In teaching on the last days, Christ said:
\n\u201cAnd take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.\u201d \u2013 Luke 21:34<\/p>\n
The Greek word for \u201covercharged\u201d is \u201cbaryon\u201d, which means, \u201cto weigh down, to overcharge.\u201d We do not commonly use the term \u201covercharge\u201d today, and certainly not as it is used in the King James Version. But I think we know what it means. I like this definition from Oxford Dictionary. \u201cTo put too much charge into a battery.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a good metaphor. We must be careful not to overcharge our flesh and emotional system with stimuli from the world system. Getting addicted to stimuli that has the tendency to overcharge our fleshly emotional system while our spiritual system hardly receives any charge is a huge problem. In fact, we can become so addicted to emotional stimuli that God cannot interest us.<\/p>\n
Christians are not immune from this phenomenon. In my opinion, they attempt to substitute genuine godly passion with the stimuli from the world system. It makes them feel alive when they are actually spiritual weak. I despise contention. I do not enjoy the calamity and I don\u2019t need the adrenalin rush. Most of the time it is caused by people bumping into each other\u2019s opinions. However, people get addicted to it. They thrive on the excitement and gravitate to wherever they can either cause or enjoin contention.<\/p>\n
The affect and effect of carnal stimuli is much like eating sweets. Your body will feel happy and you will get a burst of energy, but it is not healthy. There is no good substitute for eating healthy and exercising. Likewise, there is no substitute for pray and feasting on God\u2019s word. If one neglects those essential activities, he or she will be looking to the carnal supply for a substitute. It may not be contention, but it could be sports, shopping, TV, or something else. In moderation, those things may not be harmful. But we have to make certain that whatever overcharges our emotions is of God, not the world system or the flesh.<\/p>\n
It you don\u2019t understand or agree with me, then just try turning off the TV and Internet for a week. Try spending more time in prayer and reading\/studying the word of God. Most professing Christians cannot do it. I can guarantee you that if you do it, you will become more interested in the things of God and less interested in the things of the world. Further, when you return to watching TV or going on the Internet, you will recognize the things to avoid, and limit your time there.<\/p>\n
The point is, our emotional system belongs to God just as much as the rest of our body, our mind, and soul. We may fall into the mistake of believing that we are sovereign over that area. However, just as we should not stimulate our body or alter our minds with drugs or alcohol, we should not overcharge our emotional systems. Our emotion belongs to God. We should be careful to whom or what we give it to. I\u2019m not being legalistic here, but simply saying that the things of God ought to be more interesting, more important, and more stimulating than what we are overcharging ourselves with in these dark and dangerous last days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In teaching on the last days, Christ said: \u201cAnd take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.\u201d \u2013 Luke 21:34 The Greek word for \u201covercharged\u201d is \u201cbaryon\u201d, which means, \u201cto weigh down, to overcharge.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-sa","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1746"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1758,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746\/revisions\/1758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}