Does The 'Inner You' Need Healing?
By Carol Arnott
Have you been looking at someone else's life and saying, "Look at that person. Everything is going right for him and yet it doesn't seem to be going right for me. Why, Lord ? Don't you love me?" Or maybe you are asking, "Why does the devil seem to be so powerful? Why is he always attacking me when others don't seem to be attacked nearly so much?"
Throughout our ministry, even before renewal began in 1994, we have seen many casualties in ministry as well as in the pew. Even since the new outpouring of the Spirit started, we have seen people continue to stumble and fall. In one case we saw a man and his wife who were powerfully touched by the outpouring, but in the face of marriage problems, the husband refused to go for counseling. Two years later, he left his wife and ministry for another woman half his age bringing reproach upon the Lord.
Another pastor would not deal with sexual sin in his life. The Holy Spirit sent kind messengers who gently urged him to seek help, but he did not heed them. Finally, his wife and family left, and he was put out of his church.
Another pastor of a large church fell into major depression to the degree that he could not function. He took a leave of absence from his church for three months. In this case, the Lord rescued him and his family, helping them to find sympathetic counselors who prayed with them and loved them back to health by the power of the Holy Spirit. Today he is back in the ministry and healed from the depression.
All the people I'm describing had been powerfully touched by this River of God's presence, were mightily anointed by the Holy Spirit and had gone out across the world spreading the fire. All of them had something else in common: none had allowed the Lord to dig in the garden of his heart.
But why did the anointing seem to remain with them?
Logjams in the Heart
The reason is simple. Regardless of the anointing God gives us to minister to others, it is possible to have a personal logjam in the heart. This logjam keeps the person who ministers from experiencing Jesus' healing mercy in his own wounded soul. The anointing may continue operating powerfully through the minister even though his personal life is in shambles because God is faithful to His word and to the preaching of the gospel. The scripture says, "The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." This means that God doesn't punish a spiritually gifted individual by revoking his calling and gifts because the minister stumbles or even falls. Therefore, the presence of the anointing is not a sign that the heart of the minister himself is right with God.
In previous revivals we have seen shipwrecked ministers and believers who learned this the hard way. Some left the ministry in disgrace. Others slugged on in denial, never receiving ministry and healing themselves, bringing reproach to the Lord and the ministry and disillusionment to their followers as their hypocrisies were exposed.
God wants us to choose life in the ministry, not death. Choosing life means more than saying with your mouth, "I choose life." It means making daily choices to choose death to self and experience His resurrection life within us. Let's examine logjams more closely to detect their presence in our own lives.
Symptoms of Logjams
At this point some will quote the scripture, "Forgetting what lies behind" Yes, but what if your past is not lying dead, resolved through confession and forgiveness but
instead was buried alive? What if it is now back to haunt you, looming larger than life, affecting your present and future?
Sometimes the hurt was so great that it was impossible to resolve quickly. Did you stuff your anger in a closet as if to say, "I can't look at it now; I can't forgive now. I'll deal with it later"? Stuffing anger frequently masquerades as forgiveness because we don't feel bitter or angry anymore. Instead, we feel numb. Unless we admit the hurt and choose to give and receive forgiveness, we will inevitably wind up developing life-controlling habits and patterns of living that detrimentally affect others in our present. We then subconsciously transfer negative emotions onto people in our present that remind us of people in the past who have hurt us.
Another symptom of a logjam is the overdeveloped need to compete, which manifests all too often when we try to minister the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes Christians use the gifts of the Spirit to gain a sense of significance or identity. Prophecy, for example, flows through the spirit of the one prophesying. If that human spirit is angry or bitter, the word comes through with harsh judgment rather than mercy.
Sometimes even having positive words of prophecy for others can give the one prophesying a sense of power over another individual. Often these prophecies are delivered in a parking lot or away from others in leadership. The hidden message becomes, "See how God is using me. I'm more spiritual than you think I am."
Another symptom of a logjam in the heart is the subtle presence of fear, which demonstrates itself in the need to control people. Sometimes our fear of not having enough money is rooted in an inability to trust God because we think He won't bless or provide for us. We control what we can't trust God to do. The inability to experience intimacy with God is often rooted in a fear of being rejected by God, which is rooted in experiencing the disapproval of others. The fear of intimacy has caused more than a few leaders to shut down the moving of the Holy Spirit in their churches and substitute "works" in place of it. It is as though they must continually prove themselves to God and to their parishioners by constant "doing." Underneath it all the wounded soul is screaming, "Don't stop long enough to be still. You'll feel unworthy of God's love."
Marriage problems create a big logjam in the heart. Although these issues are not always simple, taking time to let the Holy Spirit shine His light here is vital to life in the ministry. Sometimes the causes of divorce these days are impossible to repair when there is physical abuse or repeated patterns of verbal or sexual abuse or misconduct and the offending party refuses to change. I know the personal pain of situations like these and my heart breaks for those in the same situation. God has used the tragedy of a broken marriage in my life to open me up to receive healing for these inner wounds.
Sometimes there are other reasons why marriages fail. Jumping quickly out of your marriage at the first signs of trouble is often a religious mask for a problem you are unwilling to resolve. When your spouse is at odds with you, maybe it's not because they oppose the anointing in your life but because they see the misuse of the anointing in your life. Your spouse sees how you really are.
Learning to live harmoniously with a Christian spouse can file off the rough edges in your character and bring you to a place of humility as you learn to serve them in love. Ignoring this symptom or "spiritualizing" it away is dangerous. That's why the Bible says, "If a man does not know how to look after his own household, how will he look after the church of God?" (1 Timothy 3:5 NAS) If Satan is allowed to destroy your marriage, he will destroy your witness and defile your conscience. How you love and treat your wife or husband is exactly how you will treat the church of God. Getting down off your high horse of ministry, opening up to the Holy Spirit's healing may save your family and those you minister to from the pain of seeing another Christian home dissolve.
The symptom of sexual problems including sexual addiction to pornography or even the habit of fantasizing through romance novels and soap operas is more prevalent in the church today than you might think. We've also known a number who have stumbled and fallen when they began to confide heart-to-heart in someone of the opposite sex other than their spouse. Their inability to get along with their spouse and the loneliness it produced resulted in great temptation and progressed into spiritual adultery. When spiritual adultery occurs, physical adultery is often not far behind.
Another symptom of a spiritual logjam occurs when someone either feigns or hides behind chronic sickness. I don't want to place a burden of condemnation on anyone who is genuinely afflicted and who is open to seeing the Lord heal his or her body, soul and spirit. However, I've seen a pattern in some people who always seem to be ill. Sometimes illness was a way of getting attention as a child and the pattern follows you into adulthood. That is why Jesus asked the paralyzed man lying by the pool of Bethesda, "Do you want to be healed?" Sickness may be a way of avoiding unpleasant circumstances or even a symptom of depression, or it may be rooted in a generational curse.
Generational curses are the fruit of "the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations" (Exodus 20:5b) How do I know if curses are operating in my life? Are there repeating patterns in your family's history such as accidents, premature death, adultery or alcoholism? (See Ezekiel 18:1-32 and Jeremiah 31:29-34) Occult involvement, including involvement in secret orders and groups that promote forms of religious mixture and unholy alliances, is like "strange fire" to God. Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons, made this mistake and paid for it with their lives. Let's turn from these things and plug up this chink in our spiritual armor. Whether you realize it or not, a generational curse can give the enemy of your soul a "legal" right to destroy you. And so can another problem, judgments made in bitterness.
John's book, "The Importance of Forgiveness," is a must-read in my opinion. If you take it to heart, it will change your life. Learning to forgive was a key to my own personal freedom, and it wasn't easy at first. I had to allow the Holy Spirit to open up the closets of my heart where the pain had been too great to face. I found places where I had subconsciously judged people who had hurt or offended me in the past. As I let each one go and gave them each the gift I didn't feel like they deserved, my forgiveness, the Holy Spirit washed me clean and began to release them to receive more from God. My feelings toward them began to soften.
Because my own heart was healed, I was able to eventually lead my ex-husband to Christ before he died. He had painfully abused me, but my forgiving him released him from the shackles of my own bitterness. I believe that my forgiving him and showing mercy to him opened the door for him to experience God's love and salvation.
Solution: Healing the Heart
All the issues I've just mentioned happen first in the heart before we ever see their evil fruit. Jesus said, "For out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man." (Mark 7:20-23)
It is impossible to love God with a whole heart while your heart is full of these sins. They keep you from experiencing what God has for you. The Lord wants to heal your wounded soul and allow the true you to blossom. He wants you to experience heavy doses of His divine grace because grace is a place where Satan can't go. In order to experience His grace, you must learn to give it to others.
This is what sanctification is all about; little by little, allowing Jesus to take back the ground in your heart and mind that was once Satan's playground. As you open each door to your Heavenly Father's healing touch, you will automatically close each of those doors in the devil's face.
Let's allow the Holy Spirit in this outpouring to conform us all to the image of God's dear Son. Let's keep choosing life, not death.
