Spiritual debridement. These were the words I heard this morning while sitting in the floor of the sanctuary, praying. As an individual who has had prior medical experience, I knew what debridement meant. I had encountered this in my time as a doctor. Wounds heal from the inside out. I have seen some pretty nasty wounds in times past. There were some wounds that took more time to heal because of their size and because of the presence of decaying tissue and infection.
In order for a natural wound to heal, you need healthy tissue and time. You need proper treatment of the wound. Without proper treatment, healing is delayed and inhibited.
As I was asked to pray for the church, I saw an internal picture of a large, gaping wound, and as I prayed, I heard the words “spiritual debridement.” Debriding a wound requires cutting away and removing decay and death from the affected area. It requires removing everything that interferes with healthy transformation to a state that is whole. It requires removing things that cause you to carry a stench that is noncompliant with the fragrance of heaven.
Do you know what is great about removing dead things? Removing things without life in them does not hurt. There is no circulation present. Nerve sensation is dead. Debridement is necessary to heal. Some of you reading this have wounds that have not healed, whether from years of trauma or offense. Some may be holding onto what has lost life. I want to encourage you, allow the healer to debride those wounds with His Word and by the Holy Spirit so that you can be healed in the binding of your wounds by the only one who can heal you.
A wound heals from the inside out. We must be whole inwardly before we can be whole outwardly. Debridement is a cutting away to expose life and to accelerate the process to a fresh start. Sometimes, we avoid spiritual debridement because we fear what could happen. We become comfortable with the unhealthy flesh. Debridement is surrender to the process, and it can be more convenient to simply cover up the wound and attempt to ignore it.
Debride the Bride
While I was praying, it occurred to me that “bride” is in the word “debride.” It is a simple thought, but profound at the same time because according to dictionary.com, the prefix “de-” means in this case “privation, removal and separation.” When I looked up the word “privation,” I found out that it means the “loss or absence of a quality or attribute that is normally present” (Google dictionary). Just as there is a spiritual and necessary debridement taking place individually and corporately, there is an agenda from the enemy to de-bride the bride, to create a loss or absence of a quality or attribute that is normally present.
The church is the bride of Christ, and we are called to have the characteristics of a bride; pure, spotless and without blemish. A spiritual debridement is taking place. Dead things are being removed, and elements that do not bear life are being cut away. The bride is being washed by the water of the Word. There is some spiritual agitation taking place so that what is alive can circulate properly and remain steadfast in being whole, Spirit, soul and body.
The bride longs for the Bridegroom. We are called to cultivate intimacy with Jesus Christ. We were created to worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. We were created to tabernacle with the Holy Spirit. In every facet of that relationship, wholeness is of upmost importance.
I believe the enemy would like to cause us to lose the attributes that make us the bride of Christ. He wants to de-bride the bride and for us to embrace absence of the qualities designed to separate us from the things of this world. Jesus is the head. We are His body, mandated to demonstrate His kingdom through salvation, miracles, signs and wonders. We are also called to demonstrate His nature of righteousness, holiness and integrity. To not demonstrate His love through the power to save, heal and set free is legalism. To not emanate His nature of righteousness and holiness is a performance and is self-serving. There must be the presence of both. There are many things that are attributes of the Lord and thereby attributes of the bride that the world and the devil would love to strip as our heritage: the call to serve, the call to humility, the call to bear fruit and so on. All are vital.
I am encouraged to hear this and to recognize that spiritual debridement from the Lord is a good thing. It means that healing is available and desired by God for His body. May we all embrace this healing, and may we not lose our identity in Him in the process. Allow God to cut those dead things off and to pour healing balm on your soul. He wants you to carry His fragrance. He wants His body whole and present in the qualities and attributes that are normally present as the bride of Christ. {eoa}
Dawn Hill is a Christ-follower and a freelance writer. She writes a blog called “Lovesick Scribe.”
This article originally appeared at lovesickscribe.com.
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