INNER HEALING 1

Hi all,
I've not written about inner healing before, but have been thinking on it for several months, in general wondering why many are so quick to blame their past, or people past or present as a reason they can't do the right thing now. I've concluded many need inner healing, but not like churchianity most often defines it.
 
A definition please
By 'inner healing' I'm talking about how to actually walk out an emotional healing, not going to a session with someone hoping each hurtful event can be replayed and Jesus will touch each and make the injury go away.
 
It's wonderful when he does heal emotions like that, but usually we have to walk it out step by step, and that's what I'm talking about today.
 
What O what to do?
Ever since my wife and I were teenagers and came to know the Lord, we've asked ourselves 3 questions in any situation: What would the Father want me to think, say, and/or do? How can this be used to help me grow more Christ-like? What is my responsibility and required action? 
 
So our advice to people through the years has always been with the intent of moving a person in that same direction, assuming a believer always asks those 3 things of themselves. 
 
But the truth is that many people don't ask themselves those 3 questions, and if they don't want to grow in Christ they can't be helped, for ultimately every incident in life is an opportunity to either grow or stagnate, and only those willing to grow can be helped. Those who want to stagnate find enabler's, or a shoulder to cry on, or those who will agree with their points of hurt.
 
A person views life through what they carry in their heart. If what they are carrying differs from what
Jesus wants them to carry in their heart, the Lord will work from within them, asking them to give up those things carried, or think differently about them, or think/act differently towards the person(s) who inflicted the injury (real or imagined) they continue to carry.
 
Fear factor
The fear is that Jesus will make them leave the familiarity of their current condition, which is more comfortable than the unknown life Jesus offers. So they opt either to emotionally hunker down, or take action to distance themselves (emotionally, physically) from loved ones and/or friends.
 
New thoughts, self image, ways of thinking, ways of responding to people; it's all scary to someone who has lived in hurt. It's much easier to justify sin by blaming someone else - a spouse, relative or friend - than it is to humble oneself before them, admitting they are the one with the issues, and cry "help me!"
 
It's also much easier to seek a single touch by the Lord to wipe it all away in one fell swoop than it is to walk out a healing over time. Sometimes that desire to get a one touch healing becomes almost obsessive, the person going to this ministry and that, trying to find the one key to their healing, rather than realizing the Lord may be wanting to walk them through the healing rather than a one touch does it all type thing.
 
And some are so injured they don't know how to change and be healed.
 
Don't shout me down now
Being hurt is not an excuse for not doing what's right. Thus someone doesn't have to be emotionally healed before they can do right. Everyone can start where they're at and the Lord will meet them there.
 
Even in the secular world the list of people who made a positive difference in the world - inventors, industry leaders, and the like - are filled with people with very, very rough upbringings, yet they learned to do the right thing even without Christ - so someone doesn't have to be healed first to make right decisions.
 
Jesus is spoken of in Isaiah 9:6 as "counselor" (Heb: one who gives advice), and we must realize Jesus' advice will be that of His Word and helping us become more like him. I'm all for giving spiritual guidance, as long as the person receiving it is applying the counsel provided to their lives.
  
I thought inner healing involved sessions with someone replaying the past with me? 
You may be wondering if I never suffered any emotional injury but you'd be wrong. Please don't think that before or since we came to the Lord my wife and I lived by the motto of the Jodie Foster character in the movie "Nim's Island", who said: "I don't want to touch the world; it's not sanitary."
 
No, we each came out of home and family situations that many today cry out for "inner healing" from, or run to conferences or sessions about. We've been through "inner healing" from those family environments by one hard decision after another, choosing to ask those 3 questions above, keep our heart right before God, and doing the difficult but right thing, emerging whole and more like Jesus on the other side.
 
Oscar Wilde said "Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes" and we have lots of experience!
 
Don't get me wrong, I've been in many situations where the Father gave me a word of knowledge or mini-vision for a specific event in someone's life that resulted in peace or understanding of that situation through God's eyes. But most "inner healing" comes not through a session with someone looking over their shoulder at a past hurtful event, but rather looking forward to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. 
 
Abusers with mankind
The city of Corinth had this motto: "Liberty and knowledge", which highlighted their anything-goes culture. From pedophilia to prostitution to drugs, they had it all if it was related to the pursuit of personal freedom. 
 
In the following passage Paul makes a 3 part statement that we can view as a teeter totter with sins on one end, life in Christ on the other end, and what happened to them when they met Christ right in the middle. 
 
On this end...
If ever a people needed inner healing when they came to Christ, it was the citizens of Corinth. His list of their sins look very similar to abuses listed in inner healing brochures: "...neither fornicators (any sex outside of marriage), nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor (the whole range of homosexuality), nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous (user for personal gain), nor drunkards, nor revilers (literally 'abusive'), nor extortionists (seize/use force), shall inherit the kingdom of God..." (I Cor 6:9-10)
 
Can you imagine the dysfunction in the families of Corinth? Many of those who lived like the above paragraph were parents, children, grandchildren, cousins, employers - lots of hurt! And now they've come to Christ! So how does Paul advise them to work through their past sins, hurts, abuses, and memories?
  
The middle point of the teeter totter
After listing these various sins we might think Paul would immediately teach about how to free the mind of these memories, or to go back in the past and picture Jesus coming into that situation, or suggest the need to renounce each individual sin, or even recommend some intense prayer with a counselor.
 
He might even let them off the hook, understanding that mom or dad were abusive or neglectful when they were a child, or they were beaten, or their current spouse has a past and is acting out of that. Yes, he might have excused them because they were victimized or are currently in a difficult situation. 
 
Instead, Paul says this: "And such were some of you; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." (I Cor 6:11, Revised Standard)
 
Notice the 3 things that had happened when they met Jesus: Washed (born again), sanctified (set apart for God's use), and justified (declared righteous in God's sight). 
 
On the far end of the teeter totter...
He goes on to say in the next verse: "Everything is permissible for me - allowable and lawful; but not all things are helpful - good for me to do, expedient and profitable when considered with other things. Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power." (AMP)
 
Imagine Paul in Christ on one end of the teeter totter looking back through the middle part where they met Jesus, towards the other end where the sins are. To get to those sins he'd have to go through what he has in Christ. Yes, he could go back to his past if he wanted, using sarcasm in a reference to Corinth's "liberty and knowledge" motto, all things are lawful - BUT - he refuses to become a slave (again) or brought under the power (authority) of these things.
 
When confronted with memories of past sin and/or abuse, Paul has them look at these things through Christ; they were washed, set apart for God, and God Himself has justified them in heaven's court, and they should refuse to go back to be enslaved by those things on the other end of that teeter totter! But how did they get healed of the memories, guilt, and emotional hurt caused by their past (or current) life?
 
That's next week, when I'll share how I walked out my own inner healings, so stay tuned!
 
Some thoughts for today. Blessings,
John Fenn
www.ifaithhome.org