When is it Wrong to Harm
Your Body?
The most common argument for why a Christian should not engage in unhealthy behavior is to says that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19); therefore, we should not harm them. But why would that apply to smoking, alcohol, and drug use; but not to missionaries who go where there are terrible diseases and poor health conditions or hostile natives with spears? The conclusion Scripture draws from the fact that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit has to do with spiritual things, not physical things. It is not that “your body is the temple; therefore, do not do any physical harm to it”; it is that “your body is the temple; therefore, do not defile it with sexual sin.” It would be difficult to find many people in the Bible who put their bodies in harm’s way more than Paul, the writer of this verse. So the argument that he was referring to physical harm runs aground.
No passage of Scripture forbids self-injury or unhealthy behavior altogether. Therefore it is not always wrong to do harm to your body. It is only wrong to do harm with a wrong motive, or harm that violates other biblical principles, such as the principles of stewardship or servanthood.
The Stewardship Principle
In Luke 19 Jesus told a parable about a nobleman who, before leaving to be appointed king, entrusted a sum of money to his servants and said, “Put this to work until I come back.” The king represents Jesus, and the servants stand for believers. Your King has given you a wide variety of resources—including your body—and he expects you to put it to work for His purposes until He returns (see Luke 19:12-13).
1 Corinthians 6:20 You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
Everything, including your body, belongs to your Owner, the Lord Jesus Christ. You are only a steward of your body as well as everything else He has entrusted to you. You will be rewarded or punished according to what use you made of the body entrusted to your care. If you abuse it or fail to take care of it so that it becomes an ineffective tool for God’s work, that is poor stewardship.
Inviting disease and early death through excessive smoking, obesity, starvation, heavy drinking, or reckless behavior squanders the physical resource God has entrusted to our care (not to mention the squandering of financial resources on increased healthcare costs.)
The Servanthood Principle
Matthew 20:28 … the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.…
Jesus was a servant, and He lived that way as an example for us (John 13:15). We are here to serve. So if we do so much unnecessary harm to our bodies that we cannot serve effectively, we have failed in our responsibility. God expects a man to take care of his family, but if he does something that causes him to die early, he leaves them without a provider. God calls us to help those in need. But we become so rundown, so obese, or so out of shape that we cannot help anyone do anything, we are not profitable servants. Does it have a significant impact on your ability to serve if you are five pounds over your ideal weight? No. But if you become so out of shape that you can’t help a friend move, you have become a less effective servant.
Motives
Great men and women of the faith have allowed all kinds of horrible injuries to be inflicted on their bodies for the sake of the gospel. Where the gospel can be advanced through suffering, injury, or even death; it is worth it. But inflicting injury or harm upon oneself for the sake of gaining attention, being in control, pity, self-loathing, or to gain some benefit that is not worth the harm being done; all of those are bad motives.
Self-loathing
In chapter 4 (diagnosis) we learned to always ask the counselee about the thought process leading up to sinful behavior. I once asked that of a counselee who had been cutting herself, and her response was the following:
You asked about the thoughts leading up to, during, and after [cutting]. Usually it is fueled by anger toward self. Maybe it is anger at someone else and then directed at self, but somehow it all comes back to self. Guilt, shame, anger, and a huge sense of neediness and emptiness all combine to create such a state of distress that it feels like something has to be done about it.
The inner attitude that drives this kind of behavior is something to which most of us can relate. Usually it is not carried to the extreme of self-mutilation, but feelings of self-loathing are very common. A person falls to a besetting sin again and again and becomes disgusted with himself – feeling like garbage. The same thing frequently happens with people who have been abused. Even if they did nothing wrong and were simply the object of someone else’s sin, it is still common for them to experience guilt and self-loathing.
Self-loathing is tricky, because it is so often disguised as humility or repentance. The proper response to sin is one of sorrow, grief, and disgust. But obsessively dwelling on our own sinfulness is not a righteous response. Again, there should be five thoughts about God for every one thought about self.
The world looks at the problem of self-loathing and thinks the solution is self-love, self-esteem, and self-forgiveness. But those “solutions” only make the problem worse. The problem is too much focus on self. Increasing thoughts about self will only make matters worse – even if they are positive thoughts. Do not counsel the self-loather by going on about how wonderful he is. The truth is, with regard to the sin in his life, he is not very wonderful. God is wonderful. Urge the counselee to think five thoughts about God for every one thought about himself.
The biblical term for self-loathing is self-condemnation, and the solution is in 1 John 3:19-20.
1 John 3:19-20 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
When the heart condemns, the solution is to remember that God does not condemn those who are in Christ (Ro.8:1), and God’s judgment trumps ours. If our heart says, “condemned” and God says, “Justified, forgiven, and accepted,” His judgment is valid and ours is invalid. The idea of self-forgiveness is first of all, absurd. Forgiveness cancels a debt by absorbing the loss so a relationship can be restored. None of that makes any sense if done to oneself. Secondly, telling the person to forgive himself will only make matters worse. His whole problem is that he thinks his assessment of himself is what matters, rather than God’s. So telling him that the solution is for him to forgive himself only perpetuates that false belief.
When there has been a failure, thoughts about oneself should be limited to the following:
Discover what went wrong so it can be avoided in the future.
Discern what virtues are missing so the person can strive for progress in them.
Consider the best path to recovery.
How to Recover from Failure
Keep Fighting!
For the first two steps refer to chapters 4-6. Regarding step three, remind the counselee that the battle is not over. When we stumble into a sin, the enemy does not sit back and declare victory. He is looking for a far greater victory. When we are down, he pounces. After we fall to a sin he ramps up his attacks. He wants to use our discouragement and grief to persuade us to lower our defenses, and let him wail away with his accusations. He kicks us when we are down, and he whispers in our ear, “Don’t even think about defending yourself. You know you deserve this.” How do you combat the accusations of the accuser of the brethren when everything in you agrees with what he is saying about you?
Study the Cross
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Why does a self-loather have a hard time accepting God’s forgiveness? Because of pride. Self-loathing is an attitude that focuses mainly on self, which is the essence of pride. Accepting forgiveness requires humility. Pride wants to do something to make up for the wrong that was done. Accepting forgiveness requires admitting that nothing can be done (on our end) undo what was done, and we are completely at the mercy of the one against whom we sinned. Proud people cannot accept forgiveness, because to do so they have to admit not only their sin but also their helplessness.
Urge the counselee to study the sacrifice Jesus made for his sin, so he can be convinced that Jesus’ payment was adequate. When a person will not forgive himself for something, it is because he does not truly believe Jesus’ payment for that sin was sufficient; he feels that he somehow needs to add to what Jesus paid.
Hebrews 10:17-19 [says the Lord,] “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus …
If God has forgiven our sin, no further sacrifice is necessary. It is impossible to have higher standards than God, and it is impossible to be holier than God. But that is what a person is trying to do when he wants to add additional punishment for his sin beyond what Jesus has already paid.
In John 13 Jesus was making a point about the fact that unless a person is washed by Christ, he cannot be saved.
John 13:9-10 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “[wash] not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Jesus answered, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean.…”
If the person you are counseling is a believer, he has been cleansed “by the washing of regeneration” (see Titus 3:56 nasb), and he is clean.
Acts 10:15 “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
Set your mind on things above
Look at your situation from a biblical point of view. What does the Bible say about God’s attitude toward a repentant sinner? Jesus told a three-part parable, recorded in Luke 15, that answers this question in a dramatic way. What happens when a woman finds her lost coin that she has turned the house inside out looking for? She rejoices! What happens when a shepherd finds one stray lost sheep? He rejoices! What happens when one of a man’s sons takes off and plunges into a profligate, sinful lifestyle, but then comes to his senses and returns in repentance? The father throws a huge party, runs out to meet him, and before the son can even speak, wraps his arms around him and rejoices! That is God’s attitude toward us when we repent of our sin. He loves repentant sinners. He loves the contrite.
Isaiah 57:15 For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
Make sure that the person you counsel has a proper understanding of God’s attitude toward him and his failures.
Remember: God Can Redeem Anything
God never throws up His hands and says, “This person’s life is a hopeless mess. I think I’ll turn my attention to helping someone else.” Any situation can be redeemed. God can restore anyone from any fall. Just knowing that can help a person persevere.
At his peak, Tiger Woods was regarded as the greatest golfer in the world, and one of the things that set him apart from the rest was his ability to recover from a bad hole. Every golfer, including Tiger Woods, sometimes gets a terrible score on a hole. When that happens, most golfers become flustered and do poorly the rest of the round. They think, It is no use; my score is shot now, and just hack their way through the remaining holes. But Tiger Woods had an amazing mental toughness. Very often after a disastrous hole or two he would come back and win the tournament. Understanding the importance of resilience is helpful in golf—but much more so in spiritual matters of eternal significance. Everyone fails. The critical question is not whether you will fail, but how well you recover. Even in the face of numerous lost battles, the war can be won if you keep fighting.
Don’t universalize the problem
On the one hand we need to admit our sinfulness and accept the suffering that comes along with it as being something we simply have to deal with in this life. But on the other hand we must not get carried away when we talk about our sinfulness. Being weak in one area does not mean that you are weak in every area. You may be lacking in self-control, but that does not diminish the work of the Holy Spirit within me in other areas, such as compassion or zeal for His name or desire for holiness. It is not humility to disparage your spiritual life across the board, ignoring the work of the Holy Spirit in other areas of your life. The Christian life should be an exercise in joyfully expressing gratitude for the fact that God is making us more and more righteous every day.
2 Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Cutting and self-mutilation
Remember the woman who was asked to share her thoughts leading up to this behavior at the beginning of this chapter? This is the rest of what she said:
For some it is a way of trying to change the emotional distress into physical distress—something you can see, something you can control, something you deserve, maybe even something that can show others how you feel, though most cutters are very secretive. There are also those who cut because they feel dead, almost like they don’t exist. Pain makes them feel more alive. For many, the pain of cutting is not very great, some might not even feel it. For me, I felt the pain of it, but right afterward I didn’t feel any pain at all (pain causes endorphins to be released, so maybe that has something to do with the “high” associated with cutting). I usually felt a sense of satisfaction and greater control over my emotions after having done it. I also found that it dulled my emotions overall. After I stopped I seemed to become much more emotional in general, with regard to both happiness and sadness. I would say that cutting is a quick fix that doesn’t last. It stifles the possibility of seeking real healing, it suppresses emotional pain, and it is addictive.
Ask the counselee if self-mutilation is a way of handling overwhelming emotions. If so, teach the counselee how to find comfort in God. Emotions usually become overwhelming when there is something that we feel we must have in order to be happy, and we do not have that thing. Explain to the counselee that his desire comes from an appetite for joy that will not be fulfilled by that thing he so desperately wants. But it can be fulfilled by delightful experiences of the presence of God. The “Loving God with all Your Heart” sermon series,[1] and the first twenty devotionals in the book “What’s so Great about God” are designed to help with this. Another good resource is the “By His Wounds” online Bible study.[2]
Anorexia, bulimia, and overeating
Anorexia is the practice of starving oneself in order to be thin. No matter how thin the anorexic becomes, she feels fat and wants to be thinner.
Bulimia is the problem of binge eating followed by purging. Bulimics will eat massive amounts of food in one sitting and then eliminate it by means of vomiting or laxatives.
Overeating is routinely eating more calories than are burned, resulting in ongoing weight gain.
All of these problems generally have several other emotional components.
For anorexics:
false standards of beauty
unbiblical attitudes toward food
obsession with physical appearance
elevating the ability to control body size to the level of an idol
For bulimics and other overeaters:
idolatry of food (looking to food to satisfy the hunger of the soul)
lack of self-control
unbiblical response to failure
One thing they all have in common is an obsession with food. When you refer to the problem, it is best to refer to it as a food obsession, or idolatry rather than an eating disorder. The terms anorexia and bulimia make the problem sound like a disease or defect in the brain, rather than a sin problem that can be redeemed. She does not have a disease or a mental disorder—she has simply gotten into a habit of being obsessed with food.
Once again, the beginning point is to discover at what point the person’s thinking departs from the right path. Then work to correct the problems in the heart (chapter 6) and help her overcome the addiction to this behavior (chapter 12).
The Proper Attitude toward Food
Adjusting one’s attitude to align with God’s Word will help both the under-eater and the overeater, because both problems come from an unbiblical attitude toward food.
Correcting a negative attitude toward food (anorexia)
Anorexics tend to view calories as an enemy. Carbohydrates, simple sugars, fatty foods – all enemies. This attitude is supported by our culture, that regards these things as generally unhealthy. They are not unhealthy. They are wonderful gifts from God. Fat and sugars are crucial for good health, and perform many essential functions in the body. Fat is needed for absorption and storage of various vitamins, so having too little fat creates health problems. Every action God calls us to do in His service requires energy that comes only in the form of calories. And beyond the health necessity, sugar and fat also make food enjoyable, which is also an important spiritual reality. There is an entire book of God’s Word devoted to showing the importance of enjoyment of life (Ecclesiastes).
Ecclesiastes 2:24 A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?
God wants us to enjoy Him through the blessings of life, and food is a key part of that. So are work and family.
Ecclesiastes 3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to enjoy his work
Ecclesiastes 9:9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun-- all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 5:19 Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work--this is a gift of God.
Ecclesiastes 6:2 God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.,
And when you go through life depriving yourself of life’s pleasures, unless you have some good reason for doing so, that deprivation, in itself, is meaningless.
Ecclesiastes 4:8 There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. "For whom am I toiling," he asked, "and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?" This too is meaningless-- a miserable business!
Ecclesiastes 6:6 even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity. Do not all go to the same place?
Ecclesiastes 8:15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany him in his work all the days of the life God has given him under the sun.
This is consistent with the NT message as well:
1 Timothy 6:17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
1 Timothy 4:1-4 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
Abstaining from food as an end in itself violates the fact that food is good, and is to be received gladly with thanksgiving. Throughout history God has used feasting as a key component of worship, because He wants worship to be a joyful experience of receiving goodness from God, and feasting is a perfect picture of that.
Deuteronomy 14:22-26 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. 24 But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), 25 then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. 26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice.
That’s just one of many examples in the OT law where eating and enjoyment of eating were a key part of worship.
Gluttony vs. Proper Enjoyment of Food
To the anorexic, almost all enjoyment of food feels like gluttony – which raises the question, where is the line between the kind of feasting God wants us to enjoy and sinful gluttony?
There are two kinds of gluttony. One is overeating (routinely eating so many more calories than are burned that ongoing weight gain occurs). The “ongoing” part is important. God made our bodies to fluctuate somewhat in weight. We found above that the reasons weight gain is problematic are because obesity hinders servanthood and stewardship. So if those are the reasons weight gain is bad, then it is only bad if it is enough weight to cause those problems. Gaining five or ten pounds does not prevent a person from helping others in need, nor does it create health problems. If a person’s weight fluctuates up and down 10 pounds, but never more than that, then that person has is maintaining a relatively steady weight and is not overeating.
The other kind of gluttony is looking to the food rather that God as the source of joy and satisfaction. This is idolatry regardless of the amount of food consumed. If an anorexic eats one little scrap of food per day, starving herself to death, but each time she eats that little scrap she is looking to it for her joy and satisfaction without reference to God, she is guilty of gluttony. But if she enjoys a feast as an expression of God’s love, and her enjoyment of the feast is an act of fellowship with God, then it is not gluttony, even if she gains a few pounds.
Nothing is Unclean
In the time of the Mosaic law, certain foods were forbidden for Jews because they were ceremonially unclean. Jesus abolished that system in Mark 7:19, and when Peter refused to eat some of those non-kosher foods on the basis that they were unclean, God said, “Do not call anything unclean that God has made clean” (Acts 10:15, 11:9). Most anorexics think of food as being unclean – not ceremonially like Peter, but they just have an adversarial relationship with food. Calories are the enemy. When Someone who is good gives you a good gift as a gesture of His love you should not regard that gift as the enemy. Urge the counselee to constantly preacher to her soul, “Do not call unclean what I have made clean.”
Acts 14:17 He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.
Correcting an idolatrous attitude toward food (overeating)
Eating too much food is usually a symptom of trying to get out of food that which it cannot provide. Food can supply energy, nourishment, sustenance, and pleasure, and can serve as an occasion for fellowship. God did not design food, however, to provide fulfillment, encouragement, refuge, or relief from suffering, depression, boredom, or anxiety. When we try to get those things out of food, all we get is weight gain.
Help the overeater to understand the relationship between appetite and desire. Appetite is the ache of emptiness, and desire is the impulse to fill that emptiness. The problem comes when there is a desire disorder in which a person craves something that will not satisfy the appetite. If a person had some wires crossed in his brain so that every time his stomach was empty it made him crave water instead of food, he would drink and drink and never be satisfied. And in the same way, when the soul craves the presence of God, and the encouragement, strength, joy, peace, fulfillment, etc. that come from experiencing the presence of God, but that appetite becomes interpreted as a desire for food, the result is overeating. When desires match up with appetites, then once the appetite is fulfilled, the desire diminishes. A person becomes dehydrated, has an intense desire for water, and then, once the body becomes sufficiently hydrated, the thirst disappears. When the desire for food does not diminish even when the stomach is full, it is usually a sign that the appetite does not match the desire. When the soul thinks that food is the solution to boredom, for example, hunger never goes away because no matter how much food is consumed, the boredom remains.
The solution to desire disorder is to retrain the soul to desire that which will satisfy its appetites. Simply saying “no” to food will not, in itself, solve the problem. Desire will only increase more and more until you give in. When there is a craving for food that does not arise out of actual hunger, the soul is confused and must be correct. Urge the counselee to preach to his soul in those moments: “You are hungry, but not for food. Food cannot satisfy this craving, because it is an appetite of the soul, not the body. And the only thing that can satisfy the cravings of the soul is the presence of God.”
For some people the cravings of the soul have been interpreted as hunger for food for so long that they actually feel it in their stomachs. Discerning actual hunger pangs can be difficult. This is especially the case in a wealthy culture where food is so abundant. Many people have not felt an actual hunger pang in months. They eat whenever they have a craving, and so they never actually come to the point where their bodies actually experience real hunger.
In her book The Weigh Down Diet, Gwen Shamblin, provides some practical insights on how to discern actual hunger pangs. (Please note: I do not endorse Gwen Shamblin’s current teachings. Her doctrine was sound at the time she wrote The Weigh Down Diet, but later she denied the Trinity and is currently a heretical false teacher.) God designed the human body such that if we eat only when we are actually hungry, and stop eating as soon as we are full, we will not gain weight. Obesity is generally the result of either eating when one is not actually hungry, or continuing to eat past full.
The amount of food the body needs varies from person to person depending on factors such as levels of activity, and metabolism. The process of discovering how much food a particular person needs is fairly simple. Have the person pay careful attention to what he eats each day and weigh every morning when he wakes up, using a scale that shows tenths of pounds. He can then cut back on the amount he eats each day until there is a drop in weight. At that point he knows the amount of food his body needs. Eating slightly less than that will result in gradual weight loss.
In some cases this amount may be very little – perhaps even half the amount he is accustomed to eating. Urge the counselee to eat the amount of food his body needs, and when there are cravings for additional food, strive to discover which appetite of the soul is being misinterpreted as hunger for food.
So the first principle is: Don’t try to get from food something that food isn’t designed to provide. The second principle is this: Do get from food that which food is designed to provide. It is important to learn to enjoy food properly. There is a connection between God eating food and God filling the heart with joy.
Acts 14:17 He has shown goodness … by providing you with plenty of food and filling your hearts with joy.
The proper way to enjoy food is to interpret all the pleasures associated with it as samples of what it is like to be in the presence of God. Just as food satisfies the body, so nearness to God satisfies the appetites of the soul. That’s why God so often compares Himself to food in Scripture. So when you eat something really tasty and it just hits the spot, you remind yourself, “That’s what happens to my soul when I experience the presence of God. When the food gives you strength and energy and takes away that empty feeling in your stomach; you tell your soul, “That’s what would happen to you if you were to experience the presence of God right now. You would have strength and those feelings of emptiness and dryness would be gone.”
And beyond the fact that food illustrates a spiritual reality, it is also a gesture of God’s love. When something tastes good or a meal is delightful for one reason or another, our ability to enjoy that is an expression of God’s love, and it is crucial that it be interpreted as such. When we receive it as a gesture of love, and respond to God with feelings of gratitude, that exchange is fellowship with God. And the simple act of eating a meal is transformed into worship.
This should have two effects on the overeater. First, it should greatly increase enjoyment of eating. Instead of the mere enjoyment of taste, now the person will have that pleasure plus the much deeper pleasure of communion with the living God. Because the eating is now worship, it can and should be enjoyed with as much enthusiasm as possible.
The second effect should be a decrease in the enjoyment of overeating. The joy of worship applies while eating food that the body needs. Once the stomach is full, however, and eating is no longer appropriate, it is no longer possible for the eating to be worship or fellowship with God, since it is not God’s desire that we overeat. The more the person enjoys communion with God while eating when hungry, the less desirable overeating will be.
Online resources:
Overeating – “The Lord’s Table”[3] and “The Lord’s Table for Children”[4]
Anorexia & Bulimia – “In His Image”[5]
Suicide
If a person has threatened suicide, he is most likely in terrible emotional pain. Comfort and strengthen the counselee using the principles from chapter 3. Offer the person hope and remind him that suicide is murder, and that there are consequences on the other side that will be so severe that it will not be worth it.
If a believer commits suicide, he will go to heaven. But make sure the person understands that if he is willing to commit the sin of suicide, there is no guarantee that his salvation is genuine. Indeed, it is quite likely that it is not genuine. And if it is not, the suffering in hell will be far worse than the suffering he is trying to escape in this life. And even if he is genuinely saved, there will be a severe consequence on Judgment Day that will be so painful that he will wish he had not committed suicide.
While compassion is crucial whenever someone is suffering, it is also important not to allow the counselee to use suicide to manipulate you. Some counselees will threaten suicide because they know if they do so, they can call you any time, day or night, and have an instant companion who will listen and talk for as long as the counselee desires. Threatening suicide is threatening sin, and should not be rewarded. Be compassionate, but also point out the sin of threatening suicide, and do not allow the counselee to control your life with his threats. If he does end up killing himself after an occasion when you did not have the time to talk to him, that is not your responsibility. Be willing to make sacrifices to help those in pain, but be careful that your sacrifices do not cause you to neglect other things the Lord has called you to do.
[1] http://foodforyoursoul.net/ffys_v2/?page_id=37&series=1
[2] http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/courses/his-wounds/
[3] http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/courses/lords-table/
[4] http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/courses/lords-table-for-children/
[5] http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com/courses/his-image/
