HEALING TO OUR SOUL WOUNDS

HEALING TO OUR SOUL WOUNDS

I used to steal things. I took small items from work, items like paperclips, a roll of tape, a writing pad. And don’t act so shocked. I know many of you have done the same. My rationale was that I’d used my supplies from home sometimes, so the company owed me. But stealing is stealing. Why was I tempted to take things that didn’t belong to me? Where the heck did that come from? Definitely a glitch in my soul.

When we get tired, stressed, or feel needy, we fall into old traps that we know aren’t good for us. We spend too much money; we drink too much; we tell lies; we take things that don’t belong to us; we fall prey to pornography, etc.: all the things that God has lovingly already told us are dangerous to us and harmful to others. Why is it we desire to do those things that aren’t good for us?

Romans 7 tells us the dilemma and the answer. The dilemma is that even though we received a perfect Spirit when we got born again, our souls weren’t made instantly perfect. Our soul consists of the way we think, our emotional responses, and the decisions we make daily. The healing of our souls is a miraculous process, not an instant thing. Even though we are Christians and have asked Jesus into our lives, we come to the table with many soul wounds that need healing.

For me, the temptation to steal came from when I was a teenager. When I started at a new school as a seventh-grader, most of the girls had more than I did. I never felt poor growing up until I compared myself to these new girls. I started stealing coins from my dad’s change dish.

Then Sheila, also poorer than the other girls, showed me how to steal makeup from the Woolworths’ store. It made me feel good. We’d steal clothes too. But when I stole four bikinis and hid them under my bed, my mom caught me, and I had to personally take them back to the store and tell them I’d stolen them. It was devastating, and I stopped stealing for a while.

But the trauma had already made such a wound in me, that if the right circumstances came up, the scab was torn off and the wound opened up. It hadn’t really been healed. The hurt and the feeling of lack was not resolved. When I felt deprived or cheated, it was a trigger that tempted me to take something for myself, “because I really needed it.”

I am totally healed of that now and let me tell you how so that you can begin to get relieved of some of those soul wounds too—those things that the Bible says are not good, but you do them anyway.

The answer is in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:10).  The miracle-working power is already in us, but we need first to know what it is, and then we can know how to let it heal our souls. The word “power” in Philippians 3:10 is translated from the Greek word, “dunamis.” The definition of “dunamis” is “power for performing miracles, and moral power, and excellence of soul.” It is also the root of the word “dynamite!”

It takes a dynamite miracle from Jesus to totally heal our soul wounds, giving us the ability to not only make good moral choices but also to be able to continue to make the right decisions every time, until excellence of soul becomes our new normal. Everyone knows that as hard as we may try with our five senses to stop a bad habit, it will eventually stick its ugly head up again and again.

This dynamite moral power doesn’t happen automatically. The ability to exhibit excellence of soul is a gift from God. We can only have it by letting Christ Jesus heal up those old wounds that still make us act specific ways that aren’t good for us.

Once a wound is genuinely healed, it’s like a scar. If we poke at scar tissue, there’s no feeling. We may have the memory of the source of the original trauma, but the hurt is gone. When a soul wound is healed supernaturally, the consequential inappropriate actions don’t happen anymore either. 

After I was healed, there were still times when I got tempted to take something that didn’t belong to me. But Jesus told me (and I told myself), “You don’t need that. You don’t need to steal. God will give it to you. You’ll have the money to buy it.” And it worked.

The dunamis, dynamite power, worked in me so that I never felt like I had to steal anything again.

Read these scriptures describing what dunamis power is, and you will believe for your soul wounds to be healed just like I did.    

·         Luke 24:49: “And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.”

·         Acts 1:8: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

·         Acts 4:33: “And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.”

·         Acts 10:38: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”

·         Romans 1:4: “And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”

·         Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

·         1 Corinthians 6:14: “And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.”

·         2 Corinthians 4:7: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

Love, Carolyn

QUESTIONS AND EASY CHALLENGES

1. What three things make up a person’s soul? Does the soul automatically change when a person gets born again?

2. Name one soul wound that still nags you. Do you know the source of that wound? If not, have you asked Jesus to show it to you?

3. What is the definition of the Greek word “dunamis”?

4. Can we heal our souls by trying hard to be good? How do our minds, emotions, and decisions get right according to the Bible?

5. Cite two scriptures that use the word “dunamis” for “power” and tell why they are meaningful to you.