VOICEAN INDEPENDENT CHURCH JOURNAL • SEPTEMBER|OCTOBER 2 0 1 4

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VOICEAN INDEPENDENT CHURCH JOURNAL • SEPTEMBER|OCTOBER 2014

Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dr . Les LofquistDesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Connelly Studio

Volume 93 Number 5

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ContentsFEATURE ARTICLES

3 Importance of Biblical Counseling | Les Lofquist

7 You Can Become Competent to Counsel | Paul Tautges

9 Hope for Hurting Marriages | Steve Cornell

14 Counseling Marital Conflicts | Jim Thompson

16 Training Care-Mentors for Pastoral Survival | James L . Clark

19 The Tragedy of Self-Deception | Gary Gilley

24 A Heart of Condemnation | Joseph P . Smith

IN EVERY ISSUE

23 New Members

26 Death of His Saints

30 Chaplain’s Diary

31 Discipling Children

32 Woman’s Voice

September|October 2014 3

Les Lofquist EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Importance of Biblical Counseling

All throughout church history pastors have sought to help people obey the Word of God in their daily lives and people have

properly sought spiritual counsel from pastors and other godly spiritual leaders. It has always been a vital part of the ministry of a pastor to provide counsel according to God’s Word. The purpose of the Bible-based pastor should be to counsel each individual to become more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, with a Godward focus in every aspect of life (Romans 8:28-29).

The same God who saves us from everlast-ing destruction also brings us into a life that exemplifies His grace here on earth. There is profound transformational power in the life of a regenerated Christian by the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16-23) through the living Word of God (Hebrews 4:12).

The content of biblical counseling should consist of the proclamation of Christ in the Gospel and the implications for living that pro-ceed from the Gospel. The Biblical grounds for counseling are found in verses like these:

• “admonish [noutheteō: “counsel, instruct, warn, confront”] one another” (Romans 15:14)

• “encourage one another” (Hebrews 3:13)

• “encourage one another, and build up one another” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

• “confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another” (James 5:16)

“We who are strong ought to bear the weak-nesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves.” (Romans 15:1)

“Even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:1-2)

Biblical counseling is built on this simple, enduring principle: the triune God has spoken to us through the Scriptures and enables us to grow in grace through the indwelling Holy Spirit. In the midst of life’s battles and hardships, and as we counsel hurting people, Jesus Christ must be the center of all Christian counseling. He is the Creator (Colossians 1:16) and since He is, then who should know more about the human mind, personality, and behavioral change than the Creator? He is the Master Designer of every life.

It has always been a vital part of the ministry

of a pastor to provide counsel according to God’s Word.

2 Peter 1:3-4 teaches that God has revealed to us in His Word (“exceedingly great and pre-cious promises”) everything we need to know about Him, about ourselves, about the world around us. The Bible shows us what is acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior, instructs us how to live and not live. It presents to us clear commandments and principles for us to follow that teach us how to experience genuine behav-ior and personality change. The Bible lays the framework for interpersonal relationships. It gives practical advice on solving family, marital, and personal conflicts. It reveals everything we need for life and godliness.

2 Peter 1:3-4 also teaches that we are “par-takers of the divine nature,” meaning we have a regenerated (new and holy) nature through the indwelling Holy Spirit. At the moment of regen-eration the believer is justified, forgiven, adopted into God’s family and receives a new nature; the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within (1 Corinthians 6:19; Romans 8:9). And with the indwelling Spirit

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of God the believer is given everything needed for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Old things pass away (2 Corinthians 5:17) and the new believer is translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son (Colossians 1:13), placed onto the pathway of holiness. With the Holy Spirit on the inside giv-ing supernatural power and the Word of God on the outside giving supernatural direction, the believer can be everything God wants him / her to be!

So the issue in counseling and spiri-tual transformation really becomes one of authority and power. Who or what has authority? And is there any power to transform lives? For the biblical counselor the authority and power rests upon the Word of God and work of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible and BehaviorThe Bible is a directive book and to

counsel from the Bible is to advise and even more specifically to direct. Biblical counseling is directive in nature. In other words, counseling is not to be vague but specific and direct.

Biblical counseling is not just acting as a “sounding board” but it is warn-ing, challenging, giving advice, guiding, admonishing and even rebuking. That’s the meaning behind noutheteō in Romans 15:14 (“admonish noutheteō one anoth-er”). In our human pride, we like to think we have all the answers and our way is the best. As sinners we suppress the truth of God (Romans 1:18) and we try to reinterpret the universe on the basis that we give all things and events their meaning.  But we need God’s Word to confront us with His answers, His way. And confronting humans in our pride and self-will is not easy.

While admittedly the work of coun-seling is not easy, it’s very much needed. It’s the process by which one Christian restores another to a place of usefulness to Christ in His Church. The command in the Word of God is very clear: we are to “restore” (Galatians 6:1) any brothers or sisters God providentially places in our pathway.

This Greek word in Galatians 6:1 (katartizō) was used by First Century fish-ermen and physicians when they described the mending of fishnets and the setting of fractures. They both called their work “restoration.” A torn net is of little or no

value; the fish easily slip through and are lost. Likewise a broken bone in the arm makes it useless until the broken bone is set. Torn nets and broken arms need to be restored to their former use.

When we counsel, we must seek restoration by asking: “How has this person’s usefulness to Christ been dimin-ished by his problem / his sin?” This goal ought to guide our methods, attitudes and activities in helping the counselee. We counsel not to punish nor to gloat over the person’s sins nor to become voy-euristically fascinated with every detail of their sin. Our sole desire is to bring them to usefulness and victory in the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:23).

When we counsel, we must seek restoration by asking: “How has this

person’s usefulness to Christ been diminished by

his problem / his sin?”

Galatians 6:1 also makes it clear: in restoration there must be the element of compassionate concern and empa-thy (“restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness”) or else confrontation will be sterile, lifeless, cold, professional, harsh, and probably out of a critical spirit. There should be no hint of nastiness or a condescending know-it-all-attitude in the process of confrontation. True biblical counseling starts with empa-thy, communicating to people: “Yes, life is bad. Yes, it’s normal to hurt. And yes, God knows and understands your hurt.” When someone like the great Apostle Paul feels the sentence of death in his own circumstances (as he did in 2 Corinthians 1:8), that should instruct us to stop and acknowledge our counselee’s pain and empathize with them before we rush in with our words of correction or “sunshine and happiness.” That is crucial in biblical counseling.

Elements of Biblical CounselingJay Adams writes the following about

biblical counseling: “It contains three elements: change through confronta-tion out of concern. It presupposes that there are sinful patterns and activities in

the life of the counselee that God wants changed; that this change will be brought about through a verbal confrontation of the counselee with the Scriptures as the counselor ministers them in the power of the Holy Spirit; and that this confronta-tion is done in a loving, caring, familial manner for the benefit of the counselee. There is deep concern.” 1

Biblical counseling suggests that there is something wrong with the person who is to be confronted biblically. It arises out of the fact that there is a condition in his / her life which you can determine (through prayerful listening) that God wants to be changed, based on what the Bible says. The fundamental purpose of nouthetic confrontation then is to effect personality and behavioral change, con-forming to the image of Jesus Christ. God wants His children to change and become more like His Son. So all biblical counseling aims at this kind of change.

Biblical counselors believe that the primary element of spiritual transfor-mation is not inherent in ourselves, but is given to us by God in the form of grace. Grace always propels us towards holiness, goodness, godliness, and righteousness. Without God’s grace, authentic change is unattainable.

Biblical counseling may be defined in short as: 1) meeting the person where he is and empathetically listening to his story; 2) seeking to find the point(s) of pride and sin in his life; 3) graciously pointing out what is wrong and unbibli-cal; 4) helping him obtain the desirable behavioral change through his appropri-ating God’s grace; 5) all of this process based upon prayer, dependent upon the Holy Spirit and directed by Scripture.

But does it work? In the book Counseling the Hard Cases real-life case studies from eleven experienced biblical counselors are reported. Compiled by editors Stuart Scott and Heath Lambert, the introduction states that in the devel-opment of the modern biblical counseling movement over the last fifty years, per-suasive evidence shows that “Scripture is comprehensively sufficient to do ministry with people experiencing profound diffi-culties in their lives.”2 Yes, it does work…just as you’d assume since the Spirit of God and the Word of God are supernat-urally able to accomplish God’s purposes.

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LES LOFQUIST’S ITINERARY

September

7 Grace Bible Church 80th Anniversary, Lansing, MI

12-13 Pioneer Bible Camp Family Retreat, Eden, Utah

15-16 Intermountain Regional, Eden, Utah

26 Calvary Bible College Board Meetings, Kansas City, MO

27-28 South County Bible Church, St . Louis, MO

29 Greater St . Louis Regional, South County Bible Church, St . Louis, MO

October

12 Emmanuel Bible Baptist Church, Plymouth, ME

13-14 Maine Pastors Conference, Plymouth, ME

19 Byron Center (MI) Bible Church

24 Ao-Wa-Kiya Camp 50th Anniversary Banquet, Shelby, MI

30 The Master’s Seminary Chapel, Sun Valley, CA

November

2 AM: Grace Baptist Church, Wilmington, CA

PM: Faith Bible Church, Northridge, CA

11-14 IFCA International Board Meetings, Grandville, MI

16 Potter’s Wheel Bible Church, Zeeland, MI

Life Is HardOne of the ways God accomplishes the

spiritual growth of His children is through refinement by trials and suffering (James 1:2-4). And the world is filled with tri-als and suffering! Sin has affected every aspect of life, especially in the area of human relationships. Misunderstanding, miscommunication, suspicion, unfulfilled expectations, hurtful words, unforgiveness and sinful selfishness are prevalent in all our relationships.

What are we to do when confronted with hardship and pain in our own life or in the lives of our counselees? The non-Christian world says it’s almost hopeless and with an uncertain voice suggests counseling (“talk it out with a coun-selor”) or psychotherapy (“go to a real expert and dig deep into your thoughts, emotions and past experiences through extensive psychotherapy”) or psychotro-pic, mood-altering drugs (“take this pill and it will make you feel better”). In

many cases, counselors and others re-label sinful responses to situations in a way that removes personal responsibility and then prescribe treatment with some psychotropic drug. For example, if your son consistently disobeys your paren-tal authority, he may be diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. This kind of disorder is depicted as some sort of villain maliciously attacking its victim (as if it was a force unto itself). When seen in this light, problems become the cause of debilitation for many people who find themselves lost in a hopeless dependence on secular psychological techniques and prescription medication.

But it must be remembered that the Lord Jesus predicted for us (even promised us) a hard life: “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Life in this fallen and broken world has a way of knocking us down with hurts, disappoint-ments and confusion. I sin against others. Others sin against me. Circumstances

overwhelm us. All of this means we can understand what the Apostle Paul felt in 2 Corinthians 1:8. After telling the Corinthians about the hardships he suf-fered, Paul admitted that the pressure he experienced seemed to be far more than he could endure. He confessed that in his heart he felt the sentence of death and he despaired even of life. Yet in these pain-ful circumstances Paul said he learned to trust “in God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9). God was transforming Paul and growing his faith and trust, in the midst of Paul’s suffering and pain. And God was doing this by means of His supernatural power that raises the dead.

We should not be surprised by trials and troubles, even in a Christian’s life. And we must tell ourselves and everyone we counsel that life is hard. Assuming that God will make life easy is not help-ful for spiritual transformation!  There is a redemptive value in every problem. God can use them for our good and He is far more concerned about our charac-ter than He is in removing the problem.

God Is GoodBiblical counseling must say: “Life is

hard, but God is great and He is good. And you can have hope in Him!” So, taken together, we can say: “It’s normal to hurt, but it’s possible to hope.”  

When despairing even of life in 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, what image of God did Paul emphasize in his own self-counsel?  He focused on the fact that God is great and has worked His supernatural power in raising the dead (overpowering even the most hopeless of all earthly circumstances - death). Paul focused on the God of resurrection. 

This is so instructive for us in biblical counseling! We must commu-nicate to our counselees the truth of 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, that “life will be hard and it will sometimes feel like death.” But we must never stop there. We must also say:  “But God is good. He’s good  all  the time. It may not  feel  like that. But focus on the almighty power of God and on His goodness and His good Word, not on your feelings. Trust Him and obey what He says. See Him as the God who knows you, who sees you, who cares for you, and who uses the hard things in your life to make you a more Christ-dependent person.” 

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We should remind our counselees that through all the struggles and dif-ficulties of life, God is faithful. We can depend on Him to exercise His awe-some power in our lives, accomplishing His purposes in and through us. Now, sometimes  the trials and pain in our life won’t be resolved until the next life, in eternity. And so we must not simply look at life from the perspective of this world of time and space, but rather we must acknowledge some things, perhaps many things, will not make sense until the next life. We must not simply look at life from an earthly perspective but we must look at our lives from God’s eternal perspective. When troublesome circumstances crash all around us and people intend things for evil and they harm and hurt us, God weaves all things together for good (Romans 8:28) and He wants to use those circumstances to mold us into the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). In this world we will have trouble…but take heart! Christ has overcome the world ( John 16:33). So, focus on Jesus Christ, hope in Him and you can have peace. We should hope in God and always obey His Word. 

“Hope in God and obey His Word.” That’s good counsel for anyone. 

Counseling Believers, Unbelievers God, who made everything in the

universe, interprets the meaning of all things and events. He has given to us His written revelation which is neces-sary to explain man’s need for salvation and what He expects of man in this life. As humans, we were created in God’s image as responsible beings (Genesis 1:26-27) and one day every human will stand before God (2 Corinthians 5:10; Revelation 20:11-15) to give an account-ing of the things done in this life. And on that great day of accounting, we will not be able to make excuses before our Creator. This is a sobering reality all too often forgotten by counselees and it is a truth which must be communicated by biblical counselors regardless if the coun-selee is a professing Christian or not.

When counseling professing believ-ers, biblical counselors recognize the chief aim must be grounded in the doc-trine of sanctification, with conformity to the image of Jesus Christ the cen-tral goal. For the believer, in life and in

the counseling process, the f lesh will be the greatest enemy against which he or she must contend (Galatians 5:16-21). The believer must constantly be directed back to the Bible (Psalm 119:9-11) and the power of the Holy Spirit over the f lesh (Galatians 5:22-25).

When counseling non-believers, the chief aim must be to evangelize them with the Gospel of Christ so that the fundamental change necessary for their life might occur.  Once they experience regeneration and are truly born again, the indwelling Holy Spirit begins His life-long work of sanctification and spir-itual transformation …but only then. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is the prerequisite for Biblical change.

ConclusionThe Bible is the only complete and

authoritative source which was written specifically to provide both the answers to man’s behavioral problems and the means for man’s behavioral changes. It is totally sufficient in these areas.

The purpose of the Bible-based pastor or any spiritual leader in the church (whether ma le or fema le) should be to counsel each individual to become more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, with a Godward focus in every aspect of life.

The same God who saves us from everlasting destruction also brings us into a life that exemplif ies His grace here on earth. There is profound trans-formational power in the l ife of a regenerated Christian by the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit through the living Word of God. And all of us, as fallen imperfect people, should thank God for that!

ENDNOTES1. Jay Adams, Ready to Restore - The Layman’s

Guide to Christian Counseling (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992), p. 9

2. Stuart W. Scott and Heath Lambert, eds. Counseling the Hard Cases (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2012), p. 23

You Can Become Competent to Counsel

Paul Tautges

Dr. Paul Tautges served Immanuel Bible Church

in Sheboygan, Wisconsin as pastor for 22 years.

He is a biblical counselor, ACBC Fellow, author

of eight books, and a conference speaker. Paul

blogs regularly at www.counselingoneanother.

com and may be contacted at paul@

counselingoneanother.com.

I am thrilled to be a witness of the rediscov-ery of biblical counseling! “Now in order to rediscover something, it must have been

lost,”1 says David Powlison. Unfortunately, that is true. Powlison explains:

In the nineteenth and twentieth centu-ries, American Christians basically lost the use of truths and skills they formerly possessed. That is, practical wisdom in the cure of souls waned…. The Church lost that crucial com-ponent of pastoral skil l that can be called case-wisdom—wisdom that knows people, knows how people change, and knows how to help people change.2

As a result, Christians sprinkled man-cen-tered psychology with a few Bible verses and called it “Christian psychology.” The outcome has been confusion, hopelessness, and the aban-donment of biblical faith. John MacArthur is right when he says Christian psychology “has diminished the Church’s confidence in Scripture, prayer, fellowship, and preaching as means through which the Spirit of God works to change lives.”3 It is sad to think that God’s Church could lose something so basic and essential as the skill and conviction to use Scripture to help people work through their problems. Yet that is where the American church is. Those who embrace psy-chology as the answer are in the majority by far. There is no reason to pretend they are not. But to know that God is, in our lifetime, calling His people back to His Word as a working manual for life is exciting to say the least. This is what is referred to as biblical counseling.

Biblical counseling is built on the premise that God’s “divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). This was the conviction of the early Christians. They had the godly audacity to believe that man can become complete in Christ without the help of psychologists, psychiatrists, or mood-altering drugs. They believed this because of three basic presuppositions that grew out of their study of the Scriptures. These presuppositions are:

God’s Word is sufficient to deal with every problem man faces

In our day pastors are intimidated by the men-tal health “professionals,” but the early Christians believed there is nothing that man experiences that God does not directly or indirectly address in His Word. They believed that the Scriptures are sufficient to teach us doctrine—truth with a capi-tal T. They believed that the Word confronts us when we get off the right path and then shows us how to get back on it. And they believed that the Scriptures train us to live godly lives so we mature and become equipped to serve God. In short, they believed that:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc-tion, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17).

But to know that God is, in our lifetime, calling His people back to His Word as a working manual for

life is exciting to say the least.

Man is responsible for his own actionsToday, blame-shifting has almost become

a virtue; everyone is a “victim.” But the early Christians had the courage to lay fault at the right doorstep. We often read of people like the fifty-six-year-old man who sued four major fast food chains because of health problems caused by his obesity. Of course, he is not responsi-ble for putting his hand to his mouth. It is the restaurant’s fault! This man is consoled in our society. However, in biblical times he would have received a sermon on gluttony. How refreshing it is when the light of truth pierces so sharply through the thick cloud of man’s deception! One particular Scripture comes to mind:

“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempt-

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ed by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren” (James 1:13–16).

The Holy Spirit is the “Agent of Change”

These days, men pay good money to be told that they are hopelessly victim-ized by their past or their DNA, but the early Christians freely dispensed the hope found in the Gospel and were confident of the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit. As we take our eyes off ourselves and put them on Christ we are changed into His image by the Spirit of God. “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

These core beliefs naturally led the early Christians to practice what is referred to as nouthetic counseling. The nouthetic approach to counseling grows out of two New Testament words: nouthe-ses and noutheteo. The words mean “to warn, to admonish, or to exhort.” They imply an aspect of confrontation so as to effect change. Jay Adams asserts that this approach to helping people contains three basic elements.4 First, it presupposes a need for change, that there is something in the life that God wants changed. Second, problems are solved by verbal means; that is, the stress is placed on “what”—“What is wrong?” and, “What needs to be done about it?” The Word spoken in encourage-ment, admonishment, or rebuke renews the mind, which leads to transformation of life. Third, the purpose for counseling is always that the counselee benefits by seeking to change that in his life which hurts him. When this kind of ministry is examined in the New Testament, three principles become obvious.

Pastors are required to counsel and equip others to be counselors

Pastoral ministry involves constant admonition. No matter how hard we may try, pastors cannot get out of coun-seling people. The Ephesian elders were told to remember: “that for three

years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears” (Acts 20:31). Those were not tears of joy, but grief, anguish, and concern. Paul’s corrective letters to the Corinthians were moti-vated by his love and concern for them (1 Corinthians 4:14). He accepted con-frontation and teaching as steps in the process of presenting people to God as “complete” in Christ (Colossians 1:28 NASB) and referred to this kind of min-istry as intense “labor” (1 Thessalonians 5:12). The pastor’s responsibility to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:12) also includes the task of training fellow believers to counsel biblically.

Every believer is expected to be a counselor

The ministry of counseling is not only for pastors. In fact, every believer is expected to be involved in it to some degree. The Apostle Paul was confident that well-taught believers are “able to counsel one another” (Romans 15:14 NASB). A growing Christian with a love for, and a working knowledge of, Scripture is a far more competent coun-selor than a trained psychologist with three degrees hanging on his wall and several initials behind his name, whose confidence is in man-centered theories and practices.

Effective counseling is the product of being richly indwelt by the Word of God (Colossians 3:16), not the theo-ries of Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung. Far from giving pat answers like, “Take two Bible verses and call me in the morning,” biblical counseling requires wisdom and compassion from God because real people have real needs (1 Thessalonians 5:14).

The local church is the intended and ideal place for counseling

God has also provided the ideal env i ronment where l ives may be changed. It is not an accident that the commands to counsel one another are found in letters to local churches. The apostles assumed every believer would be a faithful member of a local body of Christ and the New Testament never even entertains the idea of a Christian not being accountable to a group of fel-low believers. The book of Hebrews,

written to a local body of Jewish believ-ers, stresses the immense value of this relationship: “and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another” (Hebrews 10:24, 25).

The local church is the ideal place for developing a counseling ministry. It is also the ideal place for you to be trained to counsel others. If you are not already, get involved with a vibrant, Bible teaching church where you can mature in Christ and be equipped to serve others.

ENDNOTES1. John MacArthur and Wayne Mack, eds.,

Introduction to Biblical Counseling (Dallas, TX: Word, 1994), p. 44.

2. Ibid., 45.

3. Ibid., 4.

4. Jay E. Adams, Competent to Counsel (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), pp. 44, 45, 49, 50

This article is a chapter reprint from Delight in the Word by Paul Tautges, used by permission from the author.

Steve Cornell

Steve Cornell is Senior Pastor of Millersville

(PA) Bible Church. He has a wide-ranging

ministry on radio, in newspapers, among

university students, and at Bible Conferences. See

more of his articles at thinkpoint.wordpress.com

When I became a pastor more than thirty years ago, I was untested by realities that come with years of

experience. I looked forward to sharing life-changing truths of Scripture with a congregation eager to learn. My heart was set on leading a church into spiritual growth, but I was unaware of the complicated lives I would encounter.

The most challenging and unexpected experi-ence of pastoral ministry was the front row seat to martial crisis. I quickly learned how complicated and painful life is for those who endure failing marriages. When a marriage deteriorates, it becomes a context for many destructive behaviors (anger, selfishness, manipulation, immaturity, irrationality, foolishness, dishonesty, betrayal, hatred and bitterness).  When children are caught in the mix of these behaviors the complications and pain multiply rapidly. Helping a failing mar-riage is one thing; leading a family through it with the aim of protecting children is another. 

Many who endure a failing marriage see divorce as their only solution. Yet while obtain-ing a legal divorce is relatively easy, it almost always results in an emotional bombshell. No matter how much a divorce is anticipated, it is more painful than most imagine.

On a personal level, divorce involves guilt, anger, insecurity and a shattering of self-confidence. Socially, it complicates interper-sonal relationships - especially when children are involved. Financially, divorce is almost always a lose-lose. Don’t be fooled. Divorce is never an easy solution to a troubled marriage. And studies reveal that divorce commonly leads to lifelong challenges for children.

Many marriages in our churches and com-munities are barely holding together. I’ve observed how the pressures and challenges of life often lead to patterns of marital neglect. The termites that eat away at marriage relationships include neglect, complacency, assumptions, tak-ing each other for granted, growing negativity and a general loss of goodwill. 

Many husbands and wives do not enjoy the meaningful companionship they long for primarily because they are unwilling to invest the time and effort necessary. Marriage sim-ply cannot be a mutually satisfying relationship without intentional and consistent effort.

The termites that eat away at marriage relationships include

neglect, complacency, assumptions, taking each other for granted,

growing negativity and a general loss of goodwill. 

A more troubling reason some marriages don’t survive is a refusal to seek help. Those who find themselves in extended or repeated marital difficulty usually need the assistance of a wise counselor to navigate toward healthy marriages. Wives are typically more willing to seek coun-sel than husbands. The male ego has often held many couples captive in marital misery.

Don’t be like the fool depicted in Proverbs. He was doomed to foolishness because he refused to accept correction and counsel. There are many godly, Scriptural-based, seasoned counselors who can help you understand and work through obstacles that are keeping you from meaningful companionship.

If your marriage is in trouble and your mate is unwilling to recognize it, at least seek help for yourself. Ask God to use your marital difficul-ties to refine your character and strengthen you (Matthew 7:2-5; James 1:2-5).

One preventive measure we took at our church was to include a statement in every mem-bership interview of married couples. We tell them that we like it when married couples can work through their challenges on their own. Yet sometimes, a couple hits a wall in their rela-tionship that causes deeper challenges. If this

Hope for Hurting Marriages

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happens, we encourage the couple to come for help sooner rather than later.

The first time I practiced this, the membership interview became a mar-riage counseling session. If we had never said anything, I doubt the couple would have revealed their deep problems. We would have received them into happy membership without the transparency and sincerity that ought to distinguish Christian fellowship.

Five Relationship CommitmentsAfter more than thirty years of mar-

riage and raising four energetic children, my wife and I have learned many lessons about marriage. The road has not always been smooth but we have made some basic commitments that have helped us. I recommend five basic commitments essential to healthy marriages.

1. We are teammates not opponents. Marriage is based on togetherness. We must not allow dividing forces to separate us. There are three social rela-tionships in your home: Parent/child + sibling/sibling + husband/wife.

The on ly permanent relat ion-ship in your home is the third one: your marriage. We must prioritize this relationship in a way that encourages our children to value and respect it. Children build much of their identity and security on the strength of their parents’ marriage.

We live in a society that promotes individualism, but in marriage we must look beyond the “me” to the “us.” We must diligently protect ourselves from dividing forces.

Family life goes through a variety of phases (e.g. parenting small children, young adolescents, teens, adult chil-dren). The potential changes that come with age, income levels, and fam-ily circumstances require f lexibility and making necessary adjustments to protect marital unity. We are on the same team! Let’s work together!

Here are some important questions to consider: • What have you allowed to become a

dividing force in your marriage? • Are you too busy or too pre-occupied

with hobbies or entertainment? • Have you allowed bad attitudes or

uncontrolled anger to drive a wedge

between yourself and your mate? • Are you too proud, or too selfish to be

a good teammate? • Are you too much of a critic and fault

finder? • What changes could you make to

bring team unity to your marriage? Here are some passages of Scripture

to ref lect upon: • “Two are better off than one, because

they can work more effectively. If one of them falls down, the other can help him up…Two people can resist an attack that defeats one person alone. A rope made up of three cords is hard to break” (Ecclesiastes 4:9,12).

• “Live in harmony with one anoth-er.   Do not be proud…Do not be conceited (Romans 12:16).

• “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18).

• “Do everything without complaining or arguing” (Philippians 2:14).

• “It is to a man’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel (Proverbs 20:3).

2. We will value and respect each other. In the only pre-marital meeting with the pastor who officiated at our wed-ding, the pastor looked at me and said, “The graces you used to win her love, you should use to keep her love.” Wow! I have not always done a great job ful-f illing that challenge. In courtship, I tried extra hard to treat my future wife with value and respect. Yet over time, it became easier to grow complacent and to take each other for granted. As a “typi-cal man” for example, I do not always listen to my wife as well as I should. I must recognize that lack of listening often communicates disrespect.

Husbands and wives must work hard to stay in tune to each other’s needs. Encouraging words, well-timed com-pliments, thoughtful notes, a simple hug - these are little but meaningful ways to show that we value and respect our mates. “I appreciate how hard you work around the home.” “I realize that your job has been stressful, let me know how I can help.” “Thank you for… [then name something specif ic].” These are ways we can communicate value.

Here are some important questions to consider:

• Can you identify ways that you have not treated your mate with value and respect?

• What specif ic steps do you plan to take to communicate how much you value and respect your mate?

Here are some passages of Scripture to ref lect upon: • “However, each one of you also must

love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband (Ephesians 5:33)

• “Husbands, in the same way be consid-erate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers” (1 Peter 3:7).

• “The fear of the LORD teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor” (Proverbs 15:33).

3. We will acknowledge self ishness. Selfishness is enemy number one to a good marriage. A wise counselor once said, “There are two kinds of people in the world, the givers and the takers. A marriage between two givers can be a beautiful thing. Friction is the order of the day, however, for a giver and a taker. But two takers can claw each other to pieces within a period of six weeks. In short, selfishness will devastate a mar-riage every time.”

I encourage young couples to preface their acknowledgements of wrong with the words, “It was very selfish of me to…” or “I was only thinking about myself when…”  Many people have allowed self-ishness to destroy their marriages.

Here are some important questions to consider: • Do you tend to demand that things go

your way in your marriage? • Do you always have to be right when

you discuss matters with your mate? • Are you easily threatened by or overly

sensitive to criticism from your mate? • Are you generous with your time and

resources? • How have you displayed selfishness in

your marriage? Have you ever acknowl-edged selfishness to your mate?

Here are some passages of Scripture to ref lect upon: • “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or

vain conceit, but in humility consider

others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of oth-ers. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:3-5).

• “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:16).

• “An unfriendly man pursues self ish ends; he def ies all sound judgment (Proverbs 18:1).

4. We will keep our physical relation-ship active and satisfying. Sexual intimacy is part of marriage. Most men would like it to be a bigger part of their mar-riages. Frankly, I believe that attention to the f irst three commitments will improve your sexual relationship. In other words, sexual problems are often indicators of other problems.  This area of the marriage relationship, like all others, requires open communication. Marriages with communication prob-lems often have many other problems.

One major threat to sexual relation-ships in marriage is pornography. Far too many men are addicted to pornogra-phy. Viewing pornography is sinful and it distorts, perverts and places unrealistic pressures on normal sexual relationships in marriages. The primary source of por-nography is the Internet. If you have a problem in this area, I recommend that you either terminate your access to the Web or join an accountability group like Covenant Eyes (note: their program could also protect you from allowing por-nography to become a problem). We must keep our sexual relationship healthy in our marriages. Do not allow neglect or other issues to ruin sexual intimacy.

Here are some important questions to consider: • Have you given proper attention to

your sexual relationship? • How could you improve this area of

your marriage? • Have you allowed other relationship

problems to negatively affect your physical intimacy?

Here are some passages of Scripture to ref lect upon: • “The husband should fulfill his marital

duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s

September|October 2014 11

body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:3-5; also see Proverbs 5-7).

5. We wil l s tay c lose to God . Remember: “a rope made up of three cords is hard to break” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). The “third cord” of a meaning-ful and lasting marriage is God.   As husbands and wives cultivate their rela-tionship with God individually, they will make a strong contribution to their marriages. We were made by our creator to live in a personal relationship with him. He has graciously opened the way for this to be possible (John 3:16-17).

We strengthen our relationship with God by listening to him as he speaks through the Scriptures. This can be done by reading Scripture, sitting under Bible teaching and reading books that explain and apply Scripture. We also cultivate our relationship with God by praying to him (i.e. offering up praise, thankfulness and requests to God) and through fellowship with other believ-ers (i.e. being vitally connected to a local Church). As husbands and wives cultivate their relationship with God individually, they make strong contri-butions to their marriages. Visualize a triangle with husband and wife at the lower corners and God at the top. The closer you move toward God, the closer you move toward each other.

On a practical level, it helps mari-tal unity when husbands and wives put themselves under God’s authority. On many issues, it isn’t my opinion that mat-ters or my wife’s idea, but God’s view. A husband or wife who continually exam-ines his or her life according to God’s standards will become a better mate.

Here are some important questions to consider: • Have you grown spiritually complacent? • What steps do you plan to take to

improve your walk with God?Here are some passages of Scripture

to ref lect upon: • “Love the Lord your God with all

your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the

f irst and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38).

• “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

Communication Covenant for CouplesI have shared with many mar-

ried couples the following eight point communication covenant to be made between a husband and wife.• We will express irritations and annoy-

ances we have with one another in a loving, specific and positive way rather than holding them in or being neg-ative in general. (Ephesians 4:15; 1 Peter 4:8; Romans 14:13)

• We will not exaggerate or attack the other  person during the course of a disagreement.  (Ephesians 4:32; 5:1-2; 1 Peter 3:8-11)

• We will attempt to control the emo-tional level and intensity of arguments. I.e. No yelling, uncontrollable anger, or hurtful remarks. ( James 1:19-20; Proverbs 14:29; 15:1; 25:15; 29:11)

• We will “never let the sun go down on our anger” or never run away from each other during an argument. (Ephesians 4:26-27)

• We will both try hard not to inter-rupt the other person when he/she is talking. As a result of this commit-ment, there will be no need to keep reminding the other person of his/her responsibility, especially during an argument. (1 Corinthians 13:4)

• We will carefully listen when the other person is talking, rather than spending that time thinking up a defense. (James 1:19; Proverbs 18:13)

• We will not toss in past failures of the other person in the course of an argu-ment. (Mark 11:25; Colossians 3:13)

• When something is important enough for one person to discuss, it is also important for the other person. (Philippians 2:3-5)

What If You Don’t Feel Love?But what would I say to a husband

or wife who no longer feels any love in their relationship? What if you don’t feel in love anymore?

A wife once told me that she planned to leave her husband because she “ just didn’t love him anymore.” She refused

12 VOICE

when I asked her to change the way she worded her decision by saying, “I am choosing not to value my husband and to break my commitment to him.”  She preferred to see herself as a victim of feelings she couldn’t change. She  actu-ally thought her decision was noble because she was being honest about her feelings. After all, she didn’t want to be a hypocrite. This has led me to ask some questions about the nature of love.

What is love? Is it something we can fall in and fall out of? Is it chemistry? Infatuation? Is it an emotional response or a choice? I’ve concluded that we must distinguish two dimensions of love.

1. Being in love. This dimension is the emotional attraction of love. It’s what people mean when they speak of “falling in love.” It’s usually based on more superf icial reactions to appear-ance and first impressions. Clearly, it’s a natural part of human attraction and although not necessarily wrong, it’s not enough to sustain a meaningful and last-ing relationship. It’s far too superficial. Marriage is not about being in love; it is an agreement to love.

Deeply satisfying relationships are built on the second dimension of love.

2. Behaving in love. This dimension does not depend on feelings and chem-istry. It’s a choice to respond to my mate in a loving manner - regardless of feel-ings. This dimension of love is a choice to value my mate and seek his or her best. While I can’t always make myself feel a certain way, I can always choose to act in a loving way.

The distinction between these two dimensions is very important in mar-riage. Most marriages start with a high dose of being in love and in most rela-tionships these feeling diminish with time. When this happens, the key to keeping the f lame of love burning is not the pursuit of feelings - but a decision to value your mate and be devoted to his or her best - no matter what one feels. 

Behaving in love is a choice to act in love even when we don’t feel love. I am not advocating dishonesty. But it is a matter of priority. When we choose to love, the feelings often follow our actions!

Cultural Obstacle to LoveHave you noticed how “being true

to your feelings” has become a mea-

sure of good character? One who fails to act consistently with her feelings is frequently considered dishonest and hypocritical. This cultural standard is often used to give people a false sense of virtue when breaking deep commit-ments. Using this standard of avoiding hypocrisy and being honest enough to admit a loss of feelings, married peo-ple justify (and even consider virtuous) breaking their wedding vows.

Love must be understood as a value

word and an action more than a feeling if we hope to experience deep and lasting relationships as

intended by God.

There is a deeply self-destructive deception in this line of reasoning. It implies that we are victims of our feelings instead of being capable of mas-tering them. Feelings come and go with changes in the weather. Do you go to work only when you feel like going? Do athletes or great musicians only practice when they feel like it? We simply cannot live healthy and productive lives if we let feelings master us. This is especially true in relationships.

Love must be understood as a value word and an action more than a feeling if we hope to experience deep and last-ing relationships as intended by God.

God demonstrated His love for us not because we were a warm and lovable group of people whom he couldn’t resist. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  This is the love husbands are commanded to show toward their wives (Ephesians 5:25).

Ref lect often upon the distinction between being in love and behaving in love. Share this with your family and friends, in small groups and with those preparing for marriage.

How Can We Know What Love Is?Is there a way to know what love is? Is

love something we can fall into and out of? If someone says, “I love you,” what

does he mean? What should he mean?When couples want to get married,

they tell me they love each other. When they want to get divorced, they tell me they no longer love. What’s going on here? Are we victims of love? Or, can we choose to love, even learn to love?

Love is indispensable to marriage, family and community. Relationships are mediocre to miserable when love is absent. In Scripture, husbands are com-manded to love their wives (Ephesians 5:25); Older women are to train younger women to love their husbands and chil-dren (Titus 2:4) and communities of Christians are to be distinguished by their love for one another (John 13:35).

All of this assumes there is an objec-tive way to understand what love looks like. It also assumes that living a life of love is possible. But how can we identify true love?

The Best Description of LoveEvaluate your love based on the best

definition of love available to humanity in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. The fourteen qualities of love listed there offer the best available description of love. This text remains one of the most quoted Scriptures in wedding ceremonies. It takes love to the streets where it can be lived in action! Reflect deeply and often on this description of love.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

This is God’s prescription for great relationships. Especially notice that this love has nothing to do with rivalry. When practiced, it protects relationships from destructive conflict. Playful rival-ry is not bad. But when a relationship deteriorates, some form of ugly and divi-sive rivalry is always involved. If we are commanded to love one another, living this way is within our reach (through the strength of the One who loved us first, our great Savior, Jesus Christ (1 John 3:16-18; 4:7-11, 19).

1. Love is patient:  It is long-suffer-ing. It restrains anger when provoked.

Patience is more than passive waiting. It is active restraint that rests in God when provoked by circumstances or people (Romans 12:17-21; Ephesians 4:26-27).

2. Love is kind:  It reaches out in good will with acts of care and con-cern for others. Love not only patiently forebears, but through kindness it actively pursues. Loving people are dis-tinguished by their kindness (Ephesians 4:32; Titus 3:1-5).

3. Love does not envy:  It does not resent the blessings of others. Envious people engage in evil rivalry. The envier gloats over the harm or misfortune of the one envied. She or he delights in evil.

4. Love does not boast: Love corrects the desire to call attention to oneself. A loving person is not a windbag or brag-gart. He does not parade himself. Love is willing to work anonymously. It needs no limelight or stage, applause or recognition.

5. Love is not proud: It is not puffed up, not arrogant, not full of oneself. A loving person does not think more highly of himself than sober judgment dictates (Romans 12:3).

6. Love is  does not dishonor oth-ers:  It is  not rude. It  is respectful of others.

7. Love is not self-seeking:  It does not insist on its own way. It is not self-absorbed.

8. Love is not easily angered:  It is not easily agitated nor easily provoked. Loving people are not hot-tempered, short-fused people.

9. L ove keeps no record of wrongs: Love seeks forgiveness and rec-onciliation. When hurt badly, this part of love is hard to practice.

10. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth:  This rules out gossip, slander, and delight in the down-fall of others.

And the grand f inale:  love always protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres. In a staccato of four verbs enriched with repeated emphasis on how love brings everything under its influence, we learn that “there is nothing love cannot face” (NEB). “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance” (NLT). Love is tenacious and faithful. Love is brave and noble; it never fails.

Love is “the most excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31). “These three

remain:  faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). “Over all virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14).

When we realize that God is love, the personal nature and greatness of love takes on powerful significance. God’s love was put on display when He loved the unlovable, when “we were still sin-ners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus offered a living example of love. In Jesus, the Creator became a creature; the King became a servant; the Shepherd became a lamb; the Sinless one was made sin for us; the High Priest became the sacrifice (Philippians 2:3-10).

“Often we speak about love as if it is a feeling. But if we wait for a feeling of love before loving, we may never learn to love well. The feeling of love is beautiful and life-giving, but our loving cannot be based in that feeling. To love is to think, speak, and act according to the spiritual knowledge that we are infinitely loved by God and called to make that love visible in this world.  Mostly we know what the loving thing to do is. When we ‘do’ love, even if others are not able to respond with love, we will discover that our feelings catch up with our acts.”1

ConclusionOnce again, many marriages in our

churches and communities are barely holding together. The pressures and challenges of life often lead to pat-terns of marital neglect. Watch out for the termites that eat away at marriage relationships including neglect, compla-cency, assumptions, taking each other for granted, growing negativity and a general loss of goodwill. 

The fact must be reiterated that many husbands and wives do not enjoy the meaningful companionship they long for primarily because they are unwilling to invest the time and effort necessary. Marriage cannot be a mutually satisfying relationship with-out intentional and consistent effort.

This article contains some impor-tant godly, Scriptural-based counsel to help you understand and work through obstacles that are keeping you from meaningful companionship. But don’t be like the fool depicted in Proverbs who was doomed to foolishness because he

refused to accept correction and coun-sel. And if your marriage is in trouble, recognize it and ask God to use your difficulties to refine your character.

END NOTE1. Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A

Daybook of Wisdom and Faith (San Francisco: Harper, 1997)

September|October 2014 13

While doing hospital visitation, I over-heard a conversation in an elevator between three nurses. One of the

nurses was getting married and she was talking about her excitement in getting married. She made the comment, “I am not going to move everything I own to the house, just in case this doesn’t work.” It occurred to me, she was not planning for the marriage to succeed. In fact, quite the contrary, she was planning for the mar-riage to fail.

This seems to be the attitude of many today. We have prenuptial agreements and contingency plans in case of marital failures, and all of this is to make it easier to end the marriage. In his clas-sic book, Communication: Key to Your Marriage, H. Norman Wright states: “That once perma-nent bastion of security and ‘til death do us part’ commitment has become for too many an impermanent gamble lasting ‘til divorce seems convenient.’”1

Marriage counseling tends to be, for the most part, an exercise in futility. Most couples have made up their minds before they even begin the counseling process. Most counselors/pastors find this attitude frustrating and tend to give up on the couple. Perhaps a counselor/pastor would never say he gives up, but in reality, he does not try as hard or put the effort into seeing the marriage reconciled. If marriage is as sacred as the Bible says it is (and it is), then we who are involved in marital counseling should never give up, knowing that God can mend any relationship. As a coun-selor/pastor, we need to get couples to understand the T.R.U.T.H. concerning marriage.

Timing is extremely important to reconciling a marriage. Most couples wait too long before they recognize they have a problem. In some cases, by the time counseling is sought, lawyers have already been contacted and divorce papers have been filed. If you see a warning light on the dash of your car, you would not ignore it; you would seek to find the cause. Some couples see the warning light, but choose to ignore it

until it is too late and residual damage has been done. It is imperative to recognize a problem in the marriage early so help, if necessary, can be sought and the marriage can be salvaged. I remember counseling with a particular couple in my church. I was meeting with the man alone to get his “take” on things. After about the fourth meeting, he informed me that the court hear-ing was in two months. He had already filed for divorce. We need to communicate to couples the need to talk to a pastor and/or a counselor early, when the warning light first appears.

Timing is extremely important to reconciling

a marriage. Most couples wait too long before they recognize

they have a problem.

Responsibilities within a marriage are impor-tant to understand. One responsibility is that each spouse must know his/her own function within the marriage. There are two extremes. The man is the master of his home and makes all decisions, regardless of what his wife thinks. The other extreme is that the man can’t make any decisions and his wife is left “running” the home. Both of these are unbiblical. While the Bible does com-mand the man to be the head of his home, he is also required to love his wife as Christ loves the Church (Ephesians 4:25). This means he is to make decisions based upon the welfare of his wife and family, not just what is good for him. The wife in turn is to submit to her husband as unto the Lord (Ephesians 4:22), knowing that her husband has her welfare in mind. Although it is not always easy to fulfill these God-given roles, we must remind the couple that they have a responsibility to honor God in their marriage. As a counselor/pastor, we must teach these respon-sibilities to our couples. They must understand

Counseling Marital Conflicts

Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson is a member of IFCA

International Board of Directors, IFCA

Conciliation Committee and is Senior Pastor

of Wilton (AL) Bible Baptist Church. He may

be reached at <pastor-jimthompson@gmail.

com>

14 VOICE

that being the head and submitting work hand-in-hand. They work in conjunction with each, and are not separate functions.

Another responsibility we find in the marriage is in the area of communica-tion. A lot of conf licts are primarily due to poor communication skills. The reality is, most couples have not learned how to communicate properly. There is a cycle of communication important for every couple to learn. It begins with one doing the talking while the other is listening. For the cycle to be com-plete there must be a response from the hearer. Then and only then will com-munication have taken place. It is wise to teach our couples to listen and to learn to ask the right questions of their spouse. By asking questions, it is dem-onstrated that what was said has actually been what was heard. This tends to add clarification and in most cases, defuses an otherwise argumentative situation.

Unselfish attitude on the part of each one in the relationship will pre-vent major conf licts in the marriage. Our society, for the most part, is self-centered and self-serving. If what I am doing does not benefit me then it is not worth doing.2 Couples who are selfish tend to be the couples who require more attention. I would have to say that in my many years of experience as pastor, this has been the number one problem I have faced while counseling couples. Sure, there have been communication problems, children problems, money problems and the list goes on. But the one common denominator in all of them is a selfish attitude. Both spouses have to have their own way, or it is the high-way. There is little if any compromise. But this is one time when compromise is good. No one likes to lose an argument, because losing appears to be a sign of weakness. So then stubbornness sets in.

It is the role of the counselor/pastor to recognize when one or the other is being selfish. He must be able to dis-tinguish between genuine need and a selfish need. I remember with one cou-ple, I initially thought the woman was being unusually mean and non-sup-portive of her husband, but after several counseling sessions, it became apparent that the man was putting demands upon his wife that were unwarranted. When she would not meet those demands, he

accused her of not caring and having no concern for his welfare. He was being selfish and was causing undue stress in the marriage. Once this was dealt with, the conflicts in the marriage became far and few between.

Trust is another big issue in mar-riage. The attitude of our culture seems to be a lack of trust among people. With all the heads of church and religious organizations falling into sin, people become fearful of putting their trust in anyone. This has found its way into our marriages. Many marriages have ended due to a lack of trust. The attitude that he/she is “out to get me” seems to be prevalent. I remember one couple where the wife thought everything the hus-band did was to “get even” or to “hurt her.” She had zero trust in this man. It did not matter what he did, whether standing on the other side of the room talking to someone else and assuming they were talking about her, or being late coming home from work and think-ing he had made a secret rendezvous with another woman. This lack of trust often comes from one’s upbringing.

Many couples have no example to follow from their childhood. Their par-ents did not provide security to help them develop trust and in most cases, their parents were divorced and they were shuffled from one home to another. This plays a major role in the develop-ment of trust. As a counselor/pastor, it is imperative we help our struggling couples develop trust in each other. 3

Holiness is the key to solving most, if not all problems in the marriage. None of the above is possible without the practice of personal holiness by each spouse. When the counselor/pastor first meets with a couple, their personal rela-tionship with Jesus Christ should be examined immediately. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, most efforts will be done in the f lesh and nothing good can come from the f lesh.

The Conciliation Committee of IFCA International has developed an excellent handbook on how to respond to conflicts Biblically. In this handbook, the section entitled “Understanding Conf lict and Our Responses to It” addresses the source of every con-f lict, which is the heart. The same is true in the marriage. The reason why

Christians are getting more divorces is ref lected in the condition of the heart. In the marriage ceremony, we establish the fact that marriage is a sacred insti-tution established by our Lord and is therefore not to be entered into light-ly but soberly. If the goal is to glorify Christ in the marriage, and both are liv-ing holy, pure lives, then there is no conflict that cannot be resolved.4

ConclusionMarital conflicts can be resolved. A

counselor/pastor should never give up on any couple. After all, Christ never gives up on us. But he should remember to help the struggling couple to learn the T.R.U.T.H. Timing, Responsibilities, Unselfishness, Trust and Holiness must be understood to make a marriage hon-orable to our Lord. It is the role of the counselor/pastor to assist our couples to know this T.R.U.T.H. May God be glo-rified in our marriages!

END NOTES1. Wright, Norman H., Communication: Key to

Your Marriage, G/L Publications, 1974

2. We are seeing this self ish attitude played out in our churches by the way we worship. Hedonism, the need and drive for pleasure, has played a major role in formulating worship services, and if it does not satisfy, then it must be wrong. There is no wonder this attitude has found its way into our marriages, it per-meates all we do in many of our churches.

3. Developing this trust must begin with a per-sonal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is understood that if trust is an issue within a marriage, it is due to a poor understanding of their relationship with Christ. The counselor/pastor must begin with Christ and move for-ward to discuss the marriage.

4. See 1 Peter 1:13-16

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The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:11-13, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be

evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

Pastors certainly resonate with Paul’s statement. But pastors should also ask, “How can I make this happen in a practical way in my church?”

The purpose of the church is not to do what other groups can do, but to do what no other group of human beings can do. The uniqueness of the church is that it is comprised of every member gifted by the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 12:11) with the God-given responsibility to use effectively and passionately the spiritual gifts for ministering one to another that lead to maturity (Christ-like character, Romans 8:29) and works of service.

The Church recognizes that the ultimate solution for human needs is the good news of Jesus Christ and the change He makes in peoples’ hearts and lives. God’s method is to use people equipped with the knowledge of the Word of God and empowered by the Spirit of God to bring about healing and  restoration, based upon biblical solutions, to those in need. When the “body of Christ” begins to function as God intended her to function, the outcome is revealed through a healthy, mature, caring com-munity worshipping God and giving Him the glory due to His name!

Past studies and research have indicated that when Christians are in trouble, they first turn to their community of faith to seek help. Results of research studies done by Hiltner and Colston and published in 1961 in their book, The Context of Pastoral Counseling, con-cluded, “Other things being equal, counseling proceeded faster in a church context. Why? Parishioners knew where the pastoral coun-selor stood on important theological issues

and values as well as the support base of the community of faith.”1 Although the research is quite dated, I believe their premise is still true.

It is obvious today that the pastor is inun-dated with people in his church and community who are hurting. Such hurt could be due to their own sin, poor decision-making, immaturity, or physical and emotional pain, as well as suffer-ing inflicted upon them as the result of someone else’s sin against them.

It is obvious today that the pastor is inundated

with people in his church and community who

are hurting.

My Experience as a Pastor and ChaplainDuring the years that I ser ved as a

pastor and chaplain in several chaplaincy posi-tions (Community College, Prison, and Fire Department), I ministered to all kinds of people experiencing pain and grief. I have to admit that it gave me a sense of personal satisfaction to counsel and shepherd such people and assist them as they went through the recovery process. After all, I believe that is the calling of the pastor.

I faithfully studied the Word of God as it related to human need. I read books on counsel-ing, even to the point of getting a doctorate in biblical counseling. I attended workshops, semi-nars, and conferences on the subject. In a way, I wanted to be the “expert,” the one who could help them with whatever problem they faced. I realized that it can be a prideful temptation when church members seek out the pastor, when they refer people to him, because he is the one equipped to minister to the needs of the members.

However, after time with the weight and burden of all the duties of the pastorate, I became weary and tired of the treadmill I had

James L. Clark

James Clark is President of Calvary Bible College & Theological Seminary

in Kansas City, MO. For many years, Jim

was Professor at CBC and taught biblical

counseling.

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Training Care-Mentors for Pastoral Survival

September|October 2014 17

created for myself. One statistic  I read indicated that the average pastor spends an average of six to nine hours a week counseling. I was exceeding that, and it was not getting better. It was obvi-ous I had not even contemplated the concept of equipping the saints for ser-vice. My response was, “We need to get bigger as a church before we can hire another ‘expert’ to do what needs to be done.” I’m not opposed to increasing the staff (I had an associate pastor myself) but I am opposed to circumventing the equipping of church members to do ministry by replacing them with anoth-er staff member.

The Apostle Paul took great pains to present a different approach. He wrote, “Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it.” Peter underscored the significance of this prin-ciple in 1 Peter 2:9, 10: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his won-derful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.”

I finally took this Scriptural princi-ple to heart, and during the latter part of my pastoral ministry, I began redirect-ing my energy and time to equipping the saints. The question became obvious to me, “Why should church members refer people to me as their pastor, no matter the size of the problem, when they could participate themselves in ministering to the needs of their fellow man?” It became clear to me that they weren’t equipped to do such a thing. I heard people say to me, “Pastor, I wish I could help someone with their problems when they speak to me other than saying, ‘I’ll pray for you; in the meantime why don’t you call our pastor for help?’ ”

The Example of MosesThe counsel and wisdom of Jethro to

Moses is quite appropriate here. Jethro observed the unduly heavy load that Moses was carrying in meeting with and dealing with the needs of all the people. Jethro spoke to Moses and said, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone” (Exodus 18:17-18).

Jethro’s solution was for Moses to select capable men from all the peo-ple—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officers (Exodus 18:21). Following in verses 22 and 23, Jethro states the solution: “Have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” Now notice how Moses responds, as recorded in verse 24: “Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.”

With this in mind, I began train-ing the leadership (elders and deacons) in a counseling, discipleship, and men-toring ministry. From there I did the same with other church positions such as Sunday school teachers, youth work-ers, children’s ministry workers, etc. This was followed by training a group of care-mentors who could do biblical counseling and discipleship to assist me with the needs of the people. The church became a shared ministry, a col-laborative effort to fulfill the words of Paul in Ephesians 4:11-13.

A Plan for Training Care-MentorsIn considering a plan to train a group

of care-mentors who could do biblical counseling and discipleship, I would like to suggest a few guidelines.

1. You need to train leaders in the church and know the specific areas in which they can effectively counsel and mentor. Assign them appropriately to people who have needs in those areas.

2. Prior to arranging a mentor for an individual in need, the pastor must seek the approval from that individual before the plan is set in motion.

3. The pastor not only delegates his trained people to assist him but he also monitors their progress. This provides accountability between the pastor and the mentor. Do not turn people over to some-one without supervision. Remember, the church members must always know the pastor’s first concern is his flock.

4 . A s se s s t he mentor ’s g i f t s , strengths, and personality. Matching the mentor appropriately with a member in need is crucial. The pastor will take into

consideration the personalities of both the mentor and the member.

5. The pastor will never mix gen-der, matching male mentors with female mentorees or vice versa.

6. A timeline must be enacted and held to by the mentor. The involvement between the mentor and member should last no more than eight weeks. If it is a good experience between them, there is a temptation to just keep meeting, even though the problem or issue has passed.

If the pastor spends the time to organize and monitor such a training program, his ministry will be extreme-ly enhanced, and the members of his church will be excited about being part of such a caring, mentoring ministry.

Will all the people follow through after being trained to be care-mentors? No, but more counseling is done by way of informal counseling than formal. Therefore, they will always use in some form or fashion whatever training they receive.

I, of course, did not have the corner on the market when it comes to equip-ping the saints. Churches are catching the vision and incorporating similar programs, using effectively the body of Christ in their local settings. I’ve been privileged to continue equipping students at Calvary Bible College and Theological Seminary. I’ve been blessed to see the graduates of our biblical counseling program impact the local church by estab-lishing training programs for counseling.

One such example is the “Counselor’s Edge,” a group serving as church coun-selors and mentors throughout Kansas City, serving over 10,000 people collec-tively. I’m aware of many Bible-believing churches throughout the country and around the world that are doing similar ministries, effectively using the Word of God to bring about change in the lives of people.

ConclusionTo the pastor, I advise you to

evaluate your ministry and consider multiplying such ministry through your people.  To the church member reading this article, I encourage you to go to your pastor and volunteer your services to be trained as a care-mentor. Once the pastor gets up from the f loor after hearing your announcement,  may the

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Lord develop through you a great minis-try of meeting the needs of God’s people in your church and community.  By so doing, your church will be taking a step in the right direction in applying Ephesians 4:11-13, and perhaps it will establish the longevity of your pastor’s ministry by helping him actually survive the rigors of the pastorate.

ENDNOTE1. Hiltner, S. and Colston, L. G. The Context

of Pastoral Counseling. Nashville; Abingdon, 1961.

The power of the human mind to deceive itself seems infinite.”1 The Greek phi-losopher Demosthenes said, “Nothing

is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be truth.”2 In his Confessions Augustine wrote, “Man’s love of truth is such that when he loves something which is not the truth, he pretends to himself that what he loves is the truth, and because he hates to be proved wrong, he will not allow himself to be convinced that he is deceiving himself. So he hates the real truth for the sake of what he takes to his heart in its place.”3

The fact that we are easily self-deceived should surprise no Christian for, as the inspired prophet Jeremiah wrote centuries ago, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is des-perately sick, who can understand it” (Jeremiah 17:9)? Jeremiah quickly adds “I, the Lord, search the heart and I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” (v.10). However, this deceit-ful heart, which each of us inherits as a result of the fall, leaves us in a bit of a quandary. How are we supposed to function so as to walk authenti-cally before the Lord? If even the best and most sincere can be deceived by their own hearts, then how can we have confidence that any of our actions, thoughts or motives are pure? How can we be sure that we are not deluding ourselves no matter how hard we try to live in integrity?

It must be admitted that there is a sense in which we cannot have absolute assurance that we are living above pretense. I have often pondered a response Paul made to the church at Corinth. As they examined, and apparently criticized, Paul he confessed that “I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord” (1 Corinthians 4:3b-4). Paul’s conscience was clear. He believed himself living a virtuous life, but the final arbiter was not his conscience nor his personal evaluation but the Lord. This especially

referenced his motives which Paul says the Lord will “disclose” when He returns (v. 5). Motives are notoriously tricky to discern and even Paul did not always have a handle on his, so it does not surprise us that he warns his readers not to try to determine the motives of others. As the Lord told the prophet Samuel, “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appear-ance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). Scripture often calls for the people of God to examine the lives and teachings of men, but heart exams belong to the Lord alone.

If even the best and most sincere can be deceived by their

own hearts, then how can we have confidence that any of our actions,

thoughts or motives are pure?

We are people with deceitful hearts, and at times incomprehensible motives. How then can any of us hope to live in such a way that we please God? The key is the infallible revelation found in Scripture. James perhaps explains it best when he compares the Word of God to a mirror,

“But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:22-25).

The only means we have to free ourselves from habitual self-deception is the mirror of the Word of God. The Scriptures reveal God’s objective standards by which we can examine

Gary Gilley

Gary Gilley is Senior Pastor of Southern View

Chapel in Springfield, Illinois. He has served

in various ways as a member of IFCA

International for many years. His blog Think

On These Things is available at www.

svchapel.org

September|October 2014 19

The Tragedy of Self-Deception

“

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our actions, thoughts and even motives, to determine if they are in compli-ance with righteousness. It is for this reason that the Lord gives us such a large Bible. If we were to determine our standing before the Lord by feelings and guesses we would be drifting on a sea of subjectivity. God has graciously not abandoned us to such folly but has given us clear detail and understanding in the ways that He would have us live. We are to examine ourselves in the light of God’s mirror and determine if we are living as He desires. And this examina-tion is not just in general but in great detail. Every area of our lives is given careful attention in Scripture so that we might live with assurance before our Lord. Let’s look at some specifics.

FinancesWhile often not recognized as such,

finances are an area in which self-deceit is prevalent, especially in more aff luent nations such as the United States. For example, an article posted on Yahoo.com laments the ruin of America’s middle class as a result of the recent recession.4 The middle class, it is claimed, lost $7.38 trillion in wealth mostly as a result of the bursting of the housing bubble. The article places blame on the government and claims the rich have recovered but the rest of us have not. The problem stems from the acceleration of the value of houses. As houses gained in value the wealth of the middle class did as well, but 90% of the middle class’s net worth was wrapped up in its homes. As the value of their homes soared many borrowed heavily against their equity to the tune of $2.3 trillion, much of these funds going to purchase cars, boats, vacations and f lat-screen televisions, among other things. When the bubble burst millions lost everything because of their debt level. They had purchased houses they could not afford with the hope that the value of real estate would continue to escalate. When values took a nose dive many lost their homes and found they were hope-lessly in debt because of the spending spree that they had been on for years.

While I can certainly sympathize with anyone who has gone through such difficulties, I found it interesting that the article placed no blame on those

who incurred excessive debt to purchase things they did not need. The under-lying assumption was that the middle class, whose income had failed for many years to keep pace with inflation, turned to the one appreciating item in their portfolio (their home) and tapped into its equity to fund their material wants. Plenty of blame can be laid at the feet of bad economic policy within our gov-ernment and greedy banks, but surely a great deal of blame lies with the indi-viduals who purchased homes beyond their means and accumulated excessive debt to fund their materialism.

The very fact that I used the word materialism, and some of my readers no doubt found it offensive, shows our self-deceit. Few Christians in f inan-cial trouble are willing to admit that their budgetary woes spring from over-spending because they desire things they neither need nor can afford. There are real exceptions to this statement but after many years of doing financial counselling, I have found that money problems stem far more often from outgo than from income. Said another way, it is often not what people make but what they spend that makes the differ-ence in their financial picture. And what people spend many times directly relates to how much they value both money and things. We would be wise to examine carefully what our spending habits tell us about what is really going on in our hearts in relationship to wealth.

Fortunately, the Bible has much to say about money, and those following a biblical financial plan were not as like-ly to suffer as much during this recent down turn (recognizing, of course, that there are notable exceptions of those who were victims of faulty informa-tion, lack of financial understanding or unavoidable circumstances). First, in the context of money, our Lord commanded us not to store up treasures on earth but rather in heaven, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:19-21). This is not a wholesale condemnation of saving or investing or wealth per se, for other Scriptures view all of these things in a positive light when rightly understood. But Jesus wants us to know that our heart’s desires are determined by what we treasure, and when we f ind ourselves clinging too

tightly to “stuff ” we can be certain that our hearts are out of tune with God’s.

It should be further recognized that while the Scriptures do not condemn all debt they certainly lay out a conservative and careful financial pattern. For exam-ple, they call for systematic saving (“He who gathers money little by little makes it grow” Proverbs 13:12), rejection of get-rich schemes that seem too good to be true (“He who pursues worthless things lacks sense” Proverbs 12:11), gen-erosity with our resources (“God loves a cheerful giver” 2 Corinthians 9:7; see also 1 Timothy 6:18), distrusting the uncertainty of riches (1 Timothy 6:17), and wisdom about the deceitfulness of riches (Mark 4:19).

It was not many generations ago that mortgages were rare or virtually non-existent in America. Now most people borrow for everything from automobiles to education to vacations to a new ward-robe and think nothing of it. This is self-deception fueled by the “American Dream” and greed. Christians follow-ing the biblical paradigm for handling of money will live much differently, give more graciously, enjoy what they have more fully and avoid more finan-cial anxieties than those who follow the crowd and the current attraction to riches (see 1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17, 19).

AngerScripture never condemns anger

per se. As a matter of fact we are given examples of appropriate, godly anger in the life of Jesus and a number of His fol-lowers, and we are actually commanded to “be angry” at times (Ephesians 4:26a). Obviously if God is angry at sin it cannot be wrong for believers to be angry at the same sins. Righteous anger reacts against actual sin, not against inconvenience or violation of personal preference. Righteous anger, instead, is concerned about the Lord and His glory. It is focused on what offends God and injures others, not about what harms the angry person. Righteous anger is self-controlled and concerned for the good of others.

The problem is fallen creatures, such as we are, f ind it most difficult to be angry to the right degree, over the right issues, for the right amount of time. It is for reasons that the Lord tells us, “Be

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angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity” (Ephesians 4:26-27). Lingering anger morphs into bitterness which poisons the soul. Satan, in some manner not explained in the text, takes prolonged anger and uses it as an opportunity to wreak havoc in the life of believers.

Most would give hearty agreement to the teaching and warning found in this passage and yet many, simulta-neously, will harbor various forms of anger against people in their lives. How do they justify such action? Some will def ine anger in terms of major blow ups or intense hostility yet overlook the fact that strong frustrations, irritabili-ties, surliness, pouting, and grouchiness are merely other forms of anger. It is because we refuse to recognize such atti-tudes and actions as sin that we can deceive ourselves into believing we are not angry. We all know Christians who ignore other believers, refusing to talk to them, yet will loudly protest that they are not angry. They will rationalize that because someone is wrong they no lon-ger want anything to do with them. But angry? – not they.

In addition, we tend to justify our anger. We tell ourselves that we have the right to be angry because someone has mistreated us. We claim that we are more than willing to forgive but not until the other person makes the first move. We say that the other person deserves our anger for how they have behaved. Such attitudes ref lect a natu-ral way of thinking but not a biblical one. Speaking in the context of wis-dom, James tells us that earthly, natural, demonic wisdom is characterized by bit-ter jealousy and selfish ambition – that is, our thoughts are all about ourselves. But godly wisdom is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering and without hypocrisy” (James 4:13-17). In Ephesians 4:31-32 Paul lays the matter out very clearly, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” Colossians 3:12-14 calls on the chosen and beloved ones of God to “put on a

heart of compassion, kindness, humil-ity, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” It is when we exam-ine our lives in the light of Scriptures such as these that we begin to see our-selves clearly. Under such scrutiny our excuses and rationalizations are exposed and we see what is really in our hearts. Unless we do so our sinful anger will often masquerade as virtue leading us progressively into deeper sin. Because of all the reasons, justif ications and excuses believers conjure up for continu-ing in their anger, angry people do not recognize they are angry. They are self-deceived. When faced with the mirror of God’s Word they tend to look away and claim their situation is an exception. Such is the nature of self-deception.

It is when we examine our lives in the light of Scriptures such as these

that we begin to see ourselves clearly.

ForgivenessClosely related to anger is the issue of

forgiveness. Prolonged anger is often the result of lack of forgiveness against a per-ceived sin, real or imagined. When we have been wounded by another the Word suggests two possible courses of action. Often we can simply cover the offense with love. First Peter 4:8 commands, “Keep fervent in your love for one anoth-er, because love covers a multitude of sins.” And Colossians 3:12-13 reads, “Put on a heart of compassion, kind-ness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.” The implication is that we don’t have to go to the mat over every issue and offense. We all sin in many ways and, while often the loving thing to do is to confront, sometimes the best course of action is to recognize the weakness of those around us, refuse to be offended

by their sin, and bathe them in love. We must be careful that this option is not used as a loophole to avoid the biblical pattern of helping an individual walk in righteousness, for our goal should be the good of the other person. But surely on many occasions the best action to take is to cover his sin with love and refuse to let that sin affect us.

The second course of action may overlap to some degree with the first, but it is broader in scope. Romans 12:14-21 speaks of a situation in which we are facing a true enemy. Someone is sin-ning against us and has no intention of turning from that sin. As a matter of fact he may rather enjoy the grief he is causing us. What are we to do then? In general, the teaching of Romans 12 is that we are to love our enemies and overcome evil with good. “Bless those who persecute you”, Paul writes, “bless and curse not” (v. 14). There is never a time when we are to be unkind, snub someone, or be bitter toward another. Instead we are, “Never to pay back evil for evil to anyone… We are never to take our own revenge, but leave room for the wrath of God” (vv. 17, 19), who has promised to repay when injustice has been done. On the positive side, we are to feed our enemy if he is hungry and give him a drink if he is thirsty (v. 20a). Why? Because by doing so, “you will heap burning coals upon his head”(v. 20b). By calling on us not to “be over-come by evil, but overcome evil with good” (v. 21), Paul calls for victory over the sinful activities of others by use of the weapon of good. This is the concept behind Romans 12:20. We are to do good to our enemies; we are to overcome evil with good. Those who are won by our kindness will enjoy the favor of God and reconciliation with us. Those who continue in their mean-spirited activities will face the vengeance of God, appar-ently in increased intensity because they have continued in their sins even while being treated with goodness.

This passage, however, would have us focus not on the other person and his sins, whatever they might be, but on our actions and ourselves. Whether the one intending our harm responds well or not is beside the point. We are commanded to do right no matter what the other person does. If the offender refuses our

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kindness, and attempts at reconciliation, we place him in the hands of God. As believers our goal is always reconcilia-tion with a brother or sister (Matthew 18:15-20). If reconciliation is impossible because the offender refuses to recognize his sin and repent, we do not have cause to sin in turn. Reconciliation has been our goal and desire, but at this point it has not materialized. Still we treat those who have offended us with a Christ-like attitude. Even when reconciliation is not possible the spirit of forgiveness is. In the light of Scripture, to hold a grudge, treat with contempt, or return evil for evil to those who are harming us, even those who are our “enemies” (Romans 12:20), is wrong. To not live in the spirit of forgiveness is to allow the sins of oth-ers to cause us to sin as well. Yet, just as with anger, the unforgiving person can easily deceive themselves into believ-ing they have forgiven when down deep they continue to hold an offense against another. I remember a former elder of our church telling the other elders that he forgave an offense (that they had not committed by-the-way) but he could not forget. That man left self-deceived.

GossipScripture has a great deal to tell us

about our speech and warns, “We all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a per-fect man, able to bridle the whole body as well… The tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity” (James 3:2, 6). With such an indictment against the tongue we are not surprised that our words are the source of many problems. Proverbs 10:18 says that “he who spreads slander is a fool,” while Proverbs 16:28 warns, “Slander separates intimate friends.” Slander, and its close cousin gossip, is a familiar battle stemming from the hearts of all of us (Matthew 15:18). We all know that it is wrong, especially when it is directed toward us. But when we are on the giving end it is most easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that gossip is nec-essary and justified. After all, we reason, we are only spreading that which is true (at least from our perspective). Or, as someone said to me recently when I con-fronted them on gossip, “I just wanted to see if others agreed with me before I went to the person I was talking about.” We

might even convince ourselves that we are doing good by giving a “heads-up” about a troublesome person.

While there may be a time to warn others, since Jesus told His disciples to be aware of the leaven of the Pharisees, it is all too easy for us to slip into destruc-tive talk that inflicts wounds in the lives of the ones we are talking about and the ones we are talking to. Scripture gives us clear instruction for the use and control of our tongue but before we examine the instructions we need to first identify the real problem – the heart (once again). When we find ourselves tearing down the reputation of others (Proverbs 10:18; 11:9), spreading tales (Proverbs 11:13), saying stupid and evil things (Proverbs 15:2, 28), attempting to manipulate (Proverbs 7:21), or being contentious (Proverbs 21:9), we know that the real problem is not with our speech but with our hearts. Jesus said, “The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false wit-ness, slanders” (Matthew 15:18-19). The problem is that the heart wants its own way, wants to look good and important, and wants to protect itself. When threat-ened the heart comes out swinging. It is for this reason that James informs us that the source of our conflicts is that we desire things we do not have (or need); we are envious of those who have these things and we fight and quarrel because of this dynamic. And even when we ask God for some of these things, the Lord does not provide them because our motives are wrong – we are asking for selfish reasons (James 4:1-3). The real battle in all of this takes place in our hearts. And whatever controls our hearts controls our words. If our own selfish desires control us then we will be angry at anyone who keeps us from getting what we want. And that anger will often come out in words.

Therefore when we f ind ourselves spreading tales, gossiping or embroiled in verbal conflict we do well to look at what is going on in our hearts. But the Lord does not leave us with a subjec-tive, inward look at the heart. He equips us with specific instruction on dealing with speech related issues. One of the simplest, most straight forward, and eas-

iest is to go to the one with whom we have concerns first. Jesus demands, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother” (Matt 18:15). It doesn’t get much plainer than that but if we obeyed this injunction much hurt could be avoided. We tend to come up with many excuses as to why we cannot comply with this simple instruction but those who have examined their hearts and want to conform to God’s will must take this very seriously.

In addition Ephesians 4:25-32 pro-vides four principles that are of great help to those who want to resolve con-flict rather than create or spread it. These principles are commonly found in the biblical counseling arena, and so are not unique to me in this form. The first is honesty, “Therefore, laying aside false-hood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor” (4:25). A few verses ear-lier, in a different context, Paul calls on Christians to speak the truth in love (4:15). That is, our goal should be lov-ing communication which seeks the best interest of others. Care should be given not only to what we say but also how we say it. Next, we are to stay current, “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity” (4:26-27). Many of our problems with people stem from the fact that we have not dealt with issues quickly but rather have allowed them to build up causing deeper and more complicated struggles. Satan, according to the text, somehow takes advantage of these open wounds to throw more obstacles in our way. Before long we are spiraling into deeper anger and bitterness. God’s solution is to keep short accounts. While others may not always make it pos-sible to live in harmony, still, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” (Rom 12:18).

The third principle gets to the heart of speech problems. It tells us to “attack problems not people” (Ephesians 4:29). Paul writes, “Let no unwhole-some word proceed from your mouth.” Unwholesome literally means “rotten” and speaks of tearing someone down with our words. Instead we should say “what is good for edification.” Edification means that which builds up; rather than tear people down with our words we

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should seek to build them up. This action is further qualified with “according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” We should be looking for opportunities to give grace to those around us (i.e. that which is unde-serving), not tear them down.

Finally, we are to act rather than react (Ephesians 4:31-32). In these verses Paul supplies a number of sinful choices that we are to put away: bitter-ness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice. These are to be replaced with kindness, tender-heartedness, and for-giveness in proportion to how the Lord has forgiven us. As we look at our own lives and recognize the inf inite love, mercy and forgiveness that the Lord has poured out on us it should be our desire to ref lect that love, mercy and forgive-ness to others. How obedience to these teachings would radically change the way we speak about and treat others.

When we continue to spread gos-sip we do so because we have convinced ourselves, even in the face of Scriptures such as these that we have a right to speak about others in this manner. This is self-deceit.

DoctrineSince most of my Think on These

Things articles are devoted to chal-lenging false teaching I will say little here, except to point out that the very best theological deceivers are deceived themselves. Following a long section describing the characteristics of false teachers (2 Timothy 3:1-9) Paul says of them, “But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived ” (v. 13, emphasis mine). The punishment from God for being a deceiver is to ultimately believe our own lies. Those lies may have been learned from others and promoted by the father of lies himself, nevertheless because a person has accepted these lies and taught them to others, they will come to believe their own deviant doctrine.

But Paul offers the remedy to such beliefs and lies, and once again the rem-edy to self-deception is found in the Word of God. He immediately calls on Timothy to “continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of,” things he has learned from Paul him-self (v. 14), and from the Scriptures (v.

15). Then the apostle offers that classic section on the inspiration of Scripture telling Timothy that “all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (vv. 16-17). We are able to identify false teachers and teach-ing only by examining what is being taught through the lens of Scripture. Many today are imprisoned in a world of doctrinal self-deceit. And because they believe lies they live lies. God calls us, as He did Timothy, to examine all things in light of His infallible truth.

ConclusionWhen I make coffee I usually put

coffee grounds in the filter. If I forget to put in grounds I come back to find the carafe filled with plain water, but if I put in grounds I will soon be enjoy-ing a nice cup of coffee. The results depend on what is in the f ilter. Self-deception works much the same way. If my life is poured through a filter of self-deception I unwittedly live out a lie. But if my thinking, actions and motives are poured through the filter of God’s revelation my life will become real, authentic and genuine. Left to my own devices I live in self-deception. Reliance on God’s Word should ensure that I live as God intended.

END NOTES1. Charles Farah as quoted by David Hunt,

Beyond Seduction, (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House, 1987), p. 12.

2. Demosthenes as quoted by Os Guinness, Time for Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), p. 116.

3. Augustine as quoted by Os Guinness, p. 117.

4. h t t p : / / f i n a n c e . y a h o o . c o m /banking-budgeting/article/113086/bubble-destroyed-middle-class-marketwatch

This article originally appeared in Think on These Things (August/September 2011 - Volume 17, Issue 4). Used by permission.

We Welcome theseMen & Churchesto our Fellowship

o

New Members

Mr . Roland M . EklouOneonta, NY

Mr . Jody D . MarvinBelding, MI

Mr . Grant G . NollmannLancaster, TX

Mr . James P . WhiteStillwater, OK

Churches/Organizations

Southeast Church Extension PO Box 604Remington, IN 47977

Joseph P. Smith

Joe Smith graduated from Moody Bible Institute and

pursued a Master’s degree in Hebrew at the University

of Wisconsin, Madison. He pastored in Wisconsin and

Minnesota and planted churches in Michigan. He

also served as Hospital Chaplain and Bible

Institute professor. He now serves as Director of IFCA

Hospital Chaplains.

The hospital cafeteria wasn’t ideal for pri-vacy, but the general din covered quiet conversation. So I wasn’t surprised when

a nurse stopped by my booth and asked, “May I sit with you?”

Ministering to staff wasn’t part of a chap-lain’s job description, but all professionals deal with people who want “curbside” opinions. Although I don’t want to interfere in a staff member’s relationship with his/her pastor, there are times when help from an outsider can be use-ful. So I always stood ready to help staff seeking short-term intervention. “Cafeteria Counseling” wasn’t unusual.

I knew this nurse’s reputation as a hard-work ing caregiver. The downside of her personality was that she rarely smiled and car-ried a perpetual aura of sadness. I invited her to sit opposite me in the booth.

“I really wanted to ask you something,” she said. “Ok. I’m all ears,” I answered.“The other day I heard you say to a patient

that a person could know that he was going to heaven. That doesn’t seem possible to me. It’s hard enough to feel forgiven for the things you’ve done. But also, there are things you will do, or at least might do that will need to be forgiven. Can you be sure you’ll be forgiven in advance? You don’t know if you’ll repent and confess, asking for forgiveness.”

That seemed to be quite a mouthful. So I replied, “You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you? Is this a theoretical question, or are you personally concerned?”

“I guess it’s personal. I try to be honest with God, but I just don’t feel like I have the right to talk to Him. I try to confess my sins, but I don’t feel forgiven.”

“How long has this been happening?”“As long as I can remember. I asked Jesus to

be my Savior when I was in the Beginner’s Class, but I just can’t feel comfortable with God.”

“Have you talked to any other pastors about this?”“Yes. I’m a graduate of a Christian college,

and I tried to figure this out with the counselor there. He didn’t help. So when I graduated and went back home, I talked to my pastor. Then I talked to my husband’s pastor when we were in pre-marital counseling. And when we moved here, I sought out the pastor of the church where we attend.”

The downside of her personality was that she rarely smiled and carried a perpetual aura of sadness. I invited her to

sit opposite me in the booth.

“That’s a lot of counselors! Do I know any of them?”

She told me a long list of names, many of which I knew. All of them had a good reputation.

“Those are good pastors,” I said. “If they couldn’t help you, I’m not sure I can. But then, I don’t know you. Tell me about yourself.”

“There’s not much to tell.”“So what was growing up in your home like?”

I asked.“It was a pretty gloomy place. My father was

kind to me, but he was so sad.”“You didn’t mention brothers and sisters.”“No. I was an only child,” she replied.“What about your mother?” I asked.“My mother died in childbirth.”Guess what child, I thought.“What did these other pastors tell you?”“They all said that Jesus had died on the

Cross to pay for all our sins. And we can be for-given of all of them because the penalty for them has been paid. God is ready to forgive us if we come to Him in faith.”

“Do you believe that?”“I guess so. But why don’t I feel forgiven?”“Did anyone ever blame you for the death of

your mother?”

A Heart of Condemnation

24 VOICE 24 VOICE

September|October 2014 25

“Oh, no. Not really. One time a neighbor told me, ‘Your father must love you very much.’”

I said, “Why do you say that?” “Because he gave the most precious

thing he had for you.” he said.I sat stunned. If all your friends were

this thoughtless, you wouldn’t need enemies.“How did your father feel about your

mother’s death?” I asked.“He never got over it. He never

seemed to enjoy anything. He hardly left the house except to go to work and to church. He came right home. There were many nights when he would just hold me and cry. I hugged him and pat-ted his back, but nothing I could do made him feel any better.”

I couldn’t hold back the tears. I cov-ered her hand on the table with mine. I said, “Listen to me. I have something very important to tell you. Do I have your full attention?”

“Yes.”“I need to impress on you that God

will NEVER forgive you for your moth-er’s death!”

“What!” she interjected. “I never imagined you’d say that!”

“Well, there’s a very good reason He won’t. Are you listening to me? God won’t forgive you for that because you’re not guilty of that. He takes the issue of sin and forgiveness very seriously. Sin is what ruined the whole world. But He’s also a just judge, and there’s no way a newborn baby could be guilty of the death of anyone. You don’t need forgive-ness for this. You need to let that truth sink in. You’re not guilty of your moth-er’s death, so forgiveness can’t fix it.”

She had the look of a deer, caught in the headlights. Thunderstruck, is the word that came to mind. I watched her try to process this new idea. She wasn’t ready to speak.

But I was. “You’ve carried this for a long time. This false idea has been reinforced over and over by your father’s sadness. It’s gone on for your whole life-time. There are two things that cause feelings to be entrenched in our persona. The first is how young you were when it began. And the second is how often it has been reinforced in your mind. This started as early as ever happens, and has been reinforced thousands of times. You’ve had the maximum exposure to

this lie. It may take a long time for the truth to overcome this. But the good news is God will see that it does, if you go to him in faith.”

She reached her other hand toward me, and I covered it in mine, laying both on the table. “Would you mind if I pray for you, right here and now?”

She nodded, and I was sure that meant she wouldn’t mind. I prayed that the truth would set her free. I asked for healing that only the sense of God’s love could bring. I asked that the lies of the enemy of our souls would be exposed, and that she could experience the joy of salvation.

We finished our lunches in silence. As I got up, she reached out to me and thanked me. A year later, she brought her own newborn to the department to show us all the joy God was bringing to her life.

Excerpt from Joe’s book Tales from the Toe Tag Chaplain available at Amazon.com or the IFCA Home Office

26 VOICE

sCharles R. Svoboda

R e v . C h a r l e s Svoboda, aged 94, of Downers Grove, IL entered heaven’s

shores on June 17, 2014.  He was born in Chicago on August 8, 1918 and was born again during an evangelistic tent service in July, 1941 (along with his future wife Eleanor) under the ministry of William McCarrell of Cicero (IL) Bible Church.

Precious in the

sight of the Lord

is the death of

His saints. Chuck served with the U.S. Armed

Forces in World War II in North Africa under General George Patton and in Italy under General Mark Clark. He was part of the forces that liberated Rome in June 1944, for which a grateful Pope Pius XII singled our Chuck’s unit for a personal audience in the Vatican (Chuck was only one of four men out of nearly 200 in his unit who did not kneel to the ground in front of the Pope). Chuck par-ticipated in four major military invasions and was an Anzio Beach Survivor.  He eventually ended his three years of over-seas duty in France and Germany. 

5Death of His SaintsP

Rev. Melvin Raymond (Ray)

R a y p a s s e d i n to the presence of his Savior Jesus Christ

on May 10, 2014 surrounded by his loving family. Ray was born April 7, 1933, in Bremerton, WA, graduat-ing from Bremerton High School in 1951. In 1955 he graduated from the University of Washington and then enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was sta-tioned in Germany where he served for two years. Ray then attended Dallas Theological Seminary, graduating in 1962. He was then commissioned as a Chaplain (1st Lieutenant) in the U.S. Army. Ray became a member of IFCA in 1964.

In 1965, Ray accepted the position of Pastor of the Liberty Lake (WA) Community Church where he served for 24 years. He then pastored at Deer Park (WA) Community Church for 5 years, followed by 12 years as Visitation Pastor and Pastor to Senior Adults at Valley Fourth Church in Spokane Valley, WA.

In recent years Ray was a blessing to many families as he served as a Minister-on-call for Thornhill Valley and Hazen Jaeger Funeral Homes. For many years, he also led tours for senior adults to loca-tions in the U.S. and overseas.

Ray served on the board of Inland Empire School of the Bible (now Moody Bible Institute - Spokane), and Chairman of the Christian Workers Conference for several years.

Ray is su r v ived by h is w i fe , Karen; daughter Mar i lyn (Cl i f f ) Neve; daughter Janice (Bryan) Olson; son, Steve (Lisa) Ruef; grandchildren Jerod, Brittany , Jordan, Tyler, Corey, Camden, Samantha, Anna, Kailey, and Cheyenne; and great grandchildren Savannah, Pierce, and Ryah. 

P

After graduating from GRSBM, Chuck became a Bible teacher, preacher, evangelist, church planter and organizer, church troubleshooter and arbitrator, author, Assistant to the President of Grand Rapids School of the Bible and Music and founder of the IFCA church extension ministry Il l inois Bible Church Mission (during which time 13 Bible Churches were started through area Bible classes). He was also founder and Director Emeritus of Bible Related Ministries, beginning his ministry of troubleshooting churches in 1953 to rescue a church in distress.  His ministry of church rescue and church planting spanned a sixty year period, during which he helped organize many churches and rescue literally hundreds of strife-torn churches.

Chuck was the author of many Bible Studies and a book called “Who Would Believe It.”  His life’s story was the subject of the radio drama “Unshackled” which was originally aired the week of November 21-18, 2010. His biography was written by David J. Bauer, Crossfire (available at Amazon.com). He also received the 2007 IFCA International Faithful Servant Award at the 2007 convention in Tulsa.

He was the beloved husband of Eleanor (who entered glory on November 4, 2003), the loving father of Carol (the late Russell) Taylor, Daniel (Carolyn) and Timothy (Karol) Svoboda and John (Maureen) Boda. Chuck was the devoted grandfather of six grand-children and four great-grandchildren. 

Chuck was an ordinary man with a remarkable sense of humor and a belief in a big God with no limitations. He prayed faithfully each day and claimed the promise of one of his favorite verses: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3). 

September|October 2014 27

2014 Youth Convention

About 350 students, l eader s and s ta f f descended on the

YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, CO for the 2014 IFCA National Youth con-vention. They spent the next week encouraging and equip-ping our students for ministry amidst the beauty of God’s creation just outside Rocky Mountain National Park.

The theme was “One Purpose Many Members” developed by the keynote speaker Mr. Bill Bagley from Frontier School of the Bible. This theme was also evident in the breakout sessions which gave those in attendance tools to use as a witness for Christ in their communities as they returned home.

This was a great week of encouragement

and growth for all who attended this year’s convention.

As with all IFCA youth conven-tions we had students who presented musical selections, dramas, puppets, ser-mons and Bible stories in our Ministry Training Areas. These students were evaluated and given encouragement and advice on how they could better use their gifts within their churches. We had about 100 different ministry items presented at this year’s convention. We are so excited to see the impact they will have in their local churches and commu-

nities as they continue to worship God with their talents.

We also had our annual national quizzing tournament this year for both the novice and senior divisions. The text for this year’s tournament was out of Romans. What a blessing it is to have these young people memorizing the truths of God’s Word. It was great to see the spirit of those involved in the tourna-ment as well. Before quizzes you would see students from opposite teams pray-ing together and encouraging each other throughout the week. You would also see folks from various churches quoting Scripture together and talking through the truths that they were learning.

This was a great week of encourage-ment and growth for all who attended this year’s convention. Keep checking out www.ifcayouth.org over the next year to see what is happening and get more details about next year’s convention at Cedarville University June 21-27, 2015.

To learn more

about the IFCA Youth

Ministry visit our

website at

www.ifcayouth.org

One of the convention highlights involved the mov-ing testimony and reports from Filipino pastors Dr . Edward Isidoro (second from L) and Pastor Eddie Gerodias (second from R) . These men were used by God to lead the IFCA International relief ef for ts in The Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan . They are pictured here with IFCA Executive Director Les Lofquist and IFCA Board President Paul Seger .

They continue to clean up and rebuild their homes and churches . If you would like to send addition-al gif ts for them, please make your check out to IFC A Inter national, enclose a note designating your gif t to Philippines Relief, and mail to IFC A International, P .O . Box 810, Grandville, MI 49468

28 VOICE

T h e 2 0 1 4 I F C A I n t e r n a t i o n a l F a i t h f u l S e r v a n t w a s D r . D a v e Meschke, pictured here wit h his w i f e B e t t y . I F C A I n t e r n a t i o n a l Board President Paul Seger made the presentation .

2014 Convention Reports

Three men were ins t al led to four year terms on the IFCA International Board of Directors . Leading the installation ser-vice was 1st Vice President of the Board Ale x Mont oy a (L), t hen (L t o R): J im Thompson, Rich Toliver and Steve Spacek .

September|October 2014 29

The Women’s Conference speaker was Marlean Felix of Los Angeles .

IFCA International Convention Advertisers ListC O L O R A D O S P R I N G S , C O L O R A D O – J U N E 2 3 - 2 7 , 2 0 1 4

We appreciate the help of our advertisers for the 2014 Annual IFCA International Convention and encourage our membership to utilize their services and products.

• Appalachian Bible College

• Baptist Bible College

• Bible Related Ministries

• Emmaus Bible College

• Fellowship International Mission

• Regular Baptist Press

• Six & Geving Insurance

• Slavic Gospel Association

• The Master’s Academy International

• The Master’s College

• The Master’s Seminary

• UIM International

30 VOICE

IFCA Chaplain Lance Schrader is deployed to Afghanistan serving as the Air Force Maintenance Group Chaplain and has reported in…

I am loving just about every minute of it.   Many that have gone before me told me over and over that the deployments

would be the best chaplain ministry I would experience.   Being here I now understand for myself.  What an amazing privilege this is to be here at this time in history to serve the Lord and the men and women of the USAF.  

One story I want to share with you is about a group of F-16 maintainers I ran into my sec-ond week here. I overheard them talking about basketball standing outside the place where we drop off our laundry and noticed by their patch that they were maintainers.   So I jumped into their conversation and said I have a ball and knew where there was a hoop and I was looking to play some ball as well.  About an hour later we

had ten guys out playing 3 on 3 basketball.  They decided that they wanted to play a few days a week and at some point a week later they began asking me if there was a worship service they

could attend with their schedule. At first I said there are tons of services going on at all kinds of time. But it didn’t take long to figure out there was no service that would meet their need.   So I said we should start one and asked them what time they wanted to start. 

We picked 1300 on Sundays and said we would start that week.   I of course was pre-pared for only two or three to show up, but we had twelve that f irst Sunday, twenty-two the next, thirty-five the next and forty-one the week after.   Since then we have been bouncing between thirty-five and forty and have pretty much maxed out our space.   

I share that because I had no intention of running a service here as the Army handles all the base chapels.  But the Lord had other plans and I am thrilled to have been placed, by the Lord, at the right place, at the right time and to see that he can use even me.  I have been and will continue preaching through the book of Joshua while I am here.”

Report from Afghanistan

CHAPL AIN’S DIARY

Here is Chaplain Schrader with an Airmen who joined the weekly prayer time which meets in an old Russian air control tower . They pray for the base, base leader-ship, Afghanistan and the Afghan people .

“

Here is the group of Airmen to whom Chaplain Lance Schrader began ministering, through their shared interest in basketball . Lance is in the back row, far right .

September|October 2014 31

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in a series of six articles “Kids Can Discover God’s Greatness.”

WHY is it essential to teach our chil-dren about God?

Jesus summed up the 613 Old Testament laws into two: love God wholeheart-edly and love people self lessly (Mark 12:30-31). But beware of the simplicity of Jesus’ words. To love God with ALL the heart, soul, mind, and strength does not mean “business as usual.” Loving God demands effort, action, and passion.

Unless children know who God really is, it is impossible for them to obey these basic commandments. Kids need to know the Lord intimately, not superficially.

“Every problem a person has is related to his concept of God. If you have a big God, you have small problems. If you have a small God, you have big problems. It is as simple as that. When your God is big, then every seeming problem becomes an opportunity. When your God is small, every problem becomes as obstacle.” (Walter A. Henrichsen, Disciples are Made - Not Born)

WHAT do children need to know about God? Kids need solid answers to these three ques-

tions: “Who is God?” “What is God like?” and “What can God do?” In this issue of VOICE, I will respond to the first question. In the fol-lowing issues, I will focus on the other two questions.

WHO is God?We discover “who God is” by examining the

names and roles that the Bible uses to describe Him. In the Scriptures, a person’s name often describes his or her character. The same is true of God’s identity.

To help your children learn who God is, fol-low the topics outlined below. Simply study one topic each day. Look up the Bible references, think of ways to explain these concepts to kids and enjoy discussing each point.

God is SupremeThe Lord is incomparably great; He is preemi-

nent. (Deuteronomy 4:39; Colossians 1:15.) God is the focus of the entire universe and He reigns as Lord of the heavens and the earth. God also deserves to occupy the central focus in the minds, hearts, and souls of every human being. Life begins and ends with Him. The LORD is the uncaused Cause of all that exists (Isaiah 44:6; Colossians 1:16-17).

These seven sub-points all relate to God’s supreme existence: • The Lord is Life. God exists from Himself

alone; He breathes all other creation into being (Psalm 36:9; John 1:3-4). [aseity]

• The Lord is Spirit. God consists of a non-material substance that cannot be perceived (Job 9:11; John 4:24). Note: be sure your kids realize that God is eternal. Though He is of a single substance, God wasn’t “made” or “cre-ated.” [simplicity]

• The Lord is Beyond. God dwells outside the material universe (Psalm 113:4-5; Acts 7:48-50). God is far above and beyond us! [transcendence]

• The Lord is Among. God acts inside time and space alongside His creation (Genesis 2:7-8; Revelation 21:3-4). God chooses to interact with us! [immanence]

• The Lord is Purposeful. God advances His sovereign will and eternal plan (Isaiah 46:10; Ephesians 1:9-11). [causality]

• The Lord is One. God is a solitary Being—unique and indivisible (Deuteronomy 6:4; 1 Timothy 2:5). [unity]

• The Lord is Triune. God acts as three united, yet distinct Persons—Father, Son, and Spirit (Genesis 1:26; Matthew 28:19). [tri-unity]

Here’s an action step: determine to know God on a more intimate basis each week. The better your children know Him, the better they will be prepared to face life’s opportunities and challenges. Celebrate God’s greatness together! Let your life tell the story of who your God is!

Mark Steiner

Mark Steiner is Founder & President of

DiscipleLand in Fort Collins, Colorado. Visit www.discipleland.com where IFCA members

are entitled to discounts. Or call 800.284.0158.

Who God Is: His Existence

DISCIPLING CHILDREN

32 VOICE

During the Victorian era young people were taught to practice the art of con-versation. Perhaps the most important

facet of conversation is not in the speaking but rather in the listening, and there is no place this is needed more than in the church, especially among the elderly.

When my father-in-law, Dr. Ian Murphy, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, each visit with him became a cherished moment in which we were able to create precious memories. Although his mind was already slipping, one day he recounted in vivid detail the landing at Normandy, France, June 6, 1944, D-Day.

We live in a culture, even in the church, where

we seem to value youth more than the gently aging folks.

Ian was serving as a Navy doctor attending to the wounded soldiers as they were brought back to the ship. The infirmary filled quickly and they began to place the injured wherever they could find space. Ian made his way down the rows of ravaged bodies all the while assess-ing each one’s condition. The blood supply was running alarmingly low and he came to the hor-rifying realization there would not be enough blood to save all the dying. He would have to make the difficult decision of which soldiers to give the precious blood.

I cried as Ian told of one soldier who looked pleadingly into his eyes, begging him to save his life. For some reason, this particular young man stood out in Ian’s fading memory, and after more than fifty years, it was obviously still painful. Ian told how he held the young soldier’s hand as he died, and there was nothing he could do to help. There wasn’t enough blood to save him.

As I sat in my father-in-law’s living room that day I thought, Lord, help me to never forget

this story and to share it with others. And thank you that when it comes to salvation there is no shortage of Your blood – it is sufficient to cover the sins of every person.

Ian told how he held the young soldier’s

hand as he died, and there was nothing he could

do to help. There wasn’t enough blood to save him.

We live in a culture, even in the church, where we seem to value youth more than the gently aging folks. We get so excited when a young couple with children visits our church and can’t wait to see what they have to offer. We plan activities and music that appeals to a younger generation, and perhaps rightly so. But have we forgotten to listen to the elderly? Can we not learn from them? Let’s begin to take a few moments to hear their stories and create precious memories.

Mary Murphy

Mary Englund Murphy and her

husband Bill serve at Calvary Bible Church

in Tulsa, Oklahoma where Bill is the senior

pastor. Mary speaks for women’s retreat,

conferences, and other special events. (www.lookingglassministries.

com).

Practicing the Art of Listening

WOMEN’S VOICE