Returning to My First Love

Note: The following material is taken from Soul Physicians. It is Part Three in a series on putting off the old me and putting on the new me in Christ. Read Part One, How to Break the Stranglehold of Strongholds. Read Part Two, Christian: Do You Know Who You Are?

Putting Off Our Old Impure Affections

Satan’s strategy is to belittle Christ’s glory and then to exalt himself, all in the sick hope of causing us to be unfaithful to Christ. He attempts to tempt us with foolish mindsets about God so he can allure us toward false lovers of the soul. Satan shrinks Christ so that we end up with a Lover so small that we fail to relentlessly worship and adore Him and we fail to see Christ as uniquely and supremely worthy.

“I Divorce the Adulterous False Lovers of My Soul”

Rationally, we must put off our old foolish mindsets by saying, “I repent of the insane idols of my heart.” Relationally, we must put off our old false lovers by saying, “I divorce the adulterous false lovers of my soul.” We no longer live like we used to because Christ has returned us to the purity of virgin brides who are motivated by gratitude to passionately love God.

Following Jesus always means not following fleshly affections, impulses, appetites, whims, and dreams. It always means pursuing Him with desperate desire, knowing that He alone quenches our soul’s deepest thirsts. Christ calls us to mortify, crucify, and put to death all fleshly longings.

Affections, longings, thirsts, delights, and desires are “where the action is.” Modern Christianity reduces life to the externals of behavior while the significance of motivating desire is insufficiently emphasized. Our old flesh was habituated not simply to do evil but also and more insidiously, to love evil. Our flesh is ingrained toward patterns of false lovers from its years of disconnection from God. In Christ we have put off these patterns and must daily rid ourselves of any remnants.

Our God-created, renewed appetites face the tension of battling fleshly, worldly, satanic desires. Temptation entices us, awakening the old dead lusts through the attraction, lure, bait, and pull of sin (James 1:13-15). Sin deceives us through its offer of pleasure, fulfillment, and satisfaction. Psalm 1 pictures us as living organisms searching for nourishment. Where do we drink? From the Spring of Living Water or from broken cisterns that hold no water?

False Lovers and Suffering

When faced with suffering, I’m tempted first to think, “Life is bad and so is God.” If I surrender to this fleshly mindset, then I’m easy game for the allure of false lovers who seem to promise protection, comfort, ease, or at least enough pleasure to cause me to temporarily forget my pain.

In divorcing the adulterous false lovers of my soul, I cry out to Father, “I’ve been a relational prodigal. I now reject my past pattern of fearful flight from Father and I put on faith in you as my Forgiving Father. I abolish my fear of cosmic condemnation, of personal and eternal rejection. I return to original trust. When life is bad, I cling to you as my Supreme Good. I say, ‘My flesh and my heart may fail, but God you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.’”

When faced with suffering, I’m also tempted to think, “Christ is not worth the wait.” Then I’m easy prey for the roaring Lion who disguises himself as an angel of light promising to guide me in his everlasting way. In divorcing myself from Satan, I say to Christ, “I confess as sin my pursuit of false lovers of the soul and put on sole devotion to You. I put off my spiritual adultery. When life is bad, I remind myself, ‘Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You.’”

When faced with suffering, I’m sometimes tempted to think, “Depending on God is foolish, I had better take care of myself.” Having been strangled by this stronghold, I tumble down into the pit of worshipping false gods of my own invention. In divorcing myself from these false gods, I say to the Holy Spirit, “Dear Spirit, I exterminate my distorted desires. I put off my self-sufficient self-satisfaction. I confess as sin my denial of Christ-sufficiency. My broken cisterns are filthy and useless. I’ve sinned by forsaking my Spring of Living Water and I now acknowledge this for what it is—spiritual adultery.”

False Lovers and Besetting Sins

When faced with a besetting sin that yanks me here and there like a yo-yo and tosses me about like a rag doll in a Doberman’s mouth, I must mortify my fleshly desire. I confess that:

“I’ve allowed my religious affections to grow cold, my love to become lukewarm. I’ve buried the visio Dei—the beatific vision of God. I’ve rejected God as my highest joy, my greatest delight. I’ve replaced God my Hero with false heroes. I’ve replaced God my Lover with false lovers. I’ve not related to You as a good God with a supremely good heart. I have a fundamental worshipping nature, but I’ve not been putting off the fleshly tendency to worship anything or anyone but God. So right now I put off trust in non-God and put on trust in God. In Christ’s resurrection power I put off my false passions, my delighting in lesser gods, my sinfully misdirected longings, and my pursuit of God-designed desires in God-prohibited ways.”

The Rest of the Story

Relationally divorcing the adulterous lovers of our soul is the principle we follow for putting off false lovers. What is the process? Join us in Part 4 for the rest of the story.

Join the Conversation

1. Why has modern Christianity reduced life to external behaviors and reduced the significance of desires of the heart?

2. In what ways have we been habituated not simply to do evil, but to love evil?

Tags: Affections, Putting Off, Repentance, Soul Physicians

*Note: If you’re disappointed that I’m saying that some biblical counseling is only half biblical, then please read my comments at the end of my first post in this series: http://tinyurl.com/n8k799.

My Premise

Some modern biblical counseling considers the seriousness of sin—sinning, but spends much less time equipping people to minister to the gravity of grinding affliction—suffering. When we provide counseling for sin, but fail to provide counseling and counselor training for suffering, then such biblical counseling is only half biblical.

Secluded in Our Ivory Towers

Though acknowledging suffering, it became an underdeveloped element of some biblical counselors. When they did address suffering, it often became “private preaching” with a moralistic, non-relational, directive bent.

Why did this occur? Preaching training, theological perspectives, views of the image of God, and personal sin issues all combined with the historical setting to “set up” early biblical counseling for movement away from the Church’s historic practice and the Bible’s comprehensive focus on sustaining and healing for suffering.

Non-Comprehensive Theological Training

Frank Lake, who we quoted in post one of this series, traces the neglect of suffering to a shift in the focus of ministry training.

“If theological training had not lost its Galilean accent on persons encountered by the roadside or on the roof tops, in favor of libraries and essays in the schools, it would be unnecessary to argue the case for pastoral listening (empathy) and dialogue (conversing with, not private preaching at).”

Secluded in our ivory towers, far from the gravity of grinding affliction, we lose our perspective and our sensitivity. Pastors taught in such settings are trained to preach at people. They then enter a parish with suffering people—people like Job and the man born blind in John 9. Lake describes what stereotypically occurs when pastors trained to talk at sinners are forced to face sufferers.

“The pastoral counselor, in spite of himself, finds himself tittering out his usual jocular reassuring prescriptions, minimizing the problem, and thumping in optimism or the need for further effort. He has the ingrained professional habit of filling every unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of good advice.”

Trained to preach, but not trained to counsel, many pastors, to this day, are ill-equipped to help the suffering. Theirs is an instinctive activism that revolts against a caring presence and words of comfort. They assume that a directive response is best for the pastor’s busy schedule, and that the preaching mode is best for the care and cure of souls. All of this, despite what the Bible and church history teaches.

Non-Comprehensive Theology

Another reason why some biblical counselors are ill-equipped to help the suffering relates to a non-comprehensive theological perspective. The early biblical counseling movement was launched based upon one version of Calvinistic, Reformed theology. However, it was not the comprehensive version practiced by the Reformers like Luther or by Calvin himself. Both Luther and Calvin had a comprehensive, compassionate theology that included a focus on sin and suffering and included a focus on creation, fall, and redemption.

Early pioneers in biblical counseling, reacting against the pendulum of liberalism, the social gospel, and secular psychology, added to it their focus on the fall, sin, and depravity. Such factors were a recipe for biblical counseling that failed to address suffering biblically.

Focusing on the fall, sin, and depravity, and not as much on creation and our original design, and not as much on redemption and dignity in Christ and deprivation and suffering, they defined and described counseling as confronting sin and minimized the scope of true pastoral ministry.

Non-Comprehensive Image of God

Additionally, some biblical counselors tended to focus on the “volitional” element in the Imago Dei. That is, when they considered the image of God in human beings, they focused on the will, actions, and behaviors (and in later years on motivation)—putting off and putting on right actions. As biblical counseling developed, it began to focus more on the mind—putting off and putting on a right thinking—mind renewal.

However, to this day, there is not as much focus on the relational aspects that the Puritan Jonathan Edwards called “the religious affections”—longings, desires, thirsts, etc. And, to this day, some biblical counselors consider emotions to be “the black sheep of the image bearing family.”

Valuing reason and action above affections and emotions, when they did address suffering, they did so with a focus on right actions and right responses in reaction to suffering, while minimizing the emotional and relational aspects of and responses to suffering.

Personal Sin and Sinful Fear

Since the Bible insists on comprehensive and compassionate ministry that both confronts the sinning and comforts the suffering, and we fail to do this, then part of the reason must be internal. That is, even given all the historical, cultural factors, we can’t blame externals for our failure to do what the Bible calls us to do—comfort the suffering.

The personal sin of the fear of man is another reason that some biblical counselors fail to address suffering. Preachers and pastors (and lay people) are terrified, scared to death, to enter hurts deeply. They are much more comfy behind the pulpit generalizing about life, then facing suffering people face-to-face and moving into their hurting lives.

If they do come face-to-face with a suffering soul, it is much easier, much safer, to see counseling as problem-solving and to treat the soul as if it is a car engine to be fixed or a computer virus to be eliminated, then it is to relate soul-to-soul. Teach truth. Exhort right response. Talk. But weep with those who weep? But listen empathetically? But enter deeply? But sustain? But climb in the casket?

We can explore externals, but the reality is, the bottom line is, when pastors, spiritual friends, and biblical counselors fail to engage in biblical sustaining and healing for suffering—it is a sin.

Where Do We Go From Here

So far we’ve seen what we should do: care-front sinning and comfort suffering. So far we’ve seen why we have not done so: historical, cultural, theological, and personal factors that led to a minimizing of sustaining and healing for suffering.

Next we’ll explore how the minimizing of suffering negatively impacts Body life—the natural, ongoing, daily one-another ministry of God’s people in the church.