Blessed Thanksgiving to you all!
I simply want to greet you and say how thankful I am (not just on a formal holiday) for the Lord of my life and for His people, without whom I would be so lost!
Because we're taking more time to finish out the chapters on the emotions, this posting will be simply a quote from chapter 8 that I want to repeat from last week's posting for you to consider carefully...it means a lot to me because in my little experience of ministering to others in these areas, I have fear and trembling to do this if it weren't for the growing confidence I have in the work of the cross and the Holy Spirit in each person's life. If I weren't convinced that God wants to heal human emotions and can be trusted to know how to handle each person with dignity and care and that I don't have to get it all right in praying for another, I wouldn't dare step into these waters. Tom Marshall expresses it well:
"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."
And so His very real presence is what makes us dare to face emotional pain and hurt and then to become "wounded healers" for others. He is with us right now - praise His name!
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Can we really be real like it talks of in Chapter 9?
ReplyDelete…Not hold back our heart?
…To make a way for the Holy Spirit to reach out of our personality to touch another?
like streams of living water!
I finally discovered one of my deep desires: to see and perceive another or a situation accurately from my spirit and walk in those steps that Jesus did. To make a way for the Holy Spirit to reach out of my personality to touch others.
My problem is that I’m always unsure if I am perceiving rightly!! This is the area I would like prayer for—this holy perception…that brings the right emotions…and the right action. …Just think, to be sure that what is going on inside is the right perception. Just imagine the impact on this world and on the church as this becomes operational...whew!!
To start off with very little confidence, then to gradually develop a bit of confidence (or was it a façade?). Then to have been touched by deception during and after a deep depression years ago, how can I trust the perceptions, thus the emotions, thus any action? It is very difficult….unless I get some affirmation from someone else (even if I am positive that it is correct…everyone can be wrong, you know). Why can’t that “other” be the Holy Spirit as it should be?...Right? Oh, I forgot, this is perhaps one reason why, as the Body of Christ, we come alongside one another.
I’ve gone through so much cleansing and so much confession/repentance, etc (and I am forever grateful to the Lord for the help He brought me to help me work through some of this stuff…..and I still do as anything crops up). But, why am I still “held back” so to speak? Sometimes it drives me crazy to think about. I realize we are weakened when we enter into a deception, but shouldn’t the redemptive work of the cross and the Holy Spirit be a stronger activity within me?
This quote is rather comforting: No matter how inept or inadequate we may feel, our true inner being provides the spirit with all that it needs to flow out as a river of life….When this happens, we experience not our feelings, but the feelings of the Holy Spirit. And the author goes on to quote Paul: God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. Phil 1:8.
Jesus heard by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. Jesus lived so that He touched a situation with His spirit first…then the proper emotion came so He knew what action to take. (fits in to Nita’s latest quote she sent us today).
And we have this relationship with Jesus…this openness. I found myself totally agreeing with the fact that the memory is the most potent means of opening up hurt feelings…we deal with the present hurt that enables us to get at the memory. Then it becomes accessible to us and to God to heal.
Can we really be real like it talks of in Chapter 9?
…Not hold back our heart?
…To make a way for the Holy Spirit to reach out of our personality to touch another?
like streams of living water!
I have to say yes; however, it is by grace as well as a determined walk to become all I am to become in the Lord.
There were 2 comments Marshall said that were highlighted to me at the beginning of the chapter. He writes, "How is God to restore this disobedient person who runs away and hides, and who has all sorts of negative feelings every time God gets near?" (the answer of course is in the incarnation of Jesus) ... and on the following page it speaks of Jesus who in being baptized in the Jordan, "He identified Himself with our sinfulness, our lostness and our alienation."
ReplyDeleteToday as I read it, I thought "That's so me." I freak our when God draws near or when He's calling me to come to Him - esp. in the moments when I blow it and know that I blow it. Everything w/i screams "run away & hide," but I just want to get that He loves me, but there's such a resistance to believing in His love. He actually WANTS me to come to Him when I failed (whether it's sin or whether I just made a mistake). I guess it all goes back to believing that He loves me, not feeling like He loves me. His love doesn't change towards me--it's so radical and different from any other love. I want to know this love - I want to know Him (like really, truly).
I remember Nita often saying that "now would be a good time to put that into practice and walk it out - live as though it's true." Ahh, the Truth penetrates and convicts - and leads to the One who loves me.