We are made in God’s image. Our minds are patterned after His mind. His image, which was stamped upon us at Creation, is the basis of mental health. He is my Creator, He is the Source of my healing.
Sin has caused within each of us the foundation for mental and emotional disorders. Not every mental/emotional disorder is a direct result of specific sins, but all of the brokenness, distortion, dysfunction, and sickness that we find in our world, is, in a general sense, the logical consequence of the entrance of sin into the world.
Yet God, through Jesus Christ, is in the business of restoring our mental, emotional, and spiritual wholeness. He is re-creating His original image in us by conforming us to the image of Christ. The more Christlike we become, the more mentally healthy we will be.
What does it mean when I keep being plagued with painful memories from my past that won’t go away? Does it mean I’m not really a Christian? Does it mean that I am really an outcast from God’s family? What, or where is the problem?
The human brain’s capacity to store memory is virtually limitless. The average brain contains 100 billion neurons (nerve cells), and each neuron is connected to surrounding cells by a fantastically complex network of fibers called axons and dendrites. Each of these billions of cells may have as many as 100,000 fibers leading into it from other cells. As a result of this complex circuitry, the number of interconnections among the cells of your brain is actually greater than the number of atoms in the entire universe. No wonder astronomer Robert Jastrow calls the human brain "the most complicated object science has ever tried to understand."
Pain and pleasure seem to "burn" into our memory banks more deeply than any other kind of experience. Sometimes an individual my "blank out" an event as a defense mechanism to prevent the mind from becoming overwhelmed by emotions too powerful to bear. Instead of re-living a horrible moment again and again in the memories, the individual experiences a merciful span of amnesia regarding that traumatic incident in their life. What a person needs is healing from those memories. But true healing does not come from denying that the painful event happened. Healing comes when we courageously face the reality of our lives and our memories and allow God to take the sting out of those memories through His Presence and His truth.
Truth principles that we must keep remembering…
Who I am: a child of God – 1 John 3.1,2. Satan first attacked Christ by trying to get Him to doubt the truth about God and Himself. It succeeded with Eve and Adam, but it failed with Jesus.
Why? Because Jesus remembered something they forgot: He chose to remember God’s word.
My Father loves me – John 3.16
When I blow it, if I confess, He will forgive me – 1 John 1.9; 2.1
Forgiveness is part of the cleansing process – not only my accepting the reality of being forgiven by God, but my forgiving others when they wrong me, and my forgiving myself.
Satan goes about as a roaring lion seeking to devour people. He devours us through our thoughts. That’s why Paul says, "I take every thought into captivity to Christ." – 2 Corinthians 10.5.
One mental activity that will help with the healing process more than any other that I have found is Scripture memorization. Psalm 119.11. Meditating on God’s Word, allowing it to become a significant part of your memory bank.
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