Category Archives: Christian counseling
The Christian and Anxiety
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010Introduction The experience of anxiety is common and universal. It is not an emotion restricted to the economically deprived or to the politically oppressed. Anxiety is an inescapable part of the human condition, for life on all its levels, from the international and governmental to the domestic and personal, is marked with uncertainty, perplexity, and stress. Many may deny their personal anxiety, or at least the intensity of it (even to themselves) for a variety of reasons, such as, the desire to avoid embarrassment, the sense of pride, the fear of rejection, the threat and unease of vulnerability, etc; notwithstanding,…
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Wisdom for Marriage (Christian Version)
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010Cherish the bond of unity which you have before God, not trying to explain its mystery, but ever seeking to plumb its depths. At the core of this unity is love. Love has no bounds—it is as deep as the human heart and as eternal as the Divine itself. Let love be your passion, and it will become your peace; let love be your pursuit, and it will become your pleasure; let love freely grow, and its harvest will be bountiful. The seed of love will become the flower of the sublime. In love, you will assume the very likeness…
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Counseling and the Demonic
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010The Demonic Nature of the World We live in a moral-spiritual world. The ontological character of the cosmos is one of moral corruption and evil because of the entrance of sin into the world (Rm. 5:12ff.) and the presence of morally fallen angels (Is. 14:12ff.; Ez. 28:12ff.). Satan is the moral-spiritual ruler of this world (Jn. 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; Eph. 2:2). He reigns and controls the affairs and systems of this present evil age (Ga. 1:4). The critical truth that must always be remembered is that Christians live in Satan’s ‘sphere of activity and influence’-Christians are foreigners in a distant…
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Grieving and Bereavement
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010How do you minister to someone who has lost a friend or loved one? How do you cope when you have lost a friend or loved one? Bereavement may be quite burdensome because of the intensity of grief and the extensiveness of mourning. In order to more effectively minister to those who are bereaved, and to cope more effectively with bereavement ourselves, we must first understand the dynamics of grieving-mourning. Admittedly, most people do not understand grieving-mourning, and thus are ill-prepared to cope with it. In this paper I will address, first, understanding grieving-mourning and, second, treating grieving-mourning. A. Understanding…
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Three Foundational Spiritual Disciplines
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010In considering the spiritual disciplines by which the worship of God and the fellowship with God may be facilitated and achieved, the focus centres on the private disciplines (e.g., meditation), rather than on the public ones (e.g. observing the Lord’s Table, congregational singing, corporate Bible study, etc.). The public disciplines certainly contribute to transforming the heart; but, for our purposes, I want to concentrate on the believer’s personal pursuit of the personal presence of God; that which the believer can undertake freely, and independent of corporate expectations and regulations, in keeping with the spirit of Psalm 63:1,2, “O God, Thou…
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