Christians often consider the Puritans experts in spiritual depression, or “melancholy.” I think they were experts in remaining in it, and not triumphing over it. Just because they wrote a lot about it means nothing if they kept struggling with it. Their endless lists on every topic promote boredom, depression, anguish, and rage instead of resolve the issues they address. People who study the Puritans for help on this matter might feel like they have found their kindred spirits among these tedious divines, but there is only resonance, and no breakthrough. When a demon comes to oppress them, they would invite it to sit down and have tea with the thing. They would study it and live with it for years.

They think the solution is to seek God, and seek God, and seek God, and repent for who knows what, and seek God, and seek God, and repent some more. They are always “seeking” God and digging for more things about themselves they could repent of. They often seem more obsessed with themselves than with Jesus Christ. It is useless to seek God if you refuse to do what he tells you! All of it is futile if you wallow in your feelings and your doubts, and keep going through religious motions. God is over here, but you are all the way over there “seeking” him when you are just talking to a wall and being pious, being fake and stupid. You are not really seeking God if you refuse to listen, and if you refuse to believe. You want to think of yourself as humble and zealous, but you keep hardening your heart against the blood of Christ. No wonder you are depressed. No wonder the doubts and struggles persist. You want them, because they make you feel special. But when you really seek, you find, and it is finished. You don’t need to write six hundred pages showing off to people on how much you have contemplated about it.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). I have peace. My heart is not troubled. I am not afraid. I was not like this before I became a Christian. I was so fearful and depressed that sometimes I could not even leave my room. When God called me to faith, I was reborn in Christ. I immediately started to study my redemption, my charter of emancipation. I learned. I renewed my mind. I studied about faith in Jesus Christ and his happy promises. I did not spend my time scrutinizing my problems to death, then raised them from the dead, apologized to them, nursed them back to strength, then cried out to God about how they had returned, and then tortured them with a bunch of boring lists until they killed themselves just to get away from me. I focused on the merits of Christ’s suffering and atonement rather than the merits of my own depression and repentance. I did not take pride in my shame, but I reached for Christ right away. Then I took this peace Jesus left me. Then I refused to let my heart be troubled. Then I stopped being afraid. And I became happy — more happy and more consistent than anyone I know.

Paul wrote, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). I was so anxious that I was immobilized in life. But I turned my mind to Christ, and I stopped being anxious. In everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, I told God what I wanted. And what Paul said became true. God’s peace invaded my heart and fortified my mind to this day. Peter said that although you do not see Christ now, you have faith in him, and so you rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). If you say you believe him, why don’t you have this joy? Shouldn’t you at least admit that you ought to have it? It does not take a five-volume analysis just to admit that.

Christians keep saying that we must deny ourselves, crucify ourselves. Hurt yourself, and you will be saved. They have no idea what the Bible really teaches about this. When you parrot, “Take up your cross,” make sure you know what it means, or do not say it. Keep pushing, and God will eventually answer, “YOU are the cross, and I will throw you off!” (see Jeremiah 23:33). The majority of those who keep yapping about denying selves and bearing crosses are so self-centered and annoying. Now if the Bible says to deny ourselves, have you done what it says? And if you have done what it says, then shouldn’t you also experience what it says? Then why don’t you have peace that passes understanding? Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. Now you are back in the corner moping and analyzing yourself again.

Preacher, why don’t you throw that encyclopedia on melancholy out the window, and declare to your people “joy unspeakable and full of glory”? Is a joyful and confident gospel that much of a curse to you? You reply, “Jesus was a man of sorrows.” You read that off a calendar, didn’t you? Those of us who read the Bible see that there is more to this: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:3-5). This is Isaiah 53, man. How could you get it wrong? Of course he was a man of sorrows — he was carrying our sorrows! Of course he was smitten and afflicted — he was punished so that we can have peace. And it does not say “by his wounds we are wounded,” but by his wounds “we are healed.” We receive the opposite of what he suffered. To say that Jesus was a man of sorrows, so that we also live in sorrows, is to attack the atonement and the blood of Jesus Christ.

This anti-gospel manner of thinking is common. The suffering of Christ is portrayed as something we need to naively imitate. He suffered in our place, and endured many things so that we would not have to. Our suffering, when it happens and when it is legitimate, is different from his. Christians who are too inept to make simple distinctions on the matter — and most are totally inept — should not teach about it. They tend to burden people with unnecessary suffering, and in a way that even suggests that it is spiritual and meritorious. This kind of teaching allows Christians to wallow in their unbelief and sadness, and at the same time feel like their suffering is meaningful. Unbelief is shockingly stupid, but at the same time, it makes people so arrogant that they would measure everyone else by it.

For Christians, suffering is an existential fetish. Perhaps you like this system of religious pain and struggle, because it makes you feel pious. You are turning yourself on, you sicko. It has nothing to do with living for Christ. You are fake. If you deny yourself, then Christ would live in you, and you would exhibit his qualities and powers. If you deny yourself, then you would have faith, joy, peace, healing, and the power of the Spirit, and all the things that Jesus Christ suffered to obtain for you. God even raised him from the dead and ordained him to oversee the application of redemption, to make sure that you receive what belongs to you in Christ, and that no one can take them away from you. But what do you do? You spit in his face, you step on his blood, and then you preach about it as if it is gospel.