Category: Spiritual Healing

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:15

“…if a woman has long hair, it is her glory. For long hair is given to her as a covering.” (1 Corinthians 11:15, NIV)

“…it is beautiful and healthy for a woman to embrace her femininity and let her hair grow long.” (The Remedy)

Paul points to something God built into nature itself. Phillips calls it “the cover provided by nature for the woman’s head.”

The talents and what you have naturally from God—your hair, your womanhood, your story—are meant to be embraced. This is where you will find your true calling, that one thing in life that gives you your joy and your purpose. Begin looking for your truth in the natural gifts God has given you.

To embrace every part of your story. To be the complete woman God intended you to be—this is true fulfillment. Any ambition or activity that degrades the woman you are, or keeps you from expanding your talents, is not something you should pursue. Be the woman God made you to be; there true Joy is going to be found. Stepping out of His plan is never your best option.

Link your life to the people and activities that feed your heart, soul and body. Only you know what truly feeds you, what drives your energies and gives you the extra boost. Doing what you love is what allows you to meet every morning with a spring in your step. But before you can be doing it, you have to discover what “it” is—the thing you love to do.

This is only done by spending time with yourself, the Father and trusted friends who know you well. Your mornings belong to the Father; that early time is yours with Him alone. Your friends come and go throughout the day. Build relationships with the ones who will be there, who will support you as you grow and share in the discovery of “you.”

Feel free to explore anything that catches your interest. Open your mind to all the possibilities, then discover the one that really speaks to you. This is what living life is all about: becoming more, blessing others with the talents you have, discovering our amazing God. He is your very best resource and is always right beside you. Any moment of the day or night, you are always in His care.

So feel free to explore, develop and become more. This is the beginning of forever; you decide with every choice you make who you will be and where you will spend it.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:26–29

“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards… But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise… so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Corinthians 1:26–29, NIV)

The Remedy says God “purposely chose what appears to be the worst cases… to reveal the tremendous transforming power of His Remedy.” He does not choose the impressive. He chooses the broken, and then He shows the world what His Love can do.

Our minds and ways of thinking change as we allow the healing to happen. As we let the mind of Christ guide us, we begin to see what the world considers wise and strong as foolish and weak. Our view is above the world, and our strength comes from above the world. Our feet are strolling through heaven each day as we breathe the air of the angels and commune with the heavenly Father, knowing His angels guard our way as we go about the business of His Kingdom. Our joy comes from lifting another soul to the view of the glories of heaven.

Our food and water are not our worries; the Father has promised to supply all our needs. Simple angels’ food is our happy fare (Psalm 78:25). We are content with the portion the Lord has seen fit to give us, happy to do each day what providence brings. There is joy in the little things, because there is Love and wisdom in them. We are living under His wings, in His high tower, safe until the storm passes.

The Father is able to take all the broken, hurting, ruined parts of us and put us back together again, making us more than we could have been if we had never broken. He is able to turn all the bad in this world into a glorious victory. “All things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28). So there is no part of our selfish, sinful self we should hold back from Him. He can heal all the damage, what we have done to ourselves and what was done to us, and create a new and better life.

The contemptible, broken person is a diamond in the making. Unseen by human eyes, God sees the pressure applied. He knows the stability of the soul beneath the force; He can see the gem being formed. Each choice we make toward the good, moving our will toward the light, is all we must do. The rest is in our loving Father’s hands. We must only cooperate with the process and choose daily to remain in His care.

Our strength is small, but combined with His we can do anything. Our will is weak, but He can make us strong. Move into the Fires of Truth and Love, directly under the flow, and let them burn through all the useless shields we have built around our lives for protection and comfort. True comfort is found only in Christ and His Love.

I have told more of my own story of this in The Gift.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:30–31

“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1:30–31, NIV)

The Remedy gives Paul’s last line a fresh turn: “If you want to brag and promote something, then brag about the Lord and promote the truth about Him.” Paul has spent a whole chapter showing that nothing we have is our own doing. So if we boast at all, it can only be in Him.

Everything we have and are comes out of the sacrifice Christ made for all humanity. He gave everything up and emptied Himself of all He was (Philippians 2:7), so that He could become a human being in our fallen world, as helpless as we are. But He overcame in the strength of His Father, and that same strength is available to us. We may draw on it freely.

The Fires of Truth and Love flowing from the Father are flooding into every dark place in this world. Our only hope is to remove our self-imposed blinders and let them burn through everything in us that is not of Him. This is done by choice: our will placed on the side of our choice, choosing with our minds, our hearts, and our actions. Then we have the strength to carry it through.

Weakness comes when we have not truly chosen. Our mind may say, “This is what I should do, what I want to do,” but we have not engaged our will. Then we are as weak as water; our good intentions last only until the first breeze of opposition. Without the strength of the Lord, we have no ability to follow through on our good choice.

So engage your heart’s will, and move forward in your choice. Set your world up to reach your goal while you are in the strength of the morning. As the day wears on, the precautions you put in place will give you a chance to stop the old habits and begin forming new ones.

The Lord and every angel in heaven are waiting for you to reach out in your weakness. They are here to hold you up and give you every encouragement to reach your goal. We have already won the victory. Now we are in a time of re-learning, undoing the hurtful habits we leaned on in our sin-sick lives. Let them go and find new habits, one choice at a time. Build up your mind, build up your body, and be strong in the Lord. Every choice counts.

Today is a new day, a new beginning. Life moves forward today, one choice at a time.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:22–25

“Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified… For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:22–25, NIV)

By demanding a sign, the Jews rejected all the miracles Christ had done while He was with them. They refused the truth because it did not come the way they had decided it should. The demand for a sign was a self-focused attempt to pull Christ down to their level of thinking. Instead of looking at the facts and reasoning out whether it was truth or a lie, they rejected it.

Unrenewed minds and hearts run from the light, just as they will one day beg the rocks to fall on them and hide them (Revelation 6:16). The Fires of Love and Truth have been shining out from God through all time. Truth burns through all the lies we wrap around our hearts and minds to keep ourselves comfortable in self-deception: the stories we tell ourselves to feel okay about our poor choices. Anyone or anything that challenges those stories will be resisted with anger and the full force of the person being disturbed.

But to those who answer God’s call, Christ is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1:24). In the life of Jesus we can know God, because He is God. The Love, power, and wisdom of God were lived out in the life of Christ. The world has seen our God and Creator.

God’s wisdom and strength are bound up in His Love. Christ was filled with that light and Love all His life; His connection with heaven was never broken, until the Cross. At His weakest moment, crying “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), He took hold by faith of the strength flowing from God, the knowledge of who His Father is. Speaking that faith into the darkness, He claimed the victory: “It is finished.” This is the power of God at His weakest moment, enough power to catch and restore a fallen, terminal, dying race. Alone on the Cross, our God in Christ loved us so much that He allowed those with no understanding to murder Him. He did it all for a humanity who did not even realize they needed saving.

We are like a helpless newborn in a mother’s arms. We don’t know what we need, and a good mother prepares in advance for our every want and need. As we grow, we are surrounded by her love and watch care. She catches us up and smooths away our tears when our own choices have caused us pain. “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). We learn to love by being loved. God teaches us to love Him by loving us well, with wisdom: letting us learn from bad choices, keeping us from destroying ourselves while we mature enough to understand the difference between good and bad.

The step that lets us do good for ourselves is self-control. The strength to keep doing the good comes daily from Christ; we receive strength each day for that day. The wisdom of God is too wise to fix us before we are ready and willing to be healed. His power is governed by His Love and wisdom, and that is good news.

Some never reach that step in this life. I work with many people I cannot help, because they do not have the self-control to do good for themselves. They are not evil, only broken beyond the point where they can follow a healing program. I do all in my power to connect them to Christ, who can heal their hearts. But often the disease is further along than the time they have left for spiritual and emotional healing. I do not believe they are lost, only that the good they could have done here is ended. Like the thief on the cross beside Christ, their life is over, but they can still cling to a dying Savior, and He has the strength to hold them fast. “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Perfection is not required for salvation. What is required is a heart willing to learn, a desire for something better, and a will surrendered to the Love of Christ. The Cross looked like weakness, yet it is strong enough to hold every one of us fast. “The weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:20–21

“Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20, NIV)

Moffatt asks, “Has not God stultified the wisdom of this world?” To stultify is to make something look foolish and absurd. The Remedy names who Paul means for our own day: the agnostic professor, the atheistic scientist, the psychologist of the new age. All “wisdom” built on the principles of this world is, in the end, foolishness.

The scroll has unrolled. Strangely, much of it has been unrolled by science rather than by the Bible scholar. As we have learned the intricate language written into our DNA, the hands of God can be seen all over creation. “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20). Those who still refuse to see a Creator argue from a weaker and weaker position. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22).

And the scroll keeps unrolling. The saving truth of yesterday was all we were responsible for, and it had the power to transform a life. But as new truth is revealed, we become responsible for it, and the power is in the truth that is present truth today. Think of the weekend Christ died. On Friday, the temple services were present truth. On Sunday, present truth was a risen Savior. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18).

Through the Bible, through history and proven archaeology, we see our God, Creator and Redeemer, fully and completely for us in Love. Love hung on the Cross 2,000 years ago, making a way for anyone willing to agree with salvation to be saved. Love came down to earth and showed us every part of Himself. When we rejected Him, unable in our sin-sick condition even to understand our great need, we murdered Him. He still loved us, forgave us, and kept drawing us to His heart by His Love. And the Father was right there in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19), feeling every drop of agony Christ experienced.

The hands of God are spread wide open. All the power of heaven is bathing this dark world. Look up and see the light flowing in bright streams all around us. You only need to move into the flow to be filled with the power to be healed, transformed into your most glorious self.

The healing begins deep within. Our time in the valley of the shadow of death is our time of growth and choice. We can choose to keep going, to trust the One beside us on our personal journey through that valley. We may need to return to it often as we say goodbye to old selfish habits that once brought us comfort but are no longer needed. We die to our old ways of thinking and coping, and replace them with new, healthier habits: a new life where we are free to be more.

This is why the world calls us foolish. We put our complete faith and trust in God, knowing He will sustain us, and has, in every circumstance. We do not need to be in control of our surroundings to feel safe and secure, because our loving Father says He is taking care of all that. There is no fear and no selfish need to protect self when there is a living, abiding faith and relationship with Christ. He is our Friend, concerned with us every minute of our lives. We are never alone.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:19

“For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’” (1 Corinthians 1:19, NIV, quoting Isaiah 29:14)

The Remedy puts it this way: “God’s method of self-sacrificing love will destroy the world’s wisdom of promoting self first.” The world says look out for number one. God’s way is the opposite, and it leaves the world baffled.

Our minds, as well as our bodies and hearts, are being healed and restored to the image of God. To have the mind and heart of God is to act out of love for ourselves and for others. Loving ourselves, rightly understood, means refusing to do anything that would compromise our ability to do all the good we can, for ourselves and for others. When our hearts and minds are in tune with the heart of Christ, this is not a selfish thing. We are to live to bless others; it is the only way we can truly be happy.

How can we be a blessing if we are so broken in body and mind that we cannot choose or carry through the good we find each day to do? So we do the best for ourselves: eating well and getting good exercise, for the benefit of our bodies, emotions, and minds. We learn to love well through practice. We show up when we are truly needed. We choose the hard things regardless of the outcome, and learn to leave the results with God.

All of this is life: daily choosing to be present, wise, and loving to others and to ourselves. And sometimes love must disappoint the expectations of the immature, selfish, self-focused babe in the faith. It is a choice to do the hard thing, standing firm in the face of the anger, misunderstanding, and hurt of someone we love and care for. Each day we must receive Grace and Love from the Father for that day’s trials, duties, and choices.

This is what defeats the wisdom of the wise: our connection to the Source of all wisdom, the prudence and Love that flow from the wisdom of God. When our choices are made with a focus on blessing others, those who are self-focused will be baffled, unable to understand where we are coming from. It is not a choice they would ever make. Their plans to advance self and gain all they can in this world are not our goals. Our goal is to grow closer to the One who can truly supply every need, the real needs, the One who can truly satisfy our hearts’ desires. We want to be like Jesus. Nothing else in this world matters.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:18

“For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18, NIV)

The Remedy renders it, “the truth about God, His character of absolute Love, as revealed by Christ at the cross, makes no sense whatsoever to those who are dying through practicing the world’s method of survival-of-the-fittest; but to those of us who are being healed and restored, it is the true power of God, the secret of eternal life.”

What Christ accomplished at the Cross for all creation is truly amazing. First, He unmasked Satan as a murderer, so evil he would murder his own Creator. Jesus had called him “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44), and at the Cross the whole universe saw it. The lies of Satan were exposed. God is not the unkind, unloving arbiter of laws, ready to strike down anyone who breaks His rules. He gave up everything to become human, to redeem a race so lost they did not even have the ability to want to be saved without His help.

As long as there is any hope of saving a soul and restoring them to be truly happy, God will not let them go. He releases them to their choices only when it is obvious there is nothing more He can do to convince them that they are destroying themselves. “God gave them up” (Romans 1:24) is not anger; it is Love respecting a choice it could not change.

Second, at the Cross He accomplished the healing of humanity from the lethal sin condition, providing an antidote only He could bring about. He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” and “condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). In our very nature He overcame sin, perfecting a sinless, loving character, and brought life and healing back within the reach of any human willing to be healed.

We are given the healed life of Christ. This life we must then grow up into: feed it by our choices, and exercise and strengthen it by using our will to now choose the things that were repulsive to us before. Every choice brings us closer to the character of Christ. We are not His clones. We are like Him in the way we react to life and the way we treat others. We will not have to stop and think, “What would Christ do right now?” We will already be doing the selfless, loving thing He would have done. “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10).

We are living His life, doing the work in our path each day with the same Love and care He showed when He was here.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:10–17

“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another… and that there be no divisions among you… Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:10, 13, NIV)

The church in Corinth was splitting into camps. “I follow Paul.” “I follow Apollos.” “I follow Cephas.” Paul’s answer is a single question: “Is Christ divided?”

Love does not bring division but unity. When all hearts are joined in love for the truth of who Jesus is and what He has done for us, there can be no division. It is when ego and pride poke up in the heart that we become self-seeking, wanting to be better or to understand more than the others. This is not the heart of Christ. His Love never pushes self forward. He draws us to Himself with Love and caring for who we are.

Ego and pride slip easily into our thinking, and standing against them can be very difficult. Our human nature wants to be known, to be better accepted. We set up our comfort zones, and those who are like us fit easily into our world. But in the character of Jesus, our comfort zones expand to include everyone who has a heart for truth. No one is above another. All should be accepted, understood, and cared for as loved children of Christ.

The heart of God sees the truth in us all. His Love and wisdom understand exactly where each of us still needs to grow up into the image of Christ. So any faction or discomfort in the church is not from God. It is the pride and immaturity of people not yet grown up into His image. We need to learn to recognize the Jesus in each other, allowing that each of us is still becoming what we will be. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3:2).

Some believers are still babes in Christ (1 Corinthians 3:1), crass and difficult to know. But our loving example, our quiet, calm, understanding responses to their inappropriate comments and actions, gives them a living example to aim for, a place to grow up to. Christ brings the unlovely ones to us to find acceptance, and to be lifted up by our example. They are a gift to us too. We learn patience. We learn to look past the surface to the struggling soul beneath: the heart that never learned how to love, that was never loved, that never saw or felt this thing called love, care, and compassion.

And through it all, Paul says, we hold up Christ, “not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect” (1:17). Hold Christ up in the best light, the light of love. What He did on the Cross will stand on its own; we need not embellish it with fancy words. His Love is enough. It speaks to anyone open and willing to know the truth as it is revealed at the Cross.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:7–9

“Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end… God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:7–9, NIV)

The word Paul uses for Christ being “revealed” is apokalypsis: an uncovering, a laying bare, a disclosure of truth given to the soul by God Himself. We usually read this verse only of Christ’s return. But Paul uses this same word for what happened to him on the Damascus road: God was pleased “to reveal his Son in me” (Galatians 1:16).

So this verse speaks of the revealing of Christ in us. The gifts of heaven make us eager to see Christ revealed in our own lives, as we are returned to His image. His people will stand revealing the image of Christ; He will reveal Himself in us. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

And that is exactly what prepares us for the other revealing. “We know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). So it is both: Christ revealed in us now is what prepares us for Christ revealed to us at His coming.

This is the promise we can count on. Paul says God Himself “will keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It is what all heaven has been working toward since the fall of humanity: to be able to present us faultless on that day when Christ comes to take us all home. “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).

The work has been done. The victory has been won. We want to know Him; we want to be there. All the animosity, all the double-mindedness that sin put into us, that we were born with, will be removed. We will stand fully restored in the image of Christ, complete, faultless, and ready to know God as He is. Phillips puts it simply: “when his day comes you need fear no condemnation.”

And our place will be high. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne” (Revelation 3:21). I believe we are being fitted to stand in our place just under Christ, the place Lucifer fell from, right next to the throne of God. We will be able to stand there because we will know Him as He is and what He has done in us. The restoration, the choices we have made, who we have become: these fit us for the positions we will fill.

Why can we be so sure? Because “God is faithful.” He is the one who called us into fellowship with His Son. The Father is calling us to come to Him, and there is only Love and healing in His call, no condemnation. He longs for us to be healed, made happy and healthy, and He will not stop until the work is done.

Reflections on 1 Corinthians 1:4–6

“I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way… God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you.” (1 Corinthians 1:4–6, NIV)

Paul cannot stop thanking God for the Corinthians. Why? The Remedy puts it plainly: “Your transformed lives testify to the healing power of the remedy brought to us by Christ.” Paul can see it. The message he brought them has taken root, and their lives are changing.

That is the joy of those who believe and share the truth about who God is: to see with our own eyes the working of God in a life that selfishness had destroyed, now set free to truly understand reality, love, and freedom. To watch the power of heaven poured into a surrendered life, until that person is restored to high human standing, able to think, to discern truth, to hold an opinion that can be trusted. This is only possible when the life is restored to the image of Christ by the Grace of God. It is the miracle of re-creation, and we get to be a part of it.

“The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). There is power in truth: the power of God to heal us, to give us the ability to take in more truth, and to share wisely what we know with everyone we meet. We are empowered to say what we know in the very best way, with discernment and wisdom, so that we can be a blessing to those we share it with.

Truth moves us directly into the flow of the Fires of Truth and Love coming from the very presence of God. Those who want to know Him only have to reach out in any direction. Our knowledge of God, and of our own hearts, is increasing. That second kind of knowing is one of the hardest things to get our hearts and minds around. We are so blind to our own faults. “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23).

So we must care wisely for the broken and hurting ones, who can only take in very small doses as they begin to receive truth and Love, and as they grow in their ability to know truth and to feel and give love. The selfishness is burnt out of the heart as Truth and Love fill all the empty, broken, hurting places in our souls. We are all being healed.

The ability to know and to share is the proof of our connection to the Father, the proof that the Holy Spirit is in us.

And the joy comes with each day’s victories: realizing you have strength flowing through you, direct from the throne of God, to stand firm in any choice you have put your will behind. A choice with your will engaged is not a whim or a want. God is not a vending machine, where you put in your money and make your selection. It is all about growth, and choosing from a heart that is learning to love as Christ loves us. Such a choice moves forward in its direction, knowing the Lord will supply your lack as needed for you to stand firm and reach the goal. “My God shall supply all your need” (Philippians 4:19).

This is true joy: to know you can be more in His strength. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).