Heart Healing Wellness with Bruce Mason

Why Heart Healing (Inner Healing) is Essential

Our Hearts are Vitally Important to God

1. The Christian Gospel is fundamentally a ‘heart Gospel’.

2. God cares deeply about the condition of our hearts.

• Prov. 4:23 – “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” [everything you do flows from it]

3. Our hearts are the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. It is where God lives in us.

• 2 Corinthians 2:21-22 – “He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”

• Galatians 4:6 – “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out ‘Abba, Father.’

4. Our heart directs how we think, act, and feel.

• Luke 6:45 – “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks.

• Matthew 12:33-37 – “Make a tree good, and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit... For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

• Prov. 27:19 – “As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man.”

• Prov. 16:23 – A wise man’s heart guides his mouth

• Luke 11:34-36 – “Your eye [heart] is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your who body is also full of light. But when they are bad, your body is also full of darkness.

5. God passionately wants our hearts to be whole and free.

• Psalm 147:1-3 – “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:1-3)

• Isaiah 61:1-3 – “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”

• 2 Corinthians 4:16 – “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

6. It’s not God’s desire nor in his best interest to have his children walking around ministering from wounded hearts. If we are ministering out of woundedness, we are not able to build one another up in love.

God Designed Our Hearts To Be Containers Of His Love

But our hearts are easily wounded. Those wounds disempower us, keeping us from experiencing God’s fullness and prevent us from thriving.

Wounded Hearts Are Like:

• A jar filled with dirt/mud – little room for his love

• Or a jar with lots of holes – his love drains out

Healed hearts are filled and continually overflowing with God’s love.

What Causes Heart Wounds?

There are many causes including:

• Childhood trauma

• Father/mother wounds

• Tragedy

• Betrayal

• Lack of nurture

• Lack of comfort

• Experiences of shame/embarrassment

• Our own sinful actions

• And many more

The TRUTH About Heart Wounds

• Heart wounds affect our entire being – our thoughts, emotions and our physical bodies.

• Time DOES NOT heal them.

• You can’t compartmentalize them away forever.

• When your heart is pressed upon through stress or trial, what is hidden and buried WILL come to the surface.

• We can easily minster from our heart wounds without even realizing it.

• If our heart wounds aren’t healed, we can cause harm to our families, our churches, and our ministries. Hurt people hurt people.

• Our heart wounds can result in our creating an unhealthy culture in our churches that reflects our own woundedness rather than Jesus’ wholeness.

• Satan WILL exploit our heart wounds in any way that he can. They are open doors for him.

• Jesus is the only one who can heal heart wounds. He loves to do it!

Reasons Pastors/Ministry Leaders/Missionaries Don’t Seek Heart Healing

• No resources for heart healing are available.

• Busyness – We can use our busy lives and schedules as a way to avoid dealing with our pain. Or we can be so busy that we fail to connect with our hearts and recognize what our hearts are telling us.

• False belief that needing and seeking help is a sign of weakness or failure.

• Feeling ashamed that we are struggling.

• Fear of others finding out that you are struggling.

• Pride – Thinking you can handle it all on your own.

• Unwillingness to forgive – Unforgiveness is the BIGGEST block to heart healing.

• BAD Theology – Believing that if you are a Christian you don’t actually need any heart healing. This is essentially a denial of the need for sanctification.

• BAD Theology – Believing that the battle for the heart is won in our minds. (ie. If we get our thinking right, our heart will fall in line.) This never works. It actually works the other way around.

• BAD Theology – Believing that heart healing/inner healing is too self- focused, too backwards looking. Or that it is a form of ‘therapeutic deism’.

• Unhealthy ministry culture. Martyr culture. If I struggle, you should struggle too. God wants us to struggle. Or you need to get over it and get on with it.

The VERY Good News

• Heart healing/Inner healing is REAL and is ALWAYS God’s desire for us.

• When our hearts are healed, we are able to experience more of God’s love for us. (His love for us never changes, but our ability to experience his love increases.)

• As we experience more of God’s love, it changes us. We take on more of God’s own character.

• With a greater heart capacity to carry God’s love, and a character increasingly like that of Jesus, we become true ‘icons’ of his love, re-presenting his amazing love to the world. We actually become his love in the world.

• Healed, love-filled hearts lead to empowered ministries and healthy and thriving churches and families.

• When we live in love, the impossible becomes possible. NO obstacle can stand in the face of love. A healed and whole church filled with Father’s love is UNSTOPPABLE – the kingdom of love is manifested in power and glory on earth as in heaven – and the kingdom of darkness is destroyed.