From Sorrow to Comfort

Continued series on humility in relation to the Beatitudes

I have asserted the premise that humility is the foremost godly virtue required before any growth in Christ-likeness can be manifested. In fact, I don’t see how one could repent and be saved without first humbling themselves before God. There also appears to be the necessity of humbling ourselves associated with each of Christ’s commands. but this comes naturally when one receives a view of the One true omnipotent, infinite and sovereign God of the bible, and then compares self to Him. 

We’ve been gauging this assertion by recognizing the relationship between humility and the Christian qualities Jesus expounds in His manifesto on the mount in Matthew five—the Beatitudes. We now move to verse three. 

 

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  

 

Our knee-jerk responses gravitate towards the word “comfort” while the natural reaction of the flesh is repulsed by the notion of “mourning.”—that doesn’t sound so pleasant.  

 

Let’s think of comfort first. 

A softened comforter heaped playfully on a comfy bed. 

Ice cream and apple pie, chicken soup, biscuits and gravy, chocolate…comfort food. 

Late spring in a mountain meadow painted in wildflowers against an azure canopy.  

Relief from intense pain—there are many kinds of comfort. 

 

A sky full of fuzzy-type things may pass through our minds when we hear that word. One soul may go to thoughts of tender kisses from a beautiful woman with whom they’re deeply in love, her caresses. For another, it could be a bottle of booze—a self-perpetuating and unfulfilling pursuit. The human spirit will always seek to be comforted; with leisure, fulfillment of purpose, self-indulgences…there are myriads of them. The thing is, all of these offer an incomplete comfort, and as slight as that comfort may be, it’s always temporary. It does not last.   

 

Thank God for His comfort! I’ve tried a lot of different things and nothing comes close to the permanence of the comforts God lavishes upon those who seek Him with their whole hearts. There’s a world of joy that I never before knew existed, until I did. The Lord allowed me to go down a road of great hardship, suffering and grief. I lost everything, including my reputation. My good name was no longer so good. You can read a small sample about that at the following link.  Dancing With the Devil

How did I end up there? By seeking comfort, pleasure, relief from mental anguish, and doing whatever felt good. I was doing it my way—the way of, what the bible calls: “the natural man,” referring to our sinful nature. Food, worldly success, position, honor, sex, alcohol and a lot more, and finally opioid pain pills. None of that provided the comfort I sought. Oh, I felt good sometimes, but it was so very temporary, and it always left me needing more. Instead of scratching the itch, those things merely intensified my yearning for comfort. 

“Okay God, I’ll try it Your way,” I decided one day. But I thought Christians were supposed to be joyful, rather than weeping and mourning. Blessed are those who mourn? Then I read James 4: 9 and was really baffled. “Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.”  

While praying over this seeming contradiction to the Christian experience, the Lord taught me of its meaning and of the tremendous power that was available for me to finally receive the comfort and joy a Christian is supposed to experience. And it came through mourning, weeping and deep sadness—the very things I’d been trying to avoid. But what was I mourning over? Let’s read the verses preceding and following James 1;9, beginning with vs. 8.  

“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you (lift you up).”  

I won’t go into a full exegesis of these verses here. 

Verse 8 is speaking of seeking God and repentance from sin. I cannot properly repent until I understand how deeply I’ve offended a holy God. When we finally receive a clear view of God’s nature of holiness and purity, we are greatly humbled and saddened over how far short we fall from His glory. My sin was truly something to cry about. I wept and wailed over my iniquities and transgressions, acknowledging how deeply egregious they are to God.  

When I did that, something amazing happened! He took my sorrow and grief over my own sin and He supernaturally transformed it into elation and joy! He forgave my sin, cleansed me, and lifted my spirit to soar with the clouds of heaven. It was the greatest joy I’d ever experienced, and it never left—it remains today.  

It took humility to really look at, and see myself from God’s perspective. It brought great sorrow, but that was essential in order to experience the true supernatural joy that comes from the Lord. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 

 

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God’s Plan, An Inside Track

How to move under God’s power instead of your own

 

Introducing an exciting new series!

 

“The Good Life is Knowing God & Doing His Will.”

 

 

God has designed His will to be deeply enjoyable to you. It’s been specifically crafted to be of ultimate benefit to God’s children. Not only has God designed us, He’s also designed a pattern to make us perfectly joyful through knowing Him, resulting in you and I playing an active role in His plan here on earth. 

 

Moving up the straight and narrow road to the good life of joy, contentment and complete satisfaction is what I like to call getting into the gain lane. We gain all the great things our Lord has in store for us. And this concerns all the things God wants you to know, the first of which is: HIM.  

 

 One of the plethora of great bible teachers, through whom I’ve been inculcated with many blessings was Dr. Tom Taylor who said, “It is only by grace that we can know God and respect Him—to know anything about Him!”

 

I’m deeply grateful that in God’s grace, He has chosen to reveal Himself to you and I. So, if you’re serious about living for Jesus, we’re going to talk about vital essentials here.  God possesses the greatest thought power in the universe, and He wants to share many of those vital thoughts with you. We’ll discover how to put our old way of thinking to death—to open our minds without our brains falling out, so that God may reshape our thinking. Our philosophy of life is transformed to reflect all of the awesomeness of life in Christ.

 

Apostle Paul found what every human heart is searching for—contentment and satisfaction, fulfillment, peace, joy and tremendous purpose. “…For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Philippians 4:11

His summary of how to find this good life is found in the following power verse, which reveals Paul’s philosophy of life. Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” I understand that by offering this verse here, without explanation, may seem a bit disjointed, but I do have a method, and I promise all the passages shared will coalesce once we get into the study.
We’re going to find out how we can discern the Lord’s leadership, and learn to apply the Master’s leadership principles to help each other. We’re going to discuss the sole means God has ordained for mankind to know His will. It’s how to plug into God’s mind in order for Him to teach us a very specific type of wisdom.

 

This is what Peter was referring to when he writes “Be of one mind.” It’s what Paul was talking about when he told the Corinthians “We have the mind of Christ.” It explains how the following from Acts 2 is possible: “And all that believed were together, and had all things in common.” 

 

“God not only ordains the end, He also ordains the means.” Dr. Howard Hendricks

 

Right now, I want to hit you with a couple bible verses that we’ll be coming back to time and again. We’ll discover that what they teach is the key to everything. They contain the methodology God has prescribed to us, and it’s what we need to do if we hope to get the inside track on God’s plans.

 

Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

 

While studying The Will of God, I became really excited about being a Christian again, perhaps more so than at any time before. I can’t help but to tell everyone I know how God is blessing my life, and the astounding truths He’s teaching me. For instance, how God’s will is designed for us to enjoy, and doing His will is intensely pleasurable! Being the Creator of life, the Lord knows what you and I need to do in order to get the very most out of life on earth. That’s what He wants to teach us—how to discover and adore His will, and how to do His will, and perceive the path to His blessings.

 

Before we’re through with this series, you’ll be confidently conversant about God’s will, His plan, and your individual role in it, as well as the role of the church as a whole. We’ll begin with the following.

 

1. A description of God’s will
2. Discoveries about God’s will
3. Taking delight in God’s will
4. Deciding to do God’s will

 

We’ll learn that knowing Jesus Christ and doing His will is the only way to find lasting meaning—to engage in a good, satisfying life. That’s the main thrust of the book of Ecclesiastes, where an aged and wise King Solomon records the summum bonum, the highest possible good. He concludes that if you pile up all your possessions along with all of your life experiences, you’ll find that they do not, and cannot make a full life: they cannot satisfy us. Only by serving God and glorifying Him can a person derive good from life. It’s the purpose for which we were created, so naturally it’s very satisfying.

 

The good life is expressed through industriously applying yourself to whatever God puts before you to do. We eagerly accomplish God’s purposes with vigor, and in so doing He adds vitality to our lives and our efforts. He puts life into your life, and living into your years. God can take the blandness of repetition and turn each recurrence into something brand new every day.

 

Our part is simply to put ourselves at God’s disposal, eager and ready to do stuff. Pardon my highly technical usage of the word “stuff.” I hope you’re smiling, because God’s the one who provides the stuff for you to do, and accomplishing that stuff is where you’ll get the most out of this life on planet earth. Besides, partnering with Jesus is one of the ways we store up treasure for ourselves in heaven.

 

That’s another reason we want to invest ourselves and everything we do into the kingdom to which we belong—God’s kingdom. If we are Christians, then we are citizens of God’s kingdom, and we’re His children, and we’re heirs of the kingdom into which we’re investing. We’re also becoming little microcosms of Jesus, emulating Him in character.

 

As we live for God, we also find Him directing us to invest our lives into other souls. Whatever we have, we use it wisely, investing, sharing and doing. Although money most likely will be involved when we invest in people’s lives, that’s merely a small part of what we’ll be called upon to accomplish. If I have knowledge of how to get to heaven, or, of how to live a good life, how to learn God’s will, and do His will, I need to share that with others. I may invest myself in the kids who live in my neighborhood, or in the widow at the nursing home, or the businessman in my office building. Whatever we have, whatever we are, and whatever we do—it is all used for the glory of God, and for His purposes in moving His program forward here on earth.

 

But in order for any of this to be possible we must learn what God’s will is, and know how to tap into His power to perform our various functions. We’ll need to understand God’s plan—how He is bringing His kingdom to full fruition. We must know what’s most requisite to successfully partner with God in order to propagate His plan—learning how to operate using God’s wisdom and power, instead of our own.

 

I hope & pray you’re onboard to grow along with the rest of us, because I want to see you be happy, fruitful and completely fulfilled. That’s what I want for myself, and so that’s what I hope for you too.

 

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