Many children of God are not experiencing the abundant life that God has planned for them. They often go through life with the feeling that there should be more to their Christian experience and their relationship with God. They struggle with patterns of sin in their lives; they have difficulty reading the Bible and praying; they often carry bitterness and unforgiveness in their hearts as well as deep woundedness.

This is not a new phenomenon. Since the days of Isaiah, God has been promising that he would heal the broken hearted and free the captives. The ministry of inner healing and spiritual warfare is one way in which he uses us to bring healing into people’s lives.

The Biblical foundation for inner healing prayer is found in Jesus’ ministry. His ministry was described by the prophet Isaiah hundreds of years before his birth. In Isaiah 42:1-3a Jesus is described as one on whom God’s Spirit rests who will mend broken lives. Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations, He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.

In Isaiah 53:4-5 Jesus is described as the one who bears our suffering so that we don’t have to: Surely, he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

In addition to the description of Jesus’ ministry in Isaiah, the gospels are full of accounts of Jesus’ healing ministry. In the gospels we can read about a typical day in Jesus’ life. In Matthew 4:23-24, Matthew describes Jesus’ ministry in this way: Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and the people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon possessed, those having seizures and the paralyzed, and he healed them.

We are also commissioned in Matthew to “obey everything” that Jesus commanded us to do. His commands include the things that he did in ministry: preaching the gospel, healing the sick and driving out demons.

Deliverance, “driving out demons,” is the other aspect of Jesus’ ministry that is often ignored. Through deliverance we address any demonic activity that is present in our lives. The enemy is an opportunist. Demonic activity often accompanies the events that wound us as well as our responses to those events. The enemy will work in our pain and our sometimes sinful responses to that pain to maximize their effects in our lives. In addition, the enemy often begins working in our lives through our own sin patterns.

For deliverance to be effective it is important for us to deal with the things in our lives that open the door to the enemy. Once we have allowed God to heal us, we can then turn our attention to rebuking the enemy and commanding him to flee.