Friendship Counseling

David Powlison has a series of articles on "Friendship Counseling" at the Boundless website (HT: Justin Taylor).

How can we help our friends mature? How can they help us? According to Scripture we grow up by "speaking truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). That phrase, which over the centuries sadly has become cliché, is quite a challenge to really put into practice.

The truth, spoken in love, changes us. The truth, spoken in love, helps others change. Whoever listens and responds to such words grows in maturity.

"Speaking truth" or "telling the truth" doesn't just mean a formal, prepared talk; It's not limited to teaching, preaching, leading a Bible study and the like. It's meant to characterize every conversation we ever have. Whenever we speak truth in love, we'll do some good. But when we speak truth without love, or when we speak untruths with love, or when we speak untruths without love, we do harm.

Powlison also directs us to two practical questions that help us to speak the truth in love:

These two questions — "What are you facing?" and "How does the Lord relate?" — help us to help each other. Learning to ask these two questions will help us learn to say the timely, significant and appropriate words that encourage others to grow up into Christ.

Read the whole series to see this idea developed: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Preach with Passion

John Piper's exhortation to Preach What's True and Precious:

The great battle of preaching is to see what's true and to savor what's precious. Weak seeing and weak savoring are a curse to God’s people.

Prayer and Fasting

Douglas Groothuis offers Advice on Prayer and Fasting. Here's his first point:

1. Adding fasting to prayer is meant to intensify the prayer. Fasting is not a magical way to win God's favor. Rather, our emptiness and hunger for God is felt more deeply and focused in prayer.

Read the other points at his site.

Lessons on Prayer from Daniel

Randy Alcorn offers some Perspectives on Prayer from Daniel 9-10. His first five points are:

1. Position yourself for prayer by reading Scripture first.
   "In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years" (v. 2).
2. Follow Scripture's lead toward what you should pray for. (If prayer's the train, make Scripture the rails.)
   "So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition..." (v. 3)
3. Pray humbly, recognizing your utter unworthiness before an all-holy God.
   "...prayer and petition in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes." (v. 3)
4. Begin by praising God for His attributes, His greatness and faithfulness. Let God's character provide the context for prayer, so He's the center of gravity, not you.
   "I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: 'O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands...'" (v. 4)
5. Confess your sins, taking full responsibility, without rationalization, spin or self-exemption.
   "we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws." (v. 5-6)

There's nine more points in his article.