And He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – Jn. 14:16
For most of my years in ministry, I functioned as one of the primary pastors in my church that provided counseling for members and well as for other believers from the community. I typically saw problems that you would encounter in any counseling practice – chronic depression, anxiety, anger, shame, addictions, gender confusion, eating disorders, and marriages on the brink of dissolving. Most of those coming for counseling had been Christians for years. The huge red flag should have been that our people, after following Jesus for those years, looked no different from those living in the world who did not know Jesus at all.
At times, I met with individuals, gave them a little insight and a couple of exercises, prayed over them and sent them on their way. I would likely see them again in six months. Others I met with weekly for months, scratching out a little progress each time. I had taken graduate courses in Marriage and Family counseling and went to top-notch workshops offered by both secular and Christian counselors. Other than an opening prayer, I heard essentially the same strategies for counseling from both groups.
However, as the years passed something kept eating at me. When I read the New Testament, I never got the sense that the church in Jerusalem (or anywhere else) offered counseling from leaders who went to the world’s universities for training. Nor did the writers of the N.T. encourage believers to work hard to manage their “issues. ” Instead, they commanded them to rid themselves of those things. More strikingly, there was no sense that followers of Jesus took months and years of meeting with a local pastor or therapist to experience healing and significant life change.
What I did see was the power of the Holy Spirit and the authority of Christ healing bodies and hearts and lives. I saw once committed sinners transformed and walking in a holiness that stood out from the world…and it didn’t take a lifetime. Paul clearly expected the church to be the place where the wisdom and power of heaven would reside and where the Holy Spirit would unravel the knots of a believer’s past while drawing the poison out of long standing wounds. There was no hint that the church would go to the world for help but rather that the world would come to the church. Yet I (and other Christian counselors) tended to call secular training and an opening prayer Christian counseling.
I am not denying that secular counseling can help. But what I am saying is that there is power and transformation available from God’s Spirit that secular counseling cannot offer. Paul is clear that the real battles for the hearts and minds of people rest in the spiritual realm where only divine weapons and the Spirit of God have impact.
The N.T. church seemed to rely much more on encounters with the Holy Spirit and the powerful exercise of spiritual gifts to heal and change those who followed Jesus than wisdom the world might offer. Those who will “judge angels” and who have the Counselor of Heaven residing within them should have much more to offer than secular therapists.
Once I began to allow the power of the kingdom of heaven to invade the counseling room and began to be a catalyst for encounters with God, I began to see the radical life change that I saw on the pages of the gospels. Once I began to speak God’s truth over situations I began to see Christians delivered from anger, fear, depression, addictions, eating disorders, and sexual brokenness in hours or weeks rather than months and years. I saw marriages on the brink of divorce begin to thrive because the Holy Spirit changed hearts rather than people simply changing behaviors.
I must admit, when the power of God brings the transformation rather than my “amazing counseling skills,” I feel much less significant in the process. In those moments, I am no longer the much needed dispenser of wisdom – the Holy Spirit is. But then, I also get to see radical life change rather than miniscule progress.
The good news of the kingdom of God is that Jesus has indeed come to heal the brokenhearted and set captives free. He wants to release His power into the lives of his children for every circumstance. He wants to do so through His church. The Holy Spirit is an amazing counselor full of both heavenly wisdom and power. Until a greater portion of the church discovers that reality, many committed believers who love Jesus will continue to walk for years with a relational limp and a broken heart – never living up to the dream their Father has for them.