LARRAPY Convos – Blog 57: Emotional Idolatry: When Feelings Become the Ultimate Authority

Introduction:

Today’s world often teaches that your feelings are your truth — that if you feel something strongly enough, it must be valid, good, and worth following. But emotional idolatry leads to chaos, confusion, and brokenness when feelings are placed above faith, reason, and wisdom.

In False Gods Among Us, I explore how feelings became false gods — and how to restore emotions to their rightful place under God’s authority.

Main Points:

• Feelings Are Real But Not Always Reliable: Emotions should be acknowledged but not worshiped.

• Emotional Idolatry Distorts Identity: Feelings can deceive and lead to false self-definitions.

• Truth Must Govern Emotion: Faith and reason should guide emotions, not the other way around.

• Unchecked Feelings Wreck Relationships: Constantly acting on emotions strains love, loyalty, and unity.

• God Heals Emotions, He Doesn’t Crown Them: Healing means learning to submit feelings to truth.

Practical Tips for Managing Emotional Idolatry:

• Validate feelings without letting them dictate decisions.

• Anchor your identity in God's word, not in emotional fluctuations.

• Pause before acting on intense emotions.

• Journal emotions and compare them against Scripture and wise counsel.

• Pray for emotional healing and wisdom daily.

🧠 Mental Health Commentary:While emotional validation is essential for healing, emotional dominance — where feelings rule over reason — often leads to unstable relationships, impulsive decisions, and emotional burnout. Therapy teaches clients to honor feelings while building emotional regulation and cognitive discernment.

✝️ Spiritual Reflection:Jeremiah 17:9 warns, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Spiritual growth requires recognizing that emotions can deceive — and that true freedom comes from submitting our hearts to God’s wisdom and love.

🌍 Cultural Commentary:Current culture often elevates feelings above facts, moral absolutes, and even biological realities. Emotional expression is treated as sacred while truth is seen as optional. Reclaiming emotional health requires resisting this cultural narrative and rooting identity in objective truth.

Conclusion:Feelings are powerful, but they are terrible gods. True freedom comes when emotions are surrendered to truth and transformed by grace.

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