Self Talk? or Talk to Self? by M.L. Jones Spiritual Depression

 

Psalm 42:5-6
 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and
 my God. My soul is downcast within me;

therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan,

the heights of Hermon--from Mount Mizar.

I say that we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing “ourselves” to talk to us! 

Do you realize what that means? 

I suggest that the main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. 

Am I just trying to be deliberately paradoxical?  Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?  Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning.  You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back problems of yesterday, etc.  Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you?  Your self talk is talking to you. 

Now the Psalmist’s treatment was this: 

Instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. 

“Why are you so downcast, O my soul?”

he asks.  His soul had been depressing him, crushing him.  So he stands up and says:

“Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you… Why are you so downcast? – what business have you to be disquieted?…

And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who He is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. 

Then having done that, end on this great note:  Defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the Devil and the whole world, and say with this man “I will yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.”

Psalm 42:7

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

The Obstacle of SELF: by TA Sparks

 

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? 2 Corinthians 13:5

The sum of everything in the new creation is in Christ, or, to put that in another way, it is outside of man himself. It is apart from man, and it always will be. Although Christ, the sum of the new creation, may be in us, that new creation will remain in Christ, and we are only in it by reason of our union with Him. He becomes the fullness of everything in us, but the practical outworking of that fullness will ever, and always, be purely and solely on a basis of faith. If the thing could be said at any time to have its origin in us, then faith would be dismissed. If we had it in ourselves, if it were our constitution, faith would be dispensed with. That would result in a repetition of us....

The difficulty which we shall be meeting all along the way will be ourselves. We shall find that the main obstacle, the main enemy to our fullness in Christ, to all that the new creation means, will be ourselves in some way. It will either be our self-occupation – which is but a form of trying to be something fine, something in ourselves which will bring satisfaction to God – or it will be our self-effort in service. It will be this natural life of ours cropping up in some direction or another, and as it crops up it will cut clean in between us and the "all things" which are of God, and we shall find that it is ourself which brings us up short, which creates the arrest.... If we look within ourselves to find more good, we are going to look in vain. We shall never find anything in ourselves but corruption. Is that really settled with us? On both sides, the people who have some opinion of themselves had better settle it once and for all that there is nothing in them but corruption, and also those who have settled it, and yet are so occupied with their old man as though it were something really worth being occupied with. Put it where the Lord Jesus has put it, in the grave, and do not walk round it, turning it over, if peradventure you might find something worthwhile. Fix and fasten your faith in God's Son, and leave yourself alone for ever. Only so will you find your emancipation.

Abundant Life: by Henry Blackaby

 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.      John 10:10

Jesus warns us to be on guard for thieves who will try to rob us of what God has for us. Jesus wants us to enjoy abundant life (John 10:10). Since the time of Adam and Eve, people have had to choose whom to believe. Satan convinced Adam and Eve that forfeiting their obedience to God would gain them everything. Instead, their disobedience robbed them of all they had. For the rest of their lives they experienced only a fraction of the blessings God had intended. Scripture is replete with accounts of those who forfeited their inheritance as children of God in order to gain that which was transitory and empty.

The world seeks to convince you that you will find fulfillment if you adopt its standard of morality for your marriage, raising your children, advancing your career, or pursuing pleasure. If you believe this, you will never experience the blessings God intended for you. Sin brings death (Rom. 6:23). It is tragic to listen to the voices of the world instead of to the One who created life and who wants you to experience life to its fullest.

Jesus wants you to live your life with security, knowing that you are a beloved child of God. If you are not experiencing love, joy, and peace, you have settled for less than what God intends for you. If you have been making excuses for why you are not experiencing an abundant and joyful life, determine today to settle for nothing less than God’s best for your life. Stop following the world’s way of finding satisfaction. Instead, listen to the Savior’s voice, and you will find true fulfillment.

How To Acquire Wisdom: by Andrew Murray

 

1 Corinthians 2:4-7
 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power,
 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
1 Corinthians 2:10
 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
1 Corinthians 2:12-15
 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.
 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:

In this passage Paul contrasted the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God. It was in seeking knowledge that man fell. It was in the pride of knowledge that heathenism had its origin: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22).

Man’s wisdom is incapable of understanding God or His wisdom. Because his heart is alienated from God his mind is darkened. Even when in Christ the light of God in its divine love shone upon men, they knew it not and saw no beauty in it.

Divine revelation, as Paul discussed it in this chapter, means three things. God must make known in His Word what He thinks and does. Every preacher who is to communicate the message must continually be taught by the Spirit how to speak it. And every hearer needs the inward illumination. As we have the mind and attitudes of Christ, we can discern the truth as it is in Christ Jesus.

Reject the spirit of the world still in you with its wisdom and self-confidence. Come, in poverty of spirit, to be led by the Spirit. “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). The Spirit will teach a transformed, renewed life that wants only to know God’s perfect will. Deny your own fleshly wisdom. Wait for the wisdom in the inward parts that God has promised (Psalm 51:6). You will increasingly be able to testify of the things that have not entered into the hearts of men and will understand that “God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.”

We Make Religion Easy for the Moral Rebel: by AW TOZER

 

And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. Acts 5:41

The story of the earliest Christians is a story of faith under fire. The opposition was real. To continue “steadfastly” as Luke records was to continue against serious opposition. Steadfastness is required only when we are under attack, mental or physical.

Those first believers turned to Christ with the full understanding that they were espousing an unpopular cause that could cost them everything. Shortly after Pentecost some were jailed, many lost all their earthly goods, a few were slain outright and hundreds were “scattered abroad.”

They could have escaped all this by the simple expedient of denying their faith and turning back to the world; but this they steadfastly refused to do.

Here again is seen the glaring discrepancy between biblical Christianity and that of present-day evangelicals, particularly in the United States. To make converts we are forced to play down the difficulties and play up the peace of mind and worldly success enjoyed by those who accept Christ!

We will never be completely honest with our hearers until we tell them the blunt truth that as members of a race of moral rebels they are in a serious jam, and one they will not get out of easily. If they refuse to repent and believe on Christ they will most surely perish; if they do turn to Him, the same enemies that crucified Him will try to crucify them.

Life is a Person: by TA Sparks

 

Galatians 6:14

May I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world's interest in me has also died.

You can have Christian law just as much as you can have Mosaic law; you can be in bondage in Christianity just as much as men were in Judaism. Christianity can be made into an imposed system just as much as Mosaic law was, and there are many Christians today who live under the fear of the "Thou shalt" and the "Thou shalt not" of a legalistic conception of the Christian life. You can take the Bible as God's standard for your life and try to fulfill it and yet still be burdened with a sense of constant failure. It is God's standard, and it is a very exhaustive one which leaves no part of the practical life untouched, but those who make the effort to try to live up to it only end in disillusion. No, it is not just a matter of a Book but of a Person, the Person who did live up to that standard, absolutely fulfilling every least demand with the most perfect success, so satisfying God to the full. By His death He has delivered us from the bondage of legal demands. This same Person now lives in us by His Holy Spirit, seeking to work out that perfect will of God not on the basis of some binding instructions from without but as a living force within. We have the law written in our hearts. To be in Christ is a matter of Life and not of legalism.

Christ, and Christ crucified, is the power of God to bring deliverance from sin, from the flesh, from the law and from the world. "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14). Paul was not glorying that he could enjoy so much of the world and yet have a clear conscience, but was enthusiastic about having been delivered from the world. For believers the only possible way of staying in this world is to know that they no longer belong to it.

Are You Spiritual or Carnal? by Andrew Murray

 

1 Corinthians 3:1-3
 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ.
 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?

In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul contrasted the believer as spiritual with the unregenerate as the natural (or physical) man. He supplemented that teaching by telling the Corinthians that though they had the Spirit, he could not call them spiritual. The word spiritual belongs to those who have not only received the Spirit, but have also yielded themselves to Him to possess and rule their whole life. Those who have not done this, in whom the power of the flesh is still more manifest than that of the Spirit, must not be called spiritual, but fleshly or carnal.

There are thus three states in which a man may be found. The unregenerate is still the natural man, not having the Spirit of God. The regenerate, who is still a babe in Christ, is the carnal man, giving way to the power of the flesh. The believer in whom the Spirit has obtained full supremacy is the spiritual man. This whole passage from Corinthians is suggestive of rich instruction in regard to the life of the Spirit within us.

All that is carnal and sinful, the works of the flesh, must be cast out. Also, all that is carnal (however religious it appears), all confidence in the flesh, and all self-effort must be rooted out. The soul must be brought into the subjection of Jesus Christ. In daily dependence on God, the Holy Spirit must be accepted, waited for, and followed.

By walking in faith and obedience, we may count on the Holy Spirit to do a divine work within us. “If we live in the Spirit”—this is the faith that is needed. If we believe that God’s Spirit dwells in us, “let us also walk in the Spirit.” This is the obedience that God requires. By faith in the Holy Spirit within us, we have sufficient strength to walk by the Spirit and yield ourselves to His mighty power. Then He can work in us to will and to do all that is pleasing in God’s sight.

Galatians 5:25
 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Meet Early & Often: from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

 

Isaiah 40:31

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
    They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
    They will walk and not faint.
Psalm 27:4

The one thing I ask of the Lord—
    the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
    delighting in the Lord’s perfections
    and meditating in his Temple.

Meet Me in early morning splendor. I eagerly await you here. In the stillness of this holy time with Me, I renew your strength and saturate you with Peace. While others turn over for extra sleep or anxiously tune in to the latest news, you commune with the Creator of the universe. I have awakened in your heart strong desire to know Me. This longing originated in Me, though it now burns brightly in you.
     When you seek My Face in response to My Love-call, both of us are blessed. This is a deep mystery, designed more for your enjoyment than for your understanding. I am not a dour God who discourages pleasure. I delight in your enjoyment of everything that is true, noble, right, pure, lowly, admirable. Think on these things, and My Light in you will shine brighter day by day.

Philippians 4:8

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

Deception: by TA Sparks

 

I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:3

Deception is not something out there that is put upon us willy-nilly, or in spite of ourselves. All deception has its own ground in man. What is that ground? It is the fact that man is now a psychical being. Now if you can get to the bottom of that, if you can apprehend that, you will understand the whole thing. The ground of all this is in the fact that man is a psychical being, and when Satan interfered with man at the beginning and man consented along the line of his own soul-life, Satan made man suitable to his own government. It was not that he came and set himself up as man’s ruler and subjected man by sheer force to his own government. How did he do it? By breaking into that realm in man’s being where man was linked with God, and that was in the realm of man’s spirit. “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,” and man was in fellowship and communion with God by means of his spirit, not his soul, not his body. These two were under the government of his spirit. The enemy, the Deceiver came to man’s soul, and instead of man reacting by his spirit-fellowship with, and knowledge of, God, he dropped down on to his soul, came out of his spirit and reacted in his soul.

What is soul? It is reason, emotion, feeling, desire, and then, of course, choice, or will. And the enemy reasoned through the desires and captured the will by deception. You see what happened when man violated the very organ of his union with God, his spirit.... So the enemy governs man, and the whole of the race now through the nature of the soul-life. What is the basis of deception? It is just that! How do you get a counterfeit Holy Ghost operating? By reason of your psychical nature. You can become mediumistic in your very psychical nature and open all the avenues of your being to supernatural guidance and come under the power, the sway, dominion, of deceiving spirits operating in a multitude of ways. You can so suspend your soul and come into a state of utter passivity that you are open to everything to play upon you. You can have your quiet hour in your soul, which is the most perilous hour of your life. That happens by suspending all spiritual activity and becoming utterly passive and opening your psychical being, which is a most dangerous thing. God never asks you to become spiritually passive. Waiting upon God is not being spiritually passive. God wants us active in spirit even when waiting on Him in silence.

How to Know the Spirit: by Andrew Murray

 

John 14:17

the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

1 Corinthians 3:16

Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

True spiritual knowledge is very important in the Christian life. A man whose inheritance comes to him is no richer if he does not know how to take possession of it. In the same way, the gifts of God’s grace cannot bring their full blessing until we truly understand and possess them.

In Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3, emphasis added).

It is the “knowledge of Christ Jesus” for which the believer is willing to “count all things but loss” (Philippians 3:8, emphasis added). It is because of the lack of true knowledge of what God in Christ has prepared for us that the lives of believers are so weak.

How do we know when it is the Spirit who is teaching us? If our knowledge of spiritual things is to be to us a certainty and a comfort, we must know the Teacher Himself. Knowing Him will be to us the evidence that our spiritual knowledge is no deception. Our blessed Lord assures us that we will know the Spirit. Messengers and witnesses do not speak of themselves.

The Holy Spirit, when He testifies of Christ and glorifies Him, must be known and acknowledged. In this way we can have the assurance that the knowledge we receive is indeed of God and not what our human reason has gathered from the Word of God. To know the King’s seal is the only safeguard against a counterfeit image. To know the Spirit is the divine foundation of certainty.

How can the Spirit be known? Jesus said, “Ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” The indwelling of the Spirit is the condition of knowing Him. As we allow Him to dwell in us, and allow Him to testify of Jesus as Lord, He will prove Himself to be the Spirit of God. 

1 John 5:6

This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

Pleasing God, Pleasing Others: by Henry Blackaby

 

For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.      Galatians 1:10

At times you will have to make a choice between pleasing God and pleasing those around you, for God’s ways are not man’s ways (Isa. 55:8-9). As important as it is to strive for good relations with others, it is even more important to maintain a steadfast and obedient relationship with Christ. Disobeying God to keep peace with other people is never wise. Peace with God is always paramount.

Jesus warned that obeying Him might cause division in your relationships (Matt. 10:35-36). If Paul’s primary goal had been to please others, he would never have become an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul went completely against the wishes of his colleagues in order to obey Christ. At times, obedience to God sets family members at odds with each other (Matt. 10:35-36). When you follow Jesus’ Lordship, your family may misunderstand, or even oppose you, yet your obedience to God reflects your identity as His child. Jesus said that those who obey His will are His brothers and sisters (Luke 8:21). God does not intend to divide the home, but He places obedience before domestic harmony.

It is important to get alone in quietness with God so that you understand what pleases Him. The world’s thinking will mislead you more easily when you are not clear about what God desires. It broke Peter’s heart to know that the opinion of a servant girl had mattered more to him than the approval of his Lord! If the desire to appease others tempts you to compromise what you know God wants you to do, learn from Peter’s mistake. Determine that you will please your Lord regardless of the opinions of others.

Proverbs 29:25

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.

Prayer in the Father’s Honor: by Oswald Chambers

 

…that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. —Luke 1:35

If the Son of God has been born into my human flesh, then am I allowing His holy innocence, simplicity, and oneness with the Father the opportunity to exhibit itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the history of the Son of God’s birth on earth is true of every saint. God’s Son is born into me through the direct act of God; then I as His child must exercise the right of a child— the right of always being face to face with my Father through prayer. Do I find myself continually saying in amazement to the commonsense part of my life, “Why did you want me to turn here or to go over there?

‘Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?’ ” Luke 2:49.

Whatever our circumstances may be, that holy, innocent, and eternal Child must be in contact with His Father.

Am I simple enough to identify myself with my Lord in this way? Is He having His wonderful way with me? Is God’s will being fulfilled in that His Son has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19), or have I carefully pushed Him to one side? Oh, the noisy outcry of today! Why does everyone seem to be crying out so loudly? People today are crying out for the Son of God to be put to death. There is no room here for God’s Son right now— no room for quiet, holy fellowship and oneness with the Father.

Is the Son of God praying in me, bringing honor to the Father, or am I dictating my demands to Him? Is He ministering in me as He did in the time of His manhood here on earth? Is God’s Son in me going through His passion, suffering so that His own purposes might be fulfilled? The more a person knows of the inner life of God’s most mature saints, the more he sees what God’s purpose really is: to

“…fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ…” Colossians 1:24.

And when we think of what it takes to “fill up,” there is always something yet to be done.

Prayer in the Father’s House: by Oswald Chambers

…they found Him in the temple….And He said to them, "…Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?" —Luke 2:46, 49

Our Lord’s childhood was not immaturity waiting to grow into manhood— His childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy, innocent child of God as a result of my identification with my Lord and Savior? Do I look at my life as being in my Father’s house? Is the Son of God living in His Father’s house within me?

The only abiding reality is God Himself, and His order comes to me moment by moment. Am I continually in touch with the reality of God, or do I pray only when things have gone wrong— when there is some disturbance in my life? I must learn to identify myself closely with my Lord in ways of holy fellowship and oneness that some of us have not yet even begun to learn. “…I must be about My Father’s business”— and I must learn to live every moment of my life in my Father’s house.

Think about your own circumstances. Are you so closely identified with the Lord’s life that you are simply a child of God, continually talking to Him and realizing that everything comes from His hands? Is the eternal Child in you living in His Father’s house? Is the grace of His ministering life being worked out through you in your home, your business, and in your circle of friends? Have you been wondering why you are going through certain circumstances? In fact, it is not that you have to go through them. It is because of your relationship with the Son of God who comes, through the providential will of His Father, into your life. You must allow Him to have His way with you, staying in perfect oneness with Him.

The life of your Lord is to become your vital, simple life, and the way He worked and lived among people while here on earth must be the way He works and lives in you. 

Deliverance: Saved from the World’s Nervous Scramble: by AW Tozer

 

For we have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. Hebrews 10:36

Christians have often been accused of being reactionary because they cannot show any enthusiasm for the latest scheme that someone thinks up to bring in the millennium.

Well, it is not to be wondered at. A true Christian’s firsthand acquaintance with God saves him from the nervous scramble in which the world is engaged and which is popularly touted as progress.

A real Christian is an odd number anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest, and happiest when he feels worst!

He dies so he can live, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible and knows that which passes knowledge.

The man who has met God is not looking for something—he has found it. He is not searching for light—upon him the Light has already shined!

His religion is not hearsay. He is not a copy, not a facsimile print: he is an original from the hand of the Holy Ghost!

He may hear the tin whistle starting every new parade, but he will be cautious. He is waiting for a trumpet note that will call him away from the hurly-burly and set in motion a series of events that will result at last in a new heaven and a new earth.

He can afford to wait!