Jesus the Healing Counselor
Let me ask you to turn in your bibles to 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
My heart is heavy with a desire to serve. As I have prayed for this message, I have felt overwhelmed at times with what I could say that would be a help and a blessing to those of you who are living on the front lines of the ministry of the Word. Really, what is in my heart is chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 of 2 Corinthians. What I would love to do is spend a couple of days going through those verses and proving to you that if we really understood what they say, and if we really were living out what they mean, we would have almost none of the problems that we are facing today in the contemporary biblical counseling movement. However, I don’t have days, I have minutes, and so I’m going to shrink four chapters down to a few verses—2 Corinthians 4:16-18—which come at the end and encapsulate a lot of what has been in Paul’s heart in these chapters that he has been writing. In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, this is what God says:
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
We are living right now in a season of the greatest conflict in the history of the contemporary biblical counseling movement. Now, in one sense, that should be par for the course, because in every area of life, we are living in a season of conflict. There’s conflict in the world: Israel versus terrorists and Ukraine versus Russia. There’s conflict in American national politics with Kamala and Trump. There’s conflict in contemporary evangelicalism. There’s conflict in my own denomination of the Southern Baptist Convention. There’s conflict in the contemporary biblical counseling movement, there really is.
My awakening to this season of conflict happened on the backside of a profound personal struggle. In my family, we marked 2018 as my retirement from formal leadership in the biblical counseling movement. I walked out the door and entered into one season of difficulty after another: ministry explosions, physical problems, house problems, and car problems. The most significant of those difficulties was a series of brain surgeries. The joke is that I used to have a brain surgery every six months whether I needed one or not.
One of the low points in that season was the period after the third brain surgery. Now, if you can mark time in your life by which brain surgery you’re on, you’re not at the top of your game. This was a season after the third brain surgery and right before the fourth when the doctor came in and gave me some really bad news. I could not walk; I could not speak; I could not open my eyes; I was choking when I was swallowing; and I had blinding pain that was keeping me from functioning. I was going in for an emergency surgery on my brain. As the doctor explained what was going on and what they were going to do to fix it, he let me know that the greatest risk of this brain surgery was that it was going to lead to more brain surgeries, and he was no liar.
It was a low point, but, in the kindness of God, I got on the other side of that season, and I woke up and started paying attention to the biblical counseling movement again. I saw that we were in a season of division, disruption, and disagreement. It is a significant conflict. It is a significant conflict that has to do with whether, as a movement, we are going to be faithful or not and whether we are worthy of the name biblical counseling. There are three different factions right now in this counseling conflict.
The first faction is a group I call the new integrationists. If you are going to understand the new integrationists, you need to understand the distinction in the language of integration between a label and an activity. There are some groups out there and some gatherings of people who label themselves as integrationists. You are an integrationist if you believe that it is good and right to pair secular theory with scriptural truth to help people in counseling. That activity is done by some people who wear the label of integrationist. There are other people who don’t want to wear the label of being an integrationist, but they still do the activity. They might call themselves a Christian psychologist or a transformational psychologist or something like that, but even without the label integrationist, they still do the activity of integration. They say things like, “The Bible is a great book, we love it, but you just need to add other stuff to it in order to come up with a unique brew that’s really going to help people.”
One group of new integrationists call themselves redemptive counselors. The seat of redemption counseling is really at Southeastern Seminary, and the professors at Southeastern Seminary say that integration is wise, good stewardship, and inevitable. They wear the label of redemptive counseling, but they’re doing the activity of integration. Most of the new integrationists, whether you have the label or not, are defined by a couple of realities that are informed by two separate people.
The ministry disposition of the new integrationists is informed by the ministry of David Powlison. David was one of the great leaders in the history of the biblical counseling movement, and one of his defining contributions to the movement was his emphasis on intellectual engagement. We’ve got to engage the secular therapies. We’ve got to understand them and do battle on their turf. The new integrationists love that part of David’s ministry. They love engagement. But here is the deal: they get that ministry disposition from David, but they don’t get their integrative theology from David, because David believed we do intellectual engagement, but we never borrow. David’s legacy is engagement without borrowing. If you move from engagement to borrowing, then you have left the Powlison legacy and the biblical counseling world, and you’ve gone to the integration world. They love David and we love David; everybody loves David.
They were informed by David’s ministry disposition, but they get their integrative doctrine not from Powlison, but from a Christian psychologist named Eric Johnson. The new integrationists follow Johnson as their primary theologian in a number of ways. Let me mention two. Johnson, as an outsider and a Christian psychologist label who does the activity of integration, divides up the biblical counseling movement between those who are committed to extreme views of sufficiency and those who are more nuanced with regard to sufficiency. Now, that’s not true. The Bible is either sufficient or it’s not. You’re either pregnant or you’re not. Nobody’s extremely pregnant or pregnant in a more nuanced way. You’re either pregnant or not. The Bible is either sufficient or not. The claim that there are degrees of sufficiency is not true, but that’s the distinction that Johnson made, and the new integrationists love it.
Another doctrinal area in which the new integrationists follow Christian psychologists is Johnson’s argument that the theological justification for integration cannot be general revelation. Johnson knew traditional integrationists misunderstood general revelation. He understood, general revelation is God’s revelation of Himself in the things that He has made and could not be the theological justification for integration. He didn’t clarify that truth to avoid integration. He clarified it because he believed the theological justification for integration needed to be located elsewhere, namely, in the doctrine of common grace. Now, that’s not true either. Common grace means that there are good, beautiful, and true things out there in the world. Common grace is not an argument to syncretize secular thinking with biblical wisdom. The new argument does not work, but the new integrationists have followed Johnson’s thinking and share his error.
The second faction in the contemporary counseling conflict is a group I’m going to call classic biblical counselors. If you are a biblical counselor, you believe that the Bible really is sufficient to help people with their problems. You believe in the great love of God who spoke to His people about what is wrong with them and how to help. You believe that God did not leave Christians groping in the dark about how to live a life that is pleasing to Him and about how to live a life that is honorable, good, happy, and joyful. Biblical counselors believe those things about God, and so they believe those things about His Word. Biblical counselors believe that the new integrationists are wrong on three counts at least.
First, misunderstanding the Bible, they limit it. They believe the Bible is a great book and they love it. The new integrationists say that it’s no slam against the Bible to say that the Bible doesn’t say everything that we need for counseling care. They misunderstand the Bible, and they misunderstand sufficiency, and so they limit the use of Scripture.
Second, misunderstanding psychology, they emphasize it. New integrationists have too low a view of Scripture, and they have too high a view of psychology. They say: “Why wouldn’t we want to help people with all the resources that are available to us? Why wouldn’t we want to learn? Why wouldn’t we want to rob and plunder the Egyptians and learn from all the things that are helpful out there?” Misunderstanding what’s at stake in that activity, they emphasize the use of psychology.
Listen, I’m calling this group the new integrationists, but integration is not new. It has been going on for a long time. Mixing secular theories with biblical truth is decades and decades old. That is not new. However, the third count that I’m about to share is the eye of the tornado and the reason why we are in such a season of conflict right now.
Third, misunderstanding biblical counseling, they redefine it. The bold stroke is for people who do the activity of integration, who claim that that activity is wise, good stewardship, and inevitable, to say, “We are the real biblical counselors.” It has everybody who knows what’s going on in an absolute uproar.
That leads to the third faction in the contemporary conflict. These are the concerned biblical counselors. These are wonderful men and women who believe that the Bible is sufficient for counseling and think that integration is wrong, but they are a nervous wreck right now as they watching the fighting. They are watching the conflict, and they think that it’s a really bad look. They just want it to stop, and they just want to get along. Quite frankly when many of these concerned biblical counselors get nervous it is not when the new integrationists make their false claims, but when the classic biblical counselors make their true claims. When the concerned biblical counselors get nervous is when the conservatives speak up.
Each one of these factions is feeling a massive amount of stress right now. We’re all feeling stress because of something that we all have in common. Every single person in every single category that I just mentioned really wants to help people. Integrationists, new or old, want to help people. They’re not trying to be unhelpful when they mingle truth with secular theory. They just want to help, and they judge that that’s the best way to do it. The classic biblical counselors really want to help people. We think that it’s really a mistake to mingle truth with error. We think that what people need is the pure milk of God’s Word, and we’re afraid that if you go mingling secular theories with God’s Word, you’re going to mess people up. The concerned biblical counselors want biblical counseling to expand. They do not want to limit our influence. They do not want to damage the brand by having some horrible intramural war. Everybody wants to help people, and everybody is afraid we’re going to do something that’s going to limit that.
What I want to say to you is that God is going to be faithful. You watch. It’s stressful right now. It’s the greatest season of conflict in the history of the biblical counseling movement, but the biblical counseling movement, Christianity, and ministry are going to be fine. We’re going to weather this storm. We’re going to get on the other side of it. You are going to keep doing ministry. The church is going to grow. Jesus Christ is going to be exalted. People are going to get help and hope in their difficulties. People are going to go to heaven, and it’s all going to be better than wonderful.
But it’s hard right now. Therefore, what I want to do for the next few moments is help us all weather the storm. I want to talk to the classic, literally card-carrying, certified biblical counselors. I love the nervous biblical counselors too, and I want to talk to them and help them. I also want to talk to the new integrationists.
Listen, I am sharing this message to be a friend and a brother to Christians who care about counseling. I am doing this to be an encouragement to everyone and to help us all figure out how to get through this season of conflict. I want to do that by staying with the theme of the conference, Counseling in the Care of Christ, and by sticking with my assigned topic, Jesus, the Healing Counselor. I want to do all that by saying three things about these verses that I read. I want to give you three requirements for faithfulness in the contemporary counseling conflict.
- Faithfulness in the Contemporary Counseling Conflict Requires Engagement.
Now, if you want to know how I got engagement out of these words that I read at the beginning, you need to understand that everybody today is talking about trauma. Trauma is on everybody’s mouth. Everybody’s concerned that we’re going to overlook trauma. Everybody wants to be trauma-informed.
The apostle Paul was, too. In 2 Corinthians 4:17, the apostle Paul is writing to us about an affliction. He’s writing to us about pain, difficulty, and hardship. When you read chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4, you find out that the traumatic affliction that Paul is talking about here is not an affliction in general. He’s actually talking about ministry mistreatment. In the first four chapters of 2 Corinthians, the “we” there, the plural pronoun is actually a reference to his fellow ministers of the gospel, Timothy and Silvanus. He’s talking about the traumatic affliction that he has experienced as he has been mistreated as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul says that he is tempted, in verse 16, to lose heart, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t lose heart, even though loss of heart is a threat. He doesn’t lose heart because of something you learn about the way he thinks about ministry that I call the pattern of ministry power.
The pattern of ministry power that you learn about from 2 Corinthians 1, 2, 3, and 4 has four phases.
- Doing ministry. You do ministry, you preach the Word, you teach the Word, and you counsel the Word.
- Traumatic affliction. He mentions this affliction in 4:8-9. He says, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…” Paul did ministry, and he got afflicted, crushed, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. All that happened because he did ministry. Ministry leads to traumatic affliction.
- Sense of weakness. Paul was not a machine; he was not a robot; he was not some supernatural strong man. He got afflicted, and he felt weak. In 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 he says, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death…” Paul was so overwhelmed he thought he was going to die. Ministry leads to traumatic affliction, which leads to profound weakness, but that leads to divine strength.
- Divine strength. That sense of weakness leads to divine strength. Second Corinthians 1:9 says, “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But [emphasis added] that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” Divine strength.
In 2 Corinthians 3:5-6 it says, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant…” Paul is saying, “I’m weak; I can’t do it. I don’t have the strength; I’m worn out; I’m tired; but God gives me strength.” When you receive the strength in this pattern of ministry power, it’s not just to feel good about yourself. It’s not to rest easy and declare, “I’m glad that’s over.” Rather, that divine strength leads you back to do more ministry. That’s what Paul did.
In 2:17 he says, “For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”
In 3:12-13 he says, “Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses…” Moses saw the truth and he covered up the glory. We let the light shine as Christians. We’re very, very bold.
In 4:2 he says, “But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves…”
In 4:13 he says, “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we also speak…”
This pattern of ministry power leads to engagement. It leads Paul to do more ministry. He takes a licking; he feels weak; he gets God’s strength; and then he doesn’t rest easy, but he engages the problem. “I don’t want you to be unaware,” he says, “about the conflict we experienced. I’m going to tell you about it. I’m going to write it down in an epistle.” We’re still talking about that epistle 2,000 years later.
I want to encourage my dear friends and brothers and sisters who are nervous about this conflict that we really need to do this right now. The pattern of ministry power means that we engage. We don’t need to be afraid. We don’t need to be thoughtless or cruel either. However, a commitment to doing ministry out of the receipt of divine strength means that you will speak up when people are going to falsely accuse you of being cruel. It means that you’re going to speak up when people are going to falsely accuse you of being thoughtless. That’ll be that affliction that makes you feel weak, but God will give you strength so you can re-engage. I want to encourage nervous brothers and sisters to engage this conflict right now.
Truth matters the most when it’s controversial. Truth is most consequential when it costs something to say. The sudden introduction of light might sting the eyes, but it is necessary to see things the way they really are. You need to speak up. You need to engage.
I’m saying this to those who want more influence and are afraid conflict is going to diminish it: it’s not true. When you engage in ministry, God is going to give you strength and is going to expand the ministry. That’s the way it works. In 2 Corinthians 4:15, right before these verses that I read, it says, “For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”
The grace of God is going to extend to more and more people. All you have to do is speak up. Faithfulness in the contemporary conflict requires that you engage.
- Faithfulness in the Contemporary Counseling Conflict Requires Discernment
Discernment is the remarkable, divine gift of really understanding what’s happening and what’s taking place. When you really get what’s going on, that’s discernment. It’s a wonderful gift.
You see the need for discernment in these passages by the two ways that trauma is on the table in the conversation today. Some people are experiencing the traumatic affliction of ministry pain during this season of conflict. However, one of the reasons that we’re having this conflict is because of the secular trauma therapies that everybody’s talking about, saying, “We have to be trauma-informed,” or “I want to be a trauma-informed biblical counselor.” Everybody’s talking about trauma. Paul is talking about traumatic affliction here.
However, Paul doesn’t just talk about traumatic affliction. He doesn’t just mention it; he explains how it works. In each and every of your single experiences of trauma, you are going to have two opposite responses. Those two opposite responses come from the two aspects that exist in your one person. The Bible teaches right here in these words that in your one person there is a body and there is a soul. There is an inner self and there is an outer self. Verse 16 says, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” In this moment where we’re tempted to lose heart, there are two aspects of you. Each of those aspects—body and soul—respond in opposite ways.
You’ve got this wonderful body. The body is so good. It’s so important. It’s so wonderful. It’s a tremendous gift. Listen, here’s the deal. We love the body. Everybody loves the body because we love the Bible, and we read about it in the Bible. The reason there’s a disagreement about the body is because, as people committed to the sufficiency of Scripture, we don’t use the blessing of the body as an excuse to smuggle in secular therapies. That’s the difference.
The body’s wonderful. Paul teaches about how wonderful it is, but that body is getting a little worse every day. That’s what it says. Our outer self is wasting away. You love the body. You need to take care of it. You need to get every blessing you can out of it. You should not try to hurt it, but in spite of your best efforts, it’s getting worse and worse every day. What that means is that the trajectory of your life and your physical body, in terms of your mobility and your appearance, is headed one day to Jabba the Hutt. That’s where we’re headed, and you can’t stop it. You looked better yesterday than you’re ever going to look another day in your life. You’re wasting away, and traumatic affliction is bringing that about. It’s helping it. It’s speeding it along, but that’s not the only thing that’s happening in trauma.
There is an opposite thing that is happening in affliction, and it’s happening in your heart. It’s happening in your soul. It’s happening in your inner self. The inner self is being renewed day by day. You’re dying under the weight of trauma, but you’re also becoming alive under the weight of trauma as Jesus renews your heart.
That’s the truth. That reality prepares you for heaven. Do you see heaven in these verses? Verse 17 mentions “the eternal weight of glory.” There’s heaven.
That trauma and those opposite responses are preparing you for that great destination of heaven. Because if you’re going to go to heaven, you have to die. George Strait said, “If you wanna get to heaven, got to D-I-E. You gotta put on your coat and T-I-E.” It’s got to happen. You’re not going to get there without dying. But also, if you’re going to go to heaven, your soul has to be renewed. It has to be sanctified by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the mighty Holy Spirit who comes to us through the preaching and ministry of the Word.
Both of those things have to happen, and trauma is a gift to bring it about, but we have to believe it. We have to believe it. We have to have the thoughts of the momentary affliction get light, and we have to have the thoughts of the great glory that is coming get heavy. The trauma gets light; the weight of glory gets heavy. When that happens, you are prepared to go to heaven.
What this means is that there is just no room in faithful, true counseling for secular trauma therapy. Secular trauma therapy locates your problems in your physical body. They believe trauma gets hardwired into your brain, and then your response is determined. That’s not what the Bible says. If, in order to help people in counseling, you have to improve their body, you have to improve something the Bible says is wasting away. But if, in counseling, we can help people renew their hearts and their minds in Christ, that’s getting better day by day, then there’s hope and power in that ministry. We don’t need secular trauma therapy. We need biblical truth applied to trauma. We need to believe what God says about what is wrong with us and how to fix it.
There is guidance in this truth and in this call to discernment for my friends and brothers, the new integrationists. You believe from the Bible that the body is important. We agree with you. We agree that the body is important. We also want to learn from the Bible, not just that the body is important, but how to deal with the body, how to think about the body, and how to think about the soul. I am your friend and your brother in Christ. We all know that underneath this conflict that I’m talking about, there are names of people that I’m not mentioning, but you’re my friends and you’re my brothers, and we don’t agree on this. Still, before the living Christ, I want what is best for you. I want your ministry to expand. I want you to reach thousands of people. I want you to be equipped to help broken people. Therefore, I’m just encouraging you to use God’s truth to do it. That’s my appeal to you as your friend and brother in Christ.
The pattern of ministry power means you will never have divine strength to do your work if you do not depend on Christ and His Word to do your work. I have prayed for you, your schools, your movement, your publication, and you by name, that God would expand your ministry as you grow in your discernment to offer people the truth of God.
- Faithfulness in the Contemporary Counseling Conflict Requires Commitment
Here, I want to talk to classic biblical counselors or sufficientists. I want to talk to those of you who are sufficientists, and I want you to be encouraged. I want you to be emboldened for the great and indispensable work that you do in the kingdom of Christ. If you’re going to have hope in affliction, if your body and soul are going to be prepared for the great day when you are transported to heaven and live forever, if you’re going to be really effective in ministry, and if you’re going to get God’s strength to help the people that I know you all want to help, then you’ve got to be committed to the Bible. You’ve got to be committed to the Bible even when the Bible doesn’t make sense, and right here in these verses is a command that sounds a little confusing. If you’re going to be prepared for heaven, if your soul is going to be strengthened and your body is going to die, it’s a good thing, it’s going to get you to heaven, and it’s going to come on a condition. It doesn’t just happen. It comes on a condition that we must observe as ministers of the Word. Verse 18 says: “…as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen…” The great apostle says that if you want to help and if you want to offer real care, you have to look at what you can’t see. You have to focus on heaven, not affliction. You have to focus on your soul. You have to focus on the hearts of men and women, boys and girls. If you want this to work, you’ve got to look at what you can’t see.
This commitment means that we honor, love, care for, and respect the body, but we prioritize the soul. Oh, yes, we do. That is something that Paul learned from Jesus, the healing counselor.
Do you remember in Mark 2 when the men brought the paralytic to Jesus? Jesus was preaching the Word, and the house was full to overflowing so that no one could even get in the door. Here is this man with an absolutely broken body, and his friends carry him up the stairs and dig a hole in the roof. They lower the paralytic down onto the ground, and Jesus sees their faith. In Mark 2:5, He says, “Your sins are forgiven.” That was not Jesus’s line in the script. Listen, there are people out there today who, if they were there, would go online and write a blog about how Jesus had disregard for embodied souls. Here’s this man who is paralyzed, and Jesus said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Those people say what the scribes said in the moment of the healing: “Why does this man speak like that?” They said it because they thought he was blaspheming. Contemporary people say it today because they’re afraid that Jesus is going to care lightly for people or they’re afraid that you are.
But Jesus saw what was most necessary. Jesus looked at what you could not see, and He gave the man what he most needed. The critics of ministry of the Word of old said what critics of ministry of the Word say today: “He doesn’t know what He’s doing. He said the wrong thing. He missed an opportunity to offer real care.” Jesus knew their thoughts. Mark 2:8-12 say, “‘Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Rise, take up your bed and walk”? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic— ‘I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.’ And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out…”
Jesus healed the man. He did the less important work on the body as a concession to hard-hearted people, but what was important was the forgiveness of sins. Here’s the interesting part: the physical healing didn’t last, but the forgiveness did. The physical healing came to an end, as at this moment the remains of that man are buried in the dust, but the man himself is alive before the throne of grace because Jesus had the wisdom to offer care that really mattered. He offered care to his heart. All of this is explained in 2 Corinthians 4:18: “…For the things that are seen are transient…” Do you know the way that that’s translated sometimes in the New Testament? “A little while.” The things that are seen last for a little while. Here today, gone tomorrow. Verse 18 continues: “…but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
Jesus is going to heal every single one of you who trust in Him forever. One day, Jesus is going to heal every single broken counselee who comes to you for help forever. But that day is not today; that day is coming. Second Corinthians 4:14 says that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us into His presence. That day is going to happen one day, but that day is not today. But right now, today, Jesus is healing the souls of His people. He is healing the hearts of His people even as their bodies decay.
Do you know what’s so wonderful? I don’t know if I can say it. As Jesus is doing this work in the hearts of His people, He’s using you. Jesus accesses the hearts of His people through your ministry of the Word. You are on the front lines of changing people into the glory of Christ. Yours is the only work in the world that matters ultimately because yours is the only work in the world that lasts. We can live life without cardiologists. We can live life without dentists. We can live life without internists. I’m thankful for them, but we can live life without them. We can live life without neurosurgeons. But we can’t live life without you. We can’t live life without Christians who show up with a Bible and a living Christ for help and hope in trauma. When every medical intervention and every surgical procedure runs out of gas on the last day, when everything they’ve done to keep you looking good and keep you being healthy comes to an end as your friends are standing over your casket talking about how natural you look, the only thing that will matter is the work that happened in the hearts of people. You’re the only people who can do it. Everything is on the line in this, guys. Everything is at stake.
We cannot today back off of this line. The Word of Christ is too important. The gospel of Christ is too powerful and comprehensive. Our souls last too long to trade out eternal help for secular therapies that are wrong and do not last. Don’t step back! Don’t stand down! Speak up! Tell the truth! Be encouraged! Don’t lose heart!
We’re in a season of conflict, but you, the biblical counselors, will get God’s power to do more ministry. When this contemporary conflict stops—and it will stop—the only people who are going to be left standing are the people who are bound and determined to look at what you can’t see and to focus on the eternal. The only people who are going to be left standing are the people who are standing on the mighty Word of Christ.
The flower fades. The grass withers. But it’s the Word of our God that endures forever.
