People in life are plagued with fear and many are helpless when it comes to knowing how to overcome it. I have met too many men and women who still carry deep scars from their childhood, their former marriages and previous dating relationships. We have a lot of deeply hurting people within the Body of Christ and they need to realize that the pain that they carry will not go away over time in and of itself. Each person has to come before God daily and contend for his or her emotional and physical well-being. Healing will only come when you seek it, when you are willing to face the pain that has terrorized and plagued you for years, when you acknowledge and repent of the mistakes you have made, forgive the people that have abused or neglected you and those who invaded your boundaries who had no permission to violate you.
You have to be willing to fully surrender to Jesus and allow Him to walk you through the valley of the shadow of death until there is no longer any pain associated with the memory of your hurtful event. But this is where many people fall short. Most Christians I know are not fully surrendered to Jesus because they don’t trust Him with their broken hearts. They would rather exist in their shattered states because they are afraid to face their pain. As a result, they displace and project their pain on the innocent who had nothing to do with their present, painful state.
We all suffer one way or another when we have brothers and sisters who refuse to assume responsibility for their hidden pain. Fear prevents them from repenting and it is a poor choice that people make when they allow fear to keep them in bondage and create strongholds that they can’t seem to break out of. This is diametrically opposed to what the Bible reveals in 2 Timothy 17, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
It’s time for the Body of Christ to come face-to-face with their hidden pain and secret sins, stop playing mind-games, fully surrender to Christ, receive their healing and get on with taking up the mantle to fulfill the Great Commission. Some Christians will be able to work through their hurts with the help of the Holy Spirit alone. Others will need to go through Christian Counseling or a deliverance minister. But one thing is for sure: not until you admit that you have a problem and that it is negatively affecting those around you, nothing will change and Satan will continue to wreak havoc on your emotions, thought life and quality of life.
What good does it do to say that Jesus is your Lord and Savior when you don’t live like that? I would say that most people who have professed Christ can say that He is their Savior, but very few, perhaps less than 1% of the Body of Christ, can say that Jesus is their Lord because they have never fully surrendered to Christ and given Him everything. I’m referring to your broken and damaged heart, your scarred mind, your broken dreams, your failed relationships, lost financial opportunities and permission to allow the Lord to walk you through your painful past, present and trust Him with your future.
Quite frankly, it’s time to get real with Jesus. You are not getting any younger as your days are numbered. How many more years will you waste wandering through the desert of despair because fear prevents you from facing your pain? Sadly, many people will die in the desert, in the wasteland of emotional despair without ever having walked in, let alone looked on the Promised Land that longs to be discovered within the recesses of one’s heart.
Choose wisely, my friends, and ask God to give you the courage to face whatever hidden pain needs to be brought to the surface, lest you die a death that reveals your legacy was filled with emptiness, loneliness, deep despair, fear and no witness for Christ because you failed to be an overcomer. This is not God’s will for your life.
The Lord has called you to be a champion, a conqueror, an overcomer and you are to be used as a conduit to lead people to the Promised Land. But, if you can’t even enter into the Promised Land yourself, what can you offer the world? I hope this causes people to search deeply within the hurtful crevices of their hearts and minds so they can seek help. The clock is ticking and it is your life that literally hangs in the balance. What are you going to do about it? (Parts of this article are from one of my books, “Perfect Love Casts Out All Fear: Preparing the Bride of Christ for Jesus’ Return,” available on Armed4Battle.com and Amazon.com by Victor Torres)
