See how it works now? You have an experience. If there's a lot of pain with it then the experience is deeply embedded. You come to assumptions or reactions, and the whole deal is locked up inside. If it's repeated it reinforces, reinforces and becomes the way you run your life. It doesn't matter whether you're in church, Christian, you'll still run your life according to how you've been programmed inside over those experiences, and if you don't recognise that and begin to adjust it you will run through this terrible process where you're trying to serve the Lord, but you've got these repeated patterns in your life that do not seem to go away. You feel so condemned because you can't seem to get any better. Now God wants to help us not to get better, He wants to heal us. Getting the idea?
Here's a few typical ungodly beliefs: I don't belong, I'm always on the outside. No one cares what I feel. The best way to avoid hurt is to isolate myself. I'm the problem. There's something wrong with me. I'm bad. If people knew me they'd never accept me. No matter what I do it's not good enough. That's [the one too here, 00.21.06] it must be my fault. If anyone gets close to me they'll hurt me. God loves others more than me. I'll never have any money, I'll always be poor. My value is in what I do. You talk about what I do, immediately I'll react because you're attacking me. That's a weird thing isn't it aye? Here someone tries to give you feedback on your performance or how you're doing, and immediately you get all emotional. You know then that you believe that what you do is who you are, and they're attacking you so now you're going to defend yourself - fight or flight, get sulky and withdraw, or stand up and really have an argument and get angry and react, and not receive the feedback that would shift and change your life.
This is why Christians get very defensive when someone tries to give them feedback that would help disciple them, shape them so they can be productive. Instead of being able to receive it they become angry and offended and take it as an attack on themself, when it isn't at all. But that's how they've always seen life and unless they change how they see life, then they can't actually move on or progress. Very, very important these areas. Okay, here's a couple more: I'm unattractive or I'm ugly. I'm fat. I read about one young woman and when she was going through her teenage years the boyfriend that she had said you're fat. It got into her and she could hear that thing. Now remember, there's emotions involved and there's a judgement she came into agreement with. You know what happened? She got then this whole thing of bulimia. No matter how she looked at herself, I'm fat, I'm fat, I'm fat, I'm fat, I'm fat, there's something wrong with me, and so that belief inside began to drive this whole thing of bulimia. It was actually a lie, rooted in a lie that was believed because there were strong emotions with it. Getting the idea?
I'll give you a few more examples on the way. Okay then: I must guard my feelings. I need to plan everything in case something goes wrong. I'm sorry, that's a vain imagination. Plan, yes, but you don't have to have everything planned and worked out. You end up controlling everything and everyone, imposing your plan on everyone else so you can feel safe. See, vain imaginations will lead to all kinds of behaviour that destroys relationships. Never trust anyone, see? I must never make any mistakes, I'll get in trouble. All of these are kinds of beliefs. There's many, many beliefs people have and one of the most common ones is it's my fault, it must be my fault. So how does the Holy Spirit bring about healing of this? Now let's have a look in John 16. The church over the years has not done too good. We've kept ourselves open to the healing ministry and really worked since we first pioneered here; Joy and I really saw the need in our own lives for healing, emotional and relational healing. And so when we came here the Lord said I want you not to teach what you've taught before; I want you to open your life to learn keys and to understand how the healing of the heart takes place, because people are in need of healing.