Blakeyblog

Some exciting things have been happening around the Blakey home! As you can see, Blakeyblog has a whole new re-design with thanks to Brad Smith from Godsong Music.

Tyler is almost seven months old now and learned to crawl last week. He had been getting around pretty fast “scooching” but now he can get up on hands and knees. We also introduced him to his first solid food-rice cereal-and he loves it. It’s such a joy to watch him grow!

This morning I read a quote by Charles Spurgeon that has been heavy on my heart the rest of the day:

“There should be no one with whom we converse so much as with Jesus. To abide in him only, this is true love; but to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow Christians to secret intercourse with him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord. He would fain have us abide in him, and enjoy constant fellowship with himself; and many of the trials which he sends us are for the purpose of weaning our hearts from the creature, and fixing them more closely upon himself.”

What a weighty statement. Each sentence convicted me–most of the time I do converse with many people more than I talk with the Lord. It seems easy to find pleasure in fellowship, comforts, or entertainment–rather than abiding in the sweet presence of the Lord. For this next sentence I’ll admit I l had to look up what “fain” meant. I assumed it meant “rather” or “prefer to”, but I did look it up just to make sure. The Lord loves us so faithfully to discipline us to bring us back to Him, but I don’t always see it that way.

The part of this statement that really dug into me says, “…this is grievous to our jealous Lord.” I was sobered to consider how flippantly I can sometimes treat my time, words, thoughts, and opportunities. I once was lost but now I’m found. Once was blind but now I see. Why? Because I found my way or learned to see? No. The only reason I am not wasting away in bondage to sin is because of the wonderful love of the Lord and His immeasurable sacrifice for me. Why do I so easily “forget” what He has done and who He is and grieve Him?

I think that sometimes I focus on what God has done for me. I think of His death on my behalf, His forgiveness time and time again, His mercy renewed each day, and how He rains down blessings into my life. These all seem like good things to be conscious of, but consider with me that we often get caught up in what God can do for me. We enjoy basking in the blessings, but do we talk with Him more than anyone else, do we never get enough of pouring over His words, do we enjoy seeking Him first–because He alone deserves it?

I was gripped today by this realization that I need to “wean my heart” off of me and what I’m distracted by, so that I can fix my gaze on the Lord to love Him as He wants me to. He is jealous for us when we so easily give our hearts away to our little idols of self, worries and cares, other people, appearance, comfort and pleasure. Let’s not be unfaithful to our Savior. Let’s love Him how He has commanded us to–”…with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

I have the opportunity to attend a Biblical Counseling conference next month and am very excited about the theme–”Counseling and the Attributes of God.”  I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about counseling but this is a subject that I am passionate about especially since studying Biblical Counseling while I attended The Master’s College.  Counseling in the Christian community has been greatly influenced by psychology, so much so that many Christians and churches today will not counsel because they don’t think it is their responsibility or they don’t think they are qualified to do so.

I was talking with someone once about Biblical counseling and they said:

“Some people have very complicated pasts and hurts or problems that are too complex…they need to see a professional psychologist to get real help.”

I asked, “I agree that some people have really complex things going on in their lives, but what do you mean too complicated?  Do you mean too complicated for God or for the Bible to address?”

“Not too complicated for God, I mean they can pray to Him and be encouraged by His Word, but that’s not really going to heal them, they need more help than just that because their problems are just too big, they go too deep.”

I’m afraid that this perspective is all too common. Anticipating this conference has inspired me to read through some of my counseling text books and re-examine some of the problems with Christian psychology.  I hope that you will consider some of the dangers for yourself and have a renewed confidence in God and His Word as all we need.

The Danger of Denying Sufficiency of the Word

Christian Psychology is different from just secular psychology in that it uses some of what Scripture has to say and sees that people need God.  We might be tempted to think—well, at least it’s not as bad as secular psychology!  But this Christianized version is still very dangerous and its influence on the church is detrimental to real spiritual growth.

The main flaw with most Christian counseling is that it is integrationist.  Another way to say this is to say that the Bible alone is not enough to answer our problems.  Christian psychology would say that Bible is enough as far as what it directly addresses.  This kind of counseling would grant that the Bible says everything we need to know about salvation and sanctification—“spiritual things,” but on matters of the emotions, the Bible does not say enough.  In this case it would require a trained counselor and other written material, or even therapy.

It seems that many Christians are ready to believe that the Bible is inspired by God, but are hesitant to believe that is speaks to the struggles they are facing.  This often happens when Christians don’t know what the Bible calls their “condition.”  They need more because they have not delved into the depths of Scripture to see how God speaks to the issues on their hearts.

On occasion I tune into a radio program where callers can ask a group of pastors spiritual questions and have them answered on the air.  Much of the time a caller has a question about a personal or relational problem and what they ask is, “Could you tell me if the Bible has anything to say about this…?”  On an individual level, we can be lazy about searching God’s Word to see how it addresses our problems.  I’m afraid that this same laziness has seeped into how we talk about our own problems with our friends about their problems and even how pastors or counselors sometimes view people’s problems.  Instead of opening God’s Word as a book full of hope and help, we assume it can’t help us (because it might not use the terms we’re looking for to describe what we’re going through) and so we look for help outside God and His Word.

People get caught up in statements like “All truth is God’s truth.”  And they don’t want to throw out all of psychology because it might have some insights to offer.  2 Peter 1:3 makes a powerful statement about the power of God’s Word–

“His divine power has given to us all things
that pertain to life and godliness…”

In God’s Word we have all we need to deal with life and godliness.  What do we need psychology for then?  Does it offer some helpful methods or observations? Maybe.  But psychology doesn’t offer anything that we need for life and godliness.  Biblical counseling is committed to God speaking through His Word to us (2 Timothy 2:15).  By this I don’t mean that someone comes to a Biblical counselor for help and goes home with a sheet of verses printed on it with nothing else said.  But I mean that a Biblical counselor let’s Scripture define our problems and solve them.

Many Christians have a problem with this all-inclusive view of God’s Word because they find some problems overwhelming and daunting.  For example, what is a Biblical counselor to do with someone who has what psychologists call bi-polar disorder or is having hallucinations?  He would show that person the Lord and how God’s Word speaks to their life.  We should be careful to never undermine the power of the Spirit to work through the Word in the lives of both believers who need an exhortation or word of encouragement, or in the lives of unbelievers who need the Savior.

The Danger of Self

On this issue psychology and the Bible can’t ever be joined.  Psychology is human centered by nature.  With man at the center God can’t be and the Bible could not be in harmony with such a method.  Someone said, “Psychology is man’s way of trying to understand and repair the spiritual side of man without being spiritual.”

Psychology paints a picture of man as good and innocent with his problems being the fault of most everyone but himself.  In psychology, man’s ultimate goal is to find happiness for himself.  The danger with Christian psychology’s twist on this view is the idea that God wants us to have that happiness.  And with Him in our lives we will have a better chance of finding meaning and purpose in life.

One aspect of psychology that has permeated Christian counseling and the church is the emphasis on self–self-image, self-esteem, self-worth, self-confidence.  With this self-centered thinking it isn’t hard to give man’s “needs” prominence.  This view states that man needs self-esteem, love, acceptance and significance and if these needs are met people will generally be happier, moral and fulfilled.  This perspective cultivates a big view of self and a small view of God.  Change then becomes superficial and temporary because we have neglected the heart of the issue—we have sin.

Christian psychology rarely addresses the problem of sin because people do not accept it.  Nobody wants to be told that he has to take responsibility for his own actions, words or even worse, his own thoughts!  But the Bible presents a very different view of man—

Man was created without sin but he disobeyed God (Gen 3).  Because of Adam’s sin all people are as Ephesians 2:1 describes “…dead in trespasses and sins.” The solution to spiritual death is spiritual life, this is our deepest need.  God is not at all silent about this need.  He provided His own Son to make spiritual life possible.  Apart from Christ there is no healing and apart from Christ, there is no real change.  We need to focus fully on Christ and not on ourselves if we want to have any real solutions to the struggles in our lives.

I hope you can see from these two dangers of psychology that it cannot be united with Christianity.  Psychology is about promoting self and Christianity is about denying self (Luke 9:23).  God’s Word is sufficient for us to be obedient to follow the Lord.  We can’t trust Christian psychology because it undermines the authority of God’s Word, weaving the gospel with promises of personal happiness and self-worth.  I am sad that we are so quick to turn from our all-sufficient God to the man-centered message of psychology.  We don’t need anything that psychology offers. We need to take God at His word.

“Grace and peace be multiplied to you
in the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord,
as His divine power has given to us all things
that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue.”

2 Peter 1:2-3

Last week a little box went up on the homepage of Godsongmusic.com. The five words inside that box have revolutionized my week– “Launch the Godsong Music Player.”

You might think I’m just playing favorites because one of the members of Godsong Music is my husband, Bobby. But I am serious when I say that their music is some of the best. It isn’t trying to do what so much “Christian” music today does which is try to be a slightly sanctified version of whatever is playing on secular radio. Godsong Music is simply songs about God and songs for God. Other than meditating on Scripture, I can’t think of a better way to spend my day than having the worshipful tunes of Godsong helping to steer my thoughts upward.

The Godsong Music player features 18 songs that play in repeat for your listening enjoyment. I hope you’ll make your day a little better with the sound of Godsong Music!

These statements might sound like they are out of a Disney princess song, but unfortunately people take them more seriously than that. These statements are often the advice that girls receive. I remember a conversation I had with an older woman, when I was in high school, we were talking about college. I was telling her that I wasn’t sure what to major in, or how to know what to do with my life and her advice was this– “You need to just listen to your heart.”

Really, that was the last thing I needed to do. I’m sad to think of how many girls heed that advice and fall into the emptiness of living for self. Though these statements sound heart warming and adventurous, it is critical that we understand what is wrong with this thinking. Even if we don’t think that we would heed silly quotes like this, we probably live them out much of the time. It is very easy to get caught up in living for self. Even when we think we aren’t getting to “follow our hearts”–because we have to go to work or school and do what our parents say–we still follow our hearts. It shows in our attitudes, thoughts, words, how we spend our time and money. We need to understand why following-my-heart is not a good thing.

Our Heart’s Problem.

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

There are many ways that people describe the problem with our hearts–humanity, mistakes, messing up, “nobody’s perfect”–the word they are describing is “sin.” All people ever born in all of history(Jesus Christ is the only exception)are sinners (Romans 5:12). Every heart, from it’s beginning, is tainted with sin. Sin has consequences–death and separation from God (Romans 6:23). None of us are exempt from sin’s curse on humankind. How can we escape these consequences? How are we to be good young women, to do what is right and live lives that make a difference if our hearts that are sick with sin? Can we ever find happiness, joy, peace or purpose if we are sick deep inside in our hearts?

Some people think that its not good to talk about sin because if you talk about sin then people feel like they have to deal with theirs. But we need to. We need to consider our hearts and see that there is no good in them. When we see ourselves rightly, as sinners, we can see God more as He is. When we think, “I’m not so bad” we become ungrateful and believe we are entitled to what we want, as if God owes us something. But when we see that our hearts really are desperately wicked we see what unworthy wretches we are, we get a glimpse of how God is pure, good and holy.

God’s Perfect Answer.

In Ezekiel 36:26-27 God says “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

This verse might sound a little strange, like God is going to do surgery on us, but it is telling us something very exciting! God’s solution to our heart problem of sin is a new heart. When Jesus died on the cross, He cancelled the curse of sin for us. His death gives us life and when we respond in faith and repentance to His sacrifice, God gives us a new heart! In this descriptive language “heart of stone” represents our old stubborn nature that is focused on self. The new heart or “heart of flesh” represents the new creation that God works in us making us not only alive but soft and willing so that He can work change in us.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says,

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
old things have passed away;
behold, all things have become new.”

This might all seem basic or too general–what everyone needs–but the truth of the matter is that most books for girls (and women) do not address the heart need as salvation. This is what a young girl needs, salvation. There are many young girls who try to be good and want to be happy and only see superficial change in their lives. We need to help them see that their greatest need is not self-esteem, confidence, friends or beauty. Their greatest need is a heart that is made new so God can transform them from who they used to be into a new creation!