Straighten up into Christ
In her book “The Healing Presence” Leanne Payne develops an image that comes from C. S. Lewis.
The unfallen position was, as it were, a vertical one, one of standing erect, face turned upward to God in a listening speaking relationship. It was a position of receiving continually one’s true identity from God. But fallen man is bent toward the creature and trapped in the continual attempt to find his identity in the created rather than in the uncreated. When I pray with someone who is seeking wholeness, one of the first things I do after invoking the Presence of the Lord is look to see in whom or in what this person is attempting to gain his or her identity. From what person or thing (money, status, professional degree, accomplishment, sexual prowess, etc.) is he or she demanding, “Tell me who I am”? We then know what the person’s idol is, what “loves” need either renouncing or setting in perspective and right order.
The key to healing these bent ones is simple but profound, and the same for all: It consists In renouncing and utterly forsaking the “bent” posture toward the creature, and “straightening up” into Christ (emphasis mine). There, standing upright in the vertical position, fully focused on God, our bonds from the old bent position fall off. With ears alert to catch His every word, we are brought into the place of becoming. It is the free state of listening-obedience where we find healing, completion, and our true identity. In this posture, our arms are stretched straight up to the Father, our palms are opened wide to receive all that is good all, in other words, that really is and therefore completes us spiritually, psychologically, and physically.
What Leanne Payne says about “praying for someone who is seeking wholeness” applies to the way we live the Christian life and encourage each other in Christian community. Our growth in Christian life (sanctification) is a continual process of learning to recognize, renounce and utterly forsake the “bent” posture toward the creature, and then “straightening up” into Christ in light of the amazing grace that is ours through the gospel.
Larry is the senior pastor at 
