TLP 19: 6 Observations from a Family Counselor

It's the best kind of counseling, because it rarely happens over a desk. It happens in the moment. It's biblical discipleship at its purest.

Welcome to Truth, Love, Parent, where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. Welcome, I am A .M. Brewster, and TLP is a parenting podcast designed to help you disciple your children in the

Lord. Before we continue, however, I'd like to encourage all of you to go ahead and follow Truth, Love, Parent on Facebook.

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God's truth applied to our hearts and lives, and that's a great way to get it. Well, 2017 is a banner year for me personally.

This year marks 10 years of full -time Christian service for my wife and me. Now, for some of you, a decade in the ministry isn't that long, and it's my hope and prayer that the calling

God has for me will last as long as many of yours. But for now, this is very exciting for my family, and all my praise and adoration goes solely to my

Lord for leading and sustaining us thus far. One of the joys of the full -time

Christian service I've been a part of is the reality that we're genuinely living by faith in the realm of finances.

I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing if God didn't want me doing it. He's the one who keeps us going, and when he's done with me in this ministry, it won't take much for the bottom to fall out.

And that's exciting because that means that today, this episode, the work I'll do at Victory Academy, taking back the

Bible, Nevermind Ministries, are sacred responsibility from God. As I reflect on the past decade,

I'm drawn to one gleaming thread that ties it all together. It didn't matter what my job description was at my previous ministry or here.

I've always been a family counselor. In college, I wanted to work in camp ministries, so I majored in camp administration and then earned my master's degree in counseling.

But after graduation, instead of working at a camp, the Lord led me to a Christian school in Schaumburg, Illinois. Now, everywhere

I've worked has had a camp program, so I'm very thankful for that because camp is near and dear to my heart, but the

Lord definitely had a different direction for me. To make a long story short, even as a sixth grade teacher at the school and then as a junior high and senior high teacher,

I was regularly in the process of working with my students and their parents. After a few years, I had the supreme privilege of becoming an assistant administrator and the dean of students.

At that point, I took on much more of a student and family counseling role. Of course, where I work now as a lead counselor at Victory Academy for Boys, that's really all

I do, and it's the best kind of counseling too because it rarely happens over a desk. It happens in the moment.

It's biblical discipleship at its purest. So today, I'd love to share with you six unique things

I've learned from and about counseling in the past ten years. And they all apply to you and me and every other

Christian out there, parent or not. And just so you're aware, we've started publishing podcast notes at evermindministries .com.

All the scripture I cite, the big points, and some of the explanation and the applications will be available to you on a one -page

PDF. If you think that they will help you, remember and apply what we've talked about today.

I suggest you go there and you get that PDF. Okay, so the first thing

I've learned in a decade of counseling is this. We are all professional counselors.

Is it possible to study counseling as an occupation, be certified, and become a respected voice in the broader vocation known as counseling?

Yes. But biblically speaking, we are all called by God to admonish, reprove, correct, rebuke, edify, encourage, disciple, sharpen, and bear.

I mean, just check out 1 Thessalonians 5 .14, 2 Timothy 4 .2, 1 Timothy 5 .20,

1 Thessalonians 5 .11, Hebrews 3 .13, Matthew 28 .19, Proverbs 27 .17,

and Galatians 6 .2, just to name a few of them. Listen, no one who calls himself a

Christ follower should ever feel unqualified to give counsel as long as he gives God's truth from God's Word.

Too many times I find myself dealing with a student who has other spiritual authorities who've neglected their responsibilities.

Listen, don't relegate counseling to your pastor or some other quote -unquote professional. You need to share

God's Word. At this point, I would strongly suggest you listen to episode 4 entitled, Don't Lose Your Influence.

That show is all about the responsibility that all Christians have to counsel and gives you a lot of good starting places for knowing how

God wants you at counseling and admonishing people in your life today. The second thing I've learned from these years of counseling is this, understand that we are all in need of admonition, and that goes for the counselors too.

In the same way that we're all called to be quote -unquote professional counselors, we're all called to be counselees.

None of us make perfectly sanctified decisions every day, all day. Just spend a day with me and you'll see that.

We all need men and women in our lives who will keep us accountable and to whom we can turn for God's truth. You're not the exception and neither am

I. I have a tight group of men and women I regularly turn to for advice and accountability. I also read articles and listen to podcasts because I know

I need to grow. And clearly you understand the importance of this or you wouldn't be here. And obviously my biggest counseling tool for myself is

God's truth. I try to get into it every single day, even multiple times a day if I can, because I know that I need

God's Word just as much as the people I'm counseling do. The third and very important part of all this, and it was kind of alluded to earlier, is this, our opinions don't matter.

Humans like to seek out those people who agree with their own decisions, but we need to skim the cream from men and women who, regardless of what they think about you or your decision, will share with you truth from the inscripturated

Word of God. Everyone has an opinion, but if they don't source their philosophies in absolute truth, then there's no guessing where it's coming from.

Do you really want to ground your reality in Wikipedia, your friends' capricious emotions, perhaps?

What about the Disney Channel or Snopes or the ever -changing arena of humanistic philosophy? Ephesians 4, 14 through 15 tells us,

We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects and to Him who is the head, even

Christ. If you were listening, you just heard our theme verse at Truth, Love, Parent.

Let me quote again, But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects and to Him who is the head, even

Christ. Truth and love is all we need, not man's opinions. The fourth lesson

I've learned is this, We need to realize that sometimes God allows sin to destroy those

He turns over to a reprobate mind. Quote -unquote, getting away with sin is never what it seems.

Your sin is always known to God, and it seems to me from biblical, historical, and personal experience that having your sin find you out earlier is always better than later.

Romans 1, 18 through 32 details for us what happens to unsaved people whom God turns over to their sin, and it's not pretty.

Get help early. The consequences are always more bearable in the spring of a sin season than they are in the winter.

Which leads us to number five, God chastens those whom He loves. When we're caught in a sin, the temptation is to feel defensive.

The authority is the antagonist. You've been caught and will now have to suffer the terrible consequences. But in reality,

Hebrews 12, 6 and Revelation 3, 19 tells us that God chastens those whom He loves.

This means that chastening is a joyous thing designed to communicate God's love for us. He knows our sin will destroy us, and He doesn't want that to happen, so He allows our sin to find us out.

We should be thankful for the men and women God tasks with being His truth channels.

God hasn't given up on us. He has a wonderful plan for us and is actively working in our lives to accomplish it.

By the way, as a side note for parenting, this one is a very important one to get our kids to understand. God chastens those whom

He loves, and one of the best ways for our kids to understand this concept is that when we have to chasten and correct our children, we need to make sure that we're doing it in love.

When we do it angrily, when we do it for selfish reasons, we're giving our children a very bad picture of authority and how it's supposed to work.

Our kids need to understand that we are correcting them because we love them.

And that's huge because we don't want our kids to misunderstand who their God is because of our poor choices. And that leads me to number six, the sixth thing

I've learned from a decade of counseling. Mom and dad need as much admonition as the children do.

I know, I know this is a cheap repeat of number two, but there's something about being a parent that deceives us. Look, I'm a parent too.

No one's a perfect parent and you're not fooling anyone pretending to be. The only thing that really keeps parents from acknowledging their sins and child rearing is pride.

When my children make bad choices, I always question myself first. Well, I should anyway, and I try to.

The entirety of episode two is focused on the reality that as a parent everything really is about me.

Now don't misunderstand, my kids are completely responsible to God for their own choices. But I always have to check myself to see if I've been a bad example, or if I've allowed certain behaviors to go unaddressed or faltered in my disciplining.

And believe it or not, when my children have regular sin problems, there's always something I can do better.

This is why there's not a child I am blessed to work with that I don't make the opportunity to speak with mom and dad as well.

So let's review. Number one, we're all professional counselors when rightly applying

God's truth to another's life. Number two, we are all in need of that same admonition in our own lives.

Surround yourself with counselors. Number three, our opinions don't really matter. The scripture shows us the only perfect philosophy.

Number four, we need to be careful because sometimes God lets our sin destroy us. God forbid, please turn to him before that happens.

Number five, but the beautiful flip side is that God chastens those whom he loves. And six is this, dad and mom need as much admonition as the kids do.

Now you can get all of that in a note form at Evermind Ministries. I'll link it for you in the description.

And as always, if you need specialized help with your family, please contact us at counselor at evermindministries .com

And definitely check out Truth Love Parent on Facebook. Of course, I'm on Twitter at AM Brewster and Evermind Ministries is on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter.

And join us on Friday to hear 10 things parents miss. May God bless you as you seek to parent in his truth this week.

Truth Love Parents is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

Join us next time as we search God's word for the truth your family needs today.