Is What We Believe Important?

By James Rudy Gray

When a troubled person sits in your office and the process of counseling gets underway, is what they believe important? Is what you as a counselor believe important?

I think that what we as counselors believe is more than important—it is essential! By the same measure, what our counselee believes is critically important to their adjustment and well being.

Behavior always arises from something, but what? Are we simply the products of our environments or are we genetically predisposed to certain types of behaviors? Could it be that what we believe (right or wrong) influences more of our behavioral choices that we ever thought?

From a Christian perspective, what a person believes is fundamental. It is basic to how we will live our lives. Since we live in an age when truth itself has become a concept that postmoderns cannot seem to define, we are left with the residual effects from that kind of belief system.

For example, we know from the research that is available that if a person believes that sexual immorality is not wrong they are much more likely to engage in sexual immorality. Beliefs contribute greatly to the development of values. Values, in turn, lead a person to adopt a certain attitude and manifest specific behaviors.

According to Josh McDowell, many studies reveal that youth who do not have a moral and biblical belief system are:

• 36% more likely to lie to a friend.

• 48% more likely to cheat on an exam.

• 200% more likely to steal.

• 200% more likely to physically hurt someone.

• 300% more likely to use illegal drugs.

• 600% more likely to attempt suicide.

McDowell goes on to point out that while this is “disturbing, it should not be surprising.” Most of our youth today do not have a Christian worldview. This ungodly belief system is then evidenced in so many destructive and self-destructive behaviors.

Christians who study the Word of God know there are moral absolutes. There is right and wrong, truth and error. But what about those who have little or no understanding of God’s truth? Seventy percent of today’s young people do not believe in absolute truth. That kind of belief system translates into language that sounds something like this. “Well that [particular behavior] may be wrong for me but I am not you.”

This is the type of situation we are facing and will continue to face as Christian counselors. Even people in our churches are often woefully underequipped when it comes to an understanding of the basic doctrines of truth found in Scripture.

How can we help people who want Christian counseling but do not believe the basic tenets of the Christian faith? According to George Barna, 58% of today’s teenagers believe that all religious faiths teach equally valid truth.

Pragmatism is the ruling philosophy of the day for most people and for the overwhelming majority of young people. It is the concept that what works for me right now is what is best for me right now. That thinking, of course, is flawed and destined to lead a person into both disappointment and difficulty.

What can we do? We can at least encourage believing parents to be serious about their own professed faith and work diligently to engrain the truth of God into their children’s lives. What can we do in the counseling room? Connect with the person on a caring level; share God’s truth with that person in practical ways, showing them that God’s law and a sense of right and wrong are “built-in” to every heart (Rom. 2:14-16); demonstrate the truths of God in your own life as you counsel and live.

God is a great God. His grace has overcome more problems than we can begin to imagine. He is able. Our counseling must not move in a fanatical direction that produces little understanding but in a systematic flow that embraces God’s truth and applies it practically to this world today.

James Rudy Gray is certified as a professional counselor by the
National Board for Certified Counselors, and is a member of the
American Association of Christian Counselors. He pastors Utica Baptist Church
in Seneca, S.C.

Pulpit Helps Magazine, a ministry of AMG International, is the pastor’s one-stop-shop for tools to effectively serve a congregation. Founded in 1975 by Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, Pulpit Helps is dedicated to the mission of equipping our readers with a greater understanding of the words of Scripture so that they can adequately fulfill their calling as Christ’s ambassadors. It is to that end that we provide sermon starters, bulletin inserts, illustrations and quality articles on preaching, counseling, Christian living, and more.