Vazquez Counseling

What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?

My mission, given to me by God, is to help guide people into all Truth by teaching and preaching the Gospel of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. In my work as a counselor, I help people heal by guiding them through the Scriptures. My clients, if they are open to Biblical guidance, will heal from their trauma, depression, anxiety, or whatever ails them. They have the discernment that can only be given by our Precious Holy Spirit. Not everyone in the world is born again, so not everyone has the discernment given by God.

I have had clients who do not care for Biblical guidance, and that is fine by me; I will use psychological techniques that I’ve learned to help them, and they often do improve enough to discontinue therapy. I have also had a few clients who upon hearing me talk about the Word of God, walk away because it offends them. I realize at that point that we are not a good fit for each other, and I do not lament losing them as a client. I must admit that I’ve have had very few of these types of clients. I am blessed that the vast majority of my clients have been believers, or they are people who are open to hearing about the Word of God, which will bring healing.

The Apostle James wrote the following in James 15:16-18:

“Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.” (from the New King James Version)

These verses indicate that God can and will heal us, if we pray fervently, which has happened to me. I have cried out to God, and He healed me of several ailments; he has also healed many of my friends and family. “Fervent” in the original Greek is “energeō,” from where we get our word “energy.” What the Word of God is teaching here is that when we pray, we should pray with power, believing completely that our Blessed LORD can heal us or do for us what are asking, as He did for Elijah in the passage above.

Of course, our LORD doesn’t always heal us, just like when Jesus walked amongst us, He didn’t heal everyone. In the Gospels, Jesus’ miracles of healing were meant to prove Who He was, and they were also meant to glorify God. If we are healed in these days, our healings should always glorify God.

I have a friend who was healed from cancer several years ago. She and her church prayed fervently for her healing during a healing service. The next day, my friend went to a cancer treatment center to start her treatment where she had been referred. The doctors there were amazed to see that the cancer was completely gone! Since they weren’t the doctors who initially diagnosed her, they doubted that the diagnosis had been accurate. My friend has the documentation that indicated she had cancer, and then she was cancer free. She gives God all the glory for her healing.

I have known many other people who can testify that they have been healed of ailments that, according to medical science, were incurable. God is moving amongst His people, and yet, there are many naysayers who assert that there is no such thing as a miraculous healing. It has never happened to them, or they’ve never witnessed a healing, so they believe it is impossible. As I stated before, Jesus did not heal everyone when He was here, so it stands to reason that He doesn’t heal everyone now. When Christ returns, however, He is bringing healing to His people on a worldwide scale.

Many naysayers often deny the Word of God, and in my interactions with them online, I have found that they are incapable of understanding the true meaning of the Scriptures. I know this to be true because when I try to explain the Truth of God, it never goes anywhere and eventually, I have to stop engaging with them because they will never understand, and all we are doing is getting more and more frustrated with each other. I have learned that there are many people in the world who do not have the discernment that can only be given by our Precious Holy Spirit. Whatever you do, do not tell them that, for they will attempt to portray you as a fool, who believes in some crazy, false mysticism.

True discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and He is only given to those who are born again. In John, chapter 3, our LORD Jesus is approached at night by a high ruler of the Pharisees, Nicodemus, who engaged Him in a dialogue about salvation. Our LORD asserted that if we are to enter the Kingdom of God, we must be born again. Nicodemus asked Jesus, how is this possible? How could someone re-enter his or her mother’s womb and be born again? Jesus affirmed that yes, we must be born of water (natural childbirth), and we must also be born of the Spirit (a spiritual rebirth that only God can do). But, how is this spiritual rebirth ultimately obtained? Actually, it is not hard to understand, but it is something that can only be given by God.

The Bible teaches that we must believe in our hearts that Jesus came willingly to Earth; that He lived a perfect life on our behalf; that He went to the cross and gave His life there to pay for our sins, thus reconciling us with our Heavenly Father; and that Jesus was then raised on the third day by our Precious Holy Spirt, thus proving Who He was as our Messiah and also guaranteeing us Eternal Life. This is the Gospel of Peace, which the Bible describes as the means of salvation.

If you believe these facts about our LORD Jesus, you can at that point be saved. Notice what I said there, you “can” be saved. It is not enough to believe everything I just explained in this paragraph. Many people believe in the facts regarding Jesus and are not born again. Many people check off all the right boxes; they go to church; they take Holy Communion; they were baptized; they were born into a Christian family, etc., and, yet, this not enough to be saved. If you believe it is, then you believe in a works based theology, which cannot save you.

So, wretched sinners that we are, what are we to do? If you believe in God, that is not enough, for even the demons believe in Him, and they tremble, knowing that they can never be saved. The enemies of God will never trust in our LORD because they are incapable of accepting Him.

The Bible teaches that the devil has his own children. In the parable of the wheat and the tares, the children of the enemy are the tares. These are the unbelievers that I often engage with online. The way I recognize them right away is because the mere mention of the Truth of God in the Word of God insults them, and they immediately question my faith. Then they begin to attack me personally. From the get go, I’ve been called arrogant, condescending, and even narcissistic, by people who don’t have the slightest idea of who I am. I told one of them that if I told my friends what they said about me, the first thing my friends would do is laugh. I actually tried this with several people who know me very well, and as I suspected, the first thing they did was laugh. They could not believe that anyone would see me that way. And what was my crime online? I dared to share the Word of God with people.

Jesus said that the world would hate us for his Namesake, and I have found this to be absolutely true. However, I don’t let it affect me. I usually disengage from these people, after it becomes clear that they will not be open to the Word of God, no matter what I say. I move on, leaving them in their ignorance.

So, getting back to the question of how we are to be saved. Although it is true that we must know the facts of Gospel and believe in them, the next step is God ordained. Once we accept the Gospel, which as I said, is the means of Salvation, our LORD opens our hearts to receive the Truth of it into our Spirit. God, in his Sovereign will, regenerates the heart of the believer, so that we are capable of placing our faith in Him and truly trust in Him. The Bible teaches that Salvation is solely the work of God, lest any of us should boast. Anyone who has been born again will never boast that somehow, they accomplished Salvation through their own power and merit. First, our LORD brings us to the Gospel, which penetrates our hearts. God then grants us the rebirth promised by Jesus, enabling us to have true faith in Him. There is no other Way to be saved.

Once we are born again, our Precious Holy Spirit comes to us and takes up residence in our hearts. There, He begins to guide us into all Truth, and we receive the gift of spiritual discernment. God the Holy Spirit becomes our Advocate, Friend, and Helper. For the Christian, He works to warn us when we are tempted to sin. Does that mean that we no longer sin? Of course not! For the Bible states that if say we have not sin, we are liars. No, what the Holy Spirit prevents us from doing is wallowing in sin, like the unbeliever often does. When we walk closely with God, the more mature we become in the faith, the more He sanctifies us, meaning He makes us more and more like His Son. For those of us who are born again, life only gets better as we mature in Christ. Our discernment continues to grow, and we will naturally want to be in the Word, using it to guide us in life, and we will be able to teach others how the Scriptures demonstrate God’s love toward us. Amen.