Soul Contact

Begin Before the Beginning: John 1:1—Soul Contact

Before God created, what was He doing? This vital question exposes the vital quest in the human soul created in the image of God.

Before God created; He related.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” (John 1:1).

In the Greek, this little preposition with signifies “before, in the presence of, face-to-face with.”

When my children were young, we played a game called “Eye Contact.” I would bellow, “Josh! Marie! Let’s play ‘Eye Contact!’” They’d race to me, shove their eye sockets into my eye sockets, press their eyeballs into my eyeballs, and we would make eye contact.

Father and Son (and Spirit) play an eternal game of “Eye Contact,” except they call it “Soul Contact.” The Trinity always enjoys the sheer delight of eternal, unbroken communion, connection, and community.

Their love teaches us how to love in spirit and in truth.

AACC Reflections: The Trinity

AACC Grace and Truth World Conference:
Day Four and Wrap Up Reflections—The Trinity

Each AACC Conference I attend, I listen for the “underlying” theme—not necessarily the planned theme (this year, Grace and Truth), as powerful as that is. But any consistent threads in plenary sessions, worship, track presentations, personal interactions—that might suggest the Spirit’s underlying theme.

Here’s what I heard: The Trinity.

What sets Christianity apart from everything else? The Trinity.

What sets Christian counseling apart from every other form of people helping? The Trinity.

I listened to the message of Trinitarian theology and Trinitarian counseling from Piper, Crabb, Dave Jenkins, and many others.

Christian counseling/biblical counseling will be filled with grace and truth, will be filled with Scripture and soul, will be filled with truth and love… to the extent that our theology and our personal lives are impacted by and infiltrated by the Trinity.

As I said in my track presentation (http://bit.ly/3ShzlR), “Too often biblical counselors counsel more like Allah than like the Trinity.”

What in the world did I mean by that?

Allah is the alone with the alone.

Aloof.

Distant.

Other than.

Our Trinitarian God is the eternal community.

When we counsel soullessly, when we counsel aloofly, when we counsel with truth minus love…then we ought not to call what we do biblical Christian counseling.

Grace and Truth are mediated via our Trinitarian God as His life, His love, flow through us to those we counsel as we live the truth in love.

That’s the message I listened to this week.

How about you?