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We were created in the image of the God of eternal relationship.
We were created to find our sense of belonging, acceptance and value in relationship with Him. We will never cease to search for value, belonging and acceptance since it is woven into the fabric of our being.
A Deceiver lied to our parents and they ruined their relationship with Father. Their behaviour required Father to stand in the role of Judge and the human heart shattered and reverberates with shame and fear to this day.
The combination of our need for God mixed with the tragedy of our loss through the Fall opens us up to deceptions about how love, acceptance and belonging can be found.
The Shame Base with the pain it generates is the engine of the cycle of addiction.
By creation we build our inner sense of value and the conditions for love, acceptance and belonging by reflection. Here is the foundation of the tendency to co-dependency.
The fallen heart has a tendency to believe lies more readily than it believes the truth. The four lies identified are:
1. I must meet certain standards to be at peace with myself.
2. I must be approved of by certain others to be at peace with myself.
3. Those who fail are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.
4. I am what I am, I cannot change - I am hopeless.
Jesus has provided for every one of our needs. His work is so profound as to totally and forever reverse the work of the Fall and his grace to me contradicts every one of the lies which robs me in life.
The truths of Justification, Reconciliation, Propitiation and Regeneration stand as the foundation of my hopes and my rebuilding process.
It is important to state that you were wounded without intention on your part but you will not get well again without deliberated effort. Our effort, however, is not to create the healing process but to hold to the one provided for us and to fight the forces that would seek to divert us from the path of healing.
As we have considered already there are 5 basic elements to the healing process:
1. Honesty
See yourself as you really are - admit your feelings, pain etc.
2. Affirming Relationships
We need affirming relationships. cf learning English in Germany. It is easier to learn it when surrounded by it. We too need affirming relationships and messages around us.
3. Right Thinking
We need to fully understand what God thinks. What is true.
4. Holy Spirit
You don’t have the ability alone.
5. Time
Extremely necessary
In the process of healing there are a number of keys insights that can greatly assist those who are seeking to rebuild their thoughts, emotions and behaviours in line with the wonderful truths we have been considering.
The key to a whole and God-filled life is revealed in the bible in a number of places, all which concur with what Paul says in Ephesians 3:14-19:
For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Paul talks of the inner man - the real person on the inside.
If you want to be filled with all the fullness of God - if you want this kind of strength on the inside, then the Holy Spirit has to get Jesus inside you - to affect and influence your inner man. We need to be rooted and grounded in love.
- cf Heart of man - it’s what comes of our hearts that makes us what we are
- cf Prov 4 - Heart = hidden springs
No matter who we are, things continually bubble up to the surface. They are motivations.
If the heart is broken - the springs will come out broken
If the heart is evil, the springs will be evil.
We need Jesus to get into our hearts - to touch the motivation centre of our lives. The human heart has been rooted and grounded in fear, unbelief, shame, deception, suspicion etc. It is no wonder that what bubbles out is junk, destructive and hurtful.
We need God to get in there.
In protecting and restoring your heart there are two issues that must be understood by those who are seeking to pursue the rebuilding process.
All your motivating forces have been influenced and affected.
How did all this trouble start in the first place? By listening to Satan.
... ‘In Australia?’ For some this is hard to believe. But it is important to see what is around us’
As we look at the results of Satan’s work we come to understand:
Satan has a franchise in Australia too.
We are too aware of black times or black clouds over us - yet too often we try to explain them in human terms.
If the problem is spiritual - we will never solve it by psychology, self-help, legislation.
We live in a world that is not material only - this is a spiritual world too.
We need to learn to deal with this spiritual opposition.
How?
1.The truth of God and His word about us and the world.
2. My active declaration of (1) - (prayer, worship, confession)
We need to stop this mail being delivered to our address.
2. INNER HEALING
Experiences we have had in life sometimes live on inside us and become the evidence our broken hearts use to underline the false beliefs to a point where they become strongholds.
This is why we believe lies so easily.
‘The shame base makes us vulnerable. Add to this a series of wounding experiences (eg humiliation, rejection, abuse) these add up to a stronghold of rejection. eg. Humiliated in front of class, dropped by boyfriend, abused by father.
The experiences underline and reinforce negatives.
Just like a broken leg that isn’t set properly will be crooked for life. Unless it is re-set it will never be right.
Because our hearts are broken as a result of the fall it is so easy to hear something and then reason with our broken hearts to a wrong conclusion.
It is also possible to have been influenced by pre-birth experiences.
Inner healing just acknowledges that there have been experiences which have wounded my heart and underlined the negative feelings I have about myself.
How will we discover what these incidents are, if there are any?
Not by self-cross-examination (Bad enough to live the first time). Any real woundedness will show up in thoughts, behaviour, speech, feelings actions.
Ask God to show you any strongholds. He may lead you to remember a crucial incident.
It is vital to know that Jesus claimed the authority and anointing to heal broken and wounded hearts (Isaiah 61:1-4). In ministering to the bruises and hurts in the hearts of those seeking to rebuild we have found the following principles to be effective:
There are a number of ways we can connect with God and His love and experience that healing - five ways:
JAMES 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
Confession and openness followed by sympathetic and focused prayer.
Mt 18:32,33
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'
Helping people to forgive. Sometimes it can help to find a reason - "God, forgive them because ...."
Unforgiveness stops the flow of God’s love to us
GOD’S WORD
Ps 139.
O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
2You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.
5You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13For you createdmy inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
19If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you?
22I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
God’s word can be a secure place of truth for us to hang on to.
God will often lead you especially to verses or passages that are directly for you. However we need to apply the Word generally and literally too.
ANOINTED VISION (Jn 14:26)
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
As we pray and connect with GOD, He will draw close to us and He is able to minister to us in a way that heals.
See Jesus coming alongside to feel the pain along with you.
AFFIRMING PRAYER
Soaking the issue in prayer that is full of faith and gentleness and assurance.
Satan always tries to use the wounding experiences of our lives to keep us down. He has handles on our lives.
The two areas of Spiritual Warfare and Inner Healing frequently combine as the enemy of our souls stirs the hurtful experiences of our past to re-inforce the lies. It is not uncommon to find that inner healing removes the handles our enemy uses to manipulate and harass our lives.
Scripture references have been taken from the New International Version of the Bible.
