Emotional Intelligence For Lasting Love Part 2 by Apostle Emmanuel Iren: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Love Without Action Is Just an Emotion

1 Corinthians 13:1-3: "Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, if I do not have love, I am nothing." It is possible to speak in tongues fluently and be wicked. Tongues of angels — but you can't say sorry. No introspection. No accountability.

Biblical love is described first as action: "If you love me, keep my commandments." It is also described as a fruit of the spirit — which means love is what you experience when your spirit is healthy. When your vertical relationship with God is right, it subconsciously improves every horizontal relationship around you.

Prayer Is a Strategy for Soul Maintenance

Has it ever happened that you left a powerful worship meeting and then walked straight into a situation that would normally bring out your worst — but it was hard to switch? When you find that place daily, love becomes natural. This is why prayer is not just devotion — it is a strategy for soul maintenance. It oils your heart so you think and feel rightly.

There is a reason the most consistently patient people you know are the most consistently prayerful. And the ones who are unusually irritable on certain days — they haven't prayed today.

The God-Shaped Hole

Jeremiah 2:13: "My people have committed two evils — they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

John 4 — the woman at the well. She came daily and was never satisfied. Jesus said: "Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again." One of the worst things you can do is marry someone who is thirsty — seeking from you a satisfaction that can only come from God. They will wear you out. You will never be good enough. The hole is God-sized.

Growing in Emotional Intelligence

• Practise receiving feedback — deliberately ask people for honest feedback, then sit in the discomfort without deflecting
• Learn to say sorry — start looking for people you've offended, even years ago
• Understand that context shapes people — when you understand why someone acts as they do, you can respond with wisdom rather than reaction
• Separate intention from action — Jesus said of the sleeping disciples, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Brilliant emotional intelligence: separating action from intention

The people who consistently struggle to maintain relationships, who fall out with everybody — it is not always the other people's fault. Recognise the pattern in yourself. Do the attachment style test. Understand how you relate.

Have a Relationship With Yourself

You must love yourself. There must be a confidence that comes early: whatever anyone thinks is their opinion — you are confident in your own skin. There are things God has given you that others don't have.

If the world was starting again and you were given the opportunity to be anyone else, would you refuse? Not many people have accepted themselves. People will believe in you when you stop caring whether they do or not.

The goal of emotional intelligence is this: that we will be able to tell the quality of your walk with God by the way you treat the people around you.