What Blocks Inner Healing?

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Ever wonder why some people just can’t seem to get unstuck? Christians even? They’ve been going through inner healing for 10 years and look like they’re going to be for another 10 years, but they never seem to make any headway? Or they seem to making progress, but then stumble and fall in the same devastating sin all over again (for example, having an affair, or caving to an addiction, etc)? Why can’t they get really free and move on? What’s blocking their healing?

Meanwhile, other people that are wounded much more deeply sometimes get totally healing over a season of their life and totally move on – free and never susceptible to the same sins again. Why is that?

John Sanford, the founder of Elijah House, asked the Lord this question. He and his wife Paula ministered to a large number of people over the course of their ministry, and saw many people with an equal level of wounding. Some would get total freedom and never look back, while others would appear to get healing only to fall back into the same sins over and over again. What made the difference?

This is my paraphrase of what the Lord told John Sanford. It depends on the motivation of the person seeking the healing, why they are seeking freedom from their pain.

“If they are seeking healing because they realize their wounding is keeping them form serving me fully,” the Lord said to John Sanford, “and their hearts desire is to serve me with their whole being, they will get complete freedom and keep it, because they are seeking to serve me.

“If, on the other hand, they want relief from their pain only so they can live the good life, their healing won’t stick, because they aren’t really seeking me. They just want to live the good life.”

The Kingdom of God is so upside-down from how we naturally think. This illustrates what Jesus said in Luke 9:24, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.”

If we seek the good life, we’ll never find it, and our lives will be one endless, meaningless, futile search. But if we’re willing to sacrifice the good life in favor of living for God, accepting suffering gladly to see his Kingdom advanced, then we’ll find a life better than we ever thought possible.

How about you? Have you seen this at work in your life or that of others? Have you experienced giving up something and then having the Lord give it back to you redeemed, different, but better than you ever thought it could be? Tell us in the comments? And please share (buttons below for your sharing convenience) if you think this thought would be helpful to someone else.

A Sabbath Rest without Guilt

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I admit it. Every time I hear a word about taking a Sabbath rest I get guilted, because I usually catch up on household and ministry work on Sundays. And I get stressed, trying to figure out how I’m going get everything done in 6 days, when I can’t get everything done as it is in 7 days. Right, take a day off. Sure, I’ll just do that.

But God is showing me I’m thinking about it wrong. Entering God’s rest, like Hebrews 3 and 4 talk about, comes from intimacy. He’s showing me to think about it like date night.

We have a word in our culture for someone who won’t stop working to spend time with their beloved spouse – Work-a-holic. We all pity those spouses, and have no respect for the work-a-holic. I’d tell a work-a-holic something like this: Get a life, dude! Neither you nor your work are that important. You’re sacrificing what’s more important, your beloved spouse and your marriage, for what’s less important, your work. You’re sacrificing the eternal for the temporal!

But am I a spiritual work-a-holic? Am I sacrificing the eternal for the temporal? (Yes, our ministries are temporal. Our relationship with Jesus is eternal. Remember Matthew 7:22-23.) Am I sacrificing what’s important, time with my beloved Jesus, for what’s less important, my ministry?

At near total mental and physical exhaustion, God’s been forcing me to at least slow down on Sundays. I’ve taken some off completely, and am working more and more toward that. I’ve been amazed that my tasks are still there waiting for me on Monday – none of them have spontaneously self-combusted. No one’s had to call out the National Guard because my unsupervised tasks were running amok and taking over the country-side.

My wife and I make weekly date nights a priority, as well as quarterly weekend get-aways to B&Bs, because our relationship is important to us. We realize if we don’t prioritize it, we’ll lose it.

God’s showing me taking a Sabbath rest is like that. He’s showing me I get guilted and stressed over it because I’ve lost my first love. Wow. That’s a situation we who love his intimacy never want to be in, so we it hide from ourselves. I guess I’ve gotten good at that, unfortunately. But fortunately, he loves me enough to not be satisfied with left-overs. Personally, I’m looking forward to this change in my thinking and seeing where it goes.

Action Step: I’m looking forward to Sundays, and intentionally resting, doing as little household and ministry work as possible. Catch a nap in the afternoons, and do things I enjoy, like reading. I’m going to think about it like date-night with him.

I’ll post an update in a few months and let you know how it’s going. But what about you? Do you take a Sabbath rest? Or do you get guilted and stressed over it like I do? What’s your Sabbath story? Tell us in the comments, or shoot us an email. And please share on Facebook or your favorite social media channel (just click the button below) if you think this would bless others.

Judgement vs Discernment

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We hear all the time, “Don’t judge!” But, on the other hand, we’re supposed to promote righteousness, aren’t we? And not condone sinful lifestyles, right? So how do we do one without the other? It turns out one is Judgement and the other is Discernment. There’s a difference.

When the Bible says “Don’t judge or you too will be judged” (Mathew 7:1), it’s talking about condemnation, “to condemn like in a courtroom.” There’s a legal aspect to it. So you could read the verse like “Don’t condemn or you will be condemned.” That’s judgement.

Discernment is a whole different matter. We’re supposed to discern (or “tell the difference between”) right from wrong, righteousness from sin, the fruit of theSpirit from the works of the flesh. We’re supposed to call righteousness “righteousness” and sin “sin”, and not sugar-coat it. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20).

But with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can correctly discern behavior without condemning the person, like Jesus did. Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery, but he also told her “go and sin no more” (John 8:1-11). He ate with the tax collector’s (national traitors), but did not mince words about their sinful lifestyle (Matthew 9:9-13 and Luke 19:1-10). When Jesus says “Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:9), he’s overtly implying that it wasn’t there before. Strong words but put without condemnation.

He also ate with Pharisees, the religious people, and similarly did not mince words about their sinful lifestyle (Luke 14:7-24, Luke 7:37-47). He treated everyone the same. He lovingly accepted them, but still told the truth about their behavior. The tax collectors and prostitutes were teachable and accepted him and his correction. The religious Pharisees were not and did not.

When people say “don’t judge me”, what they really mean is “don’t discern my lifestyle as wrong.” They are under the deception that discerning their actions as wrong is equivalent to condemning them personally. Unfortunately, this lie’s gotten some traction from some of us who act out of religion rather than out of the Spirit.

But we are not what we do. Calling out a sinful lifestyle as self-destructive is actually very loving, as long we do it in a loving way. The media loves to run with Christians calling out sinful lifestyles in unloving, condemning ways, which furthers the deception. Let’s stop giving them ammunition.

We, as the people of God, need to be very careful that we speak the truth in love, loving the sinner while hating the sin, like Jesus did.

I think one of the easiest ways to do this is to just simply say, “I’m not condemning you, I”ll still be your friend. But I wouldn’t be a good friend if I condoned something that’s hurting you.” Often people will still disagree with me about their lifestyle, but they respond positively to the respect I give them as a person. And it gives room for the Holy Spirit to work.

How about you? What tricks and tips have you found to be discerning without being condemning? Share them with us in the comments. And if you think this would bless someone else, please share it on Facebook or your favorite social media. The share buttons below will take you right there.

We Stand with Israel

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We hope you will forgive the urgency we feel this week to deviate from our normal blog emphasis on our identity and destiny in Christ and post instead an article in solidarity with Israel. We are not Jewish by any stretch, but the Jews are the people of God. We stand with Israel.

There’s a false teaching going around called “Replacement Theology” that says the Church has replaced Israel. This teaching says Israel blew it one too many times and now God’s people are the Christian Church. That does not mesh with what I know to be the character of God who is always into, and actively pursuing, restoration.

It also does not mesh with Bible. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 11:1, speaking of Israel, “I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means!”

He says again in Romans 11:25, “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in.” Did you hear that? We as Gentiles owe our salvation to Israel’s temporary hardening. That really humbles me.

There are many, many more passages I could quote, but I think this one is the most timely: “Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed.” (Numbers 24:9) That’s pretty self-explanatory. Israel is the apple of God’s eye, and we’d do well to not mess with her.

Yet there are 72 nations meeting in Paris to divide Israel in a so-called “two state solution.” I don’t have space to go into all the details, explanations, and the history here, and I suspect this audience knows it all pretty well.

I firmly believe we as Christians must oppose this. Again – Bible – God gave the land to Israel forever (Isaiah 60:21 and many other passages).

God will protect Israel. What these 72 nations are really doing is cursing themselves. 72 nations is a lot of the world! A whole chunk of the world could get cursed here in one fell swoop.

Maybe I’m not deviating all that much from our usual topic of identity and destiny. There is (in my humble opinion) a very strong argument that the reason the United States exists is to stand with Israel. If we as Americans turn our back on Israel, America would no longer have a reason to exist in the world.

Will you join Janet and me in praying for Israel, the peace of Jerusalem, and that this meeting in Paris comes to nothing? Share with us in the comments your thoughts and prayers for Israel, and please share this on social media. Let’s have a prayer in the comments this week.

Don’t Give Up. Surrender!

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“What?!? That title doesn’t even make sense. Give Up and Surrender are the same thing!”

Are they?

According to Google:
“Surrender” means “cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.”
“Give up” means “cease making an effort; resign oneself to failure.”

Surrender and giving up are two very different things.

God does not want us to give up on the dreams he’s called us to. He gave us those things that make our heart leap. Don’t stop your effort, don’t resign to failure, no matter how impossible it seems.

Even if it’s a situation you find yourself in that you don’t want to be in.

An unhappy marriage? Even if the original marriage was a “mistake” and God didn’t call you to marry that person, if you’re currently married, God is calling you to stay married. Don’t give up with a divorce.

An unplanned pregnancy? God is calling you to be a parent (or maybe adopt out). Don’t give up with an abortion.

A life that doesn’t feel worth living? God is calling you to keep living – he has a plan for you. Don’t give up with suicide.

A fatal illness? God is a healer, often in this life, and always in the next. God is calling you to walk a difficult road, displaying faith through weakness to everyone around you. You are inspiring them to keep going.

God will meet you on the journey. Never give up.

Here’s a game I often play with myself to keep going when I feel despair or hopelessness. If I knew this crazy thing was actually going to work, what’s the next step I would be taking right now? What would I be doing? And then I do that.

Doing the next right thing allows God to move on our behalf. But if we give up and do nothing, we tie his hands. “Cast your bread upon the waters for you will find it after many days.” (Ecclesiastes 11:1)

God does want us to surrender, however. God is not our enemy or opponent, but we often treat him that way. We often resist him by trying to do it our way in our own strength.

So how do we surrender to him? What does that look like? It looks like partnering with him. He’s our “business partner,” whether it’s an actual business, a marriage, parenting, or whatever. We talk it through with him. Often. Who ever heard of business partners never discussing the business?

A good litmus test that we’re surrendered to God in an area is that we’re not anxious or stressed about the outcome. We are doing our part – we keep doing the next right thing – but we trust he’s going to do his part and make it work. Eventually.

And if it’s not working, then we trust he’s teaching us something. We talk it through with him, and keep doing the (possibly adjusted) next right thing until it works.

So what about you? What do you think? Does this resonate? Leave us a comment or shoot us an email. Tell us your story. And please, if you think this would bless others, share it on Facebook or your favorite social media. We look forward to hearing from you!

The Blessing of Suffering

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Brother Yun, a severely persecuted house church pastor in China, was talking prayer requests with Western Christians. (His story is told in the phenomenal book, The Heavenly Man. Totally recommended reading!) They said they’d earnestly pray that the Lord would end their government’s persecution of Chinese Christians.

“On no, don’t pray that!” Brother Yun responded.

The Western Christians were shocked! “Why don’t you want us to pray for an end to your suffering?”

Brother Yun answered, “Because then we’d become complacent like the Western church. Pray instead that we can bear up under it in a way that honors our Lord Jesus.”

Wow, blows my mind. We in the West have no grid for that. But the Bible says to rejoice in our suffering:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James, brother of Jesus, in James 1:2-4.

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and charter produces hope.” Paul, in Romans 5:3-4.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Jesus, in Matthew 5:11-12.

What if, when we get to heaven, we see Jesus on his throne (see Revelation 4), the most beautiful being in all of existence. Then we get it! “Oh Jesus, you are so beautiful, now I get it! Now I’ll sacrifice for others! Now I’ll be happy to give up my creature comforts to help someone else in need! Now I understand!” But it’s too late. This is heaven. No one needs anything now. There’s nothing we can do to sacrifice for anyone else no matter how much we want to.

In the whole eternity of our existence, God has blessed us with a brief, very brief compared to eternity, 70-80 year window where we have the privilege of sacrificing for someone else, of meeting someone else’s needs at the expense of our own.

Angels never have the opportunity to do that. That’s a blessing God has only given to us. That’s hardly fair.

And it’s even more unfair than that. Our temporary sacrifices here bring us eternal rewards in heaven (see the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46). God has stacked the deck in our favor.

It’s all about perspective, and where we have our eyes set.

When Brother Yun was being tortured in a Chinese prison with an electric cattle prod in his mouth, he had his eyes set on the prize, on Jesus himself. He endured horrific but temporary pain because he had his eyes set on eternity.

Even here in the First World, God blesses us with opportunities to suffer and sacrifice, to meet other people’s needs at the expense of our own. We discover who we really are when we’re willing to go outside ourselves and help others. That’s why it feels so fulfilling.

Have you had this experience? Have you ever begrudgingly helped someone, but afterwards you felt so good, feeling God’s smile, you wondered why it was such a hard decision? Tell us your experiences in finding yourself by helping others in the comments. And please, if you think this post would bless someone else, please share it on Facebook or your favorite social media channel.

Getting to Point B

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Sometimes we approach our healing as a destination rather than as a process. “If I can only get from Point A to Point B, my life’ll be fixed!” Point B might be a valid goal:

  • “Fix my marriage.”
  • “Stop my addiction.”
  • “Not be depressed anymore.”
  • “Control my anger.”
  • “Have a good relationship with my spouse, child, parent, sibling, boss, etc.”

Because we think our healing is in the destination, we come at it with a wrong perspective:

The False Belief: “I have to get to Point B.” Maybe, maybe not. Being at Point A may not be the real problem, and Point B may not be the real solution. Maybe there’s something deeper going on.

The False Myth: “There is a path to Point B.” The truth is, Point B may be unattainable, especially if it involves relationships with others. Healthy relationships depend on the other person as much as they depend on you, and they might not be willing to go there. What do you do then?

The Unyielding Demand: “You, O Pastor/Counselor/Friend/Whatever, are going to get me to Point B.” Already setting up the blame shift if it doesn’t work…

The False Formula: “I know I have a part to play.” When someone says that, they really mean, “If I do the steps, I’ll get to Point B.” Maybe, maybe not; life’s just not that simple.

The Big Denial: “I can get to Point B without looking at my heart, or my story, or my sin.” Good luck with that.

The Secret Fear: “What if it doesn’t work?” Or what if Point B’s not all it’s cracked up to be? What if I get there and I’m still miserable?

The reality is, God’s much more interested in the process than he is in the destination. The ends do not justify the means.

Romans 5:3-5 says, “We glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. 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.”

It’s the character and the hope that God is after. Another word for hope is faith. It’s our faith in God, that he’s enough for us even while we’re stuck at Point A, that he’s trying to build in us through this process.

Here’s the right perspective to approach healing (and life) with:

The Truth: “There may not be a path to Point B.” But I’m trusting God anyway.

The Hope: “I will be different whether my circumstances are or not.” And it’s who I am, and who God is, that makes the difference of whether I can thrive in these circumstances or not.

The Right Question: “What are you up to, God?” What does God want to do in me through these circumstances?

If we approach our life with the right perspective, we will suddenly realize God has taken us to Point C!

Kudos to Dr William Clark from The Lay Counselor Institute for this excellent material.

Does this strike a chord with you? Tell us in the comments or shoot us an email with the Contact Us link above. And if you think this would be valuable to someone else, please share it on Facebook or your favorite social media (share buttons below). We look forward to hearing from you!

The Love of the Father

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Our world is starved for love and intimacy. We are made for love – to give and receive love. In the beginning God walked in the garden with man (and woman) in the cool of the day. It is the Father’s heart to spend time with us and to commune.

We don’t have to look far to find that love. We have a father in heaven who cares about us. This Father wants to be in such a relationship where we can rest in the knowledge that he has it all under control. He wants us to have faith like a child who says “Abba” or Daddy.

When we look at Jesus we look into the face of love. Love that stepped down from the throne to pay the gruesome price for my sin. No other religion speaks of a God that wants relationship. Any other religion requires some kind of earning our way to heaven. Not Christianity. The price was paid for at the cross.

I recently gazed on a bright red woven cross. To me, it spoke of the blood of Jesus. No where can we find the power to wash away the filth of our sin. Yours is no worse than mine. It all cost Jesus his life. But he laid it down willingly for you and me. How precious and how profound.

In our sophisticated, busy lives today we desperately need to know that love and forgiveness that Jesus bought. Our God is a God of second chances. We’ve all blown it. Over and over and over. But I can always climb back into my Daddy’s lap and know His love and acceptance.

Do you relate to God as your Daddy, or is that hard? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

The Hobbit

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I love the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Do you know the story of how Gandalf the wizard crashed into his life and took him on an adventure? Good old Bilbo liked the comfort of his hobbit hole and did not want to leave his familiar Shire. He said that he had always been “respectable.” I just love him! I totally understand the comfort of the familiar and boring…. Yes, boring!

You know, when the Lord Jesus crashes into our lives and takes us on an adventure it’s not predictable or boring. The Christian life is anything but boring. Graham Cooke says that the church is boringly predictable. We’ve got it backwards! Our safety should be in the predictability of the character of a loving God who is good. All the time. Our security should be in the character of a God who never changes.

Storms will hit our lives. We cannot depend on people or circumstances. The world we live in holds so much uncertainty. If we focus on the bad things in the news we could all go crazy.

When the world around us is crazy, when our lives are spinning out of control, as humans we yearn for stability. But we put our trust in things that are not stable. In fact, they could be damaging or at least not healthy.

We can put our trust in finances or our checkbook. But the Bible tells us that riches are fleeting. (I am not saying that we shouldn’t work or use wisdom in our finances).

We can put our trust in that wonderful man or woman God has (or maybe hasn’t) brought into our lives. But the problem is, no one person or one thing can ever be what God is meant to be. He is the one we trust in when all else fails around us. He is the one who has promised to never leave us or forsake us. He is the one with the wisdom to figure out all the mess around us.

Will you trust this God who sent his son Jesus who loves you so much? Will you trust him with your life and your future? Will you trust him with your dreams? Will you trust him with your pain?

This loving God knew you in your mother’s womb. He knew all your days before you were born. He can carry you through the darkest days. He knows the good and the bad and he desires healing for you. He has the blueprint for your life.

Let’s go on the adventure God has for us and trust him.

What are your thoughts? I would love to hear from you.