Counseling Through Your Bible Handbook (25 page)

Give
Christ first place in your heart.

— Ask Jesus to be Lord of your life.

— Accept His forgiveness and love.

— Be aware of His constant presence within you.

— Allow Him to lead in all you say and do.

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it”

(L
UKE
9:23-24).

Give
God thanks for your past.

— Know that God will be faithful to heal you.

— Recognize that difficult relationships mature you.

— Look for positive ways God can use the pain in your life.

“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”

(1 T
HESSALONIANS
5:18).

Give
attention to how you responded to your circumstances as a child. Were you…

— the responsible child?

— the rebellious child?

— the reclusive child?

— the restless child?

“The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out”

(P
ROVERBS
18:15).

Give
thought to your present dysfunctional characteristics.

— Pray for God to reveal your weaknesses.

— Pray for wisdom to understand how to change.

— Pray that you will draw on Christ, who is your strength, to help you make changes.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”

(P
SALM
139:23-24).

Give
consideration to your God-given rights.

— You have the right to obey God rather than others.

— You have the right to a clear conscience.

— You have the right to follow the Word of God.

— You have the right to live in your God-appointed role.

“We must obey God rather than men!”

(A
CTS
5:29).

Give
yourself boundaries.
⁵

— Define who you are: “I am a child of God.”

— Define who you are not: “I am not a piece of property.”

— Refuse to be manipulated or mistreated.

— Stop playing the victim: “As an adult, I am not powerless.”

— Stop blaming others: “I’ll take responsibility for my own behavior.”

— Learn to say no.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ”

(G
ALATIANS
1:10).

Give
time to restoring healthy family relationships.

— Be the one to begin rebuilding relationships.

— Be willing to spend quality time to develop healthy relationships.

— Be generous with grace toward others whose attitudes and actions are negative.

— Be a channel of God’s unconditional love and acceptance to others.

“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift”

(M
ATTHEW
5:23-24).

Emphasize
the uniqueness of each family member.

“Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?”

(1 C
ORINTHIANS
12:14-17).

Seek
togetherness, but also encourage individuality.
⁷

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good”

(1 C
ORINTHIANS
12:4-7).

Maintain
consistency in the messages you communicate.

“Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the
same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water. Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom”

(J
AMES
3:10-13).

Allow
a generous margin for mistakes.

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you”

(E
PHESIANS
4:32).

Encourage
the appropriate expression of feelings.

“The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out”

(P
ROVERBS
20:5).

Promote
and develop natural talents and abilities.

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it”

(P
ROVERBS
22:6).

Require
family members to take responsibility for their attitudes and actions.

“Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load”

(G
ALATIANS
6:4-5).

Treat
everyone with love and respect.

“Do everything in love”

(1 C
ORINTHIANS
16:14).

Nurture
a dependence on the Lord.

“Trust in the L
ORD
with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight”

(P
ROVERBS
3:5-6).

A poor background is a poor excuse for poor behavior.
With the power of Christ within you,
don’t let your past control you.
—JH

1 Corinthians 13:4-5,11

Proverbs 14:26

Psalm 68:5

Psalm 147:3

Galatians 1:10

Matthew 5:23-24

Colossians 3:13

For additional guidance on this topic, see also
Anger, Codependency, Critical Spirit, Depression, Divorce Recovery, Domestic Violence, Fear, Forgiveness, Grief, Guilt, Hope, Manipulation, Marriage, Parenting, Reconciliation, Rejection, Self-worth, Verbal and Emotional Abuse, Victimization, Worry
.

A
t one time or another, we have all thought,
Why? It’s just not fair! God, why would You allow…?
Left unanswered or incorrectly answered, these questions often become the basis for rejecting the goodness of God or even denying His existence and can strand people in the ditch of dispair and disbelief. Eventually they become blind to the truth of God’s sovereignty over evil and suffering, and His good purposes for them.

Nowhere in Scripture is the fairness of God more poignantly addressed than in the book of Job. In spite of his severe losses, Job posed a profound question—a question for all of us to consider in times of tragedy: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10).

No, God cannot ever cause evil. God cannot do anything that is contradictory to His character. The Bible clearly teaches that God is good. Because evil is the corruption of good, it is impossible for God to do anything evil.

“You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell…Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God”

(P
SALM
5:4; 3 J
OHN
11).

The often-unspoken question behind this question is, Does God really care that I am hurting? The answer to both questions can be clearly seen in God’s actions. God cares about your hurts to the extent that He willingly suffered to identify with you and to save you. The beauty of Christ’s crucifixion is that God—on your behalf—voluntarily suffered at the hands of evil people. Although evil and pain are the result of mankind’s choices and not God’s, God does not subject His creation to something He is unwilling to endure Himself. When you undergo loss, rejection, illness, or pain, remember that God knows how you feel from His own personal experience, and He hurts with you. When God became a man, He entered fully into fallen humanity and thus fully experienced the suffering of humanity, except that He was without sin (see Hebrews 2:10).

Yes…however, God knew that a world of limited moral freedom would actually be an inferior world because virtues are defined by their opposites. A person can be selfless only if selfishness stands in opposition to it. Being selfless implies the possibility of being selfish. It is in overcoming self-centeredness that character is developed and virtue attained. Although creating a world that became corrupted by evil resulted in God sacrificing His Son in order to defeat that evil, in His omniscience God knew that such a world would be the best world in which to prepare people for the best of all worlds—heaven itself (see Revelation 21:1,3).