6. Suggest finding a Bible-teaching church and identifying with it. Here he or she can fellowship regularly with God's forgiven people, and hear and study God's Word.
7. Pray with the inquirer personally for deliverance and heartfelt peace: "He Himself is our peace" (Ephesians 2:14).
8. If your inquirer seems unable to respond immediately to your sharing Christ, and if he or she continues to struggle with guilt, encourage finding the pastor of a Bible-teaching church for further help. It may be that in time he or she will be able to respond. Stress that he or she should take the initiative in finding such a pastor. For the Christian:
For the Christian who admits to recurring problems with guilt, proceed as follows:
1. Reassure him or her of God's love and forgiveness. God can cleanse all our guilt! If God has forgiven the inquirer, he or she must practice selfforgiveness. A Christian has the right to claim with confidence the truth of 1 John 1:9. Christ, our Savior, removes all our sins—past, present, and future—through His finished work on the cross.
2. Encourage getting into the Bible, reading, studying, and reflecting at length on such passages as Psalm 103:1–6; Psalm 51; Isaiah 53; and John 18–19. Suggest writing down the references of these passages so that he or she can find them in the Bible. Relief from guilt will surely come as he or she appropriates Christ's sacrifice and promised forgiveness and cleansing.
3. Suggest that the caller pray specifically and faithfully for a "conscience without offense toward God and men" (Acts 24:16). He or she should continue praying until peace comes.
4. Recommend that he or she get in touch with a pastor for further help.
Scripture
"I have blotted out, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you" (Isaiah 44:22).
"Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed" (John 8:36).
"I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can't make myself do right. I want to but I can't. . . . So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a
terrible predicament I'm in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free" (Romans 7:18, 23–25, TLB).
"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1).
"One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13–14).
HEALING
Background
The biblical concept of healing means far more than relief from a set of physical symptoms. It means wholeness of body and spirit. The words healthy, whole, and holy all derive from the same Old English root word. Jesus asked the man in John 5:6, "Wilt thou be made whole?" (KJV). Many sicknesses are the result of the individual's attitude or lifestyle:
• Medical scientists maintain that much of our sickness has emotional causes: tensions, fear, sorrow, envy, resentment, hatred, and the like. Physical pains and problems may be real enough, but their causes are rooted in the emotions.
• Lifestyle choices such as smoking, drinking, and overeating cause much illness. The lifelong smoker may develop problems such as emphysema, cancer, or high blood pressure.
Alcohol consumption can have devastating consequences, both emotional and physical. Many of these are irreversible because of an ulcerated digestive tract, a destroyed liver, or a damaged brain.
Overeating or chronic nutritional deficiency will also cause bad health.
However, many illnesses are not the result of abuses, dissipation, or emotional problems. Many people are just ill! Jesus, referring to the man born blind, said, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him" (John 9:3). Among these purely organic diseases are such things as birth defects or genetic illnesses, injuries, and viral or bacterial infections.
Sadly, many people suffer physically from the bad choices of others, such as the victims of violence or of environmental hazards such as chemical waste or second-hand smoke.
God offers healing in at least three ways: God Heals Through the New Birth
When a person becomes a "new creation" in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), he or she finds that Jesus can meet every need. Many testify that when they made things right spiritually, and began to live in proper perspective and relationship with God, their illnesses were taken away. The hymn writer William B. Bradbury refers to this new perspective:
"Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;