The latest issue of the PR Theological Seminary's Journal (Fall 2018) contains the second installment of Prof. B. Gritters' articles on counseling depressed people of God. His title is "O My Soul!" The Competency of Pastors and Elders to Counsel Depressed Souls."
In this post we give you a snippet from this article, encouraging you to read all of it at the link provided above.
...when the child of God is in the throes of depression, the devil will take advantage of that, especially subjecting him to the “greatest temptation” to suppose that he is destined for hell. Some of the devil’s best successes—from his perspective—are to convince the Christian that he is not a Christian. This is the devil’s most terrible work. He certainly knows Scripture’s testimony that no one—not even the devil himself—can pluck believers out of the Father’s hand. Whether the devil believes this or not, he knows that his next-best accomplishment would be to convince a Christian that he is not a Christian, thus adding to the depressed Christian’s sorrows. For a Christian, this is depression at its worst. If a man is without God in the world, he is also without hope (Eph. 2:12). Without hope, life is impossible to bear. So even though we stop short of admitting the possibility that the devil possesses a regenerated Christian and thus explain depression, we do not ignore his ability to trouble Christians in this other most awful manner. He is a terrible force to aggravate depression, and elders will recognize and address this with their sheep.
To read the first installment on counseling the depressed, visit this Journal page and click on the other issue published last year (April 2018).
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