St. Augustine said, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." The French philosopher, Pascal, stated, "There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ."

Man throughout the ages has continually sought a life of freedom and happiness through many ways: financial success, social status, education, sexual encounters, friends, marriage and children, approval by others, occupation and profession. However, many people have achieved all of these things and still have not found a meaningful and happy life. Man has even turned to religion and social reform in an attempt to fill the void in his life. However, even such a man as the great Hindu leader, Mahatma Gandhi, with his undying and sacrificial devotion to his religion, stated in his autobiography: "It is a constant torture to me that I am still so far from Him whom I know to be my very life and being. I know it is my own wretchedness and wickedness that keeps me from Him."

Each year more and more people are turning to secular psychiatrists, psychologists and counseling centers seeking answers to the problems of life. For the Christian this can be a confusing and disappointing search as well as raise serious questions regarding his faith. Jesus said, "I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10b) Does the Word of God speak only to the issue of salvation and then leave us to grapple with everyday life and its problems? Are God's promises of joy and peace and purpose available in the midst of adverse circumstances? The answers to these fundamental questions are crucial to the believer if he is ever going to experience freedom and victory in his life.

The problems of man all stem from one source: Mans attempt to find meaning and purpose in life apart from total dependency upon God. That was the issue with the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden and it is the issue with all men and women today. The grace of God has provided everything we need to lead fulfilled and productive lives. A quality of life other than this is the result of a lack of knowledge or misunderstanding of what God has accomplished for us through Christ Jesus finished work on the cross and the believer's responsibility to live by faith in God's love and provision.

Depression is not something you catch like a cold. It's something you bring upon yourself by free choice. As children of God, we don't need to be depressed or defeated by life. God has already provided us with everything we need to be successful.

This verse emphasizes that the battle is won in our minds. Like computers, our minds are constantly being programmed. Our choice is: To whom will we listen - the world, or God's Word?

But it is not enough to merely have information. We need the ministry that only the Holy Spirit, God's appointed Counselor, can provide.

No person can know what God is thinking. Only the Holy Spirit knows because He

But God wants us to share His free gifts: forgiveness in Christ, righteousness, sonship, fellowship, love. But we need power to understand these gifts because

At best, secular counselors can only help analyze and understand the flesh. Because they don't accept the existence of man's spiritual part, they cannot counsel those with a spiritual need. One needs the Spirit of God to know the mind of God. If you are wrong about a man's nature, you'll be wrong about answers to his problems. Surely natural frustrations must follow this inability to find the real answers to life.

 When someone is depressed, we say he has an emotional problem. But emotional problems, except in severe cases of physical abnormality, are caused by improper thinking. Emotions are only responders and have no intellect or intelligence of their own. They cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality or past, present, and future. They merely respond predictably to whatever we are putting in our minds. People watching a horror movie experience fear even knowing there is no real monster in their room. If they know there is no reality to what they're experiencing, why do they feel fear? Because they are thinking frightening thoughts.

Whatever we put in our minds determines our emotions. If we think of a sad situation, we'll feel sad. If we think of an angering situation, we'll feel anger. These things are true regardless of the reality of the thought. The same principles hold true regarding the past or future. Our minds can instantly recall a past situation-for example, an insult. Pondering that will produce an emotion of anger just as real as when the insult first occurred. Once we are in the grip of an emotion, such as anger, we often begin fantasizing and projecting into the future as well.

Our thought processes go something like this: "That bum insulted me" (anger). "Come to think of it, he insulted me last week too" (past thinking, more anger). "As a matter of fact, he's always treated me that way!" (beginning to fantasize, more anger) "Everybody treats me like dirt" (fantasizing, anger, self-pity). "People will always treat me like nothing" (jump to future, fantasizing, self anger, pity) Sustained thinking like this will produce depression. What began as an isolated response in anger has become a state of anger as the mind continues to ponder the insult, remember the past, and project it into fantasies of the future.

God did not create man with the ability to live in guilt or anxiety, but to deal with reality which can be found only in the present. For this reason, Jesus said,

Once we're in an emotional state, we often forget why we're angry but keep the anger: "I'm not mad at anybody. I'm just mad!" A sustained state of destructive emotions will eventually bring destructive effects to the body as well. The medical community recognizes, as never before, the link between our emotions and physical health. Sustained emotional states change our hormonal balances which, in turn, lower our immune systems, making us susceptible to all kinds of illnesses.

The emotional state of anger came about because of angry thoughts. Right thinking, as cultivated by the Holy Spirit using the Word of God in us, will solve that problem. Much secular counseling falls down at this juncture, however. Prescribing drugs is the major therapy used to gain control of emotions. Secular counselors defend this, saying drugs do calm the emotions. That's incorrect. Tranquilizers actually slow down the thinking that slows down the emotions. As soon as the drug wears off, the improper thinking patterns resume and the undesirable emotions return. The real root problems have not been solved. The root of depression can be traced to:

Assuming that depression is an emotional state that stems from improper thinking, we must begin in the mind to find the solution. Paul says,

In other words, the believer must look at life from God's perspective (Truth), rather than from man's perspective.

A Christian's psychological and emotional problems begin with misunderstanding who God is and who he himself is in Christ. That's why Paul prayed God would give each Christian the power

Christians need to ask, "Am I basking in the meaning of God's love for me? Do I understand it was God who took the initiative to reconcile me to Himself?"

To be reconciled to a Holy God means we had to become holy ourselves. Because of His love for us: God took the initiative to pour out His punishment upon the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins

We were guilty and the sentence was death. But Christ Jesus bore all our sins and took all our punishment for us.

and there is nothing to be added to what Christ has done

It is all of Christ and none of it is of us. God took the initiative to become sin for us,

We stand, therefore, righteous before God because of His free gift not because of what we do. God took the initiative to justify us. To be justified is to be declared righteous-holy.

Because of our justification, we are

As a result of these truths, we have free access to come boldly into God's very presence to receive His grace, mercy, love, and total acceptance

When a believer is not experiencing freedom and joy in his spirit, as Peter states, it can only be that

He has forgotten his position in Christ. Someone says, "But I don't feel righteous and holy and acceptable." That's exactly the problem. The Christian should not be led by feelings, but should live by faith. Now,

Until we are resting our minds on the fact of our position in Christ, we will be neither feeling nor acting like the new creations we have become in Christ Jesus. To begin experiencing the peace and joy of our salvation, we must ask God to open our eyes afresh to His love and grace. We must live our lives according to who God says we are, not according to our feelings. With Paul, we must learn to say,