Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

There is a complexity to someone being healed of depression. And all the problems with depression are not spiritually based. Since a person is made up of body, soul and spirit, the solution can be a lot of different things. Pastor Steve explains some different ways the Lord has directed people to deal with depression and gives some very practical ways to help their depression lift.

Until the soul is healed, until the issues are attended to, a depressed person is still prone to depression. Pastor Steve shares his own experience with depression and how God healed him, and explains that God can indeed heal a person of depression. 

In addition to sharing his own experience with depression, in this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.

In addition to sharing his own experience with depression, in this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.

Over and over again the Bible presents us with snapshots of the world as it will look when the Messiah comes to establish the kingdom of God on earth. But until then, the world we live in is a badly damaged version of the one in which God intended us to live, but it has become so familiar to us that we forget it isn't normal. In fact, compared to what God originally designed, it's very subnormal....

I’ve lived through seasons in which people were absolutely sure that Jesus was coming back any day. It was very exciting and, for some, particularly the young, very disturbing. Any thought of planning for the future went out the window because, after all, what was the use? The end of history, as we knew it, was at hand. It stirred evangelism and put the fear of God in some whose moral life had dec...

No two people are alike. God designed us that way. He loves variety. There aren’t two snowflakes, or blades of grass, or grains of sand that are alike. No two people have the same fingerprints, let alone the same personality. Everything about us is different, including the path He has planned for our lives. But those differences have nothing to do with favoritism. Everything God does, which is not...

Some of us may think, "If I didn't have drive, ambition and fear motivating me, I'd do nothing." That's absolutely false. We trade in these attitudes to the Lord for something else: faith. We no longer walk by ambitions, drives and inner fears. We begin to walk in faith. As we walk with God and in His power, we will accomplish things far beyond what we are even capable of accomplishing. We will do...

Many of us are plagued with a memory of something we did in the past which we can’t seem to get out of our minds. Even though we may have confessed it to the Lord and are confident He has forgiven us, the memory of that event still lingers and every so often rushes back into our thoughts to torment us. For some reason we have not been able to free ourselves from it. It still influences our thinkin...

When we say “yes!” to Jesus, He enlists us into His mission of saving, healing and loving people, and that can be hard, dangerous, tiring work. It can wear us out. But as we watch Jesus serve breakfast to a group of hungry disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee we learn something very important about our Lord. He is not indifferent to our sufferings. He is not passive or thankless. He knows...

It’s impossible to do what our Lord asks us to do unless He provides for us. His miracle of provision must undergird every form of ministry no matter how large or small. You may have heard the saying, “Where God guides He provides,” but the fact is, where God guides He must provide because if He doesn’t we won’t be able to do what He asks us to do or go where He sends us. When Jesus calls a person...

Faith, by its nature, involves risk. That’s what makes it faith. I’m committing myself to something I can’t prove. I’m believing that something exists which hasn’t arrived. I’m seeing something with spiritual eyes that I haven’t seen yet with my physical eyes. And if that faith is going to last until the promise is fulfilled, I must make a long-term commitment to that decision because no faith goe...

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not the end of His ministry; it was the end of a chapter. One stage of His assignment was now complete, and it was time for the next stage to begin. So when He appeared to His disciples on that Sunday evening, Jesus had much more in mind than simply convincing them that He was alive. He walked through those locked doors to announce the beginning of a new chapte...

As Mary stood outside the tomb weeping it had already started. The miracle had begun. The first child had been born into the huge eternal family that the Father had always desired. The devil had tried to stop it, and for a time it appeared he had succeeded. He tempted the human creatures to sin and they did, and their sin would surely hold them in the grave. But now one had escaped. He had been si...

The disciples’ response to the empty tomb proves how little they understood about the most essential truths that Jesus had taught them. What He said was so different from what they had been taught as children, His words only confused and frightened them. He repeatedly told them He must suffer, die, be buried, and rise again on the third day, yet not one of His disciples responded with even the sli...

Before God created the universe; before He breathed life into a human being; before the first man or woman rebelled against Him bringing death upon themselves and their descendants, there was already, hidden in God’s heart a plan to save us. He knew what we would do before we did it, and He knew what He must do in order to rescue us. But He didn’t tell anyone else exactly how He would accomplish H...

To someone who didn’t know the Bible well, what happened to Jesus that afternoon would have seemed to be nothing more than a tragic series of events. That person would have seen only an innocent man being badly mistreated. But if someone did know the Scriptures, he or she would have been shocked as they watched key prophecies being fulfilled in front of their eyes, especially the way Jesus’ body w...

Even though Jesus was crucified like a common criminal, if someone knew what to look for there were signs all through that terrible event that pointed to the truth about Him. John alone among the eleven disciples was present at Jesus’ side while He was dying on the cross, so he personally saw and heard the events he reports. He also had the spiritual capacity to recognize those signs in the midst...

Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. He said so many times. And yet, in the end, the Roman governor sentenced an innocent man to death. Why? What was it that changed his mind? No new evidence was produced. Nothing Jesus said created suspicion. In fact, as the trial progressed Pilate discovered the truth: Jesus was there because the religious leaders were jealous of His influence. He could see for himse...

People ask questions for different reasons. One person might ask a question as a way of attacking an opponent in a debate. That question is meant to confuse their opponent or expose their lack of understanding. Another person might ask a question because they genuinely want to know the answer. But there is also a third reason people ask questions. Someone might ask a question in order to help some...

When we read the account of what happened to Jesus after He was arrested, we encounter an element that is very hard to explain. It’s the furious hatred some people felt toward Jesus. They hated Him with a ferocity that is just not reasonable. After all, He was a good man, the kind mothers want to have bless their babies. He wasn’t a violent criminal or a thief. He was a rabbi who taught in the syn...

There comes a time in most people’s life when they discover how weak they are. How soon that happens varies from person to person. Some learn the lesson when they are very young, others not until much later. Some discover it by a series of small events, others only after a massive failure. Some easily admit their weakness and seek help, others are deeply ashamed of their weakness and try to hide i...

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to rescue people out of the darkness of this fallen world without suffering. Forces that hold people down won’t let them go without a battle, and people are wounded, and even die in battles. Which explains why suffering is necessary. But not all forms of suffering have the power to rescue people, only a certain kind. Most have no redemptive power at all, they are j...

Christmas is a time of gift-giving. I suspect the Magi, the wise men who came from the east, may be the inspiration behind it. They brought gifts to Jesus fit for a king while He was still a very small child in Bethlehem. They gave Him gold, frankincense and myrrh because they believed He was Israel’s promised Messiah who would bring God’s kingdom to earth. On December 25th many of us will give gi...

Possessions don’t bring joy. They break, get stolen, or we grow bored with them. Pleasure doesn’t bring joy. The more we seek it, the less we find. Entertainment doesn’t bring joy. Much of it leaves us feeling violated or sad. Trying to isolate ourselves from people or problems doesn’t bring joy. The more time we spend alone the more angry we become. We end up thinking far too much. So when Jesus...