I tell them, “God loves and accepts you, and I love and accept you. What happened to you in the past is not going to make any difference to your Christian friends.”
Step 3: Admit the Truth to Yourself
Behold, You desire truth in the inner being; make me therefore to know wisdom in my inmost heart. Psalm 51:6
God wants us to face the truth in our inmost being, then confess it in an appropriate manner to the right person. Sometimes the person who needs to hear it most is us.
When people come to me for help in this area, I often tell them, “Go and look at yourself in the mirror and confess the problem to yourself.”
Perhaps your problem is that your parents did not love you as a child.
“How could I ever verbalize that or say that to anybody else?” you may be asking. You can do it with the help of the Holy Spirit within you.
I believe that in order to go forward, we have to face facts. If it is true that your parents did not love you, you need to face that reality once and for all. You need to look at yourself in a mirror and say, “My parents did not love me, and what's more perhaps they never will love me.”
Some people spend their entire lives trying to get something they will never have. If you have let the fact that you were unloved ruin your life thus far, don't let it ruin the rest of your life.
Do what David did in Psalm 27:10. Confess to yourself: Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt me as His child].
Whatever the problem may be that is bothering you, face it, consider confessing it to a trusted confidant, then admit it to yourself in your inmost being.
I heard of a doctor who intermittently in his life would leave his medical practice and become a bum on the street. When someone after many years finally got to the root of the doctor's problem, it was discovered that he had spent all of his life seeking words of approval and acceptance from his father who had always rejected him.
He had worked hard to become a doctor, thinking that would earn the approval and acceptance he sought. When it didn't, he worked even harder to build up a very successful practice, thinking surely then his father would be proud of him. He would go to see his father, sharing his achievements and accomplishments, only to experience more rejection.
When we try hard and fail, often we experience times of physical, mental, and emotional burnout. It was at such times that the doctor would go off the deep end emotionally and turn from his successful medical practice to the life of a homeless beggar.
As he faced the truth that his father had a problem and was unable to show love, the doctor was restored to mental and emotional wholeness!
Step 4: Receive Forgiveness and Forget Your Sin
… For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will [seriously] remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:34
No matter what your problem or how bad you feel about yourself as a result of it, God loves you. In Jesus Christ He has given you a new life. He has given you a new family and new friends to love and accept and appreciate and support you. You are okay, and you are going to make it because of the One Who lives on the inside of you and cares for you.
You may have to look at yourself in the mirror and confess, “I had an abortion. I did that, Lord, and it is a marvel to me to realize that I can stand here and look myself in the eye. But I can do so because I know that, even though I did that horrible thing that is so wrong, You have put my sins as far away from me as the east is from the west, and You remember them no more!”
No matter what we may have done, we need to get a deeper revelation of what God means when He says, “I will remember your sins no more.”
Once we have confessed our sins and asked for God's forgiveness, if we continue to drag them up to Him every time we go to Him in prayer, we are reminding Him of something He has promised to forget, something He has removed from us as far as the east is from the west. (Ps. 103:12.)
Once you have confessed your sins to God and asked Him to forgive you of them, He has not only forgiven them, but He has actually forgotten them.
You need to do the same. Stop punishing yourself for something that no longer exists.
Step 5: Acknowledge Yourself as a New Creature
Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17
In my past I did many things that I am not proud of. For example, when I was a child, I was a regular thief. I would steal anything I could get my hands on. That is terrible, but of course I don't steal now and so I don't make myself miserable about what I used to do as a child. I believe I stole things because I was being abused, and stealing made me feel I was in control of something in my life instead of always being controlled by everything and everybody.
There was also a time in my life when I was a bar maid. Now I am serving New Wine, so I don't worry about what I used to do in the past.
You see, it is a tremendous testimony to be able to admit what we were, but to testify to the fact that our old man — the old person we were — has died and we are a brand new person in Christ.
The Bible tells us that our old man died and was buried and is now resurrected to new life, so that you and I are now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Eph. 2:5,6.)
Why then should I be ashamed to admit to something that happened in my old life? It is no problem for me to talk about a dead person!
If you and I are new creatures in Christ Jesus and old things have passed away, we need to forget about them!
No matter what happened to you in the past or what was done to you, you should feel free to look at anybody and say: “This is what I was, and this is what I did, but thank God, now I am a new creature in Christ Jesus. That is not me any more! You would not believe what God has done in my life!”
Remember what I said previously: “Bringing things out in the open causes them to lose their grip on us.”
Step 6: Assume Personal Responsibility
If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just (true to His own nature and promises) and will forgive our sins [dismiss our lawlessness] and [continuously] cleanse us from all unrighteousness [everything not in conformity to His will in purpose, thought, and action].
If we say (claim) we have not sinned, we contradict His Word and make Him out to be false and a liar, and His Word is not in us [the divine message of the Gospel is not in our hearts]. 1 John 1:9,10
Some people are trapped in denial, afraid of what might happen if others found out the truth about them. But as long as they deny the past, they are never going to be set free from it.
Nobody can be set free from a problem until he is willing to admit he has a problem. An alcoholic or a drug addict or anyone who has lost control of his life is doomed to suffer until he is able to say, “I've got a problem, and I need help with it.”
Rather than facing responsibility for our own problems, we generally want to blame others. Unwillingness to face and accept personal responsibility is childish.
I have learned a lot from our youngest son. He is so sweet, and I am so glad that God gave him to us. He keeps me young and on my toes.
Although Danny is now born again and Spirit-filled, as a child he walked totally in the flesh. One evidence is the fact that he never wanted to take responsibility for anything he did wrong. No matter what happened, it was never Danny's fault.
One time I was in the van with him and looked back to see how he was doing. The entire back end of that vehicle was strewn with litter: potato chip crumbs and sacks, a crushed Coke can, and the like. I said, “Danny, for crying out loud, clean up that mess back there!”
“It's not my fault!” he cried.
“Whose fault is it then?” I asked. “I'm not back there!”
“Well, Dad gave me the can and the chips!” he explained.
Although he had taken what had been handed to him and had strewn it everywhere, it wasn't his fault. It was his father's fault for having given it to him. He was thus able to shift responsibility from himself to someone else.
We all do exactly the same thing in our lives!
A while back, I had gained some weight but hadn't realized it. When I got dressed, I would complain to my husband about the lady who helped me with my laundry.
“What is she doing to my clothes?” I would ask. “She is ruining them by shrinking them! I told her not to put them in the dryer but to send them to the cleaners!”
If it was an article of clothing that had been sent to the cleaners, I would say, “What are those people doing to my clothes, shrinking them like this!” I was laying the blame for my ill-fitting garments on someone else!
I continued on like this until the day I stepped on a scale and saw my weight had gone up six or seven pounds. Suddenly it hit me. It wasn't my clothes that were getting smaller, it was me who was getting bigger!
I had to say to myself, “Joyce, you have gained weight, and you have gained it because you have been eating too much!”
Just as I had to face the truth and accept responsibility for my own actions in that situation, each of us must face the truth about ourselves and assume the responsibility for our problems and their solution.
Even though our problems may have been brought upon us because of something done to us against our will, we have no excuse for allowing them to persist or even to grow and take control over our entire life. Our past experiences may have made us the way we are, but we don't have to stay that way. We can take the initiative and start doing something to change things.
Step 7: Follow the Spirit of Truth
But when He, the Spirit of Truth (the Truth-giving Spirit) comes, He will guide you into all the Truth (the whole, full Truth). … John 16:13
As we have seen, to be healed, we must face the truth and acknowledge the situation in which we find ourselves. We must stop trying to blame someone else for everything wrong with us. Trying to blame the way we are now on what happened to us earlier in life is not even healthy.
I used to have a hard time getting along with people, and I was sure it was because of the way I had been treated in my younger days. But once I began to ask the Lord to heal me, He began to reveal to me the truth about myself and my situation.
One of the things He revealed to me was that every time the Holy Spirit tried to guide me into some unpleasant truth about myself, my immediate reaction would always be to say, “Yes, but …”
The Lord showed me that an excuse just covers up the root of the problem so that it is never exposed, and the person is never able to be set free.
When someone corrects you, do you do what I used to do and make an excuse, or do you face the truth and admit you are wrong? Admitting we are wrong is one of the hardest things we ever do in life.
One time my husband came home late from playing golf after he had promised to be back in time for dinner. By the time he arrived I had prepared my speech in great detail. I immediately laid into him, telling him if he was going to be late, he should call and let me know. I was really getting ready to unload on him when he looked at me and said, “You are absolutely right.” It just blew my whole case. Then he went on to say, “I'll pray and ask God to help me not do it again.” There was nothing left for me to say. His speaking truth prevented a major argument.
Yet many times when God tries to tell us something we are doing wrong, we find it so hard to simply say, “Lord, You are absolutely right. I have no excuse. I ask You to forgive me and help me to overcome this fault.”
I believe that kind of honesty in our relationship with God and other people stops the devil from running rampant in our lives. I don't think Satan knows what to do with that kind of truth, any more than I did when Dave spoke it to me. Truth puts an end to the devil's reign.
Inner Healing Versus Emotional Healing
… I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever —
The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive (welcome, take to its heart), because it does not see Him or know and recognize Him. But you know and recognize Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you. John 14:16,17
In John 16:13 Jesus called the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of Truth.” Here in this passage, He tells us this Spirit has been sent to live within each of us. If the Spirit of Truth is in us, what is His primary function? According to Jesus, it is to guide us into all truth.
A teaching within the Church which I feel I need to caution you about, although many believers will disagree with my viewpoint, is called “inner healing.”
I am all in favor of inner healing, but I prefer to call it “emotional healing,” to distinguish it from what is being taught and practiced in some Christian circles today.
I believe the motive behind the inner healing message is right. Those who teach and practice it just want to help people, but I sincerely believe some of their techniques are dangerous.
Inner healing is a method used in healing hurts of the past. It is often quite effective, but we must realize that even ungodly methods sometimes work.
Let me give you an example. A friend of mine was involved in transcendental meditation when she was saved. She went to her pastor to ask him about it, and he said he had no problem with it, adding, “If it works, let me know.”
This woman was seeking peace, and so she was open to whatever was effective in helping her find it. As she got further into this movement, she learned that it involves Eastern-style meditation and repeating a mantra, which Webster defines as “a mystical formula of invocation or incantation (as in Hinduism).”1
As she and the other participants sat and meditated, repeating this invocation or incantation, they began to move into a trancelike state. Eventually, they were supposed to progress to the point where mystical beings or “spirit guides” appeared and began to lead and instruct them.
Since she was now saved, my friend thought if this method was spiritually sound, it would still be effective if she replaced her mantra with the name of Jesus. So she went into her trancelike state and began to repeat the name of Jesus. Suddenly a spirit knocked her from one side of the room to the other, and she knew right then that something was very wrong! She quickly got out of that movement and went back into her local Christian church. She was sincerely right in her search for help, sincerely wrong in her choice of method.
Another friend had something of the same kind of experience while experimenting with a popular mind-control system.
All such methods of so-called inner healing or inner enlightenment are outside of the Church of Jesus Christ and should be avoided.
“Why?” you may ask. “What could be wrong with visualizing healing, comfort, forgiveness, and restoration?”
Yes, it does sound good. It seems as if it would be within the realm of the Church. That's why so many desperate people are getting involved in it. They don't really stop to ask themselves, “Does it line up with Scripture?” The fact is that no such system or method can be found anywhere in the Word of God.
The main thing I see wrong with it is the major role that visualization or imagination plays in it. As Christians, Jesus should always play the primary role in everything we do, not mystical occultic figures out of the imagination.
Another thing I find wrong with this type of inner healing is the fact that the person and not the Holy Spirit is the initiator. In some of these methods, the individual is supposed to get into a meditative state, clear his mind, and begin visualizing going back in time to the moment of the wounding of his emotions.
Sometimes these rearward progressions go all the way back to the womb or to the time of birth. The participant is told to reenact the scene of his emotional wounding in his mind, visualizing Jesus coming in and bringing healing to that traumatic
event.
The only problem is that, in my opinion, the Jesus who comes on the scene in such cases is just a figment of the person's imagination and not the real Jesus of the Bible.
I recently read the life story of a man who thought Jesus was appearing to him. He experienced three visions of what he believed to be Jesus. The figure he saw in these visions was surrounded by a great light which produced in him a temporary sense of peace and well-being. Then the figure began to speak to him and give him directions and instructions.
One of the things this man was actually forced to do was go down to the beach and witness to others. The voice made it clear this was something he had to do whether he wanted to or not — and right away!
If this man had known the Word of God, he would have realized then and there what he was encountering was not God. God does not force His children to do anything. He leads and guides by His Holy Spirit, but it is always in a sweet and gentle manner. No one is ever required to do anything under duress, as though his salvation depended on it!
Healing or Deception?
I have received tremendous healing from the Lord Jesus Christ. But in order to receive that healing I did not have to go through any of the methods or techniques prescribed and practiced in the popular inner healing movement. I just allowed the Holy Spirit to lead and guide me.
If you pray and ask God to help you by bringing you into a place of emotional healing, He will lead and guide you Himself. He has an individualized plan for each one of us, and it will always line up with Scripture.
For example, some years ago I was praying for God to heal my troubled life. While I was in this period of prayer, a woman came into our church and gave her testimony. Her background and experience were almost identical to mine. My husband recognized it and advised me to buy the book she had written on the subject.