Gospel Centered Counseling

Introduction

Small Group Discussion: I’d like to begin with a Small Group Discussion. This might be challenging, but I’m hoping a few from each table will be brave enough to share. “Share briefly a time where you experienced suffering or trial. In the midst of that trial, what lies were you tempted to believe (about God, God’s purpose, your identity, your faith, etc.)”

Welcome everybody to our class Gospel Centered Counseling. I want to begin with a few words from Scripture to get us pointed in a particular direction today.

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

God Comforts Us: This is a very important passage for biblical care and counseling for two reasons. First, this passage reveal that the Gospel of Jesus Christ truly does comfort us. When Paul speaks about being comforted by God, he is speaking about all the hardships he has endured and his people have endured in this world. He was imprisoned, beaten, stoned and left for dead, misunderstood, and countless other difficulties that took a toll on his mind and on his heart. But the Apostle says that God “comforts us in all our affliction.”

We Comfort Others: But second he also says that we, are able to take that comfort, and apply it into other people’s lives. We, those who have been comforted by God, are able to come into other sufferer’s lives and adminster the gospel, like medicine. Just as a doctor might diagnose a problem and prescribe medicine, a wise Christians can diagnose challenges in someone’s life, and apply the medicine of the Gospel in a way that actually comforts, that actually heals.

Is the gospel enough to heal a person struggling with grief of the loss of a parent? And how would we navigate that grief?

Is the gospel enough to minister to a couple who just experienced a miscarriage? And how would we comfort that family?

Is the gospel enough to speak to the man who has been out of work for two years with little hope on the horizon? And how would we encourage that man?

Is the gospel enough to heal the heart of a man who just discovered his wife has been cheating on him? And how we would speak to him?

Personal Humility: I want to begin with a word of humility on my part. While I am your pastor, and while I give much of my time to pastorally counseling individuals and married couples, I confess that this is not the strongest tool in my pastoral toolbelt. I am learning how to do this better. Over the years I have tried various approaches and have had both successes and failures as a pastoral counselor. I feel that I have let people down at times. And so everything I teach today, I teach not as one who is the expert on this topic, but as a heartfelt shepherd trying to impart to you some of the wisdom I have learned through my own mistakes. I also must confess that the vast majority of this class is based on the material in a book titled Gospel Centered Counseling: How Christ CHangs Lives by Robert Kellemen and Deepak Reju. I love this book and recommend it deeply to you.

Many Have Wrong Opinion: Many Christians have an entirely wrong opinion about the power of the Gospel and the power of Jesus Christ to transform lives. Many believe Christianity’s real power lies solely in our salvation. Jesus has saved us from our sin through his death on the cross, yes indeed. But when it comes to our day to day lives and the day to day struggles, that same gospel is inadequate. And so today we have what has often been referred to as a Mental Health Crisis. What we are experiencing is many people who are suffering from all sorts of mental hardships, that do not know where to turn to find healing. The most common place people turn to is therapists who use secular methods for attempting to heal spiritual wounds. Or, we turn to psychiatrists who apply chemicals to try to heal spiritual wounds. Now, this is not to say that Biblical therapy cannot play a role, or that wise psychiatry may not be important. It is to say that the Gospel is often overlooked in these discussions. I agree with David Powlison when he writes,

“What is the place of Christ’s good news in biblical counseling? That is rather like asking, “What is the place of water and carbon in human physiology?” The gospel of Jesus is the fundamental stuff of biblical counseling. Counseling that lacks Jesus, however skillful, is not wise.” David Powlison

Agenda

Foundations for Biblical Care (after each major section we’ll have a time for group discussion)

The Gospel Narrative Approach

A Balanced Vision of Progressive Sanctification

Practically Aiding Others through Progressive Sanctification

I FOUNDATIONS FOR BIBLICAL CARE

Before we did into the meat of today’s discussion, it is very important that we lay down some presuppositions and assumption. We need to get on the same page in terms of some of the things we say we believe, otherwise we’ll all be approaching Biblical Care from different places. I’m going to go quickly through quite a lot of points here. And I go quickly not becausee these are not important, in fact, this whole first section could be the entire class today. I’m going quickly, I’m going to assume for the sake of this class, that we are on the same page with these things, even if many of us still need to work on them quite a bit.

Assumptions: Let’s begin with some biblical assumptions.

The Gospel: We believe in the power of the Gospel to truly transform lives, renew our mind, to give real hope, and lasting peace. (2 Corinthians 3:18 “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”)

The Holy Spirit: We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to work through faithful Christians. (2 Timothy 1:7 “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” )

The Word: We believe in the sufficiency of the Word of God to speak truth into every area of our lives. (Romans 15:4 “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”)

God’s Promises: We believe that God is not finished with any Christian, but is continuing to make us more like Christ. (Philippians 1:6 “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”)

God’s Story: We believe that man-made efforts to transform lives, that do not tackle root issues of sin, nor properly apply the gospel, are incomplete at best.

Skills: Second, let’s record some of the biblical skills you will need to utilize.

Active Listening: a lengthy posture of humble listening without the need to jump in and provide your own insight too early.

Compassion: a “suffering with” the other person.

Longsuffering: a patient awareness that transformation often takes time.

Spiritual Humility: a posture that never looks down on another person for their sins or their weaknesses.

Prayer: a commitment to fervently pray for the other person.

Trust: a recognition that we cannot change a person, but God can and often does on his own timing.

Postures: Third, let us consider three postures of our conversations that we want to be intentional with, especially at those key moments.

Sustaining: “It’s Normal to Hurt”—Learning how to weep with those who weep by offering biblical sustaining care for hurting people.

Healing: “It’s Possible to Hope”—Learning how to give hope to the hurting by offering biblical healing comfort and encouragement for suffering people.

Reconciling: “It’s Horrible to Sin, but Wonderful to Be Forgiven”—Learning how to be a dispenser of Christ’s grace by offering biblical reconciling care-fronting for people struggling against besetting sins.

Guiding: “It’s Supernatural to Mature”—Learning how to disciple, coach, and mentor by offering biblical guiding wisdom for people growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

Reflection Question: Consider these final four postures for a moment. Have you ever experienced a time when somebody spoke words like these over you? These can be both challenging and freeing at the same time? Share, what that experience was like.

II THE GOSPEL NARRATIVE APPROACH

We have laid a bit of a foundation, now we are going to move into some of the substance. And to do that we want to ask the question, “How do we help people apply the gospel into their hardships in a way that transforms?” First, let me give you three ways that well meaning Christians, myself included, have sometimes gotten this wrong.

Avoid/Refer Approach: “I’m a committed Christian. I want to help you with your struggle. However, we have to understand that while the Bible provides insight for our ‘spiritual lives,’ God never intended that we use his Word to address ‘emotional and mental’ struggles. For relevant help for those issues, we need outside experts.”

Sprinkling Approach: “I’m a committed Christian. I want to help you with your struggles. To the insights I’ve gleaned from the world’s wisdom about your issue, I’ll add Christian concern, prayer, and some occasional biblical principles where they seem pertinent.” There’s confidence in God’s Word as important in helping hurting people, but its application lacks an understanding of the vital, comprehensive, and robust nature of God’s Word for life in a broken world.

Concordance Approach: “I’m a committed Christian. I want to help you with your struggle. You have a problem. I’ll use my Bible concordance to find God’s answer.” Some have called this the “one-problem, one-verse, one-solution” approach. There’s confidence in the Bible, but its application lacks an understanding of the complexity of life and the rich nature of God’s Word.

The Gospel Narrative Setup: There is a better way, the Gospel Narrative way. In the Gospel Narrative Way we see the Bible not simply as an academic textbooks with answers to our problems. Rather, we understand that the Bible is a narrative, a drama, in which the story of God, the story of God’s people, our story, unfolds. It is a drama of redemption. It is a drama of deep relationship. The hero of the story is Christ. Ever since Genesis 3, and the entrance of sin and broknennes into this world, there has been a battle for our hearts and our minds. The entire Biblical narrative is a story of God wooing us back into his holy and loving arms, while at same time defending us from the Evil One who wants to seduce us away from his covenantal love. When we, as biblical friends, and even biblical counselors understand this drama and help those who are hurting truly find their place in that drama, God heals and our ministry comes alive.

The Elements of the Gospel Narrative

Prologue: Community—Before the Beginning/Eternity Past: The prologue to the Biblical drama entails the very nature of God. At the center of eternity past is God. The great problem with man-made counseling is that it places us/humans at the center of the story. But we as biblical counselors want to shift away from that. We want to reorient their story into the Biblical story. Their true story is that Christ is at the center of everything. Before creation itself, Christ existed in perfect harmony with the Father.

Colossians 1:15–19 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,”

And it’s as if Paul is saying, “Is your life falling apart? Do you feel like you’re coming unglued? Then turn to the One in whom ‘all things hold together’ ” (Col. 1:17).

Act I Creation—In the Beginning: The story of creation explains the way things are supposed to be. We were not made to live for ourselves, we were made to live for God, with God, by the power of God. We are image bearers and were were made “for him” (Col. 1:16). God chose to create us, not out of need, but out of love for his creation. He invited us into that eternal intimacy he had with himself. The essence of life is not only simply relationship, it’s relationship with the trinitarian God of creation.

In the flow of God’s grand narrative, Paul’s creation narrative teaches us how we were meant to live life with God and with each other. His other-centered worldview guides us in unique directions when we seek to help us answer central life questions like, “What does it look like to live a whole life in a broken world? What is the purpose of life?”

Act II Fall: Tragically, it all fell apart when Adam and Eve attempted to live life apart from the Creator of life. As a result of their rebellion, they moved from other-centered, dependent God-worshipers experiencing shalom to self-centered, independent self-worshipers experiencing shame. Paul captures it in a sentence

Colossians 1:21 “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,”

Apart from Christ, our wills are bent only toward Satan’s sub-version of God’s grand narrative because our minds are under “the dominion of darkness” (Col. 1:13). We can trace every inch and each ounce of separation, shame, sadness, and selfishness to Adam and Eve’s willful choice to choose Satan’s counsel over God’s counsel—to choose Satan over God. The Colossians were facing that same choice. It is the choice we and our counselees face every day—to whose counsel will we commit our hearts and minds?

Since the Fall, life is not just one grand narrative—it is a competition between two grand narratives that each vie for our attention and commitment. Satan’s grand narrative is filled with lies, self (self-sufficiency, selfishness, self-effort), works, and condemnation, while Christ’s grand narrative is filled with truth, God (Christ-sufficiency), other (other centered), faith, grace, and forgiveness.

Gospel-centered counseling seeks to follow humbly the wisdom path of Christ’s grand grace/gospel narrative rather than arrogantly following the foolish path of Satan’s grand works/condemnation narrative. Our imaginations are held captive to Satan’s lying, condemning narrative (2 Cor. 10:4–7). Gospel-centered counseling is part of God’s frontal assault on mind-sets surrendered to secular stories—the wisdom of the world.

Act III Redemption: Paul says, “You want to know about change? About victory? Listen to the gospel announcement of Christ’s victory! And I’m not talking only about past victory over sin, as amazing as that is. I’m also talking about ongoing victory in our daily battles as we face suffering and struggle against sin.” That’s why Paul reminds them—as believers—that this gospel is continuing to bear fruit and grow “just as it has been doing … since the day you heard it and understood [it]” (Col. 1:6).

In the biblical picture, Christ takes me by the hand from the courtroom and leads me into the Father’s house, walking me into God’s presence. When we enter the living room, the Father, my Father, is not in his judge’s robes. He’s in his family attire. When he sees me, it is just like Luke 15 and the prodigal son. My Father runs to me, throws his arms around me, and kisses me. He puts the family ring on my finger and ushers me back home!

Through Christ, God is not only the Judge who forgives you. He is your Father who welcomes you. That’s why he sent his Son to die for you. And now with the barrier of sin demolished, nothing stands between you and your loving heavenly Father. You can meet God person to Person, son or daughter to loving Father. It’s not simply, “Come on in, the water’s fine!” It’s, “Come on home, everything is fine between us!”

Illustration: Book ending of the story with Ruth where the girl at the end found out she had a different mother who loved her. It would take time for that little girl to get situated into who she truly was.

Act IV Church—Love Poised Between Faith and Hope: As Paul provides spiritual counsel for the troubled and confused Colossian Christians, he doesn’t envision them alone. Instead, he envisions them together “as God’s chosen people” (Col. 3:12) and “as members of one body” (Col. 3:15)—the church. Paul includes these words of one-another ministry in the context of growth in grace (Col. 3:1–11) because sanctification is a Christ-centered community journey.

In Paul’s letter of spiritual counsel, he does not move directly from Redemption to Consummation. Instead, he teaches that we find ourselves as the church living between two comings—the first and the second coming of Christ. We are poised between looking back with faith in our Redeemer and looking forward with hope as we await his return as Conquering Groom

In God’s grand narrative drama, the church is, as Kevin Vanhoozer pictures it, the theater of the gospel. We are to perform the gospel p 34 in our one-another relationships with the world as our audience so that they will ask us for a reason for the faith, hope, and love they witness (Col. 4:4–7; 1 Peter 3:15). As the church we are to embody communion with God and one another in a manner that entices and invites others to join in.

Epilogue: Consummation: Paul not only pulls back the curtain to show us the end of the war, he also shows us the beginning of the wedding. “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Col. 1:22). The victory is announced. God reigns! The wedding march starts. All the scars and blemishes of sin are cleansed. The bride wears white!

This victory narrative forms the foundation of our counsel and changes the agenda of our counseling. Typically we ask God and seek help from each other to change our feelings and our circumstances. God is in the change business, but a very different type of change—heart change, Christlikeness—presenting everyone “perfect,” or mature, in Christ (Col. 1:28).

Listen to the song of eternity—it’s about celebrating Christ’s victory and the Bride’s purity for God’s glory! We look at our lives and want instructions or explanations. What we need is imagination and vision to see life today in light of eternity.

Review:

Group Discussion: Pretend for a moment that your best friend from childhood, a Christian, is in an unhappy marriage. She is struggling deeply emotionally and mentally, and has been distancing herself from her church community. Discuss what questions you ask her in a conversation to begin drawing out a better understanding of where her heart and mind are in relation to the true Gospel Narrative outline in this section?

III BALANCED APPROACH TO PROGRESSIVE SANCTIFICATION

We now shift and we are going to move towards laying down some very practical skills about ‘Progressive Sanctification’. First, let’s define that term. When we speak about Sanctification, we are speaking about the ongoing process in a believers life of becoming more like Christ, of experiencing healing, wholeness, safety, life. The moment a person is saved, they experience Justification, their sins are forgiven, and they are grafted into the family of God. From that moment on, a journey of progressive sanctification begins. It is up and down journey, never linear, nevertheless it is a journey that should be marked by general growth over time.

But how does that growth happen? And how do we help others to experience that growth? Let me lay out two incomplete ideas of how growth happens.

Gospel Indicative Approach (Let Go & Let God): The first is called the Gospel Indicative Approach to Sanctification. In its extreme seems to emphasize that sanctification entirely or almost exclusively involves the work of God, where our only “role” is to remember and re-believe what God has already done for us in the gospel (gospel indicatives). Under this approach, there is nothing we can do, or need to do, in our own sanctification. Sanctification is wholly a work of grace, and therefore our only job in the process is believe more the truths of Scripture. This is perhaps summarized best in the old addage “Let go and let God.”

John Stott says it this way,

“We are to recall, to ponder, to grasp, to register these truths until they are so integral to our mindset that a return to the old life is unthinkable. Regenerate Christians should no more contemplate a return to unregenerate living than adults to their childhood, married people to their singleness or discharged prisoners to their prison cell. For our union with Jesus Christ has severed us from the old life and committed us to the new.”

On the one hand we can affirm everything in the Gospel indicative approach. We do need to retell ourselves the Gospel all the time. And sanctification is a work of the Spirit in us. Yet, the Apostles regularly called us to take personal action in our spiritual growth. In Romans 6:1-11, Paul lays out the indicatives of what we believe, and then he says.

Romans 6:12–14 “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”

So, the Gospel Indicative Approach is not incorrect, it simply seems incomplete.

Gospel Imerative Approach (Try Harder): On the other end of the spectrum is the Gospel Imperative Approach. If we look at the book of Ephesians as a whole. Ephesians 1-3 contains all the indicatives, the truth statements about who we are in Christ. Then Ephesians 4-6 contain all the gospel imperatives, the things we are called to do, in order to grow in Christ. And this Gospel Imperative approach tends to isolate the imperatives from the indicatives. Succinctly, “Try harder.” This focus is much less on our identity in Christ, our position in Christ, and is much more about empowering us to take our sanctification by the horns and labor to grow.

The good in this, is that there are imperatives in the Scriptures, and there are legitimate things we can do to grow in Christ, and to experience the presence of Christ in trials and tribulations. But if we only focus on the imperatives, we end up creating a works based religion. We come alongside a person who is struggling, and we end up telling them, “Just read your Bible more, and pray more.” And so they do that, and come back a month later and share that all the same problems still exist, and now they just feel shame upon shame for the sense the real problem is just that they’re not doing enough. No!!!! This is not the Gospel!

Balanced Approach: Robert Kelleman wonderfully designates the balanced approach as drawing the best from both of these approaches. We do not grow by simply trying harder, and we do not grow by simply letting go and doing nothing. There is a role for us to play. He defines the balancese approach this way.

Sanctification is the grace-motivated and grace-empowered art of applying our justification, reconciliation, regeneration, and redemption to our daily lives and relationships through wisdom from the Word of God, through relational dependence on our triune God, through the encouragement of the people of God, and through the motivation from our future with God so that our inner life increasingly reflects the inner life of Christ (relationally, rationally, volitionally, and emotionally) as we put off the old dead person we no longer are and put on the new person we already are in Christ (relationally, rationally, volitionally, and emotionally) for God’s glory.

Phew! That is a lengthy definition. But let’s draw out a few key points.

Grace Motivated & Grace Empowered: He says that sanctification is grace motivated and grace empowered. It begins with the Gospel taking root in our souls. That Gospel is like a furnace that blazes underneath the flames of sanctification. We grow in grace only through a relationship with God the Father, a relationship of mutual interchange, joint participation, and fellowship—koinônia: receiving and responding to our Father’s grace-love. Our soul must be captured by our forgiving Father, our heart enraptured by his narrative of grace-love, our will surrendered to his good and generous will, and our emotions fully open to his good heart.

Applying Our Justification, Adoption, etc.: Secondly, we must learn to “apply” the work into our daily lives. It is not enough to just know the Gospel intellectually.

Justification: Our New Pardon—The Judge Declares Us “Not Guilty! Forgiven!”

Reconciliation: Our New Peace—The Father Says to Us, “Welcome Home!”

Regeneration: Our New Person—The Creator Says to Us, “You’re a New Creation in Christ! Saints!”

Redemption: Our New Power—The Victor Says to Us, “You Are More than Conquerors through Christ! Victors!”

That truth must be appropriated into our bones. As Ezekiel was instructed to “Eat this book” so must we digest the promises until they become a part of our worldview. The great Puritan Thomas Boston wrote,

“To you that are saints, I say, strive to obtain and keep up actual communion and fellowship with Jesus Christ; that is, to be still deriving fresh supplies of grace from the fountain thereof in Him, by faith, and making suitable returns of them, in the exercise of grace and holy obedience.”

Inner Life: This definition has a focus on the “inner life.” We are not just looking for outward conformity, but rather we are looking to have our inner man, our souls, continually shaped by the gospel.

Labors to “Put On” the New Man & “Put Off” the Old: Lastly, we are putting off the old dead person and putting on the new person. This language comes from Ephesians 4:22-24 which reads

Ephesians 4:22–24 “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

In the final section, we are going to look at what it practically looks like to put off the old self and put on the new self. First, let’s have a brief discussion.

Biblical Imagination: To minister effectively, we need a biblical imagination, a biblical vision, that perceives the big story God is writing and our role in it. We need to understand that we’ve been placed in the middle of the greatest story. We need to take these big salvation words and apply them to our daily lives together

Justification: “To your sin and condemnation, the gospel says, ‘Not guilty! Forgiven!’ ”

Reconciliation: “To your lostness and aloneness, the gospel says, ‘You are accepted. Adopted. You are family—sons and daughters. Welcome home!’ ”

Regeneration: “To your fallenness and heart of stone, the gospel says, ‘You’re a new creation in Christ. Saints!’ ”

Redemption: “To your enslavement to sin and defeat at the hands of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, the gospel says, ‘You are more than conquerors through Christ. Victors!’ ”

Salvation and Suffering: “To your deep grief, the gospel says, ‘Mourning does not have the final word. Healing does. Joy does.’ ”

Group Discussion: Which approach of the two incomplete approaches do you naturally lean more towards when you think about the growth you’ve experienced in your life?

IV PROGRESSIVE SANCTIFICATION

We now move to our final section where we look at practically how we “put on” and “put off” as we are told to do in Scripture. Let’s begin by reading a section from Romans 7.

Romans 7:14–24 “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Body of Death: This is a very important section of theology. In it Paul wrestles with this messy sanctification journey. He knows what sin is, and yet he keeps making the same mistakes that he doesn’t want to make. Have any of you ever felt like that? And in verse 24 he says, “Who will deliver me from this body of death.” We are not entirely sure the exact imagery that Paul had in mind here, but some commentators believe that he is referring here to an old form of capitol punishment. Back in the Apostle’s day, if you committed a crime worthy of death, you could get the punishment of a “body of death.” Under this punishment they would take a recently deceased body, and tie it to you. Over a period of days and weeks, as that body decomposed on you, it would cause you to get sick and slowly die yourself.

This is Sin & Corruption!: Don’t miss what Paul is saying. He is saying, “I know the indicatives! I know that I am born again! I know that I am justified in Christ! I know that I am adopted into the family of God. And yet, even after that born again experience I continue to experience the rot of sin and corruption in my life. When we fail to properly apply the gospel, our false ways of thinking and false ideologies and sinful tendencies function like a body of death, slowly killing us. He cries out,

Romans 7:25–8:1 “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Chambers of the Heart: So, when we get to the work of progressive sanctification, and we are told to “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24), what does this mean? What exactly are we to put off and put on? Quite literally to put off and put on is to distrub, disrupt, uproot and replace the lies and inconsistencies of the old man with his old mindset and his old heart with the new man, who is clothed in the love and righteousness of Christ. Robert Kelleman lists out four “Chambers of the Heart” that we must consider when thinking about “putting off” and “putting on”

Relational Beings—Affections: God designed us as spiritual beings who relate to him, social beings who relate to one another, and self-aware beings who relate to our own selves. In the very core of our being, we have deep affections, longings, and desires. God designed us to thirst for relationship, both with God, and with other people. The bond that holds our relationships in tact is love.

Rational Beings—Mind-Sets: God designed us with minds that can perceive his world and advance his kingdom. In that original design, God empowered us to think wisely—to think God’s thoughts after him, to understand life from his perspective. We can summarize our rational capacity with the concept of mind-sets. In counseling, we don’t simply help people to change one thought; we help people to understand the pattern of their thinking—their mind-sets. This is what Paul emphasizes in Romans 12:1–2 when he commands us to renew our minds—our deeply held and characteristic ways of thinking about God, self, and others

Volitional Beings—Created to Choose Courageously—Pathways/Purposes: Created in the image of our all-powerful God who creates out of nothing and whose purposes no one can ever thwart, we are volitional beings who act purposefully. God created us not as robots, but as sons and daughters with a will to choose his will. We are not animals who react on instinct, nor are we computers that act on input. We are human beings with a motivational capacity to act on the basis of our beliefs about what quenches our relational thirsts (Gen. 3:6). We are motivated by what we believe will satisfy the deepest thirsts in our soul. So in counseling we don’t only encourage people to change their behavior; we empower people through Christ to make changes at the level of deep heart motivation (Prov. 16:1–2).

Emotional Beings: Created to Experience Deeply—Mood States: Created in the image of our passionate and compassionate God, we are emotional beings who experience life deeply and internally. God created us to feel. Though the Christian world sometimes makes emotions “the black sheep of the image-bearing family,” God loves emotions. Jesus wept, and so do we. The Spirit grieves, as we do. The Father rejoices, like we do. We have the emotional capacity to respond to our outer world based on our inner actions, choices, goals, beliefs, images, longings, and desires. Like God, we relate, think, choose, and feel. We experience life deeply, responding and reacting to our external situations based on our internal affections, mind-sets, and pathways. We can summarize our emotional capacity with the phrase mood states. In helping a hurting person, we don’t simply try to address one emotion; instead we work with people to manage their moods—to grow in their ability to handle painful, messy, complex feelings in a godly way—to soothe their soul in their Savior.

Summary: In our care of others, and in our care of ourselves, we are after the whole person. We want to be heathy image bearers of Christ. Sometimes when you look at a person’s life and sense that something is off, but you can’t put your finger

The Second Document [Pass out Heart Change document]: I am going to walk briefly thorugh a synopsis that I have put together for each of you. This is a twelve step process that is not intended to be a science that you simply walk through these steps and, Presto, all is healed. Rather, this is a slow and steady process where we put into practice the truths of Scripture. You’ll see that the first six steps contain the title “Mortification.”

Mortification Definition: The habitual weakening of the flesh, of those vestiges of the old dead you. It involves the ongoing crippling of your old fleshly inclinations, putting off your old dead false lovers, foolish mind-sets, self-centered pathways, and ungoverned mood states.

The second six steps contain the title “Vivification.”

Vivification Definition: The process of putting on or re-habituating themselves to new patterns that reflect who you already are in Christ.

A simpler way of saying this is that mortification is “putting off” or “putting to death” and vivification is “putting on” or “bringing to life.”