There are many different techniques and approaches to counseling and prayer ministry, however, at the end of the day, there has to be the component of emotion honesty. Emotional honesty is something that can never be bypassed. This leads to becoming differentiated.

Differentiated
A person is differentiated when nothing about a situation or person can “push their buttons” in any way.  They have looked at it, been honest about how they feel about it, and worked all the way through it to total peace. Now they are free to do whatever God says. As good and logical as this sounds, many people feel a real resistance to this.

Resistance
The resistance generally takes the form of total avoidance, hyper-spiritual avoidance, or outright defiance to the very idea of it. The hyper-spiritual avoidance has to do with going after deep and mystical stuff or complicated ministry techniques. There can be some value in some of this except when it gets used as just another way to avoid any real feelings. So how does this work?

Emotional Honesty
Emotional honesty is very simple but not necessarily easy. It is getting in touch with how I really feel about something. There are often layers, things I believe about getting at how I really feel.

For example, someone may have a memory of being made fun of in high school in a very hurtful way. They know in their heart that if they think too much about that memory, then it will really hurt. So, the question becomes, “How do you feel about looking at how you felt in that traumatic event?” Often, the response is “that would be too painful,” or “too embarrassing,” or “too fearful.” So we have to talk to God about that first. It’s one step at a time, one layer at a time.

Eventually the person resolves all the reasons why they don’t want to look at that memory they have avoided for years, then they can be honest about how it really made them feel. It may be a feeling of deep anger over how they were treated. It may be a feeling of shame. It may be sadness or regret. Once true acknowledgment has happened, it is relatively easy to go to God with it and resolve it.

Fruit of Emotional Maturity
There are people I have worked with for awhile and as we met, they had many daily circumstances and people that triggered them. Over time we got to all of these one by one and the person became more and more differentiated. Eventually, they walked in a whole new rest and peace. Even other people noticed there was a difference. They became rooted and grounded in love. A sense of legitimacy develops to be who I am, to feel what I feel, and to think what I think, even if it might be wrong. They realize it’s okay to make a mistake, and they don’t have to be perfect anymore, knowing God loves them just as they are.

There is a great story in the Old Testament about Elisha where he took care of a poor widow woman. Creditors were about to enslave her sons because she didn’t have any money to pay them with and she didn’t know what to do. Of course she didn’t want to lose her sons, but the only other thing of value she had was a pot of oil, and that wasn’t much.

Elisha told her to go and get as many vessels as she could from anyone and everyone.  Go through all the cabinets, borrow from the neighbors, find anything that could hold something–a miracle was about to happen. So the widow woman did. Elisha told her to pour the oil that she had into all the vessels, and as she did, the oil continued to flow from one vessel to another until there were no more vessels to fill. The oil stopped flowing then and she was able to sell it and pay off all her debts.

This is a great story and there’s a great lesson to learn from this. The first thing Elisha had asked the woman was, “What do you have?” All she had was a pot of oil. Then she was asked to find other resources, other vessels that could be used. Now look at this–she had a money problem, right? But when I’m looking to God to solve my money problems, I’m not necessarily looking for resources to do it myself. Most of the time I want liquid assets–cash or checks–and God wants me to look for raw materials.

As I look for the available resources–what I have, what I can borrow–God is able to do a miracle for me. I know He’s able to put dollar bills on trees, but normally He wants me to do my part, and He will do His. So when you have a need, any need, look around and see what you have. Find some raw materials He can work with and trust in His love to provide.

What does it mean to really learn something to the point of being able to apply the new skill? When I learned Spanish,there were more steps than I imagined. I thought learning the corresponding Spanish word would be enough. Then I realized that learning to use it in everyday conversation was a whole other step. And even after that, I also had to learn to hear it used in the context of conversation.

Likewise, my son will learn new ways of maneuvering a soccer ball that can knock an opponent off balance. He will practice it over and over until it becomes second nature. Only then can he use this new skill under the pressure of a game situation.

In the Christian life there are many skills we can acquire as we mature:

• Learning responsibility with emotions–learning to recognize them in ourselves and others, and to more effectively handle them.

• Learning to partner with God to problem solve. Breaking things down into their parts, brainstorming, defining variables verses non-variables.

• Finding resources for what we need in spiritual and career growth rather than living a welfare Christianity like the children of Israel in the wilderness did.

• Learning spiritual hygiene to stay clean of negative emotions and live in daily hope.

• Learning skills of intimacy with God and man–living in vulnerability, transparency, and expressing emotion.

• Learning to do research and find the knowledge we need to accomplish a task.

What does it mean to let our lights shine so that pre-Christians will be drawn to us? Maybe the skills are a little more defined than we have considered. We have to go way beyond generally knowing about something, synthesizing it down to intimate knowledge until it is a part of us.

Synthesis – Reasoning from the general to the particular; logical deduction.
Assimilate – 1) To take in and utilize as nourishment : absorb into the system 2) to take into the mind and thoroughly comprehend

Is anyone following you? No, I’m not referring to Twitter, I’m referring to the way you live and conduct your affairs. Are there people that look to you as an example of what a Christian should be?

The other day I read the verse 1 Corinthians 11:1-”Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” As I thought about these words of the apostle Paul, the weightiness of what he said deeply convicted me. Could I say this to others? Do I feel like my life is in the spiritual position it should be, to tell others that they ought to copy me in all that I do and say? Am I honestly trying to live as an imitator of Christ-being a life-giving source flowing with purity and holiness-daily? This was a sobering thought.

I know Paul was not a perfect man, only Jesus was, but he obviously felt clear enough in his conscience that his lifestyle was exemplary. Those of us who are parents have some idea of what it’s like to see your son or daughter mimic your words or actions. This can be very rewarding or very humbling, depending on the incident-especially if done or said in public. We were their examples and they followed us.

So does this verse imply that we must be outwardly constrained at all times, religiously following what we’ve been told is righteous if we are to represent Christ? I don’t believe so. But I do believe it means we are to live with inward constraint and personal responsibility to the truths we know. Jesus told us that we are to live in this world, but not be of it.  Is there anything separating me, as a Christian, apart from the non-Christians around me, or do I appear just like them? Are my inward beliefs affecting my outward life? Why would anyone want to follow me anyway; what do I have that they would want?

Well, I’m going to conclude this article now, since the Lord has pinpointed enough work that needs to be done in me before I can say much more. Someday I hope to be as confident as Paul was, to tell others to imitate me as I follow the Lord. If only it were as simple as clicking a tab on Twitter-like social networking without all the personal responsibility and commitment. Hmm…I bet Paul would have had some interesting words to tweet about that.

How do we Christians come across to the world around us? What do our friends, family, and co-workers think about our Christianity? Do we display the attributes of Christ in our daily lives? I was challenged by these questions just the other day and wondered how I appear to the people I meet every day.

Last week I was having a conversation with a friend and afterwards I realized that I dominated the conversation. It was all about me. What pride! Oh, I asked about how she was doing but I wasn’t really listening. I was waiting to share some more things about me the minute she stopped talking. And then when I got caught in traffic driving to another part of town, I was extremely impatient and furious with all the incompetent drivers I was around. “If they could all just drive like me it would be so much better,” I thought. Yes, dear reader, sometimes my Christianity is quite hard and harsh. It’s not always a pretty sight.

So I picked up Andrew Murray’s Humility book and decided it was time to re-read it again. (I think this is one of those books you need to read at least once a year—at least I need to.) I found this particular line quite interesting:

In striving after the higher experiences of the Christian life, the believer is often in danger of aiming at and rejoicing in what one might call the human, the manly, virtues, such as boldness, joy, contempt of the world, zeal, self-sacrifice, while the deeper and gentler, the diviner and more heavenly graces, poverty of spirit, meekness, humility, lowliness, are scarcely thought of or valued (pg. 56).

So I can take the “onward Christian soldiers” approach, plowing through everything and everyone who gets in my way of living for God, or I can attempt to live by the “more heavenly graces,” as Murray says. If I were humble, I would carefully listen to my friend share about how she was doing—her challenges, her delights—so that I could pray for her or rejoice with her as Rom. 12:15 instructs me to do. If I were meek and lowly, I would not stress out in traffic, or get angry and judge the inapt drivers, but be patient and kind instead—-preferring others (Rom. 12:10).

I have repented for my rude behavior of the past and am trying to focus on the sensitive side of Christianity. Yes, I still think there is a place for the harder, stronger virtues of fasting, fearless preaching, and warring in the Spirit, but maybe our world needs to see more of the softer, gentler, loving and forgiving attributes of us Christians.

Today’s article is taken from the best selling business book, “Good to Great.” It may challenge your thinking and theology. However, I believe there is a huge key here to what keeps people from fulfilling their destinies.

Good to Great Quote

“The ‘leadership is the answer to everything’ perspective is the modern equivalent of the ‘God is the answer to everything’ perspective that held back our scientific understanding of the physical world in the Dark Ages. In the 1500s, people ascribed all events they did not understand to God. With the Enlightenment, we began the search for understanding – physics, chemistry, biology, and so forth. Similarly, every time we attribute everything to leadership, we are admitting our ignorance. Not that we should become leadership atheists (leadership does matter), but every time we throw our hands up in frustration – reverting back to, “Well, the answer must be leadership!” – we prevent ourselves from gaining deeper, more scientific understanding about what makes great companies tick.”

Hyper-Spirituality

It is so easy to be hyper-spiritual. We have some sort of problem and we make comments like, “God will just have to give me His grace here,” or “God will just have to do a miracle.” It is not that there is not some truth to these statements, but what about stewardship or personal responsibility? Think of it this way. Your teenage son is going to mow the lawn as he has done many times before and the mower won’t start. He responds, “Dad, fix it.” This is not much different than, “God will just have to come through (and fix whatever problem).” At some point, we expect our teen to take a little personal responsibility, be a little proactive and problem solve. Did he check and see if there’s gas, is the switch on, does it smell flooded?

Depravity versus Treasure

We have this idea, based on a Calvinistic man’s a worm theology that says, “I can do nothing,” “in me is no good thing,” “it is only by God’s grace,” “that unless God comes through we are helpless.” God has invested in most of us many skills, understanding, faith and experiences. At some point He expects us to step up and do some problem solving, use our faith, apply some prayer, and look for some scriptural principles to apply. The depravity of man is a real doctrine, however, it is also true that God invests His treasure in us and He expects a return on His investment.