Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 103
TRANSCRIPT
Have you ever had something happen that was so horrible that in your mind there was no way God could make good come out of it? Has anyone ever given you the idea that when you accepted Jesus into your life that all of your troubles will go away? In today’s podcast I am going to talk about the truth that in this life there will be trials, but that the trials we go through are valuable on many levels. Come along with me.
I’m Lee Whitman with Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you to this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. Today’s passage of scripture is 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 and it is an amazing message from God. I am reading it out of the Passion Translation because it is much more descriptive than the other translations. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 “All praise belongs to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For He is the Father of tender mercy and the God of endless comfort. He always comes alongside us to comfort us in every suffering so that we can come alongside those who are in any painful trial. We can bring them this same comfort that God has poured out upon us. And just as we experience the abundance of Christ’s own sufferings, even more of God’s comfort will cascade upon us through our union with Christ.”
Kenny’s wife of two years was killed by a drunk driver. You can imagine the pain this 25-year-old young man went through at the loss of the woman he had planned on spending the rest of his life with. The drunk driver that killed his wife was given probation and community service because this was his first offense. Kenny was angry. Angry is maybe too mild of a word for the way Kenny felt. If he was honest, Kenny had murder in his heart. He wanted this man to pay the same price that his precious wife had paid. But Kenny was a Godly man who wanted to do what God would have him do so he went to his pastor for help in dealing with his loss and anger. The pastor gave Kenny the best advice he could at the time and that was for Kenny to forgive the man who had done this. So, Kenny forgave the best he could. And every time the memory of what happened to his wife came back into Kenny’s mind, he made the choice to forgive again.
He kept trying to forgive this man every time the hurt or memory returned. After doing this for about five years someone recommend that Kenny come receive RTF ministry because he was having a hard time moving past his wife’s death. He explained to the ministers that when thoughts about the man that had killed his wife came into his mind all the hurt and anger returned, which in his mind meant that he had not really forgiven the man yet. He was trying to forgive as the bible says for him to do, yet the anger kept returning. What the RTF ministers explained to Kenny is that there are two parts of forgiveness. The first part is to forgive the event, to forgive what had been done. In this case Kenny had to forgive the man for driving drunk and killing his beautiful wife. The second part of forgiveness is to get healing for the damage that was done due to the other person’s actions. Kenny had never allowed Jesus to heal the hurt caused from the death of his wife. He was forgiving the event but did not know how to get healing for the damage that was done. So, when Kenny experienced the pain of the loss of his wife on a fairly regular basis, he wrongly believed that he had not forgiven the man for what he had done. Forgiving the event does not always remove the hurt caused by the damage that the event had done. When Kenny allowed Jesus to bring healing to the wounds in his heart, he was able to release the man in a way that he had never been able to before that.
I tell you Kenny’s story because he has been able to use his experience to help many others. He is now able to share the comfort that he received from God going through this horrible experience to help others who are going through grief and loss. Our verse for today says “He (Jesus) always comes alongside us to comfort us in every suffering so that we can come alongside those who are in any painful trial.” One of the sections of RTF ministry is what we call Soul/Spirit Healing. It is based on Luke 4:18 when Jesus said, “I came to heal the broken hearted.” It is a time when Jesus is invited to come into a wounded and hurt place and bring his incredible healing. The manner in which Jesus brings this healing is so intimate and personal that it is almost hard to describe because He hardly ever does it the same way twice. He meets each person in a way that they need to experience His healing in order for them to experience His comfort.
For example, one lady that had been repeatedly abused and hurt by men invited Jesus to come and bring healing to these wounded places in her life created by the damage done by men. She loved sailing so Jesus came to her in a sailboat as a grey-haired old sea captain. When she was asked to explain why she felt safe with this grey-haired old sea captain she said the only man in her life that was safe was her grandfather who was a grey-haired old sea captain. Jesus knew her so well that He knew how to bring His comfort into her life. He knows how to come alongside each of us and bring His comfort into our lives to bring healing to all the various wounds we encounter. When we have been comforted by Jesus like this in such an intimate and personal way, we have the confidence to know that He can comfort anyone of anything. This passage goes on to say, “We can bring them this same comfort that God has poured out upon us.” This lady I mentioned here will never be the same again because of what she experienced with Jesus, and she will be quick to tell others that Jesus can comfort them as well no matter what they are going through.
Lee, what you are describing seems pretty far-fetched, Jesus coming to someone looking like a grey-haired old sea captain. Let me show you a picture from scripture of Jesus coming to people in a way they can receive and then give some examples from our ministry experience. We know that Jesus went to the cross and died a horrible death to pay the penalty for our sins. He was then buried in a borrowed tomb. I wonder if Joseph of Arimathea knew that Jesus was only going to borrow his tomb for three days. In John 20 it tells the story of Mary going to the tomb on the third day and finding the stone rolled away. She went into the tomb and encountered two angels. Then she turned around, and Jesus was standing there but she didn’t recognize Him but rather thought He was the gardener. Could it be that Jesus came to Mary and appeared as the gardener in order to keep from frightening her? The moment Jesus said her name, “Mary” her eyes were opened, and she knew that it was Jesus and she grabbed Him in a bear hug. Jesus had to say to her “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father”.
In Luke 24 there is another story of two of Jesus disciples who were on the road to Emmaus. As they walked along Jesus joined them on this journey and they had quite a long conversation with Him. Jesus even taught them some things during this conversation, yet they did not recognize His. They invited their traveling companion to join them for dinner because it was getting late in the day. During the meal Jesus took the bread and broke it and blessed it, like He did during their last meal together, and immediately their eyes were opened, and they recognized that this man was Jesus. Jesus came to them in a form they could receive at that very painful point in their lives. I can only imagine that if He just showed up as the resurrected Jesus it may have given them a heart attack. Instead, He came to them in a way that they could receive Him and minister His comfort to them.
Cindi and I have ministered to hundreds of people using RTF ministry over the last 14 years. During this Soul Spirit Healing part of the ministry, we have seen Jesus consistently minister to people in very unique and intimate ways, ways that that person needed in order to bring His comfort into their lives. We have seen Jesus do some pretty out of the normal theological box things during this ministry, things like driving up to someone in a golf cart, or allowing someone to fly His very special airplane, or even putting the hurts and wounds that the person gave to Jesus in a dump truck and taking them away. Some would say those things are just happening in their imaginations. Yes, they are happening in their Holy Spirit anointed imaginations, with the fruit of that experience being a healed heart. Jesus taught in parables because He wanted the hearer to use their imaginations. Pictures and parables are Jesus’ language because we are designed to think in pictures and parables. So, it is not unusual for Jesus to touch our hearts using our Holy Spirit anointed imaginations.
Today’s passage goes on to say, “And just as we experience the abundance of Christ’s own sufferings, even more of God’s comfort will cascade upon us through our union with Christ”. How do we experience the abundance of Christ’s own sufferings? There are volumes of books written about this topic. I am not a theologian, nor do I claim to be one, so I approach things from a pretty simple perspective. My simple perspective on this scripture is that the more we apply the teachings of Christ to our daily lives, the more we are experiencing the sufferings of Christ. For example, when we forgive as Christ has forgiven us, we are applying the sufferings of Christ to our lives. Forgiveness on a human level is foolishness. That man owed Kenny something for killing his wife. When we forgive it looks like the other person got away with their bad behavior. When we apply the sufferings of Christ to our lives, we realize that He died to purchase forgiveness even for the man who killed Kenny’s wife. Look at the results of experiencing the abundance of Christ’s own sufferings. It says that God’s comfort will cascade upon us through our union with Christ. I want that for my life, and I know you do as well. The way to get that cascade of comfort is by applying Christ’s suffering to all aspects of your life. RTF ministry is the best way I know of to experience the abundance of Christ’s own sufferings by applying all that He has done to every aspect of our lives. We apply what Christ’s suffering have purchased by breaking off the generational sins and curses we have inherited from our ancestors. We experience more of His sufferings by breaking off lies we are believing that set themselves up against the true knowledge of God and the things of God. We apply more by receiving healing for the hurts and wounds of our hearts as we talked about today. Then we apply Christ’s victory on the cross over our enemy Satan by applying His victory and destroying the works of the enemy in our lives. Along with experiencing more freedom and healing in our lives God’s comfort will cascade upon us through our union with Christ.
We just finished an Issue Focused Activation in Virginia Beach Virginia this last weekend where we trained 15 new Issue Focused Ministers. It was awesome to watch as each of these ministers gained experience and grew in their authority. We watched them experience today’s verse as they applied Christs victory on the cross to their lives. Today they are experiencing God’s comfort cascading upon them like never before. As you hear or read today’s podcast you might be sensing God’s tug on your heart to become an RTF Issue Focused Minister. If that is the case you can find information about becoming an RTF minister by going to our website, restoringthefoundations.org and clicking on the Minister Training tab at the top of the page.
Prayer
“All praise belongs to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For He is the Father of tender mercy and the God of endless comfort.” Thank you for your tender mercies and endless comfort. Father, you know there are people listening today who have been deeply hurt. Would You take the words of this podcast to give them hope that healing and freedom is possible. Help them to know that You always come alongside us to comfort us in every suffering. In Jesus Name.
