The human emotion is the appreciator of the soul. Emotion responds or reacts to whatever thoughts (divine or human viewpoint) are in the soul. Normally the emotion is to be dominated by the mentality. Under abnormal conditions, the emotion rules the mentality, and neurosis and psychosis appear. The emotions of the soul are intended to respond to what is in the mentality of the soul (either Bible doctrine or demonic doctrine). The right lobe possesses a frame of reference designed for thought, the memory center, vocabulary and categorical storage, the conscience, momentum, wisdom, and the sub-conscious.

In the right lobe of the soul is everything necessary to properly be in command of the emotion, so that it can be what it was designed by God as the appreciator of blessing and any legitimate stimuli in life. The kardia contains all thought and all standards; the emotion contains nothing. Emotions contain no doctrine, thought, common sense, or ability to reason. When emotion controls your soul, you can no longer think or apply doctrine. Emotion is strictly a responder; it is not designed to assume authority over the soul, but to be dominated by the right lobe.

• By definition then, the emotions are the appreciator of the soul.
• By function, the emotions were designed to respond to the right lobe.

Capacity for life has its basis in the right lobe and thought, rather than the emotions. You can really only enjoy life through your emotions when they are under the control of the right thoughts. Once your feelings become the criteria for your life, you are no longer able to execute God's plan as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The five (5) categories of the emotional complex of sins which cause the most problems in distracting the loser believer are:

• Hysteria (which includes fear, worry, anxiety, panic, confusion, irrationality, etc).
• Hatred (which includes anger, bitter jealousy, loathing, animosity, vulnerability to imagined insults or injury, implacability, malice, tantrums, violence, etc).
• Self-centered:  (which includes self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption,  egotistical irrationality, hypersensitivity and insensitivity).
• Reaction, (which combines the sins of arrogance with the emotional complex of sins: jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, hatred, vilification, vituperation, malice, revenge motivation and operation, inordinate ambition and  competition).
• Guilt, which is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some real or imagined offense. Guilt is caused by repression, denial, projection, and manipulation and weak people manipulate stronger people through guilt.

There are two categories of sin which come from human volition:

• Sins of Cognizance in which a person recognizes the temptation as sin and still wants to do it and continues to do so.
• Sins of Ignorance in which a person is not aware that what he has done is a sin though he still desires to do so and follows through with it.

Whether a sin of cognizance or ignorance, the believer is responsible for both categories and is equality guilty in either case. This is due to the issue of human volition in the angelic conflict. However the grace solution is always freely available. Rebound is the solution for sins of cognizance, and once we name and cite our known sins to God the unknown sins of ignorance are also forgiven. Therefore, 1 John 1:9 actually remedies both types of sins. Therefore, whether you are conscious to the knowledge of the sins of mental or verbal sins or not you are still responsible for committing them.

 There are four (4) categories of personal sins:

• Emotional sins, related to fear, also related to hatred which brings about anger, violence, even murder. Emotional sins are also related to self-pity and guilt.
• Mental Attitude sins, such as arrogance, pride, jealousy, bitterness, implacability, vindictiveness, inordinate ambition and competition, all of which are motivational sins based on sinful thoughts.
• Verbal sins, such as gossip, maligning, slander, judging, lying, and verbal deception.
• Overt sins, such as murder, stealing, chemical sins, and sexual sins.

The worst kind of emotional and mental sin that always end up to verbal and overt son is self-pity. Self-pity is a factory where you manufacture endless miseries.

Self-pity is a sick sort of comfort of a melancholic mindset, distorted by human viewpoint thinking dependent on feeling rather than truth.

• Self-pity is failure to see that God is at work in your lives:
• Self-pity is saying in effect that God is never concern with our best.
• Self-pity is failure to make your hope in God a reality.
• Self-pity is failure to wait for God’s perfect timing.
• Self-pity is lying to oneself being blinded by emotion distress of the soul.

The role of human free-will:

• Life is a matter of choice and option. You choose the life that you have now. What you are now is actually the results of many decisions (both the bad and good) you have made in the past.
• God respects the human free-will and privacy of our decisions.

When things go wrong:

• You can choose to respond with appropriate Bible doctrine and come out victoriously.

• You can choose to let God do the things that you cannot do.
• You can choose to let God change the things that you cannot change.

• You can choose to indulge in despair, loneliness or fear and sunken into apathy entangle in self-pity.

The “woe in me” reaction is normal to man but wallowing in self-pity is abnormal which end up in deserved sufferings.

Self-pity can be expressed differently:

• As faithlessness (Exodus 4:10-13).
• As lack of compassion (Jonah 1:3, 4:1-4, 8-11).
• As manifestation of fear (1 Kings 19:4-15).

Self-pity grows rapidly when feed with human viewpoint.

• Depressed believers are opening their soul to demonic doctrines.

How to get out of self-pity? (1 Kings 19:4-15)

• God commanded Elijah to get up – (to rebound)
• God commanded Elijah to get moving – (to reside and function inside the Plan of God).
• God wants Elijah to choose divine solution rather than human solutions, to obey God’s Word and stop emoting.

Self-pity is something you have to fight because it is not going to die naturally. You have to demolish it by inculcating Bible doctrine on consistent and systematic basis.

2 Basic Categories of pity:

• Legitimate: pity (chanan meaning to be gracious) directed toward others (Job 19:21-22, Proverbs 19:17). Pity is usually a tender feeling for another person who is under suffering, crisis or distress (Matthew 18:33)
• Illegitimate: self-pity (the negative mental attitude) directed toward self.

Satan modus operandi of self-pity is executed with arrogance (Matthew 16:24-25). Arrogance in relation with self-pity has two sides:

• Self-satisfaction
• Self-pity or self-denial

Satan’s problem today (in this planet) is self-exaltation, self-glorification but in hell, his problem is self-pity. Self-pity is not part of God’s plan or God’s system for man.

• Self-pity is the result of your failure to exalt or glorify yourself.
• Satan’s way for human success is self-satisfaction.
• Satan’s way for human failure is self-pity.

Self-pity is implying that someone is being unfair to you:

·         Satan in effect told the woman (Ishah) “God is withholding something from you”.

·         Martha in effect told the Lord Jesus Christ “you made me work alone while you let my sister sit at your feet”.

Self-pity is putting yourself and your problem above God:

• It is giving oneself greater importance above God and His Word.
• It is obsession with self.
• It is excessive love of oneself.

Self-pity is destructive and damaging:

• It distracts your relationship with God.
• It destroys your relationship with people.
• It drives away people from you.

Self-pity is common to everyone. As human being, you are bound to experience at one time or another. There are three basic factors that cause self-pity:

• Emotion – as negative mental attitude sins
• Physical depression – physiological factors  as physical illnesses
• Mental depression – psychological factors as mental problems

Self-pity is defense mechanism that seeks to avoid the pain known as escapism from reality or unreality of pain.

• The pain that it seeks to avoid can be real or imaginative.
• The pain that it seeks to avoid can be self-made or produce by others.
• The pain that it seeks to avoid can last from one minute to lifetime.

Self-pity is feeling sorry for self as cover up to hide its reality.

• It hides the reality that emotion is in control and not the mentality.
• It hides the reality of defeat and miseries,

Self-pity is self-deception in order to draw unto self unmerited compassion from others regardless how it is convey.

Self-pity is self-denial of personal responsibility by assigning blame to others for his own miseries.

Self-pity is refusal to feel the pain by making others share his pain. The person sunk in self-pity is making the people around him unhappy by compelling them to bear his pains and miseries.

Self-pity is refusal to admit that either you have done the wrong thing or you have not done the right thing.

Self-pity exaggeratedly advocates the injustice and unfairness of the world. There is no justice and fairness in the world but this should never stop you from enjoying your life. Justice is found only in God and in His Word.

Self-pity failed to face the pain squarely. The believer with metabolized Bible doctrine can face any pain and use it as stepping stone to seek the change which the Holy Spirit alone can bring.

Self-pity is putting big expectation upon oneself. God does not place unrealistic expectation upon us – we do.  God’s commands and demands come with tremendous resources and power system in order to accomplish what He desires for us.

Self-pity is busy comparing oneself with others. Comparing yourself results to more complicated problems and deserved sufferings. Self-comparison violates the royal family honor code and basic principles on Christian relationship.

Self-pity operates in competitive lifestyle.

• You are here as believer not for the purpose of making rivals.
• Your purpose is to live your spiritual life.

Self-pity failed to recognize that real promotion comes from God:

• Promotion from God is grace blessings.
• Real promotion comes only from God.
• Some people (who are worse than you) are doing better because of God’s grace.

Self-pity is very demanding:

• People sunk in self-pity believe that the world was created to serve and please them.
• They believe that the world center around them.

Self-pity is self-centeredness. People sunk in self-pity failed to realize that they are just part of the whole which is mostly bound for rejection. To minimize your miseries:

• Stop seeking attention from others.
• Stop seeking paying too much attention to your self.

Self-pity is unmotivated to take the essential recovery action. Stop complaining and whining instead utilize the grace provision of rebound. Emotion has no capacity to do rational thinking and this is where the conviction ministry of the Holy Spirit comes in.

Self-pity is distorted belief (based on emotion or human viewpoint):

• Distorted belief of false success and promotion.
• Distorted belief false happiness and peace.
• Distorted belief of false blessing.
• Distorted belief of approbation and recognition.
• Distorted belief of unreal life’s purpose of existence.

Self-pity is giving in to hopelessness without considering that God has all the solution.

• They failed to consider those difficult situations are challenge to trust God.
• They failed to consider that failures are road to success.
• They failed to consider that God allows failure in order to pour out His blessings.
• Failure is a success you have to achieve with God.

Self-pity is miseries in the soul:

• Real miseries exist in the soul not in environment, things, or situations.
• The misery of an individual has nothing to do with people that surround one.
• The worse misery is not physical suffering but when the emotion controls the mentality of the soul.

Self-pity is over reactive to situation or condition.  The source of pain is not our present condition or situation but our:

·         Negative reaction

·         Negative mental attitude

·         Distorted thinking

Self-pity is self-defeating. Nothing good can come out of self-pity. The only person you can defeat with self-pity is yourself. Self-pity accomplishes four negative things:

• Manifests your carnality or reversionism.
• Enhances your ignorance of Bible doctrine.
• Multiplies your miseries and deserved sufferings.
• Prepares your spiritual life as full-breed loser.

Self-pity focuses on the problems ignoring the One who has all the solutions. The believer must learn to change his focus using the power of the Holy Spirit and metabolized Bible doctrine. Change your focus from:

• What you cannot do to what God can do.
• What you cannot change to what God can change.
• Things that went wrong to things that God can make right.

Self-pity only results to more self-induce miseries since we become what we think about. Prolonged self-pity can really make a horrible person out of you.

Self-pity distracts spiritual advancement. The presence of self-pity means that the believer is outside the PPOG which calls for the execution of rebound. Rebound is the only grace provision outside the plan and purpose of God. After rebound, the believer must maintain his residency, function and momentum inside the power system of God.

Self-pity is paralysis that hinders spiritual growth and momentum. The believer must get out from:

• Imaginative exaggeration of your problem – do not let illusion destroy you.
• Mental or emotional slavery by grace provision of rebound.
• Allowing self-pity to dominate your soul is satanic strategy to destroy you.

Self-pity is mental slavery. The believer must decide to change his path and leave the dungeon of self-pity by renewing his mind with Bible doctrine.

Self-pity is satanic weapon that you can render useless. It is a distraction and figment of your imagination that distract the believer from reaching their objective of spiritual maturity.

Self-pity is unimportant and useless endeavor which does worth your valuable time and attention. Satan is in business of trapping in unimportant, unrealistic, unnecessary things of life. The life of a reversionist is well-spent in the non-essentials.

Satan can turn any Church Age believer into a bitter worrywart through self-pity. The believer has no alibi, has no reason, and has no excuse for being trapped in self-pity because God has provided all the problem-solving devices that we might need.

Self-pity will not make you an inspiration but an illustration of self-made miseries to others. You will become an unrecognized horrible example of miseries, negative mental attitude and disobedience to God.

Self-pity is the strongest evidence of a soul completely misdirected from the plan, purpose and will of God being focus on self and personal problems.

A life allowed to be filed with self-pity becomes worthless to the Lord being a dishonorable vessel. A person sunk in self-pity cannot function and operate inside the Pre-designed Plan of God.

Self-pity is the worst kind of idolatry. It worship the most atrocious and useless person that it cannot even save itself.

Self-pity generates the inability to achieve anything other than becoming a spiritual loser. The person dejected by self-pity is capable only of distorted decision and destructive action.

 Self-pity makes a person sentimental, over-reacting and becoming over-sensitive just about anything. It seeks undeserved approval, recognition or attention from its victims.

Self-pity denies responsibility and accountability for its decision and action. It is trying to escape responsibility by accusing or blaming others for its pains and miseries.

Self-pity may results to endless activity.

• Endless activity is usually the hallmark of the flight from self-pity.
• Endless activities will lead to more dissatisfaction and more self-pity because of more problems one is bound to face without solution.

Self-pity implies personal failure:

• Failure in form of jealousy which leads to endless moral activity (example: a womanizing husband will do a lot of things for his wife).
• Failure in form of guilt which leads to endless physical activity (example: an employee pilfering from his employer will work harder).
• Failure in form of arrogance which leads to endless communal activity (example: a political leader seeking approbation will show a lot of work).
• Failure in form of self-righteous arrogance which leads to endless religious activity (example: a religious person with secret sins will make a lot of religious show).

Self-pity is a matter of decision and selection in life. What you are now is the results of your previous thinking and decisions. You have the key for changing your situation. You can choose God and His divine viewpoint and be happy or you can choose Satan and his human viewpoint and be miserable the rest of your life.

The Lord Jesus refused to resolve in self-pity even for one second. Self-pity means that the believer is outside the grace plan of God, residing and functioning in carnality being distracted from the purpose of God. The Lord Jesus Christ refused any negative mental attitude all throughout His humanity.

There are two categories of suffering in the life of the believer:

• Suffering under discipline is meant to be a teaching aid. However, if you ignore it, this discipline becomes unbearable.
• Suffering for blessing is bearable and accelerates your spiritual growth by giving you the greatest opportunity to apply doctrine.

Divine discipline is confined to time for there is no divine disciplie in heaven. The execution of sin unto death does not implies the loss of salvation.

2 Timothy 2:11-13  Trustworthy [is] the word: For if we died with [Him], we will also live with [Him].  If we endure, we will also reign with [Him]; if we deny [or, disown] [Him], that One will also deny us.  If we are unfaithful, that One remains faithful; He is not able to deny Himself.

Any believer who rejects Bible doctrine and the predesigned plan of God long enough (that in state of reversionism) will die under the sin unto death. He will be ashamed at the Judgment Seat of Christ when he sees those fantastic blessings of eternity that will never be conveyed to him, simply because he refused to take advantage of the grace of God after salvation, and did not fulfill the conditions of the unique spiritual life, in spite of all the phenomenal assets that God provided.

Remember, the emotions are the appreciator of the soul, and were designed to respond to the mentality. Emotion is strictly a responder; it is not designed to assume authority over the soul, but to be dominated by the right lobe. Emotion has no ability for love, life and happiness. Therefore, the dominion of the soul result only to emotional revolt produces rebellion against God and against the Word of God.

J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries

 J. R. Cherreguine Bible Doctrine Ministries