Many professing Christians do always resist the Holy Ghost, and turn others aside with their vain jangling (1Tim 1:6). The Greek root word for this King James English word ‘jangling’ means babble; as in psychobabble. ‘Christian’ psychotherapists babble a doctrine that is problem-centered instead of Christ-centered. In the process, the Christian’s eyes are taken off Christ and affixed to problems in living, and the assorted characters they are coaxed into blaming for these problems (behind their backs). In identifying these problems, the Christian will likely becomes a talebearer (Lev 19:16), probably will dishonors parents (Exo 20:12), and may even fellowship in the works of darkness which are a shame even to speak of (Eph 5:12).
Such counseling sessions may also amount to illegal tribunals where the accused are excluded, and not allowed to utter a word in their own defense. What help is this to the misguided Christian? They are made to spend much money, hundreds of hours, and several years creating a museum of horrors, and then paying admission to tour it once, or even twice a week.
What patients get in return is a new lexicon for identifying sins as addictions. Instead of developing spiritual discernment, they are trained with an emotional seismograph for categorizing what are actually the wicked thoughts and intents of the sinful heart. Then they are admonished to reject the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and focus instead on establishing therapeutic boundaries for their protection. Finally, they are commanded to preach this new doctrine of the therapists’ into the lives of others. And leaving the ‘Christian’ psychologist can be made tantamount to leaving the faith.
Keep in mind that once a person confesses to needing a psychotherapist to solve challenges they face in life they are expected to remain in therapy all their lives. This is because life is full of challenges, and the patient admits the psychotherapist is the only one who can assist him in overcoming them.
Now hear this: Christians don’t need Life Coaches, they need Death Coaches.
The problem with problem-centered psychotherapy is that it deals with the man of the flesh; pumping, pampering, placating, and prolonging. It keeps resuscitating something that is meant to die off:
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)
We are not to treat the man of the flesh when addressing problems of living, we are to address the new man in the spirit, and focus that man on Christ.
Now, the psychotherapists make the claim that they do no encroach on God’s territory because they treat the mind, and leave the soul to God. But the Word of God rebukes them, and it claims His Spirit in us treats every aspect of our lives:
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2Ti 1:7; emphasis added).
God gives us the spirit of power whereby our corrupt inclinations and sinful passions may be corrected.
Believers are sealed with the spirit of promise, not the spirit of maybe (Eph 1:13). In our faith is produced the peace that we need and joy unspeakable. The God of our resurrection, or rapture, gives us the strength to stand firm in our hope—that which we know is ours, but patiently wait for—with no less power than the Holy Spirit: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost” (Rom 15:13).
We are nowhere in scripture admonished to abound in the power of the psychotherapists’ therapies; rather, we are told to be on guard against the philosophies of men.
We are warned to “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col 2:8). The psychotherapists desire to take the Christian’s faith as a spoil, to rob the believer of it and to have it placed in them because of their sinful vanity.
They want it to appear that their counsel is the balm of healing in a Christian’s life instead of the Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God (Isa 9:6).
The practice of psychotherapy is to take philosophies developed in carnal minds and develop them into other carnal minds. They are feeding the flesh and not the spirit. Christians who are minding these things in the flesh are not minding the things of the Spirit, and are being disobedient to God (Rom 8:5).
The carnal mind of the unregenerate sinner, and of our old man in the flesh, is the enemy of God, and cannot subject the sinner nor the saint to God; either in thoughts or deeds (Rom 8:7). Therefore, anyone employing stratagems and therapies derived from canal minds in exercises to modify or control behavior is displeasing God (Rom 8:8).
Christians must rebuke this false gospel wherever they find it. The gospel of psychotherapy is a gospel of works. It says that the gospel which saves and imparts the Spirit is not powerful enough to keep the Christian in a saved state and affect his perfection. It says that after having begun in the Spirit, the Christian is made perfect by works of the flesh (c.f. Gal 3:3). Those Christians who practice its laws are fallen from grace (Gal 5:4). Living in psychotherapy is not living in the faith.
