Spiritual Answers to Depression and Discouragement cont.

Last time I encouraged you to begin to think of and view yourself as God does.

Consider what God says about your reason for living. Why did He create you? Search the Scriptures and make a list of the reasons God says He made you.

Remind yourself daily of your spiritual identity. The book of Ephesians gives you great truth about who you are in Christ. Examine the book in depth, especially the first three chapters. Take notes, use various translations, and look up words you don’t know or understand in a concordance.

I also listed some common terms that are used to describe issues people tend to have that struggle with depression and discouragement. I have the world’s term first that you may recognize, along side the biblical term. Here are a few more for you to think about:

• Grudge—refusal to forgive
• In denial—self-deceived; deceitful heart
• Insecure—fearful
• Mistake—sin
• Need—desire
• Self-esteem—self-love, lover of self
• Self-pity—resentful; discontented; self-centered

The reason I gave you these lists is because of how important it is that you recognize the impact what you believe has on how you feel! When you begin to adopt biblical thinking and practice it in your behavior, you will see changes in your feelings. On the other hand, when someone labels you with “depressive disorder,” you become saddled with a medical diagnosis code, which in the medical realm may mean you have an illness from which you will never recover. You are now a victim of an illness. There is no victory there.

When behavior is labeled as a disease, it means you have a problem that cannot be fixed, which takes away all hope. You are led to believe that you will have “depressive disorder” for the rest of your life, even if you never have another depressive episode.

When you define depression the way the Bible defines it—“sorrow” and “despair”—this describes feelings and sinful behavior for which Christ died! There is a lot of hope there! A behavior can be stopped and avoided because it is a choice. The choice begins with the desires of the heart.

Christ didn’t die for “depressive disorder”—he died to give us victory over the flesh that drives us to be sinful in our thoughts and desires. He didn’t die for diseases; he died for sins. I pray this brings you tremendous hope!