This Matter of Kinds of Faith

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This cold morning here in McDermott Ohio on this January 09 2015

What about a good glass of green/fruit smoothie: Day 9 without sugar and bread and ice cream.  Coffee with out sugar! Yep.

Yesterday, I rearranged my office a little. I do have a few three ring binders that have notes from sermons and lessons I have taught.

Well our business, Union Mills Bakery has had a good week.  Charity tells me they received an order from a business that is opening  up today. They are going to serve Union Mills cakes and brownies. 

SOME THOUGHT THIS MORNING:

Belief, Unbelief, and Faith
    21 Therefore the Lord heard and was full of wrath; And a fire was kindled against Jacob And anger also mounted against Israel, 22 Because they did not believe in God And did not trust in His salvation. (Psalms 78:21-22

Dealing with today Church programs and  pragmatists, and others who insist that they are Christians while what they say and do is marked as distinctly the fruit of unbelief, can be a very trying experience.

I suppose that is why our enemy will never stop his attacks on those who are called by the name of Christ to discourage and confuse them.

There are only two groups of people in the world. There are Christians, the elect, and everyone else, the non-elect. What separates them? What is the difference?

It is not that different streams of faith color people, which are all equal and going to the same place.

No, that is what the Emergents are selling, but that is most definitely not what God’s Word explicitly says.

No, the difference between those in Christ and everyone else is that the former are possessors of faith, which is the Greek word πιστις, which is transliterated as pistis It and it’s many grammatical forms are translated as “assurance,” “faith,” ”belief,” throughout the New Testament.

Before we define “unbelief,” let us define biblical faith, πιστις, so that we can see very clearly what marks the true believer from the false professor.

Carefully read the following passage my brethren.  Hebrews 3:7-19
to continue…

Counseling

If I am  preaching or teaching  the Word of God weekly:  As I do and currently in  the book of Proverbs, Romans, Luke and First Peter, they  are filled with  enough of  God’s wisdom and instructions to give the Believer all they need to live holy, righteous, how to made sound decisions, how to love one another, how to spend money, how to work, etc. only if they will apply the Word, and  if they would listen and obey they could live a godly life.

Proverbs 1 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

The Usefulness of Proverbs

1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:

² To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,
³ To receive instruction in wise behavior,
Righteousness, justice and equity;
⁴ To give prudence to the ^[a]naive,
To the youth knowledge and discretion,
⁵ A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,
⁶ To understand a proverb and a figure,
The words of the wise and their riddles.

⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

The Enticement of Sinners

⁸ Hear, my son, your father’s instruction
And do not forsake your mother’s teaching;
⁹ Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head
And ^[b]ornaments about your neck.
¹⁰ My son, if sinners entice you,
Do not consent.
¹¹ If they say, “Come with us,
Let us lie in wait for blood,
Let us ambush the innocent without cause;
¹² Let us swallow them alive like Sheol,
Even whole, as those who go down to the pit;
¹³ We will find all kinds of precious wealth,
We will fill our houses with spoil;
¹⁴ Throw in your lot ^[c]with us,
We shall all have one purse,”
¹⁵ My son, do not walk in the way with them.
Keep your feet from their path,
¹⁶ For their feet run to evil
And they hasten to shed blood.
¹⁷ Indeed, it is ^[d]useless to spread the baited net
In the sight of any ^[e]bird;
¹⁸ But they lie in wait for their own blood;
They ambush their own lives.
¹⁹ So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence;
It takes away the life of its possessors.

Wisdom Warns

²⁰ Wisdom shouts in the street,
She ^[f]lifts her voice in the square;
²¹ At the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:
²² “How long, O ^[g]naive ones, will you love ^[h]being simple-minded?
And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing
And fools hate knowledge?
²³ “Turn to my reproof,
Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.
²⁴ “Because I called and you refused,
I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;
²⁵ And you neglected all my counsel
And did not want my reproof;
²⁶ I will also laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when your dread comes,
²⁷ When your dread comes like a storm
And your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you.
²⁸ “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,
²⁹ Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the Lord.
³⁰ “They would not accept my counsel,
They spurned all my reproof.
³¹ “So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way
And be satiated with their own devices.
³² “For the waywardness of the ^[i]naive will kill them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
³³ “But he who listens to me shall ^[j]live securely
And will be at ease from the dread of evil.”

Secular Psychology And Bibical Understanding

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can we say at some  point that the Pastor in his counseling should have some study in secular Psychology ?  Are we saying that the Pastor only needs to know his bible to help people in his church.

 

 

 

 

 

Can we say if a Christians has any of the above signs  perplexed, unclear, disoriented, bewildered, etc. that the Bible can solve his problem?

Should the counselor do some research in to the field of the mind of the person?

Can we use some of the research that has been made into the makeup of people and how the act and why they do what they do and how the body responds in different way?

People who have problems are not always people who are problem people. Thank goodness for that. How many problems can a person have anyway?

How to Define a Problem. Einstein is quoted as having said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and  …

something that is difficult to deal with : something that is a source of trouble, worry , etc. : difficulty in understanding something. : a feeling of not liking or wanting …

Einstein is quoted as having said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution. This quote does illustrate an important point: before jumping right into solving a problem, we should step back and invest time and effort to improve our understanding of it. Here are strategies you can use to see problems from many different perspectives and master what is the most important step in problem solving: clearly defining the problem in the first place!.

A perceived gap between the existing state and a desired state, or a deviation from a norm, standard, or status quo.

That is a secular definition of a problem.

Now what would be a moral problem? There are mental problem: There are problems in dealing with life?  So how do we deal with those problems?

Clyde M. Narramore has a book “Encyclopedia of Psychological problems? I have had the book since I was the pastor of Madison Baptist Church in Minford, Ohio back in 1971-1974. He gives 66 types of problems. One is “human problems” or human behavior!  I need to read this book again.

In his article ‘Why shouldn’t Christians use the methods of men like Freud, Rogers, and others?’ Jay Adams argues erroneously that the methods of unbelievers cannot be separated from the worldview of unbelievers. He goes on to point out that

“There are many who will say that their counseling is Christian and biblical, but the test comes in evaluating what they actually do when counseling. The issue is whether or not they incorporate other beliefs and practices or not. Nouthetic Counseling is based entirely upon Scripture.”

So should we in our training look at other methods that us used to try to help people?

There is a very interesting article that gives a different viewpoint but one that would be good to read, at least it gives what Jay Adams is saying, and then he gives his viewpoint. I don’t necessary agree with Robins’s point put he does have a point.

Bibical Counseling For Living For God

Every person has a life to live and that life is to be lived to the glory of God, that was the purpose of our birth. But as we know man live like they did in the book of Judges: “every man did that which was right in their own life.”

One of the greatest ways to learning how to live the Christian life, is to learn to apply the truths that are found in the Word of God.  And if you are not a Christians then that mean you need to know the Savior.

Life is full of challenging events, daily we have to made decisions that require thinking right, and applying right actions and have the right attitudes. We live every day of our lives having to made choices just how are we going to approach the day.

Most events in our lives are unsuspected to us, they happen so fast and they often throw us off our game of life.

I heard Charles T. Jones say back in 1978

“You are what you have been becoming in the last five years. What you read and who you are around will give you an idea of what kind of person you are going to be and are today.”

You are today what you have become by what you have been doing the last few years of your life. Sometimes we are what we have been in our whole lifetime. You just didn’t arrive at what you are over night.  Life is a process of growing and learning and living, and studying. Learning how to think, how to belief right, and gaining a greater understanding of the truths that we find in the Word of God.  Praying and seeking God’s purpose and will for our lives is a keep for right living.

I have been preaching from First Peter chapter one for the last few months, and its the best biblical counseling that any one could every give anybody. 

Living Before God Our Father¹³ Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; ¹⁴ as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; ¹⁵ but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, ¹⁶ because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.

¹³ Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace  to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ¹⁴ As ^[n]obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, ¹⁵ but  Iike the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; ¹⁶ because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

The preachers responsibility is to teach the word of God, to give its meaning, to help  the people to understanding the text so that they can apply the truth into their daily lives. We are not only to hear the word by to apply the word.