Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah, and Shabbat Shuvah as this is the last sabbath day in the season of repentance and before Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonements) which begins tomorrow at sunset. Welcome to this the fourteenth part of our series on spiritual transformation and to the second and final part about the emotional dimension in which we are examining the impact of the feelings on mind and body.

It is necessary we spend another sabbath looking into this question for one simple reason: if wrong emotions can impact the body so powerfully, as we've seen, then this ought to at least motivate us to seek Yahweh for their spiritual transformation. One woman, in describing a row she had had with her husband, said: "The next day I asked him for a divorce. No answer. Now I'm flippant (frivolous, impertinent). I put on a false front of flippancy and my stomach is tied in knots."

The thing is this: you cannot tell yourself a lie, and have it believed, because we were not designed to naturally and harmlessly accommodate lies. We were created for emet (truth) which is the only harmonious state for us to be in. To live a lie is to live in a pathological condition. You see, the subconscious mind sees through all the subterfuges, and records that, deep down, there is a conflict. Lying to yourself or others does not produce good health. Interestingly, the British Medical Journal once put it this way in verse:

Eat all [that] kind nature can bestow,
It will amalgamate down below
If the mind says so!
But once you begin to doubt
Your gastric juices will find it out!

I'm sure you've heard of dozens of stories bearing this out. Here's another just to give you an idea of the truth of what I am saying. A pastor once confided to a Christian counsellor and confessed that, during the days of his courtship, whenever he was with his fiancée, he would throw up his previous meal. But once he had asked her to marry him, and she agreed, his digestion returned to being quite normal. Why? Because he was happy whereas before he had been anxious and all stressed up:

"A cheerful heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit makes one sick" (Prov.17:22, TLB).

Last week I touched on the question as to where the emotions actually emerge from and if they are indeed associated with the organ called the heart. The Torah says that chayim (life) - at least, physical life - is in the blood (Lev.17:4) which the heart is responsible for pumping around the body to nourish every bodily cell. But do the emotions arise in the heart? I am not sure that question is the right one. One thing we do know is that our emotions affect our heart, and that diseased thinking, diseased feelings or emotions, and diseased wills contribute actively to the development of cardiac disorders. However, not only do the emotions affect the heart, but there is also evidence that the heart, in turn, affects the emotions. Conventional medicine recognises that the heart is the order of expression not only of anxiety but of all feelings. Dr.W.H. von Wyss made this observation:

"Psychic processes, especially emotions, have a bodily resonance and, vice versa, bodily processes have a psychic resonance...Since circulation is that function the cessation of which means instantaneous termination of life (death), the heart has become one of the most important organs of inner expression. It is for this reason that the heart has such close relationships with the emotional life and has become the symbol of what is really individual in man, the symbol of his virtues and vices. It is the study of these relationships which brings us to the borderland of our knowledge, to the question of what in the last analysis binds psyche and soma (body) into a unity."

When I was a young 13 years old, heart transplant surgery was being pioneered in South Africa by Dr.Christiaan Bernard. The first one, carried out in Cape Town in 1967, was a news sensation, I remember. The operation was a dangerous affair in those days as so little was known about such proceedures and patients tended not to live very long afterwards because of the problem of tissue rejection by the host's immune system. That was about 60 years ago. Now heart transplants are common place and are much safer though not without their risks still because of the complexities of the immune system. One thing that interested me, because of the scientific belief that all memories are stored exclusively in the brain, was that those who had heart transplants often reported a change in their feeling life. Something of the emotions of the donor had been 'transferred' along with the physical heart.

New appetites came along with their new hearts, appetites for things the recipients had no experience of before the operation. I read one account of a recipient who reported having homosexual emotions which he had never had before. It turns out that the heart donor had been a homosexual. I have read lots of cases like this. In other words, the physical organs, at the very least, had some sort of 'memory' of the donors' emotional dispositions. This is not an unknown phenomenon because it's a well-known fact, which psychiatrists specialising in this field will confirm, that a significant percentage of persons receiving heart transplants became psychotic soon after surgery while a number of others exhibited temporary emotional disturbances.

Such experiences are not confined to heart transplants. After I had my heart surgery in 2019 I needed two substantial blood transfusions to replace all that had been lost or damaged by the mechanical pump during the operation. I noticed the difference immediately. Not only did I experience a sudden sensation of well-being and 'life' but I noticed that my fibromyalgia symptoms diminished for a few days and I started having 'different' feelings blending in with my more familiar ones for a while. I also started seeing visions of things I couldn't make head-nor-tail of that were associated with 'feelings' which were new to me. I prayed that Yahweh would sort all this out as I was aware that I had acquired something of the donor that scripture calls nefesh (or nephesh - see diagram further below).

Now I am not saying that the heart (or blood) produces the emotions because I do not believe that. The human body is far too complex for us to arrive at such an over-simplistic explanation. I do believe, though, that our spirits, along with our emotions, totally interpenetrate the physical matter that is our physical bodies. I also believe that our spirits have a corresponding 'anatomy' to the physical body which I don't propose to get into today. There must therefore be multiple and varied connections between heart, nerves, blood, etc., and with the 'organs' or 'energy centres', if you like, of our spirits.

The person receiving a heart transplant doesn't get a memory transplant because there isn't a transfer of the deceased person's spirit. I do believe that physical organs have 'memories' in the secondary sense in which emotions are somehow imprinted on them that become especially notable when the emotions are out of spiritual alignment. And it just happens that the heart retains an 'imprint' of both traumatic and joyful emotional experiences which would then account for its health or lack thereof. This is a huge and fascinating subject that has occupied my researches for decades so I hope you'll forgive me for sharing some of my speculations because I think they're germaine to our topic today. And I don't just mean the emotional realm.

As one who has had an unplanned and unexpected out-of-body experience I know for a fact that both thoughts, emotions and memories are not stored in our brains - the brain is simply a processing centre linking the physical and psychic/spiritual together. Our 'consciousness' is a separate entity from our physical bodies, albeit temporarily highly integrated with it in mortality. Now I realise that a lot of Messianics and groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Worldwide Church of God, and others believe that our thoughts and emotions perish along with our physical bodies at death in a very literal sense, based on a misunderstanding of what we might call 'biblical soul terminology' but I don't agree with them both scripturally and existentially. I do not believe in the doctrine of 'soul-sleeping' taught by these groups. Indeed this was the very first theological controversy I had to wrestle with when I became a born-again believer in 1977 and resulted in my very first in-depth study which I published in 1987 (see The Bible Teaching on 'Soul'). You might say it even birthed my theological writing career and the huge website we have today with its many thousands of articles.

So this was an important matter for me to get resolved since my first Christian mentors were soul-sleepers. I believe this was in Yahweh's plan for my life as it gave me, as it were, a theological template and foundation on which to build and to make early sense of early overlapping Hebrew concepts. It makes perfect sense of the scientific observations about psychic memory in organs like the heart and as you know I am a firm believer in harmonising Scripture and Science by taking all the known data into consideration. If we're going to do theology, history, linguistics, psychology, philosophy and science we must be rigorous. We can't just put them in separate boxes and ignore contradictions between their various claims - real or imagined - but must strive for integration. However, we must first of all be convinced of a worldview. Though mine began atheistic, I had to honestly deal with the evidence and change that worldview.

But back to the main topic: our emotions can, and do, upset us, so we should make sure that the messages they send out to our bodies are positive ones of confidence and faith. And whether we like it or not, whether we are prepared to admit it or not, we are made in the likeness of our emotions. That's quite a thought. If we agree that is true, then the obvious follow-up question is this: What concrete steps can we take to have our emotions transformed?

The first step we must take is to see that there is a basic cause for our wrong emotions, and that what caused them can be cured. Our emotional development begins at birth, and, I believe, before birth in the womb. Yes, we pick up the vibes, emotions and thoughts (not to menion chemicals) of our mother and those in our immediate vicinity. I have experience as a deliverance minister that unborn babies can experience both joy and trauma, both joy and fear. The father of one lady I know very well wanted his unborn child to be a son so much that it imprinted her spirit so that after birth, growing up, she was subconsciously trying to please him by being 'boyish'. This created internal tension because deep within she knew she was a girl and this created a sense of rejection too. So, yes, many psychological disturbances can arise during gestation and not just afterwards. That's how sensitive we are and that's another reason we know that babies aren't just a 'clump of cells' but sentient human beings [1].

As we begin to develop, and grow, we learn how to trust or not to trust. We experience fear, anger, jealousy, sadness, joy, elation, happiness, and other emotional reactions. Our emotions grow and develop in different ways. One person may develop a balanced emotional life; another an unbalanced one. Our emotions are a gift from Elohim (God), and, when He created us, He created us as emotional beings. However, since Adam's transgression in the Garden of Eden, a curse has fallen upon all mankind, and we do not function in the way Yahweh originally intended and designed. Yah'shua's (Jesus') death on the cross has opened a way whereby Yahweh can bring about great changes within our personality. His goal is to bring us to the place where we think as He thinks, feel as He feels, and will as He wills. The goal Elohim (God) has set for our emotiotional development, and why receiving the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) is so important to our well-being, is described to us in this beautiful passage in Galatians:

"But the fruit of the Ruach (Spirit) is ahavah (love), simcha (joy), shalom (peace), patience, chesed (kindness), rachamim (goodness), faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Gal.5:22-23, NIV).

Whatever damage has been done to your emotions through childhood experience and traumatic events, Yahweh can sweep into your life with His healing power, and touch those raw and sensitive emotions so that they work in His way - for Him and not against Him and therefore for you too.

Although our Heavenly Father is both eager and ready to heal the emotions that have been damaged by past relationships, we must also see and acknowledge that we have a personal responsibility in this matter, a truth that most believers willfully blind themselves to. Nevertheless, until it is faced and dealt with, there can be no true healing of damaged emotions. The Psalmist understood this well when he cried out:

"All day and night Your hand was heavy on me. My strength evapourated...until I finally admitted all my sins...and You forgave me!" (Ps.32:4-5, TLB).

So before we can receive the healing Elohim (God) wants to give us, in the realm of our emotions, we must accept our share of the problem. We may be entirely guiltless of any abuse done to us but we are responsible for the way we react it. For example, when we were shown hate in our early years, how did we respond? Did we hate back? When anger was displayed toward us, did we reciprocate in the same manner? As the garment of our lives began to take shape on the loom of the developmental years - when the shuttle of hate, anger and criticism was passed through us - did we not pass it back with an equal amount of hatred and anger? We were not just faced with bitterness and hatred - we learned it too. And it is for this reason no complete healing of damaged emotions can come about in any believer's heart, until he or she has learned to accept some personal responsibility for harbouring hatred, resentment and bitterness in the heart, which is what we do if we decide to pursue the spirit of revenge. Paul reminded us, citing the Torah (Dt.32:35):

"Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for Elohim's (God's) wrath, for it is written: 'It is Mine to avenge; I will repay,' says Yahweh" (Rom.12:19, NIV).

The responsibility goes further than acknowledging the hatred (or its opposite, an eternal cycle of self-pity and victimhood) - we must get rid of it altogether in an act of repentance, and confession - first, to our Heavenly Father, Yahweh-Elohim, and then to all those against whom we have aimed our hatred and contempt. The damaged emotions inside you that lead you to hate are not part of Elohim's (God's) purposes for you. He wills their removal. When Yahweh and you both will that they should be straightened out, then they will be. But not before. With our Heavenly Father you know His default will. It's just a question of your will and whether you choose to respond to that or not.

Which brings us to focus on some final steps in this important understanding of emotional transformation. As I have already said, our first step is to recognise that what was caused can be cured. The second step is to accept our share of the blame. And the third is this: don't deny any wrong emotions and pretend they are not there because this will only drive them into the subconscious were they will cause havoc in your life, spoiling your relationships! If you feel angry don't say, 'I am not angry', but admit it to yourself, and face it. Once it is faced then you can do something about it.

There are four ways to deal with anger three bad and one good. You can:

• 1. Repress it (make sure you're never conscious of it by going into denial);
• 2. Suppress it (so you forcibly stop yourself when it bubbles up and threatens to consume you);
• 3. Express it (let the anger have its way and vent it); or
• 4. Confess it (take it to Yahweh and admit it's eating you away and destroying you inside).

The biblical, and therefore the godly, way is to make confession which runs totally contrary to the natural or carnal man. It isn't denying you were wronged but it is agreeing that Yahweh is the one whom you're allowing to ensure justice is done in His own time and way. If you are angry with Yahweh because this is the way He expects you to handle things, tell Him so, and ask His forgiveness. If you are angry with another person don't say, 'You make me so angry!' Say, 'I am angry - please forgive me.' Now I'm not, as you know, saying there isn't a place for godly anger. There is such a thing as godly anger. However, we are not to own it and incorporate it into our personality where it will destroy us. Instead we are admonished:

"'In your anger do not sin' (Ps.4:4): Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold" (Eph.4:25-27, NIV).

The fourth step is this: cultivate the opposite emotions to the ones which have hurt and hindered you. If the wrong emotion has been fear, then cultivate emunah (faith) - if it has been hate, then cultivate love. Read all the Scriptures you can on the matter of faith, or on love, for what you read in the Bible will pass into your emotions, and re-create a new and harmonious emotional spectrum. If a wrong emotion has been hatred, then cultivate love. Read and meditate on 1 Corinthians 13 until it infiltrates your whole personality:

"If I speak in the languages (tongues) of men and of malakim (angels), but have not ahavah-chesed- agapé love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have an emunah (faith) that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud ('arrogant' - NRSV). It is not rude ('conceited' - NEB), it is not self-seeking ('selfish' - NEB; 'does not insist on its own way' - NRSV), it is not easily angered ('not quick to take offense' - NEB; 'not irritable' - NRSV), it keeps no record of wrongs ('does not gloat over other people's sins' - JNT/CJB; 'not resentful' - NRSV). Love does not delight in evil ('does not rejoice in wrongdoing' - NRSV) but rejoices with the emet (truth). It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues (supernaturally-spoken foreign languages), they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor.13:1-13, NIV).

If your problem has been self-hate, then now love yourself in Elohim (God). If your problem has been to hate others, then now begin to proactively love them. Do good to them. Your emotions, when you bring Yahweh into them through prayer, and meditate on His Davar (Word), work with you, not against you. Let those transformed emotions drive you to great goals!

Let's pray: "Dear Father, since my emotions can upset me, or set me up, with Your help I'm going to make them drive me toward Your goal of health and wholeness in my entire being. Now at least I come to the heart of my problems. Touch those quivering emotions within me, that have been hurt and damaged, so that they respond to Your love and to Your voice. Thank You for challenging me on the question of my responsibility in the emotional choices and reactions I have had. I thought all I had to do was You to heal me, and it would be done but now I see I have a part to play in this too. So help me rise to the challenge, and do what I have to do - today. You have shown me the way - now enable my feet to walk in it. My emotions, now broken to harness, are no longer my enemies, but my allies. I am so deeply thankful for this emotional map You have given me and am trusting You to put my feeling life to rights, in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name. Amen."

This brings us to the end of our study of emotional transformation for now. Next time we reassemble for a regular Sabbath we will start bringing all of this together. In the meantime we must pause again for the next couple of weeks, and first we begin the next critically important autumn (fall) divine moed (appointment) with Yom haKippurim, the Day of Atonements, which begins tomorrow at sunset at which time we shall also commence fasting, bringing the season of teshuvah to an end - a special recorded recorded message will be available (but no assembly - see DOS018). Then we shall assemble the following morning for the main meeting and then briefly in late afternoon. This is the penultimate annual assembly of Messianic Israel in this the year of Penultime Judgment of the world. I look forward to seeing you then! Amen.

Endnotes

[1] See the Abortion website

Acknowledgments

[1] Selwyn Hughes, Every Day With Jesus: The Transformed Life (Crusade for World Revival, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, UK: 1979)
[2] Robert W.Witkin, The Intelligence of Feeling (Heinemann Educational Books, London: 1976)