Deep Healing and Holy Habits

Romans 6 (among many other passages) plainly teaches that the goal of Jesus’s healing work breaks the power of sin. The Holy Spirit’s work is able to heal the deepest wounds in our lives. Often times (especially in Western, Protestant Christianity) we think that being a Christian is simply being free from the guilt of sin (justification). But it’s much more than this. Being a Christian is being free from the guilt and power of sin (regeneration).  What does this mean? It means that we don’t have to keep on sinning.  In Romans 5 Paul teaches that Jesus undoes the curse of sin that Adam and Eve brought into the world (recapitulation). This means that all people (offspring of Adam) are born with a bent to sinning (i.e., the doctrine of original sin). Now that Jesus has completed his saving work, we no longer have to identify as children of Adam, but are now children of God (John 1:12–13) Often times we find that while the love of God is in us, we still have automatic sin (losing our temper, lust, fear, jealously, etc.). These grow out of a lifetime of wounds that need healed and sins that need overcome. The process of breaking the power of these deeply embedded sins is sanctification. This is deep healing. In this process, the Holy Spirit does a deeper healing work in us to grant us more and more freedom from the power of sinning. The Holy Spirit works through spiritual disciplines. We have to make a concentrated effort—by God’s grace and with the help of the Spirit—to break unholy habits.  One of the most important habits for the modern American Christian is meditation. This is especially hard in American culture because of how busy we are!  Richard Foster writes in Celebration of Discipline, ““In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noice, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in ‘muchness’ and ‘manyness,’ he will rest satisfied.” Busyness in America is a sign of virtue. If you’re busy, you’re important. This is contrary to the lifestyle of the Christian. The Christian should be marked by peace, not hurry.  Blaise Pascal once said, “All of humanity’s problems, stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” We must get to a quiet, contemplative place to allow the Holy Spirit to do his deeper healing work.