The True Foundation

Today was yet another day where I felt completely exhausted and utterly frustrated with myself. After church and lunch with dear friends, I came home to nap. Upon waking up, I remembered a book I've had for a while but hadn't read and decided it was a good time to read it. It's called Spiritual Depression by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. My dear friend Amy recommended it to me a while back. If I'm being completely honest, I think I've been in a varying state of spiritual depression for about two years. I definitely know when it started, but I'll spare those details. I thought my life was going one way...I was positive that God had ordained it and that He was in it, and then everything fell apart in one night. Complete 180 degree turn on life. I had a significant amount of trouble adjusting to that, and I think I've only recently been able to accept the new direction God is taking me, and to be perfectly honest I still don't know what direction that is. I only know that He wants me to know Him more, and to experience His healing and love. I've been a pretty hard-headed, unwilling kid in many respects. Perhaps it comes from not wanting to submit myself to my harsh father that I have neglected to fully submit my heart to Him. When I began to read Spiritual Depression I saw myself in the first chapter - the diagnosis chapter. Lloyd-Jones defines spiritual depression as, very simply, being an unhappy Christian, lacking the joy of Christ and being no different than those of the world we're supposed to be attracting to Christ. He wonders if some are even Christians at all, and that's the part that struck me (but I'll get to that later). He writes that certain people are prone to spiritual depression, introverts being most of them. This is because introverts are usually analyzing and looking into self, and are therefore very self-focused instead of outward focused (this is the general definition of an introvert anyway). He writes that "the fundamental trouble with these people is that they are not always careful to draw the line of demarcation between self-examination and introspection." He says this leads to a state called "morbidity", in which we "do nothing but examine ourselves, and such self-examination becomes the main and chief end in our life. We are meant to examine ourselves periodically, but if we are always doing it, always, as it were, putting our soul on a plate and dissecting it, that is introspection. And if we are always talking to people about ourselves and our problems and troubles, and if we are forever going to them with kind of frown upon our face and saying: I am in great difficulty - it probably means we are all the time centered upon ourselves. That is introspection, and that in turn leads to the condition known as morbidity." I have to say, honestly, that has been me lately. I saw a giant finger pointing at me while reading that (okay, not literally). This is VERY much a weakness of mine, and no doubt means I'm much bigger in my perspective than God is. Lloyd-Jones also says that unbelief is the ultimate cause of spiritual depression, which I completely agree with. I mean, if you believe in God but don't believe in something about Him, essentially that's negating that He is who He says He is, which is very depressing. God has to be who He says He is or else there's no point in believing on Him at all (yes, I said ON). And then where would the world be? I think, especially lately, Christians and non-Christians agree that there has to be something bigger in life to hold on to or look to in order to survive in this crazy, messed up world. There has to be something to set our hope on. Something that's stable and bigger than us. People around the world are seeking out religion probably more than they ever have before, but it's not always Christianity, and it's not always the true God they're looking for. Some, like people I know, have settled to put their hope in nature. Some have decided to put their hope in their family, their career, the stock market (oops). Ultimately, however, those things are still not God. Needless to say, I was convicted. Well, then I got to Chapter 2: The True Foundation.

Here, Lloyd-Jones makes the case that some Christians really are not Christians, based on the fact that they might believe God exists, but they do not fully understand salvation and have not accepted it as it really is. He gives example of the Pharisees, who took the Law and made it into something that was doable, so that they, as mere men, might save themselves in the eyes of God. However, as we know from Scripture, the Lord gave the Law that men might look at it and realize they would never be able to attain it, and see their depravity and desperate need for Him. It was meant as a mirror, not as a stepladder! Lloyd-Jones writes that we must be quite clear that we are sinners before we can enjoy Christian salvation - and I love how he defines this: "The essential point is, that the way to know yourself a sinner is not to compare yourself with other people; it is to come face to face with the Law of God. Well what is God's Law? .... 'Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like it - Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." If you are not loving God with all your being, you are a sinner. How's that for conviction? We think of sin in terms of acts of commission and omission, but really, it is this. I had not thought about that before. Really, He cares about our relationship with Him - are we fulfilling the role that He created us to be in - wholly in communion with Him, with all of our being? And if not, then no wonder we're spiritually depressed. We're living outside of what He made us for. I'm sure a whale would find itself troubled and, assuredly, on the way to death if it ended up somehow in a desert instead of the ocean. That's not what it was made to do, or where it was supposed to be. God designed the whale specifically to be a sea creature, to swim, to come out of the water for air, to eat sea life. We are supposed to know God, enjoy Him, and have Him as our greatest source of joy. And right now, I do not, but having been convicted...Lord, help me to live this way.

Interestingly, Lloyd-Jones makes a point of saying that people who were raised in the church, as opposed to those who had what I would call a true conversion experience, have a much harder time recognizing themselves as sinners. They may grow up in church and be involved in church for many years and then find themselves witnessing someone who used to get crazy drunk every night falling on their knees in front of Jesus, repenting of their lifestyle. Lloyd-Jones explains that those who have grown up in church tend to not see themselves as sinners because they have not done actions such as these. He writes, "Their thinking is in terms of actions, particular actions, and of comparisons with other people and their experiences and so on. For this reason they have never had a real conviction of sin, and because of that they have never plainly seen their utter absolute need of the Lord Jesus Christ. They have heard it preached that Christ has died for our sins and they say that they believe that; but they have never really known its absolute necessity for themselves." I have to say, while I don't completely fit that profile, I know I have definitely thought of sin in terms of actions. I know that I have sometimes struggled with jealousy, seeing someone who turned away from a life of drinking/partying and their joy at the Lord and wondered why I didn't have the same joy. I'm glad that I now really know what sin is - that it is falling short of loving the Lord with our whole being, and the knowledge that nobody can do that. That is why we have need of Christ - our punishment for sin fell upon Him and only in that way are we justified. I will need Him all of my life. 'I rest my faith on Him alone who died for my transgressions atone.'

"The essence of Christian salvation is to say that He is good enough and I am in Him!"