Before we go any further with this track on spiritual healing, it is necessary that you know and understand one important thing: that God's desire for your life is that you would be healed and whole. God created you, He formed you and He loves you. His desire for you is for you to be both physically, emotionally, relationally, mentally, and spiritually healed, whole and complete in Him. This is important to know because often people get this idea in their minds that whatever brokenness or hurt is in their lives is somehow caused by God or part of God's will for their life. But everything that happens in this fallen world is not always God's will. People think that God wants them to remain confused, suffering, or in emotional pain or anxiety, and this is totally incorrect. God can use pain, our brokenness, and the dire circumstances of life, but these things are never God's desire for our lives. He wants to use these events to bring us back to Him, not for us to remain in that place of brokenness.

Once we know that God wants us to be healed, we can then see that the answers to how this wholeness is possible can also be found in His word. Remember this, the Devil wants you to remain broken and hurting. His goal is to steal, divide, confuse, destroy, and steal your peace, joy, hope, and purpose. So in order to do that he will do everything he can to keep you away from the sources of healing like God's word, a healthy church body, and healthy life-giving relationships. It makes sense then that when people often experience spiritual hurt, whatever that may look like, they will pull away from the very things that could help them find healing. People will stop going to church and give up on being rooted in God's house. They will pull away from small groups and healthy relationships in general. They will often stop reading God's word and prayer and this chain reaction will often spiral people into even greater depths of isolation, depression, anger, anxiety, bitterness, and a complete life rejection of God and anything that has to do with God.

The key here is if you have experienced spiritual hurt or pain, whether you were abused, betrayed, or perhaps your parents were religious and they used the Bible in a way it was never intended. Whatever the circumstances, we need to know that the church didn't hurt you, God didn't hurt you and ultimately there is no such thing as "Church hurt". There is only "People Hurt". People hurt people because we are all fallen, sinful, and broken people. The church is filled with these broken, fallen, and sinful people and sometimes in our fallen nature we do things, we say things and we act out in ways that are not God-honoring or reflective of God and when this happens, people get hurt. But this was not God's design, desire, or plan. The church is God's idea and it is perfect, only capable of bringing healing, salvation, peace, power, and joy when it is functioning in a way that is reflective of Christ. The problem is that this doesn't always happen. Abuse happens within the church, even from people who claim to be Christians. Within the walls, people are being taken advantage of. There can be betrayal, gossip, vengeance, adultery, embezzlement, etc. However, this is not God's plan, and these people are not representing Christ rightly. The answer to finding healing, wherever the hurt comes from, is not to pull away from the very things that God instituted for your healing. On the road to internal spiritual healing, you may need to find a new church family and get planted in a new small group. You will need to pick up your Bible again and engage in spiritual disciplines like serving, giving, reading, fasting, and prayer. Don't let the pain or a traumatic event in your past determine your future course. Set your eyes on Christ and believe that the healing you truly need and seek will only be found by pursuing him and nothing else.

Check out this video by John Bevere as he discusses how to overcome offense from his best selling book, The Bait of Satan.