How I Write Versus How I Live

I’ve been thinking lately how difficult it is to live what I write. In my books like Soul Physicians and Spiritual Friends, I write about living the Christian life and being a Christian friend.

Frequently I fail at both.

While pondering my dilemma, I stumbled upon a quote from Samuel Johnson’s The Rambler (1750, Essay 14). (See Sympathy for Hypocrites by John Zahl at his blog Mockingbird.)

“It is not difficult to conceive that for many reasons a man writes much better than he lives. For, without entering into refined speculations, it may be shown much easier to design than to perform. A man proposes his schemes of life in a state of abstraction and disengagement, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations of affection, the importunities of appetite, or the depressions of fear, and is in the same state with him that teaches upon land the art of navigation, to whom the sea is always smooth, and the wind always prosperous…

We are, therefore, not to wonder that most fail, amidst tumult and snares and danger, in the observance of those precepts, which they laid down in solitude, safety, and tranquility, with a mind unbiased, and with liberty unobstructed… Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory.”

Well put. Two lines summarize it best for me.

“It is not difficult to conceive that for many reasons a man writes much better than he lives.”

“Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practice; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory.”

I want to live well what I write. However, I’m not there yet.

More importantly, I want to live well what is written in God’s Word. I’m certainly not there.

I’m thankful for the grace of God in Christ.

Join the Conversation

How do you deal with living imperfectly your own teaching, writing, or counseling?

Spiritual Friends Book Trailer: The Remedy to “Take Two Verses and Call Me in the Morning” 

Spiritual Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care and Spiritual Direction is the remedy to “take two verses and call me in the morning.”

Learn more about Spiritual Friends as you enjoy the video book trailer where I share about:

• The main message of Spiritual Friends

• What motivated me to write Spiritual Friends

• What’s most unique about Spiritual Friends

• The biblical counseling model taught in Spiritual Friends

Watch the video on our RPM Ministries YouTube Channel.

Visit our Spiritual Friends page to read a free sample chapter and learn how you can order an autographed copy of Spiritual Friends at 45% off.

It’s Wonderful to Be Forgiven

The Big Idea: Learn how to help others to receive the wonders of Christ’s forgiveness. (Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.)

Grace Dispensers

When a brother or sister repents of sinful patterns of the heart, we need to become dispensers of Christ’s grace who communicate “it’s wonderful to be forgiven.” Three categories summarize the types of gospel conversations that enlighten others to grasp the wonders of forgiveness:

• Calm the Conscience

• Assure the Conscience

• Comfort the Conscience

Calm the Conscience

Since little counsel can be received when the conscience is in intense turmoil, refuse to let sin overwhelm the conscience. The worst sin of all is denying grace. Therefore, the worst thing that you can do is to allow Satan to overwhelm others so they despair of grace in the midst of their sin. Sin can be forgiven, but believing that sin can’t be forgiven leaves people hopelessly despairing. Satan tempts us to deny Christ’s claims, claiming instead that our sin is greater than Christ’s forgiveness. To calm the conscience, help people to distinguish between law and gospel, as Martin Luther did:

It is the supreme art of the devil that he can make the law out of the gospel. If I can hold on to the distinction between law and gospel, I can say to him any and every time that he should kiss my backside. Even if I sinned, I would say, “Should I deny the gospel on this account?”

To counter Satan’s lies, engage in spiritual conversations: 

• Where were you recruited into the idea that God is angry with you and rejects you when you sin? Who modeled this idea for you? Does it seem to square with your understanding of the Bible? Of grace? Of Christ?

• In the Scriptures (Psalm 1, Psalm 32, Psalm 51, and Romans 8:1-39) and throughout Church history, Christians have meditated on images of God and Christ. What images could you meditate on to increase your conviction that God is gracious to you even when you fail him?

• Christ always loves you and accepts you. What mental pictures have you used to keep this truth in the forefront of your mind?

• What do you think a person should do when they feel overcome and overwhelmed by sin?

• What does the Bible suggest that you do when you feel overwhelmed by sin?

• What does your pastor suggest that you do when you feel overwhelmed by sin?

• What do your Christian friends suggest that you do when you feel overwhelmed by sin?

• What do you tell others to do when they are overwhelmed by sin and crushed by guilt?

Assure the Conscience

The spirit of bondage enslaves the fleshly conscience, causing it to feel that it’s still under the weight of the law and the condemnation of God who it views as a harsh Judge. The Spirit of sonship liberates the spiritual conscience, causing it to understand that it’s now under the freedom of grace and the forgiveness of God who it correctly views as a merciful heavenly Father. The Spirit of sonship frees the conscience from fear, releasing it to trust. Knowing these truths, spiritual friends benefit from spiritual conversations:

• Throughout the Scriptures (Romans 5:1-11; 8:1-39; Galatians 3:1-29; 5:1-26) God tells us that we have peace with him through Jesus Christ. When do you experience his peace to the greatest extent? What are you doing differently when you experience his peace?

• Tell me about your experience of God’s peace. What is it like for you?

• I’m wondering how peace with God motivates you to love God and others.

• The Bible assures us that we’re no longer under condemnation. The spirit of bondage to guilt has been defeated. We’ve been set free to experience the Spirit of sonship—forgiveness, acceptance, and liberty. How are you allowing the Spirit of sonship to reign in your heart? By faith, how can you accept your acceptance in Christ?

• According to the Scriptures, who are you in Christ? Who are you to Christ?

Comfort the Conscience

The Bible teaches that believers are priests (1 Peter 2:1-8) and that God commands Christians to confess their sins one to another (James 5). Throughout Church history, believers knew mutual confession as the mutual consolation of the brethren through private confession.

When we have laid bare our conscience to our brother and privately make known to him the evil that lurked within, we receive from our brother’s lips the word of comfort spoken by God himself. And if we accept this in faith, we find peace in the mercy of God speaking to us through our brother (Luther, Bondage of the Will, 1531/1947, p. 201).

You can help people to experience a comforted conscience through spiritual conversations like:

• Tell me about times when you’ve experienced God’s forgiveness. What was it like?

• What Scriptures have you turned to, to find Christ’s forgiveness? Grace? Love? Friendship?

• The Bible talks so much about God’s grace, forgiveness, and acceptance of us based on our faith in Christ’s death for our sins. When are you most aware of and impacted by these truths? What does God seem to do to bring you to these points of awareness? How do you tend to be cooperating with God as he brings you to these points of awareness?

• How are you allowing other Christians to help you to enjoy and appreciate God’s grace?

• Let’s talk about ways that you’re using the spiritual disciplines to appreciate God’s grace.

• What passages are you meditating on to help you to cling to Christ’s forgiveness?

• Who offers you human tastes of grace that somehow mirror God’s infinite grace?

Join the Conversation

Which sample spiritual conversation do you most need?

Speaking the Truth in Love: Biblical Confrontation

The Big Idea: Learn biblical principles of mutual confrontation in love. (Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.)

Biblical confrontation has earned a “bum rap.” To correct that, consider the following biblical definition based upon 2 Timothy 2:25.

• Confrontation shows people how they are intoxicated by the lies of the world, the flesh, and the Devil.

In 2 Timothy 2:25, Paul commands Timothy to “gently instruct (confront, correct) those who oppose themselves.” The phrase “oppose themselves” develops from the Greek word for antithesis, a contrary position. In the middle tense as it is here, it means to stand opposed to oneself, to place oneself in opposition to oneself.

Confrontation shows Christians how they are standing opposed to themselves. It exposes how believers are living inconsistently with their new hearts—as new creations in Christ. It demonstrates how their lives are inconsistent with their stated beliefs. It reveals how they are buying the lie of the Satan’s work’s narrative rather than being rooted in the truth of Christ’s grace narrative. Confrontation points out discrepancies.

In 2 Timothy 2:22-26, Paul explains the character of the confronter, the process of confrontation, the goal of confronting, and the true enemy in confrontation.

“Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him (oppose themselves) he must gently instruct (confront, correct), in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”

The Character of the Confronter

Confrontation requires the character quality of integrity. To confront another person, Timothy first has to confront himself. He has to flee (put off) evil desires and pursue (put on) godly affections. He removes the log from his eye by living out of a pure heart, before he confronts the heart of another.

Confrontation also requires humility. Timothy shuns fights, quarrels, and stupid arguments. Instead, he is to be kind and patient toward others, especially with those who are refractory. He sees himself as the Lord’s servant voluntarily under Christ’s authority.

Confrontation further requires spirituality. Biblical confrontation is not bold and bullying. It is gentle and patient. In confronting, Timothy practices patience (2:24). That is, he bears up under wrong. When confronting others, they frequently become displeased with him. To bear up without resentment, Timothy needs forbearance.

Timothy is also to confront in meekness (2 Timothy 2:25). Meekness includes a temper of spirit and managed strength released with gentleness, humility, and concern. The meek person neither fights against God nor enters power struggles with others. The meek spiritual friend displays the opposite of self-assertion and self-interest.

The Process of Confrontation

The process of confrontation requires the ability to teach (2:24). Timothy needs to skillfully relate doctrine to conduct. He has to relate truth to human relationships.

Paul uses the phrase “gently instruct” to describe the nature of such teaching. The Greek word relates to schooling and in this context emphasizes corrective instruction.

Its root form literally means to train children. Such child training requires practicality. It also necessitates explanation, as opposed to simply handing down rules by fiat. Much more than mere exhortation to stop a behavior, it involves instruction in the process of heart change leading to behavioral change.

The process of confrontation also requires savvy. “Those who oppose themselves he must gently confront in the hope that God will grant them repentance” (2:25, author’s translation, emphasis added). Timothy avoids power struggles and a quarrelsome spirit by realizing that it is not his role, but God’s, to bring about repentance. His role is simply to gently instruct by demonstrating discrepancies.

The Goal of Confrontation

The goal of instructive correction (confrontation) is maturity: love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5). Thus the goal is virtue (2 Peter 1:3-11): character, not simply content.

Biblical instruction/confrontation includes a presentation of a clear worldview (grace narrative) and the implications derived from it (grace relationships). Confrontation promotes spiritual development through personal influence; it is the relational presentation of God’s worldview. It skillfully explores any discrepancies between grace narratives and works narratives and grace relationships and works relationships.

Paul further develops the goal of gentle biblical confrontation when he writes, “that they may recover themselves” (2 Timothy 2:26, author’s translation). Thus, the goal is sobriety and sanity. To “recover” means to return to soberness as from a state of delirium where one is under the control of an outside element—the controlling passions of the flesh, intoxicated with false worldviews, and snared by the Devil. Confrontation helps a person return to a sound mind—a whole, healthy mind that thinks and lives with integrity.

The True Enemy in Confrontation

The goal of confrontation points to the true enemy in confrontation—escape from the snare of the Devil who has taken them captive to do his will. “Snare” (2 Timothy 2:26) is a trap that fastens or holds fast, a net, a noose. Various ancient authors used the word for seductive women and for the Trojan Horse. A snare is anything that entices with something desirable. It promises pleasure, but gives pain. When snared, a believer is caught in the net of self-deception and captured by the Devil’s delusion.

So consider who the true enemy is here. Your counselee or parishioner is not the ultimate enemy, Satan is. He has taken the person captive. You attack Satan with God’s spiritual armor rather than attacking your spiritual friend.

Pictured how Paul paints it, confrontation is the loving presentation of truth applied to specific inconsisten areas of our spiritual friend’s life. When responded to positively, the results are freedom from the Devil’s seduction and freedom to live out God’s truth in love.

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How could you apply biblical principles of mutual confrontation to your spiritual friendships?

Gospel Conversations: The Remedy to “Take Two Verses and Call Me in the Morning”

The Big Idea: Do you want to remedy the shallow stereotype of “take two verses and call me in the morning?” Are you ready to stop putting band-aids on your friends’ suffering and sin? Then engage in mutual gospel conversations based upon a biblical way of looking at and living life. (Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.)

Gospel Conversations: Ephesians 4:29

People struggling with suffering and wrestling with besetting sins need whispers, not shouts. Don’t holler curses; whisper grace.

Caring gospel conversations use biblical wisdom principles to engage your spiritual friends in discussions that help them to think through their external situation and internal heart condition. The core relational competency necessary for this soul care art is the ability to trialogue.

In a monologue you speak to me, in a dialogue we speak to each other, and in trialogues together we listen to God as He speaks to us through His all-sufficient Word. In trialogues, we make the presence of God the central dynamic in our conversation. We interact in Jesus’ name helping people to face personal issues on a personal level. Our personal relationship with them helps them to deepen their personal relationship with Christ.

Gospel conversations invite your spiritual friends into an exchange so they can experience the passion of having been changed by grace. They invite your spiritual friends into a vivid, robust experience of grace narratives through grace relationships.

Consider just a sampling of biblical passages that depict trialogues:

• “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matthew 18:20).

• “See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:12-13).

• “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith . . . And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:22, 24-25).

The Shape of Gospel Conversations

The tongue has the capacity to offer life-giving resources that nourish the soul, or to be a power for life-draining energies that poison the soul. “From the fruit of his mouth a man’s stomach is filled: with the harvest from his lips he is satisfied. The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:20-21). Gospel conversations are good talk about our good God and Christ’s good news in the midst of our bad life in our sinful world.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29). Gospel conversations are grace conversations. Law conversations crush people and destroy relationships (compare Matthew 23). Grace conversations edify people and build relationships.

“Unwholesome” words are corrupt and rotten like decaying fruit. They’re putrid, defiling, and injuring words. They’re toxic speech—words that poison others, making their spirit sick. Paul’s emphasis is clear in the original language: “All words of rottenness, do not let come out of your mouth.” Spiritual friends restrain themselves, refusing to speak until they understand what words will be:

• Helpful: Good because they flow from moral character and promote beautiful living.

• Strengthening/Building Up Others: Edifying words that bring improvement and promote maturity.

• According to Their Need: Carefully chosen words that specifically fill up a need, meet a lack, minister to a want, or express care in a difficulty, where it is most necessary.

• Beneficial: Ministering grace. Attractive speech that helps others to receive God’s love poem and become God’s love poetry. They are grace-gift words—generously given, freely granted words that accept, that free, that empower, and that give hope.

To the Colossians, Paul writes, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6). Grace words are words of connection, giving, affirming, accepting, freeing, and justifying. They are seasoned with salt—they preserve relationships with God, others, and self.

James, after describing the fiery and poisonous nature of words (James 3:1-8), notes that, “with the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness” (James 3:9). In James 3:10-16, James teaches that Satan is the ultimate source of cursing words—harmful, hurtful, damaging words that wish a judgment upon someone.

The most harmful words involve cursing conversations, law relationships, and condemning speech filled with wrath and scorn. Grace words, by contrast, are motivated by purity, pursue peace, and produce the fruit of righteousness (James 3:17-18).

Join the Conversation

Who needs your grace words today? How will you minister to this person through gospel conversations?

Five Biblical Reasons for Spiritual Listening: God’s Word about Human Words

The Big Idea: Learn five biblical reasons why listening is a scriptural concept not a secular technique. Excerpted from Spiritual Friends.

Listening carefully to people’s words is biblical, not secular. Listen to what God’s Word teaches about listening to human words:

• Words Are Powerful

• Words Are Meaningful

• Words Convey Soul Messages

• Words Are Worthy of Soulful Attentiveness

• Words Reflect One of Two Life Interpretations

Words Are Powerful: Proverbs 18:21

“The tongue has the power of life and death” (Proverbs 18:21). That’s power. The tongue, says James, is a small body part with power far beyond its size (James 3:1-5a). “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire” (James 3:5b-6). That’s power. Listen carefully to the powerful, life and death words of your spiritual friends.

Words Are Meaningful: Proverbs 18:4; 20:5

“The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters” (Proverbs 18:4). “The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5). Words carry the soul’s longings, beliefs, purposes, and feelings. Through careful, caring listening, you perceive the depth of the soul. Through active, accurate listening, you draw out the meaning of the soul—the hidden desires, convictions, goals, and emotions.

Words Convey Soul Messages: Psalm 39:1-3; Matthew 12:33-37

“Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Spoken words flow out of the depths of the heart revealing the content of the heart. The good heart bears nourishing fruit conveyed by wholesome words, while the evil heart bears poisonous fruit conveyed by unwholesome words. If you want to know your spiritual friends, then listen skillfully to their words.

Words Are Worthy of Soulful Attentiveness: Proverbs 18:13; James 1:19

“He who answers before listening—that is his folly, that is his shame” (Proverbs 18:13). “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). The caring soul carefully listens to words spoken from the soul.

Words Reflect One of Two Life Interpretations: Job 42:7

“After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, ‘I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has’” (Job 42:7). Job and his three friends witnessed one situation, but derived two vastly different interpretations. The set of information involved Job’s life experience. The first interpretation consisted of the works, condemnation, cursing, and shame narrative of life inspired by Satan. The second consisted of the grace, faith, openness, and acceptance narrative inspired by God. According to God, Job got him right; Job’s friends got God all wrong.

Whenever you listen, you listen for three sets of stories. Listen for your spiritual friends’ life stories: listen attentively to what they’re saying about what they’re experiencing. Then listen to two possible interpretations of their stories. Listen attentively for signs of Satan’s narrative creeping in. Additionally, listen attentively to God’s narrative gaining dominance. These competing interpretive frameworks are at work in every life story.

Join the Conversation

Which of the five biblical principles of spiritual listening is most important in your ministry to others? Why?