Do You Have That Gut Feeling?

I've discovered  if people are not on my heart, they're on my nerves.  If you don't have your kids in your heart, they get on your nerves.  If you don't have your wife in your heart, she gets on your nerves.

The reason so many relationships are crumbling is that folks are reacting to each other from their mind rather than their heart. When your wife says, "I feel depressed" listen to her; it's legitimate.  When your husband says, "I don't feel this is the right thing we ought to do." Consider what he has to say.

Heart love begins with understanding why someone feels the way they do. Ask questions and then listen. Hear the hurt, look for the problems. We need to understand the moods of the people closest to us, why they act the way they do.  If you care, you'll be aware. I’m not saying this is easy. 
Relationships can be difficult at times, I blow it all the time but I keep trying.

How do you love people who, even when you do understand them, you find them unlovable?

"God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:8 NIV) 

In Greek, (the language I struggled with so much in college), the word "affection" is the word for intestines.
In Greek society, the Greeks thought that the seat of the emotions was in your stomach, your liver, your internal organs.

So Paul was saying, "I've got a gut feeling of love for you." That is not a natural kind of love.  It is a supernatural kind of love and that's why Paul said it's not from himself, but it's the affection of Christ.  Human love wears out and dries up and dies on the vine. The only kind of love that lasts in spite of heartache and difficulty in tough circumstances is God's love.

So how do you get this kind of gut love? God's love is not something you work up.  It is something that is poured into you by the Spirit as you let Him live in you day-by-day.

Do you have a gut feeling about someone?