Required reading
Spiritual Depression by D. M. Lloyd-Jones (available from Amazon) - Read Chapter 12.
My notes and thoughts
Today Lloyd-Jones looks at how a spirit of bondage to fear leads to spiritual depression.
Christians struggle with inappropriate bondage to:
(i) fear of God;
(ii) fear of works;
(iii) fear of the power of the devil;
(iv) fear of sin.
The way to overcome such fears is to:
(i) walk as Jesus walked;
(ii) remember your relationship to God as a child of God.
I enjoyed how Lloyd-Jones reminded us nicely that we should live to please God because He is our Father, not because we are trying to achieve a certain standard: 'Henceforth my desire is not to keep the law but to please my Father. We know something about that by nature. Filial love, filial reverence, filial fear is so different from that old servile fear. It is based upon the desire to please our father, and the moment we grasp that we lose the spirit of bondage. Our Christian living is not a matter of rules and regulations any longer, but rather our desire to show Him our gratitude for all He has ever done for us.'
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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