Pain. Day 38 of Lent. Phantom pain of the old sin nature.
The International Association for the Study of Pain’s widely used definition states: “Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.”
Nociceptive pain is caused by stimulation approaching or exceeding harmful intensity. The most common categories being “thermal” (heat or cold), “mechanical” (crushing, tearing, shearing) and “chemical” (iodine in a cut, chili powder in the eyes).
Neuropathic pain is caused by damage or disease affecting any part of the nervous system involved in bodily feelings. It is often described as “burning”, “tingling”, “electrical”, “stabbing”, or “pins and needles”. Bumping the funny bone elicits acute neuropathic pain.
There is another type of neuropathic pain- Phantom pain is pain felt in a part of the body that has been lost or from which the brain no longer receives signals.
Phantom limb pain is a common experience of amputees. It is often described as shooting, crushing, burning or cramping. Local anesthetic injections into the nerves or sensitive areas of the stump may relieve pain for days, weeks or, sometimes permanently, despite the drug wearing off in a matter of hours. Vigorous vibration or electrical stimulation of the stump, all produce relief in some patients.
Spiritually speaking, have you ever felt this ‘phantom pain’ of the old sin nature?
I love how Bob Hamp explained this in his Freedom series of teachings.
A Parable: The Kingdom of God is like: Phantom Limb Syndrome
Our flesh is the part of you that you travel around in. Go read Romans 5-7 to learn more about it but here is a short course. There are Three Characters at war within you:
- Old Nature (Sin Nature, Old Man, Dead Nature)
- Flesh (Body, Container, physical needs, desires, nervous system)
- New Nature (Spirit, Born Again Spirit)
In Salvation the old nature is crucified and buried but the nervous system has been programmed by the old nature for years. Just because the old man is dead and buried doesn’t mean the program stopped running. You’ve got baggage from the past, it’s like you can’t wipe the hard drive, there is still all your old data stored in there, and viruses that you didn’t clean out.
New Nature is born inside the Flesh. The New Spirit is meant to re-program from the inside out working through you.
Because there is a war within you, the Old Nature keeps trying to tell you it’s still around, in fact sometimes you wonder if it’s not still in control. It’s painful. Just like Phantom Limb Syndrome.
When treating Phantom Limb Syndrome, doctors tried to treat giving Tylenol when the missing foot hurts, they actually found they strengthen the nervous systems embedded reactions telling the brain the leg is still in tact. It was successful temporarily, but it maintained the lie over time. This was because as the treatment made it better for a moment and then it got worse again, and more medicine made it better, but then it got worse again, and it only strengthen the programming of the brain that the limb was there.
Instead doctors learned to prescribe a series of treatments that engage the new nerve endings at the stump of the limb. Touching the NEW nerve endings with hot things, cold things, prickly things, soft things, as many new sensations as possible to stimulate the NEW nerve endings, telling the nervous system through new experiences that something has indeed change, the limb is gone and allowing the brain to be re-routed for this new information. These treatments got the brain to focus on what is the NEW condition.
Like Phantom Limb Syndrome, in order to allow the New Nature to reprogram our nervous system we must begin to stimulate the new nerve endings, which allows the nervous system to reprogram those new experiences into our beliefs.
Many people who get saved are told to go to church, read your bible, pray, etc… doing those things, good things, don’t save you. “By grace we have been saved through faith, and it is not of ourselves it is a gift from God.” Eph 2:8 However the Bible is a book full of Words written by God for you and it’s full of information about what has been done in you already. Instead of wrestling with a dead man who isn’t there anymore-fixating on it; what we are dealing with-then medicating it with ‘solutions’ only to fixate on it again-is not a process that works. Instead we can begin to stimulate our nervous system to what is NEW in us. Going to church and being with other believers, hearing the Word Taught, but also talking WITH other believers allows us to renew our nervous system to that which is NEW there. Bible Reading, Pastors Messages, Prayer, Church Gathering, Etc are all ways to stimulate what is New about you, that which has ALREADY happened.
The more of these you do, with the mindset that you are not doing them “to become”, but rather, “to discover” what you “have become”, the faster we can re-program our nervous system to understand what is new about us and what has really died.
The lesson of the parable is this: don’t focus on the Old, stimulate the New and keep your focus on Christ, abiding in Him we draw all that we need to bear fruit for His kingdom and if you take a look at the list of the fruit of the spirit-love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gal 5:22-23, that is what happens supernaturally as we abide in Christ.
This writing was an adaptation on the message from Bob Hamp and my notes from taking his Freedom Series class.
http://gatewaypeople.com/ministries/freedom-kairos/media1
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