As believers, we’re called to live by faith. And yet so many of us choose to live by something else—our feelings. Have you ever made a decision because it simply “felt right”? Have you ever said something because it “felt like the perfect moment”? I know I have. Before I became a believer, I lived fully by feeling. My feelings informed my reactions to life and directed my every step. If a pathway wasn’t accompanied by a nice feeling, it wasn’t the one I took.

Shortly after I became a believer, I still lived by my feelings rather than my faith. I doubted my salvation because it didn’t feel real. I struggled to believe that God still loved me when I sinned because I couldn’t feel His love. I often gave into temptation to sin because it felt better than obedience. My worship time was completely regulated by my feelings as well—if I felt near to God, then I had worshiped effectively and rightly.

Do you live by your feelings? Do you live in a similar way that I did? If so, we need to consider what God’s Word has to say about our feelings and what living by faith actually looks like.

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith (Heb. 11:7).

Noah was living in a world of pagans who hated God and loved sin. He was building an ark because God was going to send rain—something never seen before this time. Noah was already old, and he spent many years building this ark. Do you think he felt like building it? Do you think he felt fearful of the sinful people around him—what they might think or do? Do you think he was tempted to give up or to not trust God? Probably. But he chose to live by faith in God. His faith in God propelled him forward, not his fickle feelings.

We’re faced with the same decision today, friends. We can live by our feelings or by our faith. If your faith is in Christ, it’s solid and trustworthy. Your feelings are forever shifting and influenced. Which will you look to?

Your Feelings Can’t Be Trusted

The Bible is quick to tell us that our feelings (or hearts, more accurately) can’t be trusted.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding (Prov. 3:5).

Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered (Prov. 28:26).

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer. 17:9).