Category: God

“Fear of the Future and Spiritual Depression”

Dawn Breaks by Eugene Kurenkov
There are times in life when a person, though mentally fit, experiences a nameless unhappiness in the soul.  It is the same condition reflected in the Psalmist’s lament, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?” 1 This affliction touches many, including Christians, and it is a state that leads to spiritual depression. 

One of the causes of spiritual depression is fear of the future.  This was a peculiar problem of one young man in the New Testament named Timothy.  He was dependent on the Apostle Paul, and fears arose with the impending perils that his mentor was facing.  Alongside was a fear of failure in the seemingly daunting tasks that lay ahead of him while Paul was in prison.

Paul addressed Timothy’s fear with a two-step approach:  a reprimand and a reminder. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7

Paul reprimands Timothy for being gripped by the spirit of fear: a spirit which does not come from God.  If we suffer from this manifestation of spiritual depression, it is due to our inability as Christians to realize what God has given us and is giving us — the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is being negligent to stir up ourselves, to think, to take ourselves in hand.

What then, has God given us?  First in the list is the spirit of power. Victorious, miraculous power in living the Christian life, in battling with temptation and sin, “a power to go on whatever the conditions, whatever the circumstances, power to hold on and to hold out”. 2 

Next, Paul mentions the spirit of love. One of the root causes of the problem is that fearful people are too involved in self. The way to rid of self is to be so absorbed in someone or something else, leaving no room for thinking about oneself.  The spirit of love.

Lastly, God has given us the spirit of a sound mind.  In spite of our natural weaknesses, God has given us, for us to appropriate, the spirit of self-control, discipline and judgment.

As Christians, we do not live on and by ourselves. Through God’s marvelous work of salvation, He has implanted within us a principle of a divine spiritual life through Jesus Christ. We need to “stir up the gift”, reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ. And casting fear aside, let us move steadily forward in life, giving glory to the One Who gave His all for us.

Reference:
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure, Great Britain: Pickering and Inglis, Ltd, 1977, pp. 92-105

Footnotes:
1  Psalm 45:3, ESV
2 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure, Great Britain: Pickering and Inglis, Ltd, 1977, p.  102

Photography Credit: Dawn Breaks by Eugene Kurenkov

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“Light In Our Dwellings”

Night Cabin by Andrey Golubev
Melodies kindled by hearth fires:
the refrigerator murmurs like a cello
in concert with the clanging cymbals of platters,
the violin strings of scarlet wine,
the oboe winds that scatter the leftover
crumbs of bread —

Supper flames are quenched,
night deepens towards the precipice of dawn,
outside the window
the eyelids of frozen branches close,
await the feeble warmth of winter morning.

Foxes have holes,
the graceful gazelle runs homeward
to the ebony forest,
egrets fly to their nests in the fir trees,
the mountain goats climb to their high places.

Praise, praise,
for the laughter of light in our dwellings,
the crimson fire of corpuscles pulsating
with the pendulum of time —

Praise, praise to Thee,
O Giver of Light and Life,
O Source of Strength and Joy.

D. G. Vachal © 2014

*** Photography Credit: “Night Cabin” by Andrey Golubev

“To Be Of God”

The Sun Also Rises by Melanie Wells
In a poem “Au Lecteur  (To the Reader)”  by Charles Baudelaire, a preface to his collection of poems entitled “Les Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil)”,  the French poet presents a pessimistic view of humanity’s condition, envisioning a world of hypocrisy, death, sin, boredom, and utter decay, watched over and promoted by Satan himself. This view mirrors the Bible’s perspective of the heart and nature of  mankind without God, as well as the existence of evil, which aims to defeat God’s good and loving purposes in human lives.

The Apostle John writes to Christians at Ephesus to assure them of eternal life through their faith in Christ, emphasizing that they are “of God” while the whole world ” lies in the power of the evil one.”

John portrays the world as under the influence of Satan, an evil power reigning over all its aspects. Satan is diametrically opposed to God, and his ultimate objective is to turn us away from the Creator, using all kinds of maneuvers to disrupt our relationship and fellowship with Him. “The world” is anything that would try to deceive us to feel satisfied without our need for God.

To be “of God” is in complete contrast to the state of the world, and the Apostle seems to imply that it is the only possible dichotomy.  It means that Christians have been taken out of the clutches of the evil forces of Satan’s army. We are initially born into this world under the dominion of sin and darkness, but through the atoning sacrifice of God’s Son at Calvary, we are delivered and brought into God’s marvelous light.

In a positive sense, it implies that we belong to God, His realm, and His Kingdom. Our sins have been forgiven, and we have entered into an entirely new relationship with God, being reconciled to Him through Christ. We are no longer controlled by the evil one, but are under the direction of God and His Spirit, with outward manifestations in our lives.

How then, shall one distinguish between one who is “of God” and one who is not? The great St. Augustine said that the first test of the Christian life, and the second, and the third, is humility.  It is to be like Christ, who, though He was equal with God, thought it not something to be grasped at. He humbled himself to be born into this world like one of us. Humility, then, is the litmus test because the worldly spirit is the very antithesis of it, where pride, arrogance and self-confidence are highly prized, promoted, and encouraged.

To be “of God” means that we are destined for God, to spend eternity with Him. And because of this assurance, we are filled with a sense of awe and wonder at the manner of love that our Heavenly Father has towards us — that we should be called children of God.

Scripture Reference:

“We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”  I John 5:19 (New American Standard Bible)

References:

Charles Baudelaire,  “Au Lecteur / To the Reader” in “Fleurs du Mal / Flowers of Evil”, Paris, 1857.  Available at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6099

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Life in Christ, Studies in I John”, Crossway:Wheaton, Illinois, 2002, pp. 691-712

Photography:  “The Sun Also Rises” by Melanie Wells