Why Healing Prayer matters... Jesus wants to heal your heart.

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The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul. (Psalm 23:1-3).

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He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)

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Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be saved,
for you are the one I praise. (Jeremiah 17:14)

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But for you who revere my name, 
the sun of righteousness will rise
with healing in its wings. (Malachi 4:2)

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He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, 
and healed those who needed healing. (Luke 9:11)

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'The human soul is a place of profound mysteries. God is a person of infinite creativity.

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The beauty is that as you become more whole, you can become holier. And as you become holier, you can become more whole. Trying to choose one without the other I think has really brought people a great deal of distress, brought them to the conviction that no real change takes place in this life. It’s not true. It’s just that discipline is not enough.

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As my wife Stasi was saying just the other day, “You can’t repent your way out of brokenness.” It simply doesn’t work. We repent our sins; the brokenness must be healed. Furthermore, this isn’t simply about the sweet love of Jesus. You have an enemy, strongholds are real, and you must break those agreements and banish the enemy.'

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Do not be surprised or discouraged if you find that it takes more than one round of prayer. It didn’t take you a day to get into this mess. Sometimes you’ll have to pray again in a month, and then again in six months. Listen carefully: This doesn’t mean that “it didn’t work.” Quite often Christ comes back in our lives for a deeper work of healing. Even if you’re only eighteen, the sun has gone down a lot of times in your life; there’s a lot of past there. But if you’re fifty-eight, there’s a whole lot more past to your story. So be gracious, be patient; it doesn’t mean you’re blowing it if Christ brings it up again. It simply means it’s time for another round, and so you go back again through this exact process of repentance and deliverance and healing.'

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- John Eldredge, Ransomed Hearts

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"So what is the Immanuel Approach?

Let me start with a really, really short summary: first, we apply several simple-but-powerful biblical truths and brain-science principles to help the recipient establish an interactive, two-way, back-and-forth connection with the Lord; and then once this interactive, two-way, back-and-forth connection has been established, we have a variety of options with respect to adventures that God and the recipient can engage in."

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(An Introduction to the Immanuel Approach (Third Variation)1 (©Copyright 2021 K.D.Lehman MD,

New 4/9/21)

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“Immanuel Prayer is the single most effective method

I’ve ever encountered for healing the lifelong effects of trauma.”

Thomas H. Wassink, M.D.

Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine

Staff Psychiatrist, Iowa City Veteran’s Affairs Hospital

Staff Pastor, Sanctuary Community Church of Iowa City

Senior Leadership Team, Blue Ocean Faith Church Network

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     "Most of us have memories in our past that we are aware we have not fully processed or healed from.  In Immanuel Prayer the Lord can access places in our mind and memories with us (Heb. 13:5), even those maybe buried in our subconscious.   Often in these memories we discover places where we perhaps have made vows (like; I won't ever let someone hurt me again or I'm going to do this  on my own, I don't need anybody) .   Or we discover  places where we've taken on faulty beliefs about God (like; you didn't protect me, I can't trust you) or faulty beliefs about our selves (like; if they really knew me, they wouldn't like me -so I can't show the real me). 

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     The amazing thing is that the Lord knows when and if we are ready for this deeper work and also where we need healing  and renewal of our minds.  The facilitator never guides the content, we help with the process of connection and let the Lord lead.   This healing work is hard to access from our rational left brain and often lurks below our conscious level of awareness,  and so IP can help us open &  allow Jesus to do this deeper healing of wounds and distorted beliefs that are interfering with our current life and relationships.  These places are mostly areas we can't access from the surface by ourselves and so having a trained facilitator work in conjunction with the Lord can be  transformational." 

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"This type of prayer is beautiful and indispensable in our journey toward maturity, toward holiness, toward wholeness. But the journey requires other things as well—often counseling, certainly discipleship, and, to borrow Eugene Peterson’s phrase, “a long obedience in the same direction.” There is no “zap” that suddenly makes a person as whole and beautiful as Jesus Christ.

Wholeness is something we grow into as we walk with Jesus through the years of our lives. Knowing this actually takes a great deal of pressure off—that pressure to find the instant fix or have the One Defining Moment. It releases us to walk with God and allow him to personalize our healing journey."

-John Eldredge, Moving Mountains

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"As a spiritual director, I consider that my primary role is to be attentive to where the Holy Spirit is leading the conversation. In the Immanuel Approach, we look for where Jesus is leading the person we are praying for. It is a completely Jesus-centered approach for healing and spiritual growth, he guides every step. As a psychotherapist, I sometimes can only marvel at Jesus’ methods -- the things people sense him doing and saying are beyond any therapist’s abilities!"

X. Nader Sahyouni, DMin, LPC

Assistant Director of Spiritual Foundations with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

Spiritual Director

Psychotherapist