*5 TRUE LIFE stories on Inner healing, inner vows and impact of unforgiveness upon our lives as Christians and how to avoid them like a plague*
Sunday , February 9th 2025
*Quote inner healing:*
*“Inner Healing: When we are forgiven all our sins at the cross, but continue to harbor resentments against others, we bring all our debts – in full weight, like those of the unforgiving servant, back on ourselves! Can there be any more compelling reason for inner healing? – If we will just allow the Holy Spirit to search our hearts to reveal areas where we are not living to the standard of Jesus words and then repent by letting go and letting God restore us to wholeness through His forgiveness, mercy, favor, grace, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost which then builds in us inner strength to stand strong as Christians and run the christian race with vigor”*
–– Amb. Monday O. Ogbe – Otakada.org
*“Trauma is personal. It does not disappear if it is not validated. When it is ignored or invalidated the silent screams continue internally heard only by the one held captive. When someone enters the pain and hears the screams healing can begin.”*
― Danielle Bernock, Emerging With Wings: A True Story of Lies, Pain, And The LOVE that Heals
*“The initial confrontation of the root is the most critical part of this journey.”*
― Bruce Lengeman, To Kill A Lion
“Be a pain transformer,
not a pain transmitter.
This is the only way
the world will heal.”
― John Mark Green
*“The damage and invisible scars of emotional abuse are very difficult to heal, because memories are imprinted on our minds and hearts and it takes time to be restored. Imprints of past traumas do not mean a person cannot change their future beliefs and behaviors. as people, we do not easily forget. However, as we heal, grieve, and let go, we become clear-minded and focused to live restore and emotionally healthy.”*
― Dee Brown, Breaking Passive-Aggressive Cycles
*“Having my defenses down felt good. I didn’t realize how much energy it took to carry my armor. My wall of protection kept bad stuff out, but it also kept good stuff from coming in. Guarding my heart is important, but not at the expense of being known by people who love me.”*
― Shauna L Hoey
*“At sixty one, I was at the top of my professional career, a wife, mother, and grandmother with many wonderful friends–and absolutely terrified….I was unaware of living as multiple identifies, but did spend my life running away from a ‘me’ I could neither understand nor tolerate….The first step to becoming one whole person happened to me the day in therapy when I became aware of the three adults who had been living in separate compartments in my brain. I saw them and they saw each other….A perfect three-point landing.”*
― Janyne McConnaughey, Brave : A Personal Story of Healing Childhood Trauma
*“Healing is painful. It means disinfecting deep wounds. It means experiencing the pain for a season in order to put in the past for a lifetime.”*
― Emilyann Allen
*“As sons we have that choice: we can own what was done to us and choose to do better or we can do worse and continue a theme of broken men. [Broken men break other men. Broken men break women. Broken men break families. Broken men create broken legacies ].”*
― Ross Victory
*“True Healing is not found in going backward, but becoming something new in Christ.”*
― John M Sheehan
*Short introduction on Inner healing*
I would like to provide you some introduction to inner healing in the secret place that can help us appreciate these stories and also take step towards wholeness in our spirit, soul and body.
Inner healing is the discipline of digging deep, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the secret place, to discover whatever roots might be springing back to life, and to bring them to effective death on the cross. (Hebrews 12:15)
Inner healing in the secret place requires us to go deep into our hearts to replace all unbelief to the word of God one step at a time (Hebrews 3:12)
Inner healing in the secret place is the continual process of daily dying to more and more areas of our sinful hearts as the Lord reveals them. (1 Corinthians 15:31; Luke 9:23)
Inner healing in the secret place is the continuous sanctification process whereby our mind is being renewed so that we can be transformed (Romans 12:2)
Transformation is the process by which the Holy Spirit changes every wrong thing in us into blessing. Our deserts are transformed into gardens, our weaknesses into strengths ( 2 Corinthians 12:9), our degradations into glories ( Isaiah 61:3)
Inner healing in the secret place does not erase a memory or change our personal history. Rather, it enables us to cherish even the worst moments in our lives, for through them God has inscribed eternal lessons onto our hearts and prepared us to minister to all who have suffered in the same way (Hebrews 2:18).
We know we are healed and transformed when we can look back on everything with gratitude. In whatever way, we have sinned or were sinned against, God has written wisdom and knowledge into us so that now we can help others (2 Corinthians 1:4).
Sanctification and transformation are God’s intention for everyone – He purposes to accomplish these two through many means – secret place prayer, Bible reading, trials and testings, good works that write lesson onto our hearts, the witness of brothers and sisters, teaching, sermons, etc. Another of the primary means He uses to sanctify and transform is inner healing
As we go through our counseling series, the aim is to change individuals – and indeed, the entire body of Christ – into a “mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13)
Let’s look at the 5 true live stories now
*True story 1 – Amina’s inner vow concerning her brother prevented her from having male children until delivered.*
Matthew 16:19 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth [a]must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth [b]must be what is already loosed in heaven.
Inner vows are determinations we make as children, or very young age. Determinations that become “computer programs” within our character. They energize our brains to reproduce repeatedly whatever the vows calls for. These vows are called “inner” because we make them as children and then forget them. They actually have more power by virtue of their hiddenness. ( Vows made later in life are not very effective, as anyone can attest who made New Year’s resolutions only to see them soon wither and die.)
Amina want to give her husband a son and could not. Amina could get pregnant easily and had carried girls to full-term. But each time she got pregnant with a boy, she miscarried. Amina’s gynecologist said there was nothing wrong with her. She ought to be able to carry a boy full-term; the problem had to be psychological.
The first question to Amina was this: “ What was life like with your father? Was he kind to you? Did he give you affection?” it turned out her father had been unusually kind and affectionate.
Amina’s brother, on the other hand, had bullied and picked on her continually. He told lies about her to their parents and her friends and teased her viciously.
Then Amina recalled walking beside a stream sometime between the ages ten and twelve, picking up rocks, hurling them into the stream and exclaiming, “I’ll never carry a boy child! I’ll never have a boy baby!”
That was an inner vow. It worked like a program in her inner computer – never mind that her outer self now wanted to bear a son. About the third or fourth month, that inner vow would kick into action, and her body would abort the boy child.
Amina repented of her judgment against her brother, and she was led to forgive, and a pronouncement in Jesus’s name that she was forgiven for her own resentment. Then authority in Jesus name was taken to break the inner vow. A word was spoken directly in prayer to Amina’s body and loosed it from that wrong order to abort male children, based on Matthew 16:19. Subsequently Amina carried easily and gave birth to a baby boy.
*True story 2– Oludotun’s inner vow made concerning His mother prevented to share his heart freely with his spouse.*
Oludotun concerning her mother who tried to control him. Boys soon learn something many married men live with: Women have large memories. You cannot remember what you said five minutes ago, but your wife can remember what you said two hours ago, five months ago and ten years before that! Fighting with women seems unfair, because you always fight on their ground. They can remember what everyone has said, and you cannot even remember what you said.
Oludotun soon grew fast and stronger than his mother. So how does a small domineering woman control her son? With her tongue. She learns how to put him under guilt and make him jump. Such boys soon realize, ‘Every word you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.” So Oludotun decides it is necessary to hide from mama: “Don’t ever tell the woman nothing about nothing!”
At dating age, Oludotun finds a girl he talks with about anything. “This must be my spouse!” So they married. For a while, everything is great. They still talk and share their hearts openly. He proclaims his wife as his best friend, which she is.
Then she becomes a mother. Immediately his inner vow kicks into action and he stops sharing.
Oludotun’s case was traced to the root in his judgment against his mother and probably his sister. Once forgiveness is accomplished, the power of the inner vow is broken, Oludotun is set free, to remain free to share freely with the wife.
*True story 3 – James sleeps around, drinks excessively – can’t stop it! Loves the wife dearly.*
Matthew 7:1-3 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
7 Do not judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves.
2 For just as you judge and criticize and condemn others, you will be judged and criticized and condemned, and in accordance with the measure you [use to ] deal out to others, it will be dealt out again to you.
3 Why do you [a]stare from without at the [b]very small particle that is in your brother’s eye but do not become aware of and consider the beam [c]of timber that is in your own eye?
James is born again, love his wife, enjoys good marital sex. But James confessed that he went to drinking joint (bar) compulsively and, while there, would meet some woman with whom he would go out and commit adultery.
“I don’t understand myself. I love the Lord. I love my wife. I want to be faithful. I don’t even like the taste of alcohol! And the sex with these women is so bad it’s repulsive. Why do I do what I don’t even want to do?”
James’s father had been an alcoholic and a woman-chaser. As a boy, James had hated that and judged his father for it.
God’s laws are absolute. The boy had dishonored his father. Life would not go well with him in that area, and the same judgment would be meted out to him as he had meted out to his father.
He will do what his father had done until repentance set him free.
He understood and repented of his judgments against his father. From that moment on, he was free. Nor has he suffered another moments compulsion to sin in those ways. He took the case to the foot of the cross and left it there.
*True story 4– The effects of Josephine’s bitter-root expectancy against her Father*
Hebrews 12:15 – See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled
Bitter-root judgment operates by the power of law; we will reap what we have sown (Gal 6:7, Hebrews 12.15).
Bitter-root expectancy is merely psychological. It is self-fulfilling prophecy: “I expect life to go in a particular way and it usually does.” Whether or not it really does, we look at life through the lens of our unconscious expectations and treat others in ways that tend to bring back on us what we expected in the first place.
Josephine’s father was gone most of the time. When he was home, he scarcely noticed and rarely complimented her. Josephine’s response: to develop a bitter subconscious expectancy that all men would treat her like that.
Later, when men began to notice her, they were puzzled as to why they did not treat her as courteously as they did other women. Intended compliment got left unsaid, somehow, or were spoken so awkwardly they seemed like put-downs. Men forgot to phone her, though they planned to and doing so was their normal pattern. Why? Because Josephine bitter-root expectancy was tempting them to err.
But bitter-root expectancy does not possess the power of bitter-root judgments. Our expectations cannot coerce others to sin with the same force that our bitter roots coerce ourselves to sin. People have free will; they can resist. However, the strength of our expectations can require some incredibly strong resistance on their part!
*True story 5 – The effects of Busola’s Bitter-root judgment against her father*
Hebrews 12:15 – See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled
Busola’s father made her work the family farm like a laborer or fieldhand, although she was a child, while he stayed in the house and got drunk. When Busola came in from the fields, exhausted, he accused her – especially as she grew into adolescence – of having sexual affairs with one or another of the laborers (farmhands).
Busola grew into a beautiful woman, she married, unaware that she had made a very bitter-root judgment against her father. It was not long before her husband lost his job. But instead of looking for another, he made her go to work while he stayed home and drank. When she came home, he would accuse her of having sex with men at the office.
After several years of this hell, Busola divorced him. It was not long before she found another husband. But within six months he had quit work and she had to find a job to support them both. Incredibly, he, too, began staying at home drinking and – when she came home- accusing her of adultery. No amount of scolding, pleading or arguing on Busola’s part made any headway. Secular counseling only increased her determination to divorce him, which she did.
Along the way, Busola became a Spirit-filled Christian. Although she had never expressed forgiveness towards her father or brought that pattern of judgment to death on the cross, she thought her anger was all taken care of. And now that she was a Christian, she thought she had grown at last into some wisdom. So, she searched carefully, found a Christian man who happened to be quite rich, and married him. She thought she had it made.
Within a year, he made her go get a job. More incredible yet, although he had never been a drinker, now he began to stay at home and get drunk. And – you guessed it. When she came home, he began to accuse her of illicit affairs at work.
Do you see the power that bitter-root judgments have to defile others and affect, even in some cases (what their implicit permission, of course) control their behavior?
Jesus told us the story of a man whose debt was forgiven in Matthew 18:23-35. The servant was forgiven ten thousand talents who would not forgive his fellow servant of a tiny sum.
When we are forgiven all our sins at the cross, but continue to harbor resentments against others, we bring all our debts – in full weight, like those of the unforgiving servant, back on ourselves! Can there be any more compelling reason for inner healing?
Busola was so mad with men that she resisted seeing the causes of her problem – partly because she would have to admit her role in it. When she finally did see, she did not repent. It only made her angrier at them. She blamed the men in her life: They should not have gotten drunk. They should not have falsely accused her.
The facts were all on her side, but God looks on the heart to reveal motives: “1 Corinthians 4:5 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)5 So do not make any hasty or premature judgments before the time when the Lord comes [again ], for He will both bring to light the secret things that are [now hidden ] in darkness and disclose and expose the [secret ] aims (motives and purposes) of hearts. Then every man will receive his [due ] commendation from God.”
Busola was passing judgment before the time of the Holy Spirit’s coming to disclose her own motives. Had she been able to repent, God would have praised her for standing and trying to do what was right, despite her history.
Busola will not repent, and left without receiving healing.
Some fasting and prayer are unnecessary if we will just obey what the word of God says.
Shalom!
Ambassador Monday O. Ogbe
God’s Eagle Ministries GEM
Https://www.otakada.org
