Living in the Freedom of the Spirit - Week #6

Hello, dear ones...before we jump into chapters 7 & 8, take a moment and ponder this statement by the author and its implications for you personally. You may get no further than this in reading this blog, and if not, that's just fine:

...the love of God is not like human love at all. It is not human love enlarged or magnified many times. The difference is qualitative, not merely quantitative...The love of God is absolutely unconditioned and totally unconditional. It cannot be merited, earned, altered or lost - it just is...

This fundamental truth is what the God-Man lived and died and now intercedes to make real to us humans, and the ministry of healing prayer is not first of all to make life pleasant for us or for others around us but to heal the heart so that it can receive this truth and thereby become like Him in love. As evangelical believers we understand the need for forgiveness and repentance of our personal sin, but sometimes we don't realize the need of cleansing and healing of personal emotional suffering in order to readily receive this unconditional and unchanging divine love.

The more I receive of this divine love (and it's taking me a lifetime), the more I realize how offensive it is to my flesh because it is so unlike human love and sympathy which I can manipulate. By the careful and skillful work of the Holy Spirit, I still find myself slipping into wanting to prove myself worthy in one way or another. And the fact that I may have caught a glimpse of this love at one time in my life doesn't mean I don't need to be seeing this over and over and over again in order for my heart to not be offended by life and its ongoing difficulties.

Now to the reading for this week. I'm going to just put down some bedrock truths that Tom Marshall gives in chapters 7 & 8. Thank you to those who made comments this week - I find myself challenged by those.

Chapter 7 "Healing for Inner Hurt"

• God's answer to human need is always two-fold - the work of the cross and the work of the Holy Spirit.
• Marshall expounds by saying that Jesus suffered in every way (spiritual, emotional, physical) to the uttermost, and because of that He is able to save to the uttermost, touching all areas of human sin and frailty and woundedness through His own suffering. This is why meditating on Isaiah 53 and the story of His crucifixion is important for our healing. But the work of the Holy Spirit is just as important or else the work of the cross means nothing to us personally as humans in need. He is the Spirit of adoption, which in Jewish understanding was the entrance of the son into maturity and adulthood. So without this Helper and Comforter at work in us, we cannot come into genuine adulthood in Christ.

Chapter 8: The Process of Inner Healing

• …for the Holy Spirit to heal our feelings he must gain access to them; we have to open up the hurt areas to His ministry…you can only deal with a feeling when you are feeling it.

The author gives an experience out of his life about this, but I want to testify that this has been true with me as well. Though raised by outstanding parents, they weren’t perfect, and over the years the Holy Spirit has surfaced a few experiences out of my childhood that were wounding. My parents themselves asked me forgiveness many years ago for a particular situation, but at the time I responded in an academic way and said I forgave them; it wasn’t until about a year ago or so that the Holy Spirit quickened this to me afresh but this time He helped me feel the emotion of the child I was at the time and I was able then to forgive and get release and healing at the gut level.

• ...we cannot open up the emotions by an act of the will….Memory is one of the most potent means of opening up the areas of hurt feelings (Psa. 42:4)…But we need to allow the Holy Spirit to do the reminding. Only He knows which memories are significant – and they may not be the ones that we would think are important.

Marshall goes on to talk about blockages to our healing, such as wrong attitudes, bitterness and unforgiveness, grief and sorrow, and just plain unwillingness to face up to unpleasant truths about our immaturity and behavior that someone has addressed. Without dealing with these realities, we can’t hope to receive the healing work of the cross and Spirit of those sins against us that cripple us emotionally.

• Forgiveness if often a pre-requisite to healing, but forgiveness itself will not heal us…The hurt has to be handed over to Christ.
• What makes gospel healing unique (and distinguishes it from all human psychotherapies) is that a real, living, supernatural Savior and Healer enters the picture. Often, with only an inkling of the suppressed pain and hurt that some people are holding at bay, I would be genuinely fearful of encouraging them to open up, if it were not for one thing – JESUS REALLY IS THERE!...(because of this)…the hurt we never thought we could get over, can go – permanently!
• Because emotional hurt many times results in immaturity, the healing of the hurt involves a process of growth. In strict terms, you cannot be healed of immaturity or delivered from it: you can only grow out of it.

Just as the little child must go through certain stages of development physically and intellectually in order to become an adult, so he or she must do the same emotionally; so if a particular stage of emotional development got skipped over because of something that shut him down in his formative years, then the Holy Spirit needs to pinpoint that and heal it so that emotional maturity can take place.

All of this may seem overwhelming, and it should because we can’t do this – that brings us back to chapter 7 and the need to know in a profound way that only the work of the cross and the Holy Spirit is sufficient for this. My role is to say, “Here I am, Lord…I’m willing for You to do what only You can do. I am Yours!” Then watch how He maneuvers to do His good work in you!

The Lord bless you...here’s the plan – let’s read chapter 9 which is the final chapter about the emotions, but let’s take two weeks before we go on to the next section, and I’d encourage you to reread chapters 7 & 8 along with 9 and take the time necessary to not only let these truths sink in but to pray over them with the Lord. Enjoy the Lord and others during the Thanksgiving holiday!