609 Independence Parkway, #115
Chesapeake, VA 23320
www.MeadowsHealingPrayerCenter.com
757-696-4053

Frank Meadows, LCSW

Over the years, I have worked with many who are sexually broken, abused and addicted. A Christian, Spirit-led, healing approach, Theophostic Healing Prayer, has changed my ministry and practice, and through it many are finding freedom.

As a Christian mental health professional, I have always sought to integrate Biblical principles, prayer, and the Holy Spirit’s leading into the therapeutic and healing prayer process. It is essential to bring the good news of the Gospel as declared in Isaiah 61:1-3, “heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, … and comfort all who mourn” (MSG).

This is the essence of Christian counseling: inner healing and mind renewal. However, we must proactively CHOOSE to partake, enter into, and lay hold of our healing by faith. Participating in almost 20,000 hours of Spirit-led healing prayer since 1999, I have been privileged to witness the Lord’s continual faithfulness. I have seen thousands of deeply traumatized memories completely healed through this Divine, Spirit-led healing process. From Scripture and almost daily personal experience, I KNOW God’s heart and commitment to heal, renew the mind, and restore His broken children to freedom. Ephesians 4:23 (NKJV) says, “be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” and from The Message, “a life renewed from the inside.”

The core issues in healing are the unrenewed mind and lie-based thinking that evolve, usually rooted in childhood experiences. For instance, the abuse survivors who believed they were “helpless, dirty, bad, shameful, and it was their fault,” even though they may “know” logically, as an adult, it isn’t true. Many are in bondage to these core beliefs, which are lived with and reacted to daily. Did you ever wonder why one can logically “know the truth,” yet not be free?

Instances when people are emotionally “triggered” or over-reactive in their daily lives are probably connected to unresolved conflicts rooted in memories of past events, usually childhood hurts reinforced and reenacted throughout their lives.

It is not possible to fully explain the Theophostic Healing Prayer process, but an abbreviated version of these healing principles follows. (See MeadowsHealingPrayerCenter.com and Theophostic.com for more information.)

Basic Principles of Theophostic Prayer Ministry

Principle One: Our Present Situation Is Rarely the True Cause of Our Ongoing Emotional Pain.

Principle Two: There Is a “Dual Mental Process” Going On in Each of Us.
Our minds are designed to interpret every event through the beliefs we have acquired earlier in life. We are emotionally “triggered” when our brains automatically transfer feelings stored in the memory of an original experience to this present moment. God has designed our minds to connect current and past events, almost outside of our awareness.

Principle Three: People Can Hold Two or More Opposing Beliefs at the Same Time.
What is believed to be true cognitively and logically may not necessarily match what is believed to be true experientially. In the logical part of the mind, one can intellectually believe “my sins are forgiven,” “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” and “in Christ, … a new creation” but still feel unforgiven, guilty and unworthy in the depths of our being.

Principle Four: Feelings Are Important Indicators of Our True Belief.
Emotions indicate what is experientially believed. They do not necessarily indicate truth, but they reveal core beliefs, true or false.

Principle Five: If I Believe a Lie, the Consequences Will Be Much the Same as if It Were True.
Logically, one can know that “in Christ, he is a new creation” or that “God is my provider,” but still in core beliefs, rooted in foundational past memories, believe one is unworthy or become filled with fear when a job is lost. Life’s day to day circumstances expose true belief systems and trigger connected emotional reactions.

Principle Six: To Be Free of the Lies We Believe, We Must Own Them Rather Than Deny Them.
Natural inclinations are to deny the lies one believes and to suppress the pain they produce. The falsehoods that are believed will express themselves through one’s emotional state and consequent behavior. In choosing to follow the “smoke trail” of stirred-up emotions back to the original memory source, the lie-based belief causing the emotional pain can usually be discovered. It is here that freedom from the emotional pain produced by these lies can be found, as truth from the Holy Spirit is received.

Principle Seven: Sinful Behavior Is Often a Vain Attempt to Manage Our Emotional Pain.
When the sexual addict, alcohol or substance abuser, or person with an eating disorder is triggered with feelings of depression, anxiety, stress, or loneliness, their pain management defenses kick in. They automatically shift gears to defend against their pain, usually subconsciously, by acting out sexually, eating, or mood altering with alcohol or drugs. The sinful behavior is a problem and not to be minimized, however the root problem is the stronghold or the core beliefs rooted in foundational memories that trigger the painful emotions and pain managing behaviors. The antidote is a healing word from Jesus through the Holy Spirit revealing truth to the lie-based belief in the core memories. When a revelation of truth at memory level is received, it uploads into conscious awareness and positive changes begin to manifest in daily lives.

Principle Eight: Performance-Based Spirituality Is Not True Spirituality.
Just doing the right thing and making the right choices while suppressing emotional pain, although the right thing to do, is not the essence or full measure of freedom that God intends for His people. The truth is that bad feelings expose the flaws in one’s belief structure; and only as one is willing to acknowledge feelings and expose false thinking, can a more consistent victory be known.

Principle Nine: When We Receive Truth from God in Memories Where We Harbored Lie- Based Thoughts, We Can Walk in Effortless Victory in These Areas.
This is not a quick fix – one prayer and all of life’s problems are solved. Lies are dispelled one- by-one, memory-by-memory. When the Spirit of Christ reveals truth into one’s thinking, He replaces the lie with truth, and genuine release is found, as is peace where once there was only pain. When the pain produced by these lies is resolved, any behavior that this pain motivated can also cease.

Principle Ten: Only an Encounter with the Presence of Jesus through the Holy Spirit Can Free Us from the Lies We Believe.
God desires that we come to Him, dependent and devoid of any hope of self-deliverance (see Galatians 2:20). Theophostic Prayer Ministry simply encourages people to listen as the Lord reveals His truth to their hearts and minds. Of course, Bible study, teaching, preaching, and discipleship are important; but apart from the intervention of the Holy Spirit, truth cannot be fully known. Jesus said that when “the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13, NASB).

Principle Eleven: We Are in Emotional Bondage Due to Two Basic Factors – Belief and Choice.
As we choose in the healing process to intentionally revisit a painful memory where falsehood was embraced, (i.e. the abuse victim who believed s/he was at fault), receiving a personalized word from the Lord and having the old belief entirely removed in a single moment, freedom comes. However, God has chosen to limit Himself when it comes to the human will and choice.

Principle Twelve: The Written Word of God is the Standard for Validating What Occurs in Ministry.
The Bible, God’s written Word, is always the final standard by which we discern the validity of what one experiences in any ministry session and by which it is judged (see 2 Timothy 3:16).

Principle Thirteen: Lie-based Pain Can Only Be Removed as Lies Are Replaced with Truth, Whereas the Only Remedy for Sin-based Pain Is the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin (see Hebrews 9:22). People do not overcome sin by their hard work, but by appropriating the completed work of Christ on the cross (see Galatians 3:3, 1 John 1:9).

Principle Fourteen: Mind Renewal Is a Lifelong Process.
I have never met anyone who seems to be walking in perfect knowledge and understanding of God’s truth. We all have a distance to go in terms of mind renewal and total release of all lie-based thinking. Total freedom will come only in Heaven.

The Basic Principles of Theophostic Prayer Ministry are excerpted from http://theophostic.com/page122132940.aspx, accessed 9.16.2011.

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Brief Bio

Frank Meadows, LCSW, is the founder of the Meadows Healing Prayer Center in Chesapeake, Virginia, where he has ministered to and trained many locally, nationally and internationally utilizing Theophostic Inner Healing Prayer. He is a mental health professional, a licensed clinical social worker, and the clinical director of Christian Psychotherapy Services in Chesapeake, Virginia. His ministry focuses on ministering to leadership and bringing healing and restoration to those with emotional, relational, spiritual, and abuse trauma recovery issues.