Chasing Goosebumps | Theocast

Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, Justin and I are going to discuss chasing goosebumps. Those spiritual highs that you have after personal devotion time or a worship service or evangelizing, we're looking for that next spiritual significance where we feel close to God and we know that His presence is near.

Why is that dangerous and how can that actually hurt our assurance and distract us from the gospel? We hope you enjoy.

Stay tuned.

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Theocast’s Mission and the Problem of Spiritual Highs

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Your hosts today are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I am John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.

It's good to be podcasting with you today. Justin and I already were on a podcast, another podcast that's probably come out by now. We encourage you to listen to that.

Doing a lot of podcasting today. Apparently podcast is a verb now.

That's right. One of the things we're excited about is that people ask us all the time, what's a great book that you guys recommend? One of the things we're going to start doing is giving away stuff on our podcast, so stay.

Tuned.

Next week, we're going to start doing some giveaways for our members and for our listeners. Books that we like and enjoy.

It's kind of like if you've ever attended one of those church services and they're trying to encourage people to be baptized and they're like, text baptism to this number and you'll be entered into a drawing to win a free iPad and it's like, no, that's not what this is.

That's kind of what we're doing, but not really what we're doing. No.

I'm kidding.

We actually like these books.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We actually love these people. That's true.

Oh, anyways. Well, today is a fun subject. It's one that Justin and I are pretty passionate about. We like to liberate people.

It might even be a thrilling subject. A thrilling subject, some say.

Yes, quite moving as it might be, but it's one of these things that we like to liberate people from. So, Justin, talk to us a little bit about this subject, why it's important and why we chose it.

Like you just said, brother, this podcast exists to try to set people free from all kinds of bondage and to pull people away from things that are less than good onto the only sure foundation, which is Jesus Christ and His righteousness and work for us.

One of the things that we can often chase after and frankly be enslaved by is the pursuit of what I might call spiritual highs, where we chase after experiences. People need to have that category in their minds that sometimes we need to be delivered from things that in our experience actually feels good, but then can become really bad for us because we're always kind of measuring how we're doing up against how we felt that one time or the experience that we had, that one church service or whatever it may be.

Then it introduces all of these thoughts and concerns and stuff into our brains, and we become hyper introspective about it. We become anxious or worried or concerned about various things because we're not feeling how we once felt about Christ, or I'm not doing as well today as I was yesterday, or this week at church just is not thrilling my heart like I was thrilled last week or that service that happened two months ago or whatever it is.

That can become a very heavy burden, and it can become something that is a form of a bondage, as I referenced just a moment ago. So we're hoping to have a reasonable conversation about this and not only point out maybe where this comes from, but also pull people on to something better as we try to think reasonably about the Christian life and the fact that we're falling and that we don't always feel the way we should.

It's going to come to bear in this.

Conversion Experiences, Emotional Highs, and Why They Fade

So when many of those who are listening came to Christ, maybe you came from a background where you were in sin or you didn't grow up in a church background. And that conversion moment, that moment when you saw the Holy Spirit open your eyes and your sin before you and you saw that Jesus saved you, it's an unreal, other earthly experience to know that the Holy Spirit has transformed you.

And I know that many have this emotional moment where they truly experienced the gospel in a way that transformed their life. They were a different person going forward. And then you see this person and they're involved in everything.

They can't get enough of the word of God. They're at soul winning. I mean, it's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And my dad used to describe these people as getting a good dose of the Holy Ghost. So I was like, I guess I never got one of those because that was never me.

I wanted to race my bike on Saturdays, not go out thorn-hiking. So then what ends up happening down the road, a year down the road, and things start to kind of slow down and that spiritual high is no longer there.

And what they're looking for is that next high. It's that next, how do I get back to when I was really close to Jesus, when I was first saved, how do I just maintain that experience? And when I grew up in the Baptist world, it was kind of like you said you always wanted to be having fresh blood in your church because it keeps the excitement level up, basically new converts keep everybody excited.

And when you are always looking for that next spiritual moment that's going to throw you back up to where you feel like God is the most important thing in your life, nothing else matters, you're floating on air, and when you can't find it and years start passing by, it creates all kinds of theological problems.

It creates all kinds of assurance issues. And then you start seeking it in books and in movements, right? So, you have the radical movement, and then you have the charismatic movement, and then you can just start walking down all of it.

And every denomination and every theological bent has these goosebump moments they want for you to experience so that you can have that next euphoric high.

Justin Perdue.

Well, there's a reason why it's unusual anymore for somebody to just hold the same theological positions for a long period of time. It's unusual for people to just be members faithfully in the same church for a long period of time because people, not only is it something like where we grow bored, but I think in some ways people get worried about their spiritual condition because they're not feeling it the way that they once were, or they need something different so that they can get excited and geeked up about it.

And so sometimes this chasing experiences can actually lead us into theology and practices and stuff that are less than helpful. That may be true. But I want to maybe back up a little bit and talk about emotions for a second.

And the fact that emotion in and of itself is not a bad thing. I mean, John and I would both uphold the fact that part of being made in God's image, a small part of that anyway, means that we are emotional creatures and emotion in and of itself is a good thing.

The issue for us is that we are fallen creatures, and that means that every aspect of our personality has been affected by sin. And so that includes our emotions, and because our emotions are fallen, and because we are inherently self-interested in the like and lack perspective, our emotions are not always trustworthy.

And so we have to acknowledge that if we're going to make any sense of this conversation. To feel really good about God or to feel really good about Jesus and what He has done for you is a wonderful thing.

Praise the Lord for those moments and realize that there are going to be plenty of times as a fallen human being, as a Christian who is in Christ living in a fallen world, that you and I are not going to feel the way that we should.

And so we've got to have something by way of a sure foundation that is bigger and much more robust than how I'm feeling on any given day. As a matter of fact, I know in our church, we often welcome people to service acknowledging that they've come in feeling any kind of way, and that the only thing that's consistent about us is that we're inconsistent in terms of how we feel.

And what we're trying to do is look to something that's outside of us and that can give us hope and peace before the Lord, and His name is Jesus. Thank God. I guess one thought, John, is that as good as the goosebumps moments are, and they're great, who wouldn't want them?

I mean, you would be wrong to say that you shouldn't want to feel great about Christ. Of course you should want to feel great about Christ when you moved and just.

Gripped.

I mean, those moments are wonderful and praise God for them, but also praise God that Christianity and the gospel is about more than goosebumps. Because if it's about goosebumps, man, it's sinking sand.

I mean, it's that quagmire where the more we flail about chasing after it, the further we sink down in it.

Emotion, Joy, and Rest in Christ

Well, and I would say too, it matters where the goosebumps are coming. So, you and I have watched a really great movie, and at the end of it, you're just like, man, that was fantastic. I can remember the first time I went to the theater and I watched The Village, and there's that, you know, I'm not going to ruin it for anybody, but there's that aha moment at the end of the movie.

Yeah, well, it's been out long enough. It's kind of like your own fault, I guess. Maybe not. I'm not going to tell you what happens. Point of it is, there's that aha moment. If I were to go back and watch it again, which I had never seen it, I've only seen it once, it's kind of one of those movies for me that's one and done.

And I'm going to watch it again with my kids probably, but it won't have the same effect on me. And we experienced this closeness and this emotional high where you can feel the tingleness, your heart is exploding, your eyes are watering, and that could be caused by a thousand different things.

It could be caused by an abortion video. When we start thinking about how kids are being murdered and it just breaks your heart, or it could be about God healing somebody from cancer, and you're watching this video and it's just bringing this on, there's a million and one things that cause us as humans to feel this emotional drive that comes out.

Of us.

And the danger is that if you go to some worship services, they're going for that. The mood, the lighting, the music, the transitions, the words are all designed to get you into this emotional state where you can experience the presence of God because of, and it is an experience, because of the music and the words and the emotions and the smoke and all that kind of stuff.

Now, on the flip side, I also know people who have had this experience when they repent of sin and there's this weight that's off of them and they have this warmth theologically where they can feel the presence of God, not real, but they understand His joy and they understand the love that He has for them.

Justin, you and I have even experienced this on theological shifts where I can remember the moment I started to understand the covenantal God who has this unmovable, unshakable love for me. That was an emotional experience for me to realize that I had just never seen the faithfulness of a covenantal God.

And it was one of those moments where I was brought to tears thinking about how much my God has proven His love for me.

Really quick on that, sort of autobiographically, like you're saying, I've been a Christian for a while by God's grace, but I've had several points in time, even over the last 15 years as my theology has continued to be refined, like you're saying, where you come to a greater and more deep understanding of Christ and the gospel and God and His faithfulness and our security and all these kinds of things.

And it is kind of like being born again again. So we're not saying that either, that you won't have things land on you anew. And there are times, brother, I mean, this is not trying to take us off down a trail either, but there are plenty of times for myself where in the ebbs and flows of my life, I'll be reading something or I'm in a service, like in my own local congregation, or I'm preaching even, and I am very gripped and affected by what's being said or what we're doing.

And it's not because I haven't heard it before, but it's just, okay, it's landing on me. So not trying to discourage people from treasuring those moments and from thanking God for those moments, but what we're trying to do is help people think through the fact that their love, their joy, it's going to ebb and flow all the time, and that there has to be something immovable and unshakable that does not change that would be the anchor of their soul.

That's right. And listen, people have different emotional tendencies. A good friend of mine who's a pastor here in Nashville.

That's a great observation.

Yeah. He, I think I've seen him cry once in the nine years or 10 years that I've known.

Him.

And recently, you know, I'm not a crier, but recently just with the amount of pain and suffering that's going in our church, I get up there and I see these people's faces when I started preaching and my eyes start watering up because I can just imagine how painful that, and I don't want it to do that.

It's not like I'm looking for it to do that, but you can't take personality because I've seen this where you have this gregarious, outgoing, very emotional personality. And that person is considered to be righteous and holy and close to God because they're always emotionally involved in what they're doing.

And then I have other people in my church who are like, the blip doesn't move from a straight line. Like their face never changes the expressions. They don't, they're not loud. They're not quiet. They're just, they just are.

And someone could say, well, dude, you are like flatlined. You need to like get in line with what God is and get excited about it. And I talked to this person. I was like, dude, this guy loves Christ.

He's doing more for the body of Christ than most people are. He just doesn't want anybody to know about it. And he doesn't need the emotional highs and lows to make himself feel significant within the body of Christ because he understands Christ is significant.

He is the one we focus on, not my emotional highs and lows. So he doesn't pursue it that way.

Well, I mean, just another brief observation related to what you're saying. Not only can we not trust our own emotions, I think that's very clear in terms of being our guide. We also cannot trust our evaluations of other people's emotions.

I mean, we just got to get over that right now, like for us to look around and assess how we think our brothers and sisters are doing in the faith based on the countenance on their faces or based upon how joyful we assess them to be like during singing or something.

I mean, it's just absurd because first of all, you have no idea what's going on in that person's life and what they may have endured and encountered yesterday or this morning before they showed up to this service.

But also like you're saying, everybody's wired differently in terms of how they express themselves and how they communicate and how they look. And so, yeah, that's just sort of a public service announcement to help you be a better church member and to love the saints in your congregation better.

Quit doing this evaluation of each other's emotional state and what that means about their affections for Jesus. Because like you said, there are all kinds of times you talk to people that seem to be quite still on the surface, but it actually is very deep underneath.

And the current is there, it just is not as much whitewater on the surface as we might surmise there to be.

Biblical Joy Is Resting in Christ, Not Chasing Feelings

So, Justin, what would you describe? I'm going to throw one at you. What would you describe the difference between an emotional Christian goosebump moment and biblical joy? What's the difference?

I mean, I've heard people contrast, for example, happiness and joy. I don't really want to do that right now. You know, like happiness is circumstantial, joy is transcendent. That's not what we're necessarily talking about here.

I think that what we're talking about there, like biblical joy, or even the word that we use often, you know, biblical rest in Christ is more of something that I would call like a resting heart rate posture that is ongoing, that's always there.

Our experience of how joyful do I feel is going to be all over the place. So certainly when we say, you know, biblical joy, it's not like a temperature check, like how am I doing now? How am I doing in an hour?

How am I doing tomorrow? That would be an unhelpful way of thinking about biblical joy. Biblical joy is very much tethered to rest and peace, that all is tethered to Jesus and what he has done for me.

Because Christ never changes, and his work for me never changes, I can have that resting joy and peace in Christ all the time, though I might feel quite differently about Christ or about my Christian life or about my life wholesale, depending on what moment of the day you talk to me.

But underneath all that, there is something that doesn't change and that has nothing to do with me, it has everything to do with Christ. That's how I would begin to answer that question. What would you say?

No, I think that's a great answer because, you know, Paul says that he demands joy, says be joyful in everything, and then Jesus promises joy. And so I look at that and I say, joy is not circumstantial, but we can't connect it to emotions.

The joy of the Lord is my strength means, I love how you rephrased it, it's sometimes easier to say the rest of the Lord is my strength. I can find rest and comfort. I could even say the comfort of the Lord is my strength.

So joy has this sense of rest and comfort because it's not based upon a circumstance, it's based upon a person, which is Jesus. So when we think about emotional highs and lows, I think biblically speaking, Paul can make these references and David can make these references because they are connecting them to something that's outside of our current circumstances, no matter how I'm feeling emotionally and no matter what's going on with me physically or emotionally.

So when Jesus says my joy can be in you and it can be complete, so it's not just abstract joy and it's not portions of joy. Jesus says the complete, full joy of myself can be inside of you. And he says, when you have love for one another, that's how you tap into it.

So what's interesting to me is that if you're going to pursue these moments of, I would say, safety and comfort and rest, it is not connected to actions like music or I would even say things like reading your Bible or these emotional prayers that we have.

I will tell you, I read a book, unfortunately, when I was in seminary that convinced me that if I got on my knees at four in the morning and just would not get up and beg for the presence of God to become around me and that I could be aware of it and worship him, then that's what was going to give me the energy for the day to obey and continue in my day.

I would wake up at four in the morning and I can remember the very first week I did that. It was like an experience I had never had, the emotional high, the crying, the joy.

That I felt.

And then after that one week, I couldn't get it to come back. It's no matter how hard I tried, no matter what I read, and it wasn't enough because that initial experience I had, it was like the Shekinah glory was in my living room.

It's like it went away and I couldn't figure out why.

Justin Perdue. Well, John, I'm resonating with you, not in terms of the particular piece of that book and praying at four in the morning or whatever, but I find myself, I've said this many times, the most common prayer I pray is God help me.

And I may be asking him to help me about any number of things, to not sin or whatever, like continue to give me faith, protect me from doubt and unbelief, whatever.

But oftentimes, too.

Jon Moffitt I mean, just to put some words to that, Justin, the three things that I almost pray for daily is mercy, grace, and wisdom, because those are the three things Jesus said, ask for liberally,.

Right?

Mercy, grace, wisdom.

And no, but I mean, even with respect to feelings and how I feel about God or Christ or the things of God, I mean, brother, I could be wrong in saying this, but I'm going to go ahead and throw it out because I think it's legit.

We in this life are meant to know, confess, see, and feel our need of Christ. And we are meant to know that we are debtors to grace and in need of grace all the time. And I think one of the ways that the Lord reminds us of that consistently is in this area because we don't often feel like we should.

And so that forces us to remember, I am dependent and I am in need. And like, I need God's grace. I need his mercy. I need his power. I need his help. If I'm even going to feel like I should, you know?

And so I think to find ourselves praying for this, not chasing highs, but for us to pray that God would give us grace and that he would help us and that he would stir our hearts, I think it's a reasonable thing to ask the Lord for and to see our need of it is not bad in this life as we are not fully sanctified yet and we haven't been resurrected yet.

Anyway, I want to pivot slightly, maybe with an anecdotal illustration of this, sort of what we're getting at. And in many churches, it doesn't have to be like the mega church context, though I think the illustration I'm going to give is kind of that.

This is not unique to me to make this observation either, so I'm not like uniquely brilliant or something in saying this, but how many times have you been to a church service?

We can all agree to that.

Thank you, brother. How many times have we all been to a church service where we walk in the space and it's, you know, maybe it's an inviting space, whatever, and there's the screen up front and it's got the countdown for the service to start.

You know, it's like the clock and it's ticking down and the music is playing and like, you know, with maybe like three minutes ago, the music ramps up.

Yeah, he is.

The music ramps up and the lighting changes. And then with a minute, it ramps up even more. And then for like the last 10, 20, 30 seconds, there's like this driving, like the, the kick drum, you know, it's like, boom, boom, boom.

And we're just, we're about to start this thing. And like right on cue, the worship leader, like with this grand gesture, grabs the microphone and he's like, you know, how y 'all feeling out there kind of thing.

And my, I mean, cause I've seen this. I mean, I trust many have experienced this. And my thoughts on that are several. One, it's like, well, what, what kind of New Testament question is that? You know, um, how am I feeling?

And it's like, depending on the day, you're going to get any different kind of answer because like maybe, maybe today, uh, maybe my wife and I had a fight in the car on the way to church. You know, maybe, um, you know, I spilled my coffee all over this or that or the.

Other, um, maybe, or maybe I just got a job promotion, right.

Maybe I did, but yeah, maybe so. Maybe I just got a job promotion, but it's like, in part, a lot of times for me, I come in to a service and I'm like burdened, I'm distracted. I've, I've got a lot going on in my initial thought, how y 'all feeling?

I'm like, well, uh, I feel kind of like a miserable wretch. And so what do you have for me? You know, like, cause if you're asking me how I'm feeling, that's a pretty hopeless thought. And that's where I think what we're trying to do is, is demonstrate the foolishness of that kind of question and that kind of approach to a church service or certainly the Christian life.

And I think we can certainly agree that rather than asking me how I feel, ask me something that's somewhat more significant than that. Ask me what I know to be true.

That's right.

Right. Ask me what I know to be true. Ask me what I know to be true, most pointedly about Jesus Christ and His work in my place, His atoning death. The satisfaction that He has made for my sins. The fact that in His death, I too have died to the law, that He has provided me with righteousness.

That's all I could ever need. And He is the ground of my peace and assurance, not just today, but forever and ever. Like, ask me what I know about that. And then we're getting somewhere. And then we might actually have something to sing about, you know, rather than this like really, whatever, this amorphous, freeform, fleeting, ever changing thing called how I'm feeling.

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You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

Bible Reading, Legalism, and the Burden of Performance

Well, and it's hard because you do see people moving the needle and moving the experience more and more and more to make sure that we're not distracting from that experience. Now, listen, I tell our congregants and our elders and deacons all the time that we don't want to distract from the reason we're there, which is fellowship in the Word.

So, if there's anything that's going to cause a distraction from that, then let's do our best to make sure that the temperature is set to the right room temperature and that the speakers are...

Justin Perdue. The space is reasonably inviting and not miserable to the ears.

Yeah, the way we can hear. If I'm preaching and people can't hear me, then how are they to hear the Word if it's not hitting their ears? So, don't hear us say that all those things don't matter.

Justin Perdue. That sounds like something that's in Romans 10. How are they going to hear without a preacher?

Exactly. What we're getting at is that I understand why people are turned off by church often because they get exhausted by the fact that they're going there. Everyone else around them is jumping up and down.

Everybody else is excited. Or, even if you're in a conservative church, everybody has a smile on their face, everybody seems to be clean cut and good, and they are demonstrating that, man, they just have this joy that I don't have.

Everybody's smiling and everybody's happy.

Justin Perdue. Really quick, I just kind of lambasted the sort of megachurch attractional model. Let me go after the traditional model real quick. So, even the whole kind of classic, you know, somebody gets up in the pulpit and greets everybody, and it's like, man, isn't it wonderful to be in the house of the Lord?

Okay, well, two thoughts on that. One, if you're asking me how I feel about being in the house of the Lord at this very moment, I don't know what I'm going to say to you because it depends on the week, but if you're asking me, do I know that it's good to be in the house of the Lord?

Yes, I do, but those two things are very different, and I assume that when you say, isn't it wonderful to be in the house of the Lord, I assume that you're talking to me about what I know and not what I feel.

But a lot of times, the way that comes across is, it's like, man, I should feel so warm and fuzzy about just being here, and I should feel so good about just being here in God's house. And it's like, man, I'm feeling nothing.

I'm afraid that if you told me that one of my children had died suddenly, I wouldn't feel anything because that's how jacked up I am emotionally, and I certainly don't feel all kinds of warm and wonderful things about being in the house of the Lord today.

So again, there better be something bigger than that for me.

That's right. Something outside of circumstance. Well, it's interesting that you used to say that, Justin. I mean, not to talk about what we do at our services, but you and I are very sensitive to the fact that we know who is walking into our context.

Every Sunday, I say to people, most of you, if not all of you, have walked in with shame and guilt for the failures of your week this week, and we want you to know one simple truth, that everyone stands here in equal need of God's grace.

I don't care how you feel or what you've done, you need God's grace. And then we go into a prayer of confession, and after we confess our sins and receive forgiveness, I tell them, now we have reasons to worship our God because he just forgave you of your sins.

That has nothing connected to your emotions, whether how you feel about that or not, you have one truth that remains. Your God who loves you is good with you, not based upon you, and that is more important than how you feel about him or how you have treated him this week, because the circumstances shall remain the same.

God saves sinners. I'm going to change a little bit. I know we've got a little bit of time left. I'm going to change this, Justin, to something that is a really hot topic. And there's a story I want to say.

I was shepherding somebody recently for this very purpose. They were emotionally just out. In every way, shape, or form. They weren't excited about church. They weren't excited about their faith. They weren't excited about their Bible reading.

And they said, I've been just dry. That's the way they described it. I've been dry for two to three years, and I just feel burned. And when I started peeling back the layers, eventually what I got them to admit was they actually not only were dry, but they were resentful towards God.

They were angry at him. I even got them to use the word, yeah, I kind of hate him, because they feel like they had put all of this energy and all of this effort into God. And at moments, there was these high points where they were discipling people.

They were being discipled. They were reading their Bible, and it was like jumping out of the page at them. They were enjoying church. And then circumstances changed. Life changed, moved, all of this. And then all of a sudden, the things that used to bring this moment of significance, it wasn't doing it anymore.

And the comment was, I felt like God moved away. Like he moved. He went away. He distanced himself from me, and I don't know why. So they were equating God's affection and God's concern and love to what?

Their emotional experience of God. And the moment they weren't experiencing it through the different methods that they had set up, they assumed God was the one who moved away, and they didn't understand why, and it just drained them to the point where they didn't want to try.

Anymore.

So this is what I said to them. This is going to sound funny. I'm going to have to explain myself. I said, you're not allowed to read your Bible for a year.

Oh my gosh, here we go.

And the courts, they looked at me and said, why? If I just told you I'm dry and I just told you I'm emotionally out of it, why would you say the one thing that could bring me back in is the one thing I can't.

Do?

And I said, because that's the one thing that caused all of this problem. I said, you just admitted that you go to the word of God and you're more depressed when you come away from it than when you entered into it.

I said, if the cause of your depression is an action, then maybe we should think about that for a moment. And it was at that moment, I was beginning to walk them towards your firm foundation of where you found your significance and where you found your hope was not in Christ.

It was in what you were doing for Christ. And not only that, as you went into the word, you were looking for that moment where there was this connection between you and God, that you were going to find that verse that was going to bring this connection back to this emotional experience that you're going to have.

And God's word is not designed to do that. It's not designed to do that at all. And yet we treat it in that way that we're looking for that golden nugget of the day. I would say you're chasing the Bible down to find that goose bump for the day to give you the energy to say, God's good with me because I experienced something.

This morning.

Yeah, you are. We talked about this in an episode we did months ago called how not to read the Bible. And one of the ways we said not to read it is this way, chasing after some experience, some high, chasing after a feeling that you would take away from the word.