What is Mental Health?

 


Biblically, mental health is about embracing the truth. Why Truth? Truth transforms:
•    Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Once our minds and hearts are regenerated (born again), we can begin to apprehend what Scripture is teaching, unlike the Israelites who had a blinding veil over their minds. When this takes place, we can behold the glory of God and be transformed:

•    2 Corinthians 3:14–18 But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

•    John 8:31–32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

We are what we Believe: Spirit working through the Word:  Ephesians 3:19
…know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Believing Anita)

2 Timothy 2:24–26 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. (Our role?)

What is Mental Health in Secular Counseling?

Reduction of painful symptoms, but some thinkers realize that far more is required:

Carl Jung: “Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”

•    Eckhart Tolle, mystic and New Age Guru: “Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.” (Stillness Speaks) (Shadow work?)

But can we face what we have repressed? Proverbs 20:5-6 The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?  

Proverbs 16:2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit.
•    Aldous Huxley: “If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful, and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.” (The Perennial Philosophy, (1894-1963)

•    Benjamin Franklin: There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self. ( (1706-1790)

•    Roman philosopher Seneca (4 BC-65): “Other men's sins are before our eyes; our own are behind our backs.”

Why do we run from self-knowledge? It is just overwhelmingly painful:
•    Arnold Toynbee:    “Unless we can bear self-mortification, we shall not be able to carry self-examination to the necessary painful lengths. Without humility there can be no illuminating self-knowledge.” (A Study of History)

According to Jesus, we cannot tolerate the truth about ourselves
•    John 3:19–20 …”this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.”

Consequently, we will flee from the truth and even try to destroy those bearing the truth:
•    Isaiah 2:20-22 In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver…21To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the crags of the rugged rocks, from the terror of the LORD and the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth mightily.

•    Rev. 6:15-16 Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!” (Why terrified? John 3:3)
       
   Evidence of Self-Deception: “In one study of nearly a million high school seniors, 70 percent said they had “above average leadership skills, but only 2 percent felt their leadership skills were below average.” Another study found that 94 percent of college professors think they do above average work. And in another study, ‘when doctors diagnosed their patients as having pneumonia, predictions made with 88 percent confidence turned out to be right only 20 percent of the time.’” (Abcnews.go.com; “Self-images Often Erroneously Inflated,” 11/9/05)

•    Psychologist Shelley Taylor:    “Normal people exaggerate how competent and well liked they are. Depressed people do not. Normal [?] people remember their past behavior with a rosy glow. Depressed people are more even-handed…On virtually every point on which normal people show enhanced self-regard, illusions of control, and unrealistic visions of the future, depressed people fail to show the same biases.” ( Positive Illusions p.214)

•    Psychologist Roy Baumeister:  “For three decades, I and many other psychologists viewed self-esteem as our profession’s Holy Grail: a psychological trait that would soothe most of individuals’ and society’s woes. We thought that high self-esteem would impart not only success, health, happiness, and prosperity to the people who possessed it, but also stronger marriages, higher employment, and greater educational attainment in the communities that supported it. (http://imaginefirestone.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/RethinkingSelf-Esteem.pdf)

What then is the answer? Only the love and training of Christ can enable us to face the truth, free us from our addiction to self-deception, and to accept ourselves the way we are. Jesus promised:

John 8:31–32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

MARTIN LUTHER and THE PEASANT REBELLION

 

 

In May 1525, Luther wrote Against the Rioting Peasants and their Peasant Rebellion (1524-26), whose leaders had even been appealing to the Scriptures and the Reformers to justify their violence in the pursuit of “justice”:

•       The peasants have taken upon themselves the burden of three terrible sins against God and man; by this they have merited death in body and soul... they have sworn to be true and faithful, submissive and obedient, to their rulers... now deliberately and violently breaking this oath... they are starting a rebellion, and are violently robbing and plundering monasteries and castles which are not theirs... they have doubly deserved death in body and soul as highwaymen and murderers... they cloak this terrible and horrible sin with the gospel... thus they become the worst blasphemers of God and slanderers of his holy name.

Luther justified the use of lethal force by the German princes against the peasants, citing Paul’s teaching on the role of the civil authorities to maintain order:

•       Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. (Romans 13:1-5)

According to Luther’s Biblical analysis, “stand-down” orders issued to police represent the betrayal of public trust and welfare. Instead, it is the justice system that must maintain peace, order, and to protect the innocent against the violence of the mob. When the justice system betrays this trust, it longer has the authority to insist that the public should not defend themselves. A system which refuses to fulfill its role extends an invitation to a run-on-guns, vigilantism, civil war, and a breakdown of everything that God values. What then must the justice system do? Far more than they have been doing! Any form of unlawful violence must be effectively addressed.

It is not a matter of compassion to stand-down before the mob. It is insanity, the destruction of a city and even of a society. Instead, in this case, the highest form of compassion is the maintenance of justice and the protection of the innocent in the face of a blood-thirsty mob. Compassion then is a matter of using the least lethal force to accomplish justice, peace, and protection, whatever the cost. Anything less is a betrayal and an encouragement to mob violence and destruction.

THE ENCOUNTER

 

I never thought of myself as a rebel. I never carried a placard or joined a radical movement to protest an injustice or acted out against it. However, my parents regarded me a rebel. I was dark, sullen, and brooding, a volcano ready to erupt, its lava ready to consume everything in its path.

I had become a product of the prevailing “psychological society” in which there is no honor or dishonor, no right or wrong, but rather competing psychological hungers clamoring to be fed.

However, I had not exclusively feasted upon this worldview. Instead, I had filled myself with other dreams—hitting the longest home run or rescuing the world, whatever it took to give me a sense of value and honor.

I needed this sense of worth and mission, but the psychologist quietly and unintentionally robbed me of my dreams and left me with the conviction that I merely needed to find what made me feel good about myself. It was all about me but this “awareness” further imprisoned me and feeling okay. Psychology invited me into a cell of self-absorption. I now became burdened with the endless quest to become self-actualized.

However, I was a very unlikely savior. I would regard others as maggots and disgusting scum. I had learned this from my parents. As an eight-year-old, I awoke crying, and this awoke my parents. I had recently returned from a tormenting sleep-away summer camp where I had no friends and felt that I too was a maggot.

My parents hardly ever talked. Therefore, I was surprised when they came to my bedside to ask me why I was crying. Fighting to regain composure, I related to them how I had been rejected by everyone and felt so unloved.

Instead of surrounding me with hugs, kisses, and the assurances of their love, they assured me that I shouldn’t feel bad about myself, because everyone else was garbage, and this “wisdom” became my comfort. If I couldn’t lift myself up, I could at least put others down.

My parents meant well. Mother kept my clothes ironed and made sure to get me to the doctors’ appointments on time. Dad was a good provider, and I always had my material needs satisfied, but gloom and emptiness filled our house. No on talked or touched.

When I was 13, a friend invited me for dinner. His parents began to talk at the dinner table. I was horrified, no less than had they come to the table without a stitch of clothing. Then they began to ask us questions about school. “How could they do such a thing,” I thought.

When I was 16, my father amazed me by asking, “How was your day today, son.” I was speechless! I knew he meant well, but I was unable to answer.

He had been an absentee father. Coming home from the office, he would retreat into his room and close the door, to either practice his piano or read the Times. In either case, Mom always warned us to not disturb Dad.

Both were off-limits emotionally. My mom wanted to be a good mother, but she was poorly equipped for the job. She didn’t enjoy children. Mom once confided that she never held me. She had read a book about how to raise the male baby, which advised that, if you don’t want your son to be a sissy, you shouldn’t hold him.

Consequently, I was an anti-social child who didn’t fit in. I felt uncomfortable with others, knowing that they would eventually reject me. Therefore, I would reject them before they could reject me.

When I was 14, my parents convinced me to see a psychologist, but nothing changed except for my growing assurance that I was damaged merchandise. I was beyond cure and was unable to change.

As a college student I was drawn to the anti-heroes. The movies of the sixties presented the outcast as the good guy. They too felt rejected by society and its standards, but they were affirmed by these movies. How refreshing for me, at least, even if they didn’t supply the affirmation I craved.

However, it was when I was bleeding to death from a deadly chainsaw injury that I encountered an unseen Person. Instantly, I knew that I was beloved and protected. Even if I died, I knew He would be there for me. I was ecstatic. Only one thing now mattered— discovering the identity of my mysterious Lover. Only one fear remained—this might be about Jesus.

I was a committed Zionist and had lived in Israel for three years, hoping to find my purpose there. Consequently, the idea of becoming a Christian had been utterly abhorrent to me. I would sooner have become a zombie or a worm, a minor betrayal compared to becoming a Christian. However, I knew that the One I had met transcended any ethnic identity or loyalty:

·       If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)

I had experienced a love I had never dreamed possible, a love even promised in my Hebrew Scriptures:

·       The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:1-4)

This is the One who had come to my rescue! Jesus has now shepherded me through some deep valleys for 50 years. Yet, I am more convinced than ever of His love and care for me, and this has made all the difference.

A SAFE PLACE IN JESUS

 

 

I have no problem telling the unsaved that God loves them. However, there is also a place for stronger medicine. In the first two evangelistic sermons in the Book of Acts, Peter went right to the sin issue:

• "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” (Acts 2:22-23)

• “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life.” (Acts 3:13)

In both cases, Peter called upon them to repent. He didn’t have to mention faith because faith and repentance are inseparable, opposite but complementary sides of the same coin. Both are the product of a regenerated heart. However, Peter’s focus on repentance zeroed in on the central issue.

This illustrates an important but often neglected principle. Good preaching and evangelism should usually be accompanied by the conviction of sin. In letters to five of the seven churches of the Book of Revelation, Jesus convicted them of their sins and commanded that they repent.

The preaching of many churches often lacks this key element. It is often replaced by unbiblical concepts of “niceness” and “love,” which equates preaching sin with judgmentalness or even self-righteousness. However, this is the very thing that the Church is commanded to preach:

• Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. (2 Timothy 4:2)

Paul had warned that sin was like yeast. Just a little dab could transform the entire loaf (Galatians 5:9) and also the church. This is particularly the case regarding the Church’s unwillingness to preach against sexual sin. I asked several church leaders regarding the presence of homosexual couples and the transgendered in their church. I was told that instead of preaching against it, “We just want to love them into the Kingdom by providing a safe place for them.”

However, the real safe place for the unrepentant sinner is the place that confronts him with his sin in hope that this will produce repentance and lead him to the only true hope in Christ.

Feeling Like Garbage for the Glory of God

 

Sometimes I leave church feeling like garbage. It’s not the church’s fault. It is mine. While I want to please my Lord in every way, my thoughts and feelings are leading me away to a place I don’t want to go. The Apostle Paul described this very thing:

·       Romans 7:19-20 NLT I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

Why is it that those who want to do the good cannot do it? Clearly, God allows our fleshly nature to remain in us, but why? To humble us and teach us indispensable lessons. They deprive us of pride and self-righteousness and force us to trust in God’s righteousness and mercy alone, as Paul had explained about his own experience:

·       2 Corinthians 1:8-9 …For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

The quicker we realize that we are morally inadequate, the quicker we will really on God’s adequacy, the very thing He wants us to do! Consequently, we will love Him all the more and rejoice in Him:

·       Psalm 94:18-19 When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up. When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.”

·       Psalm 116:1-2I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.”

He is able to transform any of our failings into blessings, hope, and adoration for Him. Consequently, I cry, “I love You; I love You!” He is everything to me. There is no problem too great for Him. I can entrust all of my petty concerns to Him:

·       1 Peter 5:6–7 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

But how amid our continual humbling? By seeing ourselves as God does. He is moved by our suffering. Our Lord refused to heal Paul from his satanically induced suffering explaining:

·       2 Corinthians 12:9 …“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Even amid our sins? Yep! Let’s return to: Romans 7:20:… “if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

Are we issued a free ticket to sin? Not at all! This is not a ticket but the mercy and patience of God to those who have placed Christ first in their lives, (Matthew 6:33; 10:37-39), and these will always confess their sins and receive a fresh start. We are children who want to honor our Father but often fail, are humbled, and then are tenderly comforted. Consequently, we love our Father more and more.