Are You Awesome?

   I hope I don't step on anyone's toes here (smile face) and I don't want to come off as angry at everyone (which I know I do at times) so please bear with me while I try to explain my dilemma.
  Recently, I finished a class on Theology and Secular Psychology. What I learned was amazing. Up until the mid 1800s, counseling had been done in the church where it belonged. Only God can cure a sick soul. For some reason, counseling had been pulled out of the church and brought into the secular world. As it was being categorized, it earned the title, 'Psychology' and was placed in the medical field. Secular psychologists rose up with their theories and ideas, many of which were implemented. In secular psychology, you have to remember that 'man is the measure of all things'. Man is the standard, not God. The problems of mankind can only be solved by mankind, because there is nothing or no one who is higher who can help.
  Taking care of the mentally ill had been, and still is a challenge for secular psychologists. Curing dementia or Alzheimer's is a goal that will never fully be reached in the secular medical field, although, because of God's common grace, some medications can relieve some of the symptoms for a period of time.
  There has not been much agreement among psychologists in the secular world. Each has his or her own ideas of what works and what doesn't, yet, they claim that they have the key in helping because supposedly empirical science is able to provide answers to hard questions. Much of empirical science though, is biased. Tests have been done that 'prove' homosexuality is inherited, but the tests only used certain factors, not everything that could or should have been used to give a more accurate result.
  One of the big factors in modern psychology that is employed is the theory of the need for 'self-esteem'. Esteem actually is a worship word. It means to have a high regard for something or someone. Of course, the psychologists will tell you that you have to love and respect yourself, and then you will be self confident and will be successful at whatever it is that you want to do with your life.
  There is a difference between dignifying someone and deifying that person. That seems to be where the crux of the problem lies. So many times, we want to encourage someone, but what we end up doing is telling the person things about himself that aren't true, but we think they will help the person feel better about himself and will solve his problem.
   I see it on Facebook often. Well meaning people tell their troubling friends to 'stay strong'. I have seen people grieving and someone replies 'You are strong.' Or, 'Stay strong!'. What is that supposed to mean to someone who is grieving? Instead, the commenter should be weeping with the grieving person and praying for her, not telling him or her to 'stay strong'.
  I also see these things in greeting cards. "Celebrate You" seems to be a concept that is popular. Here's a good one put out by Hallmark. It reads, 'You're Wonder Woman' on the front. Inside it says, 'Kind and caring with a little kick-butt too, that's you, from head to fabulous toe'. Flattering someone is not the same as encouraging someone. I think secular psychology blends those two concepts and doesn't know how to separate them. We need encouragement, but not flattery. We need dignity, but not deification.
  I first heard the word 'awesome' when the song 'Awesome God' came out. Awesome was an accurate word to describe God, although I don't think any of us will ever really understand just how awesome God really is, as long as we are on earth. When the word 'awesome' is used, it means something is pretty high up there. Other things might be cool or exciting, but only God is really awesome. But I know we are getting away from this thinking for I hear people talking often about such and such as being 'awesome'.
  Awesome really means 'inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear; causing or inducing awe: an awesome sight.' according to Dictionary.com . Here is the definition of 'awe'-

1.

an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand,sublime, extremely powerful, or the like: in awe of God; in awe of great political figures.

Notice that the definition really fits our response to God. If we have ever 'seen' or encountered God, we will have a sense of awe or overwhelming feeling of reverence. 

Suppose an angel came into your room and started talking to you. Would you just answer the questions and have a nice dialog with the angel? I don't think so. If you look in the Bible and see Mary's response to an encounter with an angel, you can see that she was in awe. She knew God was visiting her through an angel. The shepherds also were in awe when they saw the angels announcing the birth of Jesus. The Bible says that they were 'sore afraid'. They were terrified. Once they got through it, they went in the direction that the angels told them in order to see Jesus as a baby. That was a feeling of awe that they experienced that night. 

  We are not awesome, but God is. With that in mind, here is something I saw today. This is an indication of how little we understand of God's greatness and how high we think of ourselves. I'm sure the person who designed this card was thinking that it would be an encouraging note to give to a friend, but it really says so much more. It is deifying a person, not just encouraging someone.

I hope the person who sent this or designed it won't be offended at what I have written here. But should we be telling people how awesome they are? Of course not, but, we can encourage them and pray for them. We can point out evidences of God's grace in their lives. But when it comes to being strong, we are not strong. God is. God is our strength. God does not necessarily make us strong. He wants us to depend upon Him for His strength. 

   God is awesome and we can be in awe of Him. If we believe secular psychology, we will think we are awesome. When things go wrong, we will be disappointed in ourselves. We need to have God's perspective on who we are, and we need to have the Bible's perspective on who God is. We need to see who really is awesome!

Intervening In The Rules Of The Game Of Life

   Before I write the article, I want to make a disclaimer. I don't want my readers to think of life as a 'game' to be played. I certainly don't want to lead anyone into thinking that God is playing games with us or that we are pawns in His game. I would like to compare a real subject, 'life' with a game as an illustration.
  There are some similarities between real life and playing a game. There are differences as well. The similarities are the different teams who live on this planet, just as there are different teams or players in a game. The differences are that we are playing for life and eternity, not just to win a game. The goals of the team leaders are different too.
  It's like there are two captains, yet, the captains are very different. One captain is evil, beyond imagination. The other captain is good, beyond imagination. One captain is all-powerful, all-knowing, holy, and omnipresent, whereas the other captain is a created being, ultimately subject to the all-powerful Captain.
  In a sense, we are stuck in the middle. We are created beings too, like the Evil captain is. We are not as powerful as the Evil captain is, and we certainly are not as powerful as the Captain who created us.
  In the beginning, we were originally created to be on the team of the Captain who is the Creator, the Good Captain. But the Evil captain was around and tricked some of our team members into his side. Ever since that happened, whether we like it or not, we have been on the side of the Evil Team's captain.
   The rules of the Evil captain are run by deception. The problem with deception is that you don't know you are deceived. When we are born, we think we are basically good, and we think we are on the side of the Good Captain, but we really aren't. We can see selfish expressions of our lives even from the time we are babies! As we grow older, it becomes more and more evident that we aren't on the side of the Good Captain, but the Evil one.
  The Good News is that no one has to stay on the side of the Evil captain. We can now be reconciled to the Good Captain and be on His team instead of the Evil team. The Good Captain, who is God our Creator, took on flesh, and lived a human life, the life we should have lived but couldn't. Then He died a death that we should have died. He should not have died that death because He didn't deserve it. But now we can be on His side, the winning side. Of course, just knowing about this doesn't make us automatically on the Good side. We have to turn away from sin and selfishness, and turn to God, trusting what Jesus did for us on the Cross 2,000 years ago. Jesus is the winner and showed forth the victory when death was defeated after He arose from the grave! When Jesus died on the Cross, the Evil team lost the battle. Yes, the devil is still prowling around trying to tempt people to fall into the trap of sin, but now we don't have to belong to him. We can belong to God and be on the Good Team, only because of the victory won by God's Son 2,000 years ago when He died on that Cross and arose from the grave.
  Now that I have finished writing this blog, I have to admit that it wasn't what I originally intended to write! Maybe I will save that for another blog, another time.

The Enemy tricked us into his team

Questions For Counselors To Ask Themselves

  I have been studying the history of Biblical counseling, and I have to admit, I have no idea of how we are affected today because of the fact that the area of counseling which was once part of the church, had been taken out of the church by the general public and brought into the medical field, where counseling would now be tied in with psychology and science.
   Psychiatry and psychology are fairly new categories. They were invented by those who wanted to take the responsibility of 'curing the soul' out of the church. Before the mid 1800s, the church took the responsibility for this. Not sure whether it was just taken out of the church, or if the church just abandoned its responsibilities in this area. Whatever the reason, the beginning of psychology, psychiatry, and mental health care was begun, and science was the religion behind how it was supposed to work.
  In the mid 1900s, Jay Adams saw the desperate need to bring Biblical counseling back into the church and has pioneered the way. Many have followed in his footsteps and much has been done to recover the loss. Biblical counseling is now part of many local churches and it is becoming more and more refined as those leading the path continue to blaze the way for it to become implemented and restored by to the church, where it belonged in the first place.
  Today, there are a few, very effective Biblical counseling ministries and ministers. One of them is David Powlison, who has followed Jay Adams in helping to found Biblical counseling. David Powlison has written many articles and has taught classes at CCEF, as well as teaching at seminars and conferences on Biblical counseling issues.
  David Powlison wrote an article called, "Does The Shoe Fit?" which can be found online at: http://www.ccef.org/does-shoe-fit-0
  I was reading through the article and there were about 30-40 questions listed in a section that were directed at the potential counselor. The questions were excellent and I would encourage everyone who aspires to counsel people to read this article and ask themselves the questions. I have also organized some of the questions in a readable format and will reprint them here:

 Questions for us to ask & answer ourselves:

1. Do you treat your counselees differently from how you treat your best friends?

2. Do others see you as embodying tender care for their well being?

3. Do others know you love them?

4. Do people feel that you are for them, and that you are in it for the long haul?

5. Do you elicit trust and promote openness?

6. Do you have a vision, rationale, and modus operandi for the times you might have a 25^th counseling session with someone?

7. Do you so emphasize behavioral sin that you fail to be attentive to heartache and pain?

8. Does the way you look at people and their problems-in-living gravitate to one part of the human condition, but neglect other parts?

9. Do you in fact weep with those who weep?

10. Do you strike the Gospels’ balance between meeting people in their hardships and calling them to change?

11. Does your counseling help some people to weep, giving voice to their sorrows, perplexities, and uncertainties, when they have confused the Christian ideal with the Stoic ideal?

12. Do you strike the Psalms’ balance between suffering and sin and joy?

Please note that in the article, there are many more questions than this, and you can go to the article yourself and read the other questions.