Loving Fellow Strugglers

Remember, not all counseling is specifically sin-related in a personal sense, but some certainly is. The love-motivated efforts of brothers and sisters in Christ to help one another overcome sin is the focus of this post.

While some of these sin-related counseling situations are initiated by counselees when they finally recognize they are trapped and cannot get out of sin’s bondage without help, other counseling relationships are initiated by biblical counselors as a result of observing foolish choices or sinful life patterns in brothers or sisters in Christ. Whether or not the ensnared brothers or sisters see that they are in bondage is not the issue. Love initiates the restoration of strugglers to a place of fellowship and blessing. William Goode, long-time pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Lafayette, Indiana and founder of Faith Baptist Counseling Ministry, compellingly writes that “to consider counseling an optional ministry is to withhold biblical love at the time it is needed most in the believer’s life—when he or she is in trouble … we must be about the business of restoring rather than ignoring such Christians … Believers will never become like Christ if they are not winning the battle against sin in their lives and investing themselves in the lives of others. And there can be no discipling if there is no plan to help the disciple who gets into trouble.”

Galatians 6:1–5 provides such a plan. Take some time to meditate on this passage of Scripture and its implications for loving one-another ministry. If you are part of a small group then dedicate one of your meeting times to discussing this Scripture and its implications for Christian community.  Continue at Paul Tautges