The Unknown Bible - Pastor Bevans Welder

Psychologists have learned tools to teach you how to deal with behavioral problems, like marital difficulties, family relationship problems and addictions. They can also counsel you through certain mental and emotional problems like bipolar disorder, manic depression, depression, and so forth. But their limitation is that all of their counsel deals with what the Bible calls the "old man."

When you are saved, you are "in Christ," (1 Cor. 15:22). And the Bible says that, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new," (1 Cor. 5:17). In other words, to merely give counsel that causes the old man to become comfortable with and adjusted to his past behaviors and sins in no way develops the new man.

Eph. 4:22 instructs us, "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." When psychologists delve into the past life of the old man to uncover fear, anger, sadness, shame, etc., they are awakening the old man, rather than putting him off. They are breathing life into something that Christ has crucified (Gal. 2:20; 6:14). And while they might give you tools that help you to change your behavior patterns, they can’t give you anything that really solves the problem.

Eph. 4:23-24 instruct you to "be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Well, the new man is not held by the sins of the past. He is not controlled by the former fears and is not affected by the things that once made us angry, sad and ashamed. His life is in the future, not in the past. He has a new mind, the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).

Like Paul said, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," (Phil. 3:13-14). Imagine what a relief it was for Paul to put the shame of causing Christians to be arrested and killed behind him. Imagine what it was like for Paul to face the crowds he once persecuted and preach the gospel to them without fear (Gal. 1:23-24).

Paul learned and believed that, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear: but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind," (2 Tim. 1:7). Just as eternal life is a free gift, so also is a sound mind, with love, power and the absence of fear. These are free gifts that come with salvation. No psychologist is going to be able to give you these gifts because they come directly from the Lord Jesus Christ when you believe his word and have faith in him to give you these things.

Get your head out of the past sins of 1 Cor. 6:9-10, and start believing and enjoying the salvation of 1 Cor. 6:11, which says, "and such WERE some of you: but ye are WASHED, but ye are SANCTIFIED, but ye are JUSTIFIED in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." Can you see how remarkable that verse is? Jesus paid for your sins with his own blood, and God cast them as far as the east is from the west. So, going back to dig all that stuff up so that you can somehow "deal with it" is to deny the true glory of your salvation. Those old things are gone, "old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new."

Hope this helps,

Pastor Welder