The most devastating wounds we suffer in life are not the physical ones. We can get over those soon enough. And even if it takes time, we can endure the pain until we heal. But what really saps a person’s desire to keep going on in life are when the wounds are spiritual.
We’ll all suffer emotional and spiritual hurt in our lives, but there is a way to heal that many people never find… even when they’ve been in the church for years. Psalm 147:3 tells us that God wants to heal and bind our wounds. However, we first need to understand the method He uses to do it, and apply ourselves to receive it.
So, how does God heal our wounds? He does it through changing the way we think. We develop a mentality of defeat when we allow our circumstances, our past, and other influences in our lives to dictate what we believe. But the apostle Paul begged us in Romans 12:1-2 that we would not be “conformed to this worldâ€, but that we would allow ourselves to be transformed, “by the renewing of your mindâ€. You see, God will heal you spiritually and emotionally by altering the way you see Him, the way you look at your pain and, most importantly, how you view yourself. If you want to defeat depression, if you want to destroy doubt, if you want to put a finish to fear, then you have to change the way you think.
Notice that Paul put the onus on you, not on God. He said, “I beseech you…†(In other words, ‘I beg you’) “…be not conformed… but be ye transformed…†Do you see the implied responsibility here? He is saying that we should be something. This means that we must take an action upon ourselves. In this case, that action is that we should let the way we think be transformed.
The Bible tells us that the way we think actually determines the way we act, react and respond. If you see yourself as a loser, chances are that you’ll become a loser. If you see yourself as a victim, you will most likely put yourself in victimizing situations. If you see yourself as a failure, as unworthy, as unlovable, as unforgivable, etc. the chances are very high that you will be successful at failing in each of those areas. Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.†Pretty profound, isn’t it?
Perhaps you have been to a carnival or amusement park before where you stood in front of a warped mirror that distorted your image. Maybe you had a huge head, pencil-thin waistline, and gigantic feet. Maybe your midsection was as wide as you were tall, you were shorter or taller, thinner or thicker. The point is that those mirrors present an image of you that is not accurate. It is a distorted view.
Do you realize that many of us walk around through life living with a distorted image of who we really are? People around us become mirrors in our life that reflect their view of who we are, but those images are not accurate. They are warped views of the real you. When someone told you that you were worthless, you took that image of you and stuck it away somewhere in your mind. When someone told you that you would never amount to anything, that just stuck inside you, filed away to be recalled later. It may have been a leader in your life, or someone you admired. It may have been an authority figure, or even your peers. And many of us are still acting and living on that false information, that inaccurate view of ourselves, today.
But you are not the product, or the sum-total of people’s opinions about you. You are exactly what God says you are… nothing more, and nothing less.
To rise above the emotional and spiritual suffering in your life, you absolutely must have a change of mind. You must begin to believe a new thing. It is critical that you change the way you think about yourself to the way God thinks about you.
God says you are acceptable.
God says you are valuable.
God says you are lovable.
God says you are forgivable.
God says you are capable.
And so, I beseech you… I beg you… to change the way you think. Believe what God says about you.
inspired by Pastor Mark Hopper
