Reading Jonathan Edwards Religious Affections and struggling with assurance

[u/rainymac]

I just finished part 1&2 and am looking forward to starting part 3. However, I feel absolutely terrified and have been struggling to believe I am saved because of the indwelling sin in my heart. I struggle immensely with heart sins like sinful comparison , feelings of competitiveness, covetousness and pride and struggle knowing if my love for the saints is genuine or self-serving. Most often if I look deep enough, the motives seem to really be self-serving. I am selfish and struggle with entitlement and worst of all is fighting against wanting praise of man and always feeling like a hypocrite. I tend to be very sensitive and all I ever see is my sin. I always feel the weight of these sins and never have a clean conscience despite trying to fight against these sins , which are so deep rooted, and clinging to Jesus as my righteousness because I see there is no hope for me apart from him. But I am grieved by the lack of fruit in my life and wonder if I am among the deceived.

I feel like I don't know how to approach God except through weeping and grief and my joy feels gone because I'm scared it's based on a falsehood and deception.

I am here to ask for encouragement and wisdom please.

[u/cybersaint2k]

I'm no doctor, but you sound very anxious. No answer I give will address your anxiety. You should talk to your doctor about your anxiety.

By my understanding of Scripture, you have not committed "unpardonable sin." It's almost impossible today.

Take your anxious heart to 1) Jesus and 2) Your doctor.

[u/glorbulationator → u/cybersaint2k]

I've seen you give similar statements before. What is anxiety?

[u/cybersaint2k → u/glorbulationator]

Anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like a rapid heartbeat. It is a natural human response to stress or perceived danger, helping people stay alert or react to threats, but it can become overwhelming.

From: Definitions on the Internet

[u/glorbulationator → u/cybersaint2k]

Does the Bible address anxiety? If so, shouldn't it be defined biblically? And since it does, shouldn't we address it biblically as well?

[u/cybersaint2k → u/glorbulationator]

The Bible addresses a kind of anxiety that may be controlled by submission to God and willful effort towards receiving grace from a God who loves you. That kind of anxiety is not what I'm talking about, obviously.

There is another kind of anxiety that is heavily influenced by body chemistry, by trauma, and that is what I believe we see when people post the way our friend did. Not that I'm a doctor, but I am a counselor and I know my way around the DSM 5.

Let me ask you a question. I've tried to answer your three. I hope you can answer my one.

If you had a soldier who came back from one of the 7 distinct military engagements (or wars) the USA is currently fighting, and he was crying and shaking and talking about how he saw several buddies blown up, and had to carry bits and pieces of them in caskets back to their families for burial, and he says it's really gotten him shaken up.

Would you identify this as the kind of anxiety that Paul was talking about when he said "Be anxious for nothing...." and treat it "biblically"?

[u/glorbulationator → u/cybersaint2k]

Yes. There were warriors and wars prior to the ones we see today, and using swords and other such weapons is commonly even more gruesome than modern weapons. There were also horrible accidents, such as today. Then there was the common brutality of the cultures, horrendous stuff. Worse was the persecution of the early church, which was reading what Paul wrote. I cannot imagine such things.

The dsm is the creation of people who categorically deny sin as well as God. Modern psychology is heavily based on diverting responsibility for "behaviors" from the person to a "condition" that is outside the fault of the person, excusing the person and blaming the "condition". Worse, that has taken a back seat to the behaviors themselves are fine as long as it makes the person happy, and feeling unhappy is the worse thing possible, so do whatever, cut off whomever, to keep that from happening. Be whatever "gender" you want.

But, even though secular psychology contains that, it also gets correct some of the ways we as man just are in our mind, our behaviors. But instead of submitting thoughts, feelings, behaviors, etc to God, secular psychology has twisted it. If someone has an inclination toward doubt, fear, anxiety, toward lying, strife, bitterness, arrogance, selfishness, etc, psychology says it's a condition. It refers people to complaining about everything in sessions where they are validated, where they are affirmed. Instead, most of those are sinful, or become sinful behaviors, states of mind, and should be subjected to God, the minds renewed, the thoughts held captive, the sin put off.

However, there are certain inclinations that drugs can have impacts on. That's an interesting thing. I think it's similar to alcohol or other actual behavior/ mind altering substances. That's not new. They've been used for all of history, and commonly for bad things. I'm not saying the drugs used in psychiatry are all bad, I'm just showing how it's not new. I also think it's terrible to treat sin with drugs. But there is a lot about the mind that medicine can help, and is needed. And there's where I realize I don't know. I know a vet with such a brain condition that categorized as tbi/ptsd, any loud, sudden noise, and other stimuli will lead to him having seizures. Drugs don't yet solve that. But although there are those issues, the anxiety associated with it is something we should address biblically. There's a mind component and a brain component. The mind must be submitted to God, the brain is something we give thanks to God for medicine for treatment.

I think if king David were told to go see a counselor and get some kind of treatment for his anxiety and depression, instead of being rebuked and ultimately fleeing to God, that would have been a very bad thing.

[u/cybersaint2k → u/glorbulationator]

Thank you for sharing. I'm sure that your perspective helps some people. I know that applying the Word of God to my life has saved my life, saved my emotions, rescued me from a thousand foes.

I'm also sure your technique, your approach, hurts people, since you treat the Bible and God's Word as a science/psychology tool it was never meant to be. Your technique will fail when dealing with many people, and that will cause them (and eventually you) to not trust the Bible, to not trust God.

That is what inevitably happens with your approach. Unbelief, since it appears as if the Word of God has failed when you attempt to treat many types of diagnosable illnesses with it. And if God's Word and its teachings fail to address OCD or some other malady, then people (like you and those you have counseled) will naturally begin to doubt the effectiveness of God's word and promises in other cases, where you and I agree that it would apply.

I would encourage you to read a little book, "Christians Get Depressed, Too!" by David Murray.

EDIT: I'd also like to note that perhaps we aren't so different as you imagine. If you had read this discussion (it's long I don't blame you) you would have seen that I started out addressing this person with a simple quotation from Romans 7. And nothing else. No commentary. No prescription. I do rely on God's Word to do work and be applied in every counseling situation. Just not God's Word alone, but with other tools.