Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday June 19, 2007

I was talking with a friend last week and he sent me a quote that set me to thinking. I suppose that I fail to think unless someone wrote or spoke something that catches my fancy. I chew the cud (muse) on it for a while and then the idea takes solid enough form for me to express an opinion on it or offer a bit of advice.

The topic of our conversation was the explosion of "Christian Counseling" sweeping our churches and other Christian organizations. Please do not misunderstand; I am not against Christian counseling by any means. I am against a dependence on Christian counseling as a means to the normal Christian life.

Over the years I have counseled with several thousand people and I have found in the majority of cases my work was finished when the counselee acknowledged the true root of the problem, namely the unwillingness to confess, forsake in other words deal with sin in their life. In all honesty many were so entrapped that they failed to identify the sin, in spite of the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the Word.

In the long ago John Calvin commented on this when he wrote:

"The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul."

Years ago one of Oliver Green's famous sayings was "Honey, you don't need more pills, you need a good dose of the Gospill." Misspelling on purpose. He insisted that the correct application of the Gospel would solve most of the problems the people of his day were suffering and being beaten down over.

The abandonment in our time of preaching against sin, sin such as adultery, greed, do not mention greed for whatever would we do if the wife really started staying home and being a mother instead of the lady who picks the children up at daycare. Why this outrage would cut the offering in half! God knows the good that is accomplished through doing things our way instead of His.

I have heard myriads of arguments concerning the tack of different philosophies of Christian counseling and for most my statement is simple, most will work if they are bibliocentric and applied by the counselee. Translated this means the necessity to accept the right of God to tell you what to do, His right to control your life as revealed in His Word.

A recurring problem with men who cannot sleep is called "Dreaming of The Faceless Woman." The man wakes from sleep and cannot go back to sleep as thinks of this Woman. The cure is simple as he recognizes his dream is the visualization of his waking lust. When he sets out to renounce this thought as soon as he is aware of it, thus obeying Christ, the dream begins to cease troubling him. Simple? Sure. Easy? Ha. Calvin was onto something long before we coined the term, Psychiatry.

"The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul."

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit

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