Subject: how could i find the present of GOD and knowing that he is with me.

dear sir / mdm
fyi, i was the believer of Jesus before. it was 9 yrs ago. Recently i was really depressed and i do not have any sense of belonging anymore. I felt the my life is so empty, I do not where i am heading and i even thought of ending my life.i think my life is pointless as i could not even contribute anything to the universe. I used to pray very hard and cried out for so many times to ask for direction, asking God to show me the light to the truth. right now i am practising meditation and i feel at peace and i see there is improvement in my temper. so may christian told me that doing meditation is an evil action. is this true?another question is if a person has done so many good things to other people and never harm anyone instead doing a lot of donations. will this person go to heaven instead of hell? as many told me that if a person believes in Jesus Christ the person will be going to heaven. that is what normally the pastor will preach in the church.
I am in dilemma and confused over religions and i am i do not know where am i heading to? i know the purpose of my life living in this world and i tried very hard to achieve this mission of mine in life but i still struggling... WHY? how come God let me down time after time? WHY? WHY!? what can i do. and how can i pray to reach to GOD and to bless me, giving me strength to move on so that i can achieve my mission Please tell me how to pray effectively and to reconnect with God ... i beg you in the name of LORD JESUS... please ..... from the very bottom of my heart please GOD HELP ME!!!!!
Confused

Hi Confused! I'm not sure where to start. Let me try to get the easy stuff out of the way before getting to your main point. The Bible tells you to meditate (on God's Word) day and night. This isn't the meditation you're talking about, but, if, by meditating, you're seeking God's insight and guidance, I wish more Christians did that. There is no sin or evil in meditation. Now, if you're calling on something spiritual other than God to guide you, that could get dangerous for you, deepen your depression or worse. That may be what those people mean by evil. Fortunately, I don't have to judge who goes to heaven or hell. I can tell you some things the Bible says on the subject. First, it has nothing to do with donations. If anyone tells you that, don't listen to another word out of their mouths.
Some pastors would be angry with me for my answer but Paul makes it very clear in the book of Romans. People who died before Jesus was born...even people now who never heard of Jesus can go to heaven by following God's law even if they never heard of the Law. Paul says it's obvious just from observing creation. A religious Christian will tell you you have to say certain words or pray a certain prayer, but this is not true. Belief in Jesus (as God) is by far the easiest way to get to heaven, and it's true that no one gets to heaven except through Him (meaning He made it possible). Where some Christians get confused...even some pastors...is in thinking Jesus (God-the Son) wasn't around until Mary had baby Jesus. This isn't true! The Bible says the whole world was created through Him. Abraham, Moses, Elijah, David...none of them knew God-the Son by the name Jesus, yet, the Bible describes at least 3 of them as being alive with God (in heaven).
I really don't understand the debate. If all you need to do is believe in Jesus as God to live in paradise forever, why wouldn't you? I think there are 2 stumbling blocks that make people hesitate: 1. How a lot of "Christians" act...selfish, unloving, judgmental, politically extreme. Why would you want to join that group? 2. What a lot of Christian leaders teach is needed in addition to believing...go to church, donate your money, go through strange ceremonies, talk a certain way, dress a certain way, follow a bunch of rules (different in every group). It doesn't make the "club" very easy to join, does it? In fact, it takes a powerful and exciting relationship with a living, loving God and turns it into a religion of mere rules taught by men. Well, here I go making ministers mad again...none of that is necessary to go to heaven or to be a Christian. Anyone who believes in Jesus, whether or not they do anything else, will go to heaven...that's His promise, not mine.The things that change in your life after that are changes you decide to make based on what God (not a minister) tells you and gives you the power to do. I'm telling you all this because some things I saw in your email led me to believe you've been misled about what Christianity is all about.
Now, back to changing things...that seems to be the main desire expressed in your email. You're depressed, feel like you can't contribute anything worthwhile...even thinking of suicide...and you want that to change. As I teach at www.e-health-fitness.com, your mind, body and spirit are all linked and each influences the health of the other two. Any number of physical conditions can create symptoms of depression...diabetes, hypoglycemia, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, even minor blood chemical imbalances and other factors can change how your brain processes thoughts and emotions. Any number of traumatic experiences can cause depression...car accident, victim of sexual abuse, loss of a loved one, witnessing or participating in violent acts (ask any war veteran). Some teach that you can't be depressed and be a Christian. I strongly disagree! In fact, I wish those people would just shut up because their words are working against the very God they claim to serve. If you can catch the flu or get into a car accident, you can get depression...it's where one part of your being gets so sick it influences the other two. This doesn't mean you can't be healed.
First, if you want things to change, see your doctor, get a referral to a psychiatrist and find out if there is a physical or traumatic cause to your depression. Try the medicines they give you until you find one that works...then stay on it for a few months to a few years, while you build up your physical condition (diet and exercise) and your spiritual relationship with God. At this point, you should begin to see your worth again and to experience God in new and meaningful ways. Now, don't think you have to hear bells and whistles when He's speaking to you with flashing lights and thunder. God speaks with everyone in ways perfect for them. When you feel ready, talk to your doctor about trying to wean yourself from the meds. Do not do this without doctor supervision! In many cases, once the underlying physical or spiritual condition is resolved, medicine is no longer needed. I've seen this work with people I know. In some cases, though, an underlying physical condition can't be corrected and meds are required for life. If this is the case, praise God because your depression is under control, which is what you wanted in the first place.
One more thing about this! If you've been around anyone who believes taking medicine or having a mental illness means you don't have faith in God...run! They're the crazy ones!I hope this helps! We'll be praying for you. Let me know if you have any questions.

Greetings!

I just want to add to Glen's words of wisdom. Belief in Jesus is foundational. However, there is more, as even the Devil and his demons "believe" in Jesus.

The Bible says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)

I hope this helps!
God bless you Glen, for your valuable ministry!

Thanks for that Sarah, that is very valuable what you just said.

Sorry Glen, I read Sarah's post first, so I am commenting on that one first.

I agree with everything you said, except medicine for changing the chemical actions of the brain. Medicine to heal the body yes, but heal the brain, no.

When we can presume to understand the complexity of the brain, then think about it. Right now, anti-depressants work like mini ecstacy tablets.

They give out these pills to give you the impression they actually care. (They're trying to encapsulate care). Fact is, you face a tough struggle turning your life around with the Lord. With His help though, all things are possible.

Our brains are the most important organ we have, and it controls our connection with everything. Tinkering with it at such a level is crude at the best of times, considering how human mechanics work on cars.

This is the organ that controls our personality, who God made us to be. We start messing with it, it would not be at all pleasing to Him, to me. I would imagine something like a mandatory detox, just to even be able to pray before Him again.

I say skip the meds, start meditating in the Word, and get your physical health and relationships back on track with His help, and the help of other people.

Sorry to be critical, but we must honour our God.

And I agree with everything else you said, and thankyou very helpful.

I feel I need to address the issue of depression and a person’s relationship with God. I have suffered with severe chronic depression since childhood; I’m now 53. In my opinion it is one of the most insidious and malicious inflictions that Satan has devised for God’s children. No one who has not suffered from this condition can possibly know how devastating the disease is to the mind, body, and spirit. When a person is suffering with this, you are lucky if you can function, and if you think of God at all, it’s usually with dark, angry thoughts. It wasn’t until I sought a proper diagnosis and was put on medication that I was able to reach out to God with love in my heart.

Is medication necessary for every person who’s depressed? Not always, God put doctors here for a reason too. Sometimes God’s healing is done through the efforts of doctors. If the depressive condition is not too severe, and the person is surrounded by caring, loving Christian friends or family the seed of God’s love and compassion can be planted and see results.

I would never tell someone who is depressed that their condition is their fault anymore than I’d tell someone who has any serious illness that the disease is their fault. Nor would I take it upon myself to tell someone they don’t need medical attention for their illness. Do I believe God can heal people, yes, but first you need to be in a state of mind that can receive the knowledge that God can heal. Someone who is thinking suicidal thoughts needs to see a doctor for appropriate treatment. Telling someone in this state all they need to do is believe in God, when their brain cannot compute that revelation, is not only cruel, but could prove deadly for the person involved.

Once I was able to think rationally and calmly, I allowed God into my heart. I’ve been off medication for two years now, and while I still have depressive moments, I am strong enough to allow God to help me through those times. Given that I now have a terminal illness, I think it’s a great testimony to God’s power to help those who are suffering. Had I not sought treatment years ago, I would not now have the strength to deal with what I am currently going through.

ReneM.
Psalms107:20
He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Thanks, Rene! Your post about your experience with depression is right on, and seems to agree with my original post.

I will agree that medication for a while can help get you back on track.

If I had the time over, I'd never go on them though, since the drugs seemed to do more harm than good. They leave you with a more messed up head than before you went on them. (Some of them.)

The dark thoughts, you have to fight them. You have no right to be angry at God. Whatever happens to you, you have to believe that it is for good.

You can't think suicide, it's a sin. You simply have to fight it, fight it in the strength Jesus has given us.

What you need is Godly counselling, not medication. That's what you needed from the beginning, the medication just opened up the door slightly. You took the long route, so did I.

Also, I refer to '...until I was put on medication that I was able to reach out to God with love in my heart.'

That love should be there anyway, how can you possible say you needed medication to love God? Also, what you have done there, is to say the medication has led you back to God, where He has led you back to Himself.

The biggest problem is us, thinking we need proof of His love, to understand it is there all along. Jesus said 'no more signs will I show this generation'. Obviously, if He thinks we don't need signs, we don't need signs. Just believe it by faith, which isn't that hard for me, considering everything that is written.

I'm sorry, but to say you needed medication to love God again, that's terrible. I wouldn't want any young Christian to hear that. Or any non-Christian for that matter. This is God. How can you not love Him?

Jesus Christ is the way the truth and the life. Not medication.

Rejoice and be exceeding glad is what we should be, if we are living in the reality of being in the presence of God one day.

We are living a lie if we need medication to be happy.

I wouldn't ever encourage the use of medication for depression. Depression and Christianity, they are light and darkness, the two can have no association.

You'll excuse my opinionatedness, but seriously, living in the truth, how can one be depressed? Every day you get closer...your very hairs are numbered.

Since I started this post, I feel a little responsible for it getting out of control. I knew it would be a controversial subject, but I feel I must caution those of you who are starting to seem a little preachy. This website is for loving, supportive, Christian fellowship. You can find preachy and judgmental everywhere. Here, lets try to follow Jesus when He tells us to clean up our own acts before trying to clean up others. After 20 years walking with Him, I find I'm still working on me...how about you? I feel I must correct a few assertions that seem to have been made out of religious fervor rather than Biblical understanding.
First, the idea that anger is somehow unacceptable to God, particularly if we're angry at Him. If you feel this is true, take a look at the second half of Jonah. God is intimately involved in every aspect of our lives. In Him we live and move and exist. We can't shelter Him from our emotions. In fact, it's dishonest to try to hide them from Him. How can we say we have Jesus, the Truth, in us and deny being angry at times? How can we worship God in spirit and in truth, as he asks, if we suppress our feelings? In my opinion, anger at God is an expression of faith in Him. How can you be angry at someone you don't believe exists or you don't believe has power over you? It may be the ultimate expression of faith in Him, because you would have to believe He's big enough not to be hurt, all knowing enough to understand your feelings, and loves you despite your anger. In 20 years of study, I've found nothing in the Bible that suggests otherwise.
Then, I find frustrating and baffling the idea that Christianity and depression are incompatible. I know where the idea comes from. A lot of us think depression is just a bad mood or negative outlook on life...an attitude. True depression is a physical illness that affects the brain, a physical part of the body. It's funny or sad that people who regularly drink coffee, tea, cola or something stronger seem to think the brain can't be affected by physical conditions...all the time, they're tweaking their physical conditions to affect their brains. They accept that mental delirium can be caused by fever, but still think the brain can't get sick like any other part of the body.
For some reason, people who feel it's OK to take drugs to treat everything from a headache to cancer, think it's somehow faithless or sinful to take drugs to treat a physical illness in the brain. Depression, bipolar affective disorder and schizophrenia, among others, are all physical illnesses that change how we see the world...even how we see God. This happens because certain blood chemicals are necessary for the brain to function properly. Sometimes the body doesn't produce enough or produces too much of a given chemical and throws the brain out of balance. Since we experience everything through our brains, when they are sick, so is our idea of reality. Still, this sickness is no different than diabetes, cancer, anemia or any other. Yes, God can heal them! Sometimes He chooses to use doctors and medicine to do so. If you believe medicine for depression is an expression of faithlessness, you should drink nothing but water, eat only natural, unprocessed foods, wear no synthetic fibers, use no electricity, machinery or manufactured goods and accept no medical treatment for any condition. None of those things were made by God, either. If you say that's what you do, you're kidding yourself...you're using a computer. So, if meds are good for a headache, they are good for depression...real depression, not a bad attitude.
But, what can the Bible tell us about depression and God? One of the most faithful followers of God, taken up to heaven on a chariot of fire, documented by Jesus to be with God, documented by the Apostles as visiting Jesus during the transfiguration...was depressed. Even after healing people, raising people from the dead and many other miracles, this prophet had all the symptoms of clinical depression, including a loss of appetite, no motivation and an unrealistically negative view of the world (he even told God there was no one left who believed). Read Ecclesiastes and tell me Solomon didn't suffer from depression, though He had everything the world could offer. How about Jeremiah? The fact is, Christians can get any disease, including depression. It rains on the just and the unjust. To judge someone as somehow in sin or faithless because they need medication is so wrong, it's offensive. I just felt I had to set the record straight. If you want to make such blanket judgments about others, at least show us the Scriptures that you think support those judgments. Or, maybe we can all follow Jesus and love others while cleaning up our own acts.

I don't believe depression is a disease of the brain. It is not a physical illness, the brain reacts to your circumstances by producing more or less chemicals of a certain type. Quickly: You can make your brain 'sick' though by not leading a balanced lifestyle.

Who should we seek about advice about how to live?

The brain is reactive to the circumstances you (and consequently others) throw at it. Any brain scan technique will back up what I am saying. There's an action, and a consequent reaction. In other words, you are able to put depression on yourself.

Yes, we all go through depressive moments, David did in the Psalms as well as the Prophet you are talking of seemed to. I do, all the time.

If you are depressed all the time, you have lumbered yourself with a depressive lifestyle. Another quick edit: You do not have to drink and eat nothing but bread and water. It's all about balance and moderation. It's that simple. The first step, seek God, don't seek medication. That's what I am saying. He's there to help you in your time of need. That's scriptural too.

Also, I was saying we ought not to be depressed, not that I am not ever depressed, this is backed up Scripturally by letters Paul wrote to the early Christians. He wrote to tell them to rejoice in their sufferings.

You can take tablets for your headache if you want, but most likely some situation you have put yourself in has contributed to it in some way.

What I'm saying is address the root cause, because medication is a waste of time, and no one ever stays on it permanently.

Your brain is a reactive organism. It reacts to the stimulus you feed it.

I'm not condemning anyone, but to say you needed a foreign substance in your body, affecting your brain, so that you could love God again, I don't agree that that is what any Christian should be thinking.

This is Christian advice forum section, I gave her the best Christian advice I felt I was able to offer at this time. I am imputting into a discussion here, the be all and end all rests with the LORD's word.

Sure, there's plenty of things I can fix myself, and I continue to work through them, but on this issue, there is light for me. God can fix it. 'Our God is able'. There is another Scripture reference. 'We can do all things through Christ...' Another... This is not limitless, this is all things.

I think we should be a little bit careful of being angry towards God, because He is able to, and has done in the past, destroyed people because they displeased Him. This is in the Old Testament, a guy who was meant to preserve seed, wasted it, and the LORD slewed him. From this, I see that getting angry at Him may not be the best thing, considering my anger may not be pure or righteous.

Look, I'm here to take advice, as well as to dish it out. This is an issue I've worked years at, sorting it out, and everything that works comes from God. I have made more progress out of God's Word than I've ever made on any kind of medication. To establish something else, the medication took me backwards on occasions.

I'm simply forewarning people that medication can take you away from God. I've been there. Considering I've been there, should I encourage people to take medication to be more distant from God?

Is this what any Christian should do? Absolutely not.

Matthew 6:33 states,"But seek ye first the kingdom of God,and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

So, are we following Jesus, or not.

All that needs to be said, has. The Lord bless you and keep you.