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DAY 21
Dealing with depression
‘Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression’ Proverbs 12:25 NKJ


LONG-TERM DEPRESSION drains your energy, distorts your reality, assaults your faith and affects everybody around you. One in five of us suffers from it. It’s responsible for more workplace absenteeism than diabetes and heart disease. Poor health can cause it, not to mention your surroundings; also stress, fear, loneliness, guilt and anger. And it’s no modern-day disease either; it affected Bible characters too. 1) David experienced it because of unconfessed sin. Listen: ‘I am... utterly crushed... my strength fails... My friends... stay far away’ (Psalm 38:8-11 NIV). 2) Job got so depressed about his financial, personal and family losses that he cursed the day he was born. (Job 3:1-3). 3) When Jezebel threatened Elijah, he went through the ‘H.A.L.T.’ syndrome. He was Hungry; he stopped eating. Angry; he got mad at God and the world. Lonely; he left his servant and went off by himself. Tired; he collapsed. But God had a prescription. He: a) changed his diet b) told him to rest c) let him know he wasn’t alone d) sent an angel to minister to him. Those are still the steps out of depression! David said, ‘The Lord... lifted me up out of the pit of despair’ (Psalm 40:1-2 NLT) and He can bring you out of your depression too! Don’t isolate yourself and don’t be ashamed to get help from your pastor, a trusted friend or a good counsellor. And remember, addictive behaviour and destructive relationships will only make things worse. The moment Elijah heard God’s voice, he began ‘getting it together’. With God’s help, you can too.


Prayer Point - Anger and disappointment

Lord God, I confess that I feel angry – angry with You, angry with the world and angry with myself. I never asked for depression, and this isn’t how I wanted my life to turn out. Yet I don’t want to be consumed with bitterness. Please give me Your grace today to forgive where I need to forgive, and to entrust the pieces of my broken dreams into Your healing hands.

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DAY 22
A soil analysis
‘A farmer went out to sow his seed’ Matthew 13:3 NIV

THE SEED(God’s Word) is always productive and the Sower (the Lord) never deviates from His job. The only variable is the soil. That ultimately determines if the seed will be productive. Here Jesus discusses three kinds of soil. Check and see which one you are: 1) Hard: In Bible times, hard-packed paths often ran alongside the farmers’ fields. Any seed falling there just shrivelled and died. When you’ve been walked on and disappointed, unless you’re careful, you can become hard; you develop a tough, impenetrable shield that makes it easy for satan to come along and steal the seed before it has a chance to grow. 2) Shallow: In Jesus’ day, most farmland in the Holy Land was just a few inches of topsoil over rock, with nothing to sustain roots. Richard Foster says: ‘Superficiality is the curse of the age. We live in a world of shallow relationships, superficial conversations, and hurried moments of prayer. We bounce from one spiritual activity to another without any real root system.’ Know anyone like that? 3) Overgrown: This soil is so overcrowded, there’s no room for anything else. Its nutrients are sustaining the weeds. Clutter happens easily, and is dangerous, because it’s so subtle. Ever notice how often you’re bombarded with guarantees that certain things will bring you happiness? Like the car manufacturer who advertised, ‘You can’t buy happiness; but you can lease it!’ Do a soil analysis today and weed out anything that’s hindering your spiritual growth. Once your heart is tender, your devotion deep, and your life uncluttered, you’ll be amazed at what God can accomplish through you

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DAY 23
Getting a new wardrobe!
If you’re serious about living this new resurrection life … act like it’ Colossians 3:1 TM


TAKE A MOMENT and read these words from Colossians 3 in The Message. Don’t just read them once – meditate on them, digest them, then put them to work. ‘Your old life is dead … that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God … It wasn’t long ago that you were doing all that and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it’s all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk. … You’re done with that old life … It’s like a filthy set of illf itting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe.
Every item of your new way of life is custom made by the Creator, with His label on it… So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offence. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it’ (Colossians 3:3–14 TM). Now go back and read those words again, asking God to help you make them a reality in your life today!

Prayer Point :
I pray that today won’t finish with a list of offences I’ve collected, Lord. I release to You anything the enemy would try and trap me with. Help me to daily live a life of forgiveness. Lord, help me to see You as the most important aspect of my life. Help me to focus on what You desire to see blossom in my daily walk. Let me focus on Your Kingdom, not mine. Amen!

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DAY 24
Get rid of your idols ‘…From all your idols,
will I cleanse you’

Ezekiel 36:25 KJV


WHATEVER TAKES God’s place in your life is an idol. Get rid of it! That includes ‘generational idols’. When Gideon tore down the altar his father had built to pagan gods, his family wanted to kill him (Judges 6:30). Why? Because that’s the way things had always been in his family. Sound familiar? If your family system excludes God, it’s got to be changed! Those who don’t acknowledge God, play God! The rich young ruler wasn’t lost because he had money; he was lost because money had him (Luke 18:22–23). It gave him his security and his self-worth. Nobody but God can reliably give you those things! And how about your relationships? The Bible says, ‘Do not be yoked together with unbelievers…’ (2 Corinthians 6:14 NIV). You can’t put an ox and a donkey in the same harness and get any ploughing done, because their natures are different! When God tells you to let someone go but you hold on to them; it’s idolatry (and insanity). Today, God is saying to you, ‘I want to cleanse you from all your idols!’ The weaning process may be painful because we all want what we want, when we want it. It takes real trust to know that you can give up what you have and get back something better. Whether it’s a job, a relationship, a ministry or a poor career choice, your Father wants to wean you from the lesser and give you the greater. His plans are so much better than yours that, whatever it costs, it’s worth the pain to make the switch

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DAY 25
Replace bad habits with good ones
O God … guide me on the road to eternal life’ Psalm 139:23-24 TM


ANY HABIT you keep feeding will only strengthen its grip on your life. Ask a recovering alcoholic – they only change when they ‘hit bottom’. Prodigals don’t come home until they’ve lost everything (see Luke 15:32). But that doesn’t have to be your story, for your Father is waiting to welcome you back now! Come on, you’re a child of the Most High; captivity is unnatural for you! You’ll never be free until you despise your chains. Whether you’re bound by a substance, a relationship, or a life that’s out of order, your circumstances won’t change until your mind is released from old thought patterns and renewed by God’s Word (see Romans 12:2). Start by instituting some new habits, for what you do habitually, you do permanently. Begin the Bible-reading habit. Put it first on your ‘to do’ list or you’ll never do it consistently. Read aloud and you won’t get distracted so easily. ‘Those who discover these words live, really live; body and soul, they’re bursting with health’ (Proverbs 4:22 TM). Next, learn to pray. Set a special time, otherwise everything else will crowd it out. In prayer, God will tell you how He feels about things. Can you imagine having His input? Attend church regularly. Support it with your finances and develop healthy relationships. There are things God will say to you in His house that He won’t say anywhere else (see Hebrews 10:25). Your daily habits are carving out an irreversible future for you. If you want to know where you’re going, take another look at your habits!

Prayer Point ;
Help me, Lord, to develop a really honest list of my bad habits and then guide me to replacements for each one that will build me up in You. I know that the journey to break these habits might be hard but You are there to help me through. In my weakness, I am made strong in You. I just turn to You today and turn away from the things that bring me down. Amen.

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DAY 26
Dealing with your weakness
‘He remembered that they were but flesh…’ Psalm 78:39 NIV


WE ALL HAVE WEAKNESSES, but the ones we refuse to deal with: a) draw us magnetically toward the wrong things, b) give satan a foothold, which quickly becomes a stronghold, and c) schedule tragedy down the line. Be warned: your weakness can emerge at any time, including your closing years! What you fail to master now will master you later. That’s why David prayed, ‘Cast me not off in … old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth KJV’ (Psalm 71:9). The Holy Spirit will repeatedly convict you before your weakness destroys you! Jesus told Peter: ‘Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.’ (Luke 22:31–32 NIV). God will continue to use you even while your weakness is growing within you! That’s because He’s long-suffering and merciful. He provides opportunity after opportunity to reach for His help. Jesus warned Jerusalem, ‘… how often I have longed to gather your children together … but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate’ (Matthew 23:37–38 NIV). Think: when you repeatedly reject God’s mercy, what’s left? The inevitable consequences! ‘What can I do?’ you ask. Turn to God! He’s neither shocked by your weakness nor unwilling to help you. Confess your sin. Become an enemy to it. Ask the Holy Spirit to empower you. Not only can He deliver you, He can turn your greatest weakness into your greatest weapon!

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DAY 27
How can I change
'...Be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind’ Romans 12:2 AMP

ARE YOU WRESTLING with a certain problem, thinking, ‘If I could just get beyond this, everything would be all right?’ Sorry to disappoint you, but when you’ve conquered this particular problem, God will reveal something else that needs to be dealt with. Relax – you’re always going to be working on something! Change doesn’t come through human effort without God, frustration, self-rejection, guilt or the white-knuckling works of the flesh. No, change comes as a result of having your mind renewed daily by the Word of God. As you agree with God, believing that what He says is true, change automatically begins. You start to think differently, then talk differently and finally act differently. Be patient with yourself: it’s a process that develops in stages. Would you think there was something wrong with a child who couldn’t walk perfectly the f irst few tries? No, you’re delighted each time they take another step. When they fall you pick them up, comfort them, bandage them if necessary, encourage them to try again and keep working with them. Do you think God does less for His children? God’s not angry with you because you haven’t ‘arrived’; He’s pleased that you’re pressing on, trying to stay on the path. It’s God’s job to ‘… [cause (you) to…be governed by the Holy Spirit]…’ (2 Corinthians 3:8 AMP). If you could do it by yourself, you wouldn’t need God! So instead of driving yourself harder and harder, start leaning on God more and more!



Prayer Point
Lord, You never promised to remove problems but You did promise to be there with me through them and bring me to a place of overcoming them – I rest in that today. I ask, Lord, for a fruitful life in You, that all the promises of the years gone by would visit me like old friends to remind me of what Your desire is for my life. Build me up, Lord, I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen

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DAY 28
Fruitful Life
By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit’ John 15:8 NKJ

DO YOU want to know the will of God for your life? Listen: ‘I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain’ (John 15:16 NKJ). ‘But what if my branch is barren and my basket is empty?’ you ask. Listen: ‘Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away’ (John 15:2 NKJ). ‘Does that mean I lose my salvation?’ you ask. No, Jesus was speaking about branches ‘in Me’, proving that it’s possible to be ‘in Christ’ yet not be fruitful or enjoy the abundant life He wants you to have. The Greek word for ‘take away’ is ‘airo’ which means ‘to lift’. New branches have a tendency to trail along the ground. But they don’t bear fruit there. When the rain comes they get muddy and mildewed, sick and barren. So, does the vinedresser throw them away? No, they’re too valuable for that. He goes through His vineyard with a bucket of water, looking for fallen branches, lifting them out of the dirt and washing them. Remember His words in John 15:3? ‘‘You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you’ (NKJ). Once they’ve been washed, He lifts them, wraps them around the trellis, ties them securely and pretty soon, they’re thriving. What a picture! Whether you’ve fallen into the dirt or you’re just living beneath your potential, God won’t throw you away. No, He’ll lift you, cleanse you and help you to flourish again. Why don’t you talk to Him today!



THE END!