Myanmar Survival
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” (Matt 16:24-25)
Background
The Church until Jesus’ Return lives in “the time between the times”. This teaching is penned from war ravaged Myanmar, with armed soldiers on a checkpoint highly visible, even if we are in the Lord’s “perfect peace” (Isa 26:3-4). The highlight of my 6th trip, beyond the beautiful Christian people we always encounter, has been a 3-day presentation on “healing the traumatised”, led by our graciously skilled brother, Nick Gwynn, the founder and CEO of Breathe Counselling (https://breathecounsellingperth.com.au/). Towards the end of the 3rd day, I sensed that the Lord was giving me a charged prophetic word, which became the content of today’s teaching. As always, the matters of the kingdom of God are simple but never easy. Healing from trauma flows when we need no longer submit to the natural drives of our nervous system, but through the power of the Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead (Rom 8:11) submit solely and wholly to the call of the kingdom of God.
The Neurobiology of Trauma
Nick expounded on this subject at length to the fascination of his captive audience. An audience whose majority do not have tertiary education but who from firsthand experience know the things of life, much as did the inhabitants of first century Galilee who heard Jesus (https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/3398/8356). Nick intriguingly interspersed his lectures with testimony about his own personal recovery, through medical assistance and direct supernatural intervention, from epilepsy, panic attacks, chronic depression and so on. We learned of the role of the various parts of the brain (prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus etc.) and nervous system in regulating systems of attachment and survival. Underlying all this detail was a foundational commitment to the truth that “presence”, human and divine, is essential to all healing from trauma. It is natural, and unavoidable, for those created in the image of God to ask, “Why do people have to experience such traumatic events?” and “Why has such evil happened to me? No human being was created for the pains of the world as it has become today but solely for God’s glory (Matt 25:41; Isa 43:7; Rom 3:23).
Beyond the Why Questions
Whilst, or, more precisely, because such above questions are “natural”, no one seems ever to ask: “Why did the sinless innocent Son of God have to both endure ordinary mortal traumas, and go way beyond our ordinary natural afflictions?” Looking through this Jesus-centric lens takes us to the question of Saul awe struck on the Road to Damascus, “Who are you Lord?”, who hears from heaven, “I am Jesus who you are persecuting!” (Acts 9:4-5). As a resurrected exalted human being the Son of God maintains “glorified scars” (Luke 24:39-40; John 20:27) which infallibly witness to his identity as the once crucified Jesus of Nazareth (Rev 5:6). This, amazingly, establishes his ongoing sharing in the mental and emotional pains of the suffering and persecuted church across the world. The Saviour has lost none of the “compassion” (Matt 20:34; Mark 1:41; 6:34; Luke 7:13; 10:33; 15:20) so noteworthy of his days on earth (https://westportexperiment.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/warfield-on-the-emotional-life-of-our-lord.pdf). With limitless clarity, the heavenly Lord recalls “the days of his flesh with their loud cries and tears” (Heb 5:7), yet he no longer possesses the fallible fallen brain structure (limbic system) that would make it possible for a now perfected human being to be “naturally” traumatised. The key to how Jesus was able to be “made perfect” (Heb 2:10; 5:9) in his limited, though sinless (Heb 5:14) earthly humanity, and yet is the same essential heavenly Lord (Heb 13:8) is the “grace upon grace” (John 1:16) constantly operative in his holy living and loving from conception onward.
Jesus the Sole Conqueror
What enabled a biologically enfleshed normal human being (John 1:14; Rom 8:3, 1 Tim 2:5) to live blameless and free from valid accusation (John 8:46), was that he kept his own word. “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? (Mark 8:35-37). To put the essential issue most clearly, while Jesus was tempted by every fibre and filament of his being to “save his life” i.e. survive from under severe trial in the burning wilderness whilst starving (Matt 4:4) being “tested” from Galilee all the way to Jerusalem (Matt 16:1; 19:3; 22:18), he never once departed from the will of his Father in heaven. ““Abba, Father…everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 15:34) is the climax of a 30 odd year struggle of obedience whatever the cost. He “loved not his life even unto death” (Rev 12:11).
Beastly Times
I prophesied to those attending the trauma healing conference: “It (the beast) was given power (by the Lamb) to wage war against God’s saints and to conquer them.” (Rev 13:7) We are in times when “many antichrists” (1 John 2:18) are in the world, when the beast is permitted to conquer as a beast can. Conquer within the realm of the “flesh” but NOT on the level of the holy union of the Spirit with the spirit of a regenerated human person in Christ (Rom 8:16; 1 Cor 6:17). At this level (cf. https://www.samstorms.org/enjoying-god-blog/post/can-a-christian-be-demonized-part-one) a “saint/holy child of God” is invulnerable (1 John 5:18)! “And they have conquered him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Rev 12:11) Whether in poor ravaged Myanmar or privileged prosperous peaceful Perth beastly powers are inducing traumas which people try to cope with in the usual idolatrous ways e.g. alcohol, drugs, consumerism, “screen time” or Sunday “worship”. None of which can heal for God’s answer is to live in the self-denying power of the “everlasting gospel” (Rev 14:6). Christians are not “survivors” but in the resurrection life of Christ “more than conquerors” (Rom 8:37)
Conclusion
Following Jesus’ persevering obedience under the most extreme imaginable conditions, you will be tempted to “save your life” but can be preserved as blameless and free from valid accusation (Col 1:22) because you are inhabited by “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). A believer never needs to look backwards to find a cruel cause for their afflictions but only forward (John 9:3-4) to the ever-advancing glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ that will soon swamp the cosmos! PTL