"Christian Romanticism" is a Myth

We often fail in our duties before God because we take too Romantic a view of the Christian life. Love, joy, obedience, worship - we behave as if these are things that normally attack us when we aren't looking. No doubt this is part of the reason marriages and friendships so often fail these days. But the reality of the matter is that the Christian life is one of deliberate intention. We reduce Christian virtue to emotion. But while all of salvation is a work of the Spirit, the way we achieve fruit is by the doing of it. If we lack joy, it is because we aren't actively rejoicing in God. If we are hung up in negative emotions, one of the first places to look is to one's life of thanksgiving, to examine onesself to see if we are living a life of expressing gratitude to God for His innumerable blessings towards us. Nothing could be more unbiblical than sitting around passively and waiting for "Christian" emotions to wash over you.