Measuring Up Against the AGFLAP-CAP Chart

The AGFLAP-CAP chart is a wonderfully accurate way of showing where we measure-up when it comes to our emotional state. I’ve encountered quite a few self-help books and methods attempt to map-out the emotions. One such example is the excellent book, Mastering Your Emotions, by pastor and Bible Teacher Colin Dye. But I would say that none of these books have come close to Sedona Method and Release Technique when it comes to providing a comprehensive chart of the different emotional states – in a way that is so simple to understand as well.

There is often an emphasis in the church on the things that people do as a means of identifying a person’s character. However, the Pharisees were the religious elite of Jesus’ day - they kept the religious rules and observed the rituals, yet Jesus called them a “brood of vipers”. Even today, we have Christians who claim they are “walking in love”, when all along, they are masquerading a sinful nature behind good works, rituals and religious clichés.

Courageousness and Acceptance

The AGFLAP-CAP chart tells us that the emotional states of courageousness and acceptance are both loving. Acceptance includes the following synonyms: friendly, gracious, embracing, considerate, compassion and understanding. How can a person walk in love without these qualities?

In order to walk in love and towards others, we need to have the kind of qualities seen in courageousness, such as: aware, cheerful, compassion, competent, confident, decisive, enthusiastic, flexible, giving, loving, self-sufficient and supportive. We cannot adequately serve other people without these essential qualities – no matter how much we want to. Without these kind of qualities, people can end-up half-heartedly going through the motions, not being able to make decisions and giving-up when the going gets tough.

Courageousness, acceptance and peace are the states in which a person can be seen as abiding in love, and for Christians - possessing faith. A person cannot say they have love if they have a tendency, for example, to be: foreboding (fear), timid (fear), guilty (grief), listless (apathy), frustrated (lust and anger), compulsive (lust) or opinionated (pride) - you get the idea. If a person has these kind of tendencies, they will often wonder why life is not going so well for them.

Anger

We cannot adequately serve others if we are regularly in a state of anger, which includes the synonyms: abrasive, aggressive, argumentative, brooding, demanding and jealous. If a Christian attempts to serve God when he is regularly angry or jealous towards people, then that anger can easily become diverted towards those people whom the angry Christian is trying to good works for or with – this is particularly the case when the want for approval is the motivating force behind such acts of benevolence, and that want is not being fulfilled by the other person’s appreciation.

Apathy and Grief

If a person is in a state of apathy or grief they will hardly be able to do anything good for others or themselves; apathy includes: depressed, drained, indecisive, lazy, and unfocused and why try? Living a life of serving others requires commitment – apathy or grief will rob a person of that ability to keep on going when the way gets hard. In fact, if a person is in apathy, they will lack the energy to do even the simplest of things.

Lust

Even lust, which has enough energy to commit to something for a time, cannot serve people well; synonyms for lust include: devious, driven, envy, impatient, manipulative and pushy. When a person is in lust they want something – they are operating in one or more of the four wants and maybe some of their opposites as well. When a person is in a state of lust they will often make efforts to be kind, friendly and helpful – but it will be subconsciously, and perhaps consciously, motivated largely out of a compulsion to fulfil their wants in some way.

The Want for Approval and False Love

The want for approval is a huge motivator for those who do seek to do nice things for people. I have seen many anxious Christians who seek to please God, and other Christians, with their efforts to do good works. I have heard so many Christians complain that they have invested so much time and effort into “serving God”, only to find that they are at loggerheads with other Christians and their efforts don’t seem to gain them the reward, attention and appreciation they were hoping for.

The Need to Let Go of Pent-Up Emotion

The AGFLAP-CAP chart of emotions can give us a clue as to why our best efforts to be kind to other people never seem to endure or fulfil our expectations. We can become more aware of our real intentions by focusing on our emotional state in relation to our actions. This is not intended to put someone into a state of morbid introspection, but to simply become aware of their feelings so that they can release them effectively.

If not released, these negative emotions simply become ignored, repressed or expressed in the wrong way. Repressed emotions often become expressed through other channels when the emotions become to much to contain and when the opportunity presents itself – often when a person least expects it. You could see releasing as a means of opening these emotional “pressure valves” as a means of letting go of pent-up emotion.

Releasing versus Morality

Living life by a set of rules simply does not work. There are many Christians who try to live by a moral code, much of which is founded more on religious tradition than the Bible. Even if the Bible says that a person should or should not do a thing – that written rule has no power whatsoever to make a person obey it. It is for this reason that Jesus came to fulfil the law so that we could be made right with God by believing in Him. The Bible promises a blessed life to those who believe in Christ, yet many Christians still struggle in life. There are scores of Christian books that advocate following principles and maintaining a positive attitude as a means of being blessed. There are also scores of secular self-help books which do a very similar thing. In all of these methods the onus is put on the adherent to think positively and live right – which is often easier, said than done! Thankfully, releasing offers a simple and effective solution to this dilemma by allowing the ability to release emotions and their underlying wants.

⁴ And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.

⁵ Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them - living and breathing God!

⁶ Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.

⁷ Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing.

⁸ And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

⁹ But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about.

Romans 8:4-9 msg