Spiritual depression - Lloyd-Jones - XVIII - Chapter 18

Required reading

Spiritual Depression by D. M. Lloyd-Jones (available from Amazon) - Read Chapter 18, 'In God's gymnasium'.

My summary
Today's reading continues from yesterday's and is another examination of how chastisement can lead to spiritual depression.

Firstly Lloyd-Jones outlines wrong ways of reacting to chastisement:
(i) despising the chastisement;
(ii) being discouraged;
(iii) becoming bitter.

Then he outlines the right ways of reacting to chastisement:
(i) behave as sons/adults and not as infants;
(ii) bring intelligence to the scriptures;
(iii) exercise in God's gymnasium by examining yourself for sin, confessing the sin and then doing positive exercises.

What grabbed me
Lloyd-Jones did a nice comparison of Christians and non-Christians in today's reading: 'In a sense that is the one great difference between the non-Christian and the Christian.  When anything goes wrong in the life of the non-Christian what has he to fall back upon?  He has nothing but worldly wisdom and the way in which the world reacts, and that does not help.  The Christian, however, is in an entirely different position.  He has the Bible, and he should at once take any circumstance and put it right into this context.  The Christian does not react to events as the world does.  He asks: "What do the Scriptures say about this?"' 

I really don't know how non-Christians are able to go through life not knowing with any certainty what they should be doing.  It is so refreshing to be able to depend upon the Bible for wisdom that time and time again proves to be exactly right, even though at first it may not seem to be.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.