Healing 2: Lecture 3

These distortions, lies and false beliefs must be:

• a. Revealed by the Holy Spirit
• Never go on a search mission or a treasure hunt for lies by yourself.
• It is extremely important to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal your distortions, lies, and false beliefs – which ones and in the order that he knows is best for dealing with them.

• b. Renounced
• “I announce before heaven and earth that I no longer believe the lie that [name the specific lie].”

• c. Replaced by supernatural transactions of truth
• We need a new episodic encounter with Christ in which he says a new thing is true.
• “I now believe this truth that God’s voice is speaking into my heart: [name the specific truth].”

**The Holy Spirit must reveal the relationship between lies and wounds.

1. We live as if these two lies are true:

a. “Our core longings cannot be met in God.”

b. “At our core, we are worthy of self-contempt – (this impacts our image and identity).”

2. These distortions are evil at their core and keep countless people in bondage.

• **These lies drive how we really view ourselves, God and others. The earlier in life that we start believing the lies, the more entrenched they are. These lies have many “sub-lies” that grow out of them:
• 1. Lies Related to Core Longings:
• a. “My performance determines my worth and my ability to have my core longings met.”
• b. “The approval of others determines my worth and my ability to have my core longings met.”
• 2. Lies Related to Image and Identity:
• a. “I am a failure and deserve punishment.”
• This is quite different from saying, “I have failed.”

b. “I am defective and worthy of shame and rejection. I cannot change. I am hopeless.”


**What gives us significance, a place, opportunity and a sense of belonging?

• The world says, “Appearance, money, work, education, an impressive house, etc.”
• The church often says or implies, “Put your identity in your service, your ministry and your family.”
• We may believe, “I am a Nobody, but investing in these things will make me a Somebody.”
• However, losing these things can lead to despair and depression and believing, “Something is wrong with me.”
• Never place your identity in something you can lose. Place your identity in who you are in Christ.

*To transform lies into truth, caregivers, empowered by the Holy Spirit, must help others to:

• 1. Recognize lies — at times lies will reveal wounds, at times the reverse.
• a. Ask the Holy Spirit, “Right now, which one or two lies are getting most in the way of my journey of healing with you?” If you ask God to reveal the lies, they will come up.

• 2. Realize what these lies have led to and cost.
• a. Ask Jesus to show you.

• 3. Renounce these lies and vows and any level of demonization.
• a. Renounce these in Christ’s presence.

• 4. Announce the truth — this is supernaturally-transacted in the inner being.
• a. Announce to Christ (not the caregiver) the truth of who you really are in Christ.
• It is Christ and the Holy Spirit present in and with us who allow us to see who we really are in him.

**CONCLUSION: When we have an episodic encounter with Christ, things begin to change.

1. Deep Wounds, Deep Healing

“It is no exaggeration to say that the suffering we most frequently encounter in ministry is a suffering of memories.” Henri Nouwen, The Living Reminder

A. While many would have us believe that “the past” should be forgotten, all too often those events buried deep within lead to significant pain and dysfunction.

B. Though hidden beneath layers of defenses, deep woundings require deep healing.

• C. “By not remembering them, we allow the forgotten memories to become independent forces that can exert a crippling effect on our functioning as human beings.” Nouwen, p. 21
• D. “Also, when our memories remain covered with fear, anxiety or suspicion the word of God cannot bear fruit.” Nouwen, p. 23

• E. We build defense systems around our wounds. God does not bust down our defenses but woos us into his healing presence.
• 2. The Biblical Foundation for Dealing with Deep Wounds: Gethsemane

A. Gethsemane – Matthew 26:36-46

i. In preparation for Calvary and the cross, Jesus went to a safe place with safe people (the disciples). Jesus needed support.

a. Jesus told his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” Than he took Peter, James and John, his closest friends, along with him. He became deeply distressed and troubled. He told them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” (Sadly, they fell asleep. So the Father sent an angel to support Jesus because he needed it. (Lk. 22:43)

ii. Jesus dealt honestly with the Father regarding his deep pain. Jesus went before the Father to have a spiritual transaction with him:

a. Going a little farther, Jesus fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will but as you will.”

b. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Lk. 22:44)

* Step One: Safety

• a. Safety is always first and foremost. Never proceed without it.
• b. A Safe Place – the broken person must go through a visualization exercise to visualize him or herself in a safe place with Christ. If the person cannot visualize it, the Formational Prayer session should be stopped and should not proceed.
• c. The caregiver establishes a context of safety with her or his eyes and body language and conveys, “I am not leaving you.”

* Step Two: Support

• a. Broken people need support from people who will give unlimited support.
• b. The caregiver must be committed to being with the person to bring her or him before Christ. Just as the friends dug through the roof and lowered the paralytic down to Christ for healing, so the caregiver must be prepared to take the roof off to position a person in Christ’s presence.
• c. A person will be at her or his greatest place of vulnerability when dealing with deep wounds. Therefore it is critical that a caregiver be well-trained in Formational Prayer.

* Step Three: Bring them before the Father

• a. The caregiver should transition from nose-to-nose dialogue with the person to position her or him for a face-to-face encounter with the Father. Healing cannot start until this happens.
• b. Without Jesus’ presence there, the person’s deep pain can be frightening.
• c. The person should ask God to reveal what thing is most in the way now. Deal with whatever God says. The person may want to work on a “big issue.” God often picks what seems like a small issue to us. He or she needs to trust what God says and brings up.

* Step Four: The Episodic Memory

A. The person needs to re-enter the painful, episodic memory in safety with Christ. The memory may include these aspects:

• 1. Image
• a. “What are you seeing?”

• 2. Sensations
• a. “Are you experiencing any physical sensations? Is it hot? Cold? Do you smell or hear anything?”

3. Feelings

a. “What are you feeling?” Allow the person to feel the emotions that arise.

3. Behaviors

a. “What happened? Who was there? What did they do? What did you do?”

4. Meanings

a. “What did that event mean to you?”

* Step Five: God’s Response: The Transforming Encounter

• a. Allow the person to grieve the loss of what happened and episodically re-experience what Jesus is doing.
• b. The person has to let Christ enter what happened and to experience Christ in the midst of it.
• c. The old, painful, episodic memory can be trumped by bringing Jesus into it. This new episodic memory with Jesus re-defines it all and trumps all other memories.
• d. Formational Prayer’s inner healing is not about changing the truth of what happened. It is about encountering Christ in the truth of what happened.
• e. The caregiver cannot invent or make up the re-experience with Jesus nor tell the person what they see.

*Step Six: Forgiveness

• a. When Christ has touched the person’s grief and loss, then the person first needs to grieve with Christ.
• b. After that, he or she can extend forgiveness from the heart and even be generous to the person that hurt him or her.
• c. People usually think they have to forgive too soon – before they have grieved their loss with Jesus.

* Step Seven: Walking in Freedom – Embracing the victory of the Cross

a. Every aspect of inner healing prayer happens because of what Jesus did in his death on the Cross.

1) The person should pray aloud and thank Jesus for his provision during the Formational Prayer session.

• i. The prayer should include specific references to the Lord’s provision, presence and healing power.
• ii. This act of thanks not only seals the work Jesus did more deeply in the person’s heart, but it serves as a declaration into the Heavenlies that the person has overcome through Christ. The spiritual implications of this small act are significant.

2) The person should read Ephesians 1-3 and make a list of every benefit that is theirs in Christ.

i. It is good to spend time each day praising the Lord for one item on the list. This helps root a person in Jesus’ awesome provision for us on the Cross and develop an attitude of thanks and gratitude for all he has done.

3. The caregiver should lead the person in a prayer of renunciation.

i. Previously hidden wounds have the potential for Satan to work in whatever ground is not under the control of Christ. With Christ filling the specific wound with His peace and presence, now the person should be encouraged to renounce any influence Satan may have had.

**CONCLUSION: Formational prayer is walked through in patience and under the guidance of the Lord, all built upon and consistent with the resources necessary for trauma relief and episodic memory.