“Most men” they say, “live lives of quiet
desperation.” Thank goodness it's not true about women, just
joking! How did this happen? Well “the thief comes for no other
reason to kill, steal and to destroy” (John 10:10a). And if you
have a hurt that’s not yet healed, or some annoying habit you
can’t seem to shake, or if you have hangup that prevent you doing
this or that, then the devil has essentially had his with with you
(and me). But Jesus came to “heal the brokenhearted, and to set the
captives free” (Luke 4:18), and to bring you and me fullness of
(John 10:10b). “If the Son shall set you free you will be free
indeed” (John 8:35).
This morning, I’m startin a series on the
Biblical recovery principles that we need to embrace in order to tap
into the Lord's agenda rather than the Devil's. Many of my Christian
friends tell me we don’t need recovery, or to deal with the past,
because it’s all forgiven, it's under the blood. To me this is to
confuse the justification part of salvation, the part that sets us
free from the penalty of sin (Romans 3:24), with the
sanctification part that is designed to set us free from the power,
and the pollution of sin (see 30th January posts). The Lord tells us
not to be deceived, because we reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7). And
I am afraid that those who don’t think we need to deal with the
issues of the past are indeed deceived. If you spent years in
addictions for example, you will likely have deeply hurt those who
love you. It might take some time for them to trust you. But they
will not trust you if you exhibit exactly the same selfish behaviour
you did when you were addicted. And you will not change that
behaviour if you don't know why you engaged (often out of hurts or
unforgiveness) in the first place.
We don't go into the past to camp there, we go
into the past so that the Lord can cauterize the wounds, bind them up
and heal them so that they don't affect the present any more. We have
to trust Him in this. If a dog has a splinter in his paw, it's no
good telling the dog it's forgiven, and all under the blood. He
needs to trust you to take out the barb. This is what Jesus wants to
do, and it's how He heals us. So often we have wrong
responses to wrong done to us. Two wrongs don't make a right, and we
will not heal unless we cooperate with Him and do things His way. And
the fact of the matter is, that we don' know what we don't know, and
at many levels we have no idea how the past is affecting us.
But you can be sure it is affecting us, and not necessarily in
positive ways! So then who then needs Biblical recovery? Anyone who
does not have the abundant life, anyone who as a hurt, or a
habit or a hang up. And that's me, for one!
Lord Jesus, I want to thank You this morning that
You have promised that if we fully cooperate with You, You will heal
our hearts and set us free. Give us courage to do this
Lord, and please give us the faith and trust You, and to let You
into the deepest parts of our hearts and lives in Your precious Name
I pray Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment