"If your hair's too long, there's sin in your heart!" - by Billy Strings

Legalism isn't a new thing. Jesus had to deal with it when confronting the Pharisees of His day. Unfortunately, we have some people who have learned well from them, sticking to the letter of the Law.

Instead of being present-day Pharisees, we can overcome that bad spirit with the Word, where we find the antidote.

People judge the outward appearance, both inside and outside the Body of Christ. Unfortunately, that's the nature of worldly people. Christ followers play by a different "rule book"

Instead of "excessive emphasizing of rules and regulations and strict literal adherence to them," we hold to two very vital Godly virtues:

Love and grace.

Last week we dealt with the concept of depression: Where it comes from and the Biblical view of how to more than cope with it.

This week we dig deeper into how the Bible speaks to how we more than just "meditate" or silence ourselves and the voices we often fight. Though changing our thought life (our ruminator) is vital to defeating the oppressive forces, we have been given Biblical truths to both defeat the voices and fill the silence.

Philippians 4:8 and Lamentations 3:21-33 give us tremendous insight to how the Holy Spirit works to transform our minds into thinking God-thoughts. Biblical meditation isn't an emptying of our minds but filling them with His truth. We overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by our testimony.

We don't fight feelings, we identify them, and then make them align with the Word of God. Faith overcomes fear. Truth overcomes the lie.

Depression is not from our Father.

However, like many "big names" in the Bible, many of us have experienced the deep pit depression brings. But not everyone goes through the same experience. So, there's no "easy fix-all" when it comes to depression.

There are many causes of depression and, though we don't purport ourselves to be licensed psychologists, we have been equipped to bring a Godly perspective that can help in the process of being delivered from this pit.

Whether the cause of a person's depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, a personal failure, or any of the other seven other causes we've discovered over our combined decades of ministry, there is no need to live in the pit: God's Word gives us the insight to be an overcomer.

This isn't a "12 Easy Steps to Defeat Depression" podcast. But we are going to start with one of the most basic fundamentals of overcoming depression as well as some Biblical truths that most often are not discovered on a psychologist's couch.

This is part one of a two-part podcast that can shed Godly light on a very serious subject.