Do you have any current prayers that seem to be unanswered? On our life journey we may experience certain challenges that we tend to focus on and ask the Lord to change, or remove. Sometimes problems remain because I am not focusing on the things the Lord is focusing on for change, or inner healing. These things become strongholds in me that the Lord wants to remove. They hold me fast in conditions I do not like. I may be living in an unrecognised consequence of a cause the Lord is focusing on for an inner healing and change.
Many in the Body of Christ are not functioning in the fullness of our birthright in Christ Jesus because we are clinging to unsound doctrines, principles and traditions. We may focus on prayers for healing when God is focusing on an inner healing of removal of inhibiting strongholds. These may have become our legacy from life experiences in many forms from the past. The Lord sees the damage they have caused and desires to heal these places in order to walk in the freedom that Jesus paid the price for on Calvary.
It was for freedom that Christ has made us free, no longer to be subject to a yoke of bondage, (wrong believing).
Galatians 5:1 declares: “Stand fast in the freedom that Christ has made us free. Do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage”.
A friend was busy painting when his thoughts wandered into feelings of annoyance over people who had not returned his phone calls. Other thoughts began to build on the annoyance of how he had been treated in life that he deemed unfair. He questioned why he was entertaining thoughts on rejection. The Holy Spirit took him right back to a memory that he had buried as a six year old child. He was out playing and his father walked down the road with his ladyfriend and did not acknowledge him. It seems such a simple thing, but to him, as a child, he felt keenly rejected. From this seed a root of rejection grew into a stronghold in his life. Any further rejections in life just added to it. He developed coping strategies: What, or who, do you stay away from because it hurts? Don’t expect much in life, then you won’t get disappointed. Don’t get too close to people as they may reject you…….
The Holy Spirit revealed this stronghold and brought a clear word from the mouth of God to heal him and set him free:
“For see this, the rejection you felt I have permitted because I want you for Myself. You would lean on those who cannot give you what I can give you. That rejection that you have put on your lips shall not resurface because you are kept in the Beloved. The truth has made you free”.
When God gives a clear word like this we can stand on His written word in Galatians 5:1 (quoted above earlier).
God meets us where we are to take us to a place of change, to where He wants us to be and enjoy the freedom and liberty in the life of His wonderful Son. We focus on going forward, but perhaps the Lord wants to take us back sometimes to issues that have moulded our character and formed inhibitions and a rut of bondage, from which He wants to free us into the “much more” of our salvation birthright.
Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, (John1:17). All the fullness of God is available to me, but I must fulfill the terms and conditions of my side of the covenant. Read once more these well known verses below, but read them as though you were reading them for the first time, and meditate on them with the Holy Spirit.
Proverbs 3: 1-12
“My son, do not forget My law, but let your heart keep My commandments. For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to you. Do not let mercy and truth forsake you, bind them about your neck, write them upon the table of your heart. So you shall find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. It shall be health to your navel and marrow to your bones. Honour the Lord with your substance, and with the firstfruits of all your increase. So shall your barns be filled with plenty, and your presses shall burst out with new wine. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of His correction. For whom the Lord loves, He corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delights”.
Photo by Jack Sharp on Unsplash
