HEALING YOUR MEMORY

Imagine the healing of memory as a ladder with seven rungs.

      1. REPENT!

                     You may smile, but if you’re not the problem, then what’s the solution? God’s way is to tell it like it is! He doesn’t put a bandage on an infected wound; He insists that it be lanced, drained, cleansed, and given time to heal. King David took a wife of one of his own army officers, got her pregnant, and hen had her husband killed to cover it up. What a mess!. The child died, scandal rocked his throne, and civil war broke out. But worst of all, he permitted. “……. The enemies of the Lord…. To… blaspheme…” (2 Samuel 12:14)

            Finally he stopped running, stopped hiding and got honest. Listen, “then I let it all it; I said, I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God. Suddenly the pressure was gone- my guilt dissolved, my sins                    me thing. Don’t ask God to fix others- ask Him to fix you! Real healing can only begin when you let God take control of the thing that has had control of you.

            If you think your past disqualifies you from moving forward, then you don’t understand God’s grace. He always has more for you today then you lost yesterday.

            But you See, ‘I  have a child out of wedlock; I’ve been divorced; I’ ve been in prison; I’ve had abortion; I’ve violated the trust others placed in me; I've lost so much. Don’t be discouraged, God’s not moved by our virtues, he’s touched by “….. he feeling of our infirmities. “(Hebrews 4:15). Listen carefully to these words: for since e himself has now been through sufferings and temptation, he knows it’s like….. and he is wonderfully able to help us” (Hebrews 2:18LB).

            Can somebody with a past touch God in the present, and their future be forever changed? Yes! Yes! Yes! The hymn- writer wrote

Theres a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; and sinners plunge beneath that food, lose all their guilty stains.

Case closed! Debt paid! Record expunged!.

The rewards of repentance are awesome. Listen to Job, ‘Prepare your hearts and lift up your hands to Him in prayer. Get rid of your sins and leave all your iniquity behind you. Then your face will brighten in innocence. you will be strong and free of fear. You will forget your misery. it will all be gone like water under the bridges… you will  have courage because you will have hope. You will be protected and will rest in safety. You will lie down unafraid, and many will look to you for help.

            Go ahead! Step into the river of God’s mercy and let it flow over you, setting you free. Whether it’s the guilt of something you’re done, or the pain of something that was done to you, let it go- let it rush on by!

            There’s one more thing you need to know.

Repentance is not just “feeling sorry” for what you’ve done. It’s a quality decision to break with the past and all its associations, pleasures, habits and through patterns. It’s an- about- face- turn.

            When a child was little, he had an aversion for soup and water, he hated getting washed. Everything at bedtime it was like wrestling match. One night during the struggle, he looked up at his father and said. ‘Dad, wait, I couldn’t tell something good was coming. ‘o.k.,’ I said ‘what do you have in mind? With a big grin he replied, couldn’t you just dust me off a little?

            Repentance is not a little dusting, it is a thorough washing

If you don’t know how to repent, just read the words of David in Psalm 51, and make your prayer. Here they are:

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion, blot out my sins. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me.

            Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow… create in me a pure heart, O God, renew a steadfast spirit within me.

            Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation.”

            That prayer changed David’s life, and it’ll change yours too, if you pray it and mean it.

            

THE THIRD KIND OF PERSON

THOSE WHO CANNOT FORGET WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO OTHERS

Did you know that when the ancient Persians found a man guilty of murder, they punished him by strapping the corpse of his victim to his back? What a picture! The weight of it dragged him down, the presence of it constantly tormented him, the sight and smell of it drove others away and it eventually robbed him of his life.

     That’s the picture Paul had in mind when he wrote “who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24 NIV). You can no more live with the dead things of your past clinging to you than Paul could! This therefore, is why you need the power of God to cut the cord and burn the bridges between you and our past, whether past failure or past relationships. Don’t walk around with them on your back or on your mind. Nothing is heavier than bitterness. It can:

Ø  Drag you down and turn living into merely existing.

Ø  Cause you to leave a bad smell wherever you go. Even those who love you in will become exhausted and leave, or confront you and say “get over it”.

Ø  Destroy every new relationship God wants to bring into your life. After all, who wants a person that’s having an affair with a corpse? You’d only be using the new, as anti-depressant to numb the pain of the old.

Ø  Shorten your life because you weren’t built to carry it. Cry if you need to, but when the grieving is over, bury it and move on. Cut it loose!

    It might be difficult because you might say “I can’t help but remember.” Oh yes you can! Paul the Apostle said in Philippians 3:13 “this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind…”

He chose to forget and you can do the same. It may be hard but our Lord Jesus didn’t say all things are easy but all things are possible (Mark 9:23)! In all of God’s promises to you, is the potential to see it fulfilled. Contained in every command he gives you, is the power to carry it out. God has given us promises thus:

Ø  “Fear not, for you will not be put to shame; neither feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced. But you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach…you will remember no more” (Isaiah 54:4 NAS).

Ø  “Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder the things of the past. Behold I will do something new, now it will spring forth. Will you not be aware of it! I will even make a roadway in the wilderness[and] rivers in the dessert” (Isaiah 43:17-11119 NAS)

Ø  “The former things shall not be remembered or come into mind…be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create” Isaiah 65:17-18 NAS).

           God can create order out of chaos, and beauty out of ashes. He can help you find purpose in the middle of the pain. You may be saying “Aren’t those verses from all from the Old Testament?” Yes, but “He always does exactly what He says. He carries out and fulfills all God’s promises no matter how many of them there are” (2 Corinthians 1;19-20 LB).

        He is the one that said “behold I will create new heavens and earth, and the former things shall not be remembered nor come into mind”, stands ready to do two things for you: Create peace in the midst of your storm, heal the painful memories that keep you chained to the past.

Today, you may be down, but you don’t have to stay there!

Your feelings should follow not lead. Consult your will, not your emotions. It only takes a small act of courage to start but a big daily dose of it to keep going, because sometimes you’ll feel like quitting a thousand times before u get to the top. Also where does such tenacity come from? It comes from three things: the relationships you form, the books you read and the time you spend with God.

         The Bible says “who, for the joy that was set before him, endured…”(Hebrews 12:2 KJV). What is it that enables you to endure painful struggles and rise above discouragement and setbacks? It is the joy of knowing that day by day you’re getting closer to your goal, the goal of taking back your life and becoming what God wants you to be.

THE SECOND KIND OF PERSON

THOSE WHO CANNOT FORGET WHAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS DONE TO THEM

A friend once told me a story.

She had an affair over a decade ago in one of the northern countries. She said when she confessed to her husband what she had done, he left her and her kids and stayed gone for about a week. Then he came back and told her he’d forgiven her and that she shouldn’t mention it again. She was happy and tried every way to make up for it but he reminded her almost every day and is still very bitter. They have move nine times in the last ten years because he said he’s hoping they’ll find someplace on earth where the past won’t catch up with the present.

In the Bible, God did not “whitewash” His heroes. Abraham the patriarch lied and said he was single in order to save his own neck (Genesis 20). Samuel the prophet, allowed his sons to run wild and bring disgrace to his family though he led the nation (1 Samuel 8:15) and Apostle Peter without remembering how he denied His lord(Luke 23:54).

      Yet these are the people God uses. Indeed, they are the only people HE has to use-people just like you and me. Some say “Love is blind” but not God’s love, that 20/20. God knows the worst about us, yet He sees us not as we are, but as we will be when grace had done its work in us. The reason we can’t understand God’s love is because we have nothing to compare it to. Nothing in our past or our present relationships qualifies us to understand such love-yet it’s the greatest healing force on earth!

THREE KINDS OF PEOPLE-the first kind of person

There are three kinds of people I will like to talk about today:

1.THOSE WHO CANNOT FORGET WHAT GOD HAS FORGIVEN

The promises our Lord God made to us in the bible is worthless unless we agree with Him and agree that forgiveness to our lives. Some people might say “but why wouldn’t people be glad to hear and receive that?” This might be for two reasons:

 *  Because they don’t feel forgiven, and therefore they conclude that they must be forgiven. Imagine a girl who has been sexually molested by her dad when she was much older because he was always drunk and had daily outburst of violent temper. One night he turned his life over to God  and stop all the drinking but will the girl, his daughter, ever be able to forgive him and stay with him alone in a room without having remembering what happened in the past? She will be living in a prison called “memory”. What is memory? It’s that faculty that enables all of us to relive yesterday. That means you can hurt everyday of your life if you can’t forget!

In Genesis 41:50 Joseph said “God has made me forget all my trouble”, he wasn’t talking about blocking out any remembrance of the jealousy, the hatred, or the abuse he’d experienced at the hands of his own brothers. No, that’s denial! God’s way, like the three Hebrew children discovered, is not out of the fire but through it.

God can heal the wounds of our past. He does it by anesthetizing the hurt, so that the memory is now surrounded not by pain but peace. Instead of a mausoleum to preserve what we can neither talk about nor get over, it becomes a monument to God’s healing touch, and a milestone on our journey toward wholeness.

**  The second reason some of us can’t forget what God has forgiven, is because we have a wrong concept of God. Every present stands in the place of God until a child can know God for it.                                                                                                                                                  God is a provider, but from whose hand do we first receive? Our parents.  God is a forgiver, but where do we get our first and most enduring concept of how forgiveness works? Our parents!

Now if you were raised by someone who said they forgave you, yet they kept “pulling your file” and constantly reminding you of your mistakes, you were probably given a distorted picture of God.

       Learn to listen to what God says about His love for you. He said “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee” (Jeremiah 31:3). Listen to what he says about His plans for you. “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “

They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and hope” (Jeremiah 29:11 TLB).

     Now listen to what he says about His forgiveness, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25). Forget your sins for God’s sake, for when you keep bringing them up you bother Him with something awful!

    When you fail, all you need to do is approach God and say, “father, I come in the name o Jesus.” The moment you say that, the Father’s focus moves from you-to-Him and you’re automatically accepted and forgiven. What an arrangement! But you must also forgive yourself! If you don’t then you’re putting yourself above Him, and that’s idolatry! God in His perfection and full knowledge of sins, has said He’ll forgive you, then why should you an imperfect sinner, refuse to forgive yourself-or anybody else? Some people say “nothing goes for nothing in this world” but they forget that the forgiveness we’re being offered is the most precious thing in the universe! It may have cost us nothing but don’t ever forget-it cost God everything!

    Its pride that makes us think we’ve got to pay, at least in part, for our actions. I know there are consequences for our actions, but let us not make the mistake of thinking those consequences are some form of atonement of our sin. No, if you have to pay one penny of your sin debt, that makes you a co-redeemer with Jesus Christ. Nothing insults the cross more than that kind of thinking. When Jesus cried, “it is finished”, He wrote “paid in full” across every sin debt you owed. No more will ever be required, and no less will ever be accepted.

GETTING TO KNOW ME

My name is Ihaza, Esther Ameze. I love inspiring people which is one of the reasons i opened this blog. I am sorry for not doing this (introduction)earlier. I love writing,talking(motivating), singing,making friends(because i always learn from anybody i meet) and  the last is-i love eating good food. I am tall, ebony black and i am a model. I have plenty close friends but the greatest of all is my FAMILY. I love my family so much and they are my inspiration(but God is overall).. I am studying Applied Microbiology in Veritas University,Abuja(one of the best university in Abuja). I know my writings will inspire, and rebuild hope and faith in the hearts of anybody that reads and comments on it especially. Have a beautiful weekend and don't stop viewing and commenting because it gets better by d day...!!

BUILDING YOU FOR THE FUTURE

I will like to start by saying that every experience we had,from the moment we were born until now (and even while we were in our mother’s womb) has made us what we are today. The things that happened to us, especially during our earliest years, determine how we’ll act (and react) for the rest of our lifes.

            That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “good man gives out good from the goodness stored in his heart; and a bad man gives out evil from his store of evil.” (Matthew 12:25, Phillips) There are things stored up in each of us that must be dealt with before we can move ahead successfully.

Two thousand years ago the apostle Paul wrote, “forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching unto those things which are before…” Philippians 3:13. Paul understood that forgetting and reaching are the keys to inner healing. They both work together because forgetting closes the door on the past; reaching opens the door to the future.

Some people might say, “What did Paul have to forget?” Plenty! On his orders, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was stoned to death and he watched the whole gruesome scene. Could you forget that? Listen to his testimony, “…I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it” (Galatians 1:13 KJV).  While Christians slept, Saul of Taurus and his zealots would break down their door, and, oblivious to the cries of children, take some parents to prison, and others to the chopping block. But now he goes to those same towns to preach and when he stands in the pulpit, guess who’s sitting in the pews? The widows! The orphans! If Paul had not learned how to deal with his own past, he’d never have written one of the thirteen bestsellers we now call the “epistles” and founded a church that would last for two thousand years. Watch out for the next post and be inspired..!!