Tag: Biblical

Release those hurt, painful and fearful emotions into the hands of Jesus

Hanging onto fear, hurt and pain can actually block the healing power of the Holy Spirit in your soul. It is vital to open up and allow the Lord to heal your wounds.

Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”

Jesus paid the price for the healing of our souls and to set us free from the bondage that we have come under from the bruises that we’ve received. It is important to God that we receive this inner healing… His Son paid a costly price for it!

Matthew 11:28-30, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

In the above verse, it’s not speaking about a heavy physical burden, but a burden in a person’s soul. This is made evident in the later part of this passage where it says, “Ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Jesus is telling us to come unto Him and give Him our heavy burden, and take His yoke which is light and easy to bear.

Allow your painful emotions to be released as you give them to the Lord. It’s okay to cry, sob and let the damaged emotions come out as they are given to the hands of the Lord. Holding on to the pain and hurt will only prevent you from be healed.

James 5:16, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

If you can find a person to confide in, it can also be very helpful to share your burden with them and receive prayer for healing. There is tremendous healing that can take place as you share your pain with a fellow brother or sister in Christ!

Realize the love of God for you; this will help you open up and receive inner healing

Knowing the true nature of our heavenly Father will help us to trust Him and open ourselves up so that we can receive the healing that only the Holy Spirit can provide for us.

Romans 8:32, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”

After Christ has suffered and died for us, why would He withhold healing our wounded souls? We can confidently open up to Him and know that He has our best interests in mind simply by looking at what He went through on the cross for us.

You are loved by God, not because of what you’ve done, but because of who you are. The Bible tells us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He longed to have a relationship with you even before you became His child!

Romans 5:8, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Jesus said that the greatest love a man can show for his friends, is when he lays down his life for them. Jesus laid down His life for us – that is how valuable and dear we are to Him!

John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Did you know that God loves us with the same love that He had towards Jesus Himself? Yes, believe it or not, this is true! I want you to look up this verse in your Bible:

John 17:23, “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”

It is absolutely essential that we learn of and realize the love that our heavenly Father has for us. Without knowing the love of God for us, we cannot be filled with His fullness:

Ephesians 3:17-19, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.“

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Biblical steps to inner healing

I have compiled a basic list of fundamental steps that are so important for those receiving or ministering inner healing. This is a vital part of the deliverance ministry and plays an irreplaceable role in setting many free today.

God wants to take your wounds, pain, hurts, and sorrow!

Before we begin, I want you to know that God desires to heal our wounds and take our pain and hurt from us. You know how you can love somebody so much, that you wish you could take their pain or suffering from them? That’s how Jesus feels about us… He loves us so much that He paid the price for our emotional healing in the work on the cross!

Isaiah 53:4, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”

He carried our sorrows in His work on the cross. The NT Greek tells us that the word sorrows here literally refers to anguish, affliction, grief, pain, and sorrow. Jesus took these things and paid the price with His own blood for us! You need to know that God desires to heal your broken heart and bind up your wounds. This is what the Bible tells us:

Psalms 147:3, “He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”

Do you want to receive healing from emotional wounds, pain, sorrows, grief, and anguish? It is vital that we take advantage of what Christ has done for us, and learn to cast our cares upon the Lord. Not some of them, but ALL of them; knowing that He cares for you and wants to take those things from you.

1 Peter 5:7, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”

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Greed Is Our Problem

We are the problem. In Thinking Christian, I suggest, “When we have not offered a faithful digital presence, it is, in part, because we did not have a good idea of what it meant to offer a faithful ‘analog’ presence.”

We have always had a problem with greed. We seem to want the wrong things for the wrong reasons, thereby losing any reasonable grip on what it means to choose God over greed.

We cannot lose sight of the fact that exaggerated spectacles like Vegas and the gossip-column-framed-as-investigative-journalism have something in common: they wouldn’t exist without us.

Our desires begin to form us spiritually through economic systems in which we are, to one degree or another, willing participants. Greed often results in the accumulation of wealth. The fact that greed often results in wealth, however, should not blind us to other objects of greed.

Greed, we might say, is about the incessant pursuit of something deemed so valuable that obtaining it pushes out gratitude and contentment. We no longer “seek first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness” but set it aside to chase what has become the object of our misdirected desires.

Our desire to be fulfilled by something other than God, overreach God-given boundaries in pursuit of our own aims, and set agendas for God that relegate him to second (or third, fourth, fifth, etc.) position reflect the sort of self-centeredness that allows greed to flourish.

While Paul may rejoice at the spread of the gospel even when it is motivated by selfish ambition (Philippians 1:15-18), he isn’t endorsing selfish ambition.

Greed is rooted in our unwillingness to take direction from our Creator so that as we identify the objects of our desire, we give ourselves over to reflect those objects rather than God’s glory.

Arguably, even our most legitimate desires, when left unchecked and redirected by God, can limit our ability to love God and neighbor.

If we (individually or collectively) allow our desire for virtues, such as truth, justice, accountability, holiness, unity, or love, to overshadow God, we offer a false picture of Him to the world.

In our portrayal of God, He begins to look more like us. We suggest that God conforms to our desires and serves our purposes.

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Greed in the Information Age

When decisions about what to say and when to say it are conditioned less by slow, deep, Spirit-led discernment than on what will drive page views, greed rules the system.

When we consume such messages and, through our likes, shares, views, and downloads, request more of the same, greed becomes a natural logic.

They supply because we consume, and we consume because they supply. There is no particular end toward that which we are aiming for because “accumulating more” means we never have enough.

But what are we greedy for? It seems we are greedy for the security that comes from stories that confirm our beliefs, reduce or eliminate ambiguity, and remind us that there are people out there who are far worse than we are.

We are greedy for information that reinforces our experience, allows us to go about our day-to-day activities, and confirms our preferred understanding of God. Media, even some Christian media, can form us into the image of something other than Christ.

Christians seem willing to accept such an assertion when it comes to pornography, violence, or other such vulgarities, yet we don’t often consider the idea that other forms of media are capable of distorting reality and cultivating misdirected desires.

If we become greedy for such media, we may find that we have engaged in a sort of idolatry in which the god presented in the media becomes “real” while the real God is increasingly lost in the noise.

To put it differently, greed does not have to involve an increase in material goods. It can also involve the accumulation of information that allow us to live comfortably.

As theologian Jürgen Moltmann notes, while wanting to be like God is only one side of sin, “The other side of such pride is hopelessness, resignation, inertia, and melancholy…Temptation then consists not so much in the titanic desire to be as God but in weakness, timidity, weariness, not wanting to be what God requires of us.”

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LISTEN, THERE’S NOTHING–NOTHING–THAT CAN SEPARATE YOU FROM GOD’S LOVE.

If you’re feeling confused by what you hear out there in the world, listen to God. He can remind you in his spirit, in his word, in his song. Here’s one for itunes, for example: I am New by Jason Gray.

Verse snippet:

Too long have I lived in the shadows of shame
Believing that there was no way I could change
But the one who is making everything new
Doesn’t see me the way that I do
Who I thought I was
And who I thought I had to be
I had to give them both up
Cause neither were willing
To ever believe

I am not who I was, I’m being remade
I am new
Dead to my sin, I’m coming alive
I am new.

Let’s pray for the spirit to help us walk in the purity of the Lord. He remade us, and we can trust that.

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LET’S TAKE IT RIGHT FROM THE BIBLE

The apostle Paul gives it to us straight:

In the past I spoke against Christ and persecuted him and did all kinds of things to hurt him. But God showed me mercy, because I did not know what I was doing. I did not believe.

But the grace of our Lord was fully given to me, and with that grace came faith and love that are Christ Jesus. What I say is true, and you should fully accept it: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of who I am the worst. But I was given mercy so that in me, the worst of all sinners, Christ Jesus could show that he has patience without limit. (1 Tim 13-16)

Read Romans, read Galatians, read Ephesians, read Corinthians… Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Read where you feel called to read. It’s all there. Read the Bible.

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CONFESSING HATE

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “hate” is defined as intense hostility and aversion, usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury. If  Jesus boiled down the 10 commandments to two laws, which were “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself,” how can we find it OK to disobey?

If we ever find an excuse to justify hating on another, especially someone who is innocent of the attack, we directly refuse the teaching of Jesus Christ.

Welcome to part 4 of the Going By Faith series “Uncovering Sin and Finding Forgiveness.” For last week’s confession on cowardice, click here.

How it works: First pray with the Bible verse and then read the questions one by one — answer them truthfully. This is between you and God.

Every “yes” answer means sin in your life, so spend time confessing it. Name it to God. Let there be no excuse for it — just admit it and ask forgiveness.

PRAY

Verse: John 13:35 (NLV)

“Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

CONFESS

  • Are you secretly pleased over the misfortunes of others?
  • Are you secretly annoyed over the accomplishments or advancements of another?
  • Are you guilty of any contention or strife?
  • Do you quarrel, argue, or engage in heated discussions?
  • Are you a partaker in any division or parting spirit?
  • Are there people whom you deliberately slight?

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We already know that whatever is in our hearts determines what we say (Matt 12:34), so take it a step further and question the secret thoughts that no one hears. They are still things we say, just not aloud.

Luke 5:45 tells us:

A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

It doesn’t matter what others do or how others act, let’s leave nothing undone on our part. We’re not perfect, and we need God’s Holy Spirit to help us turn the tide of negative thoughts, feelings and words, but hating on other people is sin at work displayed for all to see. We know it’s not the right way.

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Confessions of a Hater

Most of us don’t think of ourselves as haters, but most of us also turn a blind eye to activities we enjoy — especially when it comes to hearing about the misfortune of others.

While there’s a clear difference between spreading malicious gossip and listening to the latest news, it’s how we process the information that matters.

If you feel put off by it, you already realize the destruction it causes enough to stay away. But if you find yourself encouraging it… enjoying it… that’s a whole different issue.

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CONFESS

  • Have you robbed God by withholding his due of time, talents and money?
  • Have you given less than a tenth of your income for God’s work?
  • Have you failed to support mission work either in prayer or in offerings?

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It sounds strange to ask if we’ve robbed God of what he gives us, but the deep truth is that God provides everything to us and we will show if we can be trusted with it. We have all met people who are happy to take. Are they just as happy to give? Are we this way?

Or how about giving on “my terms.” We want to give what we no longer need or want to whom we choose. Do we disregard what God’s asking us to do… and to do joyfully?

God tells us what he wants for us. He lets us know where we can help, especially when we pray about it. Perhaps we are called to give more of our personal time to serving others. Maybe it’s donating to a special charity, a Christian radio station, a friend or family member in need.

While we confess greed in our lives, we can combat it by giving. The most important element is giving God’s way, which he tells us in our hearts.

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PRAY

Verse: Acts 20:35 (NIV)

“In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

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