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Week 24

GracePoint: Providing Counseling Support to Parents and Husbands for Caring About the Needs of Those They Serve

To the one extreme, leaders in the home (parents and husbands) attempt to control those they are called to serve. To the other extreme, they attempt to please/gratify/appease them. Both are failed strategies for winning respect and opportunity to influence.

Grace counseling supports leaders for making choices that increase them in their own personal health, especially to experience Christ who births his love in our hearts for those we serve so that we are

• enabled to value them unconditionally,
• passionately care about their needs, and
• unfailingly invest in their health and happiness.

DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 12E15

Giving Up Ownership for Outcomes, Trusting God’s Surpassing Care for Those We Serve

We tend to think ministry is something we do. But that is true only if the agenda is ours and not God’s – because, if the work is his, we can trust him to do it, and that we are only the tools/vessels/instruments he uses.

There is, of course, a work we do: It is to remain connected to him (John 15:1-8).

This means, in our service to others, we not only trust God to equip us so that we are effectual and useful (competent), but we also give to him ownership for the outcomes - with the confidence that his love and commitment to those he calls us to serve far surpasses our own.

In this way, we are not boastful when some are helped, and also not discouraged in our service when others do not respond.

DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 12F14

Grace: Providing Support Specific to the Needs of Hurting People

Leadership to broken people is different than to healthy people (for example, conditioned athletes or soldiers).

Hurting people are angry, in addiction, and self-absorbed. Healthy people are highly motivated for making choices that renew their health. 
People who are hurting must be cared for and comforted. Healthy people can be commissioned and challenged.

We must speak quietly with a calm voice to people who are hurting, but we can speak with an excited voice to healthy people.

Hurting people struggle to survive their brokenness. People who are increasing in health seek opportunities to serve.

We are all broken in measure and need support for healing. But as we are increased to fuller measure of Christ (who he is in us), our lives are healed and made competent in service to others.

DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 12F13

The Light of Christ Manifested To Man, Reflected by Woman

A local pastor wants me to know that the most influential person in his life is his wife. That sounds good, but he has the message of grace flipped on its head. He shares the notion held by evangelical Christian leaders that behind every successful man is a supportive wife.

It would be more appropriate for the pastor to say he enjoys his wife, that she is gifted, or that her work is wonderfully meaningful to a lot of people. But to identify her as a resource for his support means he does not understand that it is God’s redemptive plan for husbands to be a support/resource (“savior”) to their wives (Ephesians 5:23-33). 

Indeed, wives support husbands in the sense they care for the home according to God’s redemptive plan for them, especially if they have small children. But it is not their role to be a support for their husband’s calling, psychological or spiritual recovery, or growth in grace. Rather, it is the role of husbands to be a resource for their support.

This is exactly the meaning of Colossians 1:27, John 1:14, and 2 Corinthians 4:6 that, just as Christ is the glory (reflection) of the Father (his image, love, and care), and as man is the glory (reflection) of Christ (his image, love, and care), so also the woman is the glory (reflection) of man (his image, love, and care).

“I have given them the glory that you gave me.” – John 17:22

DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 12F12

The Grace Renewal Church: A Missed Need in America

We identify churches generally as either outreach oriented or renewal oriented. Actually, the ideal church would be both. But not many churches, in my estimation, meet the standard which, I think, existed in the first century church.

Then, of course, there are churches which do neither, but are basically social clubs.

Of the two good options (outreach or renewal), if one should be given priority, it is outreach. That’s because, man’s greatest need is to hear the message of God’s provision (the Blood of Christ) for our going to Heaven.

Still, we grieve that so little seems to be understood and appreciated about the need for those who have received God’s provision of the Blood/death of Christ to, also, experience the Life of Christ, without which it is impossible for us to be holy, healthy, or happy.

This is the meaning of:

“For, if when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him by the death of his Son (so that we could go to Heaven), how much more certain and unfailing shall we be saved (sanctified/made holy and useful for service to others) by his Life.” – Romans 5:10

DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 12F11

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