The Ultimate Goal of Inner Healing…
Jan 28, 2019
Inappident meaning= inappropriate + confident. An adjective having strong convictions regarding something about which one knows very little.1 For a moment I contemplated and even laughed at this sarastic definition of the fabricated non-existent word- innapident. But the Lord reminded me of 1 Timothy 1:4-7 which states:
The goal of our instruction is love, from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, ..have turned to fruitless discussion - teaching the Bible- “even though they have no idea what they are talking about.” ( The Passion Version)
Hmm…Sounds like the apostle Paul is warning us not to stray and become inappident.
So, if The goal ...is love, from a pure heart" (I Tim 1:4) then our hearts are central!!! Specifically… God purifying our hearts is central! " I Peter 1:22 states something so similar... "Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart".
Without that continual sanctification process of the cross, we cannot love well. Even when we seek to love others deeply from a heart filled with Jesus, we eventually tap into our own woundedness. But God is relentlessly seeking to accomplish restoration in our hearts! He wants to speak and love others through righteous, purified vessels that will shine his light as purely as possible. Simply put, sanctification is the continual process of becoming more like Jesus every day by repenting of sins and living by faith- becoming holy. But how is that accomplished and lived out in an intentional way? Even In Romans 8 - The apostle Paul discusses the fact we do the things we don't want to do, and don't do the things we want to do. We may feel at times we are swimming upstream against a power that we can't quite identify- because the power of that stream in our souls is fueled by sources of lies, judgments and self determinations that had been formed in woundedness and layed down over time that never had origins in God's love and truth.
The answer lies with purifying our heart from those sources at the root and the feet of a loving Jesus, who gave his life for us and rose again to give new life and giving our heart a new source that is flowing from the Word of God. And this is rarely accomplished alone.
If you are involved at all in Prayer ministry, you know it is all about touching those inner places of the heart that need God's grace and forgiveness at the place where it first started (at the root). It's about healing the places - those fuel sources that are not from God - that cause us to feel we are swimming upstream constantly only to appropriate the love of Christ very little. Inner healing is all about allowing the gospel of Christ ...in love....to touch those places that need God's grace where we first turned from Him, where we first decided His truth wasn't sufficient for us becuase we didn't appropriate his love for us properly. We once again find ourselves swimming powerfully downstream and easily in God's love, no longer pushing against the roots that were layed so diligently by our own making and we find the bad fruit just drops off easily and the good fruit of Galations 5:22 remains.
The more places in our heart that are healed from wounded times in the past, the more powerfully we can live wholly from our Spirits - radiating the Holy Spirit living within us...and loving well.
We have all heard of countless stories from friends and strangers who have been hurt deeply and at times even torn apart on the inside by christians, churches, parents, many who had many great intentions, but did not love or listen well and in turn and tempted people to stray from Jesus. If we try to approach parenting, ministry, teaching, discipling or any ministry without that purification process that produces good fruit (Galations 5:22) and "sincere love",, if we lack the empathy that Christ displayed to the world in Gethsemane- or to Mary and Martha at the raising of Lazurus, it seriously hinders a person from healing in the very area they need healing- blocking their heart that needs to be healed and receive growth. I have found myself in that category at times throughout my life more than once. And as I look back through my own experiences, I see God moving to atune my heart that music that is his, the music that beats to the rythm of peopel's hearts - to softly and boldly reflect his compassionate love.And I ponder every trial I thought unfair- I realize now God was teaching me how to Love. When I ponder the loneliest times living half way around the world- God was teaching me how to Love. As I consider persevering through the most confusing relationships or the harshest words that came from nowhere, God was teaching me how to love. In fact, God has been on an endless pursuit of my own heart for my entire life. And there is one thing that almost every experience good and bad has had in common - God’s ways in teaching me to carry his compassionate, empathetic, extravagant, over-the-top , burden bearing, LOVE!
The goal of our instruction is love, I Timothy states. The goal of inner healing prayer is purifiying the heart - but as I Timothy states, it is for a sincere love of the brethren. This is the one thing I want to carry.. How about you? It will only come through purifying our own hearts so that his message can be from the most clean, pure vessel possible. So I encourage you to ask the Lord what area in your own heart blocks His love from being displayed from the most purified vessel possible. Where did it all start?
Come to Restoring River Healing Ministries ….to HIS fountain and drink of His love....taste the purity inner healing prayer ministry brings, so that in turn - you will find the keys to fervently love one another from a purified heart.
Lord purify my heart...for a sincere love of the brethren.
1(The Emotionary - a dictionary of words that don’t exist for feelings that do- Elin Sher and Julia Wertz)
Created January 2019.