Note: My good friend, Steve Viars, Sr. Pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette, IN, leader of Faith Biblical Counseling Ministries, and President of NANC, graciously wrote the Foreword to God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. Steve knows about relating the riches of Gospel truth to the lives of hurting men and women.

Foreword

Can anyone avoid suffering? 

I have had the privilege of serving as a pastor of the same congregation for over twenty years. On the one hand God has graciously given numerous opportunities to share in the joys and blessings of my parishioners and friends. There have been many births, weddings, spiritual victories, and occasions for laughter and love. Countless days have been filled with far more sweetness than I would have ever imagined.

But the parallel truth is that I have seen first-hand how often men and women suffer. Job losses. Shocking diagnoses. Children gone astray. Abuse. And the caskets…oh too many caskets. I knew the Bible predicted this would occur, but it is different when it happens to members of your church family, your own family, your friends, and to you.

Of course, you know that as well. I have never met a person who has not suffered in some way. That explains why Jesus’ family is instructed to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). Life this side of heaven is anything but trouble-free.

That is why I am so glad Dr. Bob Kellemen wrote God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. You cannot choose whether you will face suffering or not, but you can decide where you will turn for help. Here are three reasons why I heartily and joyfully encourage you to carefully read what Bob has written.

It courageously faces the hard questions. You are probably fed up with pat answers and pious platitudes. Plastic smiles do not work, not when you are suffering. Bob writes with the seasoned wisdom of a winsome counselor who has spent many hours compassionately listening to people whose hearts are breaking.

It skillfully takes you to God’s Word. Listening is wonderful and powerful, but it is seldom enough. Bob is a careful student of the Bible. He believes that the living God has direction and answers for every hurting person who will humbly come to Him (Matthew 11:29). I went to college and seminary with Bob—I know that he is a diligent and accomplished student and scholar. Yet this book does not read like a distant theological treatise. It is more like a wise conversation with a mature spiritual friend.

It passionately points you to the Savior. The Bible is less like an encyclopedia and more like a novel. Bob’s goal is not to give us a few verses that we simply memorize and recite when times get rough. He is inviting us to use suffering as an opportunity to grow more in love with the One who suffered supremely for us. That is why there is hope for life’s losses.

I look forward to the day this project goes from the manuscript I currently have in my hand to a book I can read and give to others. My church family needs it. My counselees need it. I need it. And, if you’re suffering a loss or helping someone who is grieving, then you need it.

One more thing. Bob and I grew up a few miles from one another in Gary, IN. I have known him since we were boys running around the neighborhood. I can say this without reservation—Bob is the real thing. He cares deeply about people who are suffering. That is one of his God-given passions. Let this book be a gift to you, from a dear and trusted friend.

Dr. Steve Viars, Sr. Pastor, Faith Baptist Church, Lafayette, Indiana

Tags: God's Healing for Life's Losses, NANC, Steve Viars, Suffering

My Story of Finding God’s Healing Hope

God’s Healing for Life’s Losses walks with readers down God’s path of healing hope. During the first half of the book, to portray four aspects of the grief journey, I share my story of dealing with the death of my father. Even thirty years later, it’s not an easy story to tell. I share it today, just as I did in the book, with the pray that in reading my story, you too will discover God’s healing hope.

My Personal Candor Journey

I had to move from denial to candor after the death of my father on my 21st birthday. In fact, it was not until my 22nd birthday that the process truly began. I had been handling my loss like a good Bible college graduate and seminary student—I was pretending!

On my 22nd birthday, one year to the day after my father’s death, I went for a long walk around the outskirts of the seminary campus. That day I started facing my loss of my Dad. The reality that I would never know him in an adult-to-adult relationship. The fact that my future children would never know their grandfather.

As I faced some of these external loses, the tears came. Then I began to face some of the internal crosses—what was happening in me. I felt like a loner. Fatherless. Orphaned. Unprotected. On my own. The tears flowed. The process of candor began. The floodgate of emotions erupted. I was being honest with myself.

My Personal Complaint/Lament Journey

In the weeks and months after my 22nd birthday, I engaged in passionate complaint. What made my struggle with my father’s death even more difficult was my lack of assurance that my father was a believer. I had witnessed to him, prayed for him, and he even began attending church with me. Yet even on his deathbed, he made no verbal commitment of faith in Christ.

So I shared with God. I complained to God. I told God, “What’s the use? Why did I pray, witness, and share? Why should I ever pray again? Why should I ever try again, trust again?”

I shared my confusion and my doubt with God. “Why does everyone else’s parent accept Christ in a glorious deathbed conversion? Why can’t I have assurance of my Dad’s presence with You?”

My Personal Crying Out to God Journey

Throughout the 22nd year of my life, as I grieved my father’s death, I cried out to God for help. Up to this point in my Christian life, without knowing it I had believed the lie that I could control life through my good behavior. As my scaffolding collapsed, I could either work harder at being even better, or I could give up on God, or I could surrender to God. I chose surrender.

“God, I’m confused. I’m scared. Everything I trusted in is gone. I used to think that if I only prayed hard enough and worked long enough, that eventually everything I longed for would come true in this life. But now I know that’s a lie. So what is true? What have You really promised? What can I count on? I can’t count on myself. Father, I want to count on You. Please don’t let me down. Rescue me. Help me. Save me.” 

My Personal Comfort Journey

For me, comfort reflected itself in my decision not to give up on God and not to give up on ministry. Here I was in seminary, preparing for ministry, and secretly doubting God—doubting His goodness, His trustworthiness, His ability, or at least His desire, to protect me and care for me. As comfort came, I came face-to-face with God. We had some wild talks. We had some fierce wrestling matches.

God won. I surrendered. I was still confused about the details of life, but committed to the Author of Life. More than that, I surrendered to Him and was dependent upon Him. My attitude was like Peter’s when Jesus asked His disciples, “Will you, too, leave me?” Remember Peter’s reply? “To whom else could we go? You alone have the Words of life.”

I was surviving again, surviving though scarred. I was not and never again would be that same naïve young Christian who assumed that if I prayed and worked hard enough, God would grant me my every expectation. My faith was not a naïve faith, it was now a deeper faith—a faith that could walk in the dark.

Join the Conversation

What is your story of finding God’s healing hope?

Tags: God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving

Meet Tim Challies

One of my favorite Christian bloggers is Tim Challies. I’m not alone, as several sites list Tim’s blog as the # 1 Christian site in the blogosphere. Visit and see for yourself: Informing the Reforming.

Yesterday, Tim posted a video interview he did where he shares about how he came to be a blogger, and other interesting aspects of his life and ministy. I enjoyed learning about my blogging friend, and I think you will, too.

Join the Conversation

How has God used Tim Challies to minister in your life? 

Tags: Tim Challies

Good Grief, Bad Science, and All-Sufficient Scripture

Yesterday, the New York Times published a fascinating Op-Ed piece by Dr. Allen Frances called Good Grief. In the article, Dr. Frances reports that a startling suggestion is buried in the fine print describing proposed changes for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V). If this suggestion is adopted, many people who experience completely normal grief could be mislabeled as having a psychiatric disorder.

Bad Science

It’s important to note that Dr. Frances is no enemy of psychiatry or even of the DSM. He’s the former Chairman of Psychiatry at Duke University, and was the Chairman of the task force that created the DSM 4.

Frances paints an alarming portrait of what could happen under the suggested change.

“Suppose your spouse or child died two weeks ago and now you feel sad, take less interest and pleasure in things, have little appetite or energy, can’t sleep well and don’t feel like going to work. In the proposal for the D.S.M. 5, your condition would be diagnosed as a major depressive disorder.”

With practical insight, Frances then explains:

“This would be a wholesale medicalization of normal emotion, and it would result in the over-diagnosis and over-treatment of people who would do just fine if left alone to grieve with family and friends, as people always have. It is also a safe bet that the drug companies would quickly and greedily pounce on the opportunity to mount a marketing blitz targeted to the bereaved and a campaign to ‘teach’ physicians how to treat mourning with a magic pill.”

Good Grief

According to Frances, and I agree, the DSM 5 is proposing a radical expansion of the boundary for mental illness that would cause psychiatry to intrude on the realm of normal grieving. The bereaved would lose the benefits that accrue from facing grief honestly and candidly. Grieving is an unavoidable part of life—the price we pay for having the capacity to love other people deeply. Frances is right when he states, “It is essential, not unhealthy, for us to grieve when confronted by the death of someone we love.”

More importantly, grieving people, rather than turning to the Christian community for sustaining comfort and to Christ for healing hope, would instead be tempted to cling to a quick medical fix. Rather than facing suffering face-to-face with Christ, depths of grief could be masked by prescription drugs.

Though Frances does not approach this issue from a scriptural perspective, he does see the harm that can come from a medical approach to a personal, relational, spiritual issue.

“…there would be the expense and the potentially harmful side effects of unnecessary medical treatment…. After recovering while taking a useless pill, people would assume it was the drug that made them better and would be reluctant to stop taking it. Consequently, many normal grievers would stay on a useless medication for the long haul, even though it would likely cause them more harm than good.”

This is not to say that medication is never appropriate during bereavement. Grievers with severe and potentially dangerous symptoms could still be treated and diagnosed without the medicalization of every grief experience. As Frances puts it:

“For the few bereaved who are severely impaired or at risk of suicide, doctors can already apply the diagnosis of major depression. But don’t change the rules for everyone else. Let us experience the grief we need to feel without being called sick.”

Frances saves his most passionate plea for last.

“Turning bereavement into major depression would substitute a shallow, Johnny-come-lately medical ritual for the sacred mourning rites that have survived for millenniums. To slap on a diagnosis and prescribe a pill would be to reduce the dignity of the life lost and the broken heart left behind.”

All-Sufficient Scripture

While I would not choose the phrase “sacred mourning rites,” I am convinced that God’s Word provides all-sufficient wisdom that guides us even in the chaos of grief, suffering, and loss.

In God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting, I journey with readers through eight biblical aspects of the grief and growth process. Rather than “sacred mourning rites,” I like to think of these as God’s GPS: God’s Positioning Scriptures. They provide scriptural and spiritual grief and growth directional markers on our healing journey.

Through candor (honesty with myself), complaint (honesty with God), crying out to God (asking God for help), and comfort (receiving God’s help) we learn that it’s normal to hurt and necessary to grieve. We move from denial, anger, bargaining, and depression to God’s personal comfort.

Through waiting (trusting God with faith), wailing (groaning to God with hope), weaving (perceiving God’s plan with grace), and worshipping (engaging God and others with love) we learn that it’s possible to hope and supernatural to grow. We move from the world’s goal of “acceptance” to God’s loving purposes of faith, hope, and love through grace.

We must not replace good grief with bad science. Instead, we should face grief face-to-face with Christ using the wisdom of God’s all-sufficient Word.

Join the Conversation

What are the dangers of replacing good grief with the quick fix of a medical approach?

Tags: Allen Frances, DSM 5, God's Healing for Life's Losses, Grief, Grieving

The Best of the Best Around the Net (8/15/10)

The Big Idea: The Best of the Best Around the Net links you to blog posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living. Check out the following top five links of the week that was.

Scan the Scriptures

Justin Taylor over at Between Two Worlds has a fascinating post using the acrostic SCAN to explain four key theological views about God’s Word. Check it out at Scan the Scriptures.

One Another Responsibilities

Bill Higley posts about One Another Ministry Responsibilities. He captures nine biblical ways to summarize and apply these vital one another callings.

Great Book for Walking with Christ

Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile at his website Pure Church highly recommends Stephen Smallman’s The Walk: Steps for New and Renewed Followers of Jesus. Read Pastor Anyabwile’s recommendation at: The Best Book I’ve Read for New and Renewed Followers of Jesus.

Congregations Gone Wild

You’ll find a challenge to pastors and lay people in an unlikely source: The NY Times. In an op-ed piece penned by G. Jeffrey MacDonald, you’ll learn how selfish demands and expectations by congregations are leading to unhealthy lifestyles by pastors. Read about it in Congregations Gone Wild. 

How to Cut Your To-Do List in Half

Michael Hyatt writes, “One of the most helpful time management principles I have found is David Allen’s Two-Minute Rule. The basic concept is that you take immediate action on anything that can be done in two minutes or less. This is the key to becoming more productive.” Read the rest at How to Cut Your To Do List in Half.

Join the Conversation

Of The Best of the Best Around the Net, which post impacted you the most? Why?

What blog posts have you enjoyed this week that you want to share with others?

Tags: Justin Taylor, Michael Hyatt, Thabiti Anyabwile, The Best of the Best

How to Build Grace Connections

The Big Idea: You’re reading Part Three of a series designed to equip you with five biblical counseling skills using the acrostic GRACE. Read Part One: How to Care Like Christ. Read Part Two: Grace Connections. Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.

Left Hanging

I left you hanging yesterday by telling you what not to do, but not sharing what to do. Glad you were patient. Here’s the how to.

How to Build Grace Connections: Galatians 6:1-3

Connecting is a commitment to love another person. It is compassionate discernment in action. It is not a technique to be mastered, but a way of life to be nurtured by personal communion with Christ. Communion with Christ leads to connection with others.

Galatians 6:1-3, in the context of Paul’s discussion of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, exposes how to build grace relationships.

1. Loving Motivation: “You who are spiritual.”

The fruit of the Spirit characterizes effective spiritual friends. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter who comes alongside to help in time of need. In the Spirit’s power, you are to be a friend acting in the best interest of your friend. You’re a friend acting on behalf of another, interceding for, defending, and advocating. You’re an encourager standing up for, standing behind, standing with, and standing back-to-back and alongside your spiritual friend. The “spiritual” person is like a coach who has been in the game, lost, struck out, but has some game experience that sure does help.

2. Intimate Friendship/Knowledge: “Brothers.”

Spiritual friendship requires intimate family relationship. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17). “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24). Picture best friends hiking a mountain. One has been there before, so she’s the guide who has found a few good routes and gladly shares them with her best friend.

Evaluation forms from folks who have been “counseled” by lay encouragers express this sense of intimate friendship. “Even though we had never met before, our times were like two friends walking together.” “I could feel your concern; we were on the same level.” “You accepted me. You didn’t scold me like a Mom, but were honest like a friend.”

3. Communicating Equality: “But watch yourself or you also may be tempted.” “Restore gently.”

Gentleness looks like a tamed stallion, strength under control, firm compassion, mature self-control, and power and love mingled through wisdom. Christ labels himself “gentle” in Matthew 11:29, saying that unlike the Pharisees who were sin-spotters and burden-givers, he was Rest-Giver and Sin-Bearer.

“Watch” (Galatians 6:1) is the Greek word skopon from which we gain our word “scope.” Put yourself under the microscope before examining your spiritual friend. As a grace connector, maintain a strong mental attention to your own potential temptability. Remain humble in spirit.

4. Demonstrated Commitment: “Restore.” “Carry each other’s burden.”

Paul places “restore” in the present, continual tense. Maintain a patient persistence in mending, furnishing, equipping, and setting the dislocated member of the body back in place. Picture the marathon runner. “I love you for the long haul. I’m in this relationship for a lifetime.” Picture the physical therapist who brings her patient back to the place of health by pushing without being pushy.

Paul also describes the spiritual friend as a committed burden-bearer. “Carry each other’s burden” (Galatians 6:2). God calls you to pick up and help carry the weight that overwhelms your friend. “Weight” means anything pressing on people physically, emotionally, or spiritually that makes a demand on their resources. When your friend’s platelets are low, become a spiritual blood transfusion of grace. When your friend’s RPMs are slowing, become their energy conduit.

Carrying each other’s burdens is not optional, nor the domain of a few. “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Pastors can’t say, “I just want to preach from the pulpit,” not if they intend on fulfilling Christ’s law. Lay people can’t say, “That’s the pastor’s job,” not if they intend on obeying Christ’s law. Professional counselors can’t say, “I must maintain a professional distance,” not if they intend on living Christ’s law.

The Rest of the Story

You may be wondering, “But what does it look like and sound like?” Thanks for asking. In our next post we learn about Verbal Grace Connecting.

Join the Conversation

Of the four points outlined above from Galatians 6, which one do you think you most need to add to your spiritual friendship ministry?

Tags: Biblical Counseling, Grace Connecting, Spiritual Conversations, Spiritual Friends

Grace Connecting: Exposure without Rejection

The Big Idea: You’re reading Part Two of a series designed to equip you with five biblical counseling skills using the acrostic GRACE. Read Part One: How to Care Like Christ. Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.

What Grace Connecting Requires: Romans 5:6-8

Grace connection requires exposure without rejection, truth with relationship, curiosity rather than analysis, and face-to-face relating instead of back-to-back professionalism. Christ models exposure without rejection in Romans 5:6-8. “While we were yet sinners” (exposure). “Christ died for us” (acceptance). Grace connection communicates, “I see you warts and all, and I still love you, accept you, like you, and move toward you.”

Paul models truth with relationship in Ephesians 4:15. He tells us that the essence of pastoral care involves speaking and living out the truth in love. Consider possible ways to do ministry:

• Truth Minus Relationship: Intimidation/Compliance

• Relationship Minus Truth: Indecision/Confusion

• Truth Plus Relationship: Internalization/Conformity to Christ

Jesus models curiosity versus analysis. At the end of John 2, John notes that Jesus knew all people universally and deeply. Yet, he did not allow his full knowledge to blind him to the uniqueness of individuals. Following John 2, Jesus engages two of the most diverse individuals imaginable: the Jewish male moral religious leader and the Samaritan female immoral irreligious follower. Reread both accounts and you’ll see his respect for each. His probing curiosity. His unique interactions and involvement.

Analysis views your spiritual friend as “a specimen” to be dissected, analyzed, and studied. Curiosity sees your spiritual friend as an image bearer to be experienced, a mystery to enter, and a soul to know.

We would all do well to tape the following prayer somewhere in our “counseling” office. Or better, somewhere in our soul.

The Spiritual Friend’s Prayer: “Dear Lord, Help me to approach every relationship as an audience with an eternally valuable human being.”

In John 3-4, Jesus models face-to-face relating instead of back-to-back professionalism. He enters their individual worlds. He goes where they are, both geographically and soulfully. He becomes a cartographer of their soul, exploring their personal terrain.

With the woman at the well, in particular, he exposes his humanness. He’s authentic, open, vulnerable, and honest. He connects, touches, and moves toward. He’s anything but surface, fake, phony, uncaring, and distancing.

Building a Connected Spiritual Friendship: Galatians 6:1

How do you develop connected relationships? Exploring how not to develop grace relationships begins to answer that question.

How Not to Build Grace Connections: Job 16:2

Job accused his “friends” of being “miserable comforters.” The word “miserable” means troublesome, vexing, and sorrow-causing. They were the opposite of “comforters”—they were not consoling, sympathetic; they did not feel deeply Job’s hurt. They never said or conveyed in any way, “It’s normal to hurt.”

Instead of grace connecting, they practiced condemning distancing. Read the verses below and notice examples of their poor relational abilities flowing out of their poor theology (Job 42:7) and their cold hearts:

1. Superiority: Job 5:8; 8:2; 11:2-12; 12:1-3; 15:7-17

“We’re better than you. You’re inferior to us.”

2. Judgmentalism: Job 4:4-9; 15:2-6

“It’s not normal to hurt! Your suffering is due to your sinning!”

3. Advice without Insight/Discernment: Job 5:8; 8:5-6; 11:13-20; 42:7

“Here’s what I would do if I were you.” “Do this and life’s complexities will melt away.” “I have the secret that will fix your situation.” They offered quick, trite advice. They were rescuers, answer men, and cliché makers. 

The Rest of the Story

I know, you want to scream, “Don’t stop now! Not with what not to do!” Sorry. But come on back for Part Three: How to Build Grace Connections.

Join the Conversation

How would your relationships change if you prayed The Spiritual Friend’s Prayer? “Dear Lord, Help me to approach every relationship as an audience with an eternally valuable human being.”

Tags: Soul Care, Spiritual Conversations, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Friends, Spiritual Friendships

How to Care Like Christ: Offer GRACE

The Big Idea: You’re reading Part One of a new blog mini-series designed to equip you with five biblical counseling skills using the acrostic GRACE. Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.

What to Do After the Hug

When your friend comes to you in the throes of suffering, how can you help? What do you do after the hug? Or, put another way, “How can my spiritual friends and I engage in grace relationships that sustain their faith?”

This question begs another. “What is a grace relationship?” Grace relationships involve five one another relational competencies that I summarize using the acrostic GRACE:

• G Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6

• R Rich Soul Empathizing: Romans 12:15

• A Accurate/Active Spiritual Listening: John 2:23-4:43

• C Caring Spiritual Conversations: Ephesians 4:29

• E Empathetic Scriptural Explorations: Isaiah 61:1-3

Picture grace that helps others in their time of need. Picture Jesus. Picture caring like Christ.

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).

What a perfect picture of grace relating. Jesus is not aloof, distant, or removed. In His incarnation, He went through the heavens to earth sharing in our humanity, becoming like us, so that He might help us (Hebrews 2:14-18). Jesus is not unsympathetic. He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He’s able to suffer with and be affected similarly to us. He has the same pathos, shares the same experience, has fellow feelings, endures a mutual participation, and partakes of a full acquaintance with us. He offers grace to help in our time of need—well-timed help, help in the nick of time, words aptly spoken in season and actions seasoned with grace.

We can become Jesus with skin on by expressing GRACE relational competencies. The first of which we aptly call “Grace Connecting”: personal involvement with a deep commitment to the maturity of another person.

Grace Connecting: Committed Involvement—Proverbs 27:6

Grace connecting involves communion through communication. You have love in your heart for your spiritual friends. Do they know that? Can they feel it? Do they experience you? Grace connecting allows your passionate love to powerfully touch your spiritual friend.

Connecting is the foundational competency in the art of relationships. Spouses need it. So do parents, co-workers, teammates, friends, church members, and neighbors. We all need to become competent connectors. If we were, all professional helpers (social workers, counselors, and psychologists) would be superfluous, extra, excess, fluff.

The Need for Grace Connecting

There’s plenty of potential pain in spiritual friendship. Ponder what it’s like for you when another person becomes aware of the grief in your soul or the sin in your heart. Risk. Vulnerability. Exposure. Consider:

• How unpleasant it is when you experience and acknowledge devastating emotions (Psalm 42, Psalm 88) (emotional).

• How shameful it feels to admit your sinful motivations and actions, and to feel too weak to do anything about them (Romans 7, James 4-5, Hebrews 3) (volitional).

• How embarrassing it is to confess your mental confusion and sub-biblical images and beliefs about God, others, yourself, and life (Romans 8, 12, Ephesians 4) (rational).

• How vulnerable you feel when you open up about emptiness and thirsts in your soul (Romans 8:18-27) (relational).

• What it’s like to feel like your hurt is abnormal (sustaining).

• What it’s like to believe that it’s impossible to hope (healing).

• What it’s like to experience the horrors of your sin without understanding the wonders of God’s grace (reconciling).

• What it’s like to sense that you’ll never mature (guiding).

When people share about these issues, they need a trustworthy friend. They need grace relationships offered through grace connecting.

Defining Grace Connecting: Proverbs 27:6; 20:30

What is grace connecting? I often learn best by opposites, by poor examples. Let’s start with what grace connecting is not.

Grace Connecting Is Not

The following would not make the pain, risk, and vulnerability of spiritual friendship bearable.

• A Warm Feeling: “Boy, I feel neat when I’m with you.” Spiritual friendship is not always a pleasant experience.

• Sweetness: Merely reflecting and mirroring whatever your spiritual friend says. Non-directive acceptance of everything, including sin.

• A Stage in Counseling: “We’ll do connecting today and then drop it.”

• A Technique in Counseling: “Crying 101.” “Three steps to really caring.”

What Grace Connecting Is: Incarnation

Let’s develop from Scripture our definition of grace connecting: personal involvement with a deep commitment to the maturity of another person. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” Solomon teaches in Proverbs 27:6 (KJV).

“Wounds” are a splitting apart as a doctor does for surgery, an exposure. You enter the ER and say, “Doctor, my chest and the right side of my body are killing me!” You don’t want him to simply be sweet. “That must be really hard for you.” You want him to be skillful, competent—able to diagnose and treat your ailment. So, too, with spiritual friendship. You want to be able to compassionately diagnose heart issues, pulling open the soul and peering deeply inside.

“Faithful” means to support, to bear, to be trustworthy. Alonzo, facing the diagnosis of inoperable cancer, wants to be able to say about you, “I trust you with my soul.” “Faithful” also means to be strong, stable. Alonzo wants to know that his words will not overwhelm you. Touch you deeply, yes. Overwhelm you, no. As his wounds are opened, he wants to know that they will not make you faint, that you will not think less of him.

“Friend” literally means “one who loves you, lover.” The Scriptures use the same word in 2 Chronicles 20:7, calling Abraham God’s “forever friend.” Think of God’s grace relationship with Abraham—encounter, intimacy, fellowship, accountability, fidelity, stability—and you will picture grace connecting.

Proverbs 20:30 speaks of deep commitment to maturity. “Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.” “Cleanse” means to rub, to polish, to grind and buff repeatedly. Picture waxing your car, cleaning your silver. That’s hard work requiring time, effort, and commitment. Alonzo wants to know that you will use all your resources to help him in his time of need. Connection means that you are committed to Alonzo’s growth even when it hurts him and you.

The Rest of the Story

Join us next time as we learn how to practice the art of grace connecting.

Join the Conversation

Who ministers to you through grace connecting?

Tags: Soul Care, Spiritual Conversations, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Friends

Review of The Mystery of the Holy Spirit

Book Details

• Author: R. C. Sproul

• Publisher: Christian Focus (2009) (156 Pages)

• Category: Christian Life, Theology: Pneumatology/Holy Spirit

• ISBN: 978-1-84550-481-6

• Retail Price: $12.99

• Reviewed By: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., www.rpmministries.org

No Footprints in the Sand

To explain his title and purpose, author R. C. Sproul begins The Mystery of the Holy Spirit by quoting Abraham Kuyper. “The Holy Spirit leaves no footprints in the sand.” The Spirit is like the wind (John 3:8)—elusive and mysterious—but nonetheless real and marvelous. Because of the Spirit’s mystery, “we are vulnerable to superstition and distortions of His person and work” (p. 8). Sproul’s purpose, therefore, is to listen carefully to Scripture as it reveals the character of God the Holy Spirit.

Though known as a deep theologian, Sproul’s writings here and elsewhere seek to combine theological precision with personal application. Thus The Mystery of the Spirit seeks to avoid undue theological technicalities, while requiring deep thought leading to a deeper spiritual life.

Who Is the Holy Spirit?

Sproul’s first four chapters provide foundational biblical teaching on the Spirit—He is personal (chapter one); He is God (chapter two); He is a Member of the Trinity (chapters three and four). The first two chapters are somewhat brief and elementary—vital, but explained primarily for the lay person. The third and fourth chapters on the Trinity are deeper—sketching the historical controversies, philosophical reasonings, and biblical teachings regarding Trinitarian theology. This makes for some uneven reading (light/heavy, basic/deep). However, it would be difficult to do otherwise given the eternal mystery of the Trinity.

What Are the Works of the Holy Spirit?

Having provided the theological foundation of the Person of the Spirit, Sproul addresses the Spirit’s works, beginning at the beginning—creation. Here we find a classic example of Sproul’s ability to relate deep truth to daily Christian living. Speaking of the Spirit’s work of completing the empty and void earth, Sproul notes:

“Even in human relationships we have a nagging sense of the threat of emptiness, which we identify with poignant loneliness. The Holy Spirit fills what is empty. He conquers the void. When His work is finished, the once lonely universe is teeming with a plethora of flora and fauna. The barren wasteland becomes a pulsating arena of life. Here we need the Holy Spirit of God as the One who fills all things” (p. 72).

He continues this connection between creation and new creation, but even more pointedly in chapter six: The New Genesis: The Holy Spirit and Regeneration. While this chapter is helpful, there are some interpretations and applications that some might take issue with. For example, Sproul takes “flesh” to be “the sin nature, the entire fallen character of man” (p. 82). Many theologians and biblical counselors would take issue with this direct connection between “flesh” and “sin nature.”

Sproul’s focus in the rest of this chapter is on the order of salvation, which he takes as regeneration and then faith. This essential Reformed doctrine is handled succinctly. No problem there. However, one would have wished for more elaboration in this chapter on the actual change that takes place at regeneration. Sproul focuses more on a change of “leadership” (from Satan to the Spirit), which is accurate as far as it goes. But he does not address the specifics of the change of orientation—that we are truly new creations in Christ, our “old man” is crucified with Christ, and an entirely new disposition (affections, mindsets, will, etc.) is imparted (we are raised with Christ to newness of life in Christ).

Because Sproul does not address our new disposition, when he develops his thoughts on sanctification, the “new nature” is not highlighted. His theology is sound, but the application loses some power by the neglect of the new creation in Christ—who is to grow progressively more like Christ. Our battle is not that of an old nature and a new nature fighting a constant equal tug of war. Progressive sanctification is one new person with the regenerated capacities to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. It’s still a profound battle; it still recognizes that there is no glorification/perfection this side of heaven, but emphasizing the new orientation/new capacities of the new creation in Christ enlightens believers to the foundation for and the path to progressive sanctification.

Sproul’s final three chapters on the baptism of the Spirit (chapter 8), the fruit of the Spirit (chapter nine), and the Other Comforter (chapter ten) are not to be missed. Though very different in style (his discussion of the baptism of the Spirit is theologically deep while his explanation and application of the fruit of the Spirit is personally deep), these chapters address core questions asked by every believer.

His discussion of the Holy Spirit as our Paraclete—Comforter, Counselor, Advocate, Encourager, Giver of consolation—has great application for biblical pastoral counseling. Are we “parakaletic counselors” who know how to bring the Spirit’s comfort, consolation, and counsel to hurting and suffering people? Like the Spirit, do we offer people both solace for their wounds and strength for the battle? Speaking of the Spirit, Sproul writes, “He is the most tender source of solace the wounded, the defeated, or the grief-stricken person can know” (p. 155). Do we offer people biblical encouragement—strength for the journey, as the Spirit does? “The promised Paraclete … will come to give us strength and assistance for the battle” (p. 155).

Well-Worth Reading

R. C. Sproul in The Mystery of the Spirit has honored the Spirit’s mystery while also respecting the Bible’s descriptions of Who the Spirit is and what ministries the Spirit performs. As an introduction to the topic that balances theology and life, The Mystery of the Spirit is well-worth reading.

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What are the best books you’ve read on the Holy Spirit?

Tags: Book Review, Books, Holy Spirit, Mystery of the Holy Spirit, R. C. Sproul

Christian Themes: Big at the Box Office

This week’s USA Weekend Magazine includes a cover article highlighting how Christian-themed films are taking many approaches—and big box office receipts. They correctly note that these are not “Christian films” such as Facing the Giants which was made by Christians with an overtly Christian message, but rather Hollywood-made films that “reveal broken people, lost in pain—anger, loneliness, addition, poverty or staggering sadness-whose lives are rebuilt by small acts of love and kindness, what Psalm 51:1 calls ‘tender mercies.’”

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ ushered in the new age of Christian-themed movies. However, the most influential modern mainstream Christian-themed movie may be The Blind Side. The 2009 film portrays a real family who lived by their Evangelical Christian beliefs. Oscar winner Sandra Bullock played the family’s driving force with an unshakable love for others that she learned from the Bible.

The Next Blockbuster

Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Weekend suspects that Like Dandelion Dust, which opens in September, may be the next Blind Side. While this wrenching adoption story never once mentions Jesus, millions of readers of Evangelical novelist Karen Kingsbury will recognize the movie as one of her many best sellers. According to producer-brothers Kevin and Bobby Downes, “what makes Dust Christian is its portrayal of sacrificial love. We’re Christians who make movies.” Their goal is to make films that move people with universal themes that create conversations while the credits are still rolling.

Capturing the big audience, the unchurched of America, requires strong storytelling, but without sacrificing the “Christian worldview we bring to what we do,” says Bobby Downes. “We are trying to do what Jesus did: Meet people where they are.”

Shallow and Sappy or Profound and Realistic

In many ways, the Downes brothers, are following the time-tested, even ancient model of redemptive storytelling that captures the imagination more with riveting situations and profound character than with overt calls for conversion. Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables is a prime example. The story of Jean val Jean, the paroled theme whose life is changed by an act of grace, and whose path is stalked by the law, vividly portrays a life lived by grace versus one lived by works.

Penetrating the depths of the human soul takes much more than shallow stories where everything ends up fine if you simply trust Jesus. Such smacks more of the health and wealth prosperity gospel than of the Gospel of Christ. This is especially true since Jesus Himself guaranteed that in this world we will have trouble (John 16:33).

Likewise, reaching the mind of the unchurched takes much more than quick parroting of the “Four Spiritual Laws.” And it takes much more than a corny movie, cheaply done, that fails to grapple with real life issues of despair, hopelessness, sin, forgiveness, and redemption. Personally, it takes a depth of relationship that skillfully, wisely, and patient relates truth to life. Cinematically, it takes the portrayal of deep relationships that realistically wrestle with who we are, why things are no longer the way they’re supposed to be, and what brings true and lasting healing.

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For you, what movies or books most powerfully depict Christian themes without being sappy or shallow?

Tags: Facing the Giants, Karen Kingsbury, Les Miserables, Like Dandelion Dust, Movies, The Blind Side