Depressed Christians?

Can a mature believer experience depression?

When you recognize that depression is basically due to self-loathing and guilt over an increasingly acute sense of our extreme failure to trust God, yes depression can be and often is a part of the maturing Christians experience, possibly even in greater degrees as we mature because we become increasingly aware of how weak and untrusting of God we can be.

And that is because we are all extreme failures (Rom 3:23. For a fuller discussion click here and here) in trusting God totally.  This is in the godly sense not necessarily in the worldly sense i.e. not necessarily in the eyes of others (by world standards, we may be a great "success") but compared to God's original intended design, we are far from it. 

When we recognize we were in fact created to know God, enjoy him, and show forth his glory, reflecting his love back to him, spreading his love and greatness to other fellow image-bearers as well as all creation (i.e. stewarding the planet) and the scope and significance of this - when none of us even come close to meeting the mark - we began to see the extent of our failure. Who among the most mature of us can say we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves 24/7? Certainly not me. This awareness increases the more we know God and see our true condition more clearly.

Without the love of God moving us to show forth his glory we are all about ourselves; about self-promotion; being our own god. The very same disposition that Adam and Eve bought into and adopted. In short, we are totally incapable of fulfilling our design unaided... and were never intended to do so. Only by the life and love of God infused in us by His Spirit can we bring forth true, lasting life again (though we can bring temporary life to others and do daily).  

And what was God's warning? The day you seek to operate independently of me - to be your own god - you will die. Die? In what sense did we die? We rejected God, the source of life itself. We "unplugged" from the life source if you will. Our connection with the life and Spirit of God was immediately severed, eventually leading to our physical death. And from that day until now we have not sought to return to the source of life but have been desperately seeking to replace what we lost (God) by being our own god i.e. through self-effort...using creation - internally and externally - as a means. 

However, as God is diffusive (overflowing and out-flowing), we were designed to be diffusive, with one key difference. God is the source of life (Jn 17:3), we are the conduits through which his life flows. First from Him, reflected back to him from the Son, in, by, and through the Spirit, then out to others. If we cut ourselves off from the "life source" we can not and will not spread his love and glory as we were created to. We are empty of the love and life of God. It's simply no longer there to be diffused. We are takers without His love, not the givers we were originally designed to be.

So what then happens to us, as we become more and more *aware of our total spiritual bankruptcy? We feel guilty. And not just because it's some vague sense of self-imposed punishment, but because we are in fact guilty. We do not do what we were designed to do i.e. love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbors as ourselves. This indeed is to greatest and most challenging order (greatest commandment) God gives us. 

 

So as maturing believers, we now battle. We battle with an increasing awareness of the depth of our brokenness hopefully, along with an increasing and matching awareness of the love of God for us as his broken but redeemed, adopted, and perfectly cherished children.  

The irony is our increasing awareness of being perfectly loved because of Christ, allows us to be increasingly honest with how unlovely we truly are. We know God does not and will not reject us due to our brokenness because Christ took our deserved rejection/ banishment and condemnation for us. And this work by him on our behalf is infinitely greater in depth and width than our brokenness (Rom 5:20). Thanks to Christ and his willingly giving himself up to restore us back to our original design.

So we struggle between growing awareness of God's perfect and infinite love and our total and complete desire to operate outside of this love i.e. our rejection of it and embracing self-love in various forms.

I propose that the awareness of our true guilt and any subsequent depression is an opportunity and possibly even a call by God to dig deeper into who Christ is, what he did, and why he did it. It is an opportunity to look hard at the extent of his work on our behalf and come to rejoice in it more and more. Our depression forces us to go back time and again and drink from an infinite, never-ending fountain of God's love and forgiveness. And thanks be to God, his is the final word; our brokenness is not.  

Who are some believers who have admitted to struggles with depression? King David, ("why are you cast down oh my soul..."),  Job, Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Paul the apostle, Martin Luther. Charles Spurgeon, Henri Nouwen, John Piper to name some better-known believers. All of these great men of faith spoke of struggling with depression.

"For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him, we have set our hope that he will deliver us again." 2Co 1:8-10

"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested click here in our bodies. 

For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh...

...So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."  2Co 4:8-11, 16-18  

For a discussion on healing trauma click here. 

For a discussion on whether pain is normal or just common click here. 

For a discussion on the greater our sin the greater God's grace click here. 

For a discussion on how we have God fully but not all of Him yet click here. 

For a discussion on the difference between good and bad guilt click here. 

For a discussion on how we can experience more of God's love through our suffering click here. 
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*An increasing and deeper awareness of our rebellious independence from God is actually a sign of increasing maturity. 

Competence – good or bad?

Is competence good or bad? It depends. 

Generally, it is defined as possessing the required skill, knowledge, qualification, or capacity to complete a task well. By this definition, it would be good.

But if competence is the basis from which we derive our sense of value/importance/meaning, it comes from a broken place; a place of emptiness/need.

If it is the fruit of knowing we are already valued/loved by God, it comes from a place of fullness/wholeness; it comes as a love response to God's love for us, i.e. its origin is God himself - he is the driving force, the "power supply" and impetus behind our applied skills and is therefore good.

Most of what society considers good is actually the fruit of rebellious independence from God. It is an attempt at making life work without God; at being our own god - to generate meaning/purpose/significance by and through our independent efforts i.e. efforts not driven by God's love but our seeking to feel important. It is operating in the flesh vs the Spirit; to get, not to give. 

Every action driven by the need to feel important/significant/valuable is an action of rebellious independence from God. It may be valuable to society and culture, but it does not bring honor to God and is therefore not of eternal/lasting value.

Every action driven out of a sense of importance/ significance/value derived through our relationship with God is an act of dependence on God. It is an act in response to God's love for us, i.e. God is the source of the power behind the action. His love is what moves us to act. We are acquiring our significance from God, and therefore do not need to obtain it outside of Him.  

Acts of rebellious independence bring honor to ourselves. Therefore, they only have temporary value.

Acts of dependence on God bring honor to him and are of eternal value, for only he is eternal and that which is done for his honor.

For a discussion on the "flip side" of this click here. 

"For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.  If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire..." 

"Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart (i.e. the motive behind our actions). Then each one will receive his commendation from God." 1Co 3:11-15; 4:5

"...who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness..." i.e. hidden motives.

"...The purposes of the heart…"  i.e. motives are the key to valid actions versus actions that are invalid. Things produced from a wrong purpose/motive are invalid actions i.e. have no eternal value and are therefore "burned up."

For a discussion on excellence click here. 

The fallacy of the "prosperity gospel"

You may have heard the expression the "prosperity gospel" or the "health and wealth gospel." But what exactly is it? Is it truly the heart of God's good news? We definitely prosper through the gospel, but in what way? 

The prosperity gospel subtly implies God is not our ultimate pursuit but only a means to another goal of a healthy and wealthy life; a life where our greatest joy is in circumstantial or physical and material comfort/ benefits, not in our relationship with God. 

Tim Keller touches on this in the following quote:

"We tend to see God as a means through which we get things to make us happy. For most of us, He has not become our happiness." - Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc):

This is only "seeking and praising God" for what he ¹gives us, not for who he is, therefore it is not actually seeking God in the truest sense, but created things. God is important only because he is considered the best means by which to obtain something else, i.e. health and wealth. In essence, the prosperity gospel does not truly seek God or seek to honor God but only use him. No one wants to be used in this way.

For these reasons, the "prosperity gospel" is ultimately destructive. Why? It can draw us away from God, not to him. It draws us to a sense of value and meaning in created things, which are temporary, when true meaning and value are only in Him. It is appealing because it caters to our fallen condition i.e. to our desire to be our own god (our bent towards independent self-trust) instead of dependence on the only true God. 

The problem however is not in the prosperity gospel in itself, it is in our hearts. Our hearts, in our present broken condition (even as his children), are naturally inclined to seek life apart from or outside of God. 

If our hearts were truly and fully inclined to God and not to rebellious distrust and independence from God, there would be no prosperity gospel. It would have no appeal.

Only when we find God to be the one and only true satisfier of our heart and the sustainer of life, might he grant us uncommon health and wealth if (and only if) it advances his good purposes in us and the world for his glory. 

This is contingent on two things. 

1. Our gifts/calling and 

2. our heart. 

Not all are gifted to do well in business and only he knows our hearts well enough to know when they are after him and not wealth. We only think we know.

But we must also keep in mind, we are in a broken world, and in this world, we will always have tribulation i.e. trouble (John 16:33), not to mention we will all eventually die. Our joy does not come primarily from God granting us circumstantial bliss and success but that he redeems our brokenness and the brokenness of this world in bondage, for our ultimate good and His greatest glory i.e. he has overcome this broken world by allowing himself to be broken by it and raised back to life. Because he was raised to life, so will we be in him. The ultimate hope of the prosperity promised in the gospel is a life of bliss in God's presence for all eternity - not necessarily in this life.

Once we find God to be our life - not use Him for personal/private gain - our health and wealth is no longer our focus, for we have true life in him now and will experience it fully (i.e. circumstantially) once we are in his once obscured, unfettered presence and totally restored (glorified) in eternity with him.  

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1Cor 13:12(ESV)

"People knew God, but they did not honor him as God, and they did not thank him. 

Their ideas were all useless. There was not one good thought left in their foolish minds. They said they were wise, but they became fools. 

Instead of honoring the divine greatness of God, who lives forever, they traded it for the worship of idols—things made to look like humans, who get sick and die, or like birds, animals, and snakes. 

People wanted only to do evil. So God left them and let them go their sinful way. And so they became completely immoral and used their bodies in shameful ways with each other. 

They traded the truth of God for a lie. They bowed down and worshiped the things God made instead of worshiping the God who made those things. He is the one who should be praised forever. Amen." - Rom 1:21-25

For a discussion on excellence click here

For a discussion on diligence click here

For a discussion on the importance and necessity of sowing click here.

Is competition good or bad? click here

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¹This way of "approaching God" leads to disastrous results. I think it is the reason many walk away from Christianity. In truth, they are not walking away from Christ but from an adulterated version of Christianity called the "property gospel." If you listen to Kanye West's reason for walking away from Christianity, he basically said it was because he asked God to do certain things that He didn't do. When God didn't do them, Kanye decided he could take care of it better than God i.e. basically he decided he is better at being God than God is. This is the very attitude Adam took in the garden and the exact opposite of Paul's response when Paul asked God to remove his thorn three times.

The desiring and pursuit of creation over the Creator is actually at the heart of mankind's problem and why we turned (and turn) away from God.

 

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." - i.e. created things. -  Romans 1:21-23 ESV‬

https://bible.com/bible/59/rom.1.21-23.ESV

The perfect law of liberty

Living out the truth is more instructive than studying the truth.

It is in living it out that we learn it best.

"But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." - Jas 1:25   

For a fuller discussion on the above click here. 

However to properly live out "the law of liberty" we must first properly understand the gospel of grace.

Until we fully understand the grace of God, we assume obedience is performance. We approach God's commandments as if they are hoops to jump through to earn his approval and gain his love, instead of loving directions for us to take part in to experience the fullness of life in him.

True obedience, however, is not to get something from God but to give something to him; the rightful honor and glory due him, i.e. we are to give ourselves in the same way Christ gave himself to us i.e. sacrificially. It is in our giving we receive, i.e. experience his love and empowerment.

True obedience is the fruit of God's love for us, not the cause. It is ¹evidence of our love for God vs a means of gaining or earning God's love.

God already fully poured out his love on us, in and through the life and death of Christ. There is nothing we can do to cause God to love us. It was while we were still sinners he loved us. 

Once we are in Christ, his infinite love is "locked in" and fixed upon us and will ²never be removed from us. He will never love us anymore or less than he already does right now in Christ.

When we fully receive and abide in this love, then and only then will we bear much fruit.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing... As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. John 15:4-5;9  

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¹John 14:14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

This tells us what God does for us when we seek to "do" for Him. God is all about our business when we're all about his.

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 

This tells us what we do for him because of what He did for us.

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,

This tells us what God does for us that empowers us to do for him.

Obedience is the fruit of his love for us and the evidence of our love for him.

John 14:15 

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 

John 14:21
Whoever has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him."

John 14:23
Jesus replied, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our home with him.

John 15:10
If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and remain in His love.

1 John 2:3
By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments.

1 John 5:3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome,

2 John 1:6
And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the very commandment you have heard from the beginning, that you must walk in love.

²Though our everyday experience of his love can be suppressed, i.e. we can grieve and quench the Spirit.

Weakness OR power?

We must be careful not to have an "either-or" mindset when it comes to weakness/humility vs power/effort. To say it another way, humility does not negate the importance of excellence in execution. It only addresses the disposition (motive) with which execution is carried out. 

Excellence in execution should always be how we seek to honor -- bring glory to -- God. In fact, it is a significant part of how we do so. 

Many Christians exercise false humility as an excuse to not pursue excellence. As a result, many things "Christian" are often of inferior quality. I know, because I used to think this way. I took the attitude, "God loves me no matter what, so the quality of my work or the diligence of my effort doesn't matter." In one sense, this is true. As far as God's love for us, it does not matter. His love is based on the work of Christ, not ours. But as far as our flourishing and participating in and experiencing all that God has for us, all he designed us to be and accomplish, and bringing him the greatest glory possible, it totally matters. 

How can doing things with less than excellence be more honoring to God than things executed excellently? They can not. God is the overflowing God and author of excellence, beauty, majesty, bounty, love etc. 

How many times have we heard (or felt) regarding a "Christian" enterprise - such as a movie or song - that this is a "typical"  Christian production i.e. implying it is inferior -- not in substance/content of the message, but in presentation or form -- compared to what nonbelievers produce?

This has not always been the case. Think of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach or Michelangelo or the quality of education provided by some of the earliest higher learning institutions, such as Harvard and Yale. These were all the fruit of a desire to honor God through the diligent use of God's gifts to produce something excellent for his glory. 

Paul gives us an example of how we are to go about things. 

Col 1:29  For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. 

We are also told that whether we eat, drink or whatever we do, do all to the glory of God 1Co 10:31. This suggests we act not just with the intent of pointing others to him but with the degree of effort necessary to produce the best possible result/outcome for his honor. Loving God with all our strength (energy, effort) is part of the greatest commandment, is it not? This says great effort driven by a desire to honor God is superior to efforts seeking to exalt self i.e. God is superior to self.

If we have to choose between operating with humility and operating with excellence the former is always the better choice. No amount of excellence in itself will bring the greatest honor to God -- at least not deliberately i.e. it is not the intent of the producer. But if we can operate with both humility (1st) and excellence as a fruit of humility, that is the preferred option and should always be our ultimate desire and goal.

For a further discussion on the importance of excellence click here. 

For a further discussion on how a great outcome is in proportion to great effort click here. 

Tension - a mark of maturity

Maturity is marked by a tension of an increasing awareness...

* Of the total extent of our brokenness i.e. our persistent tendency to try and be our own god; to make life work without God. 

* That we make very poor gods and can not make life work as it should without God. 

While at the same time becoming increasingly aware...

* That God's love for us has nothing to do with our brokenness (or "goodness") and has everything to do with Christ being broken for us, 

* Resulting in our increasing love for, trust in and pursuit of God.

Our awareness of this tension/contrast between our brokenness and God's complete remedy for it increases as we continue to mature. As this awareness grows so does our love for God and trust in him.