"The entrance of thy words giveth light (Psalm 119:130)."
The Sufficiency of Christ
"By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life (2 Peter 1:3 NLT)."
A long time ago, I was reviewing cases as part of a group under the supervision of a secular licensed therapist. We were talking about a teenage girl with depression issues. She would not stand up for herself and allowed herself to be the victim of abuse. Therefore Satan had a spiritual foothold and hence the depression. The prevailing wisdom of the group was that the girl needed to be on psychotropic medication because her secular therapist intern was unable to otherwise make any progress in resolving the girl's depression.
I knew better, but I kept my mouth shut. Therapy and medication are the standard for mental health care. I was—at the time—trying to get a license.
It was no surprise to me that secular therapy was ineffective. And teaching adolescents that the way to deal with their emotions is to turn to psychotropic drugs is a terrible intervention!
I would make the argument that, taken as a whole, secular mental health treatment does far more harm than good.
But let's get back to the Bible because the Bible provides the only real answers. Lets read the entire passage this article started with, this time in the New International Version.
"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:3-8 NIV)."
As you might have realized from the above passage, knowledge of Scripture, and its application to our lives, is related to self-control and spiritual progress. However, these don't come about instantly as a result of salvation; they come about in "increasing measure." That is, they come about as a result of weathering the trials of life and progressively learning and experiencing the efficacy of Scripture.
This takes time. Actually, it's a lifetime learning process. It can't take place if your mind is numbed with psychotropic drugs.
So, the point is this: The Bible has the answers. Hang in there. Don't expect instant results. And, stay away from psychotropic drugs if at all possible.
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