The way out of depression!

 

 

Please click this link for the video version of today's blog :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sovM9eChksg

Silence

1.   Put on your “brakes” and stop for a moment of silence

      2.   Wait for God. Breathe deep for God's peace and feel His presence. Exhale your worries.

     Praise and Thanksgiving

1.   Think through your day, all the times that made you smile. 

2.   Thank God for all those moments, and for all those people

3.          **Sing a song to praise the Lord

      

     Confession and Repentance (Subjective Shifting Devotion Method) 

      https://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html

1.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to shine on you that you are able to discover your sins and be willing to repent:

     “Dear Holy Spirit, shine your light into the places of darkness in my life. Show me my sins, everything that blocks me from encountering God and having Jesus as my Lord. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

2.  Through the Holy Spirit, examine yourself for a short silence and then pray:

     "Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and being victorious over death and sin. I confess my sins to you(pause, to tell Jesus what the Holy Spirit has shown you). Forgive my sins by your blood and help me follow you. Holy Spirit, fill me that I may be able to receive your gifts to love God and His people. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen."

3.  John Stott's daily prayer of Christlikeness (Christopher J.H. Wright, Cultivating the fruit of the Spirit. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2017, 13)

**Please click this link to read how God used John Stott to change my life:https://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/07/

           "Heavenly Father, I pray that this day I may live in your presence and please you more and more.

             Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up my cross and follow you.

             Holy Spirit, I pray that this day you will fill me with yourself and cause your fruit to ripen in my life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Today's Time with Abba:  Psalm 135:15-21; Hosea 1:1-3:5; 1 John 5:1-21; Proverbs 29:5-8

Please click this link for today's Time with Abba one year Bible: http://twa.pastoralcareschool.org/

Key passage:

Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’

Israel Punished and Restored

2 “Rebuke your mother, rebuke her,
    for she is not my wife,
    and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the adulterous look from her face
    and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
3 Otherwise I will strip her naked
    and make her as bare as on the day she was born;
I will make her like a desert,
    turn her into a parched land,
    and slay her with thirst.
4 I will not show my love to her children,
    because they are the children of adultery.
5 Their mother has been unfaithful
    and has conceived them in disgrace.
She said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
    who give me my food and my water,
    my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;
    I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
7 She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
    she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
    ‘I will go back to my husband as at first,
    for then I was better off than now.’
8 She has not acknowledged that I was the one
    who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
    which they used for Baal.

                                                                  Hosea 2:1-8

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage we have just read. Offer this time to Jesus as you listen to Him.

    

The topic I received today from Jesus is:  The way out of depression!

Hosea gives a picture that the nation is the wife and mother and the individual Israelites are the children who have turned to idol worship.  The people must repent, and the nation must turn from their "lovers" (2:5), which were the various Canaanite gods, and return to the true God.

If they do not return, then God will put obstacles and wall in their way, not to destroy them, but to make them realize it would be better to return to God. 

What I received from Jesus today is the way out of depression. 

There are so many people nowadays in depression.  

They cannot sleep, they cannot eat, they cannot do normal things and they hide themselves behind a wall not willing to go out to meet people. Some of them spend lots of money in their various healing process but still cannot come out of their depression, the "wall".  Why?

We have the answer today:

Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes;

 I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;

 she will look for them but not find them.

 Then she will say,

 'I will go back to my husband as at first,

 for then I was better off than now.'

She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,

 who lavished on her the silver and gold - which they used for Baal.

                                                           Hosea 2: 6-8

Wall! Walls! God will wall them!

If you do not know how to offer what belongs to God and to offer to other "gods", watch out! 

Dear Lord Jesus,

Open our eyes to see! To see who are those "gods" we as human beings have spent all our lives to worship but not you! Help us to be able to enter into that daily intimate personal relationship that we will never be depressed but powerfully and joyfully worshipping you and serving you as our only God, Lord, Savior and King.  In Jesus Name I pray. Amen.

Reflect on these questions:    

1. What inspiration have you received from today's catch and what have you heard from Jesus now?

     2.  What is your next step to be more closer to Jesus, to be holy - that is to do what Jesus wants you to do and not to do what Jesus wants you not to do?

    

    Family Corner:

     Find an opportunity to share with your family the importance of today's message. 

     

     You are welcome to join our Monday to Friday 7am-7:30am(Pacific time (Vancouver)) Worship, Devotion, Prayer

    https://us06web.zoom.us/j/3962567042?pwd=4qqbcGJ2zQl3tlTUvus4Qv6g7byZKy.1&omn=88167363288

Meeting ID: 396 256 7042

Passcode: 12345

     

Please click this link to worship with us - 

Change My Heart, O God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtsHWFE6-w&feature=related

    Please click this link for today's Time with Abba one year Bible four passages: http://twa.pastoralcareschool.org/

   For the Chinese version of this daily blog and video, please click this link (中文版請按此連結):

    https://timewithabbaprayinglisteningchinese.blogspot.com

     

     To know, learn and practice the method of Time with Abba, please click this link:http://twa.pastoralcareschool.org/

       My first blog "Devotion on Fire"  was written in English only  (July 17, 2009年7月17日至November 22, 2012年11月22日). Each day one chapter of Bible, from New Testament and then Old Testament. Completed in four months and three years:

http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/07/blessings-from-rev-dr-john-stott.html

My second blog "Discipler 123"  was written in both Chinese and English (March 6,2011to December 31, 2016 ):

https://discipler123.blogspot.com/2011/02/day-1-choose-light-away-from-darkness.html

and "Time with Abba" blog and video (January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2024): 

https://discipler123.blogspot.com/2017/01/1-2017.html

 

 

Connecting Workshop 2025(Session 2)

Bishop Silas Ng on Three Streams

 https://youtu.be/xiSOSFF9Iw0?si=puDWFD9Cx01ADm-o