Ed Welch says that all counseling is a variation on a single theme: knowing and praying for the counselee. Of all the questions the counselor might ask, then, the central guiding question in the counselor’s mind is, “How can I pray for you?
The biblical counselor must always remember that the ROOT problem is deeper than skin; it is sin. The ultimate cure is not culture, but Christ.
While the United States is becoming the most culturally diverse nation in the world, less than 5.5% of Christian congregations are multiethnic.
Who we are is not a question we can ask without seeking to understand the context in which we live. Biblical counselors seek to understand the influences that shape the responses of the human heart.
What you hope for determines what you live for. What you hope for determines WHO you live for. Hope misplaced can devastate you.
Pride rises above and against the knowledge of God, acting as if He is unworthy to be retained in our thoughts.
We must rip the foundations out from under all the bastions of human reasoning that say, “I don’t need God!” We must demolish every non-God story of life. We must pulverize every God-is-not-good life narrative.
In counseling, we don’t simply help people to change one thought; we help people to understand the pattern of their thinking – their mindsets.
A continual diet of the Word satisfies, and it builds an appetite for more.
All the stories and poems and letters and oracles and wisdom verses of God’s Word, like individual instruments in a great orchestra, serve THE WHOLE story.
God’s Word is especially suited to directing those who want to focus primarily on the nature and direction of their own hearts.
Our hearts are wired for worship, and our worship is directly tied to our sense of hope.
This is God’s world, so everything, even if it intends to efface God, bears witness to God – understood and interpreted through biblical eyeglasses.
Whether you realize it or not, your ongoing battle with unbelief drives all your sinful thoughts, emotions, desires, and actions.
A rebellion against God, even as believers, is fueled by the toxic fumes of unbelief.
The counselee should be aware that you are not God. Better yet, she should be aware that you are aware that you are not God.
The role of biblical counselors is facilitate the discovery of a greater God awareness through spiritual eyes that look at life through scriptural lenses.
Spending too much time in one’s individual silo can produce pride, isolation, and a stagnated ministry.
Let God Himself be the main attraction at church again, and let us be tireless in our insistence that church is for God, about God, through God, and to the glory of His great Son.
Church leaders raised on rationalism lead ministries where the supernatural, the Vertical, is suppressed and where God Himself is at best an observer and certainly seldom, if ever, and obvious participant in church.
When we shift from personal purity to personal happiness, we lose biblical hope because we are not focusing on God’s agenda, we are focusing on our own. God’s agenda is guaranteed on our agenda is not.
Reality is God-centered and all human beings are worshipers, whether or not they are conscious of this reality and its implications.
One of the most frequent sins of omission is the failure to get adequate rest.
A soul that is happy in the things of God can overcome tremendous obstacles.
You can’t teach a person to love something. But you can get him to feel the heat of your love for something.
At the end of life, each of us must answer the question, Whose story captured my soul?
If all you are doing is spending time with the struggling members of your church and you are not building proactively into your church’s culture, and you are being shortsighted and limiting the effectiveness of your ministry.
In healthy churches, the pastors life, not just his words, sets the tone for the church.
We must evaluate every person, place, product, perspective, position, or pleasure we have looked to in place of the promises of God, and turn away from those things accordingly.
Any counseling that does not pursue spiritual formation through an intimate relationship with Jesus by faith as one of its chief goals is not worthy to be called BIBLICAL counseling.
So often, it’s others around us who can see where God wants to grow us even before we see it ourselves.
Small groups are the place to push past Bible knowledge and on to life application so that we can see people’s lives transform more and more into the image of Christ.
If our counseling is truly Christ-centered, then the topic of forgiveness will inevitably come up in the journey toward growth and change.
Many pastors would rather preach God’s Word and keep their distance than invest in a personal one-on-one counseling ministry. Most pastors counsel because they have to, not because they want to.
Counseling is ultimately not about the counselee or the counselor, but about the Divine Counselor.
We are less interested in the number of disciples and more interested in the quality of discipleship.
Human sin is stubborn, but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half as persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way
The body of Christ is about doing life together, and by doing life together sin is revealed.
I experience transcendence when something infinite reminds me I am finite.