Wounds that Heal - Week #4

The longer I live and walk in the Lord Jesus, the more blown away I am by how radically different the Gospel of Jesus Christ is from any other religion! And I also realize how very offensive His unrelenting and unconditional love for weak humans is to the flesh…we tend to get very uncomfortable with staying in that place of receiving His radical love. I’m learning to deliberately let God love me in Jesus; my response of love is then soundly based on receiving His love for me (I John 4:19). This book is a fresh look at the love of God dramatically shown in the cross of Christ!

Just this week I was talking with a friend and we were enthusiastically agreeing that reading this book is underscoring very much the reality that there is not one area of human suffering that Jesus did not taste in His suffering. So far the author has dealt with Jesus’ suffering the areas of rejection and shame; this week’s chapter (chapter 4 – Why Have You Forsaken Me?) deals with abandonment and disappointment with God.

Seamands begins with two stories, both about Christians who went through devastating experiences. One was a pastor whose wife divorced him, the other an active Christian woman whose husband died suddenly when he was 40 years old. Both experienced deep disappointment in God and as a result, the pastor found himself no longer desiring to pray, and the Christian wife turned her back on God and quit going to church for 15 years.

The Effects of Disappointment with God
The author gives 3 things that can happen in our relationship with God when we experience disappointment with Him becayse He seems to have abandoned us.
1. Disappointments with God damage our trust receptors. “Damaged trust receptors make it painful to reach out to God. Memories of past disappointments convince them God will always be indifferent. They also stir up shame. Feeling that God abandoned them confirms they are worthless.”
2. Disappointments with God fuel anger at God. “Years after some painful experiences, we may still be angrily clenching our fist at God without even realizing it…As a result of anger fueled by disappointments, many sincere Christians work at cross purposes with themselves. One hand is open, reaching upward toward God…But the other hand is a clenched fist raised upward against God. It’s as if they are driving a car with one foot on the accelerator while the other is on the brake!”
3. Disappointments with God expose our idols. “…We assume that in exchange for our service God is obligated to grant our desires. What happens when God doesn’t fulfill them? We feel let down, sometimes even betrayed…So our disappointments with God are often the children of our false expectations. And behind our false expectations lurk the idols, the false gods we worship.”

Bringing Our Disappointment with God to the Cross
Jesus expressed His disappointment with His Father with the words from Psalm 22:1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This was His own cry of dereliction (abandonment), but it was also His cry on our behalf. “He gave expression to all of humanity’s…groaning cries of disappointment with God. On the cross, our cries are both anticipated and caught up in his.”

Seamands speaks to the tendency among Christians to NOT freely express our disappointments and anger but rather cover them over with religious ideas of resignation: “’If God has allowed something to happen, what right do you have to cry out against it?’…Better then to resign ourselves to what God has ordained, accept it, no questions asked. Churches are not often places where people feel free to voice disappointment with God or raise hard questions. Those who dare to do so are frequently shamed into silence.”

I remember many years ago when I was a young missionary and the Spirit began to teach me to be honest with my feelings. He discovered to me that I was calling anger by other names, thereby disguising my true emotions even to myself. This took the courage of the Spirit in me because I was trained in the religious school of thought that considered negative emotions as sinful. Because I sincerely wanted to please the Lord, I found ways to negate what was really going on inside me. But in the Lord’s goodness and gentleness, I began to recognize what was going on and “dared” to begin to be honest with Him about it. This was liberating for me because I could release freely to Him that which would have stayed hidden and done its damage deep within. I found that the least little offense or hurt or disappointment that I experienced would lose its power to poison if I would take brief moments to process them with Him.

I continue to find this imperative in my earthly walk for keeping my heart tender. It’s the tiny daily issues that, if not dealt with regularly, accumulate to harden the heart. And the tragedy is that one can have a hard heart and not know it because it happened so slowly.

Frank Lake takes Psalm 42 and shows how the psalmist processes depression, and the first step is to be honest with God about his emotions. There are subsequent steps, but Lake says (and I’ve come to the same conclusion) that this first step is the one most difficult for many believers. So I encourage you to take strength from Jesus’ cry of disappointment with His Father and know that this is a legitimate step in the process of coming into healing.

Stephen Seamands quotes Pierre Wolff: “If Jesus in all his perfection had the audacity to ask his Father, ‘Why?’ we can express to God all our whys, since the why of the Son of Man embraced ours. None of our whys can be excluded from his, because all of our whys are healed through his.”

Overcoming the Effects of Disappointment with God
All three of the effects listed above were part of Jesus’ crucifixion:
1. Damaged trust. “This cry (‘My God…why…?’) is the only place in the Gospels where Jesus doesn’t address God with the personal, intimate ‘My Father,’ but instead uses the more formal, distant ‘My God.’…God seems mysteriously divided from God. God forsakes God…Separated from each other, the relationship between the Father and Son seems to break off. Yet at the cross, the Father and the Son are never more united, never more bound together. They are one in their surrender, one in their self-giving. The Father surrenders the Son…The Son, in turn, surrenders himself to the will of the Father…held together by oneness of will and purpose.” Jesus’ final word from the cross is also from the Psalms (31:5): “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Jesus trusts His Father in the midst of His questions, and it is His faith that we can draw on as we meditate on our losses in the light of His experience of abandon-ment and disappointment. (Galatians 2:19,20)
2. Anger against God. “Christ became the willing, innocent victim of their rage. But not only their rage – ours too…Our anger at God’s failure to deliver us and our indignant protests over life’s injustices emerged in full force at the foot of the cross…What then should we do with our anger fueled by disappointment with God? Christians often hesitate to admit they are angry at God…The cross proclaims that our anger does not intimidate God. He is able to handle it. In fact, the cross is the great anger absorber of the universe. The rage, the anger of all humanity against God, was borne in Christ’s broken body…There we can own it…And then we can disown it and give it to Christ there. Instead of carrying the anger ourselves or venting it on others, we can let him carry it for us."
3. Exposed idols. The 180 degree change of the crowd from their cheers for Jesus to their cry for His crucifixion was because of their disappointment over Him, and this disappointment was based on their false expectations. And behind the false expectations was hidden the idol that they worshiped: military and political power. Just today, once again, I cried out to the Holy Spirit to make the real Jesus known to me; I want to know Him for who He truly is and not the false Jesus that I make up. In meditating on the cross in submission to the Spirit of Jesus, we will discover His real presence and very likely will have some false expectations of what He is like exposed to us. When this happens, it’s important to face them and allow Him to destroy them so that we have our conscience cleansed from dead works to serve the living and true God.

(A reminder again that if it helps you process the material, the author ends each chapter with a few questions.)

The Lord is with you, and He will shepherd you this week! Holy Spirit of Jesus, show us more of what He accomplished in His sufferings, not only for our personal healing and restoration but for that of those You have placed under our influence. Accelerate Your work in us for the sake of Jesus and the Father! Thank You for hearing our heart cry…

For next week we will read chapter five: He Led Captivity Captive.

Wounds that Heal - Week #3

Chapter three of Wounds that Heal touches on the sufferings of Jesus as it relates to bearing our shame in His death.

Stephen Seamands says, “Shame, growing out of deep-seated human hurts, can wreak havoc in our lives and lies at the root of much self-destructive behavior. Like infection in a wound, it festers long after the injury occurs. Sometimes…it can take on a life of its own.”

The fact that we can experience shame shows the nobility of humans. (Pause before God a moment and appreciate the nobility of your soul...) Only beings that can discriminate between good and evil can experience shame, and shame was the first consequence of their sin that the first couple experienced. Genesis 3:7 speaks of what happened after their disobedience: they became painfully aware of themselves, of their nakedness; but rather than own up to their sin and seek God for help and covering, they opted to hide from Him and cover themselves up. They no longer had an open and unashamed relationship with God nor with one another.

The hiding from God led to blaming one another when God came looking for them. But God, in His unrelenting love and jealousy over His children, will never stop pursuing us, no matter how much we attempt to avoid facing Him. We, like Adam and Eve, cover up before God by blaming others (including the devil) in an attempt to convince Him that we’re ok.

Seamands quotes Lewis Smedes who says that shame “gives us a vague disgust with ourselves, which in turn feels like a hunk of lead on our hearts.” Because we weren’t created to carry this weight within our being, it will “wreak havoc in our lives” and often, if not dealt with in the cross, will “take on a life of its own” and can cause physical breakdown as well as other types of breakdown.

Shame is different from guilt, which has to do with sinful behavior. Shame has to do with who we are, not merely with what we do. Shame tells us that we have no value and are fundamentally flawed as a person and therefore not worthy of being part of the human community.

As can be seen in Adam and Eve’s response, shame has to do with self-exposure, feeling that all the wrong and deficient things about us are exposed for all to see, and so we desperately look for “fig leaves” to cover over our condition so that others won’t reject us. Shame is so disorienting and painful that we go to extreme measures to find relief; when it is “toxic”, we will turn to drugs, work, food, alcohol or whatever can numb the pain of feeling exposed.

Shame also exposes the false gods in whom we have trusted to save us. Whenever we, like Adam and Eve, place our trust in the “promises” of false loves, we discover that they don’t deliver what was promised, and shame covers us.

“Some of the shame we feel comes as a result of the victimizing sins of others. What they have done can cause us to believe we are inherently flawed. But we also feel the shame because of our own sins and idolatries. We bow down to false gods such as control, safety, approval, power, freedom, perfectionism and invincibility, and we are ‘put to shame’ when they fail to deliver.”

(Sometimes we don't even recognize that we are being put to shame, because it's attached to religiously-acceptable behavior, such as perfectionism or work addiction, etc.)

The Shame of the Cross
Hebrews 12:2 speaks of Jesus enduring the cross, “disregarding its shame.” Because death by crucifixion was reserved only for those that were the worst of society, people in Roman times dreaded the shame of such death even more than the physical pain. Such was the shame of dying on a cross that the word “cross” wasn’t to be mentioned by Roman citizens. (See Martin Hengel’s book Crucifixion in the Ancient World.)

“Because of the horrendous shame associated with crucifixion, early hearers of the message of the cross (I Cor.1:18) found it offensive…For the typical Greek or Roman person, the Christian belief that someone who had been crucified was Savior and Lord of all was sheer madness…The Greek word for ‘stumbling block’ is skandalon, from which we derive our English word ‘scandal.’ It was indeed scandalous to tell Jews that the long-awaited Messiah had been nailed to a cross, for they also believed crucifixion was a sign of God’s curse (Deut. 21:23).”

The cross of Christ is the only place of genuine hope for freedom from shame. There Jesus experienced such shame that no one, Jews nor Gentiles, could believe He was the Son of God. Just as the disobedience of Adam and Eve left them naked and ashamed, so the shame that Jesus bore in His obedience unto death now restores humans to a state of standing before God, naked and unashamed. Rome crucified its victims naked; Jesus bore that shame, both His own and ours, in His death.

The author quotes a beautiful portion from Frank Lake’s book, Clinical Theology:
“He hangs on the Cross naked. Both the innocent who were not loved and the guilty who have spurned love are ashamed. Both have something to hide. Clothing is the symbol of hiding what we are ashamed to reveal. In His own innocence He is identified with the innocent in nakedness…He was so deprived of His natural clothing of transfigured beauty and glory that men, seeing Him thus, shrank away from Him. The whole world will see this same King appearing in all His beauty and glory, because He allowed both…to be utterly taken away.”

Jesus not only bore shame but He put shame to shame! “Shame itself was crucified on the cross.” (Col. 2:15) In spite of the shaming the leaders and rulers did in their deriding of the fact that God wasn’t delivering Him therefore believing He was being exposed as an imposter, Jesus kept trusting His Father, believing He would vindicate Him; three days later, God did vindicate His Son.

“The powers and authorities made a public spectacle of him. But having endured the awful shame of the cross and having been vindicated by God, now the tables were turned. He made a public spectacle of them…By crucifying him, their true nature was exposed, made public for all to see…Jesus hung naked on the cross. And his nakedness exposed their nakedness. His great final act of being shamed overcame shame itself. In the same way the cross exposed the false gods of the religious leaders and authorities and the emptiness of their misplaced trust, it exposes our false gods and misplaced trust. At the cross every false robe of pretence is stripped from us; our nakedness is revealed for all to see."

Throughout this experience, Jesus was always and ever the beloved Son of His Father. This is true of us; whether it be in innocence that we have been shamed or in guilt, we have never been abandoned by God. Because of this reality, we can have confidence, which is the opposite of shame (I Jn. 2:28; 3:21; 4:17,18; 5:14; Heb. 4:16;10:19).

Finally, it’s important that we realize that the healing of binding shame takes time, because the exposure of it and then the severing of the tentacles of shame can be a very long process; but it is well worth the time and effort to look to Christ’s suffering, letting the reality of His identification with and participation in our shame sink deeply into our heart and mind. Psalm 34:5 says, “They looked to Him and were radiant; their faces shall never blush for shame or be confused.” (Amplified) The practice of looking to Jesus, taking the time and effort to see your shame taken by Him to death, will reap a harvest of radiance and confidence in His love!

Stephen Seamands ends this chapter with a glorious story of an elegant woman (who had all the appearances of having her life together) who was wonderfully cleansed from shame – you must read the story! The truth is that all of our stories are glorious, because no matter how “benign” our shame may appear on the surface, it’s all deeply rooted in sin and takes the mighty power of the cross and the resurrection and the present working of the Holy Spirit to bring any of us into a confident relationship with God in Christ. To Him be all honor and glory!

Next week we’ll cover chapter 4, Why Have You Forsaken Me? If any of this resonates with you, pause long enough to work with the Spirit of God at the cross so that this isn’t mere accumulation of good information but true life for you and for others.

God bless you again this week!

Wounds that Heal - Week #2

The Lord bless you, and thank you to those who have responded (both in writing and in person) to this book already!

Chapter two (Despised and Rejected) opens with a revealing quote from Frank Lake (Clinical Theology):
"Children descend into hell when love is squeezed out of them by parental neglect. There is a connection between this and the rejection of Christ."

Because rejection is such a common experience for most humans, the author says that this is a good place to begin if we are bringing our wounds to the cross to see them in the light of Jesus' wounds.

Rejection can come to us both in blatant ways and in subtle ways. Sometimes it comes to a child through the words of a parent that are imprinted on the child's memory; words such as:

• "If I were a good mother, I would have put you in a foster home by now."
• "You were an accident, a mistake. We never wanted you..."
• "You should have been a boy (or girl)"
• "If you tell anyone (about the sexual abuse), I'll kill you...it's part of growing up and you'd better get used to it."
• Etc.

Sometimes rejection may not be so direct but has the same devastating effects. The author tells the story of a young seminarian whose father was addicted to his work and was never around for his son; consequently, under the immense pressures of his studies and work and his family responsibilities, he succumbed to engaging in internet pornography, attempting to cope with the deep and hidden anger at his father for not accepting and affirming him as his son.

I believe a key point made by Seamands in this chapter is the following: "True human personhood is patterned after divine personhood. Our understanding of divine personhood is grounded in the belief that God is one but exists in the communion of three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit...when we consider the three persons of the triune God, we understand the uniqueness of each, not by accentuating their separateness from one another, but by focusing on their relationships with one another...Taking our cue from divine personhood, we conclude that persons exist not separate from but in relationship with others...Relationships, then, are essential to human personhood. We cannot be persons apart from our connection to others. This explains why wounds of rejection cut so deeply, particularly those wounds inflicted during our early years when our sense of personhood is being formed...As children, we desperately need to relate to our parents. Our very personhood, our sense of being, depends on it."

He was Despised and Rejected

Isaiah 53:3 "He was despised and rejected by others...and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account."

Quoting Henri Blocher, the author says, "The need for acceptance, esteem, acknowledgment, is one of the basic hungers of human personality, especially of such a sensitive and open personality as the Servant's. How agonizing to be starved of them! The Servant will be utterly despised by men."

Although Jesus tasted of rejection in his life as a man (John 1:11), it all "came to an excruciating climax on Good Friday." Seamands goes on to give account of the forms of rejection that Jesus experienced:

• The rejection of neglect: in His final meal with His disciples, Jesus experienced their insensitivity to pain in His heart. In their preoccupation with themselves, they were oblivious to what He was feeling (John 13:21).
• The rejection of disloyalty: despite all their immaturity and failures, Jesus had remained true to His disciples, but when they were tested, they denied Him (Mark 14:27-31).
• The rejection of betrayal: this is the most painful of rejections - being turned against as if they were enemies by those you love. Jesus suffered this at the hands of Judas.
• The rejection of unfairness: although Jesus was perfectly innocent of any crime or law-breaking against Rome, such was the unfairness and injustice surrounding His trial that He ended up on a Roman cross (much more violent and prolonged than other punishment).
• The rejection of mockery: Mark 15:29-32 describes the mockery and taunting Jesus went through during the trial and all the way till His death.
• The rejection of physical abuse: most of us have probably heard descriptions of the physical abuse Jesus suffered; His enduring of such violence enables Him to understand and identify with all who have suffered some kind of physical abuse.
• The worst rejection, of course, was that of His Father's abandonment of Him (Matt. 27:46). How well He knows the suffering of a child that has been abandoned and rejected by a parent.

Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus is touched with the feelings of our infirmities (KJV) and so can sympathize with us.

I want to encourage you, as does Stephen Seamands, to take the time to meditate on the rejection and abandonment that Jesus suffered and then look at your own experience of rejection in the light of His. You will draw strength from the fact that He understands because He has been through it all.

But also remember that He not only understands and identifies with us, He also participates in our suffering; on the cross our rejection was laid upon Him.

The author writes: "You may have carried the grief and sorrow of rejection for years. Now as you stand before the cross, hear Jesus saying, 'Give it all to me. Let me bear your rejection in my broken body. Let me absorb the pain into myself...Give me the abuse. Let me bear the brunt of your rejections. Let my wounds of rejection touch and carry yours.'

"The cross also addresses the results of rejection. Because others reject us, we find it difficult to accept ourselves...At the cross, however, God's opinion of us stands fully revealed. We are of inestimable value to God. Accepted in Jesus the Beloved, we are loved beyond measure, even worth dying for (Rom. 5:8)...Accepted. Beloved. Of infinite worth to God. That's what the cross tells us about ourselves. No rejection, anywhere or anytime, can ever change that."

If any of this resonates with you, I urge you to do the hard work of processing your suffering with Jesus at the cross. I say "hard work" because it requires discipline to take the time to look honestly at unresolved or unhealed wounds of rejection and abandonment. But you must do this with the Lord Jesus. No one can bear to look honestly at their own suffering alone. Jesus has borne all human suffering, and that includes yours and mine.

Take the Scriptures that are scattered through this posting and Isaiah 53 and allow the Holy Spirit to do what He loves to do, which is to reveal the Son, Jesus, to the human heart.

The purpose of facing this with Him is to receive His healing and move ahead beyond healing into ongoing maturing in Him. But for some this may take some time and much courage. Along the way you may need some human help, but always remember that only the Lord can heal you, and part of your journey will be just you and Him together. He wants to share in this with you since He has already borne your pain. He will shepherd you well because He knows you so well and knows what you are able to bear.

For some of you this may not be applicable, either because it hasn't been your experience or you aren't yet aware; but I trust this book will help you help the many, many around you who are in need of help and prayer.

Blessings on you this week! The Lord is with you; may the work of the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit be more real to you than ever before as you listen for His affirming voice this week.

Wounds that Heal - Week #1

Blessings on you all!

The first chapter of this book by Stephen Seamands, which is entitled Bringing Our Hurts to the Cross, starts with a wonderful poem by William Blake - this alone would give you enough truth to meditate on without going any further in this chapter:

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh
And thy Maker is not by;
Think not thou canst weep a tear
And thy Maker is not near.
O! He gives to us His joy
That our griefs He may destroy;
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

Like Tom Marshall's book that we just finished, this one is so full of truth that it's very difficult to know what to touch on in my posting, so I'm hoping that many of you have the book so that you can read it all. Seamand tells some wonderful and terrible stories to illustrate his teaching.

His focus, of course, is the cross of Christ as the place of healing, and I want to dwell on this in particular as we start the book because this has become such a liberating truth to me over the years, particularly in recent years; I've watched others come into genuine freedom and healing as well because of this.

The author (professor of Christian doctrine at Asbury Theological Seminary) says early in the chaper: "Over the years, as bruised and broken people have shared their wrenching stories with me, the inner voice of the Spirit has prompted me to offer them a special invitation: 'Come with me. Come with me to Calvary. Come stand beneath the cross of Jesus. Gaze with me at the twisted, tortured figure hanging there. Consider the broken, bleeding Son of God. Reflect on your hurts and wounds in the light of his.'"

A mindset shift has taken place in me as I have realized that Jesus' death was for both sinners and sufferers; in other words, Jesus died to bear our sins and also to bear the sins of those against us. Frank Lake puts it this way in his book Clinical Theology:
"It is customary in theological circles to place the weight of meaning on the Cross as the focus of God's activity in reconciling sinners rather than sufferers to Himself...Reformed theology draws attention to the glory of the Cross of Christ because...it assures us of God's radical resolution of the problem of our alienation from Him created by human sin and the stark unreality of our pride...The question arises, does this exhaust the divine-human meaning and objective therapeutic work of the Cross?...The sinner's need is that God should be reconciled to him, by forgiveness. The sufferer needs to be reconciled to God by some clear evidence that God shares his suffering and understands, by identification, what it is like..."

We are all sinners and sufferers, so this is good news for all!

Seamands points out that on the cross, Jesus experienced the "full range of human suffering". Frank Lake says that Jesus suffered injustice and felt the shame of nakedness, was the focus of rage, and was rejected and abandoned, etc.

Quoting Karl Stern (who saw his family and friends taken away to torture and death in Nazi Germany), the author says: "There is something extraordinary in the suffering of Christ. It seems to include all human suffering...The more you dwell on it, the more it becomes clear that in His agony he anticipated the hidden agonies of innumerable individuals...It anticipates, it contains your life and my life in a singular way."

Because of this truth, we know that Jesus can identify with our suffering; however, besides His personal suffering, he suffered vicariously. Isaiah 53:4 says this: "...surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." This means that Jesus not only bore His own suffering but every person's suffering. Somehow He experienced in His being all of human suffering in order to heal us; He has not only tasted His own suffering but all sufferings and is present in the midst of injustice. He has borne the injustice committed against you and saw it all happen as it took place; He died to heal and restore you.

Seamands closes out the chapter with the following little story about the suffering of the heavenly Father: "Not only did Jesus experience it all, bearing our suffering as he hung on the cross; God the Father, through his Son, experienced it too. George Buttrick, a great 20th century preacher, tells about a painting of the crucifixion that hangs in an Italian church. At first glance, it appears to be like most paintings of the crucifixion, but on closer examination, one perceives that 'there's a vast and shadowy figure behind the figure of Jesus. The nail that pierces the hand of Jesus goes through the hand of God. The spear thrust into the side of Jesus goes through into God's.' (II Cor. 5:19 NKJV)"

"So Christ's invitation to us still stands: 'Come, walk this rugged road with me. Throw rocks if you have to. But don't turn away - turn toward the cross. Ponder your affliction in the light of My greater affliction; consider your wounds in the light of Mine.'"

For those of you who find it helpful, Stephen Seamands ends each chapter with questions to help the reader process the chapter, and I encourage you to do that or simply take one statement that strikes you from this chapter and take the time and effort to let the truth of it sink deeply into your heart in the presence of the Lord.

Holy Spirit, thank You that You take the things of Jesus and make them as real and effective today as the day He died. We give you permission to uncover what You want to in His presence. Thank You that we are not alone in this, and that the One Who bore our pain will bear it with us in the present as we walk out of pain and into the light and freedom of the Cross. We worship you, dear Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

Have a blessed week...we'll read chapter two this week.

Living in the Freedom of the Spirit - Final Week (#20)

This week we complete Tom Marshall's wonderful book with the final chapter, The Word Made Flesh.

What a rich book this is, and I trust you have been blessed and helped by it as I have been...one more notice that next week we begin Stephen Seamands Wounds that Heal.

For lack of time, this week I will simply quote some major bullet points in the chapter and conclude with my personal thoughts. This chapter is basically saying that the overarching work of the cross and the Spirit in us has to do with the "Word becoming flesh in us." In other words, the life of Jesus is incarnated in us by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit within us. So the healing, sanctifying work in us touches the whole person, spirit, soul and body so that we can "taste" of physical energizing as well as the quickening of the spirit and the healing of the soul.

Some direct quotes from this chapter are:

• In salvation, repentance is combined with faith (Acts 20:21); in sanctification, obedience is combined with faith; in healing, confession is combined with faith.
• Confession means that, out of a deep conviction of the truth of what God says, I speak out my assent or agreement with His word.
• Faith in the heart restores what is normal, which is health; and confession with the mouth brings it to pass.
• Human beings ("created creators") create by speaking into being what is in our spirits.
• We know when to exercise authority and how to exercise it by the prompting of the Holy Spirit discerned in our conscience.

I want to conclude this posting quoting and commenting on the last part of the chapter which is about "the spiritual nature of authority":

"True authority is always spiritual in origin. Because of this, it functions from the spirit of the person exercising it and it reaches the spirit of the person over whom it is being exercised. Therefore, it will affect the latter person in his conscience: there will be an 'oughtness' about the order or instruction. Nevertheless, the person's will is left free to obey or disobey. Obedience is therefore a free choice and has the liberating effect of all true obedience.

If, however, the person exercising authority is not himself living in obedience, what comes out from him is not spiritual authority but soul power...What will come out is most often willpower; but there may also be strong emotional pressure or forceful argument. Because it is grounded in the soul, it will touch the other person in his soul. There will be a clash of wills, a conflict of argument or opposing feelings. The person who is being given the orders or instructions will either give way to superior power (but feel resentful and rebellious at the same time), or he will 'stand up for himself' and there will be open conflict.

When I obey true authority, I do not feel inferior or diminished, because true authority is spiritual and respects my moral freedom. Authority that is not legitimate (but is the imposition of another's will and ideas) does not respect my moral freedom. It seeks to coerce or manipulate - and I either conform or rebel. I am usually in less danger by rebelling..."

This is critical to grasp in our relationships and ministry in the Kingdom! The issue of spiritual authority has become very real to me in recent years, and I was struck a couple of years ago with the understanding that God's way of getting things done is through spiritual authority (see the "Great Commission" in Matthew 28), and Satan's way of getting things done is through intimidation.

Keep in mind that the faculties of the soul are the mind, will and emotions. If the soul is dominant (i.e., I'm living by the power of the soul rather than out of my spirit), I will exercise soulish willpower (the human will overriding another person's moral freedom) or emotional pressure (the human emotions manipulating another person's emotional responses) or forceful argument (the human intellect out-arguing another person's reasonings). This way of "getting things done" is not life-giving but destructive and intimidating.

I have found that when true spiritual authority is operating through a believer, he doesn't have to force anything. He simply obeys, and the Holy Spirit moves to accomplish what He knows needs to happen to bring about the will of the Father. This is a restful way to live and walk, and the path to habitual walking in this rest is one of great breaking and is only possible through the cooperation of the believer with the Holy Spirit.

Because the Kingdom of God is advanced through spiritual authority (Matt. 28:16-20), this truth and the walking out of it in daily life is imperative if we are to be fruitful in the mission God has given each of us to do. No matter how insignificant a place you may feel you have on this earth now, each of us has people in our lives that need to be influenced for the sake of Jesus, and we have true influence on them through spiritual authority which is ours through a lifestyle of loving response and obedience to the words and calls of the loving Father.

Father, thank You that You love me and that all that has to do with You and Your kingdom is only good for me. I pray that You, by Your Spirit and the work of Calvary, would increase Your good work in our hearts so that Christ in us will be more fully expressed in such a way that those You have given us to influence will be drawn and attracted to Jesus, whom to know is Life! We receive Your love once again and offer our love back to You...

God bless you this week!