Every Christian Sabbath, don’t miss it.  Admire, adore, and appreciate one another and our eternal union in Christ.  And then sing Psalm 122 while you to come to church glad to worship God together united in Christ and unified with the mind of Christ, praying for the peace, happiness, and prosperity of Jerusalem. 

Psalm 133:1 extols, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!  It teaches us to appreciate how God’s good blessings are especially experienced in the worshipful union and communion of His saints.
This pleasantness is something Christians enjoy in local congregations as well as in the broader fellowship of Presbytery, General Assembly, or Synod gatherings.
See that God bestows His blessings on and through His Church united in worship.
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul describes how the Church is Christ’s body united together, and how it is as one that the members survive and thrive.  They walk with God there.
Psalm 133 is labeled in its title as a song of ascents, part of a themed “mini-series” within Psalms 120-134 believed to be sung by Israelites as they ascended the road to Jerusalem where the Temple was to unite in offering sacrifices and worship.  Verse 1 teaches that such is a great blessing, and verse 3 notes that God commands his blessing there forever.  As well, verse 2 recognizes it  “ran down” from God, or in verse 3, it “descended.”
Blessings flow down from God and gather where He determines.  Thus, assembling together for Christian worship each Lord’s Day and at His table is special fellowship (1 Corinthians 10:16).  And God provides two illustrations of this blessed encounter as His gathered, communing people.
First, see that God sends blessings within His Church through Christ’s priestly propitiation.
Oil brings vigor and vitality back to our skin, with a shine and glow.  It was used to anoint kings, prophets, and priests from and for the Church.
In verse 2, the oil dripping down Aaron’s beard represents his anointing as high priest ministering in the Tabernacle (and Temple), where God brought atonement of sins, forgiveness, restoration of fellowship with God, and union with His saints.

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Written by Derek J. Brown |
Sunday, October 23, 2022
A growing understanding of the gospel is the most important component in our battle with unhealthy introspection. We need to understand what God has done for us in Christ, so that we will look to Christ and his completed work for us, instead of constantly looking to ourselves.

The following is a response to an email I received a while ago.  A dear brother contacted me and asked me if I could expand on an entry I had posted. Specifically, he wanted to know if and how the Lord had helped me make progress in dealing with unhealthy introspective tendencies and spiritual depression. Below is the letter with a few slight edits for clarity.
Dear Friend,
Thank you again for your email. An inclination toward severe introspection and spiritual depression is something that has affected me since early in my Christian life, and I still find myself battling introspective tendencies and spiritual depression.
When I first came to Christ, I noticed immediately that I tended toward a severe examination of my inner life—my motives, my affections for God and for others, my faith in Christ, my holiness. Far from bringing me peace and assurance in my relationship with Christ, this propensity to question every inner-working of my heart instead brought much doubt, confusion and, inevitably, depression.
Yet, I can say that, by God’s grace, I have made significant progress in this area. As I reflect on the past several years, I can see specific means of grace that God has used to help me turn from an unhealthy preoccupation with self and sin—with the depression that inevitably follows—to a growing focus on the gospel and others. The following are several disciplines I have found to be particularly helpful in my fight against what Martin Lloyd Jones calls “morbid introspection” and the resultant spiritual depression.
A few words, first, about the following points. First, it is important to remember that overcoming introspective tendencies does not mean that we are to disregard all forms of self-examination. Sober-minded, thoughtful, doctrinally informed self-examination is required for believers (2 Cor. 13:5), and is, when conducted correctly, a means of real joy and peace.
Second, the following list includes those things I have found to be beneficial to me. It is a personal list. I hope and trust that much of what I offer here is grounded in Scripture. Nevertheless, it will be important for you to not receive this as an infallible map to spiritual health but rather as helpful suggestions as you continue to walk daily with the Lord, learning from his Word and from other counselors.
The first point (a robust understanding of the gospel), however, lays the foundation for everything else. Without this important point, our battle against morbid introspection and depression will malfunction at a fundamental level. With those two cautions in mind, let’s turn to considering the following points.
1. We need a robust understanding of the gospel.
I put this first because it is the most important. I have found that my tendency toward severe introspection is compounded to the degree that I am not seeing the gospel in all its beauty and doctrinal fullness. Specifically, this has meant understanding and embracing the important doctrines of justification, sanctification, and indwelling sin.
Justification: Scripture teaches that justification is the act of God by which he declares us wholly forgiven and righteous in his sight and on the basis of Christ’s perfect life and substitutionary death on the cross (Rom. 3:21-26; 5:1; 8:1), not upon any work that we have done or will do (Rom. 4:5; II Tim. 1:9; Tit. 3:4-7).
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From dust we came, and to dust we will return (unless our Lord returns first). But this dust will be resurrected, reconstituted when Christ comes again in glory. On that day of reunion—of body and soul, earth and heaven, men and angels—when all things are at last visibly made subject to the second man, Jesus Christ, then believers will live forever in fully and finally sanctified bodies.

Holiness begins and ends with a crisis. In regeneration, we were definitively sanctified (past tense). Our whole Christian life involves progress in sanctification. But that process will be brought to perfection in two further critical moments: the moment of our death and the hour of the final resurrection (see Westminster Confession of Faith 32.1, 3).
Christians have already been sanctified; we have already “died to sin.” Sin’s dominion is broken (Rom. 6:2, 14). But we are not yet free from sin’s presence or its influence. The Christian life is a battle all the way home.
But one day—or more precisely, on two days—that will all change. When believers die, they are immediately “with Christ” (Phil. 1:23) and are, in William Cowper’s words, “saved to sin no more.” What a mixture of relief and joy that moment will bring.
Paul adds that it will be “far better” than anything we have known here. We have never known a moment when that has been true here. But then we will be free from the down-drag of sin, breathing in—and then breathing out again—the pure, perfectly sanctified air of glory. What must it be like when perfect holiness and total love for God the Father, Son, and Spirit—and for our fellow believers—are both natural and easy? Yes, actually easy—and as natural as breathing.

Yet there is more to come. Our bodies are not merely temporary housing for the soul. No, our bodies also are who and what God made us to be out of the dust of the earth. From dust we came, and to dust we will return (unless our Lord returns first). But this dust will be resurrected, reconstituted when Christ comes again in glory.

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