depression -The source and the solution by Richard Jordan

The source and the solution

by Richard Jordan

www.shorewoodbiblechurch.org 
II Corinthians is the most personal epistle that Paul wrote. It was written during the darkest hour of his life
 
Ac:20:1: And after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples, and embraced them, and departed for to go into Macedonia.
Ac:20:2: And when he had gone over those parts, and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece,
Ac:20:3: And there abode three months. And when the Jews laid wait for him, as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return through Macedonia.
 
2 Cor:1:8: For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:
 
2 Co:2:13: I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.
 
This is a classic description of depression.
 
2 Cor:4:8: We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
2 Cor:4:9: Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
 
Depression is a universal fact that saint after saint experienced as a reality.
 
The root cause and real cure to conquer emotional tyranny:
 
Depression is not where God wants you to be but He wants you to have joy and peace. Depression is the state of feeling sad and dejected, the result of inactivity, self-castigation and dropping out, the opposite of being happy, the state of being down and out.
 
Three kinds of depression:
 
1. Mild - discouragement
2. More serious - despondency
3. Most crippling – dispair
 
Each has its own symptoms you can identify.
 
1. Mild is mental with self-doubt, self-pity 
2. More serious: self-critical, anger and self-pity
3. Despair leads to self-rejection and bitterness, sleeplessness, apathy, unkempt appearance, weeps, pacificity, withdrawal, discontent, irritability, sorrow, loneliness, hopelessness, schizophrenia, abandonment. Dispair spiritually begins with questioning God’s will, ungrateful, rejecting God’s will, anger at God, griping, resentment against God’s Word, indifference, just unbelief.
 
Symptoms: Self-preservation is the first law of life. Psychology is good at describing the problem but it doesn’t have the truth or doesn’t come to answers about it. Habits leading to a change of mood, changing relationships with others, loss of contact with reality are defense mechanisms. Separation from a love object produces loneliness which result in depression.

Other symptoms are exhibitionism, temper tantrums, withdrawal, excessive gambling, alcoholism, appearance with body piercing (as the heathen do –Leviticus) as a status symbol (please look at me). 
The person often feels unworthy (I need to look like a freak because that’s what I think about myself). 
Sexual promiscuity, profanity, clinging, excessive generosity to make themselves indispensable, incessant talking, attacking, intimidation, aggression most frequently first on self, and then turning against others, physical pains and weakness, loss of affection, tendency to withdraw from others, unwilling to risk loving and not loving, dangerous emotions, self-occupation, anxiety, fear, worry, (fear and worry go together), wishing to die (Christians say, “I wish the Lord would come.”), just not wanting to cope with the problems of life.
 
Almost all clinical solutions say depression is caused by external experience. Depression begins with disappointment. You don’t become depressed when everything is going your way. Depression begins with someone not performed according to your expectations (legalism). Depression is the result of lack of self-worth and appreciation of who you really are. Everyone has a breaking point, biological malfunctions after a high point in life, lack of purposeful meaning.
 
Formula for the pathway to depression: Your emotions are absolutely predictable because of the relationship between your emotions and your thinking process.
 
Depression always starts out with improper thinking. It starts out in your mind where you start thinking that something ought not to be. The mind is the seed bed.
 
Two basics: unrealistic expectations and misplaced faith. You live in the real world where people expect things you can’t give and they reject you. Have you ever rejected someone else? Do you have a dependency on the wrong thing? If you put people in bondage you don’t believe Romans 3:23. You are not immune to this present evil world. Proper thinking of truth sets you free. Live is full of insult and rejection. 
The Lord has given us a capacity to live through it. Peace is a result of learning to cope with insult, injury and rejection. We have to learn to deal with it God’s way.
 
The first step toward depression is an event that causes disappointment. At that point you have a choice to respond by faith, walk in the spirit with thanksgiving or choose to respond in the flesh with human viewpoint with fear and anger. Responding by faith with thanksgiving produces peace.
 
Anger is usually fear in disguise and it leads to despair and depression. Anger sets off a defense mechanism. An angry person ventilates or internalizes it. The more dangerous is the latter. Brooding is an internal struggling and it gets bigger and bigger until it explodes. The proper attitude is to look at the anger. It becomes sin when you focus it on people. Anger is one of the two motivators to deal with. The other is fear. 
Changing the circumstances doesn’t work very well because you get madder when that doesn’t help. Anger turns into self-pity. Insult > anger > self-pity > depression.
 
The one constant in depression is always self-pity. The more self-pity, the more depressed you become. There are two forms of thinking in self-pity:
1. Past thinking where you remember and rehearse the insult.
2 Thinking where you project the insult into the future which results in worry, foreboding and fear about it happening.
 
If you get rid of self-pity you will get rid of depression. That’s a fact. The solution to depression is to have a renewed mind.
 
II Cor. 2:13 Paul was depressed about not finding Titus, but in verse 14 he says, “Thanks be to God.” God is sufficient always. Victory in Christ right in the middle of depression. We are living on the victory side. How to get from verse 13 to verse 14?
Paul changed his thinking about what was going on. He took the faith choice in his mind. The problem is in our mind not in the circumstance.
Depression is an emotional state. You must understand that your emotions follow your thinking. They are the responders to the thoughts that are in your mind. They cannot discern reality from fiction. (Watch a scary movie or a love story.)
 
The real battlefield for your emotions is in your mind. If I am afraid, I am thinking fearful thoughts. Drugs and shock therapy numb your mind and blanks out your memory. The result is temporary.
 
Romans 12:2
You have to re-educate your thinking so you will think like God thinks. You have two choices: 
1. Human viewpoint and religious systems
2. Divine viewpoint – the Word of God
 
You can change your thinking patterns but not your emotions. Put in things of the world in your mind and that is what affects your emotions. The Word of God will result by faith and there will be action. When the alarm clock rings, you have a choice but should act no matter how you feel about it. How do you do it?
 
Phil. 6:7,8 By prayer. That’s what you do. You have to do it, not feel like it. Just do it by faith. What happens? You have the peace of God, an emotion which is the opposite of anxiety. Skip the emotion and act on the Word of God, the way God created you to function.

Stopping at the start

1. Improper thinking
2. Misplaced dependency
3. Disappointment, rejection 
4. Anger
5. Choice: Self-pity which leads to depression 
or Thanksgiving which gives peace
 
The book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible. Moses quotes Job when Israel is coming out of Egypt.
 
Job was extremely blessed at the beginning with a great household, health, large family, flocks. He was the greatest of all men of the east. Things changed overnight. He lost his children, his flocks, his health and his wife turned against him.
 
He had three friends whom he called “miserable counselors.” They came to see him and remained seven days in silence.
 
Job 3:1-11 Job addresses his friends in self-pity. “Woe is me” is the universal emotional problem. It’s not God’s will for our lives but it happens because of our old man’s pattern of thinking.
 
Job. 7:1-4, 11-16 Job responds to Eliphaz. I will complain! I loathe my life. The path to depression is already identifiable and predictable.
 
When you add self-pity to the motivation of fear or anger, you have depression. Self-pity is self- importance caused by improper thinking. Sin and pride have “I” in the middle.
 
A small percentage of depression is physically induced. The key to the formula of the path to depression is self-pity. The real culprit is your mental attitude toward the circumstance. Self-pity is always involved. There is a relationship between the thinking and the emotions.
 
You need a Bibical picture of your make-up, how you were designed to function. You are a spirit, a soul and a body. That makes you a human.
 
1 Thes. 5:23: And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
The spirit gives you consciousness of God. God is Spirit. It is your connection with God.
 
Rom. 8:16: The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
 
The soul gives capacity to become conscious of yourself. It is the seat of your personality. You share this with no one else. “Ego” means “I am.”
The body gives capacity to communicate with the world around you.
 
1Cor:2:11: For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
 
1Cor:2:16: For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
 
The heart is the mentality and function of the soul.
Proverb:23:7: For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
 
The spirit has capacity of a way of thinking.
The soul has capacity of a way of believing.
Rom:10:10: For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness;
 
You can know, but not believe in it. The will takes it from the spirit and gives it to the soul. The will decides to take what you know and make it the foundation of the soul.
 
Matt:26:37: And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
 
The soul is authored by your old sin nature. The unsaved is a natural man and his spirit is dead toward God.
 
Eph:2:1: And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
 
Eph:4:17: This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
Eph:4:18: Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
Eph:4:19: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
Eph:4:20: But ye have not so learned Christ;
 
The natural man functions to other things but not to God. What fills the mind of an unsaved man? Philosophical things of the world, ideas from human viewpoint, lust of the eye, lust of the flesh, the pride of life. His soul draws from his spirit.
 
Ro:1:19: Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
Ro:1:20: For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Ro:1:21: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Ro:1:22: Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
 
Psalms:119:130: The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.
 
When you turn out the light it gets dark. The body is depraved.
 
Rom. 6:6: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
 
The body is the part that is kin to Adam.
 
Jer. 17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
 
Sin turns your thinking into self-importance. You will become a slave to emotions. Your emotions are in revolt and all get mixed up.
 
When you get saved, God regenerates you spiritually and gives you eternal life. You were dead in sins but now you are alive unto God. Now God’s truth can be assimilated to your life. Eternal life is your present possession as you trust Christ.
 
Romans 8:2; Galatians 2:20; Phil. 1:21; Colossians 2;3, 
As my will chooses to believe and trust God’s truth, I have the capacity to apply sound doctrine. When I get saved the light is turned on and now there is light in my soul. Our soul, will and emotions are in the light. Our body has been crucified, rendered dead and not to be the source of our operating. We still have to have the body but should be free from its influence. If God leaves you here to serve Him you have to have that body, but God has fixed it so you don’t have to run your life any longer. You can be free from its influence or you can choose to be influenced by it.
 
How do the spirit and soul interrelate? For the believer there is light in your soul and you have the capacity to apply the truth under the empowering of the Holy Spirit in His Word when you believe it.
 
Relationship of emotions:
 
Proverb:4:23: Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
 
All capacity of life comes out of the heart. God says it starts here.
 
Mark: 7:21: For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
Mark:7:22: Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
Mark:7:23: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
 
“From within” not from where you are but who you are.
 
Your emotions are designed to be responders to what your heard initiates. The mind and will were originally created to decide your course of action, and for your emotions to respond and then the body to produce the action. That’s the natural way.
 
Sin corrupted that way. The new man, instead of thinking, feeling, action, now takes the truth and by faith goes right straight to the actions. Your old sin nature corrupts the feelings so you can’t trust your feelings. 
Emotions are followers and only respond to fact or fiction. They can’t discern between past, present or future. You can think of something in the past and get mad as though it just happened. You can think of something in the future and get anxious about it as though it already happened.
They get anxious about things that happened in the past as though they just happened. Emotions can’t tell that Frankenstein movies aren’t real. Emotions don’t understand.
 
Numb:11:4: And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?
Numb:11:5: We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:
 
When emotions are stretched they get out of shape. We remember (the picture gallery of your mind). Longing for, desiring result, in actions and emotions gets control. 
The natural man thinks, feels and acts. The flesh acts from negative feelings.
 
Now, we are to walk in the spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh. We can make a decision no matter how we feel about it. For example, when the alarm clock rings you can choose to go by your feelings or get up. The two different motivations are the motivation of the flesh and the motivation of the spirit.  

A neckup check up

Depression is a universal malady. Moses, the greatest leader in all of history, was quoted by Jesus Christ said:
 
Matt: 23:2: Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
Matt: 23:3: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
 
Moses gives a poor example of a prayer. It was dumb and inappropriate. He had anger and self-pity and was in the throes of despondency.
 
Numb. 11: 10: Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased. 
Nu:11:11: And Moses said unto the LORD, Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and wherefore have I not found favour in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me?
Nu:11:12: Have I conceived all this people? have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?
Nu:11:13: Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people? for they weep unto me, saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat.
Nu:11:14: I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.
Nu:11:15: And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.
 
First Moses asks a question and then attempts to blame God. He begins with bad thinking and false, unrealistic expectations. “I,” “Me,” “I” shows self-pity. He is focussing on himself, not on God’s provisions thinking he had to do it all by himself.
You see no man as low until you come to the Apostle Paul in Romans 7.
 
Moses had all these false expectations and then displaced dependency. He reacted to the problem in anger and self-pity. He said, “Kill me.” We say, “I wish the Lord would come.”
 
Romans 8: 18-39
 
Right division is the key of what God is doing and how you can relate to it. If you replace self-pity with thanksgiving, you’ll never come out with depression. Your emotions are predictable. The way you feel is the way you think. Program your mind with Truth. The natural man gets his information from the world and that affects his mind, will and emotions.
 
Jer:17:9: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
 
The soul is the emotions which are designed to immobilize the function of your will. You have to live in a supernatural way. Truth will make the choice to action regardless of your emotional state. Truth will bypass the emotions. The will of the renewed man will take action based on the faith of what God says.
 
Gal:3:3: Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
 
Misplaced dependencies You need to know how to have your mind programmed and how to think about your own identity. How you think about yourself will control how you live.
 
Rom:12:3: For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
 
Soberly means realistically. Program your mind with Truth. We were created to have a dependency on God. God shaped a vacuum in the heart of everyone. [Only He can fill it.] We have a need for acceptance and significance. Those are identification issues.
 
What you depend on for identification and acceptance will ultimately control you. You live out of your identity. Your identification must be centered on Jesus Christ. No person will meet your needs unconditionally, nor yourself either. If you are depending on status or money or work, etc. those things are going to change. You need to have your identification based on something that does not change. How you answer that will affect your relationship with God , with others and with yourself. It is extremely important to know who you are.
 
1 Cor:15:22: For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
 
If you are in Adam, it will kill you. If you are in Christ, you are made alive. In Adam you are a natural man. You came into this world with a history of sinful ancestors. Your strength and wisdom was worldly and you were alive to sin. But… in Christ you have eternal life.
 
Rom:5:12: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
 
2 Cor. 5:17: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
 
In Christ you have a new resource – the life of Jesus Christ in you.
 
Do you know you have eternal life as a present possession? His resources are in us, in Christ. We have a positional change – a new relationship. We are a new creature (not creation which is anything created, dead or alive).
 
Eph:1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:.
 
We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. We have a new past, a new present and a new future. God sees you in His Son. Keep that in your thinking and in your mind. Not keeping that in mind is why Christian people struggle in life and wind up in depression. When you try to cope by yourself to satisfy your emotions, you are doomed to failure. We are chosen, forgiven, redeemed, etc. Get this in your mind. It means something to God. We are complete in Christ with all spiritual blessings. Bless me? Give me? They are already yours. Put your dependency on Christ.
 
How to get in Christ? You have to know something first.
 
Rom. 6:3: Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
 
The mechanics: God took you out of Adam and put you into Christ by one Spirit. He put you into a living union with God the Son.
 
Gal. 3:27: For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
 
We are robed in Christ. God sees you in Christ. People see you in clothes.
 
Rom. 8:16: The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
 
Rom:6:6: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Rom:6:7: For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Rom:6:8: Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
Rom:6:9: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
Rom:6:10: For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
 
You were baptized into His death at Calvary, not physically, but in the spirit, in your inner man. You were crucified with Him. Christ not only died for you but also AS you.
 
When you go on your own strength to cope with life, you have two options. 
1. You can take the disappointments and dump them on others or yourself which programs your emotions and you go into depression. You feel shame and guilt. It’s a spiral to becoming a dead duck. 
2. Good news. You didn’t have to do it. Stop. Quit. You can’t? Then either you are lying or God is a liar. “Let God be true and every man a liar.” (Rom. 3:4) You are not under the tyranny of sin. Your emotions get scared at a movie. I can choose and be radically changed. Do you live in that freedom today? That’s where freedom starts.
 
Rom. 6:4: Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
 
Col. 2:12: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
 
Ge:23:4: I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.
 
The dead is not an issue anymore.
 
We have five senses but only two have ability to recreate memory: seeing and hearing, the screen of your imagination. Remembering a past offense, a person gets mad. It’s all in your mind. Emotions say it must be happening again. No unresolved issues are put to bed with a shovel.
 
We are crucified, buried and raised to walk in newness of life. We are alive unto God.
 
Rom:6:4: Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
 
You are getting something you didn’t have but you are becoming someone you didn’t used to be: a saint of the Most High God, a new and living creature. You are identified in Christ, raised to walk. That new life sits in heavenly places. That’s who you are. When you live in the conscious realization of the identification of whom God made you in Christ, how could you live anywhere but in the sunlight of thanksgiving? 
God didn’t create His children to live in he darkness of depression. When you are over there it’s because you are walking in your own resources like you used to. The key is proper thinking of who God made you.
 
If you don’t rightly divide you’ll never understand that you are not Israel. Right Division shows you who you really are – a new creature.
 
Gal. 6:15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
 
That is God’s plan and purpose. The simple truth. You were not created to imitate Christ in your own strength with your own abilities. You were created to contain Christ in your new man so He can live His life out through you.
 
So you have a choice. It comes down to a crisis of your will, a choice of your faith. You can try to live the Christian life on your own in which case you are doomed to failure and depression. Or, you can give up doing self-efforts and trust the Lord Jesus Christ who lives in you. Live in the truth of whom He says he has made you. Live in the real world.
 
Gal. 2:20: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Glad to be M.A.D. 

Heroes of the Bible suffered depression.  Elijah wsa the next most impressive man next to Moses.  He had the ability to perform miracles, healing, raising the dead, call for rain, call for fire to come down out of heaven.  He withstood 450 prophets of Baal in Chapter  18.  In Malachi we read that Elijah will be the first to return in the last days.  IN Rev. 11, he is a key figure in Israel s’ future.. 
 He established a school of prophets. 
 

His ministry forestalled and held off apostasy for decades through his school of prophets.  He knew depression and the defeat of depression.

I Kings 19:1 And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.

1 Kings:19:2: Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.

1 Ki:19:3: And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.

1 Ki:19:4: But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.

In chapter 18 he was on the top of Mt. Carmel but now under a juniper tree in the desert.  Just overnight he was in depression.  It is not a long process to get there. His problem is in verse 10.

1 Kings 19:10: And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

1. Series of bad thinking

2. Unrealistic expectations

3. Misplaced dependencies

He was depending on himself not remembering the 7,000 faithful who had not bowed the knee to Baal.  All he sees is himself.

4. Self-pity

Elijah blinds his eyes to the resources he has and maximizes the things against him.

Blindness toward the resources God has given you result in “Gloom, despair, agony on me.”  If truth sets you free, then error binds you.  Look for the error in your thinking.

Formula for the path to depression: bad thinking as your identification and provisions. Rely upon God’s perspective and not on a misplaced dependency on your own ability and strength; taking your focus off Christ and on yourself or someone else.  There is one reliable source and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Your emotions are programmed to respond to the way you think.  It is your nature to have anger and fear.  One goes forward and one goes backward as motivators.  Fear and anger are not bad in themselves, only when you handle them in self-sufficiency multiplied by self-pity, rejection and disappointment.  We don’t base our doctrine on experience.  If and when rejection comes, instead of self-pity you react with thanksgiving, you will have peace.  Self-pity leads to depression.

You have a choice.  That’s good news to have a choice.  You can be a part of the solution.  You can’t change other people.  You have a capacity to solve the problem.

The Law says, “Let me whack you!”  you need to go to the throne of Grace for mercy. God knew it was coming and He took care of it.

Gal. 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Walking in the flesh (in unbelief) is walking in your own sufficiency.

The only response Grace will accept is faith.  It will  be sufficient for you.  You are able to stand.  It’s enough.

2 Cor:9:8: And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:

The only real sin you have to deal with is the sin of unbelief.

Gal:5:19: Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

Gal:5:20: Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

Gal:5:21: Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like:

The way to cure the battle in your mind (the works of the flesh) is to focus on the Source, trusting who God has made you in Christ.  The Law is fulfilled byliving by faith with a conscious dependence o the Lord Jesus Christ.  Mental attitude dynamics is getting involved in the living Truth.

II Cor. 10:3  For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

2Co:10:4: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

2Co:10:5: Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

 “Strong holds” lead to depression that comes from self-dependency.  Verse 5 is the way to get rid of strongholds.

1. You have the thought.

2. You consider it.

3. You justify your need for it.

4. You decide to do it.

The problem begins in the thinking.  It becomes a cycle and the thought comes up again and becomes a habit.  When we instinctively learn to handle it, the problem becomes a habit.  How to get free from a strong hold?

Abnormal behavior begins after a period of time.  It stretches your emotions and eventually begins to affect you physically.

erse 5 tells how to break the cycle.  It is true of any addiction.  Knowledge and imaginations have run wild.

 [RJ worked at a mission. He had a nightmare which seemed real even today.]

Hurt > resentment > their wrongness > retaliation > thinking all day about it (imaginations) get a strong hold.

A mental attitude sin is an involuntary mental process.  Imaginations are designed to program things in your mind.  By the intake of the Word of God it can be re-programmed by conscious thinking.  Cast down every thought and vain imagination (useless thinking, thinking not based on Truth) with the application of sound doctrine.

SELF-PITY DRIVES YOUR EMOTIONS RIGHT INTO DESPAIR AND DEPRESSION.

Break vain imaginations and every high thing by bringing them into captivity.  You can listen to one band on the radio but there are other bands.  Which station do you listen to – truth or error?  Do you think God is pleased with error?

Phil. 4:6: Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

 “Perfected forever.”  How much better can it be than Ephesians 1;3?  Which will you believe – truth or error?  People say, “Look what I did.  I deserve better than that.”

I Cor. 6:7: Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

Charity doesn’t take notice of the wrong it suffers.  There’s something more important – I can choose.

1 Tim:6:6: But godliness with contentment is great gain.

Phil. 4:11: Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

My contentment doesn’t come from circumstances.  Error says, “You can be the Christian you ought to be, just change.”

Phil. 1:21: For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

You tune the stations.  When you begin to think of something, stop and ask if you are in obedience to Christ.  If not, then bring it into obedience and take control of your thinking process.  Jesus Christ didn’t come to improve your old man.  He came to give you a new one.  Your new life is revealed more by your reactions than your actions. Remember that!  Circumstances reveal where we are walking.

The other side is negative - not bringing everything into captivity  - as a believer you act like an unbeliever.

Eph:4:17: This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

Eph:4:18: Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

Eph:4:19: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

The vanity (emptiness) of their mind;  A vacuum pulls in, your mind is bombarded with error and is alienated and disoriented toward God’s provisions.

Eph:5:14: Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.

These Christians are like dead people, acting like the lost.  They shrivel up and die.  They are blind (cataract –scar tissue has no feeling).    There is a frantic search fo happiness.  They need the feeling.  They get despair.

WHEN YOU GET DEPRESSED, UNDERSTAND HOW YOU GOT THERE.  YOU CAN’T WORRY AND TRUST GOD AT THE SAME TIME.  IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE THANKFUL AND DEPRESSED AT THE SAME TIME.

HOW TO GET OUT OF DEPRESSION:  BE THANKFUL.

Warning:  watch your motives.  Change things for the right reason.  Live the grace life in spite of your feelings, no matter what.  There is a process to get depressed and a process to get out.  But first, your motive must be right.  Don’t’ try self-sufficiency.

1. Decide that you want to be free.

2. Acknowledgement  your dependency on Christ.

3. Give God access to your mind (study the Bible with a personal daily intake).

Get involved with others in order to grow.

Eph:1:18: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

Eph:1:19: And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

The renewing of your mind is a process.  When you stumble along the way, that’s not the end.

Phil.1:6: Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

2 Co:2:12: Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord,

2 Co:2:13: I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.

2 Cor:2:14: Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

Rom:7:24: O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Rom:7:25: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul is depressed but he changes his demeanor and gives thanks to God.  Thanksgiving is the answer.  It changes your mind and transforms your thinking process.

“Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;”

Error builds up a strong hold.  It is harder to break the next time.  It is a choice to focus on Romans 8:18,19.

Rom:8:38: For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Rom:8:39: Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You take the thought, consider it,  justify it, and act upon it or stop it.  Don’t even consider it.  Go back to your thinking where it came from.

2 Cor: 2:14: Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

God doesn’t abandon you.  He didn’t lose His love for you.  You have His provisions.

How to Defeat Depression on a Daily Basis

 There is a process to get into depression and a process to get out of it.
 
Jonah was the greatest preacher in the Bible if you measure greatness in the number of converts he had. Over one million Ninevites repented and God spared them. Instead of being elated Jonah became strangely depressed and enraged.
 
Jonah:4:1: But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.
Jonah:4:2: And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.
Jonah:4:3: Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.
Jonah:4:5: So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.
 
Nineveh hated Israel and many times had persecuted Israel. Jonah was a political statesman. Instead of rejoicing he got resentful. A psychologist would probe for a deep-seated problem in his life, an emotional let-down. He pouted, went into seclusion. He complained and brooded. So God will teach him a lesson.
 
Jonah:4:6 And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
Jonah:4:7: But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.
Jonah:4:8: And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.
Jonah:4:9: And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.
 
He has self-pity and argues his case. He thinks he has a right to feel sorry for himself.
 
Matt:12:39: But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
Matt:12:40: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matt:12:41: The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
 
Jonah is an important man in the plan and purpose of God. There he is, bitter and depressed. It took a thrilling conversion of one million people to turn into a miserable experience. Some depression is transitory and some is permanent, depending on the temperament but the formula is always the same.
 
If Jonah had trusted God for the outcome instead of demanding his own way he would not have had the self-pity. If he’d had a thankful heart, he could have never gone into despondency. Down in the city the Ninevites were rejoicing because God had spared them. Up on the hillside was the prophet in despondency.
 
The formula: thinking out of error. His mind-set was the culprit not the circumstance. The battle is won or lost in the mind. Relax and understand how the Word works. Troubles will come, there’s no way to shield yourself from them. Then when you multiply then with anger and fear which are designed to motivate you, you can respond and have a choice of the flesh program of self-pity and end up in depression, or, if you respond with thanksgiving you will have peace. You sow it, you reap it.
 
S – I – N. Therein lies the program: a choice of the flesh or the spirit’s programming. You can think the way God thinks or not. Just as there’s a path to depression, there is a formula to get out of it. You have to deal with self-pity.
 
Rom:8:22: For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Rom:8:23: And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
 
The natural response is fear and anger which are motivators to move you to deal with the problem.
 
Eph:4:26: Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
 
Prov. 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
 
The choice is how to deal with the problem: in self-pity or by faith in Thanksgiving. There are four things you can do to defeat depression and to keep it from reoccurring and gripping you.
 
1. Face the self-pity as a sin.
 
I Cor. 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.
 
You have the responsibility for God to examine your life. You have doctrine, reproof and correction from God’s Word. People don’t usually appreciate the reproof and correction. You have to grow to where you appreciate the reproof and correction as much as the doctrine. Never excuse self-pity. Identify it as a sinful habit The more you indulge the easier it is to shift into that habit. The real sin of self-pity is unbelief.
 
II Cor. 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
 
You have a new identity. Faith says that you are a saint of the Most High God.
 
Phil. 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
 
I can depend on God’s sufficiency and have victory.
 
Rom. 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
Rom. 8:38, For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Rom:8:39: Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
When I am in Christ nothing can separate me from Him and I can rejoice. When self-pity starts, don’t put up with it for one minute. Don’t let yourself be focussed or absorbed in yourself.
 
2. Take the self-pity to Calvary. You can’t stop sin in your life but God already did.
 
Rom. 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Rom. 6:7: For he that is dead is freed from sin.
 
You are not a slave to sin whether you believe it or not.
 
Rom. 6:11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ro:6:12: Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
Ro:6:13: Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Ro:6:14: For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
 
The greatest protest against sin that the world has ever seen was hung on Golgotha’s hill 2,000 years ago. When God showed what He thinks of sin when He put His Son on the cross to die for your sin, He sacrificed Himself to pay for it. He put away sin.
 
Rom. 6:18: Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Rom; 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Rom. 6:2: God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Rom. 16, Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
 
You have a choice to obey the flesh or obey God’s Word and give thanks.
 
Rom:6:17: But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
 
3. You can choose to give thanks. This formula works for every sin. Sin feels good for awhile but sooner or later it gets you right down in the darkness with Jonah because the gourd died. The culprit is a warped thinking process. Thank God in the experience that produced the self-pity. Self-pity is sin. Calvary set me free. I’ve got resources. I can rest on whom God made me in Christ. That’s enough to make you give thanks.
 
I Thes. 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
 
Phil. 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Phil. 4:7: And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
 
Why things are going on the way they are:
 
1. Error in thinking
2. Unreal expectations
3. Misplaced dependency on self rather than on the One Who never changes
 
Why can I do it? Because God says to do it. I can choose to rely on what God says and I can give thanksgiving and be more than a conqueror.
 
II Cor. 13:8: For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
 
Joseph: Gen. 50:20: But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
 
You can depend on the identification God has given you. The moment of crisis is when you have to choose. The moment you realize self-pity you have to make a conscious choice to be where you ought to be. Make choices based on your thinking not on your feelings because that’s what God wants you to do. It is dangerous for thinking to follow emotions.
 
Moses: Numb. 11:15: And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.
 
Moses was praying. Jonah was also praying. Prayer is not the answer.
 
Phil. 4;6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Ph'p:4:7: And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
 
You’re talking to a loving God who wants nothing from you but you. What do you think you have that God didn’t give you? He made it all and all is His. Not to be thankful is heathen.
 
You talk to God and he talks to you through His Word. Prayer activates the doctrine that is in your inner man. You can be thankful that you are saved and who you are in Christ. Make the choice applying the doctrine. Get outside of yourself. Give yourself to God and to serve somebody. Surrendering to Jesus won’t do it. If you pray with thanksgiving the prayer will help you because that’s what God says to do. Rom; 12:1 will give you joy and peace.
 
Rom. 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
 
Three steps when depressed
1. Face it as sin.
2. Take it to Calvary
3. Thank God in every experience that produces the self-pity. Thank Him for your identification in Christ, for what He has done for you, for His suffering and that you are a conqueror.
 
Eph. 4:22-24 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
Eph:4:23: And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
Eph:4:24: And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
 
II Cor. 4:16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
 
Every time you repeat the process, you have victory.
 
Have a plan of action. When King Saul was depressed he called for David to play music (I Sam. 16). You may also need a prop. Have a plan. I think of my grandchildren, Emily and the twins. Repeat the process and have some things to consciously to give thanks for. Let the Holy Spirit control you that way.
 
There are degrees of discouragement and despondency, some serious and severe. It is better to stop it early. How to stop it? Give thanks. Walk in the spirit and you won’t be depressed long.
 
Gal. 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
 
Gal. 5:22: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal. 5:23: Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
 
Those are the emotions that the Spirit works to produce in your life.
Whatever you depend on for a purpose and meaning in life controls you. Drugs, alcohol, money, status, religion. How can a little pill control you?
 
Chinese proverb: Man takes drink. Drink takes drink. Drink takes man. That’s how sin works. You depend on a pill to give you relief or happiness or numb your mind and to give you what you’re looking for. You depend on your job to give you status and happiness.
 
How would God get control of your life? The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit tells us things that have been given to us.
 
1 Cor. 2:12: Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
 
If I take God’s Word where I take the counsel of God’s Spirit who tells me what I need to know, I have saved $150.00 by not going to a psychiatrist. You can depend by faith in what the Holy Spirit has done and put your dependence in His sufficiency of what God has done in Christ. It’s the gift of God’s grace to you. Depend on that. That begins to control your life.
 
Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
 
John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

How to help others 

Sooner or later everyone gets depressed. For some it is transitory and for others it is a way of life. Even great characters in the Bible got depressed. Depression is not uncommon. 

I Cor. 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

You are not being singled out. Life is life. You have to live with real expectations. We don’t get our doctrine out of experiences but out of the Word of God rightly divided. Truth will confirm itself in your experience. Error will deceive.

Jeremiah, a man of God, has been known as the “weeping prophet.” 

Matt. 16:15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? that am I? 

Jeremiah was associated with the coming of Messiah in the mind of Israel. He saw his nation in apostasy. He was told not to pray for the nation because judgment was coming. No mercy. He delivered God’s Word to Israel and they didn’t like it. He weeps for them because of their rebellion. 

Jer. 15:10  Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.

Jer:15:17: I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation.

Jer:15:18: Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?

This is self-pity. He feels helpless and hopeless. He’s in the depths of depression. The Lord understands when His people go into depression. 

Jer:15:19: Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.

Jer:15:20: And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD.

Jer:15:21: And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.

Jer:15:16: Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.

There was no chastisement for his depression. Jeremiah had come to the extremity of his abilities.  Jeremiah’s hope was in God’s Word (verse 16). He had the thinking process of whom God had made him and he rejoices when He thinks of “Thy Word.”

Depression is unnecessary and is conquerable. You don’t have to live in depression. When it comes you can conquer it. Depression comes from our thinking patterns from our mental attitude toward the pressures of life. There is victory in our life over the tyranny of emotional revolt that leads down to depression. That victory is in a thinking process. You can reduce the formula for depression down to bad thinking. You have to get the error out of your thinking.

The two antitheses of Grace are unrealistic expectations and misplaced dependencies.

Realists’ expectations: to understand who you are and to live in the reality of God’s grace to you in Christ. You have real expectations because you understand what God is really doing and are not trying to talk God into something He isn’t doing. 

When you’re not depending on your performance or on others’ performance you have grace thinking. When you depend on your own sufficiency you are “walking in unbelief.” 

When the problem comes to you the question is not, “Is it right or wrong for it to happen to you” but, “What are you going to do about it?” You can respond by disappointment (the emotional motivators are fear and anger) and if you respond with erroneous thinking the result will be self-pity.

 Injury, insult, rejection plus anger multiplied by self-pity equals despair and depression without exception. You can take out the incidences and remember them and get more self-pity. Emotions rely on the thinking. The main factor in every depression, the key factor is always self-pity. What you can change is the erroneous thinking and replace it with thanksgiving. “In all things give thanks.” In the injury, in the insult.  A lot of times you have to do it by faith. Life is much tougher than most evangelicals try to make you think.

 You don’t thank God FOR those things but IN those things. How? By turning away from yourself and looking to God as to whom He has made you in Christ.

Thinking of self, your emotions will take over. When you think of whom God has made you in Christ your rejoicing will take over. That has everlasting value in spite of circumstances. Depression is not a cloud you have to live under. You can choose resentment and self-pity that leads to depression and tyranny of emotions or do what Colossians 2:11 so eloquently says:

Col. 1:11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

Depressed people need your help. How to help them?

They have erratic withdrawal behavior. They are irritable and rebuff you when they need you the most. Walk in love with them.

1.     Be there no matter how much they resist. They need you, not to talk or preach, just your physical presence.  They need to know they are not all by themselves, loveless and rejected. 

2.     Don’t sympathize with them. Self-pity is what got them where they are.

3.     Project hope. They don’t see a solution. Remind them of Christ, who they are. Just a little beginning of hope.

4.     Be encouraging. Don’t argue.

5.     Get them to thinking of something beside themselves.

6.     Try to encourage them to do some activity.

7.     Don’t be too cheerful. (heavy heart – Prov.25:20)

8.     Get them into the Word of God. It’s the Word of God that gives the answer: reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. You need to understand the doctrine. And work out of that. The real source of depression is unbelief. The real problem is that they are trusting themselves instead of Christ. Change what they are doing now to something else.

9.     Pray with them with a thankful spirit focussing on who they are in Christ. “God loves you and wants the best for you.” Pray audibly.

10. Spend time with them with patience and endurance. It takes time and involvement of your life. “Be there when they need you to be.” Live the Grace life. 

Dispensational Bible Study: follow Paul as he followed Christ (I Cor. 11:1).

Eph. 5:1 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;

Eph:5:2: And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

Walk in God’s love to you so that the love of Christ constrains you.

 II Cor. 5:14 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

2Co:5:15: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

We know that we are unconditionally accepted and loved and are empowered by Him to love others. Walk in that love to them. When you understand His love for you, then you can walk in love to others. No one needs that love more than a depressed person. Human nature is to push you away. You have to have sound thinking in your life.

II Tim 1:7 

Col. 2:9

Col. 2:10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

Rom. 8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

II Cor. 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:

II peter all things

You have all the fulness of God. Live out of the knowledge of God’s love in the completeness and sufficiency of God’s grace and what He has provided for you. Live out of the sufficiency of the Word of God and the truthfulness of God’s Word.

John 17:17: Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

II Tim. 3:16  All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

2 Tim:3:17: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

You don’t psychology, or psychotherapy, or theology or the advice of the world. The sufficiency of God’s word is enough. Accept God’s Word as a way of thinking.

John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Error binds you under emotional tyranny. So replace error with truth. You will have victory. Emotions can even replace God’s Word. 

What RJ preaches:

1.     The absolute sufficiency of God’s Word. That’s why the Bible version is an issue.

2.     The absolute complete sufficiency of God’s grace. The clarity of God’s grace is an issue.

You need to cultivate proper Christian attitudes and have a teachable spirit and to serve others, depending on Christ. (The three Cs: criticize, condemn, and complain.)

You need to depend on God to give the result. Trust Him to help people through you.

Rom. 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Paul was not ashamed of the gospel and had confidence in the Word of God.

 You need a non-judgmental attitude that desires to restore people. God’s grace and love work  in our lives. Study, develop a skill to handle the Word of God. Use milk but let meat be available in the care of their good. Make conscious effort to be available. The key is:

I Thes. 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

The first time you see Caleb he is under Moses’ leadership and is 40 years old. He was chosen to go into the Promised Land to spy out the land with Joshua and ten others. It seemed to Caleb and Joshua to be no big deal to take the enemy. The next time you see him is when he is under the leadership of Joshua. At the age of 85 he is active in recovering land. There were only two survivors of the wilderness experience under Moses, Joshua and Caleb.

Josh. 14:9 And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God.

Caleb had an optimistic spirit. He was as able-bodied as he had been at the age of 40. He lived in the consciousness of God’s sufficiency.

Numb. 14:24 And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God.

Jos:14:10: And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old.

Jos:14:11: As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.

Jos:14:12: Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said.

The spirit of faith is available to you as well as to Caleb. If you learn to understand God has made you, you will never feel defeated. The choice is up to you. You will be available to help others. They will see the spirit of faith living in you and then they know it can live in them..

You can be what others need you to be. Walk in Christ.