Coming Undone (again)
This week we are going after your healing, the restoration of your heart. This is going to be a powerful time of feeling all the emotions, grieving, processing and being ministered to by the Lord. As I said in the video, I spent most of my christian life with zero awareness of my pain and trauma. I remember being very disassociated, where on the one hand I believed that I was doing great, and often told people that I was, but under the surface I was porn addicted, anxious, self conscious and driven by idolatry. It was only when I decided to deal with the pornography addiction in my life that all of this pain and dysfunction came to the surface.
Over the past 8 weeks you have likely had a very similar experience. The painful narratives of both little “t” and big “T” trauma have surfaced, the idolatry and duplicity in your life have been uncovered and the gaps in your spiritual walk with God and alignment to his word have been recalibrated. It’s a lot to deal with all at once, I know - I’ve been there too. Well today we are going to revisit some of the things that we picked up in week 3, we are going to go back to the deep recesses of your heart and soul and face the beast again. This time, more equipped and ready to slay the beast with a fatal blow!
We began the course by facing the reality of our sin, dysfunctions and issues. We talked about the power of honesty and vulnerability with both the Lord and his people and spoke about the beach ball - remember that beach ball, made up of this addiction and all the pain that fuelled it, that was always trying to pop back up to the surface? Today we are going to revisit that beach ball and very intentionally take the blade of God’s love and puncture it once and for all.
It’s time to really come undone before God, lay it all out at his feet and let the love in.
So strap in and buckle up - if you are distracted, then get some real space and time with the Lord to go through this. Open up your heart to the Holy Spirit and let’s really go after the lasting healing and breakthrough you’ve been contending for!
An Outpouring of God’s Love
There’s a very powerful verse that I want to share with you to undergird our time together today:
Romans 5:1-5Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
When we are faced with the pain of our suffering, we do not suffer as those without hope. As Christians it can so often be hard to have hope when we are in pain emotionally, especially when we’ve been battling with it for a long time, yet we are told that our hope won’t be put to shame. It’s not a foolish or weak thing to hope for God’s healing love. We can often read verses like this and assume that it is only when we get to heaven that we can expect God to heal our broken hearts. And truthfully, this is a wonderful hope that we do have, for when we finally get to be with Jesus face to face he will wipe away every tear, and there will be an end to mourning and crying. But have you ever wondered why there will be an end? There will be an end because sin will be no more, and we will live in the new creation face to face with the Lord and each other in sinless communion. But there’s also a deep sense in which I believe that the love of God being unveiled and uninhibited in that moment will be so wonderful, so powerful and so permeating that our sadness and pain would flee, as darkness in the presence of light.
Even though we wait for this glorious future hope, Jesus does begin this work of heart healing in us now. It’s true that we still experience pain because of sin and this broken world, however that does not negate that we get to begin the experience of Jesus wiping away our tears now. It’s a part of his kingdom breaking into earth, it’s not yet fully here, but the light of dawn is cracking over the horizons of our hearts.
It’s this wonderful reality, that brings into focus Romans 5:5, which says: “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
The bible doesn’t say that God’s love will be poured in, but that it has been. God’s powerful healing love is already being poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit!
Did you notice how the love of God is poured into our hearts and not our heads? The love of God bypasses our understanding and intellect and goes straight into our hearts - unfiltered, and unadulterated. This is one of the biggest reasons why I believe that those who have disabilities and cognitive struggles have no limitations in their relationship with God even though they might with all other areas of their life. The love of God is poured into their hearts, fully and without limit.
What does this mean for you today?
Don’t Push Jesus Away
In order to see the healing power of God’s love mend your broken heart and decompress that beach ball, all you have to do is open your heart up to the Lord. You don’t have to fully understand everything, and you can’t even process your way there. I fell into that trap in my journey to overcome sin, I spend countless hours processing my pain, trauma and issues - but that’s not the same as feeling, and it’s not the same as healing.
Take a moment and observe your heart. Is it ready to be healed, do you want to open it up for Jesus to heal your wounds?
As you consider that question, do you remember the story of the good Samaritan? What a tragedy it would have been for that poor man who had been so mercilessly attacked to refuse the help of the samaritan - pushing him away because it hurt when his wounds were touched.
This is so often what we do with Jesus. Instead of letting him minister to our wounds, we push him away. And I get it, it hurts to have the Lord point out our pain points and begin to deal with them. Even so, he is the Great Physician. Just sit with this thought for a second, you need open heart surgery and the Great Physician is asking you right now a very important question…
“Do you want to be healed?”
John 5:2-6
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3 In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”
I ask you the same question today,
Do you want to be healed?
Answer honestly.
Are you ready to really go there with Jesus today and let him operate on your heart?
If you are ready to let Jesus heal you then let’s move through it together.
Letting The Great Physician Work
Jesus’ calling of Matthew wrecks me. Matthew was a tax collector, and from all outward appearances he was much better off than his Jewish compatriots. He was wealthy, likely healthy, and in need of nothing materially. Nevertheless, he was rejected by his people because he had decided to work with Rome, and in so doing had distanced himself from his Jewish heritage and people. Who knows what was going on for Matthew that drove him to do this… Jesus.
We can often look at Jesus’ ministry and his wonderful healings of the blind, deaf, lame and diseased and be in awe of his compassion. Still, I find that his call of Matthew is one of the most beautiful and powerful examples of his compassion and willingness to heal that we have. Surprisingly, Jesus’ call of Matthew is where we get the language from of Jesus being “the Great Physician”, not the healing of a leper of paraplegic, but a Matthew. Let’s read it together:
Matthew 9:9-12
As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
10 And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. 11 And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
Jesus was Matthew’s physician too. But Matthew didn’t have a broken leg, or leprosy - he had a sin problem, a heart problem. Jesus has come not just for the crippled, but also the Matthews. And today, Jesus, the Great Physician is coming your way.
What we are going to do now is go through a process together in which you can be ministered to by the Lord. It’s a relatively straight forward process and the Holy Spirit will guide you through the whole thing. So take a moment, open up your heart to be healed by Jesus and carefully go through each of these steps and and write down everything that happens.
Step One: Identify the sources of pain
Take a moment with the Lord and ask him, what are the sources of pain in my life? What are the moments in which I was deeply wounded that I have not healed from that you want to deal with right now? God might bring up some of the things you have already written down from week 3 or he might bring up something else. Just take a moment, open up your heart to the Holy Spirit and take note of what comes to mind.
Step Two: Observe the memory and it’s impact on you with the Holy Spirit
Ask the Lord, how did this wound me? What lies do I believe because of this? What vows did I make and how has it impacted my perceived identity?
Step Three: Surrender the memory to God
Take this memory or moment or narrative in your life and give it to Jesus. It’s time to loosen your grip on it, on the grief, on the pain and give control of it to the Lord. If you have believed a lie from the enemy then renounce that lie out loud, if you made any vows, renounce it out loud. If you have sin that you have not repented of attached to it, repent out loud.
Step Four: Forgiveness
Unforgiveness is just about the most serious thing to the Lord. I know, it might be surprising, however our willingness to forgive goes right to the core of our understanding of and receiving the gospel. In a moment, recorded in Matthew’s gospel, in which Peter seemed to be struggling with unforgiveness, he asks Jesus about the matter, and Jesus tells him and everyone else in his hearing a very heavy story. We read:
Matthew 18:21-35
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Forgiveness is a very essential part of healing from the past, and honestly the Lord draws a line in the sand on the matter. When we do not forgive we are functionally pushing the Lord away, not allowing him to heal us, because he has told us explicitly that we must forgive. I’m not messing around, and neither is the Lord. Jesus told us explicitly.
Matthew 6:14-15
“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
You might not be able to heal properly or move on from a situation because you refuse to forgive, if you want to move forward and let the Lord heal you it’s time to forgive, from your heart.
Personally, I had a major revelation in this when I was battling some serious depression and emotional pain from an incident that happened when I was in my mid twenties. I had been sinned against, seriously. Barely anyone knew about it, and although I tried to move on and process it I wasn’t able to. That is until I read a book that stopped me in my tracks called “The Bait of Satan” by John Bevere, this book turned my life upside down - showing me the severity of unforgiveness and its consequences. I seriously forgave those who hurt me, not primarily so that I could move on, but because the word of God demanded it. And God radically healed my broken heart over the subsequent months.
Please take this seriously, and don’t skip past this because it’s too hard or confronting - unforgiveness will ruin your life and your relationship with God. You might think that you’ve forgiven everyone, but even so, the heart is deceitful, sincerely ask God the following two questions and write down anything and anyone that he brings to mind:
1: Who do I need to forgive?
2: What do I need to forgive them for?
Now take the time and say out loud to the Lord “Father, I forgive (insert name) for (insert offense), I forgive them completely Lord and I release them from my judgement. I release them to you In Jesus’ name”. This is a summarised version of the prayer, make it your own and take as long as you need to forgive the person/people properly. The Holy Spirit will confirm it to your heart with a feeling of peace as confirmation when you have truly forgiven them.
Step 5: Receive God’s truth and healing
You’ve been made aware of the lies and negative impact of these memories, now it’s time to hear the truth from your Heavenly Father and receive his healing. Ask the Lord, Father, what is the truth? I’ve renounced the lie I’ve believed because of this, so what is the truth? Also ask the Lord “What do you think about what happened?” If you are new to hearing from the Lord that’s ok, just open your heart to him and pay attention to what he brings to mind. It could be a vision, an inner revelation of how he feels, or it could be a scripture verse. Make sure to write down everything even if it seems silly, and if you aren’t sure of how to interpret something ask your group leader or accountability partner. Additionally if you are really struggling to hear from God then call your group leader or someone else in your group to take some time and go through this process with you. They may well get a prophetic word from the Lord for you to encourage you.
Step 6: Ask the Lord to heal you
Even though the process of hearing the truth from the Lord is extremely healing, it is good to also simply ask the Lord to heal your emotional wounds!
Psalm 147:3
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
It’s a promise that he would heal your broken heart and bind up your wounds. Ask him, give him the wound and open up to him to heal you, wait on the Lord expectantly and watch him move!
Remember the verse we started with from Romans 5, that God pours his love into our hearts? That is what I’m praying for you as I’m writing this. Lord pour your love into my friend’s heart right now in Jesus’ name! Oh how we the children of God just need the wonderful love of our Heavenly Father.
Step 7: Repeat the process
I would encourage you to go through this process multiple times, as much as you have the emotional capacity for, and go through this process a few times this week and on into the future. I pray that this moment would begin a wonderful season of healing for you, that the Lord would pour out his love on you and in you and restore and redeem your broken heart.
This Week
Personal
Take the time to repeat this 7 step process multiple times if needed throughout the week. Also begin to implement it in your walk with God moving forward.
Really lock into the daily devotionals this week - they are going to be powerful moments of healing with the Lord each day for you.
Share what the Lord is doing in you throughout the week with your Exodus group so that they can be praying for you and supporting you emotionally.
Group
Share what the Lord has done in each of you this week.
Pray for one another and minister to each other as the Spirit leads.