About Hebrews 4:16 Counseling

Hebrews 4:16 Counseling’s aim is to point people to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Its goal is to teach and to disciple individuals to be biblical in their response to life expectations and relationship issues. Homework is given to help move individuals towards healing and accountability.

We appreciate your prayers that the Lord will continue to guide us as we desire to focus on people who have a need for wise counsel and a desire to know the Lord through Scripture.

Chuck Steinmetz
ACBC Certified Counselor
Executive Director of Hebrews 4:16 Counseling

God

We believe in one God, Creator of all things, holy, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in a loving unity of three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God has graciously purposed from eternity to redeem a people for Himself and to make all things new for His own glory.

The Bible

We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.

The Human Condition

We believe that God created Adam and Eve in His image, but they sinned when tempted by Satan. In union with Adam, human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God, and under His wrath. Only through God’s saving work in Jesus Christ can we be rescued, reconciled and renewed.

Jesus Christ

We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures. Jesus-Israel’s promised Messiah-was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate.

The Work of Christ

We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed His blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.

The Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that He does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. He convicts the world of its guilt. He regenerates sinners, and in Him they are baptized into union with Christ and adopted as heirs in the family of God. He also indwells, illuminates, guides, equips and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service.

The Church

We believe that the true church comprises all who have been justified by God’s grace through faith alone in Christ alone. They are united by the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, of which He is the Head. The true church is manifest in local churches, whose membership should be composed only of believers. The Lord Jesus mandated two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which visibly and tangibly express the gospel. Though they are not the means of salvation, when celebrated by the church in genuine faith, these ordinances confirm and nourish the believer.

Christian Living

We believe that God’s justifying grace must not be separated from His sanctifying power and purpose. God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially, and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed. With God’s Word, the Spirit’s power, and fervent prayer in Christ’s name, we are to combat the spiritual forces of evil. In obedience to Christ’s commission, we are to make disciples among all people, always bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed.

Christ’s Return

We believe in the personal, bodily and premillennial return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission.

Response and Eternal Destiny

We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to Him in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth, to the praise of His glorious grace. Amen.

Biblical counseling is a targeted form of discipleship.  Discipleship is one person coming alongside another in a relationship that is intended to provide an opportunity for exhorting one another to become more Christ-like.

Biblical counselors take the position that Scripture gives the only authoritative guide for what we are to believe and how we are to live.  According to 2 Timothy 3:16-17,

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

The biblical counselor is trained in the use of Scripture and the principles of biblical counseling.  Biblical counsel is not based on man’s wisdom, opinions, experiences, or concepts of behavior, but seeks to bring the full range of biblical truth to focus on the counselee’s needs.  Reigning Grace Counseling Center emphasizes the importance of change at the heart level.

Dr. Jay Adams founded the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors (NANC) with the desire that the organization and its rigorous certification process would become the backbone of the biblical counseling movement. Today the organization is now known as the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC) and is the oldest and largest biblical counseling organization in the world.

Paul described biblical counseling in such passages as Romans 15:14: “I myself am convinced about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and competent to counsel one another.” In that passage, the apostle was encouraging members of the Roman church to do informal, mutual counseling, something that all Christians today should learn, as well.

What is Different about Biblical Counseling?

Foundational to biblical counseling is the reliance on the Word of God as the only authoritative guide for all of life, including what we are to believe,  how we are to live, and how we are to address our problems. 

The Bible is unique in its scope and ability to address all that is “common-to-man.”  No self-help book or secular counselor can boast the measure of hope laid forth in the Scriptures.

The biblical counselor is trained to “rightly handle the word of truth,” in order to reveal the principles of biblical counseling in the counseling environment.  The biblical counselor does not base counsel on man’s wisdom, opinions, experience, or concepts of behavior, but instead looks to God’s own Word to see what God says.  Isaiah 55:8-11 says,

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

Biblical counselors seek to bring the full range of biblical truth to focus on the counselee’s need. Hebrews 4:12 says,

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”