PERSONAL STORY AND LIFE OF CHARLES E WHISNANT FAMILY . Life is growing and learning every day, every experience gives us new wisdom and insight into giving God the glory.
Whether you have a case of the blues or you’ve been diagnosed with depression, your body may hold the keys to fighting depression. And once you know how to tap into them, you may be able to boost your happiness.
Neurotransmitters including endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine are the brain’s messengers that regulate mood, concentration, motivation, and other emotions. Antidepressant medications work by increasing the flow of these neurotransmitters to areas of the brain that cause depression.
By understanding how these chemicals work, you can use your body to fight depression. No pills required.
Endorphins
Know that euophoric feeling after an intense workout? Or the contentment you feel after sex? You can thank endorphins for those happy feelings. These neurotransmitters are released when you’re under physical or emotional stress.
How to boost endorphins:
Exercise. To get that runner’s “high,” you don’t necessarily have to run. Research shows that a regular aerobic program may be just as helpful in treating depression as some medication.
Laugh. A recent study done at Oxford University found that having a good old-fashioned laugh with friends releases endorphins, which then improve mood and social bonding.
Indulge in chocolate. You know it, and science has backed it up: Chocolate makes you feel good. Researchers have found that a bit of the cocoa treat can trigger the release of endorphins and improve your mood.
Serotonin
The neurotransmitter serotonin works to regulate sleep, reduce pain, and improve your mood. When you’re low on serotonin, you may be at a higher risk for depression and suicide.
How to boost serotonin:
Think happy. Research shows that swapping negative thoughts out for happier ones can increase serotonin levels.
Head outdoors. Natural sunlight can help your body produce more serotonin, so take your workout outdoors during the day. Or, at the very least, take a daily stroll either in the morning or early afternoon.
Eat smart. Your body converts the amino acid tryptophan into serotonin. So load up on tryptophan-rich foods like brown rice, cottage cheese, turkey, sesame seeds, and peanuts.
Dopamine
This neurotransmitter associated with motivation and the reward and pleasure center in your brain is helpful in fighting depression symptoms like anxiety, loss of interest, and withdrawal.
How to boost dopamine:
Play your favorite music. Ever wonder why a favorite song can give you a rush of pleasurable feelings? Researchers at McGill University report that listening to music you like can lead to a release of dopamine.
Eat your favorite food. Can’t live without pizza? Your go-to foods can also boost levels of dopamine. (Just remember to enjoy in moderation.)
Go for a healthy lifestyle. Alcohol, poor sleep habits, caffeine, too much sugar, and stress can all deplete your body’s dopamine supplies. Help protect the neurotransmitter by eating fruits and vegetables rich in antioxidants.
The neurotransmitters acetylcholine and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) may also play a role in depression. GABA is an amino acid that may ease feelings of anxiety, and acetylcholine could improve both your memory and your concentration. GABA is found in fish, especially mackerel, and wheat bran. You can get acetylcholine from eating egg yolks, whole wheat, and soy.
Boosting your endorphins and other neurotransmitters may help you prevent depression and improve your mood, but don't ignore symptoms of depression like sadness, anxiety, and a lack of energy that keeps you from functioning normally. If symptoms of depression last more than a few weeks, talk with your doctor.
John Piper offers ten theses to explain how all preaching should be gospel preaching, proclaiming Christ crucified: 1. Whatever lasting good God ever does or ever did or ever will do for any individual person, he does and did and will do because of his free, utterly undeserved grace. 2. This free grace, that gives every lasting good to people, can benefit us justly only because of Jesus’ wrath-absorbing, righteousness-providing, sin-atoning, guilt-removing, substitutionary death for us.
3. Without this kind of atoning death of Christ, God’s grace would not save us, but only increase our condemnation because of the hardness of our hearts.
4. But by the blood of Christ, God really purchased us for himself and secured not only every lasting good that we receive, but also the gift of repentance and faith through which we receive everything else.
5. Therefore every sermon that holds out any lasting good to any person (as every Christian sermon must) should be based on, and interwoven with, the gospel of the living Christ’s substitutionary death.
6. This gospel basis and gospel interweaving of our sermons should be clear enough so that gospel-deniers (like Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, legalists, libertines, etc) will not approve of our sermons. There should be enough of Christ and of his cross that those who deny the gospel don’t approve the sermon.
7. This gospel basis and gospel interweaving of our sermons should be clear enough so that the living Jesus will be honored as the ground and goal of the message because of his grace-securing sacrifice for us.
8. This gospel basis and gospel interweaving of our sermons should be clear enough so that the imperative that flows from the message is, first and foremost, faith in the blood-bought reality that God is 100% for us in Christ (that is, faith in the justifying work of Christ), and then, secondly, the obedience that comes from this faith (that is, the fruit of the sanctifying work of the Spirit).
9. In this sense then every sermon proclaims Christ. His atoning work is the ground of all it offers. His glory is the ultimate goal of all it aims to achieve. And the written revelation of Christ’s unfolding ways in history (that is, Scripture) is the only authoritative source from which we bring this work and ground and this glory to light (expository exultation).
10. Thus with Christ-crucified as the ground and goal and matter of every sermon (and all of life) the ultimate aim of God in creation is advanced: the praise of the glory of God’s grace, through the joy of his people in him.
Charles e. Whisnant, Student of the Word, Teacher of the Word
From my early years back in Roanoke, Virginia when I was 16
years and was teaching the youth/teenagers/young adults before I had any formal bible education I loved studying the Word of God. I loved teaching a book at a time. That was my Dad's method, take a book like Galatians, or Revelation, or Psalms and teach verse by verse by H.A. Ironside.
In 1982 after attending the Shepherd's Conferences at Grace Community Church, where John MacArthur has preached now for 40 years I learn what it meant to be a pastor/preacher and teacher and how to teach the Word of God.
Starting in 1982 I started teaching Matthew and 250 sermons later I finished.
Its only in the last year that I listen to John MacArthur give these reasons why by we should be preaching expositional. What is neat, I have been doing teach this way for 30 years. Cool.
NUMBER #1 YOU USURP THE AUTHORITY OF GOD OVER THE MIND AND SOUL IF YOU FALL TO EXPLAIN THE WORD OF GOD
You usurp the authority of God over the mind and soul if you fall to explain the word of God you have replaced the authority of God with whatever else you're doing. It really is a question of authority.
NUMBER #2 YOU USURP THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST OVER THE CHURCH
We see it all through the NT the authority of Christ over the Church.That God has made the one who is Lord over everything to be the head of the church.
NUMBER #3 IT HINDERS THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Spirit uses the Word to sanctify them, by the truth, The word is truth, the only tool the Spirit has is the scripture and where the Scripture replaced by anything else the work of the Spirit is hindered .
Isn't it unthinkable for a Christian not to submit to scripture. John says If you love Christ you will obey him as well in I Peter 1 14 as Obedient Christians.
There is this among preachers who do not yield to scripture, it reveals an inferior inadequate love for God and his glory and the honor and glory of God and an inferior understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit
NUMBER #4 DEMONSTRATE PRIDE, AND A LACK OF SUBMISSION
Isn't it unthinkable for a Christian not to submit to scripture. John says If you love Christ you will obey him as well in I Peter 1 14 as Obedient Christians.
There is this among preachers who do not yield to scripture, it reveals an inferior inadequate love for God and his glory and the honor and glory of God and an inferior understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit
NUMBER # 5. THE CONSEQUENCE OF NON EXPOSITION PREACHING IT SEVERS THE PREACHER PERSONALLY FROM THE REGULAR SANCTIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE.
What does that mean? If you are not an expositor you are not in the study of the book. And you have just been cut off from the sanctifying power in your life. Then you put yourself in a dangerous spot.
If there is one way to discredit everything, and the integrity of the gospel and the church is the testimony of the pastor. What just kills me is the immoral pastor, the pastor who does not live by the Word. So what keeps you sanctified to the point that you will not go that way? The only thing that will is what will sanctify anyone and that is the work of the word in your heart.
NUMBER #6 REMOVES SPIRITUAL DEPTH AND TRANSCENDENCE FROM THE PEOPLE CRIPPLING WORSHIP.
That is to say it cripples worship. What do I mean by that, well let's take it from the positive side when you come on Sunday or you go to Bible study or go to an opportunity to be taught the word of God, you were taken down into other depths that scripture inevitable to places you haven't been right?
NUMBER #7 PREVENT THE PREACHER FROM FULLY DEVELOPING THE MIND OF CHRIST CRITICAL TO HIS WORK. From fully speaking for Christ whom he serves.
1 Corinthians 2:14-16 we are remind of a very important spiritual truth and read it please. Mark it down, an unconverted natural person doesn't get it, doesn't understand the things of God. People are just not favorable with the Scripture. Lost people just do not get the truths of God. And that is to be expected as a response.
NUMBER #8 DEPRECIATED BY EXAMPLE The spiritual duty and benefit of studying If the pastor doesn't do it.
If the pastor doesn't do it why should others in the church do it. I never ask a young person to do something that I had not already done. Even in those early years I would work my fingers off writing in learning the Word of God. If this bible is not valuable to me why should it be to anyone else. I need first to be a preacher of the word, not a preacher of the building. If the Bible is not the consuming passion in the pulpit why should we believe it should be the consuming passion of those who set the pew.
NUMBER #9 PREVENTS THE PREACHER FROM BEING THE VOICE OF GOD ON EVERY ISSUE OF HIS TIME
If you know your bible you can be the voice of God on every issue. Other wise you are just one of many voices. Know the Word of God. That is what I did when I was a youth pastor. Get them to know the Word.
NUMBER #10 BREEDS A CONGREGATION AS WEAK AND INDIFFERENT TO THE GLORY OF GOD
If you do not do expositional preaching if you don't give your people the eternal powerful word of God you breed a congregation that is week and indifferent to the glory of God, honor of God, the honor of Christ.
NUMBER #11 IF YOU DO NOT DO EXPOSITIONAL PREACHING ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE YOU ROB PEOPLE OF THEIR ONLY TRUE SOURCE OF HELP. THEIR ONLY TRUE SOURCE OF HELP. 1 Timothy 3 we covered that in a series on Sunday in the Adult Bible Class. There is no help apart from the Lord, and there is no help apart from understand the Scriptures about God.
NUMBER #12 THE FAILURE TO DO EXPOSITORAL PREACHING PUTS THE RESPONSIBILITY ON THE PREACHER TO CHANGE PEOPLE
Say that most preachers feel that responsibility. I would be in a mental institution if I believe that people's eternal destiny depended on me. I am a Calvinist because that is a defensive posture. I can not handle that responsibility. And I don't have to either.
NUMBER #13 FAILURE TO PREACH EXPOSITIONAL REDUCES THE PREACHERS WORDS TO THE LEVEL OF EVERYBODY ELSE'S WORD
I just say my words then I am just like anyone else. The audience can pick and choose what they hear. You may think you can come up with a clever way that you think you can articulate your message, but if it's not the Word of God then you are reduced to the level of everyone else who has an opinion, an ideal, a viewpoints, a theory, a religious insight, a perspective
NUMBER #14 FAILURE TO PREACH EXPOSITIONAL IS TO PORTRAY AN ATTITUDE OF SELF-LOVE RATHER THAN LOVING THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART SOUL AND MIND AND STRENGTH. ANOTHER WAY: FAILURE TO PREACH EXPOSITIONAL REDUCES THE PREACHERS WORDS TO THE LEVEL OF EVERYBODY ELSE'S WORD.
I don't want to walk into the pulpit and say "the other day I was thinking." (poor typing the script of John and its said, "I don't want to walk in the pole dancing on the other day.")
NUMBER #15 A FAILURE TO DO EXPOSITORIONAL PREACHING CREATES A DESTRUCTIVE DISCONNECT BETWEEN SOUND DOCTRINE AND LIFE: or LIFE IMITATES THEOLOGY
Since I adopted John MacArthur's method of preaching I have like he has been highly criticism and not been practical and preaching is not applicial . I never make application, I am not relevant.
NUMBER 16 IT ELIMINATES THE TRUTHS, THE TROUBLE AND OFFENSE AND TERRIFIED THE LOST
A failure to do biblical exposition makes the congregation: if they fail to do biblical exposition to teach the full counsel of God as revealed in holy Scripture it eliminates the truths, the trouble and offended and terrified the lost and the sinful.
Number #17 WILL DISCONNECT GOD'S PEOPLE FROM THE LEGACY OF THE PAST
Some of my very favorite preachers and theologian and teachers are those who have already died many years ago. When I was preaching Romans the first time around, or Ephesians, or Revelation I read over 100 people on the subject. Most of them were dead a long time ago.. Why do you read commentaries on any book from dead men? Really dead people: Calvin, Luther, Spurgeon, etc. Pink, Ironside, and Whitefield, and others older Baxter, Edwards,
NUMBER #18 REMOVES THE PROTECTION FROM ERROR THAT IS DEADLY TO THE CHURCH
Shepherds understand they have to protect sheep, because there are those who dress up in sheep clothing and teach error. That is what Satan does, comes inside the church and cause all kinds of trouble. We have to watch and warn.
Sometimes Christians can not tell truth from error. A very dangerous situation and unless we clarify doctrine, unless we defended threatened truth, unless we guard the truth of scripture, unless we expose error we are not faithful shepherd's.
NUMBER #19 EXPOSITORY PREACHING ASSURES PEOPLE THAT THEY HAVE HEARD FROM HEAVEN
Too many preachers preach what has not come from Heaven. I believe people should hear from God and people want to hear from God and the way you guarantee that is by given them the word that God has spoken on the pages of holy scripture. Far too many people believe that they have heard something so profound they believe it came from God when indeed they have not.
When I started teaching the Bible back in Roanoke, Virginia in December 1963 Dad gave me the young people's class since the teacher went to the Army. For the text 27 months (February 1966 I taught that class ever week, while I was still in high school. I was dating Saundra Richardson from the tenth grade until I sent to Seminary in 1966. Love Saundra and love the Lord and love teaching. My Dad died in February 1966 and that ended my teaching at Roanoke Baptist Temple. I did go over to Fellowship Baptist Church with Gene Arnold and preached and taught in the High School class until Mom and the family moved to Danville, Virginia.
Now those years teaching in Roanoke, without knowing really what I was really doing, I was studying the Bible. Thank goodness Dad had a great library of great books and I really loved reading them. I spend a lot of time reading the Bible and reading those who knew the Bible.
Then I went to seminary and there I learn that preaching was not teaching. I did learn a lot what the Bible. Well what they said about the Bible, but they never gave me the tools to study the Bible, because that was not the right way to study and preach.
Well for the next few churches I was in churches where the pastor did not preach expositional and therefore I just taught what ever. From 1970 to 1982. It was not until 1982 that I got back on tract with teaching the bible as I did when I was in high school.
How can parents help their kids to deal with life? Do we have to diagnosis kids with depression or AD
Is there a way that parents can raised their children to avoid depression?
Do children take on our actions as they see us play out our depression? If I am always acting depress will this be seen by our children, and they will learn the same actions as we have?
1. The sufficiency of Scripture
This issue, and all issues of Christian living, needs to be approached through the lens of “Sola Scriptura.” God’s Word has given us all that we need, by way of its commands, as well as its patterns, for all decisions related to faith and practice.
“Sola Scriptura” points us to ask, “If we only had the Bible to refer to in making a decision about any issue, what would we conclude?”
