Jesus vs The Therapist

From Lifestyle Discipleship, by Jim Peterson....

"In our attempts to cope with this despair, we have created the therapist as our secular priest. His job is to alleviate pain. But he too tells us lies and will leave us broken still. His message is that it's all there inside us. He asserts that the individual must find and assert his or her true self because this self is the only source of genuine relationships with other people. One must know and accept one's self, he insists, in order to enter into valid relationships with others. One must become independent of others to come to where one doesn't need another's love to feel complete. People need self-validation, says the therapist. They need to be able to say, "I'm okay," independent of what others might think or say about them."

"In contrast, Jesus calls our attention to the cross, not to make us feel good about ourselves, but to make us realize that in spite of ourselves, all is forgiven. Rather than instructing us to shift the blame to our deprived childhood or abusive parents, He takes is all upon Himself, making it vanish forever. He holds us responsible for our own behavior because we are really the only ones who can do anything about it. He assures us that if we are willing, He will help us get started and also empower us to keep going.

"Then He calls us into a set of interdependent relationships, with Him and with our brothers and sisters. We are in these relationships, He says, not just for what we can get out of them, but also for what we can bring to them. Self-fulfillment is the wrong pursuit.

"Healing, according to Jesus, is for those who are broken and admit it.

"The incompatibility of these two messages - of the secular therapist and of Jesus - is almost total. Both cannot be true."