A Christian with a biblical perspective and a Christian with a humanistic perspective can both be sincere, committed people who are looking at the same situation, but they will come up with different causes and different solutions.
Alexander Pope described how sin captures us:
Vice is a monster of so frightful mean,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Humanistic thinking can be like that. First, we study it in order to understand it. Then we shake our heads in disagreement, then listen some more to be sure we heard correctly, and finally, unknowingly begin to absorb it.
If you are dealing with sin, you must turn to the creator and savior for cleansing, strengthening, and changing. If it is sin, society didn’t put it into you; society only stirs up what is already in you. If it is sin, society can’t help you. It requires a supernatural cure.
If you want relief, you can find it in this world. If you want a cure, only God can help you. As Tournier says, there is no human cure for sin.
The couple in this lesson became my clients. They had been to three counselors before coming to “last-resort Brandt.” One counselor was a humanist and not a Christian, and the other two were “Christian humanists.” The counselors had actually worked with the couple individually and had gone into a detailed study of both their backgrounds, reviewing their twenty-year history of antagonism and discord. The couple came away from the counselors with the verdict that they had irreconcilable differences and divorce was the only solution.
But during the time with each previous counselor, the woman had come away from each session greatly relieved. She was appreciative of their understanding, kindness, and willingness to listen to her. She felt that they understood she was ready to change, but that her husband wouldn’t cooperate. She felt that the counselors understood why she was bitter and hostile under the circumstances with which she had to live.
The husband was very disgusted with the whole process. He tolerated going only for the sake of the marriage. In his opinion, they just sided with her and did not really grasp what a problem she had created for him in their marriage. So, as a result, she was helped in finding great relief for herself, but the marriage was actually worse.
It was immediately evident to me that she had two problems: first, a personal problem of sin in the areas of anger and bitterness and second, the marriage.
He had two problems also: first, the personal problem of sin in the areas of quarrelsomeness and a nasty temper and second, the marriage.
They turned to God for their solution and in six weeks they were behaving like honeymooners! Interestingly, I never did talk to them about their marriage.
I am not trying to say that their marriage problems evaporated. Normally, newlyweds would not have a smooth marriage either. They had many details to work out as they started their new life. What I am saying is that they now approached their problems without hostility, quarreling, and yelling as they allowed the Lord to give them peaceful, loving, and joyful hearts. At that point they didn’t need me and were quite capable of approaching their marriage problems in a friendly fashion and began to solve them.
This is the Christian miracle of the cleansed life.
Examine yourself. Are you a Christian who turns to God for help? Are you a Christian and a partial humanist who turns to the environment for relief from sin? Are you a humanist who accepts scientific investigation only and rejects the biblical record?
Here is God’s promise again:
“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:11-13, NIV)
If we have a plan for our life and God says He has a plan for our life, whose plan is better?