Mental Health Devotional in ASLSample

Focus On God

When you do think of holy things, let it be of the best things: of God and grace, Christ, heaven, or your fellow believers or the church. Focus your meditations outwardly, and be sure you do not over examine yourself in detail, and don’t waste your thoughts thinking about your thoughts. 

Just as we need to direct the thoughts of careless sinners inwardly and turn them from the world and sin and to themselves, in a different way we need to direct the thoughts of self-perplexing, melancholy persons outwardly. This is so because it is the nature of their disorder to be always accusing themselves. Remember that it is a far higher, nobler, and sweeter work to think of God, Christ, and heaven, than of such inferior things as we ourselves are. 

When we go to God, we go to love, grace, freedom, and a different identity. When we look down into ourselves, we look into a dungeon, a prison, a wilderness, a place of darkness, horror, filthiness, misery, and confusion. Therefore, though such thoughts are necessary at times but it is far more important to focus on the positive life transforming work of Christ in us than it is to dwell on our sinfulness.

“In fact, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one you are really serving, and you know he will reward you. But Christ has no favorites! He will punish evil people, just as they deserve.” -Colossians 3:24-25

• Challenge yourself to begin to see yourself in a new light, the fact that you are a new creation through Jesus; He is changing you from the inside out.