Healing from the Inside Out

Healing from the Inside Out

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Michael Fanous


Passage Matthew 12:22-28

There was a man that was demon-possessed, blind and mute. Normally those who are mute are usually deaf as well. It would have seemed that nothing was going right for this man.

What does it mean to be demon-possessed? In essence, it is madness. How do we describe madness? The mind that cannot reason or think logically and is constantly confused. All the thoughts produced by this mind are not in line with reality. There are a multitude of problems.

What does it mean to be blind? He was also deprived of seeing the beauty of creation around him, and for him.

On top of that, being mute and deaf meant he could not express or explain himself. We could go so far as to presume that this was a useless person. A man that is not in the image that we know.

But this is the exact state of humanity after Adam and Eve sinned. When we do not know what is good for us, when we cannot reason right from wrong, when we cannot see creation for the beauty that God created it to be, when we cannot praise God, then we are like the madness of this man.

When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, the devil corrupted their minds. The serpent questioned God’s command saying, Has God indeed said, “You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Gen. 3:1). He deceived and confused them so that they forget what God had taught them. The serpent convinced them that the only source of life was from the one tree they were told not to eat from. They were blinded from seeing the good creation of the Lord.

When God called out to Adam when he was hiding, Adam responded, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Gen. 3:10). What happened to Adam at the point? Had he not heard the voice of God before? What made this time different? Adam became deaf to the voice of the Lord also.

This is the state of humanity when sin entered the world. But Jesus came to bring back normality to the world. He came to earth and gave us baptism so that we may think clearly, see the good of creation and hear the voice of the Lord.

When the Lord healed the man, He renounced Satan, in this same way we renounce Satan before a person is baptised. The person raises their left hand and faces the west where Satan is and they say, “I renounce you, Satan, with all your trickery and hypocrisy

Christ in the gospel renounces Satan and this brought healing to the man. Healing puts us back to our original state. In baptism, we look toward the east and raise our right hand and says, “I believe in You, Christ.”

In Christ, we can uses our senses for the glory of God. Everything becomes clear – our mind, our thoughts, our sight. We can praise the Lord.

Eventually, we sin again, but the church provides for us the means to return to our original state. The church provides a place where God is upon the altar. We can see and hear God. We have the saints to fill our eyes with goodness. The church gives us the Cross so we can see the Love of God in its fullness. The church gives us the smell of incense that takes us to heaven. The church provides the Holy Body and Blood of Christ to give us power, wisdom and understanding. Then, we are normal again. The things of the world cannot distract the soul that is satisfied in Christ. We look to heaven, and the things of the world become meaningless in comparison.

The Lord tells us, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand” (Matt. 12:25). This is the case when we fall into sin. My kingdom is my internal state. If my mind is divided from my heart and the body is doing what it likes, while the eyes are free to wander, I cannot stand.

The heart says I should be Christian, the mind agrees that this is the right thing to do, but then the body wants to enjoy the pleasures of the world. We become confused and divided against ourselves. How can we stand? This breeds guilt and confusion. We cannot reason when we are divided. The Lord tells us that if he can heal the man that was possessed, blind and mute, He can heal us, too. He can heal us through the church. This gives us eternal satisfaction.

The saints gave all their senses to the Lord, these worked together. They raise their hands to pray, they prostrate, their heart and mind are with God. The spirit moves within them to make them a complete person, lacking nothing and free from all bondage. A true son or daughter of Christ is completely free, nothing can bind them or upset them. Nothing can hold them back.

I will praise You with uprightness of heart when I learn Your righteous judgements

Psalm 119:7

This is the goal – to praise and thank Him for our minds and our senses. We can be whole again, we can be pure, we can be sons and daughters of the Highest.

How to Control Your Thoughts

How to Control Your Thoughtsby Fr Anthony Messeh

Reposted from http://www.franthony.com/blog/how-to-control-your-thoughts 

Fr Anthony Messeh is an American Coptic Orthodox Christian living in Arlington, VA. The aim of his blog is to spread the message of a real, relevant and rewarding God.


That title is a bit misleading (but it sure is catchy isn’t it?).  You can’t actually “control” your thoughts – at least not in the same way that you can control other things, like a blender or a remote control car or a group of dancing robots.

It would be great if you could, but you can’t.  You can’t control every thought that comes into your head.  Thoughts will creep in that you have no control over.  For example:

Insecure thoughts:  “I’m not good enough and ______ probably thinks I’m annoying.”

Fearful thoughts: “I’ll never be able to fix this or get to that point in my career, marriage, etc.”

Negative thoughts: “My life is so difficult and everything is working against me.”

Impure thoughts: (no explanation needed for this one)

Dealing with thoughts like these isn’t easy.  It can be debilitating at times.  It feels like you’re in round 4 of a 15-round sumo wrestling match with this guy.  No matter what you do, the thoughts just keep coming and coming and coming…

Is there a solution?  Is there anything we can do?  Or are we destined to be slaves to our thoughts forever?

Jesus said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32

The solution to your thought problem is often the exact opposite of what you might think.  The solution isn’t to REMOVE those pesky old thoughts, but rather to REPLACE them.

Imagine you have a 1,000 gallon tank of water.  Imagine that it’s full to the brim and you want to empty the water of it.  How would you do it?

You have two options:

Option A: try to pick up the pool and dump the water out (aka, the dumb way)

Option B: throw a rock in (aka, the smart/I-obviously-listen-to-Fr.-Anthony way)

What would happen if you tried the first option – to pick it up and dump the water out?  YOU WILL FAIL.  You will fail and you will be exhausted as well.  That’s because trying to REMOVE the water doesn’t work.

But what would happen if you tried the second option – throw a rock in?  A little water would splash out.  And if you threw another rock in?  A little more would splash out.  And what would happen if you continued to throw rocks in there – one a day every day for 10 years?

ALL THE WATER WOULD BE GONE!

The same is true for your thoughts.  Stop trying to remove your old thoughts and instead seek to replace them.  How?

Below are four ways (or rocks) that you can use to replace those negative thought patterns.

1) TALK IT OUT

As long as your thoughts remain hidden inside your head, they have power over you.  But once you let them out, they somehow become a lot easier to deal with.

2)  READ A LOT!

Reading is the fastest way to put new thoughts in your head.  For me personally, there is no more important habit than this.  I believe that reading will bring more fruit into life – when done consistently – than just about any other spiritual practice.  It certainly has for me.

3)  PRAY, BUT NOT A LOT

There’s a good way to pray about your thought problem – “Lord, I surrender my thoughts to You and ask Your Holy Spirit to guide my thoughts this day.

And then there’s a not-so-good way to pray:  “please God help me to stop remembering my mistakes and thinking that I’m a bad person.  I know I made mistakes but please help me to stop remembering them all the time – especially that one mistake that was just so awful.  Please please please help me stop thinking about that mistake and how awful I am…”

Prayer is good, but obsessive prayer is not good.  The kind of prayer you need is the kind that a) is THANKFUL, b) is TRUSTING, and c) PRAISING.

4)  JUST SAY NO!

Learn to reject thoughts that you KNOW are not true and from the devil.  JUST SAY NO!  Say what Jesus said when His disciple Peter introduced a thought that He didn’t want/need to hear, “GET BEHIND ME SATAN!  You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” (Matthew 16:23)

Trust me, if you struggle with your thought life, you are not alone.  It is something that everyone struggles with to some degree.  Believe me, there’s help for you.  You don’t need to live as a slave to your thoughts forever.  But you must be committed to taking small steps every single day and being patient as those small steps add up to major changes in your way of thinking.

See more from Fr Anthony Messeh at http://www.franthony.com/