When I first became a follower of Jesus in my early 20’s, I lived with the impression that all the neat, clean people that sat on the pews around me on Sunday mornings were sinless, happy, and healthy people who lived worry free lives of contentment. However, after decades of serving in churches, I can say unequivocally that my impression was wrong.

If we are honest, a great many believers today are saved but remain in bondage to sin, addiction, shame, and a host of other hindrances to their walk. The truth is that other than church attendance and having their sins forgiven, a large percentage of believers differ little from the people they work with or go to school with who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them. Divorce rates in the church rival divorce rates in the culture at large. Christian teens seem to have little power over the cultural pressure to drink, experiment with drugs, or to be sexually active. A significant number of believers live on antidepressants, tolerate marriages dominated by anger and rage, live with bitterness toward the past, and are crippled by an overpowering sense of unworthiness and rejection. In short, they continue to live out their lives in emotional brokenness and bondage.

I’m not scolding these believers for not being “the Christians they should be.” Through the years, I have struggled with many of those issues as well. These believers are desperately looking for freedom and healing, but for the most part have not been able to gain victory over the issues that rob them of the joy and peace they long for.

Jesus declared that he came that his people might have life and have it to the full – abundant life. He also declared that he came to bind up the brokenhearted and set captives free. For many believers, there is a huge gap between the promises and the reality. Why? We can say with confidence that the shortfall is not on the part of Jesus for Jesus has done everything perfectly.

The truth is that, in many cases, these men and women have not been shown by their churches how to access the freedom and healing that Jesus promises. The majority of churches in America, offer their people the forgiveness purchased by the cross but not the healing and freedom. When confronted with brokenness and bondage, they send the children of God out into the world to find solutions. They are left to seek healing and freedom from those who often do not believe the core values of our faith or even that God exists.

Even when they are referred to “Christian counselors,” those good men and women have nearly always been trained to use the weapons of the world rather than divine weapons. There is something terribly wrong with that picture. Doing so implies that Jesus has no answers for the emotional suffering of his people, so we must look elsewhere. The weapons of the world can help but cannot go far enough for real victory. They tend to provide “coping skills” rather than lasting freedom.

A gospel that only gets us to a place of forgiveness, but does not radically change us through the healing and freedom that is ours in Christ is not the gospel that Jesus preached. When Jesus preached the gospel, there was always a demonstration of life-changing power with it. Paul pointed to this truth when he said, “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life” (Phil. 2:14-16).

Stars stand out in stark contrast to the darkness around them. Jesus himself declared that his followers were to be the light of the world. Those who wear the name of Christ should stand out in the crowd by their sheer “differentness” and have a testimony of his powerful work in their lives. Jesus spoke of being “born again,” not as figurative language for trying harder, but as a reality where something real and essential has been altered in everyone who comes to him. After a short while, that essential difference should become apparent, not a as a reflection of our efforts but as a reflection of the power of God working in us and Christ being formed in us.

If the world can provide the healing and freedom that Jesus promised his people, then much of what Jesus paid for with this suffering and death was unnecessary. Paul clearly stated that the wars we truly fight, must be fought with divine weapons rather than the weapons or strategies of the world (2 Cor. 10:4, Eph.6). Most churches have little idea about fighting in the Spirit and little access to those weapons. Therefore, their people continue to struggle with emotional brokenness and bondage.

We need a shift. We need to be willing to say that what we have been doing is lacking. We need to be willing to say that we have meant well but have missed something important in the scriptures because our fruit does not yet rival the fruit we see in the New Testament. My hope is that many senior pastors and elders will begin to ask for more, seek more, and risk more so that their people have access to everything Jesus purchased for them. The power of Jesus is immense and its impact should be profound and visable. Our people should stand out from the world and walk in victory over the things that burden most of the earth. It is not that we will be trouble free, but that the trouble will come from without rather than from within where Jesus lives – and that makes all the difference.

Several good models for understanding the nature of emotional and spiritual wounds and their healing are based on the concept of needs and fears. The idea is that, as children, we have legitimate or perceived needs. When those needs go unmet or are perceived to go unmet, then we develop fears around those unmet needs. To protect ourselves, we develop emotional defense mechanisms that we believe will protect us from being hurt again.

For instance, if my need for security went unmet as a child and I experienced uncertainty and chaos in my family, I might develop a high need for control which makes me feel safe because my welfare is never placed in the hands of another. If I was constantly disappointed as a child, I might develop an outlook of hopelessness or cynicism. If I never expect good things to happen, then I won’t be disappointed when good things don’t happen. If I experienced some form of betrayal as a child, then I might develop a mindset of distrust so that I never let anyone get close enough to hurt me or betray me again. Objectively, we can look at these defense mechanisms and see that, ultimately, those mindsets still won’t keep us from being hurt by others but those who maintain them believe that they will.

On top of that, those defense mechanisms keep us from experiencing love, emotional connection, joy, optimism, adventure, and even faith because we typically extend those defense mechanisms even to our relationship with God. The needs/fears model also suggests that we primarily have our needs met by different positions or roles in the family. We primarily derive our identity, protection, and provision from our father or whoever our father figure is. We derive companionship and heart to heart communication from our siblings or close friends. We get our needs met for comfort, nurture, and teaching from our mothers. According to this model these needs and the family positions we look to for meeting our needs correspond to the Godhead. The father role is Father God. The siblings and friends role reflects Jesus and the mother’s role falls to the Holy Spirit.

If our earthly father failed to meet our needs, then we will probably have difficulty connecting to and trusting our heavenly Father. If we failed to connect with siblings or friends or were betrayed by friends, we may have difficulty connecting with or trusting Jesus. If our mother did not meet the needs that we would primarily derive from her, then we may have difficulty in receiving the love, comfort and leading of the Holy Spirit. I don’t think this is a perfect model because no model is perfect, but I think it offers a lot for us to consider.

Somewhere in the process, the wounded believer must discover the wounds that came from unmet needs, forgive those who did not meet their needs or who wounded them, and discover that the Godhead is not subject to the same failings and weaknesses that our biological families and friends are subject to. If these defense mechanisms are not dealt with, they will eventually be maintained or enforced by demons.  Ultimately, the solution for every problem in life is trust in God. If you think about it, underneath just about every story and miracle in scripture, God is calling out for his people to trust him. Faith is not just a belief that God exists, but that he exists and can also be completely trusted. Think about it. God offers protection, provision, companionship, comfort, healing, teaching, nurture, and heart-to-heart communication – even eternal life. He offers to meet every legitimate need that we have when those who are limited by the flesh fail us.

There are many ministry methodologies to help believers receive inner healing through Jesus. After all, he came to heal the brokenhearted. But we can start that process by beginning to pray for the Spirit to birth trust in us for the Father, Son, and Spirit. That is where the real battle is and where most of us need to give some attention. When we trust God to meet our needs, we no longer have to maintain our walls of protection. When they come down, life gets better, relationships are richer, and the sun shines a little brighter each day. Pray about it.

This week I’m attending a four-day conference at the King’s Park International Church in Durham, North Carolina entitled Healing the Human Soul. Most healing conferences offered by churches today are all about praying for physical healing. I love those conferences as well, but I would say that healing the soul is of greater importance and if the soul is healed, many times physical healing will follow. For a number of decades now, leaders in the field of medicine have estimated that 60 to 80 percent of all illnesses are emotionally rooted. When they say “emotionally rooted” they mean that chronic stress, worry, fear, bitterness, anger, etc. tend to compromise the immune system, increase blood pressure, rob people of sleep, create chemical imbalances, etc. and those conditions then give way to illness. Because of that, physical healing is often impossible or, at least, impossible to maintain without first healing the soul.

The prophet Isaiah recognized the great need of healing the soul when he spoke of the coming Messiah. He spoke for Messiah prophetically when he said, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isa.61;1). Because of sin, man is enslaved to a number of things: sin, addictions, demonization, self-centeredness, and illness. All of these create their own form of bondage for people – even God’s people. In Isaiah 61, the prophet suggests a chronology needed before each person can be fully released to become all that his/her Father in Heaven has decreed for them. First the gospel must be preached so that sins are forgiven in Christ. That releases us from the legal demands of sin on our lives. But secondly, Jesus came to bind up, heal, or minister to the brokenhearted. That is healing the soul. After that, captives and prisoners can be set free from whatever form bondage has taken in their lives.

Too often we try to heal the physical body or cast out a demon without addressing the brokenness in which a disease is rooted or to which a demon is attached. If the wound isn’t cleaned and healed properly, even if there is some temporary relief, the infection will return. Addictions are ways in which we attempt to medicate our broken souls. If the soul is not healed, a person may be set free from one addiction but will simply find another with which to medicate the wounds hidden deep in his or her soul. Believers often get stuck in their spiritual growth because they can’t get past their brokenness. The church over the last 200 years has been excellent at bringing people to forgiveness but is just now beginning to discover or rediscover how to heal the soul so that the sanctifying work of the Spirit can truly make us like Jesus.

As we minister to broken people, we too often think that problems are one-dimensional and need a one-dimensional solution. If a person is sick, command healing. If person is emotionally distressed or in bondage, cast out a demon. If a person is hopeless, preach Jesus. All of these are valid expressions of the kingdom of God and are extremely important. However, broken and enslaved people typically need all three of these elements to find healing and freedom.

God is interested in redeeming every part of us. Paul echoes that truth when he says, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess.5:3). In one sense, the idea of sanctification is for us to align ourselves perfectly with God’s will, his ways, and his purposes. He wants the body, soul, and spirit of every believer to be aligned with him. When that occurs healing is manifested, freedom is experienced, and the fruit of the Spirit can finally begin to flourish within the believer.

Most often this is a process, not just an event and discipleship is the ultimate solution so that these afflicting conditions don’t return. As Americans we are prone to look for the quick fix and often leave many things undone that manifest later. Taking our time to minister to body, soul, and spirit is a much more effective approach in the long run. The cost on the front end is time and effort – both on the part of the one who needs the healing and on the part of those administering the healing. Slowing down is a spiritual discipline that many, if not most, of us need to master. I’m at the front of that line.

Pastor Jim Laffoon from Nashville, Tennessee is leading this conference and is providing really interesting insights and thoughts about healing the soul. Much of his presentation is connecting what the Bible has told us for millennia about the impact of sin and righteousness in our lives and the lives of our children with current brain and genetic research. This research is revealing some of the “whys” for God’s commands and may suggest even more effective approaches to our use of the divine weapons that God has given us.   I will be sharing some of those insights in my next few blogs.

Fifteen years ago, I asked a faithful Christian woman, we will call Mary Ellen, when she was going to forgive her former husband. It was a hard question. She had been physically and emotionally abused even beyond what most abused women have had to endure. She had fled from that husband five years earlier, moved far away from him, and had started over with a new marriage. The problem was that her new marriage wasn’t going well either. She had come in seeking answers and, after three sessions, I felt compelled to ask the question. In fifteen years I haven’t forgotten her response. With her hands clenched into fists, the veins on her neck popping out, and her jaws tightened, she snarled, “Forgive him? Forgive him? I hope he burns in hell for what de did to me!” In her heart there was no impulse to forgive and in her mind she felt totally justified in hoping for his eternal damnation.

Although this was a woman who had grown up in church faithfully serving in various ministries, she was in bondage to bitterness, rage, and unforgiveness. She was the poster child for the old saying that “unforgiveness is like drinking poison, believing that it will make the other person sick.” She was aware of the multiple verses in which Jesus was very clear that if we don’t forgive those who have sinned against us, then our heavenly Father will not forgive our sins against him (Mt.6:14-15, Mt. 18, etc.). She simply felt that her case was exceptional so that those verses did not apply to her. The truth was that the toxic bitterness and rage she still felt against her first husband was spilling over into this new marriage and poisoning it.

Of all the sins that Christian men and women are in bondage to, I believe that unforgiveness is the most common and, in the long run, the most destructive. It is also the most common because we have all been wounded and betrayed and have all felt fully justified in our anger or bitterness toward the perpetrator.

In fact, we have likely been truly justified in our feelings. We just haven’t been justified in holding on to those feelings and keeping them alive. Because we are justified in our feelings in the beginning, we feel justified in keeping those feelings alive forever. But the decision not to forgive is where sin begins and when the door swings open for the enemy to enter. It is even where we begin to take offense at God when we discover that he is not hammering the person who wounded us.

Concerning unforgiveness, the apostle Paul counsels us, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph.4:26-27, ESV). This verse reveals several things. First of all, we can experience anger and not sin. Perhaps, our anger is a righteous anger such as the anger Jesus demonstrated in the temple when he was turning over the tables of the moneychangers. Perhaps, it is just the normal human experience of anger welling up within us when we feel threatened or betrayed. There is a point, however, in which our failure to manage our anger becomes sin.

Our experience of anger becomes sin when we take the next steps of retaliating against the person who wounded us or when we choose to nurture our anger to keep it alive. We forget that Paul had some experience with the kind of rage that begins to take control of a person. As Saul of Tarsus, he was not just attempting to discourage false doctrines about Jesus of Nazareth from arising within the Jewish community. Rather, he was described as one who was “breathing out threats and slaughter” against the church (see Acts 9:1). He was the one who coordinated the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7, without any evidence of remorse. Saul was a man who was full of rage and obsessed with the destruction of Jewish people who simply had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Before his encounter with Jesus, Saul was not a righteous man trying to defend truth, but an angry man filled with rage against people he had never met. He was in bondage to his anger in the same way that Mary Ellen was in bondage to hers.

We are also told that we should not let the sun go down on our anger. In other words, deal with it in short order. Don’t even go to bed until you have dealt with it as Jesus would. Why? Because…any kind of prolonged unforgiveness gives the devil an opportunity to establish a beachhead in our hearts. Some of the older translations say that we must not “give the devil a foothold.” The Greek word is “topos” and means a position, a sanctuary, or some standing in our lives. When we refuse to forgive or keep putting it off, we come into agreement with Satan. All Adam and Eve did was to come into agreement with Satan. Whatever we agree with, we give authority in our lives and you never want Satan to have any authority in your life.

Many Christians are not living a spiritually abundant life nor are they making progress in their faith or their freedom because they have chosen not to extend forgiveness to someone in their life. They unknowingly have given Satan a foothold that has probably become a silent stronghold over the years. A satanic stronghold is not typically the stuff that The Exorcist was made of where the presence of demons is totally weird, extreme, and unmistakable. Typically, strongholds manifest as compelling, persistent thought patterns that, in the case of anger, keep anger alive and provide total justification for continuing in our unforgiveness.

From these strongholds, the devil tells us that our case is the exception to the commands and warnings of Jesus about a refusal to forgive. He convinces us that our case is so extreme that it is not the kind of thing Jesus was talking about when he insisted on forgiving our enemies or he convinces us that we have been hurt so deeply that it is impossible for us to forgive. Because it is impossible, Jesus will give us a pass on that command. He will go on to convince us that our anger is righteous and just because to forgive would let evil people off the hook or excuse their behavior altogether. He will also tell is that our anger and unforgiveness is the very thing that protects us from more hurt and, therefore, is both necessary and justified.

The problem is that Jesus gave no exceptions to the rule and demonstrated the “no exception” clause on the cross when he asked the Father to forgive those who had just betrayed, beaten, and crucified him. What we must understand is that forgiveness is primarily for us, not for those who have wounded us. Forgiveness frees our heart from bitterness, from the past, and from those who would continue to hurt us. Forgiveness keeps the devil out and keeps us from poisoning our own wells. Forgiveness opens the door to God’s blessings in our lives and aligns our hearts with the heart of Jesus. Justice will be done. God will deal with those unrepentant individuals who go through life harming others whether you have forgiven them or not. If they are not right with God, he will deal with them. The bigger question is always whether or not we are right with God.

Forgiveness frees, heals, and makes reconciliation possible when it would bless all parties. It is the ultimate chance to trust God by doing the very thing that seems most risky and trusting him to bless and protect us in our obedience. It is the ultimate measure of how aligned our hearts are with his. The first step to forgiveness is acknowledging that there are no “exception clauses” for us, no justification to ignore his command, and that God only asks us to do those things that bless us. After that, we can receive God’s help in fulfilling his commands.

Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. The people spoke against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.”    The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Numbers 21:4-7

There are numerous occasions in the Old Testament when the people of God began to grumble and complain about their circumstances. In this circumstance, they complained about an apparent lack of food (or a variety of food) and a lack of water. They complained bitterly about the “miserable food” they had. The miserable food was, of course, the manna that God provided every morning. In response to their constant complaints, God released a plague of fiery snakes into the camp of the Israelites. Some died from the painful bites.

The New Testament writers also have some things to say about grumbling and complaining:

We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. 1 Cor. 10:9-10

Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! James 5:9

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe. Philippians 2:14-15

So…why is grumbling and complaining such a serious matter for God’s people? Ultimately, our grumbling and complaining declares that God’s work and provision in our lives is deficient, insufficient and unfair. It is an indictment against the character and the love of God for his people.

After 400 years of bitter slavery in Egypt, God led his people out of Pharaoh’s furnace with an unprecedented reign of terror in the form of ten plagues from which Israel was exempt – at least for most of them. God then capped that off with the Red Sea crossing and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army. Not only that, but when the Hebrew slaves left Egypt they left with gold, silver, and jewels given to them by the Egyptians themselves along with herds of sheep and cattle. God then fed 1.5 million people in the desert every day with manna that formed around them each morning and miraculously provided water when it was necessary. But that wasn’t enough. The Hebrews were unsatisfied with the miserable food God was providing.

Concerning that manna the Hebrews collected each morning, the psalmist declared, “Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens; he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven. Men ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat” (Ps.78:23-35).

The miserable daily provision of God each day was described by the Holy Spirit as the grain of heaven and the bread of angels. Jesus would later draw an analogy between himself and the manna as he called himself the “bread of heaven.” Apparently, the manna had an amazing, if not miraculous, ability to sustain life and health in a barren desert. It was more than sufficient for their needs and was provided daily by a faithful God. For the Hebrews, however, it wasn’t sufficient. It did not provide the variety they desired. It could not be stored up so it kept them dependent on God when they apparently desired self-sufficiency. The water complaint points to the same issue. They wanted a ready and infinite supply of water rather than having to trust Gold for miraculous provision each day. When they grumbled and complained, they weren’t speaking against their circumstances, but rather against the character of God himself.

The New Testament writers offered the same observations and conclude that our complaining is also an indictment of God’s love, his care, or his fairness. We deserve more. God hasn’t provided enough or the right kinds of things. His care is inadequate. That was the accusation of Satan in the Garden of Eden when he suggested to Adam and Eve that God was holding out and that there was more they needed for life and happiness than God was giving. Grumbling echoes Satan’s accusations against God that he is unfair and uncaring. When we complain and grumble we come into agreement with
Satan and empower him. Then the snakes – the demons – show up in our own lives and when they do they bite. Complaining and grumbling gives off an aroma in the spiritual realm that draws the enemy like flies to rotting meat.

So what is the antidote? After all, aren’t we all human and prone to complaints? Yes, we are but we are also prone to other sins as well. Grumbling and complaining is sin. Therefore, we begin with repentance and then move to thanksgiving based on the belief that God is always with us and is meeting our needs in the way that suits our present condition best.

Graham Cooke makes this observation. “Every obstacle, every problem, every attack, is allowed and designed to teach you to become more like Jesus. That’s why every problem comes with a provision attached to it. As Christians, we must stand in the midst of the problem, knowing God’s promise, and expect a provision. All things work together for good in the economy of God” (Graham Cooke, Crafted Prayer, Brilliant Book House, p. 35-36).

Because God is in the midst of every situation – even those we make for ourselves – and is working all things to our good, we can give thanks in every situation. Thanksgiving closes the door to the enemy. It allows us to see the hand of God in our lives and to hear his voice. It strengthens us and reminds us that he who is in us is greater than he that is in the world. Thanksgiving for what God has done and for what he is about to do is the language of heaven. Grumbling and complaining is the language of hell.

So…if you find yourself prone to complain or recognize that you have been in a season of grumbling, repent and discipline yourself to thanksgiving and praise. It will make all the difference.

No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.  This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from me,” declares the Lord. Isaiah 54:17

For many of us, this is a familiar passage but, perhaps, one that we have not dug into very deeply. There is a two-part promise that comes to us as servants of the Lord that we often need to stand on. First of all, God promises that no (none, not any) weapon (weapon, instrument, possession, plan) forged (formed, fashioned, planned, designed) against us will prevail (prosper, cut through, force entry, succeed) if we are servants of the Lord (full time, not part time).

Since Paul tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but rather against spiritual forces of wickedness, we can say that no weapon the devil forms against us and uses through people will prevail or be victorious in the long run. He is not saying that we will not face some battles and even get some cuts and bruises. He is saying that in the long run, the plans of the enemy to destroy us will not succeed if we continue to stand with the Lord.

Secondly, he declares that God will eventually refute every accusation that comes against us. These are connected thoughts and the second may actually be a clarification of the first. Satan is called the accuser of the brethren (Rev.12:10) and not only accuses us day and night before God, but also before men. Many of the weapons formed against us come as accusations, slander, condemnation, and so forth. Sometimes we experience those assaults through the lips of people around us. At other times, we hear them in our own thoughts. They are hurtful, discouraging, and damaging. They are fiery darts from the enemy. Search the scriptures and you will see that all those who served the Lord were, eventually, accused of ungodly motives and actions by their enemies. They were accused of being blasphemers and heretics, subverting governments, and being in league with the devil just for a start.

The promise is that we will refute the accusations made against us. But how will we refute them? Do we argue, make our case, or slander back? No. We trust God to vindicate us in the eyes of those around us. Jesus did not answer his accusers and he is our model (1 Peter 2:23).
As you search the Psalms, you see David frequently asking God to vindicate him but he rarely attempted to vindicate himself. There is an old saying that you should not try to defend yourself against slander because your enemies won’t believe it and your friends don’t need it. There is a great deal of truth in that.

How, then, do we refute words spoken against us? By continuing to live a godly life regardless of how others accuse us. Jesus went as far as commanding us to love our enemies who typically reflect the devil’s character as they accuse us day and night. He commands us to love our enemies by praying for them, speaking well of them when they speak evil of us, and doing good to them (Lk.6). Those actions keep the devil from getting a foothold in our own hearts. The promise is that, eventually, the people we care about will see Christ in us and see the devil in our accusers. If we give in and join them in the mudslinging, then people will eventually see the devil in us and that will hide the devil in them because he is a much more accomplished mudslinger than we can ever be.

To me, the most important part of the Isaiah passage is that protection and vindication are our heritage in the Lord. If that promise is true for the servants of God, how much more must it be true for his children?

Jesus said that in this world we will have trouble (Jn.16:33). Weapons, plans, and strategies will be formed against us. We will experience much of that warfare in the form of accusations and condemnation. Our part is to continue to stand with God, always take the high road, and trust in the Lord for vindication. If we fall into the trap of the devil by taking up his tactics in the fight or by receiving the condemnation he is spewing, then his weapons will have prevailed in our lives. But if we trust the Lord and his promises and continue to reflect the character of God, then our faith will quench the fiery darts of the enemy.

Standing with God in the face of unfounded accusations is hard. It typically takes endurance. If there is truth in the accusation, then we need to hear it, acknowledge it, and repent. David understood this principle. After his son Absalom conspired to take David’s kingdom, David and those close to him were leaving Jerusalem. A man name Shimei accused David of treachery against Saul’s household and was pelting David with stones. Abishai, one of David’s commanders came to him and offered to separate Shemei’s head from his body. David commanded Abishai to leave the man alone. Davis thought that, perhaps, God had prompted the man to say those things for there might be some truth that David needed to hear. If there was no truth in the accusations, then David believed that God would bless him for the abuse he was receiving without retaliation (2 Sam.16). The same spirit is found in Paul’s directives in Romans 12. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Do not repay anyone evil for evil…but overcome evil with good” (Rom.12:14-21).

Satan’s primary strategy is to alienate us from God and to draw us into his camp. If we come into agreement with Satan in our heart or in our actions and remain there long, we give him a place in our lives.  When we stand with the Lord, believing that victory and vindication are part of our inheritance, then we will see the power of the enemy fade and the promises of the Father prevail. Then…no weapon formed against us shall prosper. Be blessed today by blessing those who curse you! By the way, you will probably have to ask Jesus for the grace to do so.

There are certain things that seem to get in the way of answered prayer, healing, and deliverance on a regular basis. Believers, who are attending church and serving God, often wonder why God has not answered their sincere prayers or why nothing seems to be working out in their lives.  Eventually, they begin to question God’s reliability, promise keeping, and faithfulness in those instances, but often the fault lies in the heart of the believer. The number one hindrance, that I see, to the move of God in the lives of believers is unforgiveness.

Jesus is very clear about this issue. “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Mt. 6:14-15). In the parable of the unmerciful servant (Mt.18:21-35), Jesus tells of a man whose master forgave his unpayable debt of ten thousand talents. The man immediately went out demanding payment from a few who owed him inconsequential amounts and when they couldn’t pay, he had them sent to a debtor’s prison. When the master heard about it, he withdrew his mercy and turned the unmerciful man over to the “tormentors.” Jesus finished the parable by saying, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

Forgiveness is not optional if you want the blessings of the kingdom in your life. I was reading through Jonah and I thought how much we are often like the old prophet. You remember the story. God directed Jonah to go to Nineveh and declare that catastrophic judgment was on the way unless they repented. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a world power that had killed, brutalized, and deported thousands of Jews over a period of decades. In the mind of Jonah, no grace nor forgiveness was due the Assyrians. My guess is that Jonah felt as if God were being unrighteous and unjust in even considering delaying his judgment on that city – a day that Jonah had privately prayed for.

Rather than obeying God and being an instrument of God’s grace, Jonah ran as if he could hide from the Creator of heaven and earth. Many of us believe that those who have betrayed and wounded us should experience the wrath of God in their own lives. When we hear the command to forgive, we run away in our minds – we find other things to talk about, think about, and focus on. We find a dozen reasons why we should not forgive at that moment. Instead of instant obedience, we put if off – sometimes for decades.

After being cast overboard by a crew of pagan sailors out of Joppa, Jonah was swallowed by a fish prepared by God for that moment and after three days and nights he was vomited onto the shore. (The life of a prophet is not always glamorous.) In his refusal to forgive and express mercy toward Nineveh, Jonah had been turned over to a tormentor – in this case a great fish. Then the Lord commanded Jonah, a second time, to go preach repentance to Nineveh. This time, Jonah went.

Remarkably, Jonah’s less than half-hearted preaching did the trick. The entire city, from the King to the dogcatcher, repented in sackcloth and ashes. Jonah was furious. In his mind, God had no right and no business extending grace to these godless people. In fact, Jonah confessed that he had run away because he knew what would happen – God would withhold devastation.

The book ends with Jonah still pouting about God’s goodness. We are not told what happened to Jonah after that. What is clear is that God’s heart is to forgive whenever possible and he wants that to be our heart as well. Here is the key: we don’t forgive because those who have wronged us deserve it, but because Jesus deserves it. To refuse to do so leaves us in the hands of the tormentors.

Who or what are the tormentors? Sometimes, they are simply our own emotions. Anger, bitterness, blaming, revenge – all of these poison our own well, rob us of joy, increase our blood pressure, and spill over on the innocent who are then driven away by our harshness. Sometimes they are demonic spirits who gain access to us by our anger, resentment, and disobedience. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil a foothold” (Eph.4:26-27).

Sometimes, we interpret Jesus as saying that we must forgive when those who have wronged us when they come crawling to us, pleading for our forgiveness. In our minds, if they don’t repent we don’t have to forgive. Jesus did not set that condition on our forgiveness. Again, we forgive because he forgave us. We forgive those who owe us debts because the master forgave us an unpayable debt.

On several occasions, we have labored to cast out a demon that will not budge until we discover that the person we are ministering to has not forgiven someone in his or her life. When they do forgive, the demon looses its place (his legal right to be there), and then comes out quickly. I believe this situation is repeated when some are not healed and when blessings never seem to find their way to a person or a family.

In those situations, God is not withholding – we are. I wonder if the command came to Jonah for his benefit more than for the benefit of the Assyrians. I imagine Jonah as an angry prophet, beaten down by the years, and bitter in spirit. Perhaps, his bitterness was toward the Assyrians and it was God’s grace that gave him a chance to be freed from that bitterness by seeing the citizens of Nineveh as frightened and broken people rather than just evil enemies. Jonah turned down that opportunity and at the end we see the sun setting on a prickly curmudgeon who is still mad at God rather than a man whose heart had been healed by grace.

Forgiveness is not optional, although reconciliation may be. When the people we have forgiven are still hurtful or dangerous we are not required to let them back into our lives. But forgiveness (releasing their wrongs to the judgment of God along with a decision to no longer make them pay for what they did) is an imperative in the Kingdom. Like Nineveh, they may eventually fall to the judgment of God because they will not repent or change, but it will be his action not yours.

Does it seem that something is blocking your blessings or binding your heart? Is there someone you have not forgiven? Maybe it is someone from so long ago that you rarely think about him or her and so assume you have forgiven that person. Like many things, you need to verbalize that forgiveness and ask God to bless them as he sees fit. Forgive them in the name of Jesus because of what he has freely forgiven in our lives. It is a freeing and healing experience – one that God wants you to have.

Have you ever thought about your soul? What is it exactly? The common definition of soul is something that is a combination of our emotions, thoughts, and will (decision making functions). Dallas Willard, who writes extensively on spiritual disciplines and soul-care, defines it differently. He suggests, “What is running your life at any given moment is your soul. Not external circumstances, not your thoughts, not your intentions, not even your feelings but your soul. The soul is that aspect of your whole being that correlates, integrates, and enlivens everything going on in the various dimensions of the self. The soul is the life center of human beings.”

If you think about it, the usual definition almost attaches soul to our physical processes of feeling, thinking, and decision-making. But if our body is destroyed, our soul goes on apart from any physical connection. The soul then is a spiritual aspect of who we are that coordinates these other facets of the human experience. It doesn’t control those aspects but coordinates them. In the beginning, God’s intention was that a healthy soul connected to him would rule over or direct our thought life, our emotions, and all of our decisions. However, sin corrupted that process and our corrupted minds and emotions began to rule our souls. When we come to Jesus, he begins the process of restoring God’s intended order to our internal world.

John Ortberg suggests that we must move from being self-focused to being soul-focused. We tend to be self-focused where how I feel, what I do, my goals, my happiness, etc. are what life is all about. We read self-help books, go to therapy to explore our thoughts and our needs, and build relationships on the basis of how the other person might benefit or even complete me.

Soul-focus simply pays attention to my connection with God knowing that when my soul is healthy, everything else takes care of itself. When my soul is healthy my internal world will be divinely ordered and nothing (or very little) will block the flow of the Holy Spirit in my life. Then I will be like a tree planted by streams of water that flourishes and bears fruit in every season. The key is for my soul to be centered in my relationship with the Father. An uncentered soul is restless and constantly dissatisfied.

In his book, Soul Keeping (p.100-103), he lists several indicators of an uncentered soul. You might check these out.

• A soul without a center has difficulty making decisions. When our souls are not centered in God, even as believers we may have a great deal of internal debate about whether our decision should serve God or serve our flesh.

• A soul without a center feels constantly vulnerable to people or circumstances. In those moments we feel as if people, what they think of us, or our circumstances determine our well-being rather than God and his provision being the determination of that.

• A soul without a center lacks patience. Think express lane at HEB. When you feel your blood pressure rising because the woman who is paying out in front of you is fumbling for her coupons in a purse the size of Texas that she could have retrieved while she was waiting in line, shift your thoughts from self-focused to soul-focused and ask, “What is God wanting me to do or learn from this moment?” Your chosen focus changes everything.

• A soul without center is easily thrown. Does every little crisis or disappointment in your life cause a spinout? Are you derailed emotionally all day long when things don’t go your way? Did you experience a little road rage on your way to work this morning? Your soul may not be centered.

• A soul without a center finds its identity in externals. Does your car, your clothes, your house, your title, or the people you are seen with define you? Are you constantly thinking about image or the way others perceive you? Think about how much that dynamic steals your peace. The enemy comes to steal. If those concerns constantly steal your peace, then those concerns are probably from the enemy.

I have been challenged lately to think more about my soul than my self. My soul will never find rest until it rests in God. The key is finding that rest now, not just in eternity. Blessing in Him!

With Passover and Easter coming up next week I thought I would use this week’s blogs to reflection on the single most significant event in post-Garden, human history – the death and resurrection of the Son of God.

As I look at Easter I wonder if it really had to be that way. Did Jesus really have to suffer for my sins? Couldn’t God have just swept them all away with an executive order and given Jesus a pass on his Passion? We could argue the point but the Father’s intentionality about the death of his only begotten tells me that there was no other way. Remember that Jesus asked the same question in the Garden of Gethsemane. The resounding silence of the Father answered the question.

His intentionality predates Adam’s sin. John tells us in his vision, “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Rev.13:8). The idea that in the mind of God Jesus was slain from the beginning of time tells us that, in his foreknowledge, God knew the path that man would take and the cost of redeeming his fallen creation even before he formed Adam. I find it remarkable that Elohim (Father, Son, and Spirit) was willing to pay that indescribable price in order to have a portion of his creation choose to spend eternity with him. That seems to be an almost obsessive love on the part of our Heavenly Father.

From the beginning of time, the cross would be the solution where God’s holiness and love would intersect. His holiness demanded that sin be dealt with rather than excused or ignored. Love desperately looked for a way to redeem the relationship between God and condemned man. Jesus willingly went to the cross to satisfy both the holiness of God and the love of God. Sin would be dealt with justly. Love would be triumphant.

The intentionality of God in his love was demonstrated from the very beginning. Immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve, God declared that the offspring of Eve (Jesus) would be in conflict with the serpent Satan and that the conflict would culminate with Jesus being bruised but the serpent would be crushed (Gen.3:15). Immediately after declaring that first Messianic prophecy, we are told that God covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness and shame with animal skins. At the outset, God sacrificed the innocent to cover the consequences of sin in man. From that moment on, sacrifices of innocent animals pointed to the sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the cross.   Sin condemned man as he ate from a tree in the Garden of Eden and man was set free from that condemnation as the Son of God hung on a tree (the cross) thousands of years later.

As God downloaded the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, a whole system of sacrifices was codified. Each sin offering pointed to the reality that sin deserved death, but that God would allow an innocent to take our place on the altar of judgment.   Paul declared that the “wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23). Sin earns death and death, in the spiritual sense, is separation from God. On that Passover Eve two thousand years ago, did Jesus simply die a physical death or did he also endure everything that would be experienced by those who die in sin? For a moment, on that dark Friday did Jesus experience the absolute desolation of the lost: fear, shame, guilt, unbearable loneliness, absolute darkness, and even torment so that we would never have to experience any of that? I’m not certain but I know that, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2Cor.5:21).

I also know that this death, this sacrifice was not accidental, unplanned, or a last ditch effort to salvage men who had unexpectedly rejected Jesus. It was an intentional offering of himself on our behalf that had rested in the mind of God while the blue prints of this earth were still being drawn up. It is the intentionality of God’s unrelenting love. Passover and Easter are without question God’s lavish expression of his love for a fallen race.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us,

in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom.5:8)

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desiresThe mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. (Rom. 8:5-9)

I commented on this section of Romans 8 in my last blog but wanted to take one more look at it from a different perspective. This section underscores how different the sinful nature is from our spiritual nature – the nature of the redeemed believer. In Romans 7, Paul makes it clear that believers have two natures and choose which one takes the lead in their life. “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” (Rom.7:18-23).

Once we have named Jesus as Lord and Savior, our eternal spirit is given life and the Holy Spirit begins a work of sanctification in us. That is simply the work of changing us so that we become more and more like Jesus. But we still deal with the fallen nature that afflicts the entire human race. It is in our flesh and in our soul and does not just go away. Instead, it wars against our spirit pushing back each time the Holy Spirit prompts us to choose righteousness over selfishness.

We know that dynamic by experience. We have all felt those internal debates about doing right or doing wrong, about acting responsibly or irresponsibly, or about giving into hurtful emotions or bridling our tongues. Satan fuels the desires of the natural man so that those desires and impulses can be very powerful – even in believers.

Let me list the descriptors from both Romans 7 & 8 that Paul expresses in relation to the sinful nature which is sometimes called the natural man: nothing good, evil, sin living in me, waging war, making me a prisoner, death, hostile to God, unable to submit to God’s law, and displeasing to God. That’s quite a “rap sheet” for the sinful nature and clearly sets it in opposition to the work of the Holy Spirit. That fallen nature is so much a part of us that we will be given glorified bodies at the resurrection rather than refurbished bodies. It is almost as if God is saying that our fallen nature is so defective that he is just going to toss it out and give us a new one rather than trying to repair what we have.

This truth should tell us that we cannot make peace with our sinful nature. We cannot compromise or be friends with that nature. Instead, we must battle it and overcome it. We must crucify it and consider it dead. Too many believers try to pacify that nature by giving in “a little” or by satisfying it “a little” so that it quiets down, but that only strengthens it. In a sense, we won’t rid ourselves of it totally until the resurrection so what we must do is weaken it to the point that it displays little strength in our lives. As the devil fuels our sinful nature, the Holy Spirit desires to fuel our spiritual or redeemed nature. We have a major part to play in that process.

It simply gets down to which nature do we choose to nurture and which do we choose to starve. What do we do on a daily basis to feed our sinful nature and what do we do to feed our spiritual nature? When do we open ourselves up to Satan and when do we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit? When do we agree with Satan by giving into his leading and when do we agree with the Holy Spirit by giving into his leading? Whatever choices we make most often tip the battle in one direction or another.

Be mindful of which nature you are feeding and whose leading you are allowing to influence you. One is death and one is life. One is hostile to God while the other loves God and the things of God. One day Joshua challenged the Hebrews to choose whom they would serve – the God of Israel or the false gods of this world. We make that choice fifty times a day – big choices and small ones – and each choice determines how the war is going. Spirit-led is the path that marks the true disciples of Jesus.