We know how to mourn when our loved ones die, but how are we to mourn when we sin? This devotion looks at how to mourn when we are disobedient and the comfort brought by that.
Nuggets
- When we sin, we should mourn that we have broken God’s laws and commandments.
- That comfort would be the assurance we receive from the Trinity.
- The assurance comes as we grow closer to God.
Devotions in the The Beatitudes Show Us How to be Docile series
We’ve probably all had a loved one die. It is very hard to give someone up — even if they were a disciple and we know where they are going.
But this devotion isn’t about mourning a loved one who has passed. Oh, yes. Jesus can and will comfort us when that happens.
This world and what happens in it, however, is not priority with God and Jesus. They were and are all about the spiritual.
This series is about being docile — we are to be willing to be taught by the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It is through His guidance that we become mature disciples.
What does a God have to teach us about growing to be a mature disciple through mourning?
Let's Put It into Context
Docile means easily taught. As we grow in our relationship, we become blessed.
Blessedness means we have been perfected. For the disciple, perfection is holy, sanctified, and righteous.
Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and pure. Sanctification is the process where our lives are changed, and we are made holy. Righteousness is the result of a solid relationship with God.
Mourning is crying out (Decoding Scripture). It is an intense emotion. Well, if truth be known, that is emotions — plural.
It has components of sadness, pain, grief, regret, and a whole bunch of other emotions. How does that equate with our spiritual maturity?
About What Do We Cry Out?
“Blessed are those who mourn …” (Mt. 5: 4 CSB)
When we sin, we should mourn that we have broken God’s laws and commandments. We should be sad that we were not obedient as God expects — that we keep sinning.
It should cause us pain that we put this physical life above eternal life. This life is temporary. We need to put priority on what will last.
It should cause us grief that our choice created the situation of discontent. Yes, it was our choice. We have free will to make the choices — which we have to do daily.
We should regret that we have offended God. He is Creator and is all powerful. We should be listening to Him, not doing the opposite.
This sadness, pain, grief, and regret should cause us to repent of the sins we have committed. Sin is where we break God’s laws and commandments. Repentance is not only expressing sorrow for things we’ve done wrong, but it is also making the commitment to changing ourselves so that we be disobedient.
We shouldn’t mourn because we have lost something of this world. An important thing to remember is this world is temporary. Our priority should be on eternal matters.
Another thing we shouldn’t mourn is wounded pride. We are very vocal when our pride takes a hit, aren’t we?
We have to take the focus off us and put it on God. “For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Gal. 6: 3 ESV). We are nothing without God.
We shouldn’t mourn because we are experiencing disappointment in our lives. “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’” (Jer. 29: 11 NLT). God is in control — not us.
We shouldn’t mourn because God is correcting us because of disobedience. “For the LORD corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights” (Prov. 3: 12 NLT). God corrects us so that we can change to be more like Him.
How Are We Comforted?
“… for they will be comforted” (Mt. 5: 4 CSB)
Who will do the comforting? That would be God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
How are we comforted? That comfort would be the assurance we receive from the Trinity.
Think of this. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb. 11: 1 NIV).
Melvill wrote, “By ‘things not seen’ we understand such as are not to be ascertained to us by our senses, or even by our reason — not seen either by the eye of the body or by the far more powerful eye of the mind. These are the truths and facts revealed to as by the Word of God, and of which, independently on that Word, we must have remained wholly ignorant.”
Did you catch that? We get revelations about things we don’t know. We don’t know them because they aren’t in the Bible. We don’t know them because God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isa. 55: 8-9). God will reveal them to us as we grow in our relationships with Him.
How will those revelations be made? Rees said by “prayer, worship, work, converse, [and] sacrament.”
The assurance comes as we grow closer to God. When we pray to, converse with, and worship Him, we spend time in His presence. When we do the work He has called us to do, we show we are making Him a priority. When we take part in the sacraments, we follow His Will and worship Him as He has directed.
Making the Connections
Okay. Let’s take the scenic route to pull this together.
We talked a couple of devotions ago about circumcision of the heart. This was what my Ladies and I studied this morning.
I read somewhere (and of course, I cannot find it) where the heart will always be wicked (sinful) because of our human nature. That notion probably comes out of Jeremiah 17: 9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (ESV).
We may be inclined to think that we get a pass because of that. “Well, we can’t not sin, so it should be okay to sin.”
It doesn’t work that way.
Pastor Chad was preaching in Haggai today. He said, “Too many times, we think God is okay with us no matter how we live our lives, as long as we live for Him.” Also, he said, “Just because you are chosen, you cannot do everything you want. When you do, you corrupt everything. You can’t play around with sin.”
We don’t get a free pass on sin just because we are disciples. We have to actively be trying to withstand Satan’s temptations and live in obedience to God.
Instead of being complacent with sin, we have to cry out (mourn) when we consider we our sins, be genuinely deeply sorry for committing them, and are burdened because we know we will continue to sin while we are here on this earth.
When we truly realize that we are unworthy and would be nothing without the saving power of Jesus, then we begin to mature as a disciple.
The realization that we are unworthy helps fuel the desire for docility. We actively seek for God
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
Obedience requires discipline. Obedience means we not only hear God’s Word but also follow His instructions.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
How Do We Apply This?
- We need to bag our pride and mourn disobedience.
- Raffles said we need to mourn for ourselves, fellow disciples, the church and the world.
- We must be specific in repenting of our sins.
- We have to have a big dose of hope — “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for …” (Heb. 11: 1 NIV) — and confidence to grow our faith.
- We have to abhor sin.
Mourning is a genuine sorrow for the sin we commit. That facilitates our repentance, which takes us that much closer to holiness and righteousness. That should be a comfort to us.
Father. We want to abhor our sins so much that we truly mourn over our disobedience. Strengthen our resolve to grow in Your love. Amen.
What do you think?
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