If you have a friend or family member who you know is suffering from, or at least in whom you can recognise some of the symptoms of, depression, what can you do to support them? As I have already stated, I have no professional expertise in this area and only personal experience to speak from. …
Author Archives: nihilist2christian
Bearing each other’s burdens: how can you start to overcome depression?
If you yourself are aware that you suffer from depression, or if you have recognised some of the symptoms within your own thoughts and feelings, what can you do? The first thing is to speak to someone who can help. It’s unlikely that this will be easy for someone in your position, but if you …
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Bearing each other’s burdens: what does depression feel like?
What is depression? The simplest definition I can come up with is: a mental illness that negatively affects the way a person feels, thinks and acts. What are some of the symptoms? feeling sad or down or hopeless.loss of interest or pleasure in activities one used to enjoy.change in appetite, weight gain or loss unrelated …
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Bearing each other’s burdens: when social isolation takes its toll
As we in the UK approach the end of a fourth month in lockdown, restrictions are being relaxed and the number of COVID infections and death appears to be steadily declining, yet we are by no means out of danger. Even those who have not been infected may have found themselves at risk in other …
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What are we without love? No virtue without sacrifice
The last few posts have reminded us that all Christian behaviour should be motivated by a desire to enhance God’s reputation and to demonstrate self-sacrificing love for others. Needless to say, that isn’t always easy. Nobody likes to make sacrifices. We are always tempted to find a way to look as if we’ve done something …
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What are we without love? Getting our priorities right.
In our last few posts we’ve seen what can happen when a Christian or a church puts too much emphasis on only one aspect of our responsibilities towards God and towards each other. One way this can happen is an over-emphasis on challenging false teaching and rejecting from the church those who promote it. If …
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What are we without love? Finding balance between two extremes.
In the last two posts we saw the two extreme positions that churches can end up in when they lose sight of that which ought to be the foundation of all Christian thought and behaviour. The church at Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7) had with great zeal tested anyone who wanted to be a teacher of God’s …
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What are we without love? Avoiding the other extreme: Thyatira
Last time we looked at Jesus’ memo to the church at Ephesus and saw that, while a zeal to preserve the purity of God’s truth is a good thing for a Christian to have, it’s possible to take it too far. The church at Ephesus had made zeal for doctrinal purity such a central part …
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What are we without love? Avoiding one extreme: Ephesus
In our last post we saw that the defining characteristic of a true Christian is to be motivated by love. This should be the foundation of every Christian’s faith. We also saw that Christians can easily lose sight of this, instead basing their faith on either having a correct set of beliefs and practices or …
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How to grow as a Christian (part 5) – what are we without love?
What is the hallmark of a true Christian? How do you tell a true church from a false one? You could ask those questions of a variety of different people and get a variety of different responses back, but most of them would probably centre around one of two things. Some might point to Bible …
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Nihilist to Christian 