Mastering Emotional Management for a Fulfilling Life

Blessing Blockers – It’s About Management over Emotions

Main Text: 1 Samuel 18:1–19 (AMP)

What you cannot maintain you will not retain.
In today’s message you will see how emotions can lead a person to poor choices.
Once emotions take over, logic usually leaves.

Foundational Principles

Foundational Principle #1: God Owns Everything

Psalm 24:1 (NLT)
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.
The world and all its people belong to him.

Foundational Principle #2: Management Proceeds Promotion

Luke 16:10–13 (NLT)
“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in
little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.
And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?
And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”

Foundational Principle #3: Look what Jesus said was one of his purposes

John 10:10 (NLT)
The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.
My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

Foundational Principle #4: The greatest limiter to your next level is you

Joshua 1:8 (AMP)
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall read [and meditate on] it
day and night, so that you may be careful to do [everything] in accordance with all that is written in it;
for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will be successful.

Foundational Principle #5: We must not open the door to the devil

Genesis 4:7 (AMP)
If you do well [believing Me and doing what is acceptable and pleasing to Me], will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well [but ignore My instruction], sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you [to overpower you],
but you must master it.

Amazing Info on Poverty

• A broken relationship either among family members, husbands and wives, or disputes in business between partners, employees, and employers that caused a loss of financial security and success.

Avoiding the Trap of Being Offended

Avoiding the Trap of Being Offended can help you with peace, promotion, and success.
To be clear, we need to understand the meaning of offense.

1. To entrap or impede, to stop in progress. Satan seeks those he can devour.
2. To make to stumble and fall or to entice to sin.
3. To cause one to judge another unfavorably or unjustly.
4. To cause or to create displeasure, resentment, or anger.
5. To give offense, to hurt, to insult.
6. To take hurt; take on another’s offense.
7. To fall into misery, to become wretched, deeply afflicted, very miserable.

Ways Offenses Come

1. Taking up other people’s offenses.
2. Strife
3. Division
4. Backbiting
5. Gossip, spreading the offense, or listening to a talebearer.
6. Resentment of another’s blessing.
7. You continually speak negatively about someone. Release the person immediately instead of speaking negatively about them.
8. You rejoice at someone’s misfortune.
9. You habitually fellowship with offended people.
10. Repeated wrongdoing by another. You weary of forgiving them.

Scripture Reflections

1 Samuel 18:1–19 (AMP)
1 When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bonded to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself.
2 Saul took David that day and did not let him return to his father’s house.
3 Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself.
...
19 But at the time when Merab, Saul’s daughter, should have been given to David, she was [instead] given to Adriel the Meholathite as a wife.

• King Saul, an example of a life ruined by being offended. Jonathan, Saul’s son, is an example of loyalty and refusal to take up another’s offense, that is, his father’s offense.
  He remained a friend to David. After Jonathan’s death, Mephibosheth, his son, was taken care of by King David.
  He received this blessing because of his father’s loyalty and refusal to be offended.

1 Samuel 24:4–13 (NLT)
“Now’s your opportunity!” David’s men whispered to him...
“May the LORD judge between us. Perhaps the LORD will punish you for what you are trying to do to me, but I will never harm you.”

Mark 11:23–24 (AMP)
I assure you and most solemnly say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea!’
and does not doubt in his heart [in God’s unlimited power], but believes that what he says is going to take place, it will be done for him [in accordance with God’s will].

Mark 11:25–26 (AMP)
Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him [drop the issue, let it go]...
If you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your transgressions.

Galatians 5:6 (AMP)
For [if we are] in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything,
but only faith activated and expressed and working through love.

Luke 17:1 (NKJV)
Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!”

Psalm 119:165 (KJV)
Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.

Proverbs 19:11 (AMP)
Good sense and discretion make a man slow to anger,
And it is his honor and glory to overlook a transgression or an offense [without seeking revenge and harboring resentment].

Proverbs 10:12 (NLT)
Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love makes up for all offenses.

Proverbs 17:9 (AMP)
He who covers and forgives an offense seeks love,
But he who repeats or gossips about a matter separates intimate friends.

Proverbs 18:19 (NLT)
An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city.
Arguments separate friends like a gate locked with bars.

Proverbs 18:19 (AMP)
A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.

Discussion Questions

1. What does it mean that “what you cannot maintain you will not retain”?
2. How can emotions affect our ability to make wise decisions?
3. What does it mean that “management precedes promotion” in Luke 16:10–13?
4. How do offenses prevent us from experiencing peace, promotion, and success?
5. In what ways can taking up another person’s offense damage our relationships?
6. How did Saul’s emotions lead him to poor decisions regarding David?
7. What can we learn from Jonathan’s loyalty and refusal to take offense?
8. Why is forgiveness essential for faith to work according to Mark 11:25–26?
9. How do the Proverbs instruct us to handle offenses and anger?
10. What practical steps can we take to master emotions and avoid “blessing blockers”?

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