Depressed, the devil wants you dead!

I will share what I felt when I was twenty nine years old, dealing with my first episode of depression. Looking back I have been able to better conceptualize demonic devices.
I began to feel like I had the flu, my mood went from moderate to bad to severe in a short time. I was in the dark, emotionally and spiritually and I did not have a clue that what I had was a biological problem. My doctor told me that it when I felt stressed to blow into a paper bag. One time when I was at a restaurant and depressed out of my mind I asked to be excused. I went into a bathroom, in the stall, blowing furiously but it did nothing to lift my mood. I thought, “How pathetic is this?”

At a certain point, suicide became a viable option as a way of escape. I remember thinking, while out to eat with my family, “I will go outside and jump in front of a car.” Then, I would not have to deal with this horrible agony.

I was sure that I was a terrible burden to everyone. Now I realize that this is a common scheme of the devil, (the Greek word for devil, diabolos means slanderer) to isolate the believer in Christ, slander God to him, saying, “He does not care about you anymore.” He will add insult to your own feelings of failure and your self-loathing. He will attempt to cover the biological nature of your depression and put on a masquerade that your problem is spiritual, Jesus Christ, who is God, said about him, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44)

If you asked most people who are depressed and suicidal, “Why do you want to kill yourself?” Most would say that their families would be better off if they were dead.
However, no matter who you are and what you have done; your family will never be better without you. They will feel sorrow, betrayal, anger, abandonment and confusion. Their grieving will be long and hard. Statistics tell us that numbers of your own family, (including nieces and nephews) will adopt for themselves your way of getting rid of the awful pain. Suicide will seem logical. Suicide is a sin, but God will provide you a way of escape that you may bear it, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (I Corinthians 10:13).


Do not commit suicide! Get help! This was taken from, CAMI Leader,s Guide and Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You’re Losing It, Kregel Publications where the largest chapter is about suicide (chapter 4).
If you wish to purchase these books, go to our web site, 
http://www.heartfeltmin.org/resources.html






 Whispers in the Foyer, An Honest Look at 
the Christian and Mental Illness

 We just finished a seminar in Alberta, Canada and now we have another one. It will be at our home church in Boca Raton, Florida. For more information go to heartfeltmin.org/join-us.html

Puritan Quotes for Today

Comfort from the 17th Century

compiled by Anita Gordon

The Puritans were preachers who lived in the 17th century.  They were spiritual giants who understood how to care for souls.  They understood that God's people suffer from sicknesses of the mind, and these preachers sought to apply the healing balm of the Scriptures to the weary people of God.  Today, though long dead, they still speak.

Thomas Goodwin: "One who truly fears God and is obedient to Him, may be in a condition of darkness, and have no light; and he may walk many days and years in that condition."--'Child of Light Walking in Darkness

 Richard Sibbes: "Are you bruised? Be of good comfort, He calls you. Conceal not your wounds, go to Christ. He is a physician good at all diseases, especially at the binding up of a broken heart." --'The Bruised Reed'

 Samuel Rutherford: "It is hard to keep sight of God in a storm, especially when He hides Himself for the trial of His children. I bless my God that there is a death, and a heaven." -- 'Letters of Samuel Rutherford'

 William Gurnall:  "You may be a poor, trembling soul, weak in faith and ever on the brink of sinking; yet to this day your grace lives on, though full of leaks. Is there a greater demonstration of God's strength than to see such a pitiful, storm-tossed ship towed past an armada of sins and devils, into God's safe harbour at last?" --'Christian in Complete Armour'

 Richard Sibbes: "Satan's course is to discourage those that God would have encouraged." --'The Soul's Conflict'

 Thomas Boston:  "You are in this world as in a weary land, a wilderness, a place of great danger and of great wants; and if you have felt it so you have come with a design to seek a refuge where you may be in safety; and a portion for your souls where your wants may be supplied."

 Thomas Brooks: "How, saith one, shall God wipe away my tears in heaven, if I shed none on earth? And how shall I reap in joy, if I sow not in tears? I was born with tears, and I shall die with tears; and why then should I live without them in this valley of tears?" --'The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod'

 Andrew Bonar: 'Those who sing loudest in the Kingdom will be those who on earth had the greatest bodily suffering. We pity them now, but then we shall almost envy them.'

 Samuel Rutherford: "Believe God's Word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea.

"'Letters of Samuel Rutherford'

 Thomas Goodwin: "I know One in heaven, whose heart is touched with the feeling of all my infirmities, and I will go and bemoan myself to Him.

Richard Sibbes: "Christ, also, who was without sin, cried out, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?' " -- 'The Soul's Conflict'

 "Happy is he that in his way to heaven he meeteth with a cheerful and skillful guide and fellow traveller, that carrieth cordials with him against all fainting's of spirit." -- 'The Soul's Conflict'

Doubting God's love, providence and promises, Thomas Boston

 From sbloemreflections.blogspot.com
This is a great blog from my fellow blogger, Shane Lems
It might take some brain power.
 Copyrights 2016
The Reformed Reader.


 
 

[New post] A Kind Of Implicit Blasphemy In Complaining (Boston)‏

Respond to this post by replying above this line New post on The Reformed Reader A Kind Of Implicit Blasphemy In Complaining (Boston) by Reformed Reader  If you know a few things about Israel's wilderness years, you know they complained and grumbled more than once.  Israel's grumbling was a terrible sin, because it showed that they doubted God's providence and promise, it showed their arrogant and covetous hearts, and it showed they didn't trust God.  Paul says we can learn from Israel's sin: "...And don't grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death" (1 Cor. 10:10 NLT).  Paul also said we should do all things without grumbling and arguing (Phil. 2:14). While talking about God's providence and sovereign decree, Thomas Boston (d. 1732) listed some notes of application.  What does it mean that God sovereignly decrees all things that come to pass, and by his providence is in control of all things?  Here's one application point that has to do with complaining (I've slightly updated the language): "See here the evil of murmuring and complaining at our lot in the world. How quick are you to quarrel with God, as if he were in the wrong when his dealings with you are not according to your own desires and wishes? You demand a reason, and call God to an account, 'Why am I thus? Why so much afflicted and distressed? Why so long afflicted? And why such an affliction rather than another? Why am I so poor and another so rich?' Thus your hearts rise up against God But you should remember, that this is to defame the counsels of infinite wisdom, as if God had not ordered your affairs wisely enough in his eternal counsel. We find the Lord reproving Job for this: ‘shall he that contend with the Lord instruct him?’ (Job 40:2). When you murmur and fret under irritable and afflicting dispensations, this is presuming to instruct God how to deal with you, and to reprove him as if he were in the wrong. Yea, there is a kind of implicit blasphemy in it, as if you had more wisdom and justice to dispose of your lot, and to carve out your own portion in the world. This is the language of such a disposition, 'Had I been on God’s counsel, I had ordered this matter better; things had not been with me as now they are.' O presume not to correct the infinite wisdom of God, seeing he has decreed all things most wisely and judiciously." To combat sinful complaining, we need to contemplate the sovereign decree and providence of God, and trust that he does all things well.  He's the Potter, we are the clay! Thomas Boston, The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: Part 1, ed. Samuel M‘Millan, vol. 1 (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1848), 166. Shane Lems Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) Hammond, WI Reformed Reader | July 29, 2016 at 11:28 am | Tags: complaining, decrees, grumbling, Providence, Sovereignty, Thomas Boston, whining | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/p6Yga-4aL Comment    See all comments Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from The Reformed Reader. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://reformedreader.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/a-kind-of-implicit-blasphemy-in-complaining-boston/ Thanks for flying with WordPress.com

    

 Heartfelt Counseling Ministries' upcoming seminars:
August 13, 2016
In Edmonton,  Alberta CANADA;
 October 15, 2016 Boca Raton, Florida.
We will give additional details soon. But save those dates and be ready to learn about mental health disorders, how to view them, how to treat them, what they are and how God looks down on His struggling sheep. He is without condemnation, blame or neglect.
We have a good time and great fellowship at these seminars. You will be encouraged. !