What is this promise? It is a statement about the providence of God.  He is not a God Who fails to care for His creation, but One Who plans His work, then works His plan. He is personally directing the circumstances involved in whatever a person’s situation may be at any given moment. That is why the promise makes sense, and can be relied upon.

The verse is one that should be used frequently in one’s counseling ministry. Why? Because it is reassuring to those who find themselves in situations that seem to indicate God has forgotten them. This verse indicates that God is in the problem (it is not a random occurrence), that He is up to something in it (there is a definite purpose to it) and that He is up to something good (to be learned, later, perhaps in the distant future or even after death).

Use the verse, stressing that one must be a believer (effectually “called”) who loves God, and that there is something that He has in mind (the difficulty is not without “purpose”). Use it often but explain it as you do so that your counselees will understand the facts about it which are often neglected. When these are neglected, the verse often loses its meaning and fails to bring its comfort—the very things for which it was given and which you quote it.

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

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The post Romans 8:28 appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

There always is. And, in this case there’s no difference in that regard.

“Well I, for one, am getting prepared—as much as I can be under such circumstances.”

Me too.

“How are you doing so?”

Pretty much the way everyone else is—except for one very great difference.

“What’s that?”

I’m talking earnestly to the Lord about it; and I’m sure that whichever way it goes, He’ll work things out in such a way that they’ll be for the good of those who love Him. After all, He called us, and put us in this situation, for some purpose.

“I know Paul wrote to that effect in Romans 8:28, so it must be true. But, I’ll tell you, it’s hard to see how it will happen in this case.”

I agree. Things look pretty bleak. And, if I were the one who had to work them out for good, I haven’t the slightest idea about how I’d go about doing so.

“But you don’t, fortunately.”

Exactly.

“So, having put it in His hands, we’ll wait to see what happens.”

Are you sure that you’ve done all that God expects you to do at this point?

“So far as I can see, Scripturally speaking, yes.”

So, I agree; we wait and see.

“And then—whether or not it looks like it will immediately be a pleasant outcome or not—we will accept it thankfully.”

That’s the way I understand His providential care to work out.

“Right. But it doesn’t mean that we’ll necessarily like it—at least, at first. Or understand His reasoning behind it.”

Yeah. Yes. We simply have to thank Him for whatever He’s doing, and wait to see what it is.

“Well, I’ve appreciated you taking the time to talk it over, anyway.”

Always happy to do so.

Check out our online courses, including, Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling and  The Use of Scripture in Counseling, taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to counseling others:

1. Competent to Counsel by Jay Adams
2. The Christian Counselor’s Manual by Jay Adams
3. How to Help People Change by Jay Adams
4. Check out our Bookstore for all the best counseling books!

The Christian Counselor’s New Testament and Proverbs, translated by Jay Adams

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For more biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
– Instagram: @noutheticstudies

The post God Knows Why appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

“Jonah and the whale.”

Expected. I suppose given the word association test among people who think that they are up on the book, their answers would yield a similar response.

“And even if a person doesn’t know much about the book, one thing is certain, they’d know about that incident!!”

Right you are. But, now, let me ask you a further question: What is the purpose of the book? What’s it really about—at its heart and core? Certainly, it isn’t Jonah’s fish-experience—that takes up only a couple of verses in the book. It’s startling, and therefore, memorable, but it isn’t central to the account.

“Well, probably something about Jonah’s disobedience.”

Pretty good. But still not the central message.

“How about repentance of the city of Nineveh? That’s a biggy.”

Correct. It surely is—yet, not the most prominent feature in the book.

“Well, then, let me see? Is it Jonah’s attitude—you know, about the death of the plant, and all that?”

Another important feature, but still no cigar!

‘OK. OK. Tell me. I give up.”

There are all those things you mentioned—you might even call them mini-lessons of the book. But there is one fact that trumps them all. In six places throughout Jonah there appears the expression “God appointed,” or a similar one.

1. God appointed a storm that he “hurled” into the sea.
2. God appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah.
3. God directed his travel route and disembarkment at the shore.
4. God caused a plant to grow and shade Jonah.
5. God appointed a worm to gnaw at it, and kill it.
6. God appointed a scorching E. wind to vex Jonah.

If anything stands out it is God’s providence. That’s the theme of the book. God is in control not only planning His work, but also working his plan. Indeed, He is deeply interested in all that happens, and personally directs circumstances to assure that His plans and purposes are achieved.

“Wow! Never thought about that. But, you’re right—that’s the most prominent fact in the book. Why hasn’t anyone ever told me that?”

Dun’no; but now you know. I think the fish episode has blinded people to the real message of the book.

“Spose so.”

Visit our online bookstore for all your biblical counseling resource needs.
For biblical counseling training, check out our list of INS Online Courses.

The post Jonah and the Great Fish appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

I like what Chrysostom had to say about the providential care God showed for Joseph in the house of Pharaoh. He points out that Joseph was really in a far worse prison when living in Pharaoh’s household near a wild, lascivious woman than when he was jailed. He sees the imprisonment as blessed relief! Of course, he also goes through Joseph’s entire life to show how, at every turn, step by step, ordering each event, God was working out everything for His ends and Joseph’s good.

Providence, as we have previously noted, is God at work in His world doing those things in both general history and personal histories to achieve goals that, at the time when He is in the process of effecting them, may seem only puzzling or even tragic. That is because we lack the comprehensive knowledge that He possesses. Yet, all the while, nothing is actually meaningless, haphazard or unplanned. The tragic automobile accident in which one life is taken and another spared, was really no accident. It was but one element in the working out of God’s benevolent purpose to every believer that it involved.

But to believe in providence, one must also believe that God is in charge; that He is sovereign over all things and all creatures. If He were not, there could be no providential ordering of events according to a plan that was moving forward toward gracious outcomes for His own. Yet, perhaps in order to preserve some sort of unbiblical freedom for men, some foolishly deny this sovereign sway of God over His creation. In their world, man is the maverick, a loose cannon on board ship. But whenever this is postulated it turns out that man becomes more than he really is, and God less than He actually is. He turns out to be a god foreign to Scripture, and man is jacked up until he become a creature foreign to our experience.

Providence, to put it simply, is the true God doing what He pleases. And, praise Him, the thing to remember is that pleases Him to bless His people!

The post Providential Care appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

But some are not satisfied with that assurance. They want more. They insist on finding out how God is working out good in any given situation. Sometimes it is apparent how God is providentially at work (or at least partially so), but more often than not we are unable to do more than conjecture about it, Paul—an inspired prophet and apostle—at times found that he could not say for sure what God was doing providentially. In the situation in which Onesimus, a runaway slave came to know Christ through that experience, he writes “perhaps” that is why the event occurred (v.15), but (having no revelation of such facts) will go no further. It would do well for us most of the time to do the same. What we have in this little book of Philemon, interestingly, is an inspired “perhaps.”

The post Providence and Reasons Unknown appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

So what do we say? Well, of course many different things—responses that fit each individual situation—but there are some principles (abstract as they may be) that people usually find helpful.

In referring to Paul’s imprisonment at Rome (Philippians 1) we show how God used it to convert soldiers as well as encourage others to go preach. As we open up the passage at some length, the following encouraging principles emerge:

1. God is in your problem
2. God is up to something in your problem
3. God is up to something good

Whether or you are able to see all or even only part of what it is that He’s up to, you can rely on the fact because of Romans 8:28,29.

What is providence? It is the working out of God’s plan by God Himself. Unlike Deism, Christianity teaches that God plans His work,then works His plan. Deists believe that having created the world, He no longer is concerned with it. He wound up the clock, now it can run on its own. Rather, we believe He made and maintains the world. And that He personally does things in it—in particular, in people’s lives.

If you’re in some trouble today, reread those three facts, believer, and you should be encouraged by them—even if ‘right now you can’t see how God is at work in your problem. Some day—now or in eternity—you may understand fully. But it’s your task at the moment—to believe, and look forward to whatever outcome God may bring from it. In the long run, you may even be privileged to discover (as Paul did) what God was up to—and that you will see that it truly is good!

The post Paul (or You) In Prison appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Man simply doesn’t change God’s plans, as that statement indicates.

From all eternity God planned (rather than proposed), and man does what He planned in the first place. Now, this happens in such a way that man does what he intends to do (without any pressure exerted upon him to do it), but it always turns out to be exactly what God planned for him to do.

What man does fulfills God’s plans.

If you don’t believe me consider Genesis 45:5,7 and Genesis 50:20—

Now don’t be worried or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.

God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance.

You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.

Joseph’s brothers had one intention, which they carried out, but God had an entirely different intention—which they also carried out! Both their intentions and God’s were accomplished in such a way that they were rightly held responsible for their actions, and God’s will was carried out by them.

For more biblical instruction in this matter, consider—

this man, delivered up by God’s predetermined plan the foreknowledge, by hands of lawless men, you killed by crucifixion!     Acts 2:23

In this city it is true that Herod and Pontius Pilate together with the Gentiles and people of Israel gathered together against Your holy Servant Jesus, Whom You anointed to do those things that Your hand and Your plan had predestined to take place.  Acts 4:27-28

Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the counsel of Yaweh will prevail.         Proverbs 19:21

Man proposes; God disposes!

The post Whose Plans Are Accomplished? appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.