Hi all,
We can all list physical healings Jesus did in the gospels ranging from blind eyes opened to the lame walking, but can you name a single healing of a person's emotional wounds?
 
Is there any place in the gospels where Jesus laid His hand on someone and said something like 'Be healed of your emotional pain caused by your father dying when you were 10 years old'? Is there any example listed when we read multitudes were healed and demons were cast out that says 'and emotions were healed too'?
 
No, there isn't. Millions of believers are stuck in emotional quicksand, unable to move on in life, unable to extricate themselves from the emotional pain and memories that pull them down and suck them into emotional darkness. They await the next teaching that will provide answers, the next prophet to lay hands on them to make it all go away, the next deliverance ministry to cast out shadows of the past, the next possible key to unlocking the door to the healing of their emotional wounds. 
 
And so they tread the spiritual water, barely staying afloat, often overwhelmed with the feeling something is wrong with them, that they are damaged goods, that if they could just get healed of this past trauma they could be all they are called to be in Christ. 
 
There are ministries that offer hope, yet while many help the process it is rare to hear of 100% total healing, and those that claim to be 100% healed emotionally are usually the ones touted on the ministry brochure, similar to a TV weight loss program where they show the biggest success stories..."Lisa B lost 150 pounds (68 kilos) and so can you..." 
 
Millions still long for that one key that opens the door to their healing, that little bit of hidden knowledge that will heal them and set them free so they can move on in God. 
 
So where do we see Jesus healing someone's emotions in the gospels, or where do we see emotional healing in Acts, or where do we see teaching about it in the letters of the New Testament? Are we just emotional cripples compared to the early church, or did they know something we don't, perhaps woven throughout the gospels and letters to such a degree there was no need to bring it forth as a singular teaching?
 
And yet emotional healing is included in the atonement right alongside physical healing
One of the foundational verses for healing is found in Isiah 53:4-5 which says: "He has carried our griefs, and carried our sorrows...the punishment that brings us peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we were healed."
 
There is no missing the fact that both emotional and physical healings were part of the work of the cross: Griefs. Sorrows. Peace. Yet where in the gospels do we find Jesus healing someone's emotions? I assure you He does, and I'll show you where and how in the gospels and how to receive, for this is what this series is about. 
 
The bruised stem
Another prophecy about the Messiah directly states He will heal emotions, comparing a person in need of emotional healing to a 'bruised reed' and a barely lit flame on a lamp. It is Isaiah 42:1-4, and saying in v3-4:
 
"A bruised reed He will not break. A smoldering wick He will not snuff out. In faithfulness He will bring forth justice; He will not fail nor be discouraged until He has set justice in the earth..."
 
This is a powerful picture of someone with emotional wounds. We've all held a flower or young plant and bent the stem causing a bruise. In appearance at least for awhile, that flower, that leaf, that plant, looks normal, yet because of the bruise in the stem it won't be able to receive the fullness of the nutrients destined for it. 
 
A bruise is a wound under the surface, in this example emotional, but the picture presented is the same as a bruise on let us say, your arm or leg. Your skin is unbroken just as the skin on the plant stem is unbroken. You can even cover up your bruised arm or leg with clothes so that no one will see the bruise.
 
Yet below the surface it is ugly and it hurts. It can linger that way for weeks. You protect that bruised area because if someone accidentally hits it or brushes against it, it hurts! And they will have no idea they just hurt you further. That is the same with emotional bruising presented in these verses. An emotional bruise is hidden from view, protected by the person, and if someone inadvertently presses against that emotional wound the reaction to protect and back away is strong.
 
An emotionally bruised person reacts disproportionate to the situation. 
In other words they react much stronger than the situation calls for. A friend may casually laugh at a situation from their childhood, but the emotionally damaged person having had a similar childhood experience, may strike out in anger and tears at the friend....leaving the other person wondering what they said that warranted such a reaction. 
 
A smoking wick 
Isaiah also refers to an oil lamp, the oil representing the Holy Spirit, and their light is barely burning. They are so bruised, so wounded emotionally they feel barely alive, barely lit. Like the emotionally bruised person, indeed these are one and the same, they can hide the fact of their injury. They can smile and go about their business while inwardly they are hurting, barely alive, barely able to keep the light lit. 
 
The barely burning wick sees other 'oil lamps' burning brightly, the light of God blazing for all to see, yet these people wonder why that same Holy Spirit won't come and heal them to allow their light to burn brightly. They feel they only have a part of the Holy Spirit, of God, in their lives and they can barely maintain what they have. What is wrong with me, they ask themselves. 
 
This is the condition of someone in need of emotional healing, of someone who is bruised and barely able to keep their light shining. Yet their healing was provided for in the cross - so where do we see it? How were people emotionally healed in the gospels? And that is where we'll pick it up next week, until then, blessings, 
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]

Hi all,

Continuing our discussion pondering if thoughts have substance. But to do so we must turn back to light - and Light.
God is light and there is no darkness in Him. God is love. 
These statements in I John 1:5 and 4:8 respectively are given as blank statements. God is love and light, therefore love and light are synonymous. Love brings light into any situation, any relationship, and light (higher ways) bring love into any situation, any relationship. 
James says it this way in 1:13, 16-18, warning people not to think his statement in v2-3 about counting it all joy when troubles come says that God is doing it to them (no!):
"Do not let anyone say when he is tested/tempted/tried that God is doing it to him...Do not make a mistake beloved brethren: (Only) Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variableness nor hint of turning. And of His own free will He birthed us with the Word of truth that we should be a kind of first harvest of His creation."
The alphabet of God
The Spirit realm created the natural realm, which means the natural laws are like letters in an alphabet to God. Think about how we use letters. We use letters in an alphabet as containers of our thoughts, emotions, and intentions of our heart. We form a thought, a motive, a plan, then we use the letters to form those thoughts into something material - words - and those words can then be made into something even more substantive. Words are like blueprints - not the building itself, but the plans for the building which can be seen. Letters are building blocks.
That is how the natural laws like gravity and light and energy and mass are to God - they are His letters, His alphabet, which when properly arranged form an ordered natural world. He planned the natural world and us. He invented that alphabet of the natural laws, it came from His mind, His imagination, and the exertion of His will. Then He spoke His intentions into existence and the natural world was.
Therefore light and love and life is the true and first substance. Light is a process therefore, and as such can transfer energy - think about that for a moment. Within the Bible's simple definition of God as Light and Love we see in our modern studies of light, that light is substance, light is a process, and light can transfer energy. The physical world is a reflection of God's ways and being...amazing.
Our thoughts are after all, solid, substance, and have weight first in the spirit realm and then outward to the physical. 
When Paul said (as mentioned last week) that our inward man is renewed while we look at the unseen eternal realm, that 'looking at' the unseen means our thoughts 'look' towards the unseen, and that 'look' renews our spirit man. Our thoughts when placed on the higher, transmit energy (for lack of a better term) or Life into our spirit man to renew it. Our thoughts do have substance, can be carriers of good and Life and Light.
Isiah 55:7-9 tell us God's ways and thoughts - thoughts - are higher than our ways and thoughts. It is therefore revealed that God in the unseen realm and moving according to higher ways and thoughts, when thinking of creating something would just extend those higher ways downward so to speak, to create the natural. That means the natural world is like a mirror, as Paul said in Romans 1, that the invisible things of Him can be clearly seen in creation. 
There is One who is higher than thoughts of substance
Hebrews 4:12 has been studied extensively, by myself as well. I have a nice chart I like to use showing a human heart with a sword dividing the heart in half from top to bottom. Then I divide based on the grammar of the verse the list it includes: 
"The Word of God is living and powerful and able to divide between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and discerns (critiques) the thought and intentions of the heart."
If you look at the list you find that soul, joints, and thoughts come first and are therefore under one column, while spirit, marrow, and intentions form the other column. 
The soul, the human source of will, intellect, emotion, is as a joint linking two parts, the body and spirit. The spirit column includes the marrow and motives. The marrow is where blood if manufactured in the body - it is the core, the root, the source of life for the life is in the blood - that is the human spirit. Together, spirit and soul make the heart. In scripture you'll see verses using the word 'heart' and depending on what the author is trying to say, that word can mean both spirit and soul together, or just the spirit, or just the soul. Context reveals the subtle differences. 
And many have been taught that Word of God - and by that most preachers mean the written document that starts with Genesis and end with The Revelation - the Bible, and many sermons have been preached telling how the Word of God will critique your thoughts and motives...that's great...except that isn't what the verse says. So you have to throw all thet understanding out the window.
For verse 13 makes it clear what the author meant by saying the Word of God discerns/critiques the thoughts and intents of the heart: "Neither is there any of creation that is not open to His sight, for all things are naked and open before Him with whom we have to do. Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God..."
Hebrews 4:12 when speaking of the Word of God is talking about the Person called the Word of God - the Lord Jesus - He is the one who bridges the gap between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and critiques the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Not the paper and ink, but the Person of the Word. 
So when you look on a woman to lust, change that thought, that substance to thinking of her as a creation of God who Jesus died for - and say a prayer for her. When you want to be angry with someone without cause, change that thought to love, that Jesus died for them and loves them in spite of their nasty self. Pray for them. Jesus is looking, Jesus is critiquing our thoughts and intents. Our job is to realize our thoughts are equal to our actions, so the work of the Spirit is on our hearts, in our thoughts, and that is how we renew the mind, how we change our lives...
New subject next week...until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]

Hi all,
I ended last week asking the question:
 
Do thoughts have mass? 
Scripture is full of references linking the spirit realm to the natural realm, perhaps the most definitive statement is from Hebrews 11:3:
 
"Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were made by things which are not seen."
 
Things seen were made by "things that aren't seen" means 'things' exist in that realm: The spirit/Spirit realm DOES have mass, meaning our thoughts and motives do too...
 
The Greek word 'framed' in the King James Version of the English Bible is in Greek, 'katartizo', meaning to frame, to knit together, to prepare, to form - in other words all the seen universe and how it all works together from gravity to molecular and nuclear laws of physics, to the turning of the seasons to creation of the basic elements, all started in the invisible realm of the spirit, and more precisely, Spirit. The Person of the Word, Christ Jesus, framed the universe.
 
The example I use of teamwork between the Father, the outflow of His Spirit who Jesus said 'proceeds from the Father' in John 15:26, and the Son is this: The Father decides the car needs washed, so delegates that job to the son, who uses water to wash the car. We can say the Father did it, but he was more the planner, while the son did the work. And yet the agent that actually cleaned the car was the water. That is a snapshot of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 
 
"God (Father) who in times past spoke in many different ways to the fathers through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds." The Father used the Son to make the worlds. (Worlds is also translated 'universe', and 'ages' or epochs of time)
 
While we outwardly age, inwardly we become more vibrantly alive
"....though our outward man perishes, our inward man is renewed day by day...while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the unseen. For the things seen are temporary, but the things unseen are eternal." II Corinthians 4:16-18 
 
How do we go through life looking at the unseen? We then are a bridge between the unseen spirit realm which renews and strengthens our spirit man, and the natural world which causes our bodies to age and decay. It is the spirit of man which has been recreated by the Holy Spirit that bridges that gap between the unseen and the seen, and as we dwell on the things of the spirit/Spirit, we are inwardly renewed. It is a bit of a paradox, that outwardly I am aging and going the way of the earth, yet inwardly I am more strong, more virile, more alive now than I was when I first came to the Lord over 43 years ago. 
 
Somehow that life in the Spirit realm has substance that affects this realm. Somehow spiritual thoughts have the ability to create things in this lower realm of creation.
 
I can say this but it is merely a thought, an idea, an observation. But when I was given a tour of heaven I came away under the impression that the molecular structure of heaven functions at a much higher rate than molecules on earth. I would be compare it to a helicopter idling as the blades move slowly around, which is like earth's molecules, versus when the helicopter is taking off and the blades move very quickly which lifts it off the ground - which is what heaven's speed is like compared to earth (My observation, I have no way of proving it)
 
Knowing that which is beyond knowing
In Ephesians 3:17-19 Paul says that he is praying for them, and that if they are rooted and grounded in unconditional love (agape') they will be able to comprehend and to know the love of Christ which is beyond knowledge. How can a person know something that is beyond knowing?
 
He is talking about knowing Him in your spirit and knowing His great love for you, which cannot be comprehended in the mere mental realm of the brain.
 
'Mental' or 'cerebral' Christians will never know His love until and unless they learn to be in touch with and flow from their spirit. They will never experience the feeling of His love, for God is a Spirit, not a brain. People who keep God in the brain don't know how to flow or even be in touch with their spirit man, and therefore have great difficulty quite often praying in tongues - they operate from the brain, not the spirit. He flows out of the spirit to this natural realm, that is the bridge.
 
Without a doubt the greatest bridge between the unseen spirit realm and this realm is the person of Jesus Christ - all man, all God. Hebrews 1:3 says it this way:
 
"Who, being the brightness of His (Father's) glory, and the exact representation of His (Father's) image, and uphold all things by the Word of His (Father's) power, when He had by Himself purged our sins..." "Have I been such a long time with you Philip and you don't know: If you have seen me you have seen the Father." John 14:9
 
Science says...
In the natural our thoughts are nothing more than neural pathways in the brain, having no more mass nor substance than the electrical and chemical impulses that already exist in the brain. Thoughts are nothing more than electrical and chemical arrangements in the brain. Yet those thoughts manifest in action, which are quite solid. From thoughts come plans, buildings are designed and constructed, relationships begin and end - all that our lives are started in the thought processes.
 
We go back to our discussion of light and quantum physics, for God is light, and His thoughts are light, which carry good thoughts and plans for us that flow into our spirit and then upward to our soul and out to our bodies and physical world...and I've run out of room for today. Until next week, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]
 

Hi all,
I recently sat down with a young lady and heard how she came to know Jesus, which was quite remarkable. Just a few years ago she had been an atheist - and not your average quiet atheist - but one who actively, on the street, demonstrated against religions, thought Christians were stupid and uneducated, and looked down on all those non-thinking stupid religious people. She was an activist, angry, yelling, demonstrating, flaming liberal atheist - to paraphrase her own words. 
 
BUT...She considered herself a good person because she didn't lie, steal, or murder. But she hated religious people; even turning to TV stations with Christians on them just for the purpose of making fun of them to confirm to herself how stupid and uneducated they were. 
 
And then her life took an unexpected turn in a tragic event. And after several surgeries she was told at just age 20, that she would forever be on crutches or a walker, and probably later in life a wheelchair as there was nothing else medical science could do for her. She contemplated suicide, unable to imagine herself going through the rest of her life as a cripple. She thought it out; how could she do it the easiest, the least pain...she was developing a plan to end her life. 
 
Then she saw a banner advertisement for a Christian meeting that proclaimed 'Miracles'. She thought that was really what she needed, a miracle. "Maybe" she thought, "Maybe I can sneak in and and get my miracle and leave before any of those crazy stupid people have time to tell me about their Jesus." 
 
On her crutches she slowly made her way to the meeting and saw people raising their hands and singing, and she wondered what that was about - just more craziness by these stupid people. But immediately 3 women asked if they could pray for her, which she allowed. 
 
She suddenly found herself on the ground looking up, unable to move, what you and I might call 'in the Spirit' or as what happened to Peter in Acts 9, in a trance - a state in which the natural senses are suspended and one is in the Spirit.
 
Suddenly the Lord started talking to her, showing her light and darkness. In light was love, joy, peace...and He showed her the thoughts she had towards others. She saw the arrogance and hate, and for the first time in her life she saw those thoughts were darkness. She tried to argue before Him that they were just thoughts, because she was a good person. She was moral, honest, and hard working. 
 
But He was saying those thoughts of hatred towards others were darkness, even if she didn't act out the hatred, the thoughts were the same as the actions. He said those thoughts are actually material. They are solid. They are the same as the action. She felt that dark material of her thoughts, she knew it was true.
 
Suddenly she saw that her hatred of certain people was equal to murder, that in her thoughts she wanted them dead, which appalled her for she considered herself a good person, she wasn't a murderer. Or was she? In her thoughts she could see that she was. She saw the darkness was a spiral down to destruction. She saw if she stayed with those thoughts in her they would cause her whole life to spiral downward into darkness. 
 
After showing her these things He asked: "So what would you choose; light or darkness?" She responded, "Light of course!" When she did that, she said all that darkness, all that hate, all that arrogant exaltation of self, lifted away and off her. She was suddenly in the light and something had changed on the inside that was good and light. 
 
She told me she was glad He did not heal her right then, for if that had happened she said she probably would have just left her crutches and run away before she could hear more about Jesus. As it was, over the course of a year as she got to know Him, He did heal her, and she is now back to her active lifestyle - and walking with the Lord. 
 
The thoughts are equal to the action - quantum physics
Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 5 that He said to her just about 3 years ago, that thoughts are equal to actions: "I say to you whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart. if your eye offends you pluck it out (the lust leads the eye to look at her) for it is better that it should perish than for you to end up in hell. And if your hand offends you cut it off (the thought of acting on the lust leads to the action)..."
 
In the culture of the day, given that Jesus mentioned 1 eye and 1 hand and not 2 eyes and 2 hands, He is clearly stating for us to cut off the process by which the lust in the heart becomes an action. Jesus is linking the thought with the action. The evil thought and the action are one. Is the reverse true? The good thought and action are one.
 
But not every thought equals action nor has it yet become material
When the Father said in Genesis 1:26: "Let us (Elohim, the plural of El, or God) make man in our image, after our likeness..." that was an internal thought, it was directed to no one, it was purely internal. It did not yet rise to the level of being equal with action until the next verse: "So God made man..."
 
In Genesis 18: 17-19 Christ had temporarily materialized into human form, along with 2 angels, and had dinner with Abraham. As the angels headed off to Sodom to rescue Lot, the Lord paused and "Said to Himself: Shall I hide that which I am about to do, seeing that Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation...and train up his household and his children in the ways of the Lord..."
 
That again was an internal thought not directed to anyone. So when Jesus equated the thought of lust being equal to the action He put it in the context of thoughts directed outwards towards others which were based in sin - sin being selfish actions which often involve using others for our own purposes. The Lord showed the young lady above that her hatred was equal to the actions, they were material in the realm of darkness, and could one day manifest by taking her whole physical life down into darkness. 
 
Where is the link between the spirit and the natural, between the thought and the action?  
 
What does science say? Do thoughts have mass? And I'm out of room, we'll pick it up there next week...until then, blessings!
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at [email protected]