Remove the Baggage!

   Here is a simple reason for doing Biblical counseling: In order for some people to be helped, someone has to remove the baggage that was put on them throughout their lives. The average person just needs to hear the Gospel and have a Biblical understanding of who God is, what sin is, what sin has done to them and their relationship to God, what God must do about sin, and what God has done to take care of our sin problem. The average Joe can get this. It can make sense to him.
   But there are people out there that have loads of baggage on them, that will prevent them from seeing the Gospel, or being able to grasp the fact that we are sinners in need of a Savior. These people have to have the baggage taken off them before the Gospel will make sense to them. That is what Biblical counseling does. It makes it so a person who has a warped understanding of reality can come face to face with the fact that he or she is a sinful person in need of a Savior. Biblical counseling and Biblical evangelism work hand in hand to help promote the Gospel.
   I am thinking of an example in the Bible that describes this scenario. In Mark 5, there is a man who has been possessed by a demon (or many demons). His life, as far as he can tell, is completely gone. He will live the rest of his life in horror if nothing comes about to change his circumstance. He lived in the cemeteries and no one could do anything to help him. He was completely hopeless. And the worst part of his story is that after he died, he would face God in judgment and spend eternity in hell. But God...God came on the scene and delivered the man. The demons were made to leave. The man was now able to get a grasp on the Gospel. Jesus came to the rescue. Now, this man not only was demon free, but now he was a servant of the True and Living God! The baggage came off him and now he can clearly see God!
  We can be used of God to 'take the baggage off' people too. We can minister the Gospel to them, and they will have a clear view of God. They will see their need for salvation, and see how horrible their sin is before a holy God.
  If a person has been victimized by others, he will see the terrible sin of what someone else did to him or her. It will be hard for a person to see her own sin, because the other person's sin is so much greater in their eyes. Plus, people who are victimized by others, will take the blame for the other person's sin against them. It is the nature of being victimized. That's why those who do the victimizing think they are getting away with it. God sees the sin of the victimizer, and He will deal with it. But we have to help those who have been destroyed by others. We have to help them work through their victimization so they can properly see their own sin before God, and therefore will be able to deal with their sin properly through the Cross.
   Here are two web sites that offer information on Biblical counseling:
CCEF
www.ibcd.org