The Newtown Tragedy - How Should We Respond ?

I don't know about you, but I find this tragedy difficult to know how to respond to. First of all, I can't imagine anything so difficult to go through, because it involves children. When something happens to children, it is very hard for us to grasp. It is bad enough when something devastating happens to adults, but with children, it seems so senseless and cruel.
    I've read through a couple of articles or messages on this, but the one I found tonight seems to be the most helpful. It is written by Ravi Zacharias on this particular incident. Here is the url for it, and I would encourage my readers to go to it and get a good perspective on it.Ravi Zacharias on Newtown

  Here is an excerpt:

My own attempt at saying something here is feeble but carries a hope  that somebody listening will make this world a better place. My heart  goes back to Angola Prison in Baton Rouge where I met such people  whose savagery took them to that destination. It was interesting to see  a Bible in every cell and to hear many talk of how it had become their  only means of life and hope. Someone with me said, “If we had more  Bibles in our schools maybe we would need less of them here.” To the skeptic and the despiser of belief in God, I know what they will respond.  I am quite convinced that the one who argues against this ends up  playing God and is ultimately unable to defend any absolutes. Hate  is the opposite of love and while one breathes death, the other  breathes life. That is what we need to be addressing here. The seeds  of hate sooner or later bear fruit in murder and destruction. Killers  are not born in a moment. Deep beneath brews thinking and the  animus that in a moment is uncorked. We are living in a society that nurtures hate on many sides with the result that lawlessness triumphs.

Have You Prayed For Your Spouse Today?

Have you prayed for your spouse today? It is so easy to put things off, especially if they don't seem important to us. All people who are married have struggles in their marriages, and people complain because their spouse doesn't do this or that right, or some other expectation is not met. But have you considered praying for your spouse? Your spouse needs God's help and grace in her life (or his life). If your wife is constantly cooking dinners late, or in a bad mood, can you pray for God to reveal Himself to her? God is the great heart changer. Maybe your husband comes home in a bad mood. Maybe he is angry or quiet. Are you angry because of that? Do you think you can pray for him?
Likewise, husbands, dwell with your wives according to knowledge, giving honor to the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; so that your prayers will not be hindered.
1 Peter 3:7
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Ephesians 6:18

Whose Identity Do You Have?

"Our response to any situation is always shaped by our understanding of our identity." This quote is from the book "Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands", which, in my opinion is one of the best books available on Biblical counseling.
   The reason I bring this up, is that it is so important in helping ourselves and our friends in counseling. Every person has an identity, whether it be one that is made up in their imaginations, one put on them by others, or on put on us by association. For example, if you are introduced to someone for the first time, they usually give you their name. If you go a little further, you usually find out what they do for a living. People make their identity by their association with their jobs, or their past, most of the time. Sadly, if a person has had a bad past, his or her relationship with that past becomes part of his or her identity. I remember working with a woman who suffered from depression. Whenever she talked about herself, she identified with being a manic depressant. People have all kinds of identities, but have we really thought through what our identities should be based upon?
   The Bible says that our identity is with Christ. Our life is hidden with Christ in God. We are seated in the heavenly places. We have authority over all the power of the Enemy. We who were once filthy, have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. Now our identity is in Christ. That doesn't mean it is wrong to tell people your profession, nor does it mean that you shouldn't talk about your past. We don't live in the past anymore, although we may need help in breaking off from certain things that are holding us down.
   The promises of God are in the Bible, but they only apply to people who have a proper relationship with God. A person can only have a correct relationship with God through God's Son, Jesus Christ. Outside of that kind of relationship with God, there really is no life. Outside of Christ, we live only for ourselves, and for what we think makes us happy. Another word for that is 'idolatry'. Idolatry is loving something else other than God. We think we love God, but we really don't. We can love God only when He has given us a new heart. If you are a person who has not responded to the Gospel message yet, your identity won't be in Christ. It will be with something else.  But the good news is that you can come to Christ in repentance and faith. For more information, go to http://thegospelconversation.blogspot.com   or   http://test4gp.wordpress.com
   If your identity is with a sinful lifestyle, you need to repent. Then you need to ask God for His grace and help to be free from that sin. Your identity doesn't have to be with who you are in the flesh. It can be with Christ, and it should be if you are redeemed!

Do You See the Bigger Picture?

As people who are growing in their understanding of the Scriptures, and because we are not 'all-knowing', we see things through a glass, and darkly, at that. Our vision of reality is very small and limited. If we are growing spiritually, and in our knowledge of the Scriptures, we expand our horizon. We have a more complete worldview.
  But we do see only in part. And that can affect our ministering to people as we seek to counsel them. For example, we might see a person who always seems to be angry. Our temptation would be to counsel him about anger. We would make sure that he knows anger is a sin against God (unless it is a righteous anger). We would make sure that he understands, from Scripture, his sin against God, and his need to repent. Now does he need to repent? Is his anger really a sin against God? Yes, and there will be a time, be it a long way away or just around the corner, that we can deal with that sin. But what if we find out that this man lives in a home where his wife is abusing him with words all the time? What if we find out that she is pressuring him to do two or three jobs in order to make her happy? What if we find out the she is calling the police on him almost daily? Now that doesn't give him an excuse to become angry, but it is a valid reason that has to be made known, in order for the man to repent and work through his sin of anger.
  I remember hearing about a man, who while in his house heard a man outside who was acting frantically. He was yelling out some kind of gibberish. He looked like a madman. I'm not sure if the man in the house called the cops or not, but, the frantic man was confronted. What was happening was, that the frantic man didn't speak English very well, and he was trying to find his lost dog and was calling the dog's name out loud, hoping the dog would hear. The man in the house did not have the bigger picture. He had a slice of what was going on, but in that slice, he built a false understanding of what was really going on.
  One more type of situation that could happen. Let's say that you get to know a person who was raised in a home where she saw Satanic rituals being practiced. What if that person saw people being given up in human sacrifices to Satan? What if she experienced Satanic Ritual Abuse and saw many powers of darkness at work with her own eyes? What if she learned all through her life, that the devil was the one who was the creator, and the devil was the one who was sovereign over every person's life? How would this person see the greatness of God? If she saw the greatness of Satan in the manifestations that she experienced during her life time, how do we help her to see the 'Bigger Picture' of reality? How will we help her to see the greatness of God? (I know it is God's work in her heart that will help her see God's greatness). If we just tell her of God's greatness and expect her to believe it, we might have problems down the road. We have to understand the why of her struggles.
  We need to be patient with people and find out where they are coming from, before we give them instruction and advice. They will be willing to listen to us, but we need to have a bigger picture of who they are before we can understand how to properly minister to them.

Our Words - Weapons for Life or Death

I was thinking about something that I saw happen a long time ago. I will not mention names, but I will never forget this. There was a woman, and man she was living with, a daughter, and grandson in this family. We went out with this family. I was surprised at what I saw, but maybe I shouldn't have been. It seemed like the whole time we were with them, the grandmother seemed to be hateful toward the grandson. She picked on him and called him derogatory names. I wondered why anyone would do that. Our words have power. Our words can be healing. Our words can bring comfort to others. We can edify and encourage one another with our words. But we can also destroy people with our words. Our words can hurt people. The Bible says that 'Life and death are in the power of the tongue.' It is sad how we use our words, sometimes.
I remember reading a story in one of Joni Earickson's books, about a young woman who was dealing with guilt. When the young woman was a teenager, she was angry at her dad and told him something like she didn't want to ever see him again. The father died that night and she never did see him again. How sad for that young woman. How sad for us when we say things we wished we would never have said.
I don't know whatever happened to the grandson of the woman who went out with my family that time, long ago. He is probably a grown up now. If that kind of behavior continued, I'm sure he doesn't have much of relationship with her now. How sad that is. Why would we talk to our children that way, or our grandchildren? Sometimes, we don't realize how the things we say will affect others. And we don't know who is watching us either.
Ephesians 4:29 says Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (ESV)
Proverbs 16:24 says Gracious words are like a honeycomb,
    sweetness to the soul and health to the body. (ESV)

Let's speak words that will edify and nourish the hearers!

Loving the fearful and needy.

Loving the fearful and needy.
Here is a message that I think would be helpful to many Biblical counselors. Sometimes, it is hard to know when to use tough love, or when to be gentle in ministering to needy people. Some of these 'needy' people show anger. It can be helpful to be patient and work through the issues and that will help them to see their anger and fear, so they can be delivered from their bondage. We want to be careful to not be like 'Job's comforters'. I have to admit, I would have a hard time working with this, but I am the one who needs to be changed by God's power. The Bible says, 'Love is patient'. Are we impatient with people and do we want to 'fix' them quickly by giving them Bible verses that we think can help, or are we 'slow to speak' and use words of wisdom, and are we willing to take the time that is needed to help people who are suffering? This message is by Winston Smith, Tim Lane, and Myriam Hertzog. This is an area we all can grow in, as we grow together as a related body of believers.

People Need to be Untangled

Being entangled with sin. Satan, along with our selfish hearts, works to entangle people in sin. Sin is not solely an object in our hearts that we have to get out of our hearts in order to go to heaven. Neither is it solely something we need to be forgiven of in order to go to heaven. Yes, we do need to get sin our of our hearts, and we need God’s forgiveness for our sins. But we need something so much more. And here is what it is; We all need to become free from the slavery of sin. Sin does more to us than keeping us out of heaven. Sin actually entangles us and keeps us in bondage to freedom. But what does that look like?

Part of the problem with this situation is that human beings, because our minds and thinking are darkened, think that sin actually frees us and makes us happy. Our unregenerate nature is wedded to the temptations of sin that come our way. It goes all the way to the core of our beings. We could take any sin, and use it as an illustration, but we could use stealing as a specific example. I know that there are different reasons for people stealing and it would take up too much room to use stealing, as a general sin, to explain here, so we have to be even more specific.

  When I was young and worked at a drug store, a woman with a couple of children at her side, was at the register and I was ringing up her products. It was a very strange order, for it was several packages of nail polish items. The lady proceeded to write a check, and when I asked her for her I.D., I noticed how shaky her hands were. She failed to produce the I.D. so I called for the manager, and he already was acquainted with the woman and explained that she was stealing the products. This woman was in bondage to her sins. How can people like her be free? It is easy for us to judge and simply say, “Let him who stole, steal no more.” Is the goal to just see that stealing is wrong, or, that God hates stealing and this woman needs to stop stealing? Ultimately, we want her to see that. But that is not the starting point in a situation like this. The ultimate goal for this woman would not be for her to not steal items anymore (although that would be a result of the goal for her). The goal would be for this woman to understand who God is, in His majesty and holiness, as well as His power, and mercy. But, there could be problems with this. She might have a background of other obstacles that would keep her from understanding or relating to God, in truth. She may have come from a family where lies about God were taught. She could have come from a family who was abusive to her. I am NOT making excuses for a person’s sins. But there are unbelievable things that happen to people, that Satan has intended to keep them in bondage with. Before they can understand the Gospel, they have to understand who God is and what He is like. God is not like the angry dad that beat his children up every night. God is not like the rapist that said he was Jesus and that the victim must obey him or the victim would be killed (Yes, this really does happen in America, and more often than what we realize). God is not like the mom who leaves her children to fend for themselves while she goes bar hopping.

  It is no wonder this country has so many ‘false conversions’. We simply tell people that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives, and if they ask Jesus into their hearts, they can go to heaven when they die. Then we give ourselves credit when one of those false converts responds to us.

No, our churches need real ministry today. The churches need men and women who truly love and know God and are living out His word in their lives on a daily basis. The local churches need humble men and women who are empowered by the Holy Spirit and are using the spiritual gifts to help one another in the church.

The Bible says in Galatians 6:1-3 Brothers, if a man is overtaken in a fault, those of you who are spiritual, restore such an person in the spirit of meekness; considering yourself, lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if a man thinks of himself as something, when he is nothing, he is deceiving himself.

We think we can solve problems by prescribing Bible verses for people who need help. Again, ultimately the Bible is the only source for dealing with problems. But we have to ‘untangle’ the person from the things that are holding them into bondage. Then the word of God will bring healing and ministry to people that desperately need God. That’s when eternal change can take place. Untangle the person from their bondage of sin. That's when the light of the Gospel will shine in.