What Is “Inner Healing,” and Do I Need It?
The problem with this term is that it is used in different ways by different groups, and it can mean anything from something completely biblical (emotional healing) to something that is not only unscriptural but dangerous (trying to alter past painful memories).
Unscriptural and Dangerous “Inner Healing” Practices
Let’s start with the negative kind. This is the sort where someone asks you to go back deep into your past to try to find old hurts. Supposedly, you then face these hurts and get healed of them. In some cases, you end up with new hurts that weren’t even there before, or else your old hurts seem to hurt more. Any kind of relive-your-past-and-picture-Jesus-in-it “healing” is actually junk that has crept into the Church from modern psychology.
This completely disobeys Scripture.
Philippians 3:13-14:
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
In fact, precisely the problem with many Christians is that they are so hung up on their past that they do not press forward and do anything useful. They need to heed Paul’s advice and quit dwelling on the past and start setting their mind toward accomplishing things in God’s kingdom. If they would just obey these verses, they would not have time to get snared by their past.
You cannot dwell on that harm that people have done to you. To do so is to walk in unforgiveness. If you are carrying ill will toward someone who hurt you in the past, you need to decide to forgive that person and ask for God’s help in doing so if you’re struggling with it. That’s all. Quit dwelling on it. You don’t need to get healed, you need to decide to forgive. Once you forgive, you may find that healing follows without even any specific ministry for healing!
I’m not saying that you might not have an emotional issue that causes a physical issue. Some people do. But you don’t need to go on a long safari looking for such an issue. If something is bothering you, you know it. You don’t need weird counseling to try to bring up past experiences you’ve forgotten about.
Get on with your life! In so doing, you will find that the hurts of the past start waning. Do not play the victim card and make an excuse that thus-and-such that happened to you is the reason you why can’t make it in life. God always causes you to triumph in Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14) if you’ll believe it!
God is the Healer of your emotions as well as your body, as proved elsewhere in this book. Trust Him as your Healer in the areas where you are still hurting on the inside. Emotional healing is biblical.
“Spiritual Healing”
Avoid ANY healing that claims to heal your spirit – it’s completely unbiblical. A famous old song needs to be rewritten. After it says, “And then I cried, Dear Jesus, Come and heal my broken spirit,” it should continue, “And that day Jesus said to me, I know what you mean, but the truth is that your spirit doesn’t need healing, it needs replacement. Let me give you a new spirit so that you will be born again rather than asking Me to try to fix your busted, dead spirit.” (I realize that these new words wouldn’t fit the meter of the song too well.) When you receive Jesus, your old spirit is replaced, not healed – you become a new and perfect spirit that never existed before.
Once you are born again, your spirit is as perfect as it will be throughout eternity! Your spirit will never be your problem again! Your problems will stem from an unrenewed mind and from your flesh. (Your body and soul are NOT born again; only your spirit is.)
Since your spirit is perfect, it NEVER needs healing. So never let someone minister to you claiming that he will heal your spirit or give you “spiritual healing!”
As an aside, what about spiritual strengthening? Paul prayed that the Ephesians would be strengthened with might in the “inner man” (Ephesians 3:16). Does this mean stronger in their spirits or stronger in their souls? We can’t use “inner man” as a reference elsewhere to determine this because Ephesians 3:16 is the only verse with “inner man” in it explicitly. There is a problematic verse that declares that Jesus grew strong in spirit (Luke 2:40), at least in the KJV, NKJV, Young’s Literal Translation and a minority of other translations. A quick Greek check yields two conflicting results. First, “in spirit” WAS in a commonly-accepted Greek manuscript, so it looks like King James’s people and Young got it right while others overlooked something. Second, one Greek manuscript OMITS the words “in spirit,” so there is some doubt as to whether Jesus grew strong in spirit as opposed to just “grew strong,” depending on which Greek manuscript you use. (Manuscripts generally agree, but there are exceptions and this is one of them.)
Can any other verses that can shed light on this? Perhaps this one can, which uses the very similar phrase inward man:
2 Corinthians 4:16:
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
It is difficult to see how your holy, righteous born-again spirit could have to be renewed at all, let alone daily.
There’s another “inward man” Scripture in Romans 7:
Romans 7:22:
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
At first this appears to contradict the meaning of inward man in 2 Corinthians 4:16 above and mean his spirit. After all, His born-again spirit would always delight in the Law of God.
But a look at the context in Romans 7 shows otherwise. That passage is about the condition of a flesh-bound person, not a Spirit-led saint.
So we must conclude for both reasons above that Paul’s statement in Ephesians 3:16 about being strengthened in your inner man refers to your soul, not to your spirit.
The only thing with the term “spiritual healing” is that it is sometimes used to denote emotional healing by people who don’t know the difference. Emotional healing is biblical, while spiritual healing is not.
Healing in the Dark
Some people have gotten into this New Age stuff where you sit in a dark candlelit room to get healed (supposedly). The devil loves the darkness, but children of the light don’t need to go hide in the dark to get healed on the inside. Beware. You’ll find that Jesus is not given His rightful place as Healer in such circumstances. In one such church, the pastor told me to my face that he prefers not to use the term “born again.” That was a giveaway that something was corrupt! (There were many other giveaways later, such as signage that indicated, “We welcome and celebrate immoral lifestyles,” though they did not use those exact words.)
Biblical “Inner Healing”
“The LORD raiseth up them that are bowed down.” – Psalm 146:8
“The LORD upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.” – Psalm 145:14
“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” – Psalm 147:3
Part of the anointing on Jesus (Luke 4:18-19) was “to heal the brokenhearted” and “to set at liberty them that are bruised.” Jesus is willing to do this for you. He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8) and therefore He is still anointed to do it.
If you need to be comforted, God will comfort you. He is called “the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). He comforts those who are cast down (2 Corinthians 7:6). Acts speaks of walking in the “comfort of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 9:31).
People who are hurt desperately need a revelation of God’s love and compassion for them. They also need to see some flesh on God’s love from other members of the Body of Christ. Don’t just tell them to “believe God for emotional healing” and go your merry way!
God cares about every part of you, spirit, soul and body. If you have emotional needs, He longs to meet them along with your physical needs.
For more on the topic of REAL inner healing, read To Heal the Brokenhearted.