Where healing happens: A Jesus centred small group!

The emotional damage we suffer from those closest to us can run deep! Fractured trust and disappointment in those we love can go back to the very formational years of our childhood. Emotionally, it can be the very thing that keeps tripping us up in our attempts to get up close and personal with God the Father!

Because the currency of relationships is love and trust, we need to discover and learn what builds trust and conversely, what destroys trust.

Have you ever sat down and written out a list of what ‘destroys trust’ for you? This list needs to be carefully considered and ‘aired’ among trusted friends for possible healing or correction. The person who invites feedback from those whom you trust is inviting success into their lives! Conversely, those who isolate themselves due to hurtful and painful experiences with others, is inviting disaster.

Sadly, we can even be in the dark about what really ‘drives us’ or what really ‘lies beneath’ in our emotional life, because we are experts at denying what’s really going on or ignoring what’s happened to us in the past. We’ve learnt to live with it for so long, that our acceptance of the fact that people are not to be trusted has become part of the way we relate to all the people in our lives. Others experience our distance and aloofness but say nothing and just give you the relational space you demand.

So you go on for years…..without any hope of change…until you meet Jesus and join a group of Christians where healing awaits you!

I personally think all of us should be in a small group where we can learn to share freely and honestly with each other for the purpose of edification. Edification means that you get built up, that you grow stronger. It definitely means that you receive healing from those things in your ‘list’ that diminish you and are destroying or attempting to isolate you from a deep relationship with others.

If Jesus is the centre of the small group and He is the literal DNA of the group, then He is going to replicate Himself in each member present! That is the purpose of the DNA – perfect replication! It is DNA that distinguishes you from everyone else. So it is with the Body of Christ. And it is from ‘glory to glory’ that Jesus is changing you! Goal: to be like Him! Jesus came to show us His Father! That means that we too, take on His image and take on His Father’s likeness!

We have been called to meet together……and go beyond the surface issues! When just two Christians ‘meet together’ they constitute a majority – if – Jesus is the reason for their meeting! Jesus limited his group to twelve. It is no magical number but twelve tends to be limit for relational dynamics, because each person in the group needs to connect with each and every person present. If there’s more than twelve people in the group, time limits the ability for all to participate meaningfully.

When we meet together with Christ as the focus, look out! Stuff is going to happen! Jesus wants to heal us. What better place than in a small group where we are open and willing to learning and experiencing love and trust? The Holy Spirit administrates his great grace and grace gifts to meet our needs – ‘if’ we make those needs known? This can be a daunting experience. We have to take the risk and learn step out and share what’s going on below the surface areas of our lives – if – want to be healed.

In the process of doing these things: you will grow relationally, and in the understanding of God’s heart, the hearts of others and finally, your own!

How does meeting in small groups help you grow in love and faith? Has this been your experience? Share some thoughts for us about your own experience of being in small groups.

Our Heart!

We’ve been considering some of the barriers that seem to prevent the average Christian from making disciples.

Relationships are the essence of life. To quote Ps Steve Murrell from the Philippines: ‘Discipleship is about relationships; but relationships aren’t easy!’ Why are relationships so difficult sometimes?

The currency of relationships is love working through trust. To build and strengthen a relationship, love and trust is given and it is received! Love and trust requires a two way street of ever deepening and honest communication. The reason relationships are ‘not easy’ is because most of us struggle in the area of trusting others. Our past and current experiences sometimes shout at us not to let someone hurt you again? If Discipleship is about relationships based upon mutual trust, no wonder our introduction to the Gospel or Good News of Jesus begins with:

Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

Wow! What an accurate description of what sin does internally to every human being! ‘Broken, captive and bound’ – all on the inside where we ‘truly live’ – in our heart of hearts! It’s the core of your being, the real you that counts to Jesus! We may show others the surface of our lives, but Jesus’ goal is our core – the heart. This is emotional centre and contains all of the emotional memories of our lives.

Most of us need ‘inner healing’ – the healing of our emotions and feelings! Healing of ‘broken hearts’ that have been given to others and then trampled or deeply damaged? The heart is the seat of the emotions and emotional traumas and their memories are powerful things and tend to totally over-ride intellect and even common sense!

Someone once wrote: ‘the heart has reasons, that reason doesn’t understand?’ A broken heart is difficult to reason with. Jesus is a heart specialist unlike all others! He can heal us and bring forgiveness and cause us to forgive…….and for us to learn how to re-engage with other people again on a level that goes beyond surface issues.

Why is it necessary for relationships to go deeper than the surface issues if we are Christians who have been called to make disciples?

Part 2 – The Beginning of the Rot

What are some of the barriers that seem to prevent the average Christian making disciples?

1. We want professionals to do all the work, instead of all us participating with God in that work!

The Reformation tried to reinstate the New Testament Principle of ‘The Priesthood of the Believer.’ Simply, stated, this means that each and every Christian can have a direct relationship with God, and that every believer has a ministry to do: Make disciples of the nations.

Church people (notice I didn’t use the word ‘disciples’) all through history have demanded that a professional priesthood to do the work of relating to God on their behalf and be evangelists or missionaries. The other side of the coin is also those who have power, the leaders, don’t like sharing that power or they don’t trust those below them with that power.
 It’s part of man’s nature to be religious, and consequently, to appoint someone who appears to be gifted or in tune with the spiritual realm to be a priest over them. We give these people the title of priest or Sharman due to their ability to interpret dreams, omens and signs. They are consulted when disaster is impending, like war or ill health or when an extremely bad run of events has occurred. At it’s worst, these tribal priests can by intuition, bring into tribal law some very strange and destructive beliefs and traditions. This ‘priesthood’ usually becomes a ruling class alongside the tribal chief, king or Pharaoh.

In a major first, the God who communicates personally to us all, who saves, who wants to be up close and personal with us all, communicated an astounding intention to the new nation of Israel. He told the fledgling nation of Israel, at its inception, that He wanted ALL Israelites to be priests and represent Him and share his love with other nations. (Exod 19:6) But sadly, the Jews rejected the offer and demanded Moses and a priesthood to stand in the gap between them and God, instead of each and every Israelite standing in the gap for the rest of humanity.

Israel’s rejection of the offer for all of them to be priests to the nations was a huge blow to human history and the history of Salvation! What a disaster! What a devastating decision! This has to be one of the pivotal points in human history where we can say, ‘wow, what if they would have said yes? What a different world it could have been today if they simply obeyed and acted accordingly?’

They should have dealt with their initial fears and they should have moved forward – learning as they went! Just like we have to DO today! People can make mistakes, but it’s OK! You own your mistakes and move forward, and grow because of them! You don’t retreat and say, ‘this doesn’t work, this can’t work, this will never work.’ You should not give up at THE FIRST THOUGHT OF FAILURE! This is what we still tend to do as Christians when it comes to sharing Jesus with those in our circle of influence!

The Church like ancient Israel still wants a professional priesthood to do the work that every believer is responsible for. It’s not on! If, only if, ALL CHRISTIANS were willing to believe that God has made them able to share the Gospel with others! It is about learning as you do it! We primary learn and grow by ‘doing.’ Endless education alone, has not motivated the Western Church into action! We need to follow Abraham’s lead and mix our faith with actions! Justification is by faith alone but…faith must and should produce some intentional action! Otherwise we are kidding ourselves.

It’s time to assess our faith, and mix it with what we know already and get engaged with sharing the Gospel with those in our lives now, who don’t know Christ. Be a New Testament Priest and get involved with hurting, lost humanity! Enough slumber! Awake church and arise to the call: The cry of eternity from the very heart of God is: Isa 6:8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

Jesus answered the Call! Will you?

Question: How much training and how much knowledge do you think we need before we begin to do this?

Consider the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8:26-39? One very intensive discipleship session with Philip and then sent on his way as a brand new believer – on his own back home to Ethiopia. Share your thoughts on this event?

On that particular Saturday night, the lounge room was packed with young people who were hungry for Jesus! I was impacted at the front door by something I had never experienced before – it was the powerful presence of God while all these young adults were worshipping. I was the first to respond to the invitation to receive Christ that night. I learnt to share Jesus from the best of the best, with the likes of Youth With A Mission leaders – Dean Sherman and Roger Waters.

After the most basic foundations, I was teamed up with someone a little further ahead in their spiritual journey than me. I was then thrust out onto the streets of Bondi Junction and Bondi Beach, to share Jesus with anyone who would listen! It was the greatest learning curve of my entire Christian life. I learnt more from ‘doing’ – by obeying the demand of stepping out in faith and ‘doing’ mission! I learnt to place myself intentionally into a place where I had to depend upon God. This is how we are supposed to grow. This is how we mature as Christians.

Spiritual maturity comes predominately from ‘doing’ rather than just sitting and listening. From the moment we become Christians, Jesus’ mission is supposed to become our mission. Sadly, we can be so self deceived when it comes to engaging with the lost. In the Western World our self-deception can be about making God responsible for bringing lost people into the church or our excuse that we just need more knowledge or we feel inadequate to meet the challenge. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day used to wear their ‘knowledge of God’ on their forehead and arms in little boxes, called Phylacteries. These contained all of the Scripture verses they had committed to memory. The amount of knowledge they had committed to memory had degenerated into a display of pride. All these Bible verses pointed to Christ! All these verses ultimately were about love and mercy! With all their knowledge and training they didn’t like people and they totally lacked mercy. Strapping verses onto your arm and head were supposed to remind the ancient Israelites that they were to take God into their world and be a blessing to others!

Wouldn’t the world be a different place if all of Jesus’ followers would just focus on doing the ‘main thing?’ The ‘thing’ is when all of His disciples reach out and purposefully engage their world with God’s great love! All of our training and encouragement should be aimed toward this one end – engaging with lost and hurting people!

How much training do we need to do this? Not much it seems! Don’t be self-deceived with hearing and not doing! Your life is like a house you are building. It will be tested by huge storms, as Jesus promised. Whether you remain standing, will depend on your ability to be a DOER and not just a HEARER of Jesus commands! The main command is make disciples of all nations – THAT IS LOVE IN ACTION!