Helping Healing

Helping Healing

What is healing?

According to Webster's Dictionary healing means to restore or regain health or soundness, free from defect or damage. Solid. To be healed or the healing process is a process and is freedom. Freedom from illness and freedom from many other ailments. An early reference to healing in The Bible comes in the first book of the Bible, Genesis 33:4. In this account of Esau welcoming home his brother, Jacob, Esau, who once plotted to kill his brother, runs to Jacob and hugs and kisses him. Both brothers rejoice at seeing one another again. This is an account of spiritual healing and drives home the point that time can heal even the worst of wounds. In Exodus 15:26, God reminds His people that it is only through obeying him that they will be healed. The scripture says, "He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you." Also in Exodus, verse 23, God reminds them again, "Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you."

But how are we healed? According to Isaiah 53:5 Jesus is the way we have the access to be healed. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities: the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his WOUNDS we are healed.” This is how God is able to heal us. When Jesus was on this earth he healed the sick but in every instance it took an act of faith, an act to follow and an act to believe. According to Matthew 12:15 “Many followed Jesus and he healed all their sick.” So how do we begin to follow Him? We start by having the Mind of Christ through our thoughts by having the attitude and actions of Christ through our lifestyles and by having the love of Christ, through worship and praise and thanksgiving. These are a few steps to preparing the way for God's healing in our lives.

1. Steps to Healing

2. Learn to Focus (thoughts) to Simplify Or Modify our thoughts and actions. Allow God to Heal your mind. A lot of people would say, “Thats fine and great but how do I do that?” It is actually pretty easy. By allowing God to penetrate your thoughts (through studying the word of God and actively praying) and He will show you how to pay attention to what you are thinking and why you are thinking it, and what root or cause of the problem and how to deal with it. As according to Psalm 107:20, “He sent forth his word and healed them.” (A lot of times headaches, backaches, anxiety is associated with depression or fear due to untrained Godly thinking.) Depression is a lack of love. And this is not of the Father. He is Love. God teaches us to love and not only love Him but to love others and to love ourselves as He loves us. In 1 John 4:7-9 says “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” In this verse notice we are allowed to love ourselves and others in the way God loves us. This was the hardest for me and since it was the hardest it made it impossible to be healed. Unlearning all the hate that was ingested in me in my childhood had branched off into my adulthood and learning to love myself and others the way God loves me was a tremendous healing in itself. I had to learn to love. It seems easy, but it was hard. To learn to say loving things to myself and others after a verbal abusive lifestyle from my father, family and peers was impossible but all things are possible to God. I realized it was a sin to not love myself like God loves me. Now I'm not talking prideful love. The pride of life love or conceited vanity. But to learn to love yourself and see yourself the way God loves and sees you helps heal.

3. Allow God to ask you questions. When do you feel anxious? Is it when a bad memory expresses itself through someone or someone cuts you off in traffic? When do you worry? Or when do you get headaches? How often? When are you experiencing any type of pain? (Of course, see a doctor for serious conditions but first we must allow God at least a CHANCE to really heal us) This in turn will teach us to walk in the spirit and not the flesh. Gal 5:16 says, “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” When we think of the flesh we immediately think of things that are pleasurable and feel good, but many times we are unaware that fleshly desires can also mean to fulfill anger, resentment, hostility towards ourselves or to others or even worry. As you can see further in Galatians 5:16 around verse 20 that we see that Paul is not only talking about fleshly desires but desires that penetrate our thoughts which lead to actions.

4. God healed me from the pain, anxiety, stress, depression worry and anger that I was in bondage all those years and these steps were just steps to what is now a walk. You can do it too! Therefore, I challenge you to just one day, ONE DAY to pay attention to your thoughts for one whole day and write them down in a journal. You would be amazed at how you think. But here is the good news! God is living in you now and he can teach you how to start thinking like God does. With love, kindness, hope, long-suffering, patience and self control. (Romans 5:1-5 and Gal 5:22,23.) Once you allow Him to penetrate your thoughts and teach you how to relearn how he meant for us to think.

5. Learn to make good use of your life (actions) Modify Your Life. Allow God to change your atmosphere. What do you surround yourself daily in? Ask yourself what would Jesus atmosphere look like? Then surround yourself in that! But what if I don't have enough time to make it simple? Let's face it! We all have time restraints and we don't seem to have enough time in the day to make room for God and this change. But that is a lie from the devil to keep you in bonds. I would say let me ask you this? If you showed up for work and decided to just do a half job for your boss don't you think that you would NOT be rewarded for a job well done or that you would NOT get a raise. Possibly even fired. That the boss would see you as lazy or lack of potential? Shouldn't we look at this same principal in our spiritual job? If we learn to take our spiritual walk as seriously as we do our daily jobs then we would store up more in heaven and even learn to live more abundant lives. Jesus said he came to give life more abundantly. So aren't we just being lazy in our spiritual walk if we think it unimportant or we cant fit it in? Make time and modify your life. Also ask yourself these questions: What is more important than God? Pray and ask God to make time for you. Allow God to weed out the thorns and thistles that have entrapped our seed of life from growing. Modify your lifestyle in all areas. It can be as easy as learning a new hobby, creating new ways of enjoying the gorgeous surroundings God has blessed us with or even just enjoying a home cooked meal instead of fast food.

6. Not only do we have to surround ourselves with things that matter but we have to surround ourselves with people that matter. Who do you associate with? Does he/she encourage you? Or does he/she bring you down? A lot of times the people we are around controls our thoughts and actions and many times this is cancer to our souls. You may say, “What if I cant get away from this person? Or what if this person is my husband, wife, child, parent?” Then God put that person in your life for a reason. (Eph 2:21-22) Make plans to include them in your process of healing and God will not only help you but He will help your loved ones too. (Eph 4:3) And if they aren't anxious to jump on the healing wagon then thats OK. Simply pray and seek God's face with all of your heart and all these things will be added to you.

7. Most importantly (make known) Amplify your Lord. Even though this is the last step it is the most important step of all. Without a love relationship with your Savior you will not be able to begin to heal. And because of this very reason it becomes a spiritual journey and not a self help guide. Anyone can begin to heal with the right positive thinking but we have a Holy Lord living inside of us that will bring what self-help doesn't, that is love and completion. But first we have to allow Christ to be at home within you. Eph 5:19-21 says “ Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.(outward actions) Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (inward actions) Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.”(humble actions) Reverence God and make melody in your heart and give thanks. When we reverent God in this way we become lighter, crisper, and even healthier. When we glorify our Lord, when we place Him first and foremost in our lives, when we obey his laws and decrees then we begin a journey of love and in that journey we learn to be what God wants us to be and it matches to our very own desires. We remember our childhood dreams, we learn to speak a loving language and most importantly we desire what God desires. (Psalms 149 1-5) says “Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. Let them praise his name with dancing make music to him with tambourine and harp. For the Lord takes (What?) delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for join on their (healthy or sick) beds.”

Traits of Healing

Promises

(God longs to bless you) and He will NEVER forsake you. (1 Cor. 2:9 Hebrews 4 Heb 6:12)

Throughout the entire Bible God always keeps His promise to you and one thing is for certain that if He promises to heal then you can be certain He will do as he says. In Hebrews 6:18 it speaks of two immutable things (Characteristics of God and His word), in which it was/is impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us to be greatly encouraged. Encouragement to be secured in his promises.

Faith

It takes faith to be healed. Every single time someones been healed is because of their faith and works. Faith has to last. You have to really believe! Be submissive to be healed. It takes humility, time and patience and resisting the devil to not worry and a lot of courage a lot of strength and a lot of resistance to say I am going to be healed and Lord if it is your will to heal me I will never give up until I hear from you Lord. You cant say one day heal me and then the next day Lord I know you just dont want to heal me. For instance, a child depends on a parent and believes that parent will take care of him/her when he/she is sick but let's say if this child goes to his/her parents and this child says Daddy I am sick I dont feel good I am running a fever but I just dont trust you today so I am going to go out and play instead, then what becomes of this child? The child would become sicker or even die. The parent would then go AFTER that child to make sure he/she gets to the doctor and has care immediately. When we think we are sick we have to go to the doctor when really we should go to our Lord first and ask Him what we should do with our ailment. Just like a child does. The Lord says in Matthew 7:9-11 says “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven, give good gifts to those who ask him!” If we know what to do when our children are sick then our Father in heaven is going to know what to do when we are hurting.

Rejoice

According to Collossians 1:24 we should rejoice in these sufferings because in these afflictions we learn of Christ and what we are in the body of Christ and where and how we can serve each other so when those times of pain and suffering we don't understand why we are going through it at the time but we have to remember the rejoicing of what God is teaching us and accept in humility and learn the riches of His glory. There is a time and purpose for every season. Enjoy the season while it lasts and take notice of life. I know when I see someone rejoice in their pain and sorrow I am comforted and realize that I can make it through too. You can help others see the light within you when we don't complain or murmur. Once I heard someone say. “It's easy to rejoice in the sun and complain in the rain but I'd rather wait for the sunset.” How often are we not thinking about the next day when we are complaining and not rejoicing in today?

In Conclusion

We first learn to focus. Mind, soul, spirit. Simplify or Modify our thoughts. Make life less complicated. Problems are always bigger than it is. Make your life easier. Concentrate on beauty. Long walks, write a poem, read a book. Second, Modify Your Life. - Eat right, exercise, modify your relationships. And lastly but not least Amplify your Lord. Make God foremost. Talk with him. Develop a loving long lasting marriage with Him and be devoted to Him even in times of trouble. After all He is still on His Throne.

Hebrews 12:13 says “Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”