“At what?”

At anything—or, if you prefer, at everything.

“How’s that?”

Pretty simple as a matter of fact.

“Really?”

Really.

“Please explain.”

Thought you’d never ask. There’s God’s way and there’s man’s way. Every issue in life can be viewed from either perspective. Indeed, we always do view things in one way or the other. The problem is, too often—even Christians—view matters from man’s, rather than God’s perspective.

“Don’t the two ever coalesce?”

Only when man accepts and adopts God’s view of life and how to live it. In Isaiah 55:8, God says “My ways are not your ways and My thoughts are not your thoughts.” That pretty well sums up the problem. We can’t expect God to adopt our ways and our thinking; the only way we can come to agreement is if we make the changes necessary to conform to His thoughts and ways.

“’Tis pretty simple, isn’t it?”

Yep. Except man can’t make the changes on his own. The idea that he can, in fact, is an example of one of those human thoughts that is incompatible with God’s.

“How, then, can he change so as to conform to God’s thoughts and ways?”

Only one way. Junk his own and accept God’s. And that begins by realizing he’s a sinner, condemned by his sin to eternal judgment, and apart from salvation will never change. The change comes when a person believes that Jesus shed His blood on the cross for guilty sinners, and that he is one of those sinners for whom He died and rose from the dead to save him from hell.

“That’s it?”

It’s the beginning. The first thing essential is to recognize that God is right and he is wrong. That happens when God enlightens someone to the truth of his sin and need of a Savior. Then, having been justified by faith (counted righteous in God’s sight because of what Christ did), he is able to continue to refine his thinking and living by studying and following what God says in His Word. As he does, more and more he comes to think the way God does and begins to live according to His will. You see, God gives His Spirit to those who are saved to enable them to understand the Bible and thereby think and live as they ought.

“Sounds like the answer to my question all right.”

Yep. And the answer to the questions of many others who don’t know how to live a life that will lead them to eternal joy and happiness after death.

“But why should men think otherwise?”

Because they’re thinking man’s way rather than God’s.

“Makes sense.’

It does—if your thoughts are like God’s thoughts!

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. The Use of Scripture in Counseling by Jay Adams
5. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
6. Critical Stages in Biblical Counseling by Jay Adams
7. 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:
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The post Two Ways of Seeing appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

“Not sure. Trouble in the world?”

Sure is a problem—but, “basic?”

“I guess not.”

There are two; interested in knowing what they are?

“Somewhat.”

Well, ready or not here they come:

1. GUILT
2. CORRUPTION

“Are you going to explain them?”

Somewhat.

‘Well, OK. Go ahead.”

Adam represented all mankind in his sinful act, so all became guilty before God. The wages of sin is death. If children were not judicially held guilty, they couldn’t die in birth or infancy. Obviously, we are, as Jesus told us in John 3, still under God’s wrath until we believe.

“I can see that. What about corruption?”

Man is born totally depraved.

“You mean as bad as he could be?”

No. no. no. What that phrase means is that every part of man has been corrupted. There is nothing about him that hasn’t been affected adversely by sin. There is nothing in man that can reach out to God; God must take the initiative. Men are born “dead in trespasses and sin.” And dead people don’t respond. So, even when God reaches out, man won’t respond until He also enables him to do so by giving him spiritual life.

“Hmmmm . . . What about the corruption?”

That’s what it’s all about—man’s total inability to do anything to save himself or to please God. Consider Romans 8: 8 sometime. Well, God has a way to deal with each of these two problems.

“Tell me.”

He dealt with guilt by the death of Christ Who bore the penalty for the sin of those who would believe. That takes care of the first basic problem. It’s called “JUSTIFICATION.” When God justifies, it means that he considers the believer as righteous and holy as if he had never sinned. And looks on him as perfect. As to the second basic problem, God deals with that (or, rather, is dealing with that) by means of SANCTIFICATION (separating us from sin to righteousness). God is gradually making us what He already legally considers us to be in Christ. As believers, He is in the process of actually making us more and more like Christ.

“Got it! Neat. God has covered all the bases—and basics!. Have you given me the whole picture?”

I could say a lot more about each issue, but that’s enough for now.

“Do I have all that I need?”

Somewhat, anyway.

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. The Use of Scripture in Counseling by Jay Adams
5. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
6. Critical Stages in Biblical Counseling by Jay Adams
7. 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 Basic Problems appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Sorry—but things don’t work that way.

One grows by grace: 2 Peter 3:16 (another verse for your 3:16 collection).

You see, as he pursues the elements of the lifestyle mentioned in 2 Peter 1:5ff he puts off elements of his old sinful lifestyle and replaces these with new biblical ways. Sanctification is progressive and gradual—never complete until we reach heaven.

There are those who confuse justification and sanctification.  Justification (God declaring one righteous by faith in Christ) is an act of God alone; sanctification is progressive as the Holy Spirit within believers enables them to understand and follow biblical truth (John 17:17).

Once justified, one is justified once and for all—he cannot lose.  It is a legal term—according to God’s court of justice the believer, by faith in the Good news that Christ died for his sins and rose from the dead, has his sins all forgiven and he is reckoned righteous in God’s sight.

Friend, have you been justified? If so, be sure that you progress in your daily growth by God’s grace.

Full sanctification will come at death—but not now.

Check out our online course, Theology and Counseling taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to dealing with problems:

1. A Theology of Christian Counseling by Jay Adams
2. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
3. A Call for Discernment by Jay Adams

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

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

Follow INS on Social Media:
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The post Not Now! appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

To begin, then, let me simply set forth a few lines from John Owen as he is quoted in Shedd. Here is the first, “This remaining corruption,” Owen asserts, “is sin in the heart with a constant habitual propensity unto evil.” Shedd approvingly comments, “This remaining corruption . . . Owen asserts to be of the nature of a habit. . . this sin in the heart hath a constant propensity to evil. . . . In other words, indwelling sin in the believer is of the nature of a habit or disposition, in distinction from an act.”

Then, Shedd continues to quote Owen: “. . . in this habit of sin, one is weakened and so disabled, so that it cannot but incline unto sin, with the constancy and prevalency as formerly, nor pressed as certainly with the same urgency and violence.” (p. 196)

Owen, moreover, comments on the “flesh,” calling it “fragments of the principle [meaning in those days, “power” or “force”] of sin as “the remains of an habitual principle of sin” (p. 209).

Shedd says, “In v. 18 [of Romans 7] the principle of holiness lies alongside of the remaining corruption; here (in v. 21) the remaining corruption lies alongside of the principle of holiness”(p. 213). He further states that “regeneration had freed Paul from the “law of sin and death, but not from the law in his members” (p. 228).

Elsewhere, concerning his use of the term “flesh in Romans 7,” Paul says, that “the figure is taken from the habitual movement of the body” (p. 233), and later (p. 244) writes, “the ‘mortal body’ with its ‘members,’ is put for the entire man as corrupt. The sinful habits and practices of the body are killed in the believer, by suppressing their outward manifestations because of the principle of divine life within him (A very interesting concept that I should like to explore at some other time and place; p. 244).”

Now these quotations may seem a bit disjointed—as, indeed they are—but I have made no attempt to set forth the arguments in these pages. I just wanted to show that the views of flesh and habit that I hold with regard to Romans 7 are anything but novel.

Check out our online course, Theology and Counseling taught by Jay Adams!

Books related to dealing with problems:

1. A Theology of Christian Counseling by Jay Adams
2. Sanctification and Counseling by Jay Adams
3. Christ and Your Problems by Jay Adams

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

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

Follow INS on Social Media:
– Facebook: noutheticstudies
– Twitter: @noutheticstud
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The post Habits in the "Old Man" appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

Solomon loved the Lord by walking in the statutes of his father David (HCSB).

What a clear and explicit statement of how one goes about loving God! These days, there is much confusion about this very point. There are those who would tell us, in near monkish terms, that one loves God by all sorts of personal disciplines and denials. Yet, we find no such things in the life of David—a life, in general, that is mentioned here as exemplary enough to hold up as an example. Of course, David had his faults—which are set forth in the Bible, but for the most part, he was willing to follow God’s commands, and repent when he failed to do so (there are no greater repentance psalms in the Bible than those written by him).

Don’t let anyone tell you that by following man-made restrictions and regulations one best loves God. Col. 2: 23 says it all:

Of course, they have a reputation for wisdom because of their self-imposed worship and supposed humility, and ascetic treatment of the body, but those things are of no value in keeping the flesh from satisfying itself.

God Himself has set forth the terms by which He is served in love. These, here, are termed “the statutes of David.” That does not mean that he set up his own statutes, but that he faithfully followed God’s (for the most part, that is—note the qualification about the high places in this verse).

If you want to love God, you will do as the Lord Jesus (Who never failed to do so) did—you will keep His commandments. Fundamentally, love is not a feeling. Love is giving: “God so loved the world that He gave”; “He loved us and gave Himself for us,” etc. The great commission is explicit: “teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you.” These statements all reflect the same activity, namely, giving.

In the passage from 1 Kings, the word “walking” is the usual Hebrew expression for speaking of one’s lifestyle (or, as we also put it, how one conducts himself). So, John says in his two short epistles that he is delighted to hear how the reader’s children “walk in the truth.” That is, they live lives characterized by God’s truth. And, tying all of this together, he speaks in those letters of “love in the truth.”

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 Love by Life appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

They fail in their endeavors to serve the Lord. They fall in the ways they represent Him before the world. They fall in their relationships with one another. They fall in raising their kids. Face it—Christians fall; there is no denying it. Some pretend—putting on a “good front.” But every discerning believer knows that it is a front and not what is behind it! If you are genuine, you will admit that you fall in many ways, again and again (seven times is not a limiting number here).

Well, what shall we say about it? Is there any hope for us? Can we do better? Yes. First by taking hope. Listen to this:

Though a righteous man falls seven times, he will get up . . .       (Proverbs 24:16).

The words “righteous man” are the OT equivalent for the NT testament “saint.” As you can see from the juxtaposition of “fall” and “righteous” the latter word doesn’t mean without fault!

There is great assurance in this verse—God doesn’t let His children wallow at the feet of the world, utterly defeated. In repentance, believers find the Lord takes them by His hand and lifts them up! Take these reassuring words to heart, believer: they are for you when next time you stumble and fall!

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 Christians Do Fall appeared first on Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling.

This is what the LORD of Hosts says: Ask the priests for a ruling.  “If a man is carrying consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and it touches bread, stew, wine, oil, or any other food, does it become holy?”
The priests answered, “No.”
Then Haggai asked, “If someone defiled by contact with a corpse touches any of these, does it become defiled?”
The priests answered, “It becomes defiled.”
Then Haggai replied, “So is this people, and so is this nation before Me”—this is the LORD’s declaration. “And so is every work of their hands; even what they offer there is defiled.

Haggai 2:11ff is interesting because it gives us important information about sin and righteousness. Here is what it says in interpretation of the Old Testament laws:

1. Sin is contagious
2. Righteousness isn’t.

What should that mean to you?

First, that you won’t become a Christian by growing up in a Christian home. It will require personal faith on your part as an individual.  As a Christian, being among Christians isn’t enough for your growth in righteousness.

Secondly, that if your associations are evil, you can expect some of that evil to rub off onto you.

So—consider this and act accordingly!

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