Prosperity of the Soul
February 2000 / May 2, 2005

When the physical body is sick, there are symptoms. Those symptoms affect the way the body functions and how the body reacts.  For example, If your knee is injured you limp.  In the same way, when there are wounds or injuries emotionally, there will be symptoms that affect how you function and react as well.  For example, someone says something and you snap at them.

In both cases you can become so accustomed to the injury that it becomes normal for you.  You might hope for healing in the beginning, but as time goes on that hope may fade.  You may accept the wound as a way of life for you and feel you have to learn to live with it.   But what is God's will in these situations?  Does He want you to learn to live with wounds?  Does He want you to learn to live with pain?    

God doesn't take pleasure in your pain.  He doesn't want you to learn to live with wounds or weaknesses, to accept them and adjust your walk to accommodate them.  He desires that those things be cured!  But the fact that God wants you healed doesn't mean that there won't be any pain involved in the healing process.  Just as a surgeon must cause more pain in order to heal an internal problem, sometimes God takes you through a healing process that is difficult and painful as you learn to follow Jesus' example of dying to yourself.  But in the end it will put an end to the pain and suffering that wound has caused you.  

In order to go through the healing process that God wants to take you through you must know that you can trust Him.  You must have assurance of God’s love for you and know that He will not hurt you.  He will not bring evil upon you.  Every good and perfect gift is from above (James 1:17).  

If you are not able to trust that God’s will for you is good, that He desires only good for you, you will have a fear of neglect or a fear of abuse. That fear is a wound that will cause you to react in an unhealthy, even sinful, way.   The fear of turning yourself over to a God who may not take care of you keeps you from receiving God’s best for you.  It hinders your walk.  It throws you off course.  You need to know and be confident that God loves you and will not neglect or abandon you.  He wants good for you.

This is an awesome promise for those who worship the Lord.  But you can only truly worship Him in response to His love for you  (1 John 4:19).  So the first step in this healing process is to know the love of God for you to the extent that you will be able to trust Him.

Trusting Him means that you will allow Him to take you through the healing process even if its painful.  God will take care of you and meet your needs but trust Him to meet those needs in the way that He knows is best for you.  He wants you to be healed and learn to overcome these areas that have had you crippled.  But again, the healing process itself may be painful.  Don't shrink back, you can trust Him.  You may have sin or areas of deception in your life that you will need to become aware of so you can repent.  That may be painful for the moment.  But once you submit to the Lord and His Word with an honest and sincere heart then His healing and delivering power is available for you!

Know that God loves you, His desire for you is good.  He desires to lead you to green pastures and still waters, (Psalm 23).  There’s a saying that says ‘time heals all wounds’.  That’s not true.  As time goes on and wounds are not healed you will try to adjust your life in order to learn to live with them.  Time doesn’t heal all wounds, only God’s love does.  If you ignore the wounds in your life they won't get better, they will continue to cause pain.

What about Jesus' example of suffering?

The way some people talk you would think that God gets some kind of pleasure out of your suffering.  He doesn't.  What pleases Him is your ability to walk in His ways no matter how difficult it is for you.  What pleases Him is your commitment to Him and His ways because you understand that no matter how hard it may be at the moment you have decided to stay with Him.  It's not that your suffering pleases God, but your loyalty and dedication to Him does.  As He takes you through the healing process He doesn't enjoy seeing you go through difficulties but He enjoys seeing the freedom and growth you experience as a result.

Jesus showed this kind of loyalty and dedication to remain obedient to God no matter what He suffered as a result.  What Jesus suffered taught Him about obedience and what He did perfected or equipped Him to become our Savior.  The suffering talked about here in Hebrews was the suffering Jesus experienced in the flesh.   Learning obedience through suffering is the suffering the flesh experiences when faced with God’s will going against what you feel like doing.

Some people think to learn obedience through suffering means that because I was disobedient I suffered something, (I got caught), so I learned that obedience is better.  That’s not what this verse means because Jesus was never disobedient.  What it means to learn obedience through suffering is what Jesus said in Luke 22:42:

Jesus at that moment did not want to go through what He had to go through for us.  He was suffering in the flesh.  He learned obedience through that suffering because He learned to obey or put God’s will first above His.  He said, "not My will but Yours be done."  That was His loyalty talking and He learned what it meant to obey God over His own desires.  This is the kind of suffering--suffering in the flesh--that this verse is talking about.

This kind of suffering is not punishment for your sins but rather the opposition you face when you commit to do things God's way.  The curse of the law under the Old Testament was that they would suffer the curse because of disobedience to God’s commands.  The fact that we are redeemed from the curse means that we’re redeemed from suffering those things because of our disobedience. (Galatians 3:13, Deuteronomy 28:15-68)

Jesus suffered the curse of the law for you.  You are now under grace.   If you sin and disobey God, you can repent and ask Him to forgive you, but you do not have to suffer the curse as a result of that disobedience or sin.  You have the blood of Jesus to cleanse you from all sin and unrighteousness!  Of course sometimes there are natural consequences to the choices you make but there is forgiveness through the blood of Jesus that stops the curse that would normally come as a result of disobedience to God.  You don't need to continue to punish yourself for the sins you've committed.  Jesus made a way for forgiveness.  For you to be healed you will need to receive God's forgiveness and forgive yourself as well.

You will go through trouble and suffer in the sense that you have things to go through that aren’t always pleasant, but you go through.   God’s desire is to deliver you out of all afflictions.  Not for you to stay there, or learn to live with them.  You learn to remain loyal to the ways of God no matter what is going on in your life.  Jesus said for us to take up our cross daily and follow Him.  (Luke 9:23).  This means that you don't carry the pains of yesterday into today.  You have died to the hurts of the past.  Today is a new day.  And to the extent that you learn to die to yourself you will experience the freedom of resurrection life just as Jesus did!  Revenge and paybacks are a thing of the past!

As long as God’s people think God wants them to endure pain and suffering rather then be relieved or healed of it, there will be offenses, frustrations, strife, bitterness and jealousies within the church because there will be emotional wounds that will not be healed. You may feel that its easier to hang on to an offense rather then to go through the pain of forgiving someone.  You may think its easier to live with bitterness towards a person then to walk in love towards them.  But continuing in that sin will only cripple you.  There is great freedom and joy in doing things God's way and allowing yourself to surrender to His Kingdom principles.  You can trust His way.  You can trust His love.  It's so much better.

Only the love of God-revealed as a Father who provides for, protects, and delivers  His children will be able to heal the emotional wounds of a Christian.  This emotional health will allow you to behave emotionally as God intends rather then ‘in the flesh’ or in a sinful way.

There is a way God intends for emotions to operate within us.  Jesus was angry with the moneychangers in the temple and expressed that anger (Mark 11:15-17).  There may be a time to take a stand against injustices.  To take a stand against the things that hurt the heart of God.  But if you have emotional wounds within you that are not dealt with, then your reaction to situations may not be what God intends.   Just as a person with an injured knee cannot walk correctly but limps, in the same way, your words and actions may not be correct if your emotions are wounded (See Matthew 7:5).

You must receive the love of God, His healing, His power, His deliverance, in order to successfully walk the walk He desires you to.  He does not want you to ‘grin and bear it’.  If you have an injured knee, and it hurts to walk in a straight line, yet you know you have to walk in a straight line in order to get where you are supposed to, you would be in pain with every step.  And in the same way, if you have a wounded soul, and you know you’re supposed to talk and act a certain way in order to ‘behave like a Christian’ and please God, then you may look like you’re successful outwardly because you’re ‘grinning and bearing it’, but inside you are in agony with every step.  This does not please God.  It does not make God happy to see you suffer in that way.  He wants you to be healed!

When the Lord deals with you about these areas of your emotional reactions, it’s because He’s trying to heal you with His love.  He does not ‘correct’ you because He’s mad at you for your faults and He’s being nit-picky and critical, He does it because He knows what’s best for you (See Hebrews 12:10).

Receive His love, See Him as the Father, the Shepherd who leads you beside green pastures and still waters.  See Him as the one who restores your soul.

Father God, thank you for loving me. Thank you for knowing me better then I know myself.  Your Word says that You desire good for me.  Your thoughts toward me are thoughts of peace and not evil, (Jeremiah 29:11).  You will not withhold good from those who walk uprightly, (Psalm 84:11).  I am able to walk uprightly because of Jesus making me righteous.  Your Word says Your eyes run across the whole earth to show Yourself strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect towards You, (2 Chronicles 16:9).  My desire is to have a perfect heart towards You.  Your Word says whoever seeks You will not lack any good thing (Psalm 34:10).  I choose to seek You and Your will for my life.  Your Word says You will give good gifts unto Your children who ask, (Matthew 7:11).  Your Word says every good and perfect gift is from You (James 1:17).  Your Word says we are redeemed from the curse that comes as a result of disobedience, (Galatians 3:13, Deuteronomy 28:15).