and act like it. Yet, when it comes to our emotions, we don’t take control.

Most of us let emotions dominate our lives and dictate our behavior. Emotions should be like the
caboose on a train—going wherever the train goes—yet not determining anything. Sometimes I don’t
feel like praying for people. When I first started in ministry, I didn’t think God was doing anything unless I
had a tingling sensation shooting up and down my spine. Praise God, I had enough sense to keep2my
mouth shut.

I simply kept praying over people and believing that, as the Bible says, when Christians lay hands on the
sick, they will recover. So I just kept praying for people. Soon I discovered that I saw some of the greatest
miracles when I felt absolutely nothing when I prayed. Those experiences helped me learn not to be led
by my feelings.2
Andrew wommack