COUNSELING-CHRISTIAN
The process
of biblical change, explained in God’s Word, begins when you repent of your sin
and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has given you everything you need to make the changes in your life
that will please Him and will lead to His blessings. As you continue to obey God’s Word, biblical
change toward maturity will occur in your life until you see Jesus face to
face.
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 2, Page 3,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
You can never
truly understand or help others, even in your own family, unless you first look
thoroughly into your own life and deal with your own sins without compromise,
excuses, or evasion (Matthew 7:1-5).
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 2, Page 7,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
Neglecting or
refusing God’s ways brings multiplied problems.
To deal effectively with your problems, you must realize your inadequacy
and turn to the power of God for salvation.
Then, you will be able to make the necessary biblical changes that
characterize a child of God as you reverently depend on God and His Word.
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 5, Page 1,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
Man’s
“solutions” to your difficulties will ultimately fail because they do not deal
with the source of your problems: your heart.
God’s solutions, as revealed in Scripture, go to the heart of the matter
where permanent change is accomplished.
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 5, Page 4,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
When you
willingly or unknowingly are under the control of any power other than God’s
Holy Spirit (e.g., drugs, alcohol, sex, another person, your peer group, a
false religion, a self-centered habit such as gossip or laziness, or a
self-oriented desire for power, food, or wealth), you are in bondage to
sin. However, God has broken the power
of sin through the Lord Jesus Christ, and you can overcome sinful habits by depending
on His strength and being obedient to His Word.
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 20, Page 1,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
God has
defeated Satan through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Through this overwhelming
victory, God has also empowered you to overcome any temptation to sin and has
provided sufficient resources for you to respond biblically to any problem of
life. By relying on God’s power and
being obedient to His Word, you can be an overcomer
in any situation.
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 21, Page 2,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
As you obey
God’s Word and rely on His strengthening power, you can count on biblical
change to occur in every area of your life.
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 6, Page 1,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
The supreme
challenge you will face in making Christ-honoring, biblical changes is dying to
self. The biblical perspective
concerning “self” is exactly opposite to what the wisdom of this world
proclaims.
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 9, Page 1,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
Do not open
your heart to every man, but discuss your affairs with one who is wise and who
fears God.
Thomas a Kempis
Don’t just
share your struggles, and above all, don’t just commiserate with one
another. Remember, we are to be
ministers of grace to each other. We are
to seek to be avenues of the Holy Spirit to help the other person appropriate
the grace of God. Praying with and for
one another, sharing applicable portions of Scripture, and helping each other
submit to God’s providential dealings with us, must characterize our times
together.
Transforming Grace, NavPress, 1991, p.
193. Used by permission of NavPress – www.navpress.com. All rights reserved.
The would-be
counselor should have some basic knowledge of human psychology, normal and
abnormal. He must be a good listener, slow to interrupt, until he feels sure
that he has something worthwhile to contribute, some helpful question to ask.
The counselor should be genuinely humble and receptive, with an objective
approach to the problem under discussion, and he should avoid all well worn
clichés, truisms and easy slick solutions. He is not there to sermonize or to
moralize – certainly not till he has heard all that the enquirer has to say,
and he must avoid a holier-than-thou attitude. Further, he should not show
shocked surprise, disapproval or condemnation.
D.J.C. Dawson
Quoted
by Derick Bingham, Encouragement –
Oxygen for the Soul, Christian Focus, 1997, p. 70. Used by Permission.
The counselor
is perhaps better equipped for his task, if he has experienced personal
difficulties, problems, doubts and fears, even a sense of guilt and failure,
perplexity and distress, but has come through to peace, both spiritually and
emotionally.
Derick Bingham
Encouragement
– Oxygen for the Soul, Christian Focus, 1997, p. 71. Used by Permission.
Though we are
all Christians together, we are all different, and the problems and the
difficulties, the perplexities and the trials that we are likely to meet are in
a large measure determined by the difference of temperament and of type. We are
all in the same fight, of course, as we share the same common salvation, and
have the same common central need. But the manifestations of the trouble vary
from case to case and from person to person. There is nothing more futile, when
dealing with [a] condition, than to act on the assumption that all Christians
are identical in every respect. They are not, and they are not even meant to
be.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Spiritual
Depression – Its Causes and its Cures, 1965, p. 15,
Used by Permission from Elizabeth Catherwood (daughter).
Counseling
Principles:
1. When seeking to bring about change, never
attempt to do so in the abstract; people change only in concrete ways.
2. Always give hope. People will not persevere during the
often-difficult process of change without hope.
3. Never minimize the severity of problems;
instead always maximize Christ and His power to solve problems.
4. If a person has a life-dominating problem,
aim at total restructuring.
5. Always approach the seemingly hopeless
situations with emphatic disagreement.
Empathy alone removes all possibility of help. Disagree when the counselee says, “It’s
hopeless.” Say, “It is difficult, but
not too difficult for God.”
6. Don’t become orientated toward people’s
problems, but toward God’s solutions.
7. Gauge how much change is now feasible; too
little is boring, too much is discouraging.
8. Don’t let people settle for less than the
scriptural solution.
9. Use biblical, or biblically derived, language
when analyzing and labeling problems, and when planning solutions to them.
10. Be command-oriented
rather than feeling-oriented.
Jay Adams
Preaching with a Purpose, Zondervan,
1982, p. 125-126.
Be patient. Is God not fast enough? Are His answers
too tough? A quick sympathy from a friend may suggest that you simply drop out,
be good to yourself, get away from it all. Someone
else will be sure to say, “You need counsel.” Are you sure? One hour at the
foot of the Cross may obviate the necessity of professional counseling (no such
thing existed until the twentieth century – what did folks do before then?)
Elisabeth Elliot
Secure
in the Everlasting Arms, Revell, 2002, p. 127.