“I feel led to…” (part 1)

We say this phrase a lot and sometimes it’s a good phrase. But whatever happened to “I want to…”

What’s wrong with “I want to…” when we are Spirit-led? God says that when we delight in Him, He gives us the desires of our hearts (Ps. 37).

“I want to pray” rather than “I feel led to pray.” Sometimes, I think we want to look more spiritual by saying, “I feel led to pray.” People will tell you, “The Lord told me to tell you…” as if that’s going to have more weight and power. How about saying this instead: “God’s Word says…” and refer to Scripture. That’s what we must do in biblical counseling: present God’s truth objectively and without our bias or added “spiritualizing.” God needs no additional help from us!

-Mark (seeking to be obedient and fighting the desire to appear super-spiritual)

So excited at our growth!

Psalm 34:2 – “My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad.” – ESV

1 Corinthians 1:31 – “Therefore, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” – ESV

Praise the Lord for steadily, slowly growing this ministry!

We have watched Him grow us from 3 biblical counselors (volunteers!) and only 2 sessions PER WEEK to now…(drum roll please!)

52 people have ministered the truth of God’s Word through the love of the Holy Spirit! 

All are volunteers (except 2, Jason and I – and our salaries are closer to volunteer status than “full-time” status! just joking, sorta!) and all are committed to the cause of lifting up Jesus! I absolutely love those involved in this ministry and I’m honored to be a small part of the team (I’m only 1 of those 52)!

We went from 3 people a year ago to 52 people now! That’s unbelievable growth the Lord is doing! (17 times more people are involved in the hard ministry of biblically counseling others)

What is gratifying to me is to watch people who volunteer for us grow. Many of them sit in with me and observe me. They speak out as I give them opportunities to share what the Lord lays on their hearts with counselees! The beauty of our model is that our volunteers grow spiritually as well as those hurting souls we are privileged to serve. I love being able to train, encourage, and mold the giving people involved in our ministry. These volunteers are GIVERS not takers!

Speaking of which, one more praise. I was looking at our calendar yesterday. When we started counseling, it was quite empty with only 2 counseling sessions in 1 week and a Board meeting. I compared it to this week’s calendar (April 21-24 since we only counsel 4 days per week). We had 55 scheduled sessions this week!    55!!!  That’s how many lives, families, and children we’ve helped this week!! Praise the Lord!

That’s 27 times more sessions than one year ago! That’s 53 more families we can impact for God’s glory by encouraging them to gaze only at Christ.

What more is there to say? Praise the Lord.

One final praise (I promise this is it). Someone came to know Christ as Lord and Savior this week (2 days ago). That’s what it’s all about. His soul will be with God forever – Satan lost another soul he thought he had!

I could go on that we have had at least one marriage in the process of reconciliation each week for the past 7 weeks, but I won’t mention that praise in detail.

To God be ALL the glory for the great things He’s done through this ministry!

Little is MUCH when God is in it.

-Mark (privileged to serve the King of Kings for His own glory)

Is something stunting your spiritual growth? (part 2)

Physically, when young people smoke cigarettes, it is said that it “stunts their growth” primarily because it suppresses their appetite. Thinking about this same concept in a spiritual sense: what suppresses our appetite for spiritual food from God’s Word? In other words, what stunts our spiritual growth?

Here are some of the things that suppress our spiritual appetite for the things of God:

1) Feeding the flesh rather than the Holy Spirit.

2) Sin.

3) The cares of this world (Luke 21:34).

4) Drunkenness and drug use CAN suppress our hunger for Christ – even psychotropic drugs! We must be careful (ask your doctor what the physical side effects are – but the spiritual side effects can be suppression of a spiritual hunger for Christ) when taking any medication because they all have side effects.

5) _______ You fill in the blank in a posted response to this blog topic!

-Mark (we’ll leave this one up for awhile for you to answer – we’d love to see your posts)

Do lost people know they are lost? (part 1)

Have you ever been lost? Maybe you were driving and missed a turn so you kept going…only to realize at some point, “I think I’m lost!”

When do we realize that we are spiritually lost? When do we realize that we need Christ to save us and to lead us out of darkness into His marvelous light?

What does the Bible say about this matter?

-Mark (answer to come in my next post!)

The focus in biblical counseling is on “spiritual issues”

In biblical counseling, we deal with sin issues of the heart that are spiritual in nature.

If an issue is organic – meaning it has a physical cause -  we do NOT address it. We send the person to a medical doctor for a medical evaluation. Sometimes, a physical problem may be causing bizarre behavior and thinking since the physical and spiritual are connected!

It is so great to work with godly physicians who practice real medicine. Dr. Logan Casey in the Cahaba Heights area is a caring general practitioner that we recommend to our counselees. Finding a good doctor can be difficult these days. Dr. Casey is a rare find because he is competent and compassionate and Christian.

Again, in biblical counseling, we want people to be under the care of a primary physician for physical issues and medication issues.

We deal with “heart matters” in the spiritual realm. The “heart” we deal with is the inner, spiritual person’s attitudes, motives, desires, thoughts, and passions that lead to actions and emotions. We are caring for the souls of men as we seek to watch the Lord reconcile them to Himself.

-Mark (looking to the Great Physician for the healing of souls)

Leadership Qualities

I recently read a fantastic book called Go and Make Disciples by Roger Greenway. On page 109, he says this about the  qualities of spiritual leaders:

“Spiritual leaders are people of prayer exercising gifts of the Holy Spirit. Their special qualities are these:

Vision: Leaders have spiritual “eyes” that let them see what God can do through the church and its ministry.

Tenacity: Leaders can be counted on to keep on doing the work of the Lord despite difficulty and opposition.

Integrity: Leaders can be trusted morally wiht money and the care of people’s souls.

Excellence: Leaders want the church to function well in order to please God and serve people’s needs.

Servanthood: Leaders do not work for honor and power, but for the welfare of others and the glory of God.”

At Truth in Love, I am so thankful that we have these qualities in our Board and counseling leaders. These qualities are what we are looking for in the men and women who are leaders currently serving Christ in this ministry.

-Mark (thankful that God has sent us so many great leaders who love Him and want to glorify His name)

“Change”…into what?

As biblical counselors, we know what we want the counselee to change into – the answer is – Christ. We want our counselees to become like the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We have an example to learn from when we read the Holy Scriptures. Jesus is our example and we are all to be like Him. The Bible is essential to study so that we can be like Him.

“Change” is a big word this election year. I say we focus NOT on political change but upon spiritual change in our own personal lives. We need to ask God to change us into the image of Christ by His transforming power through His Word of truth.

-Mark (voting for “change” in the lives of Christians everywhere)