Overcoming Spiritual Depression | Rapp Report Weekly Wrap-up 0018 | Striving for Eternity

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to The Rapid Bull, daily edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity. As we wrap up this week, we're dealing with a topic of spiritual depression.

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It's not one that people want to talk about. It's one actually many churches even want to avoid, but unfortunately many people struggle with it.

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And I hope that as we wrap up this week, that you find this lesson helpful.

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As I put all the dailies together at one time, so that you have one place, one podcast that you can get and listen to all of it.

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Because many of us struggle with this issue of spiritual depression. And there are some simple things we could do that we're going to see to overcome it.

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Is it easy? No, it is not easy. It is a difficult thing, because we often can't get around the fact that we feel a certain way and we know we shouldn't.

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We have to be able to overcome that with right thinking. And we have to have a game plan.

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And I hope that this week, we helped you to have that game plan. I encourage you to share this with your friends and with others.

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Subscribe to The Rapid Report so you get it every day. I hope these are helpful, and if they are, write us a review on iTunes.

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Also, you can email us at info at strivingforeternity .org. Let us know how this has helped you this week.

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As we continue to look at issues with the church, we'd like to take a look this week at, well, what's something that the

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Puritans used to refer to as melancholy? Something that Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones referred to as spiritual depression.

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Have you had that time where you just don't feel like being at church? You don't want to be doing things that you know you should.

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You don't want to read your Bible. You don't want to pray. You just feel depressed. You don't feel that you should be worshipping

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God. This is something that many Christians experience. And many don't have any idea how to deal with it.

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Like any other type of depression, you first need to have hope that you will get out of this and be able to see a future where you won't be stuck in this rut.

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Most of the time with any kind of depression, that's why I like that Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones referred to it as a spiritual depression.

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Because what it does is it talks about the fact that we're stuck in the past. That's what happens with depression.

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You are stuck in the past thinking. Usually the cause of spiritual depression is either sin, that's number one, or there is some issue, maybe it's bitterness, well yeah that's sin too, but more specific types of sins that you need to address.

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I'd like to take a little bit of time this week to address some of the different things that can keep you from being spiritually vibrant and get you into a depression and then what type of things to do to fix it.

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Spiritual depression is often thought of as really burnout that occurs with many, even pastors, who struggle with the fact that they just get burnt out from doing too much.

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But there's many in the church that can have this, and it doesn't have to be that you're doing too much in the church. There could be times when you are just being stretched in way too many directions.

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Concerns and issues at work that are taking up much of your time. Issues within the family that may be difficult to deal with and drain you.

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And when you have things at work, at home, and then at church that drain, it can have an effect that brings you in to a burnout situation or a spiritual depression.

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A point where you don't even want to read God's word. And the thing to do is to first start to make a plan.

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You have to budget the time so that you are rightly spending time where you should.

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And this is hard because everything can feel like it's urgent and must get your attention. This is known as the tyranny of the urgent.

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But the only way around that is to start to focus on the important things, deal with them, don't keep putting them off.

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Deal with them and then move on. The tyranny of the urgent is when everything seems so urgent, you do nothing and you don't get anything done.

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And what we must do is we must move forward. We must take some of the things that have to be dealt with, the most prioritized ones, deal with them, and then you can move on to the next steps.

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One of the biggest reasons people get into spiritual depressions is because of sin. Some sin that they are doing consistently, habitually, and they don't want to stop.

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And they know that the effect is that they don't want to be in church, they don't want to be in God's word, they don't want to pray.

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And this can cause people to avoid the very thing that they need to be strong enough to be able to resist sin.

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We need to be in God's word, we need to be in prayer, and we need to be with God's people. That's what strengthens us to live in a way that's pleasing to God.

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If you want to overcome your sin so that you can have that relationship with Christ that you cherish, well, it's not going to come by continuing in sin,

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I can tell you that. No, the only thing you have to do, and the only thing you can do, is repent.

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You have to put down that sin, recognize what Christ did for that sin.

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He died on a bloody cross as a payment of that sin. And we have to make sure we're doing the things

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God calls us to do, which is force yourself, if need be, to be studying His word, to be in prayer, to be in church.

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Because avoiding the gathering of God's people, it is the very thing that we need.

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In fact, that's what Galatians 6 .1 says, is that when we are in that place, we're so weak, we need to have our brothers come alongside us.

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We need to confess our sins to them so they can pray for us and lift us up. Don't forsake the assembling together.

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There are times when people just do not feel like going to church, even. Maybe it's a sin in their life, maybe it's because being overworked and stressed out.

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But the reality is, there are times that you may not feel like being in church and singing songs of praise to God, or listening to the proclamation of His word.

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And I can tell you that what we must do is even force ourselves to go. There are times when you must, out of duty, go and serve.

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Why? Because it is through serving God, sometimes, that He will bring you to a point where you can be in awe of how great

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He is. And that will be the thing that carries you through. In James 5, it says that if there's someone who's weak,

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I know some translations say sick, but the idea is weak. When there's times when we can be so spiritually depressed that we are so weak that we need to call the elders or people who are more spiritual than us to pray for us.

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And there are times just listening to the prayers of someone who is, at that moment in time, being more spiritual than you, praying for you, because you can't even utter prayers.

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That's what that text, I believe, is speaking of. Is going and dealing with the fact that we can be so spiritually depressed, we need others to pray for us.

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And there's times in that passage where it says we could be even physically sick and we need oil for healing.

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But the thing is, there are times we need others. And to avoid the gathering of the believers is to avoid the very thing you might need for your own healing.

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The way our mind works on us, very often, when we are in a point of spiritual depression, or what the

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Puritans would call melancholy, is we would tell ourselves that we don't need others. We need to just be alone.

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We tell ourselves the very things that are the worst things for us. This is what happens in depression.

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Is we need others. The very thing we want to avoid. And the thing we have to do is correct our thinking.

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It always starts with right thinking. We're not going to be able to trust our feelings, especially when we're at a point of depression.

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We have to start thinking right. We have to know that we cannot be alone in this.

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We have to have a plan. You cannot overcome spiritual depression by waiting for nothing.

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Because when we wait upon ourselves, we're not going to get anywhere. No, I understand that people will say, but I'm waiting upon the

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Lord. The Lord will take care of it. The Lord will take care of it. But He has a means of taking care of it.

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And the means that we see in Scripture, it always involves working with other people. As we've seen already, with this issue of spiritual depression, we need to rely on others to pray for us, to carry our burdens, and to be correcting us even where we need it.

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Sometimes we don't like that. But if you are suffering with a spiritual depression, if you just don't feel like going and serving

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God, going to church, reading your Bible, praying, then what I encourage you to do is let someone else know.

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So they can start seriously praying for you and keeping you accountable. This podcast is part of the

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Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.