Dispensers of Grace
Note: This is the sixth in a blog mini-series asking the simple question: Is there a biblical model for spiritual friendship, one-another ministry, biblical counseling, and pastoral counseling?
Read Part 1: Spiritual Map Quest, Part 2: God’s Treasure Map, Part 3: Biblical Soul Care for Suffering, Part 4: Climbing in the Casket, and Part 5: Celebrating the Empty Tomb.
I’m summarizing these posts from Spiritual Friends. 
God’s Roadmap Marker Number Two: Biblical Spiritual Direction (Noutheteo)
Recall that God’s roadmap, our treasure map, provides two directional markers: biblical soul care (parakleo) and biblical spiritual direction (noutheteo). The absence of either lens leaves our biblical counseling out of focus, distorted.
Some counselors focus only on the evils we have suffered: the damage done to us. They tend to ignore or minimize the sins we have committed: the damage we have done. Comprehensive biblical counselors, on the other hand, also focus on the truth that “God is gracious even when I am sinful.” They are disciplers who practice the ancient art of fraternal correction—concerned confrontation and challenge encouraging core heart change.
Biblical counselors understand spiritual dynamics and discern root causes of spiritual conflicts.
• They understand anthropology—God’s original design for the soul.
• They grasp sufferology—the effect of being sinned against in a fallen, hurtful world.
• They comprehend hamartiology—sin, our fallen nature, and the horrors of personal sin against God and others.
• They apprehend soteriology—salvation, sanctification, and the process of growth in grace.
Biblical counselors use their discernment to provide loving wisdom that reconciles and guides people. Their reconciliation and guiding emphasizes the same ultimate purpose of sustaining and healing—communion with Christ and conformity to Christ. They want to empower and equip people to fulfill the great commandment of loving God and loving others.
God’s Biblical Counseling GPS # 3: Reconciling—“It’s Horrible to Sin, but Wonderful to Be Forgiven”
Some counselors who focus on sin fail to focus on grace. They are quick to quip, “It’s horrible to sin.” But slow to grasp, “It’s wonderful to be forgiven.” We must focus on both.
Satan loves to foul and fool us. Even as regenerate believers with a new heart, Satan dupes us into believing that we are his slaves. He tempts us to curse God, condemn others, and experience contempt for ourselves. It requires tremendous biblical wisdom and personal discernment to sort through his pack of lies and cling to God’s Word of truth.
The truth is, it is horrible to sin. Sin alienates us from God, separates us from each other, and dis-integrates us from our own selves (Romans 1:18-32; Ephesians 2:1-3; 2:11-19; 4:17-32). Due to sin’s deceitfulness (Romans 7:11; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 4:17-20; Hebrews 3:13) we need spiritual friends. We need biblical counselors who can ask and answer the question raised in James 4:1. “What causes fights and quarrels among you?” Only biblical counselors like these can fulfill the ministry description provided in Hebrews 3:12-13.
“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.”
We also need biblical counselors who can use the living Word of God to expose the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12-13), and to teach, rebuke, correct, and train in righteousness so that God’s people are equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
As biblical counselors, we are like the Puritans who practiced the art of loading the conscience with guilt. Like them, we know that to break the habitual web of sin’s deceit, people need to experience the horrors of their sin against God and others.
We also need to be like the Puritan soul physicians in practicing the art of lightening the conscience with grace. How sad that many counselors de-emphasize grace. It is wonderful to be forgiven. Forgiveness by grace is the dynamic God uses not only to cleanse our lives, but also to change our love. Christ woos us back to God by grace (Romans 2:4; 3:1-5:21; 1 John 4:7-20).
Dispensers of Grace
Christ calls biblical counselors to be dispensers of grace meeting human guilt with God’s grace and forgiveness. Grace is God’s medicine of choice for suffering and sin. Grace is God’s prescription for our disgrace.
Notice how the author of Hebrews exposes grace in the context of exposing sin. After exposing sin in Hebrews 3:12-13, he shifts to grace in 3:14. “We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.” We detect the same pattern in Hebrews 4:12-16. After discussing the power of the Word to expose evil in 4:12-13, he immediately focuses on grace in 4:14-16.
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (emphasis added).
We expose our spiritual friends’ sins and Christ’s grace. We speak the truth in love to them, softening their hardened hearts. We invite them to drink from Jesus their Spring of Living Water who is the Friend of sinners—even of sinners who dig broken cisterns that can hold no water.
The Rest of the Story
I invite you to return for Part 7 where we learn about Biblical Counseling through Guiding: “It’s Supernatural to Mature.”
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Who has been a dispenser of grace in your life?
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