Month: August 2025

Forgiving for Healing ~ Letting Go of Pain

/ Fire Starter for Jesus / Leave a comment

Listen on YouTube while you read.

“Mercy! Forgiving when it’s Hard” covered certain misconceptions about forgiveness, misunderstandings that get in the way of our willingness to forgive. It was written primarily to help us take down strongholds of the will and strongholds in our understanding, so we will hopefully let go and take the forgiveness plunge.

This second post on forgiveness focuses more on the emotional aspect: forgiveness in situations that are loaded with heartache and trauma! As we learn how to release what we’ve been carrying around emotionally regarding specific forgiveness situations, whole memories can be redeemed. Then our emotional reactions in the present can change. No more “faking it until you make it!” Real change is accomplished by the Holy Spirit. It’s quick and easy once we decide we’re ready to let go and know how!

 We release our painful emotions to God. He takes them and gives us his loving emotions in their place. We can receive deep cleansing. We can be set free, restored and made even stronger. We can give him our hurts. Then Lord can then remove ugly buttons from our hearts; buttons that get pushed and set us off in the present because of something unhealed in our past.

As we entrust him with washing out our hurts, we’re taking intimacy with God deeper, moving our relationship with him to a whole new level. We’re moving in childlike faith. We’re exposing those painful emotions associated with our memories to his tender loving, healing, cleansing river. Then God can wash us on an emotional level. We’re cleansed and more able to express the beautiful fruit of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit more of the time.

"How do I change the way I feel?" you may wonder. Without the Lord, you probably can't! All you can do is push the pain back down...to have it pop back up later. But God within you can!

“How do I change the way I feel?” you may wonder. Without the Lord, you probably can’t! All you can do is push the pain back down into the subconscious to have it pop back up later. But GOD within you can if you’ll let him! He can remove any emotion we’re willing to give him. He can change our hearts. He can do it in seconds. He can put the opposite emotion in its place, and he will do it when we make room for him to work within our hearts and ask. What an amazing trade! Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness! What a trade! What love! Will we trust him enough to let him do it?

Ready to let God move? Great! Pray this way: “God, I trust you with my heart. Lord, change me. I let go of what happened. I set all others free and I set myself free of this memory and its pain. I give you my feeling of _____.  I don’t want it anymore. Not just the idea, but from my gut I give you the actual feeling itself. The new me, the completely healed me seated in heavenly places with Christ does not have this feeling, so I don’t want it in me here on earth either. I give you permission to do emotional surgery on me and remove what does not belong. Release your holy river and wash through my innermost being.

I won’t hide my feelings from you or try to manage them on my own, I give it all to you…. (*Now wait in silence with an open heart until you feel an emotional shift. It only takes a moment. It may help to imagine God’s river washing through your belly. You’ll know when it happens. You’ll feel the shift.)  I receive your peace and your joy. Thank you for taking that emotional burden away. Thank you for giving me the courage to trust you with all this. Thank you for helping me let go. Thank you for this new ___ feeling inside. I feel so much better!”

Isaiah 61:3 ESV

…to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.

Copyright 2025

Comment below was added based on private reader feedback:

*The shift that can be felt, at minimum, is, that icky feeling in the person draining away. If they feel nothing afterward, keep in mind, nothing is a big improvement. Nonetheless, when the hurt is gone, the person can receive the opposite feeling by faith and thank God. It’s done.

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Copyright 2025

Resources for further study:
Live Free (paperback) by Dennis and Jennifer Clark

Emotional Healing Made Simple by Praying Medic

Your Path to Spiritual Maturity: Embrace the Journey

/ Fire Starter for Jesus / 6 Comments

Listen while you read with this YouTube link.

There’s always more to the journey! But let’s start at the beginning. Are you familiar with the term “being born again?” Some are not. Let’s cover what that is for those who don’t know.

Somewhere along your spiritual journey you encounter Truth in the person Jesus Christ. You become convinced He is the only way to genuine love and lasting life. You encounter His presence. Your heart tells you it’s true that He gave His lifeblood to pay the price for everybody’s mess-ups, even yours. Thankful for His generous sacrifice, you take Him up on His offer.

You say “yes” to the invitation to receive the seed of His presence. Jesus plants it in the soil of your heart. He introduces you to His Father, your Creator, who becomes your Father too. The seed of God is planted in your heart and now you’re in what the Bible calls a covenant. You’re adopted into His forever family. You receive a new heart and a new spirit. You’re born again!

In the natural world when a baby is born, if the child is fed and cared for s/he grows up and becomes an adult. This natural development parallels what happens in the spiritual world. By spending time with God and consuming His word, you grow on the inside. The God-who-sees you accompanies you everywhere you go, so you’re never alone. You begin getting to know Him. You learn how to receive forgiveness, and how to forgive. You begin releasing to Him the hurts within you heart. Incrementally you are filled with more light. The soil of your heart gets free from rocks and weeds. Your relationship with Him which began small, like a seedling popping out of the ground, is growing.

At some point along your journey you encounter challenges. You discover that you have spiritual enemies that want to drag you down and destroy you. It’s no joke! You enter training with spiritual weapons and begin learning how to fight. You practice defeating dark entities. Your knowledge of who you are and who He is expands, along with your growing authority and power in Him.

Your relational journey is like the growth of a little tree reaching for heaven. You’re like a young tree making progress under the protection of larger trees. You’re shaded, nourished, and shielded.

One day after much practice, you discover you have learned to live in victory in an ongoing way. Congratulations! You have matured to young adulthood in the Spirit. Your relationship has grown like a tree that is now too big to be stepped on, hopped over, or chopped down and put in someone’s living room for Christmas.

You’re wearing spiritual armor, and you’re practiced in using it. You hear God’s voice speaking, and you’ve learned to trust Him more than yourself or anybody else. You live yielded to His direction. You know who you are and you’re fulfilling your purpose. You use the gifts He gave you to build His Kingdom. God has become your best friend. You are strong! You’ve learned how to live victoriously.

After much adulting in the Kingdom of God, you become a father or mother in the Kingdom. You know God deeply. You have great spiritual authority and walk in God’s power. You’re no longer focused on yourself and what you can do because you’ve got that down well enough. Your eyes have turned to the younger ones. Your heart is with them. Rather than feeling excited about doing the stuff, you get more excited about helping younger ones know God, discover who they are, heal from their hurts, and get free to do what they are called to accomplish. You think multi-generationally.

You are part of the corporate body of Christ. You understand oneness. You see beyond yourself and your generation to the bigger picture of the Kingdom of heaven coming to earth. Oftentimes you love the way God loves. You have built a reward in heaven that no one can take away and it’s growing larger.

You are like a grand tree in the forest; the kind people will drive miles to gaze at with amazement. But you hardly notice. It’s all about the Kingdom of God now!

This is a rudimentary description of growing up by the Spirit to become a mature son or daughter of God. The Bible tells us the earth and all of creation are groaning, moaning, and crying out for the mature sons and daughters of God to walk the earth. Be an answer to that cry! Don’t get stunted in your spiritual life. Keep growing! You are needed! We are all called, have purpose, and a destiny to fulfill. The reward of being on track with your destiny is greater than any other reward. So, stay on the journey to adulthood in the Kingdom! There is always more to your spiritual journey. As long as you are here on the planet, God has MORE for you. God is THAT BIG.

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Copyright 2025