Monday, October 26, 2009

Inner Healing

In my last blog I wrote “Now, that I’ve learned how to pray in authority and the power of binding and loosing and learning to die to self daily, discovering everyday the meaning of God’s grace that I am able to be led by the holy spirit.”

That is my lay man interpretation of what really happened in my life. Yesterday’s class in Deeper Life Seminar was about “Inner Healing”. I was amazed that what I experienced so far ties in to what Dr Lay’s advice to us. The gist of it is really the same. But he gave more explanation from his experience as a doctor working with mental patients. I even recognized another weakness within me which I knew was always there which I continue to struggle with. It is the thought of people not caring for me. When I first received a full medical report during a health check up on 3 March 2009, I was so distraught and discouraged. The doctor summarized that 70% of my body is not happy with me and a possibility of a 1st of 2nd stage cancer but then he went on to say, “I am not saying you have cancer”. With that he told me to change my lifestyle with regard my food intake. I wanted to share with someone but I didn’t know who to go to. I felt that sense that nobody would be interested. Even Henry felt the doctor had exaggerated and dramatized the results to sell his products. Eventually, I did share with friends around me and I also shared this sad perception at the CCF Alumni camp where Ps Tan Soo Inn said that statistically people have very few friends they can turn to and it gets worst when they get older! At least, God has blessed me with a sound mind and now I know the meaning of 2 Timothy 1:7 "God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and sound mind". So true!

According to Dr Lay, those who suffer from rejection problem show symptoms of fear, bad temper and starvation from God’s love. Remember, I shared I cried 3 days 3 nights upon accepting Christ? Last night, I finally I understood what happened. It took me 3 days and 3 nights to experience God’s love and to fill Him into my life! My mum and dad divorced when I was 4 years old. I always felt that it had little impact on me because as you can see, I am still bubbly and generally a happy child. But it was Henry that first recognized my weakness of not having my dad by my side which caused many troubled relationships later in life before I met Henry. I couldn’t understand why until Henry spoke it.

Finding Henry is really by divine help. Upon accepting Christ, I really became a new creation. I stopped my pub life and partying life. I sacrificed my Friday nights for bible study in CCF because I was seeking Him! I “grew up” in CCF. I complained to God how I was ever going to find a partner confined to CCF. There did not seem like anyone I was attracted to! I would talk and cry out to him daily. Yes, I was that close to Him 11 years ago. I would read books on how to date according to God’s way. I would read books on how Christians found their partners with God’s help and I prayed that mine would come soon! 8 months later, Henry came to FBC from Singapore (he had spent many years there working) because a friend of his, Mohana, recommended to him though she herself have never been to FBC! How fated is that. We had help from Cheng Yi (thanks Cheng Yi) who match made us and set up a party which I didn’t even know it was for us! Imagine, a bunch of friends coming to fellowship over dinner and games and all the while not knowing it was a little plan by Cheng Yi! Tsk tsk tsk. Dating Henry was tough because I had to date according to God’s way..ha ha! It wasn’t like staring in my face “He is your husband!” so, I had to be patient and just see how God’s hand moved. And the rest in history. But the take home is God chose Henry for me because I did not pursue him. I merely obeyed God that he is the right one for me after countless of failed relationships. And man, is He right!

Now, I am really thankful, Henry still married me despite my weakness.

Like Dr Lay said, it is God’s love that sees us through troubles in relationships. In our own strength, we have a “self” life. It is very intriguing how we developed this “self” life. It all began in the garden of Eden.

Genesis 3:7

7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

They were living in God’s glory and presence, clothed in God’s glory. They didn’t see their own nakedness. When they ate the fruit out of disobedience (a purposeful, free will decision by Adam), their relationship with God was cut off, the presence of God left them, the glory of God left them, they saw nakedness, their eyes were fixed on themselves, they were separated from the love of God, they were self centred, living for themselves, doing themselves independent of God.

Then they became afraid, they hid:

Genesis 3:10
10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."

After they sinned, they were afraid of God. Our self life doesn’t want God. We want to be independent.

This is why some of the people I love, my favourite Uncle Seng, my brother in law cringe at the thought of Christians sharing the gospel with them. It is our human nature separated from God. But God still loves them very much. It takes a long process but He knew them before they were formed in the womb like how He knew me and His hand is upon them even as I speak.

Fear replaces love. Many of us live in fear. Worst still, in our self life, we do not want to be responsible. We do not want to admit sin. We always push the blame to another. This too happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent.

Genesis 3:12,13:

“The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

We must confess out sin and then only God can forgive you and He will restore you like He did me. :)

Bondages/ strongholds/weaknesses can only be built on self life and NEVER on eternal life that we have received when we have accepted Christ. That’s why God’s grace is supernatural. It is God’s gift to us that when Jesus paid the price, shed His blood, we were made right with God again. All that is done in the spiritual realm not by anything we do. God loves us. He did it for us. When we accept Christ, our old self goes away and we are a new creation. Once we understand God’s grace, we just allow the holy spirit to take over to work on all our old areas, our broken areas. God works on us whether we fully understand grace or not because He loves us so much. But I must say, my faith increased once I understood what grace is. It is a daily acknowledging who God is, what Jesus has done for me on the cross, where I stand before God and before you know it, he reveals these weaknesses in me and tells me how to overcome it. Isn’t God amazing?

But if we do not cooperate with the Holy Spirit and allow our old ways to creep in, then you give that stronghold to the devil, you give an open door to the devil to work in your life. Bit by bit – contemplating adultery to adultery to broken marriages, smoking to addiction, alcoholism to addiction, anger to bitterness to resentment to hatred to broken relationships, agreeing to negative reports to accepting condition to death, pride to selfish ambition to dissension to counterfeit to antichrist, complacency to spiritual death, separated from God to eternal death in the lake of fire. You can choose that road or you can choose a road with God and receive his full blessings.

We have to die to self daily. I couldn’t quite understand what this meant. For me, it means not to do things my way but letting Him lead me. Walk in God’s love despite troubles in relationships. Initially, we can’t hear anything but my journey shows that now I can hear better! 4 months - if you are super hungry for God! Because, His sheep hears His voice. It always starts with the BIBLE because His words have life, there is power in His word, we use His word against the enemy. There is healing, there is deliverance, there is salvation in His word. It is so powerful because the Word is God, the Word is Jesus and the Word was there since the beginning, even before creation and Jesus was there at the beginning! This is our God.

Deliverance only takes a moment once we exercise our authority, after we seek forgiveness from God and forgive those who have sinned against us. Just say "In the name of Jesus, I bind you spirit of (rejection/fear/alcholism/blindness/idolatry/pride/selfish ambition/religious spirit/counterfeit/adultery/lust/anger/inferiority etc) and cast it out in the name of Jesus. By the authority given to me in Luke 10:19, I trample upon you scorpions and serpents and all work of darness working against me and I command you to go from me now, In Jesus' Name. But healing will take a longer time. Once healed, Dr Lay says, protect your mind, protect your heart. Stay close to God's word so that you will never succumb to that weakness again. Walk victoriously because Jesus has victory over death and so we are overcomers because of what He has done for us.

We are overcomers and we can walk victoriously now.

Thank You Lord. Your love never fails.

Click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoezWBPGRAc
Your Love Never Fails -Chris Quilala / Jesus Culture

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