Hope Through the Encouragement of the Scriptures

I need to hide more of God's word in my heart, and I need to keep training myself to call it up when I'm tempted to depression and negative thinking.There is always some kind of dialogue running in the background of my mind, and left to itself it without fail becomes of the negative sort. "I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you" (Psalm 119:11).

Those negative thoughts of pessimism (inarticulated though they may be) are a direct affront to God's generous nature (Romans 8:32, 2 Peter 1:3), to the kindness he has shown me in Christ (Titus 3:4-7), to the promises he has made of a future with him and the hope of heaven (Romans 8:18-24). That's why to succumb to depression and gloom is so often, for the Christian, actually a sin against God--it amounts to unbelief in what he has said and promised! We feel like it's all about us, but what's at stake is our lives lived to glorify and honor him by believing him. He has prescribed his truth, standing outside of ourselves, as the antidote to fear and self-absorption. Let's not neglect the Scriptures. "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Romans 15:4).

Must Christians Always Experience Joy? Part Two

One way to help in thinking about the Bible's commands to rejoice are the differences between the seasons of rejoicing and weeping we experience as individuals, and the Church's rejoicing.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16, Philippians 3:1 and Philippians 4:4, Paul exhorts the church to rejoice. The command is plural; it is the duty of the whole body of Christ to always rejoice in the Lord. The basis for this corporate rejoicing of course, just as for individuals in the church, is the grace and hope brought to us through the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Church, as the body of Christ, is meant to keep these truths always central and prominent to guide her pilgrim journey on the earth.

But as individual members of Christ's body and of one another ( Romans 12:5, 1 Corinthians 12:27), the Bible recognizes we will not always be rejoicing (Romans 12:15). Sometimes as individual members we'll bear a heavy load (Galatians 6:2). Sometimes as individual members we'll suffer and feel no cheer (James 5:13).

Notice that the response to those who weep and have no cheer is not a pep talk, necessarily, but to be with them in their distress. Those who suffer remain joined to the Church's continued rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2), yet the Bible tells those who are able to to turn and weep right along with those who weep, even as with the whole body they continue on, rejoicing in hope.

It's an antimony, to be sure, how a real acknowledgment of the suffering and cheerlessness of individuals goes right along with rejoicing in hope. We don't always see the Church acting in her assigned role of rejoicing in hope even as she's turning to weep with those who weep. Our wrong understanding of what biblical rejoicing is based on keeps us from being able to do this well, perhaps. The point of my post from yesterday (that I maybe didn't make so well) is that the Scriptures make room for individual members of Christ's body to have seasons of difficulty in which they may not experience feelings of joy; and that the biblical response of the always-rejoicing-in-hope Church is to weep right along with them.

If the body of Christ, filled with the Spirit and with the words of Christ (Ephesians 5:18 and Colossians 3:16), continues faithfully in rejoicing in hope and in weeping with those who weep, then sufferers will be helped and encouraged to rejoice in hope as well.

Must Christians Always Experience Joy?

I came across a great book, "Good News for Anxious Christians: 10 Practical Things You Don't Have To Do" (love the title) by Phillip Cary. I ordered the book after reading this review, in hopes it would prove useful in counseling and in helping women to think soberly about such things as "how to know God's will." I'm sure it will prove useful in those ways, but thankfully, it's already proven very helpful to me, particularly the chapter entitled "Why You Don't Always Have to Experience Joy."

I needed to read these words, and be reminded of this truth, and see a few things in a new way. The kind of joy we like to tell each other we "ought" to feel has been a sort of rare commodity for me these days. More of "the silly grin" has definitely been wiped off my face. :)← (Yet look, there it is again, trying to make its appearance.) ☺ (Oh stop it!) You see what I mean. We often think that the joy the Bible calls us to is a perpetual bubbly (or wisecracking or giddy) façade. Yet this can be a disheartening way to think. The real truth of the matter is much better, and much more satisfying.


Here are a few quotes from this chapter of the book so you can get a taste of it yourself. These words are good news to the suffering, the depressed and the afflicted, because their context is the gospel of Jesus. The good news, our hope, resides in what Christ has done on our behalf, not in what we can manage to drum up on our own. By all means read the review I linked to above, and order a copy here. You won't go wrong with this book.

"The idea that Christians are supposed to have a deep inner joy all the time is a terribly cruel notion. The idea itself is what's cruel: it turns people who wish to comfort the afflicted into tormentors. They want to help their suffering friends get the joy back, but in the process they insist their friends accept the underlying idea that it's not normal for the Christian life to include deep suffering of heart. So in addition to their suffering, their friends are wounded by the suggestion that their affliction is due to some failure in their Christian life--as if there's something wrong with Christians who have a cross to bear" (p. 139).

"The Bible makes time for this dark night, because it teaches that hope is a kind of waiting (see, for example, Psalm 25:3, 5, 21; Psalm 27:14; Psalm 37:7; Psalm 40:1; Psalm 130:6). Often it's a very active kind of waiting, full of labors like rebuilding a city in a land full of enemies (see Nehemiah 4:1-23). But it may also be a passive kind of waiting that includes suffering, a longing that arises in the midst of great affliction, where the only activity available to you is prayer, complaining to God. In the Bible, complaining to the only one who can rescue you is an act of hope. This is why complaint is one of the most important forms or genres of prayer, as in the many Psalms that cry out, "How long, O Lord?"... To pray these psalms of complaint is to realize that waiting in hope does not mean being content with suffering, as if there were something good about being in pain. But neither does it mean there's something wrong with people who suffer" (p. 141).


"Although we cannot understand all the glory that is to come, we do know [our story] is the kind of story where the happy ending makes the whole story good. We can see that already in the day we call Good Friday. We call it good because of what is revealed in the light of Easter Sunday, when the glorious resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ changed everything in human history forever, including the meaning of the events on Good Friday. Not only the past, but also the future is different, as every cross we bear is different because of the cross of Christ. Our own death is different because of his resurrection from the dead. The whole universe is different because this man, who is God in the flesh, sits now at the right hand of God the Father at the center of the angels' unbroken hymns of praise. Everything in the world is already different, hiding a glory that is to be revealed when the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven" (p.155).

Why We Need the Puritans

Why should those seeking to develop a truly biblical counseling approach give special consideration to the Puritans? Because they were the first Protestant school of Biblical Counseling.

J. I. Packer, who is most conversant with the writings of these men, puts it well:

". . . the Puritans . . . were strongest just where evangelical Christians today are weakest . . . Here were men of outstanding intellectual power, in whom the mental habits fostered by sober scholarship were linked with a flaming zeal for God and a minute acquaintance with the human heart."

Today’s biblical scholars don’t understand the human heart, Packer says, while our counselors don’t know the Scripture. But the Puritans were an entire generation of men who combined these two strengths. He goes on:

"The hollowness of our vaunted biblicism becomes apparent as again and again we put asunder things God has joined . . . we preach the gospel without the law, and faith without repentance . .. in dealing with the Christian experience we dwell constantly on joy, peace, happiness, satisfaction, and rest of soul with no balancing reference of the divine discontent of Romans 7, the fight of the faith of Psalm 73, or any of the burdens of responsibility and providential chastenings that fall to the lot of the child of God. . . they consult their pastor, and he perhaps has no better remedy than to refer them to a psychiatrist! Truly, we need help, and the Puritan tradition can give it."

(excerpt from an article by Tim Keller; read the rest here)

Feelings Follow Behavior

Wow. Here's a truth that needs to be promoted with all seriousness in our churches. Psychology has introduced us to a failed model of therapeutic "truth" that has even permeated the church. But David M. Tyler in his book God's Funeral argues that ungodliness (idolatry) leads to unrighteousness (wrong behavior) and thus is the cause of much of our mental sufferings:

"'Feelings follow behavior' is a principle found first in Genesis 3 and throughout the whole Bible.

"The Bible teaches that there is a relationship between behavior and feelings. Ungodliness leads to unrighteousness which leads to guilt, depression, anxiety, fear, shame, etc. After they had eaten of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve fled from the presence of God because they were "afraid" (Genesis 3:10). When God rejected Cain's offering he became angry and depressed. God asked Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?' God said to Cain, 'If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?' (Genesis 4:6-7). If Cain would change his behavior his feelings would change. God's rhetorical question to Cain sets forth the important principle that behavior determines feelings."

I'm convinced that this principle holds true for kiddies as well as their mommas and daddies.

The Futility of Regret

I came across this essay by A.W. Tozer on Paul Martin's blog, and posted it here for my own benefit and enjoyment. Hope it's of help to you too.

The human heart is heretical by nature. Popular religious beliefs should be checked carefully against the word of God, for they are almost certain to be wrong.

Legalism, for instance, is natural to the human heart. Grace in its true New Testament meaning is foreign to human reason, not because it is contrary to reason but because it lies beyond it. The doctrine of grace had to be revealed; it could not have been discovered.

The essence of legalism is self-atonement. The seeker tries to make himself acceptable to God by some act of restitution, or by self-punishment or the feeling of regret. The desire to be pleasing to God by self-effort is not, for it assumes that sin once done may be undone, an assumption wholly false.

Long after we have learned from the scriptures that we cannot by fasting, or the wearing of a hair shirt or the making of many prayers atone for the sins of the soul, we still tend by a kind of pernicious natural heresy to feel that we can please God, and purify our souls, by the penance of perpetual regret.

This latter is the Protestant's unacknowledged penance. Though he claims to believe in the doctrine of justification by faith, he still secretly feels that what he calls "godly sorrow" will make him dear to God. Though he may know better, he is caught in the web of a wrong religious feeling and betrayed.

There is indeed a godly sorrow that worketh repentance, and it must be acknowledged that among us Christians this feeling is often not present in sufficient strength to work real repentance; but the persistence of this sorrow till it becomes chronic regret is neither right nor good. Regret is a kind of frustrated repentance that has not been quite comsummated. Once the soul has turned from all sin and committed itself wholly to God there is no longer any legitimate place for regret. When moral innocence has been restored by the forgiving love of God the guilt may be remembered, but the sting is gone from the memory. The forgiven man knows that he has sinned, but he no longer feels it.

The effort to be forgiven by works is one that can never be completed because no one knows or can know how much is enough to cancel out the offence; so the seeker must go on year after year paying on his moral debt, here a little, there a little, knowing that he sometimes adds to his bill much more than he pays. The task of keeping books on such transaction can never end, and the seeker can only hope that when the last entry is made he may be ahead and the account fully paid. This is quite the popular belief, this forgiveness by self-effort but it is natural heresy and can at last only betray those who depend upon it.

It may be argued that the absence of regret indicates a low and inadequate view of sin, but the exact opposite is true. Sin is frightful, so destructive to the soul that no human thought or act can in any degree diminish its lethal effects. Only God can deal with it successfully; only the blood of Christ can cleanse it from the pores or the spirit. The heart that has been delivered from this dread enemy feels not regret but wondrous relief and unceasing gratitude.

The returned prodigal honors his father more by rejoicing than by repining. Had the young man in the story had less faith in his father he might have mourned in a corner instead of joining in the festivities. His confidence in the loving-kindness of his father gave him the courage to forget his checkered past.

Regret frets the soul as tension frets the nerves and anxiety the mind. I believe that the chronic unhappiness of most Christians may be attributed to a gnawing uneasiness lest God had not fully forgiven them, or the fear that He expects as the price of His forgiveness some sort of emotional penance which they have not yet furnished. As our confidence in the goodness of God mounts our anxieties will diminish and our moral happiness rise in inverse proportion.

Regret may be more a form of self-love. A man may have such a high regard for himself that any failure to live up to his own image of himself disappoints him deeply. He feels that he has betrayed his better self by his act of wrongdoing, and even if God is willing to forgive him he will not forgive himself. Sin brings to such a man a painful loss of face that is not soon forgotten. He becomes permanently angry with himself by going to God frequently with petulant self-accusations. This state of mind crystallizes finally into a feeling of chronic regret which appears to be proof of deep penitence, but is actually proof of deep self-love.

Regret for a sinful past will remain until we truly believe that for us in Christ that sinful past no longer exists. The man in Christ has only Christ's past, and that is perfect and acceptable to God. In Christ He died, in Christ he rose, and in Christ he is seated within the circle of God's favored ones. He is no longer angry with himself because he is no longer self-regarding, but Christ-regarding; hence there is no place for regret.

Piper on Mental Health

"While I was a student at Wheaton College, a very wise and deep and happy teacher of literature, Clyde Kilby, showed us and taught us this path to health. Once he said, 'I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.'

"He had learned the deep significance of this outward-oriented self-forgetfulness from C.S. Lewis and drew our attention to it often. Mental health is, in great measure, the gift of self-forgetfulness. The reason is that introspection destroys what matters most to us--the authentic experience of great things outside ourselves."


from "The Clouds Ye So Much Dread Are Big With Mercy--Insanity and Spiritual Songs in the Life of William Cowper", The Hidden Smile of God by John Piper, pg. 112

Photo by Nelson~Blue

Giving Us Words to Express Experience

God's word, among all the other benefits it gives us, gives us this one: a language to talk in, a framework to give voice to our experience as Christians. Work in biblical counseling has helped me understand this even more.

Truly the Bible is sufficient. It provides every description of the way of God we need to know, interacting and intersecting with our own desperate human condition. I was trying to articulate what my former neglect in pursuing holiness has to do with my resoluteness now to declare His truth to all generations. 1 Timothy 1:16-17 gave me the language to say it in this morning: "But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost (of sinners) Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life. To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."

No Lightning Bolts

From Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands by Paul David Tripp:

"...Growth in grace doesn't come by lightning bolts and magical encounters but by humble, honest, obedient, and practical application of God's Word to the specifics of everyday experience. In sanctification God calls his children to follow, stand fast, forsake, trust, put off and put on, run, obey, put to death, study, flee, and resist."




Photo by Spodzone

A Simple Tool

Now reading Mark Shaw's excellent book "The Heart of Addiction (A Biblical Perspective)." Don't think being a teetotaler makes a book like this irrelevant to your life... we are all latent pleasure-abusers, because all of us have the same sin problem. This book is about the heart of addiction... the temptation we face daily to be "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" (2 Timothy 3:4).

Mark says, "Here is a simple tool to use the next time you desire to do something sinful but struggle as to whether you really should do it or not. Before you commit the action, bow down on your knees, close your eyes, and pray to God saying these words: 'Lord, I am planning to do ________ right now to your glory. I am going to do this unto You, Father God, because I know it will please You.' If what you are about to do will not fit properly in the blank line above because that action cannot be done to glorify God, then you must not commit the action. Do something in place of that action that does glorify God!"

Great advice for all of us. Applied honestly to the places we plan to go, the t.v. shows we plan to watch, and the things we plan to say, we'll find ourselves making much headway in godliness. I'm working to make it a habit to remember to use this.

(Photo by Pirate Johnny)