Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to my session about Cata Containers. And yeah, as the title say, I will do some comparison between the Cata Containers and Geoizer, the Google open source project. And there will be some benchmark data. And also, I will put the slides online. So after the session, you will see all the content. And yes, about Cata, I'm sure you run from the hybrid usage. And most of the tests has been done by my colleague, Fu Panli, and who is not here. But many data that's come from him. So I put his name here. And I'm from the community of Cata Containers. And this morning, I showed you at least all of our session from the upstream developers. And yes, this is a corrected version. And correct version. So after this session, the 420 and the 510, we have two forums about Cata Containers, both in level three. And the first one is talk about the proof of concept. And the other one is a philosophy problem about container security. And tomorrow morning, if you are interested, in the integration with Kubernetes, we have another forum about Kubernetes integration. And I and Eric and other upstream developers will be there to discuss this problem. And also, our project update is on the level three, M3 room. It's a pretty small room. So if you are interested in our project update, please visit it. And now, this is my topic. Yeah, actually, about the Cata Containers is about something, another indirect layer. So this topic, I have four parts of this topic about the general introduction about the secure containers technologies. And then I will compare the architectures. And then the main part is about the benchmarks. And then at the last, I will talk about something about the futures. First, about Cata Containers. Cata Containers itself is a container runtime, just like Run-C. And our project is initiated by us, by our hyper.sh. And the Intel. And hosted by the OpenStack Foundation. And now, I think we are the first pilot project of the foundation. And we launched the project in last December. And now, it's about one year. And we are at version 1.3. And we will have one for very soon. And there are still many people asking me, what is Cata Containers? Is it a VM, or it's a container? In short, it's a container runtime. It's OCI compatible. And just like Run-C, you can use it at any position that Run-C can run. You can put Cata runtime at that position, do the integration with Kubernetes, with Docker, with Zoom, and maybe your own private systems. But different from Run-C, we use the virtualization technology. So when the Cata Containers is launched from the outside, from the host, you can see a VM there. And from a different way, the device is also OCI compatible container runtime. And it's an open-sourced project by Google. And the Google guys said they developed this project for four or five years and open-sourced it in May. I think in Copenhagen, the KubeCon, KubeCon Europe. And yes, it's a user-space kernel. And it's writing in Go. And the employment subsite of the Linux system interface, the CIS calls, I think, totally the Linux have more than 300 CIS calls. And they implement less than 300. So it's developed in Google and open-sourced. And both projects aimed for something called secure containers. And they provide two layer of isolation. The first is the upper layer is a Linux API. So the standard containers that's aimed to run on any OCI compatible runtime should could run on either Kata or a device. But that's in theory not practical. And unlike RunC, we have another layer of abstraction. And so in the middle, there is a black box. For Kata, it's a VM and a kernel inside VM. And for device, that's the century. And now let's go in deep, the architecture comparison. If you want to run the Kata containers, they are pretty easy, but looks not so. Actually, you're just called the Kata runtime. And just like you're called RunC, if you have Docker, you can just direct it to the runtime equal to a Kata runtime that you can launch it. And it uses the existing VMM technology and the test cumul, something else. And inside the guest, there is a standard Linux kernel. And we do some configuration and some small patches, but in general, that's a standard Linux kernel. And on top of it, aside with the container apps, we have an agent. Also, we have shims. And the container application, container app inside the VM, the sandbox is for the, if you run Kubernetes, that sandbox is the pod. And in pod, there may exist several containers. And the agent manages all the container apps. And for divisor, looks a bit simple. And the divisor has a single binary. And they may run in different processes, but they have only one binary. I think that's a bit more friendly for the users. And they have a binary called RunIC. And if you run RunIC to launch a container, then they have another process called Sentry. That's the user space kernel and launched the container app. And it's do the stab work. And also, in the host kernel, we'll just catch the syscalls and then send to Sentry. And Sentry will process it and then go back to the container. Later, I will go in depth. And there is another process that's called Gopher is for the disk.io. They only support the file system.io. And they use the 9P protocol. And the philosophy behind the divisor is, as so-called, they think the container will call all of the Linux APIs, the syscalls. But the Sentry will implement the syscalls. And only a subset of the syscalls can pass to the host. That's because the developers of divisor believe that the hot path of the syscalls, those be called frequently, is proven to be safer than others, the code pass. And so they could use the namespace and use the sitcom to limit the syscalls to the host kernel. And on the other hand, they investigate on the syscalls and exploits. And most of the CVs come from the syscalls of the open. That's operate on the file systems. So they separate the file system access to another process. So by this way, they enhance the security. Yeah, that's how you call them and some detailed architecture. About the Kallagin Linux, yeah. Actually, it's a classic hardware-adjusted virtualization. We have a KVM in the host kernel. And normally, there is a cumul here. And inside the cumul process, there is a guest kernel in the guest mode, drink 0 and full. And it helps to manage the whole VM. And there is an agent inside it. And there are application processes. And this layer provides, the VMM provides some virtual hardware mode interface to the guest. So the guest kernel run on top of the hardware instruction sites. So there is a two-layer of isolation. The first layer is about the KVM. And the second layer is in the guest. That's the ring 0 and the ring 3. And for the, especially for the IO things, because we are the hardware-adjusted virtualization, we can use all the existing virtualization technologies, such as the pass-through of the hardware and use the vhost. And use the vhost user to use dpdk and to have the high-performance networking. And also, we can use the classic cumul device model. I think almost everyone is pretty familiar with the architecture. So let's go to some new things. For divisor, that's a bit different. The divisor's idea is to use the syscall interception that they catch the syscalls to pass by to the user space kernels to process it, and then go back to the application process. Only a small side of the syscalls will pass to the host kernel and will be filtered by the syscall model, namespace. And by this way, they have two layer of isolation. The first layer is about the sentry will only, it's a minimal gas kernel, and it's a brand-new implementation by go. So they believe it could be done safer than the big monolidest kernel. And also, the ring protection between the host kernel and the user space kernel there. And also, I just said, they put the fail system access to another process. And from the architecture, one thing you may think about is how the syscall interception go, because that's, you think they support two, they call it, that's two platform. So one is the p-trace, and the other is KVM. And for the p-trace model, that was used in UML for about, I think, 15 years ago. And the p-trace itself is a tracing technology that's, in other words, that's slow here. And yeah, something deeper here. There is another platform for the device, it's the KVM platform. For the KVM platform, they use the KVM to do the syscall interception. And in this mode, the sentry map itself to three different places. The first place is in the host part, and it do something about the interception part. And the second part is, and the third part is located in the guest, and in the different places. And among the different places, there are only a single program, just to put itself in three different places. So they can jump from here to there. So yeah, in other words, the KVM here is used for catch the syscalls. It's not for the isolation. The isolation part is still the same as the last page site. Yeah, that's about the architecture of the device. So the main focus on device is still about the interception performance. And here is the summary of the architecture comparison. We may have some inspection based on the architecture. Firstly, it's the isolation. Both of the technology, the Cata containers and the device are perhaps the two isolation layers. So you can think that's much better than the RunC, the RunC run the containers on the single host kernel. And if there is some bugs, they find the exploits, they break the kernel, and they make access to everything. But for the compatibility, in general, Cata runs a general Linux kernel, so the compatibility won't be a problem. But for the device, that's a new implementation. And the authors of the device, they may try to implement the syscalls as what they think that's correct, maybe that will break some compatibility. So we will prove that. And about the performance, you may think both should have very little overhead on CPU and part of memory. But on the other hand, because the simple architecture, the device may have smaller footprint, but on the syscall interception method, the device may have some pain on the syscall, heavy workloads. And yes, we have many optimization ways. And now here we come to the main parts of the talk, that's the benchmarks. We still have half of the time. So we do some functional tests, and then we do some standard benchmarks about the boot time, about the memory footprint, and CPU and memory, and our performance networking performance. Then we do some real life cases. And I leaked some result here. We did more than three real life cases, but some of them does not completely in the device. Maybe some syscall has not been implemented in the device, or maybe they implement in different semantics. I don't want to say the device implemented them in the wrong, maybe not a wrong implementation. They just implement different semantics. Maybe Linux implementation is wrong from the original semantic of the POSIX or something, or single unit standard. But every user space application, they assume they run on Linux kernel. So if it doesn't implement the bugs in Linux kernel, then they can't run on top of it. So I just say they are different. And we also do Jenkins test that tool and build about the Git colon field. So we only have three results of the real life cases. And about the setup, the test is pretty long. And we only put some, the bare metal result here. And it's run on top of the Sura on top of Packet.9. It's zero and I think E3 or E5 CPUs on Packet.9. And also for some disk IO tests, we have more power for servers that have additional disks. And the data is here. So most of the test containers have eight gigabytes memory if not have further nodes. And for the networking tests, we use the two servers to play different roles to avoid the client's affection to the servers. First, we do some Cisco coverage test. I mean, the deviser, the design of the deviser, they think only if you're limited, it's to some small set of Cisco's to the house that will be more secure. And because deviser is a fairly new open project and pretty, it's a code in a single repository. So from the code, they only call about 70 Cisco's to the house. And for Cata, we collect the status for the cumul process. For different cases, we used about 30 to 53 Cisco's. Maybe more, but normally, they will be similar. And for the memory footprint, here, we use the half gigabytes memory for the containers. And we have two cases. The first is to launch a single container. So for the Cata containers, the single container will make consume about more than 70 megabytes. And for the deviser, it's about, I think, about 25, I think. Yeah, here, we enable the template for the Cata. That's a method to save the memory and accelerate the boot speed. Also, you may enable the KSM here. And that could save memory as well, just that they do this in a different way. And if we use the template, that means we can share the memory for the read-only parts of the containers. So if we run about 20 containers, the average memory will be lower. It's about 50 megabytes. And for deviser, that's similar. It's about 20, 25, I think. And yeah, so the result is clear. The deviser has fewer memory footprint. But actually, the Cata can do it pretty good. And about the boot time, there is different configuration of the Cata containers. We have four different configurations. And we compare it with Deviser and RunC. And because the smaller footprint, the deviser can launch very, very fast. It's fewer than 500 milliseconds. And the RunC, including the image processing part, it can launch about a bit more than 500 milliseconds. And for Cata, if we enable the factory, it will be pretty fast in a similar speed. And if we use the new ongoing work on Shim V2, it will be about 700 milliseconds. And the vanilla, the most simple configuration, it will be more than one second. And there is some variance between the different tests. We do the test for about 10 or 20 test runs and get the statistic data here. So the result shows the proper configurations. The Cata containers could get a good boot performance. But the Deviser could go down even better. But pretty similar. About CPU and memory performance, about CPU. You know, right now, for the modern CPUs, that's a part of the virtualization. Most of the technology could guarantee the CPU in the same level. You can't find the, actually, you can't find the minor difference between the different technology. They can reach the same level of the CPU test. But for memory, this test is based on the CIS bench for memory bandwidth. And for the sequential write, there is some difference. And for the random write, they are more similar. And there are some small gaps in the memory parts. And here is our performance test. This is based on the system I showed before. And we tested this in different configurations. And the test uses a testing program, FIO, and the FIO counterrun on Deviser. So there's only Cata to do the sole test a bit lonely. And compared to the House FS, for the Buffard IO, forgot it. For the Direct IO, we have a better performance. That's confused me. And I think you have the questions as well why the Cata containers can reach even better performance than the House. Yeah, yes. Let me try to explain it. For the Buffard IO, when we use 9P, you know that the default configuration, the performance on 9P is really bad. I have to say that even it is the default configuration. For production usage of Cata, you should avoid 9P for the most cases. But here, if we pass through the disk to the guest, that will achieve better performance. And here, because the default kernel of Cata containers support multi-QIO, so with some CPU usage, we can achieve better performance than the House, which does not support this yet. That's the most of the contribution come from the multi-QIO parts. And that's not the, yeah. That's because we only got the system from the provider. And the only confused one is the big block random read test. I also can't explain it. But we do the test several times that show the results. We may do further investigation on this. And also, the IO performance, because we can't run the FIO on the device, so we run some DD test on top of the device. The blue one is the device. And the brown one is 9P of Cata. Actually, the device uses 9P as well. But in some case, it shows that the 9P of the device has much better performance. But for the smaller block, I think it introduced too many six-cals, so it still reduced the performance. And there is one thing we have to say for the 9P. Natively, it's a networking file system protocol. That means even if you use the direct IO, it can only do the direct IO on the guest side to avoid the page catch in the guest. But in the host side, in the server side, there is no guarantee about it can avoid the page catch. So we just put the result here. And they may make some sense. This is about the IO performance. And also, for the networking part, yes, actually, from the beginning, many people wondered how about the networking performance of Cata and the networking performance of the device. And actually, right now, the virtualization technology makes the VMs could achieve a similar throughput of the hosts, I think. Even with the VHOST, it could achieve a good throughput on the networking part. If we use the VHOST user and DPDK, we may get better networking performance. But for GVISOR, yes, we got a not-so-good network performance. And from the GVISOR team, they said the first thing they think about is the security and the performance is not what they are focusing on. So that may explain the results. But yesterday, I talked this with Samuel. And Samuel told me he did this test for several times as well. And he wanted to believe that's what we do some wrong tests, the wrong configurations. The network performance of GVISOR should not be so slow. But I think if nobody pointed out what's wrong, then that's the result. And here, similarly, we got some real life case for engines. Yes, in the table. And this column is run C. And this is Cata. And this is GVISOR. And here, we move the triple W route of the Cata test from the 9P to the 10-part fast to avoid the bad performance of the 9P. If we move it to 9P, then that's totally different story. But if you don't use the 9P, you can get pretty good performance of the Cata engines test. But for GVISOR, we don't find such a way to improve the data. But on the other hand, we can compare some detailed things for the orange lines is run C. And the dark blue line is Cata. You can find the run C is pretty stable on all the connections. But looks serious about how two connections of Cata have a bad result. So this is the later we were working on to give more equal rights to every connections to make it has a constant performance for all the connections. That's the things later. And for the GVISOR line, that's pretty smooth, but not so good. And another test is about the radius. Radius has its own benchmark. And both GVISOR and the Cata supports the test pretty well. So if you want to run GVISOR and your workload is ready, that's fine. And the test shows there is some gap between the run C and Cata, and also more gap between the Cata and the GVISOR. I think the result is come from the memory performance and partly from the IO performance, the networking performance. So that's the result for the radius, the memory and networking. And another case is about the TensorFlow. But this is the pure CPU test. There is no GPU inside. And the result shows most of the candidate of the tests pretty similar. So I think this is because most of the workload is running on the CPU itself. So the different candidates don't have many, many, many differences. And here is the configuration. And have a summary. Both Cata and the GVISOR have a smaller attack interface than run C and could be more secure. And the CPU performance is identical to the house and run C. But for the Cata candidates, some suggestion is if you could use the path through the device for IO, you can pass through it. And if you can use the factory or use the Shin B2, you can use it to accelerate the boot performance and reduce the memory footprint. And in most cases, they have good throughput performance. And if you have a proper configuration, and later we will have more suggestions for different users on how to configure it. And on the GVISOR side, it has faster boot performance and lower memory footprint. And there is still some improvement on the compatibility side for the general usage. And later, we may have some further more tests. The first is about some fine-tuned benchmarks on the networking side, new mass-specific tests, and net-seated virtualization tests. And different kinds of networking tests and more real life cases. That's the further working. And the same topic, we will have a session on the Kupacan Seattle. So we will update the topic and add more results here. And if there is anything wrong, we will correct them. And so about the two projects, all the time, looks time-stop. And yeah, Cata is on the way to be more efficient and more feasible, such as the GPU support and other accelerators. And as we are open-source project, any contributions are welcome. And just visit our site, and you can use select, your IRC, and the mailing list to access our project. And on our GitHub, you can file issues and PRs. You can also participate in our weekly meetings. And for GVisorSign, yeah, we also have another similar project called ISUDI. We have another link here. Yes, time is up. Thank you, everyone. Is there any questions? Oh, no? Thank you.


In John 20, the risen Lord surprisingly appears to his weary and defeated followers. The disciples believe in Jesus and the Lord takes a deep breath. He breathes on them and he tells them receive the Holy Spirit. This Greek word that gets translated spirit is the word pneuma from which we get our words pneumonia or pneumatic. Pneuma means wind or breath. When Jesus breathed on his disciples he drew from deep inside and he gave them something of himself. The Spirit rose from deep within Jesus carrying the nature of Jesus to continue the work of Jesus. In that moment the Holy Spirit came as a gentle puff of breath to indwell his followers. You might say deep passed unto deep. Eternal life, the life of Jesus, was imparted from the Lord to his disciples. He breathed on them. But what was a gentle puff of breath following the resurrection became a windstorm seven weeks later at the Feast of Pentecost. It was perhaps in that same upper room the disciples had gathered again and once more received the Holy Spirit. But this time there was a greater intensity. It was a new manifestation. Listen again to how Luke describes the disciples monumental experience. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. The breath of Jesus had intensified into a windstorm and this was not the last spiritual windstorm in the book of Acts. They reoccurred on a frequent basis. In fact they can even happen today. I've been praying that the wind will begin to blow in this room even as I speak. Physical windstorms are powerful forces of nature that come in various forms. Dust storms and sand storms and thunder storms and blizzards and hurricanes and tornadoes. The wind swirls in and blows hard. It drives the dust or sand or rain or snow or hell. It picks up whatever object it captures and it unleashes it like a torpedo. Tornadoes can pack winds as strong as 250 miles per hour. They can cut a swath a mile wide and 50 miles long. Hurricanes are massive windstorms. They can swell the 300 miles in diameter and impact an entire coastline. My wife grew up in South Florida and she tells stories of her father preparing her house for a hurricane. He would board up the windows of the house and then he would climb up into the palm trees and he would pick the coconuts lest they become storm-perpelled cannonballs. In both a tornado and a hurricane it's not just the wind that causes damage but the debris it catapults. And this is what happens in a spiritual windstorm. The power, the dynamic of the Holy Spirit swirls into a church. He sweeps this community of believers up off its knees and propels the church into action. The Spirit is now the driving force behind the witness and service and love. A church that was just taking up space now becomes an influence on its community. As in a physical windstorm a gust of supernatural stirs up the debris. The Holy Spirit captures whatever happens to be in his path and launches it with heavenly propulsion. And if the wind is the Holy Spirit that means you and I are the debris. Now I hope you're not offended by that analogy but spiritually speaking there's really no better symbolism. Psalm 103 verse 14 says of God for he knows our frame. He remembers that we're but dust. On our own we're as useful to God as the dust off the top shelf. We're nothing but lint until God's Spirit grips us in his influence. When we're caught up in the wind of the Spirit worthless debris gets turned into spiritual missiles. A church has no lasting influence on its community until it's been stirred up and launched out by God's Spirit. Heard of a news report from Cheyenne Wyoming a large twister blew through the area amazingly missing the downtown. It did though strike a church on the outskirts. The next day the local newspaper read thankfully the cyclone that destroyed Cheyenne community church did no real damage to our town. How tragic is that? How sad? Such a statement should never be said about a church that if it were gone nothing would be lost yet this is the case with many churches today. If we're going to make a difference in our community we need fresh breezes and strong gusts of the Holy Spirit and when this happens we call it revival. This is what I want to speak to you about today spiritual windstorms. I want to discuss the subject of revival. All the Baptist churches I attended as a child always had an annual revival. The revival usually lasted several nights in a row. The best ones seemed to be held in a tent. They'd bring in a guest speaker maybe at a soloist or a musical group maybe somebody who could relate to the youth. There might even be a prize for the person who brought the most people. The whole idea was to generate some excitement in the local church but this is not what I mean when I speak of revival. A biblical revival is more than a block of meetings on the church calendar. It's a spiritual windstorm. It's a move of God's Spirit in the hearts of God's people. Throughout history the Holy Spirit has graciously visited humanity with these kinds of spiritual awakenings. These movements have shaped the church and saved the lost and set society in a more godly trajectory. Scottish preacher William Nicole once wrote, it is by revivals that the church of God makes its most visible advance. When all things seem calm, when no breath stirs the air, when the sea is like lead and the sky is low and gray, when all worship seems to have ended but the worship of vanity, it is then that the Spirit of God is poured upon the church. Suddenly the Christianity of the apostles and martyrs, not that of the philosophers and liberals, rises from the catacombs of oblivion and appears young and fresh in the midst of the obsolete things of yesteryear. And it's for this that we long, for real Christianity to rise up and for God's kingdom to advance. This is what happened in the 12th century AD with Peter Waldo and his Waldensians. These believers renounce the materialism of the church and believe everyone should have a Bible in their own language. It was a prelude to a further awakening that was to come. The Protestant Reformation lasted over a hundred years and left behind the five solas of orthodoxy by faith alone, by grace alone, by Christ alone, by scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. We could also point to the 18th century's first and second grade awakenings as tremendous times of revival. The first great awakening led to the abolition of slavery in England and changes to child labor laws. The second great awakening saw American churches packed to the gills. In the south, both slave owners and slaves gathered in open fields to worship God because the churches weren't large enough to accommodate the crowds. It was the beginning of the camp meeting, a tradition of southern evangelicalism. In 1904, a Welch coal miner, a man named Evan Roberts, had been praying fervently for revival. He was just 25 years old, a tall, skinny fellow, an unlikely flashpoint for anything of colossal proportions. He'd been studying for the ministry when he asked his pastor if he could hold some evening meetings in the church. Well at first the attendance was sparse but before long shops were closing early so that employees could get to the church and reserve a seat for the meetings. Soon the roadways to the church were clogged with out-of-town seekers coming to see what was happening. Often the services would last until 4.30 in the morning. Sin was confessed. Sinners converted. Homes and families were restored. For the next couple of years all across Wales bars closed, jails emptied, churches were filled. My, even soccer matches were canceled to avoid conflicts with the revival. Welch miners were so transformed by the Holy Spirit their mules had to be retrained to work without the prodding of curse words. During the Welch revival of 1904 two kids were heard one day offering their explanations for what was going on in their community. One child said to the other, do you know what is happening in our town? The other child replied, no I don't accept that Sunday comes every day now. The first child added why Jesus has come to live in our town. And here are two great definitions for a revival. It's when Jesus comes to reside and rule in a community and when it feels like every day is a day of worship. Of course our family Calvary Chapel was born in a revival. In the 1960s we saw a generation disillusioned by materialism, the war in Vietnam, racial inequality. The youth rejected the shallowness of their parents' morality and immersed themselves in drugs and free sex. But that's when God sent a Jesus movement which taught the Bible giving the young people the truth that they lacked and emphasized the Holy Spirit providing them the heavenly high for which they craved. It began in the heart of Chuck and Kay Smith on the beaches here in Southern California and it swept the world. When it comes to a revival I like the observation by preacher Alexander Whitey. He says there is a divine mystery about revivals. God's sovereignty is in them. In other words when the spirit of God moves in revival, patterns and predictability fly out the window, God takes the helm. The unexpected occurs. Baptist preacher Vance Habner once said, when I was a boy preachers talked about holding a revival but what we really need is somebody who will turn a revival loose. Revival is more than just holding a meeting. It occurs when God turns his spirit loose in the church and then turns the church loose on a needy world. And this is what happened on the day of Pentecost. A spiritual windstorm sent from God's throne caused the church in Jerusalem to soar and roar. Luke paints the picture in Acts 2 verse 2, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. When you do a close inspection of verse 2 you find some interesting insights regarding spiritual revivals. I'd like to share a few with you. First this Greek word translated suddenly it means unawares or unexpectedly. When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples it happened spontaneously. You know in nature when serious winds begin to stir the storms get tracked by our meteorologists. As conditions become conducive for a tornado a watch gets issued. When a tornado is spotted it's upgraded to a warning but when the Spirit came upon the church there wasn't a watch or warning. They were just waiting as Jesus had told them. Resting in what God had promised. Trusting in the power God had promised. Waiting implies no anxiety, no uncertainty, just the expectation that what the Father promises He will deliver. When the Spirit came upon the disciples a sound was heard. The word translated sound is the word echoes from which we get our word echo. Here's its definition. It's a sound of uncertain affinity, a loud or confused noise, a roar. I've never been in high winds that would constitute a tornado or a hurricane yet here's an account I read from someone who has. The wind blew so hard the walls of the house shook. We looked outside through a window and surprisingly everything was flying away. We couldn't even open the door because it would have been impossible to close it afterward. One unforgettable thing is the whistle of the wind like a train approaching near your house. This is what happened on the day of Pentecost when God's Spirit came upon the church. It was like a wind storm. They heard the roar of this ferocious wind. One author paraphrases Luke's description. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind gale-forced. A wind from heaven rocked their world. Remember immediately after His resurrection Jesus drew a puff of air and He breathed gently on His disciples but here He blows on them in a mighty rushing gale-force wind. Both experiences were indicative of the encounter the disciples had with the Holy Spirit at the time. In John 20 the disciples saw the risen Lord and their faith was rewarded with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit but now in Acts chapter 2 at Pentecost when the Spirit came upon them it was for empowerment. This time Jesus blew hard on His disciples. He filled their sails with wind that would cause the gospel ship to sell to its destination despite the storms it would inevitably face. Don't forget the early church was born in a firestorm of persecution. The Greek word translated witness is martyr. Today a martyr is a person who dies for their faith. The meaning developed when most of the first witnesses paid the ultimate price to take a stand for Jesus and yet even in such a discouraging climate the church still prevailed in its mission thanks to the Holy Spirit. Notice too the word rushing it means to carry and this is what a strong wind does it captures stuff and carries it through the air. Remember the impact of a windstorm is produced not just by its high velocity winds but the winds pick up debris and propel them at tremendous speeds and for far distances and this is what God does with us in a revival. When the debris that He wants to launch and sin and use to strike targets when that debris is filled with the Holy Spirit suddenly it gets thrown out of the nest. It gets launched out. God begins to send people out to spread His love and truth. Folks get stirred up and sent out in a windstorm. Missionaries get raised up in a revival. God sets out marching orders in revival times servants of God who were content to pack a pew begin to get involved and notice the wind here in Acts chapter 2 it was a mighty wind. The amplified version correctly renders it the rushing of a violent tempest blast. This is not a mild breeze that leaves you untouched. It's a rustling wind. The Holy Spirit picks up the pieces of our lives blows them about and then rearranges them as He pleases. The spiritual windstorm is a strong wind that impacts you that dramatically alters your life. You're different after you've been touched by a mighty wind of God and like a tornado or a hurricane you don't experience a mighty wind without incurring some damage. The power of the Holy Spirit cleans you up before He sends you out. Conviction occurs. Repentance takes place. Brokenness sets in. Sin gets confessed. Old habits are abandoned. Evil gets renounced. Don't think you can be an effective follower for Jesus and conduct business as usual. To seek revival is to invite a windstorm of change to blow into your life and blow out all of your selfishness and pride. This rushing mighty wind definitely had a violent impact on the early church. Days later Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit. They played the hypocrite. We're told God judged them quickly. He struck them dead as with most storms there were casualties. Hey the only people who stand in a windstorm are those who bow down. Just ask Ananias and Sapphira. Reminds me of the three preachers who were discussing the revivals that had occurred in each of their local churches. The Baptist pastor he said praise the Lord we had ten new people give their lives to Jesus. Not to be outdone the assemblies of God pastor he fired back he said well we had ten new people filled with the Holy Spirit. That's when the Presbyterian pastor he said I've got even better news than that. As a result of our revival we had ten contankerous people leave our church. Sometimes that's what happens in a revival. Stubborn and unrepentant folks who dig in their heels and refuse to change. They get convicted or they get ejected. A spiritual windstorm is both peaceful and disturbing. God brings peace to our hearts but an unsettledness to our lives the Spirit takes us over and shakes us up and begs us in the fires of adversity and it makes us into what he intended us to be. A windstorm is the confluence of all kinds of pressure cells and atmospheric stresses. My point is is that if your goal is to maintain the status quo and simply keep your life neatly arranged according to predetermined plans then a windstorm is going to be an uncomfortable place for you to be. When stuff starts swirling about you're no longer in control but if you want to touch God and to know his power then you're gonna want to be in the wind. Another great spiritual awakening reached the shores of Britain and Ireland around the year 400 AD. Men like Ninian and Patrick in Colombo risked their lives to spread the gospel among the local nature worshipers and the spiritual awakening that ensued had powerful and far-reaching effects. Celtic Christianity snatched the British Isles from the darkness of paganism into the light and truth of the Word of God and history tells us that this brave brand of Christianity had a special name for the Holy Spirit. They called him On God Gloss. It's a Gaelic phrase that means the Wild Goose. To these fearless Christians not only was the Holy Spirit the gentle dove who rested on Jesus at his baptism he was also the Wild Goose who roams the skies and who lands wherever he pleases. And I love this idiom for the Holy Spirit. A Wild Goose can't be trained or tracked. You can't control him or bend his instincts to your will. He has a mind of his own and the same is true of God's Spirit. A Wild Goose is noisy and raucous and aggressive. The bird's hawk is loud and challenging up close. A Wild Goose can be unnerving even frightening. At Jesus' baptism the Spirit cooed like a dove. But in Acts chapter 2 he swooped down from heaven and he filled the disciples with new wine. Overwhelmed with joy they were ecstatic in their praise and bold in their witness. Later they were even accused of a morning drunk. In Acts chapter 2 the Goose was on the loose. God's Spirit stirred up his church made his men bold and daring and dangerous. They became a threat to the enemy. The other day I had a firsthand encounter with a Wild Goose. There's a lake near my house. Wild geese are often on the lake. I was strolling by just minding my own manners. Just taking the day in. When one of the birds decided to land on me. He might have hawked but I had my headphones on so I didn't hear him. But he almost hit me. This huge Goose, I mean this big. It sailed in right behind me at head level. And it sailed inches from my head. It landed. Its trajectory took it about three feet in front of me. The near flyby scared me to death. Hey if I hadn't ducked that Goose might have hit me. It was nearly my swan song. It was definitely some foul play. I'm just not down down with the idea of Wild Geese roaming my neighborhood. Gives me goose bumps. From now on I'm looking around. I'm taking a gander. I'm definitely trying to be more nimble in case I have to jump out of the way. Hey today I'm playing at Lucy Goosey. Well enough with the punishment. But here's my point. Selted Christianity got it right. Sometimes the gentle dove acts like a wild Goose. Thus our faith needs to be flexible. We should all live Lucy Goosey. You never know when the spirit is going to drop in on you and do a new thing. We're to be led by the spirit and live in the spirit and walk in the spirit and friends be filled with the spirit. In a nutshell the Christian life is a wild Goose chase. Before he died the world's foremost authority on the subject of revival was a man named Jay Edwin Orr. In the early 1970s he was presenting a series of lectures on revival at the Columbia Bible College. It was there that a student asked him Dr. Orr besides praying for revival what can I do to help bring it about? Without any hesitation or reply you can let it begin with you. Revival that's community wide even worldwide. It always begins with a mighty rushing wind of the spirit that blows through and cleans out God's house first. Again verse 2 this rushing mighty wind filled the whole house. Here's another revival insight. The word translated filled it means to cram or to permeate. The wind of the Holy Spirit filled up every corner of the room. Believers became so saturated with the spirit. His influence colored all that they thought and all that they did. Again the amplified version describes the disciples in the upper room. It says they were all filled, diffused throughout their souls with the Holy Spirit. Have you been diffused throughout by the Holy Spirit? When my wife Kathy cooks a roast she slow cooks it in a crock pot. Oh my all day long that aroma from that roast rises up and invades every corner. I get hungry just thinking about it and when it's time to eat everybody knows what's for dinner. All day long our senses have been primed. And this is what happens in a revival. Spiritual perception gets heightened. Folks sense God's presence and power. His love and joy is so thick you can cut it with a knife. His presence is palpable it's tangible. In a revival sometimes people get saved before the pastor preaches. They walk in and they sense so strongly that God is here they immediately want to respond to Him. In an actual windstorm say a sandstorm on the edge of the desert there's nowhere to escape the wind in the sand. It seeps into the house through its cracks and crevices. It comes under the doors it gets in between the window panes. The wind's influence is inescapable and this is the influence of the Holy Spirit in a spiritual windstorm. Revival produces such a weighty revelation of the reality of God that people are forced to consider Jesus and deal decisively with their sin. It's as if they get sand blasted by the Holy Spirit. He cuts through the layers of veneer and gets to the real issues. In today's world it's so easy for people to just ignore the things of God. Just sort of shrug their shoulders at Christianity. Assume a kind of take it or leave it attitude. The answer for this ambivalence is a spiritual windstorm. And notice in Acts 2 the word whole. The influence of the Spirit filled the whole house where they were sitting. The Greek word is wholus from which we get our word holistic. It means complete or thorough. Holistic medicine is the treatment of not just the body but the body and the soul, the whole person. And the influence of the Holy Spirit is always holistic. He lives inside us not just on Sundays but seven days a week. He alters not just our eternity but our today. He governs not just my religion but my sexuality. He affects me not only spiritually but morally as well. He touches me not only at church but on the job and in the home. He influences not just what we say or think but how we go about living our daily lives. When a spiritual windstorm begins to blow no corner of our lives remains unaffected by the Holy Spirit. Throughout the book of Acts the author is describing a revival, an ongoing windstorm. In Acts 2 the wind blows hard. You even hear it whistle. By the end of that first day 3,000 souls had been captured in its swirl. In Acts chapter 4 the house physically shakes. In Acts chapter 5 the wind whips violently. It takes out a hypocritical couple but even the wake-up call doesn't diminish the freshness and the power of this mighty wind. It creates a storm of love that permeates all that the disciples do. Acts chapter 4 sums up life in the midst of this windstorm as great grace and great power. And for the remainder of Acts this wind howls and blows and sends Jesus' disciples to the four corners of the earth as his lights and as his witness. Friends, I want to get caught in a windstorm. In my research for this message I discovered that hurricanes originate in a geographical area known as the Daldrums. It's a narrow belt of ocean with low pressure little if no wind and generally calm seas. The Daldrums lie near the equator between the trade winds. In the Atlantic Ocean the Daldrums are north of the equator thus there are no hurricanes in the South Atlantic. In the Pacific the Daldrums are on both sides of the equator thus typhoons can hit in either the northern or the southern hemispheres. Ironically all windstorms originate in the middle of the Daldrums. And let me say the same is true spiritually. Fresh winds of the Holy Spirit, new gusts of supernatural strength, heavenly hurricanes of revival also start in what we might call the Daldrums of life. One day a Christian or a group of Christians decides they've wasted too much time in the spiritual Daldrums. They get honest before God. They admit that their life is lacking, that they're just going through the motions of devotion, that they're living well below what God intended. Their Christianity is powerless, their witness is listless, their service for Jesus has grown tedious, their spirituality has become a notness, their morality seems meaningless. One day this person or persons wakes up floating in the Daldrums.  Here's what you should realize. If you or I find ourselves in the Daldrums this morning, if we've hit a lull spiritually it only means that we're in perfect position to catch a gust of wind. The Holy Spirit starts His work at the point of our neediness. God begins His movements in our Daldrums. Again, Vance Habner wrote, the greatest need for America is an old-fashioned heaven-born God-sent revival. Throughout the history of the church when clouds have hung the lowest, when sin has seen blackest and faith has been weakest, there have always been a faithful few who have besought the Lord to revive His work and God has always answered such supplication, filling each heart with His love, kindling each soul with fire from above. I love that quote because it highlights the two keys for spiritual revival, our desperation and God's willingness. Friends, God is willing. Are we desperate? You know, I once thought that as the years went by, pastoral ministry would get easier. Instead, it's gotten harder. Without the Holy Spirit, I'm just a sailboat on a stagnant sea. I'm dead in the water. As the years go by, I realize more and more how much I need to win. Pastors tend to be like Kevin Fast. Kevin is a Lutheran pastor and a strongman competitor from Canada. On September the 18th, 2009, Kevin set his ninth Guinness World Record in the category of heavy pulling. He strapped himself into the harness connected to a C-17 cargo plane. This aircraft weighs 400,000 pounds. With his sneakers digging into the runway, he leaned forward. And with all his might, he started to pull. Kevin moved that airplane 8.8 meters. That's nearly 30 feet in a record time of one minute and 16 seconds. Setting the world record for the heaviest aircraft pulled by human being. It was a tremendous act of near superhuman strength. And yet sadly, Kevin's feet resembles the approach many pastors and churches are taking toward God's work. Spreading the gospel and planning churches and discipling people can be like that huge airplane. The enormous strength of a few gifted individuals can pull it along for short distances and for brief intervals. But guys, there's a much easier way to move a C-17 cargo plane than pull it. You can crank it up and let it fly. And this is what happens in a revival. When we get the wind of the Holy Spirit under our wings, we begin to soar. Rather than inch forward, God's work takes off. If Pastor Chuck told Calvary Chapel's once, he told us a thousand times. He so often would quote from Galatians 3, having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? See, in the church as on the sea, the voyage is always better when the wind is at our back. This is why we need revival. We need a windstorm. Several weeks ago, May 6th, our country marked an annual observance that you might not know about. It's sponsored by the National Weather Service. It begins hurricane preparedness week. Americans in coastal areas are supposed to spend May 7th through 12th in preparation for hurricane force winds. But I believe if we could get a glimpse of God's calendar, this is also what these days are about. For all of us who live close to the heavenly shore, we need to be preparing for a windstorm. There's nothing we can do to deserve such an outpouring. It's by grace, but we can care enough about God and enough about people to ask, are you asking God to send revival? I am. Don't you long for more of God and His influence? That God's presence would be heavy as we gather, that the strongholds of sin would be broken, that love among God's family would flourish, that God's peace would flow down like a river, that a spiritual awakening will occur that stops the crime in our communities and shuts down the gangs and drives up the drug traffic and brings back respect to our schools and causes racial groups to live in harmony and blesses marriages and awakens men to be the leaders in their home. Don't you long for this kind of a revival? I do. These days I'm asking God for a spiritual windstorm and I'm anticipating the first gusts any day now. I hope you'll join me in the asking. Let's cry out to the Lord Jesus for a true heaven-sent Holy Spirit revival and let's pray that it begins with us. Why not us?


all of you. Good morning once again. So welcome back the new year. Everyone's ready to take on what is there for the year ahead. Okay welcome to all our online students. Nice to see the little thumbnails, even though I can't see your faces. And welcome to all the e-learning students who've joined in fresh for this course or those who've joined us since last semester. Thank you. I hope all of you are doing well. Okay so this semester we have a very interesting topic on Christian counseling. Okay actually teaching Christian counseling online or through a distance education is something quite difficult because a lot about counseling is all about practice and learning how to do it. So my students over here I'm going to be using them and making them do a lot of role plays in the coming few weeks. So I'm looking forward to that. But that doesn't mean all the online students can't participate. You can because we will use you all as well for this because if you're going to learn about counseling it has to be a hands-on practice, right? It can't be just theory. It's like learning how to cook by reading a recipe book. Okay all right let's just get started and we'll dive right in. Have any father we thank you for this new year? Thank you for your grace and your faithfulness that has brought us to something brand new Father. Lord we look forward to all that you have in store for us and we pray we will walk in your wisdom, we will walk in your ways, we will walk in your commands and Lord we will be in step with the power of the Holy Spirit. Lord even as we learn this new topic even as we just begin to scratch the surface of it I pray that you would give us a heart of love to help and work with others and maybe look at the greatest counselor of all the Holy Spirit be with us and we commit our time ahead in Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right so through this entire course I've got PPTs on because we definitely do need examples as we are learning through so I will be putting across a PPT so I hope those of you who are using your phones are able to look at the PPT okay just give me a minute. Is this visible to everybody? Yeah not visible yet? Visible right? Okay great okay so maybe the first question that I probably need to ask is has anyone gone through any kind of some training or some knowledge about counseling? Anybody either in the online class or here anyone? Sorry from? From dad you learned okay all right dad's a pastor okay right so you must have done if not counseling some form of listening advising advising we all do no right some form of it we would have done right so even as we are going to look into this entire subject maybe some of the things that we've done is something we should keep aside and look at fresh onto this the subject okay all right so before we get started I want to bring about an example to y'all and we will start off from there so just give me a minute okay so here's a lady by name Susan who's come to you okay and she catches you at the corridor and she says this to you okay and this is what she says I don't know what's wrong with my husband he just doesn't allow me enough space to just be me he always wants to pry into what I'm doing who I'm talking to I'm having quite enough I have second thoughts about this marriage okay so she's sharing this with you what is the first thing you will tell her how would you respond to her remember there's no right or wrong answers if you don't answer or if you don't attempt you won't learn okay so no right no wrong and this is how we're learning this is a it's like learning a new language okay all right so how would you respond even those on the online platform please please engage either you know you could just unmute or or you can you can just type it yeah can everyone hear you first she can sit with her husband no tell me what you will tell her I am Susan what will you tell me you can you can first sit with your husband and you can speak once and then you can sort it out things and then you can take decision okay so Anand says he'll tell me you must talk sit with your husband talk about it sort it out and then we'll figure out things will be okay all right then what should you tell me I'm Susan what should you tell me okay okay okay okay good good Nina so so Nina said I'd she'd first say what's the first thing that you said uh this is it is uh it is a hard situation it's true it's a it's a true situation it's a hard situation nevertheless we can talk it out we can figure out something get your husband talk about it okay yeah okay I'm just going to read what someone others have written over here uh Jacken's written oh it's a certainly a difficult situation you are in okay then uh Nina's written hold on don't be in a hurry to make a decision okay Anthony writes I will tell Susan to be more transparent and open in all her communication so that her husband will be more comfortable to give her space to be herself okay uh Shivkumar listen to her in detail the problems then make her understand wherever attitude change is required advice with the word of god okay yeah Francis what would you say I won't say anything but like I should recheck like is her thoughts are is actually really happening okay so you'll ask are you telling the truth or yeah you'll ask are you telling us the truth okay all right okay uh prince just make an attempt it's okay the first thing I'll say or it must be so hard for you mm-hmm I'll try to empathize okay actually I asked like uh what's the reason like what's happening why it's happening okay and then I'll maybe I'll ask her in detail everything ask their relationships how it was okay the first time only you will ask all this okay very good good so I think like I should tell like maybe the husband has some past experience which is actually affecting in this relationship so at first like sit and talk with that like the wife should sit with the husband and ask that what is actually like um affecting him to do all these things okay so she's made analysis and she said what is her husband going through what is happening okay excellent answers excellent answers unfortunately I'm not going to give you the answer right now okay that's something we will discover and learn okay but it is for you too I think for all of us to just know how will we respond and what are some of the responses that we've had yeah prince we know like when it comes with marriage and family we have to not only deal with one person but with two of them so we can also ask like bring your husband we just talk everything open okay all right okay good good I'm glad that all of you are thinking good student okay wonderful attempt like I said I'm not going to tell you what it is but um I'll just show you what are some of the common responses that you'll generally hear okay and uh okay oh I didn't put that slide up okay never mind okay so that's some of the common responses are what all of you all said okay but we will look at we need when we're looking at responses we're going to look at what is most effective what is not effective at all what is least effective okay so we will come back to this maybe two three classes later the same example will come to three classes later okay so let's start with understanding what is counseling what are your thoughts so what do you think counseling is students you're good also because I have my students here I have yeah you can speak all of you can speak yeah so what what do you think counseling is okay rather says counseling is to be able to listen more and to talk less okay okay helping others come out of their situations by actually listening and hearing them out okay okay nice so what you're saying is it's not when you say controlling I think what you mean is not telling them what to do but being able to show them a path going forward okay good anand okay okay okay okay wonderful you bought an excellent aspect of it counseling is not just about what you do it is like he said it's a relationship with somebody right just like how you go meet with a doctor you have a doctor and a patient relationship you know that a lot of people feel so much better when they go meet with a doctor who's able to listen to them isn't it right so similarly even in counseling the relationship with the counselor is very very vital for a in a counseling thing okay good good okay the students online students what are your thoughts Jacken says counseling is listening to others and helping them or guiding them to take a decision of their own conviction wonderful nice nice okay I like some of the words that she's used is it's listening helping them guiding them to take a decision of their own choice or conviction not yours okay not you as a counselor okay Solomon writes counseling is giving sound biblical advice to the person okay all right so let me take you to the next slide and kind of share with you you know what let's first look at what counseling is not okay so let's understand what counseling is not so number one it's not giving advice and it's not giving answers to people's problems okay we're not working in a prophetic ministry here remember that okay it's not a prophetic ministry it's a counseling ministry so it's not when someone comes to you and says like you know these babas who sit there and say I'll come I'll tell you what the issue so counseling is not giving answers to people's problems neither is it giving advice okay counseling is not being judgmental the meaning of judgmental is people are going to come with you with come to you with many kind of issues which maybe as believers or as as someone who has a christian conviction there definitely there's a lot of sin that you are going to be exposed to when someone's going to come right and it's not being judgmental and you know calling them a sinner and calling them pagans and you know unloved of god or off satan it that's not what counseling is okay it's not giving any labels to them it's not being judgmental next one it's not attempting to sort out the problems of the counseling or the client okay you're you're not sitting there knowing the answers to everything so you're not there to you're not held responsible to sort out people's problems okay next one it's not expecting or encouraging a counseling to behave in a way in which the counselor may have behaved when confronted with a similar situation maybe you went through something similar and you you did something else that worked for you right or you know you followed what scripture said and it worked for you it is not encouraging them to behave in the same way that's not what it is it's not modeling a behavior to someone that's not again what counseling is okay it's not getting emotionally involved with the person what does that mean now yeah so they're coming and crying to you because of the problems you sit and cry alongside with them that's not that's not it okay you're there to help them with those emotions and not get as involved with it so getting involved with them would be going way overboard than what you're expected to do okay to another person in the counseling session it can affect your your counseling with a personal agenda with a personal correct yeah yeah that's what happens so when you're emotionally involved you tend to it is out of your interest this deep interest that you want to help them so you may go beyond what is the boundary of counseling all right so that's that's that's about what emotionally involvement is and is counseling is not looking at a counseling's problems from your own perspective or based on your own value system all right which means that especially when especially when you're dealing with non-believers right they may not hold your own conviction or your own value system so you're not you are as you're dealing with them you're independently working alongside with them however keeping your convictions in heart keeping your convictions in your mind okay any thoughts any questions here from the online students or any on any I think before I move on okay the next we so let's let's look at what counseling is all right so what is counseling the first thing that we we need to understand is that counseling is a way okay it is a relationship that gives you a framework to have a purposeful conversation so counseling is all about having a meaningful conversation it's a conversation okay it's not a question and answer session where the counselor asks you a question you give them an answer asks you a question give them an answer it's not it while you are talking with them you're helping them do three things you're helping them explore you're helping them understand their problem and you're helping them get into action okay we're going to learn about the framework of counseling which is this it's called exploration understanding and getting into action so the conversation is where you help them to explore their problem why they are feeling this way what they think is the issue help them understand it and help them bring about change okay so it's all through a conversation that happens and that's why counseling has many skills that we need to develop in order to get them through this process action getting into action okay next counseling is in the in the midst of a supportive relationship a relationship between the counselor as well as the counseling okay it is in the midst of a supportive relationship and what does that help to do it helps them to it helps the counseling first and foremost to focus on their feelings now when you have a problem think of any problem you have how is the first what is the first indication that you have a problem how do you know you're having a problem so what you get you feel emotional about it either you're angry or sad or you're jealous or whatever right your emotional experience is what really tells you that there is a problem so God has put emotions inside of us like a thermometer it's like a where it's it will tell you whether something is wrong or not right so through that relationship with the counseling what you're doing is focusing first on their emotions or on their feelings then you focus on their behavior or their experiences in such a way with a goal to bring about some change so they have a problem they come to you the problem you're exploring their feelings and experiences helping them understand it so that they can bring about some change and this is done through that supportive relationship between a counselor and a counseling okay all right the next one it is it is a relationship of trust a counselor-counselor relationship has to be built on trust why trust because then only will they open up correct if you don't open up it's like you're going to the doctor with a headache but actually you have a backache and you're not telling them the truth of it what are they going to help you with nothing right so similarly remember I said this is not prophetic ministry for the counselor to understand okay she has a back pain also no it's not right so it is and that trust gets built when the counselor exhibits that kind of a gesture or that kind of a demeanor or a behavior right so for example for the counseling should know or should feel the need to bring out whatever is deep within so that the counselor can help them move from a place of problem to a place of action or a place of solution okay so it is built on a relationship of trust so the more than anything else actually even more than skills if you're able to connect to people in in a in the umbrella of trust you know a lot of things can actually happen all right so three main things is it's a conversation it's a supportive relationship and it's something that's a relationship of trust okay all right any questions any thoughts till here if not I'd like to move on okay so we're just going to before we get into understanding counseling as a what do you say as a subject or thing we're also going to be looking at our role as counselors or as biblical counselors we need to know what our standing is what are some of the core elements that we need to keep in mind so we're going to look at the core elements of biblical counseling okay okay so the first one the the first thing that we when we look at too many tabs okay the first element of biblical counseling is we we keep in mind and we stand on the principle that God is at the center of every biblical counseling okay God is in the center of biblical counseling okay and I just want to bring about a scripture for you okay so when we look at God and we're looking at his word as you see in 2 Timothy verse 3 verse 17 could one of you just read that out please 2 Timothy 3 verse 17 you can read 15 to 17 3 verses 15 chapter 3 verse 15 to 17 2 Timothy chapter 3 from verse 15 and how from in fans you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ all scripture is God's breath and is useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work okay so when you look at these verses we what are being what is being emphasized is the power of God and his word in everything in life and that also involves anything to do with problems and people's issues okay so it says you have been taught the scriptures from childhood what has it given us it has given us wisdom to receive salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus okay we see that scripture is inspired by God and it is useful for teaching for admonishing for correcting right it corrects us it teaches us so when we're looking at biblical counseling that becomes foundational God and his word becomes foundational to everything that we are doing and verse 17 it says God uses it to prepare and equip his people for every good work right so even as counselors that becomes the base for all our help and our support all right okay next principle is all disciplines are under the authority of the scripture now whatever so something like counseling you know is something that also did come from other disciplines other disciplines of science like life sciences sociology anthropology all of them you know it's been picked up from this kind of a subject has come as a result of other wider topics and wider subjects so whatever disciplines whether you're learning from psychology you're learning from sociology all these disciplines are under the authority of the scripture okay and that's what it has to pass the test of it being through scripture okay next one sin is the primary concern that needs to be dealt with so what what do we mean by this is that whatever the primary problem of mankind is what is sin in every one of its dimensions so even when people are coming with problems it's because of our sin nature that we are in a situation as we are okay so sin is something that as a counselor we must deal with and it is also essential to understand why people have problems knowing that sin exists in all its dimensions here that helps us understand problems of people and how we need to minister to them okay so sin is the primary concern that needs to be dealt with now that doesn't mean when people are coming to you you're saying okay you're very sinful you're a sinner that doesn't mean that but we need a perspective or an understanding you know you have a you have a working knowledge and saying okay why is this person coming here with this issue it's because of sin that is or when you look back into our lives why am I feeling angry at my friend or my husband it's because of my sinful nature right so we we need to understand that as the as one of the principles next one the gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer okay so the gospel is the life of of God in our souls and it is fundamental for any kind of reconciliation right so and and we we see of so many truths in scripture talking about repentance about forgiveness justification and this is the need of every person whether they believe it or not this is the need of every person right and so when we are ministering to them we are ministering with that hope that they will receive the Lord one day now again that doesn't mean everyone who we counsel we may bring about the gospel it it it really depends on the working of the Holy Spirit through that point of time okay the next one is the process of change sorry should always aim at progressive sanctification the change process must always aim at progressive sanctification now what does that mean that ultimately every person needs to conform to to Christ to Jesus Christ right and and that is that and it may be a progressive it it can be something that happens slowly progressively right and it is when when we look at maybe I think I'll I'll share the next slide with you and then that'll be easy okay so to understand that there are two kinds there is an instantaneous justification that happens and a progressive sanctification that happens so what is the instantaneous justification that happens so immediately what is the definition of justification that immediately when you believe in God or when you trust in him you are justified as if you did not sin it is an instantaneous immediate one that happens when a person comes to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ okay and and this is the two aspects of this is forgiveness of sins on the basis of what Jesus did for us on the cross and secondly it is when we when we are into in Jesus we become adopted as his children the minute we believe okay that's an instantaneous one that's called justification nevertheless what what happens is your sanctification is a process right so when you have come to a place of belief you may not immediately your body and your soul may not immediately bring about a change okay so for example a person who's been smoking for 25 years there are some people who have instantaneous healing but for others for some it may be something that's progressive they they they are they it is a gradual one they they live with God they with his word with his power that is a slow change that happens okay so it is a continuous operation of the Holy Spirit right the Holy Spirit continuously continuously works in us to purify us to renew us to make us in the image of God okay so that's what we call as a progressive sanctification and the two aspects to sanctification is that we are set apart from set apart from sin so that we are set apart to God all right and that's the process that happens okay so there is there is that counseling change must aim at that progressive sanctification which means it may take time it will be progressive it will be gradual but it is moving them from that place of sin to a place of transformation which may be progressive which may be gradual okay all right any thoughts any questions when when we do counseling now especially when we keep our counseling based on biblical standards and not everybody were willing to apply or a deal through biblical standards right so then with that kind of person how we can like actually how we can tell them or how to take a step towards conversion so yeah we will be talking a lot about this but in short again we're not like we said we're not telling people what to do we are helping them to think about about maybe their lives or their problems like let's take an example maybe you have let's say a young lady who comes to you who's living in maybe some form of sin or some form of wrong behavior right she's come to you the very fact that she's come to you what does it indicate she needs help right so that itself is a good thing right now in your conversation alongside with her she may say you know I'm whatever I'm feeling really upset because of these these things I want to get rid of it but I'm not able to right so that in itself shows a sin conscious mind right okay and that's how you begin conversations you begin conversations to okay what what bothers you about this kind of a lifestyle so she may say certain things of it right and through that conversation through questioning is how you get them to a place to think and understand and realize if they you know if there is something that can completely save them so some part of counseling where we call is a disclosure is where we can disclose the gospel you know you can disclose the gospel but that's not right in the beginning that is after a point of time that you have brought them to think about a place that there is no place of saving other than God above so you have to bring them to that point right and that happens through your questions through your conversations right through what they say helping them understand okay like I'll give you maybe an example of one of the cases that I did she was talking about how her identity was all in her work okay and she lost her job she lost her job so much so that something happened and she got a very poor rating and she couldn't get another job because her rating was so poor and she came for counseling because she just realized that she had she felt she lost everything by not because she lost a job but because her identity her or who she was was very stuck to that job right and when that went it came as a shock to her because she never thought it would it would ever happen that way right so the questions kind of came to that place I mean when we were talking it came she began to understand how all her life she had she had attached her self-worth to success or self-worth to performance self-worth to something that she was getting out from her job so the minute that was taken from her her self-worth left right so then they come to that realization and then they ask you the question you know what if my job can can be taken away from me there are so many other things that can be taken away and that's when she realized okay my health will fail my family once will pass away or my friends may not be there which means what do I hold my identity to and that's where you know when she comes to that place is how you can disclose maybe a personal journey and saying this is what where I saw my identity or you could say something at more general reference of there are people who look towards towards God right maybe initially you'll put it very general and then you know through that conversation bring have them have a conversation about that so all you can do is only present you can't make them believe or you know live a certain way you bring them to that point it's like taking the horse to the water the horse only has to drink the water right similarly you bring them to a point where they've come to a place of realization that you know none of this is helpful none of this this is useful okay you'll figure out more of this all right okay next is we look at what are some of the basic principles of effective counseling so one of the main ministry that we rely on is the ministry of the Holy Spirit as our counselor and and and as a comforter why why do you think so so he is the greatest counselor right so the ministry the Holy Spirit's ministry as the counselor is critical in christian counseling okay so when you're sitting in a room there are three people involved in a counseling situation who are they counseling yeah okay so whenever you're counseling you have one eye here and one eye there right and that's the dependence on the work of the spirit is very very crucial okay so we need to be aware as a counselor as a christian counselor we need to be aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit the guidance of the Holy Spirit the leading of the Holy Spirit and also how we need to function like a spirit-filled counselor in what we say in the in the gifts that we use now that doesn't mean now all because I said you know it's not a prophetic ministry that doesn't mean you you you cannot bring about a word of wisdom or a word of knowledge right and you don't have to be spooky and say the Lord above told me this is what is that you don't have to say that right but you can say something like I sense something like that is that true right and that's perfectly okay to bring about that so the Holy Spirit is is a very very vital person in counseling okay next one I think we spoke about that the Bible is the soul and sufficient authority in counseling and dealing with all problems of living so we know that the scripture that scripture gives us every wisdom that we need to deal with people and their problems as we read in 2 Corinthians sorry 2 Timothy 3 verse 17 okay the next one is prayer it is a very important part of biblical helping to use prayer even actually through even in counseling you know in here at Chrysalis after every session we actually tell them because because we we are a known christian counseling center and they come to our center they we get them to sign a form that we do pray at the end of it in the form it's there we will pray you know please if you're not comfortable something that it talks about so to be awesome can we pray for you but we we do know that prayer is an important part of counseling so but the the proper timing is very very important right it's very important next is the ultimate goal of counseling is to make disciples is to make disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ that is that is what we desire if if even if you know even if they do not accept Christ there is some seed that goes in right maybe some principles or some the life of how Christ is through us there is a seed that needs to go and it is to make those disciples and lastly the personal qualities of the counselor needs to be spiritual not just academic it's not only about how you can counsel or the knowledge that you possess and the techniques or the skills that you use but you need to be spiritually mature to be effective to also have a knowledge of God's word and wisdom in how it can be applied in practical different ways so those are some of the basic principles that are I think that is that is more that's more in the next slide okay um okay do you have any questions we'll come this till next I won't finish it any questions yeah yeah go like when we are seeing this basic principles so for point three praying prayer is an integral part um at the ending you told like it is an integral part but timing is important you mentioned so is it like there is like certain time or as like every day like my question is like you have also mentioned like every end of the counseling will be great but also you have mentioned like timing yeah I'll tell you I'll tell you what it I'll tell you what it means now now your client is saying something to you okay and you don't know what to say it's okay come let's pray okay that's what I meant by timing okay in the sense of and I think a lot of us do that when we don't know what to do which is true which is right when you don't know what to do it's a god we don't know what to do let's pray but maybe when if you if you don't have a person who's who knows anything about prayer they think something's wrong with your head right when you and they're saying you know my husband's gonna kill me okay come let's pray together they'll they'll know what's wrong so there are certain that's what I meant by timing like at a point of time they're crying or you know they really want your support that's what they're looking for you but at that point of time if you've gone into prayer it does it's not an effective time that's that's basically what it means okay all right any other thoughts any other questions the fourth point and this ultimate goal of counseling is to make disciples so will this imagine a non-believer or a gentile came to us they were just going through a very hard situation how come how come is this goal correct like to make the disciple so yeah so I did say that it may not be something that you will achieve with everyone you meet that is they become disciples of Jesus right but for those who are within like if you are especially counseling someone who's a believer that is the goal to make them more like Christ right for those who aren't believers the goal is to at least get them to hear about him but there isn't finally there is an ultimate goal for everyone for any one of our ministry whatever we're doing even if I'm just going to walk out and talk to others the goal is one that they will know Christ and once they know Christ they will be his disciples right so this is this is a lot more focused on those who may be believers to ensure that they they are disciples of Christ through whatever situation or problem they may come in okay all right okay we'll close for a 10 minute break and we'll come back at 11 o'clock