In a few weeks, we will offer our Discipleship Counseling Training, and you can find more information on that here. But, I thought first, you would be blessed by this story by someone who tried many other types of counseling but only experienced lasting healing and freedom when the Spirit led her to receive counseling the grace way from us.
“I went to 10 different counselors over a 10-year period, and they were all the same, whether Christian or secular. We talked about the problem of the week, and then they gave me advice on what to work on until the next session. Yet, there was no lasting change in my life, and after 10 years, I began to wonder if I would be in counseling for the rest of my life. Then someone told me about counseling the grace way, a Biblical, Christ-centered, grace-based method at Grace Life International that God had used to heal and transform thousands of people since 1995.
I made an appointment but must admit I was a bit skeptical because of my previous experiences. In the very first session, I understood more about the root of my struggles and God’s solution than the previous 10 years combined! I knew I was at the right place. I was also impressed that although we went through the history of my life to discover the misbeliefs I had, we didn’t spend every session talking about the problem of the week. Instead, I discovered there was a process that was tailor-made for every person who was counseled. In that process, God began to replace my misbeliefs about Him, myself, others, and how to live my daily life with His truth.
I learned that my ultimate problem was what the Bible calls the flesh. I had heard that word in church but never understood it until my counselor explained it to me. They told me that the flesh is all of the ways I had learned to attempt to meet my God-given needs for L.A.W.S., an acronym for Love, Acceptance, Worth, and Security. As we explored my history, those patterns and the lies behind them became more and more evident. We concluded the history of my life with a one-page diagram that connected the dots with my experiences, misbeliefs, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors.
Then I became both intrigued and excited as I was taught from the Bible how all of those needs were ALREADY met because Christ was in me. I started learning how to rely on Him so I could experience Christ meeting my L.A.W. S. needs but even more than that, how to rely on Him to live through me in everyday life to express Him and His love to others. To be honest, it seemed like being a Christian became easier because it wasn’t all up to me any longer but Him. I finally understood what Jesus meant when He said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28 However, this didn’t mean my circumstances got better. They didn’t but now I faced them from a place of trust and dependence on Christ in me.
I had heard a lot about people trying to find themselves, but I could have never seen that when God found me and saved me, He recreated me with a brand new identity in Christ that was not dependent on my past, my failures, my successes, my performance, or the opinions of others. It was such a place of joy and peace when I realized His opinion of me was the only one that mattered, and He said I was His child who was holy, righteous, perfect, forgiven, and blameless. I found my truest self when I discovered who I was in Christ!
There were many other things I learned as well like how to hear God’s voice, how to give up my rights, and most importantly, how to Biblically forgive people who had hurt me. When my final session ended, I knew I had been transformed and was on a journey of living the grace way that would never end. Life is still hard, and I still revert back to the sins of the flesh sometimes. But I now know how not to get stuck there by getting my focus back on Jesus and His truth by talking with Him, listening to Him, and remembering His truth. I thank God for the counselors and Grace Life International and highly recommend them.” JS
