Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,
my Saviour and my God (Psalm 43:5).

Depression is an extremely complex medical condition and is brought about through a variety of reasons. It can occur from having a simple headache to more far reaching conditions such as loss due to death, separation or serious abuse. Whatever the causes of depression are the effects are the same. It affects the mind and therefore how the individual thinks is radically altered. As mentioned elsewhere it leads to despair and hopelessness which eventually can lead to suicide.

So how does the follower of Jesus overcome depression? Here are a few pointers; firstly, since depression is a condition of the mind it is imperative that the individual gets their minds focussed on the right things. We are told in scripture that ‘if there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love any sharing in the spirit then we should think as Christ thought’, (Phil 2:1). Put another way, we are also told that we can only be transformed when our minds are renewed (Rom 12:2).

Secondly, the words that we speak must be positive and not negative. We are to let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts [minds] be acceptable to the Lord (Psa 19:13+14).

Finally we are to develop the gifts that have been deposited in us by Jesus. By doing these we will sometimes get down but not depressed. This occurs since we are able to remind ourselves that we belong to Jesus and therefore are subject to his will for our lives. His words to us are to give us hope and an expected end which is not suicide.

Today read Romans 12