I strongly believe that Christians should not take counsel from non-believers. I also do not believe that Christians should take counsel from secularized "Christian Counselors." Unfortunately, the "Christian Counselor" often has more in common with secular psychology than the Bible. Not in every case of course, and I do not wish to highlight the differences here but much wisdom and discernment is needed before proceeding with a "Christian Counseling" relationship.
A Christian should not take counsel from unbelievers because the unbeliever has as their authority social morays and personal values, all which are subjective and changeable.
The biblical counselor has the Holy Spirit and He is the One who enables us to give spiritual wisdom. No Christian counselor is worth is salt if he or she is not able to give spiritual wisdom for worldly wisdom is not eternal.
Our wisdom comes from the Bible. (Rom.15:4) the Holy Spirit makes the Word of God alive to us and enables it to feed our hearts and minds. It brings encouragement and hope to us for the future and the promise of change.
The Holy Spirit provides the desire for change. Apart from Him none of us would ever desire anything of God. He has to draw us to Himself and the Spirit does that.
He also provides the ability to change. Because all true change is first heart change, a person must be indwelt by the only One who can change the human heart.
The Holy Spirit also brings the righteousness of Christ, the desire for the Word, and the love for the counselee that we need to minister to them.
The Holy Spirit also teaches us what is important to God. He teaches us what is important to God and “makes” it important to us. Without His influence and leading, we would not care what is important to God. He also sensitizes us to the things of God, and His presence in our lives is why we can literally hurt inside when we see ungodliness.
The counselee also has to have all these things. An absence of these qualities would be a good reason to question the counselee about their salvation.
To be qualified as a biblical counselor also means that the person’s character is visible as proceeding from the Holy Spirit and our lives are characterized by Eph. 4:1, and Gal. 5:16, and Rom 15:16. We have to be examples – not sinless perfection- but have some measure of obvious growth in overcoming sinful problems of our own.
We must be striving toward living by the Spirit and not gratification of the lusts of the flesh. People should be convinced as Rom 15:14 says that we are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.
Each person who desires to disciple another really ought to see to fulfill the requirements for Deacons and Elders as stated in 1 Timothy 3. This is not to look good to others for the sake of pride, but it is so that we can state with confidence “imitate me as I imitate Christ” as Paul did (1 Cor. 11:1)