Author: Scott Chafee

Scott serves on staff at King’s Grant Baptist Church in Virginia Beach.

The Godless without Faith

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Chapter two of Second Peter brings the whole topic of false teachers. Ever since the time of Christ there have been those who twist the teachings of Jesus and the doctrines of the church. At times these differences have brought about greater understanding and clarity involving theology, like during the Reformation. Other times brought about significant deviation from the truth, which have been called heresies.

  1. Why do people follow false teachers?
  2. What are some false teachers they have been aware of in the last few years.
  3. What motivates false teachers to work their way into churches? (Several of Paul’s letters are written to refute false teaching and false teachers (2 Corinthians 11:3–15, Galatians 2:1–5; 1 Timothy 6:3–5).
  4. What kind of tactics do false teachers use to gain followers?
  5. Why will there be certain punishment for those who turn others away from God?

Jesus was warning the people of His day to be on the lookout for gifted leaders who would take advantage of them and lead them astray. They would be men who looked good on the outside but were corrupt on the inside. They would perform well. To put it bluntly, great preachers are not necessarily great Christians.The people can be fooled and led astray.

The best picture of what a Spirit-filled man looks like is Christ. His life was characterized by the Fruit of the Spirit in the midst of a world characterized by just the opposite of those characteristics.

  1. Jesus stood up to His opponents when it was appropriate, but He also knew when to be silent.
  2. He had the courage and wit to take on the intellectuals of His day on their turf according to their terms.
  3. He spoke with authority.
  4. People, especially children, were attracted to Him. Even sinners loved to be with Him.
  5. He was a very secure man. There was nothing pretentious or intimidating about Him.
  6. He didn’t need those props.
  7. At the end of His life He tackled the toughest account of all—death. And He won!

Questions to Consider:

  1. What makes false teachers popular today?
  2. How can we recognize false teaching?
  3. There are times when we need to confront and expose sin in the life of other believers. What are some guidelines for deciding when that is appropriate?

Commentary:

Peter warned his readers of the false teachers who presented a message contradictory to that of the apostles. He wrote of the characteristics of false teachers, the consequences of their teaching, their conduct, and their condemnation.

The Characteristics of False Teachers (2 Peter 2:1–3)
False prophets in Old Testament times sought to lead God’s people away from the revelations of the true prophets, and false teachers in Peter’s time tried to lead God’s people away from the teaching of the apostles. The heretics added some of their own false teaching to the orthodox faith, thereby denying the One they professed to submit to as Christians. Their judgment would be sudden. Reckless and hardened immorality would accompany their doctrinal error. False teachers typically desire to satisfy themselves rather than God, which leads them to take advantage of their audiences. God is never late or asleep in executing justice, though He is patient (see 2 Peter 3:9).

The Consequences of False Teaching (2 Peter 2:4–10a)
Peter next described the consequences that follow false teaching to help his readers see the importance of avoiding it. He gave three examples of apostates in the past.

  1. His first example is the angels who sinned (2 Peter 2:4), an example of how the devil works.
  2. His second example is the unbelievers of Noah’s day (2 Peter 2:5), an example of the world.
  3. The third example (2:6) is the turning of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, an example of the flesh.

All three examples show that God will not only punish the wicked, but will also rescue the righteous from the judgment He will send on the ungodly who surround them.

The Conduct of False Teachers (2 Peter 2:10b–19)
Peter emphasized the conduct of false teachers in order to motivate his readers to turn away from them. Rather than behaving as good angels do, the false teachers acted like animals. Peter believed the false teachers therefore deserved treatment similar to that of animals. God will give them punishment in keeping with their crimes. Their practices were similar to stains on the clean fabric of the church, blemishes on its countenance, since the practitioners claimed to be Christians. The false teachers sinned without restraint and lured people not firmly committed to Jesus Christ to join them. They were also trying to get the Christians to participate in idolatry and immoral practices. Like the springs and mists Peter described (2 Peter 2:17), the false teachers failed to deliver what they promised and so were hypocrites. They appealed to their audiences with boastful words, promising more than they could deliver. They appealed to people who were only just escaping from those who live in error, probably new Christians and/or older carnal ones who were still in the process of making a final break with their pagan practices.

The Condemnation of False Teachers (2 Peter 2:20–22)
Peter focused in these verses on the false teachers’ final doom to warn his readers of the serious results of following their instruction. The false teachers in view had evidently heard the gospel preached and fully understood the apostles’ teaching that Jesus Christ is both Lord and Savior but had rejected it. They only escaped the defilements of the world in the sense that they had understood the gospel, which liberates sinners. But they had thrown away their key to deliverance and had thereby become entangled and overcome again by the defilements of the world. Their first state was also eternal damnation without having heard the gospel, but their final state was eternal damnation for having rejected the gospel.

It would have been better for the false teachers never to have gained full knowledge of God’s commandment regarding holy behavior than having gained it to reject it. Dogs return to corruption that comes from within themselves, and pigs return to filth they find outside themselves. False teachers do both things.

Auburn Wins National Championship

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I’ve got a t-shirt that says, “There are three things that I can count on in life: my truck, my dog and my team.” January 10, 2011 has been a great day. From the Associated Press:

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Auburn running back Michael Dyer never heard any whistle, so he just kept running — past the tackler who thought he had him down and deep into Oregon territory.

Dyer broke stride, then took off on a once-in-a-lifetime run in the final minutes, setting up a field goal on the last play that led No. 1 Auburn over the No. 2 Ducks 22-19 in the BCS championship game Monday night.

The freshman running back upstaged Auburn’s Heisman-winning quarterback Cam Newton with a 37-yard run, in which he appeared down but wasn’t — his knee never hit the ground — as he rolled over Oregon defender Eddie Pleasant to put the Tigers in scoring position.

Three plays later, Dyer ran 16 yards to push the ball to the 1 and set up Wes Byrun’s 19-yard field goal with no time left. It was his sixth career game-winning field goal — the one that capped off a perfect, 14-0 season, brought the title back to Auburn for the first time since 1957 and left the Southeastern Conference on top for the fifth straight year.

A classic sequence to close out a wild finish — five crazy minutes of football that made up for the first 55, which were more of a bruising battle than the offensive masterpiece everyone had predicted.

The craziness began when Casey Matthews, son of the former NFL linebacker Clay, knocked the ball from Newton’s hands while the Heisman-winning quarterback was trying to ice a 19-11 lead.

Oregon’s offense, shut down by Nick Fairley and Company for most of the night, moved 45 yards over the next 2:17 and Darron Thomas threw a shovel pass to LaMichael James for a touchdown. Thomas hit Jeff Maehl for the tying 2-point conversion with 2:33 left and the game was down to one possession.

The Seven Laws of Teaching

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I have been reading a classic work of John Milton Gregory called The Seven Laws of Teaching. I love this definition of teaching:

Teaching, in its simplest sense, is the communication of experience. This experience may consist of facts, truths, doctrines, ideas, or ideals, or it may consist of the processes or skills of an art. It may be taught by the use of words, by signs, by objects, by actions, or by examples; but whatever the substance, the mode, or the aim of the teaching, the act itself, fundamentally considered, is always substantially the same: it is a communication of experience. It is painting in the mind of another the picture in one’s own — the shaping of the thought and understanding to the comprehension of some truth which the teacher knows and wishes to communicate. Further on we shall see that the word “communication” is used here, not in the sense of the transmission of a mental something from one person to another, but rather in the sense of helping another to reproduce the same experience and thus to make it common to the two.

Milton goes on to write about discovering the seven laws; and to communicate an experience there must be:

  1. A TEACHER — one who KNOWS the lesson or truth or art to be taught.
  2. A LEARNER — one who ATTENDS with interest to the lesson.
  3. A LANGUAGE — used as a MEDIUM between teacher and learner must be COMMON to both.
  4. A LESSON — one to be mastered, it must be explicable in the terms of truth already known by the learner (the UNKNOWN must be explained by means of the KNOWN).
  5. A Teacher’s work — TEACHING is AROUSING and USING the PUPIL’S MIND to grasp the desired thought or to master the desired art.
  6. A learner’s work — LEARNING is THINKING into one’s own UNDERSTANDING a new idea or truth or working into HABIT a new art or skill.
  7. A review work — The TEST AND PROOF of teaching done (the finishing and fastening process) must be a REVIEWING, RETHINKING, REKNOWING, REPRODUCING, and APPLYING of the material that has been taught, the knowledge and ideals and arts that have been communicated.

Each of these seven factors is distinguished from the rest by some essential characteristics; each is a distinct entity or fact of nature.

These definitions and statements are perhaps so simple and obvious that they need no proof; but their simplicity is more apparent than real. These definitions may be more clearly seen if they are stated as rules for teaching. If addressed to the teacher, these laws may read as follows:

  1. Know thoroughly and familiarly the lesson you wish to teach — teach from a full mind and a clear understanding.
  2. Gain and keep the attention and interest of the pupils upon the lesson. Do not try to teach without attention.
  3. Use words understood in the same way by the pupils and yourself — language clear and vivid to both.
  4. Begin with what is already well known to the pupil upon the subject and with what he has himself experienced — and proceed to the new material by single, easy, and natural steps, letting the known explain the unknown.
  5. Stimulate the pupil’s own mind to action. Keep his thought as much as possible ahead of your expression, placing him in the attitude of a discoverer.
  6. Require the pupil to reproduce in thought the lesson he is learning — thinking it out in its various phases and applications until he can express it in his own language.
  7. REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW, reproducing the old, deepening its impression with new thought, linking it with added meanings, finding new applications, correcting any false views, and completing the true.

Milton concludes his introduction by stating these laws and rules apply to the teaching of all subjects in all grades, since they are the fundamental conditions on which ideas may pass from one mind to another. They are as valid and useful for the instructor in the university as for the teacher in the elementary school, and for the teaching of a law in logic as for instruction in arithmetic.

What Makes a Happy Marriage?

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I Love my wife, I guess you already knew that. Kim and I have been married for almost 29 years, and one thing I have realized is that words like commitment, security, friendship and shared values are much more influential in a marriage than outward appearance and sexual activity. I’m surprised she stays with me because I’m not much to look at, a bit overweight, don’t make a whole lot of money, spend too much time at work and am physically broken which limits some of my activity. We have something that the world does not understand. When I think about love, this verse comes to mind:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 1 Corinthians 13:4-5

Love is not just all things erotic as we see in our culture. Love is not really that warm fuzzy feeling when she walks in the room. Love is a verb. All that Paul describes in this love passage involves action.

In our culture, marriages are falling apart. In fact, according to recent statistics, one out of two marriages will end in divorce. The magazine, Psychology Today (June, 1985) had an article called “Marriages Made to Last,” which gave the results of a survey by Jeanette and Robert Lauer of 300 couples with successful marriages. Here are the top reasons, in order of frequency, that the respondents gave when asked what kept them together.

Remarkably, the top seven were identical for men and women:

  1. My spouse is my best friend.
  2. I like my spouse as a person.
  3. Marriage is a long-term commitment.
  4. Marriage is sacred.
  5. We agree on aims and goals.
  6. My spouse has grown more interesting.
  7. I want the relationship to succeed.

Other reasons included “We laugh together,” “We agree on a philosophy of life,” “An enduring marriage is important to social stability,” and others.

I couldn’t help but notice that these reasons are totally consistent with biblical principles and opposite to the message of our culture. Popular songs, books, and shows emphasize superficiality and sexual stamina (notice any Cealis commercials lately?), but these successful couples spoke about liking the other person and about being friends. Society implies that relationships happen quickly, but these folks said that love takes time, and that there must be a long-term commitment.

Contemporary views of love are self-centered, expecting the other person to meet my needs, but these couples say that real, lasting love involves work and the desire to make the marriage succeed. For many, divorce is not even on the table.

Years ago (and today in other cultures) parents would arrange their children’s marriages. In those situations, both bride and groom knew that they would have to learn to love the person they married. I think we have turned it around. Instead of “loving the person we marry,” with our self-centered emphasis, we say we must “marry the person we love.” So we look and date and try relationships to find our romantic ideal, the one “just right” for us.

Let’s not return to the days of arranged marriages, but we must return to the truth that love means commitment,  that it must be learned, that it is a verb and means action. Check out 1 Corinthians 13 for a vivid description of true love. Let’s learn from these successful couples and dedicate ourselves to real love based on commitment and unselfish action.

A New Year with the Basics

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I trust you all had a safe New Year weekend. As we start 2011, the Men of Steel desire to be the strong leaders God intends for us to be, so perhaps your resolution may have been to become a better leader and example to those around you. No one gets strong without the preparation it takes to build up that strength. I like this verse:

“Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it. 1 Timothy 4:8-9

Each year, people from around the world compete for the title of the world’s strongest man. These competitions are held in exotic locations and feature events like placing heavy stone orbs on top pillars, lifting large numbers of children on one’s back, and pulling double-decker buses down a street (sometimes by their teeth). The strength and determination of these contestants are second to none, but for them to get to the world championships, they have to be disciplined in the way they train, the foods they eat, and the way they recover from injuries. If any one of these three aspects is neglected, the results could be disastrous.

Christians are not typically known for carrying 300-pound weights long distances, but their feats of strength are equally remarkable. I have read stories about people being healed of sickness and disease, families being reunited, and individuals surrendering their lives to Christ. As leaders, there has to be a constant habit of spiritual training. The apostle Paul understood this and made sure Timothy got the message.

The routine is pretty straightforward:

  1. Talk to God, the Lord of heaven and earth, daily.
  2. Tell him your needs and the needs of others.
  3. Thank him for his answers
  4. Let him know how wonderful he is.
  5. Get to know Christ better by reading the Bible.
  6. Learn what your spiritual talents are and begin to use them.
  7. Spend time with other followers, encouraging and challenging them to become more like Christ.
  8. As opportunities arise, tell those who don’t know Jesus about him and his love for them.
  9. Repeat daily.

If properly followed, this outline will provide a lifetime’s worth of challenge and excitement. It’s time to get serious about the faith. It’s time to become truly strong. It’s time to get disciplined.

Leaders are Encouragers

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I received word today that our new Director of Children’s Ministries went to visit a newborn and her family, taking a gift and making a timely visit to the whole family. I am reminded of the ministry of the church, to be involved in the lives of others; that’s called fellowship. There are days and weeks where we all have so much on our plates, and these types of opportunities for encouragement often fall through the cracks.

Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose. (Philippians 2:1, 2)

John Maxwell once wrote that there is a difference between being a leader and being a manager. He often points out that management focuses on maintaining systems and processes, while leadership is about “influencing people to follow.” One way to cultivate such influence is quite simple: Influence involves sincerely caring about other people.

I sent hand written notes to two men who just returned from military deployments. Last week I was able to send an e-mail to someone at work who was having a birthday. Can you send a card at an appropriate time? A kind word can mean a lot. If somebody is struggling with an issue (or with life in general), simply sitting and listening can be worth more than any words that may come to mind. And don’t forget prayer, for “the earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results” (James 5:16).

Encouragement isn’t just for those who know Christ; all people need to hear positive words, especially the words that tell of One who died for us so that we can have eternal life. Let’s strive to be an encouragement to all we come in contact with daily. How will you influence someone else today?

The Future of Counseling

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The traditional divisions in counseling have been:

  1. Remedial counseling: helping people to deal with existing problems of life.
  2. Preventative counseling: help to stop problems from getting worse or prevent them from occurring in the first place.
  3. Educative counseling: the counselor taking opportunities to teach principles of mental heath to larger groups

Recent studies indicate that the three should be reversed in the order of importance. This would take counseling to the people, rather than waiting for hurting people to come into an office. The focus is moved from individuals with problems to the community.

Counseling and Loneliness

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Loneliness knows no class, race or age: it hits everyone periodically. This is the lack of meaningful contact with other people which is accompanied by sadness, discouragement, a sense of isolation, restlessness, anxiety and an intense desire to be wanted. Lonely people feel left out, unwanted or rejected, even when surrounded by others. I have sent missionaries to East Asia, where they were be in a city of 15 million people and suffered terribly from loneliness.

1. Emotional loneliness: The lack or loss of a psychologically intimate relationship with another person

2. Social loneliness: Feeling aimless, anxious or empty, even “out of it”

3. Existential loneliness: The sense of loneliness which comes from being separated from God and the person feels there is no meaning in life

The Bible and Loneliness:

1. Adam was alone and needed a helpmate

2. Adam and Eve were instructed to multiply the race

3. Adam and Eve broke fellowship with God in their sin

4. OT giants like Jacob, Moses, Job, Nehemiah, Elijah, Jeremiah and even David were lonely at times. Jesus was alone in the garden, John on the isle of Patmos, Paul in prison having been deserted by nearly everyone.

The Causes of Loneliness:

1. Social causes

  1. Technology: As government and business gets bigger, people feel less significant, smaller and not needed, and people do not develop deep satisfying relationships.
  2. Mobility: Moving around is much easier, which tears up relationship, separates families, eliminates neighborhoods or a community spirit, and people don’t risk getting close to others in fear of being hurt later.
  3. Urbanization: As people move into cities together, they really tend to withdraw from one another. There is a fear of strangers, and this leads to suspicion and withdrawal.
  4. Television: Television enhances separation both by program content and seems to promote superficiality. People view the tube and seldom engage in meaningful communication.

2. Developmental causes: Ellison mentions basic needs that must be met

  1. Attachment: People need to feel close bonds with other human beings, especially as children. Children separated from parents, divorce and even child abuse can all lead to loneliness.
  2. Acceptance: Parents communicate this to their children by touching, spending time with them, listening, disciplining, and showing affection. If children are ignored or excessively criticized they will feel worthless.
  3. Acquiring skills: We all know social misfits. They are often insensitive to the needs and attitudes of others, and they don’t know how to develop smooth interpersonal relationships. They might try to manipulate or force themselves on others which only brings more frustration and increased loneliness.

3. Psychological causes:

  1. Low self-esteem: This is the opinion we have for ourselves. If it is low we will underestimate our value and withdraw, or if it is too high we will exaggerate our value to the point of conceit. Low self-esteem will cause a person to be weak or shy, and there is a need to depend upon others. When others are not available there comes a sense of insecurity and deep loneliness.
  2. Inability to communicate: This is at the root of many if not all interpersonal problems. If one can’t communicate, there is a persistent loneliness that follows.
  3. Self-defeating attitudes: There is greater possibility for loneliness when there is intense competition, struggling for self-sufficiency, self-centeredness, criticism or intolerance for others, holding on to grudges, using other people to satisfy our own egos.
  4. Hostility: Some people are just innately angry. They seems to feel threatened, frustrated or resentful because of real or imagined injustice. This anger can turn to self-hatred, and into loneliness due to constant complaining and negative attitudes, which will drive people away from them.
  5. Fear: People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges, which keeps other people out. These can have a fear of intimacy, rejection, or fear of being hurt.

4. Situational causes: Being single, divorced, widowed, grieving, or elderly can be lonely. Those in leadership positions, students away from home, affluent people in a financial crisis, those with deformed bodies or diseases.

5. Spiritual causes: Free will allows us to rebel against the only avenue of salvation for individuals. Existential loneliness comes when we refuse to acknowledge and confess our sin.

The Effects of Loneliness:

1. Isolation: Often but not always.

2. Poor self-esteem: Feelings of worthlessness; failure in relationships or activities; discouragement and negative self-talk.

3. Hopelessness: This can lead to despair or even thoughts of suicide, feeling there is no way out.

4. Alcoholism and drug abuse: As a means of escape.

5. Violence: Some will express their frustrations in destructive ways

Counseling and Loneliness:

1. Admitting the problem: They might feel this admission of loneliness is the same as being a social misfit, unattractive, unable to relate to others.

2. Considering the causes: It is possible to work on the source of the problem and not just the symptoms.

3. Accepting what cannot be changed: Self-esteem can be changed, while a widow’s cannot bring back her husband.

  1. One must develop an inner life of positive interests, appreciation for what is good in life, and a sense of humor. It is more than positive thinking. It is a rejection of self-pity and a willingness to see the bright side.
  2. One must develop a lifestyle of keeping in touch. Involve yourself in play, creative activities and daily news which can keep one from a tendency to brood.
  3. One must develop a religious faith that can keep one in touch with the realities of life, seeing life in its wholeness. One will find meaning which can under-gird the individual.

4. Altering what can be changed: Watch less television, spend more time on family activities, get involved in useful church activities

  1. Developing self-esteem: People need help for them to see their strengths, abilities, gifts, and weaknesses. People spend a lifetime telling themselves that they don’t look good, are incompetent or are disliked by people. We compare ourselves with others which aids fuels our feelings of inferiority. Every person has value to God, is loved, can be forgiven, has gifts and abilities.
  2. Taking risks: It takes great courage to reach out to others, even if one has good self-esteem. It can be embarrassing or threatening.
  3. Learning skills: Many people are social cripples and need to learn basic skills of relationships.

5. Meeting the spiritual need: Jesus and me makes a majority, so why be lonely? Then one can be incorporated into the family, the body of Christ.

Preventing Loneliness:

  1. Recognize that as a believer you are adopted into the family of God.
  2. Get involved in a local body of believers or organization with whom you share beliefs.
  3. Find a mentor of someone to whom you will be accountable for growth goals and taking risks of getting out of your comfort zone.
  4. Identify and name your weaknesses, making sure to not put yourself in vulnerable positions.
  5. Rid yourself from isolating activities such as computer, television, gaming and work toward activities that force you to be in community with others.
  6. Discover your giftedness in serving others; it’s hard to be lonely when you are serving others. Visit the local homeless shelter and volunteer, there’s nothing like volunteering to put life back into perspective.

Counseling and Anxiety

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Anxiety, stress, fear and tension all have different meanings yet are often used interchangeably to describe the most prevailing characteristics of human beings in this century. Rollo May called anxiety one of the most urgent problems of our day.

It is defined as inner feelings of apprehension, uneasiness, concern, worry or dread which is accompanied by heightened physical arousal. Classifications of anxiety are:

1. Acute: This comes quickly, is of high intensity, and has a short duration. If one is suddenly overwhelmed, it is usually acute.

2. Chronic: This is persistent and longer lasting, but the intensity is lower.

3. Normal: This comes when there is a real danger or situational threat. It can be recognized, managed and reduced, especially if the outward circumstances change.

4. Neurotic: This involves intense exaggerated feelings of helplessness and dread even when the danger is mild or nonexistent. It cannot be dealt with rationally because the source comes from subconscious inner conflicts.

Anxiety can vary in intensity as well: Moderate can be healthy and even desirable since it helps people avoid real dangers. High anxiety can shorten one’s attention span, make concentration difficult, adversely affect memory, hinder performance skills, interfere with problem solving, block communication, arouse panic, and even symptomatic paralysis or intense headaches.

The Bible and Anxiety:

1. Anxiety as fret or worry: (Matthew 6:25-34, Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 55:22), and we are told to avoid this type of worrying.

2. Anxiety in the form of realistic concern is not forbidden. To ignore danger is a foolish thing. (2 Corinthians 11:28, Philippians 2:20)

The Causes of Anxiety:

Sigmund Freud discusses human personality is terms of the id, ego and the superego:

  1. When he id recognizes a clear threat to the person, this is called realistic anxiety.
  2. When the id begins to get too powerful, so that it threatens to overwhelm the ego and cause the person to act with socially aggressive or sexually unacceptable behavior, this is neurotic anxiety.
  3. When the superego gets too powerful, so that the person is overwhelmed by guilt or shame, this is moral anxiety.

Anxiety Results from the Following:

1. Threat

  1. Danger: Crime, war, violent weather, unexplained illness
  2. Self-esteem: People like to look good and perform competently
  3. Separation: From significant others; or rejection
  4. Unconscious influence: Even those who reject Freud will accept that there can be certain underlying thoughts, emotions or experiences that will cause anxiety.

2. Conflict: faced with two of more pressures

  1. Approach-approach conflict: Conflict over the tendency to pursue two desirable but incompatible goals (two dinner invitations).
  2. Approach-avoidance conflict: Here is the desire both to do and to not do something. One might (grapple with a job offer with more pay and opportunity (approach), but it will bring a move and the inconvenience of a training program (avoidance).
  3. Avoidance-avoidance conflict: Here are two alternatives, both of which are unpleasant, like having pain versus having an operation to relieve the pain.

3. Fear: similar to anxiety, even though they are not identical. Fears can come in from a variety of situations. Different people are afraid of failure, the future, rejection, achieving success, intimacy, etc. These fears can build up into anxiety.

4. Unmet needs:

  1. Survival: need for continued existence
  2. Security: economic and social
  3. Sex: as an expression of love, as a sexual being
  4. Significance: to account for something, to be worthwhile
  5. Self-fulfillment: to achieve fulfilling goals
  6. Selfhood: a sense of identity

5. Individual differences: Some people are never anxious in the same anxiety producing situation for another person. Fears and phobias:

  1. Psychology: Most behavior is a result of experience or learned from parents or other significant persons. We will react as we have seen others react to similar situations.
  2. Personality: Some people are more fearful or high strung than others. Some are more sensitive, self-centered, hostile or insecure than others.
  3. Sociology: Political instability, mobility which disturbs our rootedness, shifting values, changing moral standards, religious beliefs can all cause anxiety.
  4. Physiology: The presence of disease can cause anxiety, as well as dietary imbalance, neurological malfunctioning and chemical factors.
  5. Theology: Some believers are so concerned about pleasing God that their theology cause them undo anxiety. This anxiety would then be considered a lack of faith.

The Effects of Anxiety:

1. Physical reactions: Ulcers, headaches, backaches, lack of sleep, butterflies, fatigue, loss of appetite, frequent urination, blood pressure, slow digestion, chemical changes in the blood.

2. Psychological reactions: Reduction in productivity, stifles creativity, hinders the capacity to relate to others, dulls the personality, interferes with the ability to think or remember.

3. Defensive reactions: Denial of the anxiety, blaming others for faults, rationalization, slipping into childish reactions, escape through alcohol or drugs, withdrawal into mental illness or bizarre behavior.

4. Spiritual reactions: It can drive us toward or away from God, lack of time for prayer, lack of concentration on reading the Bible, reduced interest in worship times, impatience with heaven’s seeming silence.

Counseling and Anxiety:

1. Recognize the counselor’s own anxieties: What is the situation that is making me anxious? What is it about this person that makes me anxious?

2. Demonstrate love: Love move towards others and shrinks fear, and is a demonstration of Christ (1 John 4:18, Hebrews 13:6).

3. Identify causes: One can’t simply show love and tell the client to get over their anxiety.

  1. Observation: Does he shift around, perspire or change breathing when a certain topic is discussed?
  2. Reflection: Can the client recall certain times when the anxiety is more overwhelming?
  3. Contemplation: Raise issues about the causes and get the client to dwell upon these to his own conclusion.

4. Encouraging action: The goal is not to eliminate the anxiety but to become aware of it and be able to cope with it. Help them to move through the situation rather than going around it.

5. Giving support: Anxious client get little help from impatient counselors. The helper must be calm, supportive and patient.

6. Encourage a Christian response:

  1. Rejoice (Philippians 4:4) in the midst of trouble
  2. Forbear (Philippians 4:5) graciousness in your spirit
  3. Pray (Philippians 4:6) about everything, details
  4. Think (Philippians 4:8) dwell on positive things
  5. Act (Philippians 4:9, James 1:22) put these into practice

Preventing Anxiety:

1. Trust in God: We know who holds the future

2. Learn to cope:

  1. Admit fears and insecurities when they arise
  2. Talk these over with someone else
  3. Build self-esteem
  4. Acknowledge that separation hurts
  5. Seek help from God
  6. Learn to communicate
  7. Learn some principles of relaxation
  8. Periodically evaluate your priorities, life goals and time management