“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18).
We live in a world where people “push the pain down” – or we ignore it. We don’t have time for it, we are too busy. We don’t want to deal with it, the feelings are an inconvenience. We think if we ignore it, it will go away… Let me tell you this, I work at a psychiatric hospital that has beds that are FULL of people who are in pain. It doesn’t “just go away” pain is a cry that something does not FEEL right inside of you. It is a cry of your soul telling you that something IS wrong, pushing it down and burying it under busyness, just shrugging it off hoping it will JUST shut up and go away, doesn’t make it better.
If there is something that is causing you anguish every time it comes up to the surface from where you have buried it down, it needs to be addressed… It is a heart wound that if not dealt with, will affect ALL other areas of who you are, how you view people, how you view yourself, how you live and move and have your being. The worst possible thing you can do, is ignore it.
Think of it this way, when you get a physical cut or wound, the first thing they tell you to do is immediately clean it out, put salve on it and cover it up, not to do so allows dirt and grime to get into the open wound and can cause infection. Infection than causes a bigger issue that can have an affect not only on the area that has been injured but spread to other parts of your body as well. The best thing to do is pay attention to where the source of pain is and address it.
You may say to me:
“Kelly, it’s no big deal, it’s just a minor inconvenience, it’s an aggravation I have learned to live with, I’m good.”
The truth is you are not “good” if you are in emotional anguish, there is a reason for it and if it is rearing its ugly head than something has triggered it to the surface. It needs to be addressed. I know, I have BEEN there. I don’t have all the answers, but I know the One who does! Your Heavenly Father! Sometimes we need to bring the “boo boo” before our Father because He is STILL in the healing business. He IS the BEST physician of ALL and when we run into His arms and tell Him “Where the hurt is” He helps us to address it. He may even have allowed it to rear its head JUST to show you that it is an area within you that needs His healing touch. This could be by just going before the Father in prayer and opening up to Him – “airing out the wound” or He may give you a divine appointment with someone He has brought into your life to help you go through a healing process. God is STILL in the business of using people! Some of the people God uses to bring about healing in your life may come as a surprise to you. I will be transparent (as the Lord leads constantly to be because someone is reading this Word and needs to hear it…)
This past year has been one of constant spiritual warfare in the lives of those I love most… God brought someone who had been in the background of my life, forward in the most unexpected way – and used them as a vessel of healing, of support and of love, in a way that could ONLY have been God. This individual (probably to this day, does not realize what a healing balm God is using them to be in an area of me that needs healing). It is an area within me that I had thought was my “Achilles heel” one that I thought I would have to live with for the rest of my life. It is an area that I had accepted as something I could do nothing about because it was outside my realm of being able to do anything about it. I have come to love this individual in a very special way because God is using them as a healing vessel in my life. I cannot speak about this person without getting overly emotional, because every time I see them, I see GOD using someone as His vessel in a way that this person isn’t even aware of to heal me and help me to pray more affectively for those that caused the “heart wound in me” in the first place. Unbeknown to this person because they are humble in spirit and are just “being themselves” they have no idea of the difference God is using them to make in my life. The light of Christ radiates from this person. My eyes get tearful when I see them, because I appreciate what God is doing and what God has done. That’s simply God. That’s how He works. It’s really an awesome thing when God shows you how He can use people who don’t EVEN know He is using them to bring you to a place of healing. I pray we ALL may be vessels of healing in the lives of those that God gives us “divine” appointments to touch for Him. Your life is a testimony of who YOU say Christ is!
We have control over ourselves, but we do NOT have control over the decisions of others that may cause us pain. The Bible is very clear about this, Ephesians 6:12 tells us:
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Once you have made a decision to become a follower of Christ, and I mean TRULY have decided to become a Christian, not in name only, but that your life has become transformed BY that decision, it has become personal and transforming. That as in Galatians 2:20:
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
In making for that decision for Jesus, you have also opened your up to the enemy of this world, because HE HATES YOU. And once the spiritual blinders have been removed from your eyes, and you realize that you are a spirit, that has a soul, that lives within a body – once Holy Spirit has awakened you to the fact that you have a Father who LOVED you enough to, as in John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
You become a Holy Spirit filled source to be reckoned with! And you become a target to the enemy! And not just a “piddly” target – one that he tries to through EVERYTHING he has at you, to get you to feel as though he is more powerful than God. (He’s not!) And the attacks he commits begin with your thought process and with your mind, and if you allow him to – it becomes a personal ‘heart-attack” and yes, ol’ slewfoot KNOWS what hurts you. What oppresses you, what hinders you. What causes you to take your focus OFF the Father and onto your situation.
We have no control over how others decide to treat those of us who TRULY have accepted Jesus as Savior, made Him Lord over our lives, especially those that are spiritually blind. So, we have to purpose in our hearts to just love through intercession and faith that God will draw those we love most (but God loves MORE) to Him. Everyone belittles prayer – but prayer IS the greatest weapon you can use to combat the enemy, especially when it is done IN love. That is why 1 Corinthians 13:13 says:
“Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”
If you are part of God’s Remnant, it can feel lonely at times because we are IN the world, but we are not OF the world, and standing up for God’s truth and His Word can make you a minority. We CANNOT give our faith to others, but we CAN intercede and pray on their behalf (and this is something we SHOULD do). As Christians living in a sinful world that we have been redeemed through the blood of Jesus, we HAVE to stand up for truth. We HAVE to stand up for the Bible and for what it is God wants us to represent. Jesus said in Luke 9:26:
“Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
The attacks of the enemy are fierce, and if we are not careful can hit the mark of our heart. But the victory ONLY comes when we allow the pain to be “stuffed down” instead of going to the place of our “Infirmary Room” and allowing Father God to heal us. To reach down into our soul and heal the hurt. Not suppress it and cause oppression. Not ignore it and allow it to fester, but to do a deep cleaning healing. I know there are parts of me that are in pain, that need Holy Spirit healing – is that you too? Isn’t it time that we allow Holy Spirit to minister to those hurts, so they become testimony badges as to what God has brought us through and what God can do? Depression and Oppression are symptoms indicating that you need to bring something before the Father for healing. It *may* be that in order to go higher in your walk with Christ, you have to stop “ignoring the elephant in the room” and address it. It may hurt to look it straight on and deal with it, but in bringing it before the Father and recognizing it, you are bringing into the light what has been trying to hide in the darkness.
IT IS OKAY TO ADMIT YOU HURT. IT IS OKAY TO SEEK HELP. IT IS OKAY TO CRY. IT IS OKAY TO SAY,
“No, I am NOT fine. I am in pain, and I NEED help.”
Sometimes in order to go forward, we have to take a step back and re-examine ourselves – with our Father’s help. If that is what Holy Spirit is telling you as you read these words, it’s no mistake that He brought you to this post. Let’s pray:
“Father, thank You that You are the same healing God that I have read about in the Bible. Thank You that I am wondrously made. Thank You for warning signs that tell me something is not right, signs that point me towards areas within myself that need Your healing touch. Lord, if I have opened any doors within my life that I should not have opened, I pray that You would close them. Lord, forgive me for any sins I have committed – known and unknown.
(If you know what those sins are, or Holy Spirit brings them front and center – take a moment between you and the Father to verbally confess them).
“Father, I hurt! I don’t know how to make this pain go away, so I bring this pain before You and I pray that You would heal me. That You would take away the pain. That You would clean this heart-wound and bind it up!”
(If this pain was brought about by someone in your life – take a moment to forgive them and intercede on their behalf)
“Lord, I know that sometimes the healing that you do is instantaneous, and at other times, it is a process. I give You this pain. I place it right now in Your capable healing hands. I release it to You. I entrust You with it. I pray that You would touch my heart and close up the wound within me. I pray that You would fill the area of hurt with Holy Spirit. satan, I rebuke you! I decree and declare that by Jesus’ stripes I am healed! You have NO jurisdiction over me. I have been blood bought by the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world and who reigns as Savior and Lord over my life! I plead the blood of Jesus over myself and over this area of myself that needs healing. BE GONE! Thank You Father that “greater is He that is in me than he that is within the world!” Thank You for the victory over this area of me that needs more of You. Thank You for the added testimony this WILL be in what You have done, what You are doing and what You are going to do within my life. THIS life of mine belongs to YOU. This body of mine ceased to being my own when I declared that “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives by faith in me!” THIS body, THIS heart belongs to God and therefore healing is MINE in Jesus name I pray, and I thank You Father. AMEN”
Any time the enemy tries to accuse you or tries the same tricks on you that he has used in the past – you remind him of his future as indicated in the book of Revelations 20:10:
“And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
Next time Holy Spirit allows the feeling of “pain” to well up inside of you, you quickly decide to face it head on – bringing it to the Father, it’s why Holy Spirit tapped you on the shoulder to say:
“Hey, I am bringing this to your attention – we need to deal with it in order so that we can move on.”
Don’t suppress it – deal with it. The pain of allowing Holy Spirit to clean out that heart-wound (and dealing with that elephant in the room) is less than it being a crippling pain that hinders your walk in Jesus. Isaiah 42:6-7 says:
“I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
And in allowing the Lord to heal us and set us free, walking in the freedom and healing that by His blood He purchased for us, we can declare as in Psalm 119:41-48:
“May your unfailing love come to me, Lord, your salvation, according to your promise; then I can answer anyone who taunts me, for I trust in your word. Never take your word of truth from my mouth, for I have put my hope in your laws. I will always obey your law, for ever and ever. I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts. I will speak of your statutes before kings and will not be put to shame, for I delight in your commands because I love them. I reach out for your commands, which I love, that I may meditate on your decrees.”
It is not God’s will that you walk in pain. It is His will that you be healed. You only have to face whatever it is that Holy Spirit is bringing to your attention and allow God to do a healing work in your life. Be patient, sometimes healing is instantaneous, sometimes it is a process. Trust God however He determines HOW to heal you, once you have submitted wounds to Him. Don’t try to dictate HOW He should heal you. Just allow Him access to your pain and have faith and trust that He WILL remove the elephant, if you allow Him to do so. He IS willing and He IS able. Let Him, give Him your pain and let Him change it to a testimony of praise. God LOVES you; pain is not your portion. Let Him.
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