“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
When Paul wrote 2 Timothy he knew that his days were coming to an end, and he was ready to die and go to heaven. 2 Timothy 4:7 reveals that Paul was satisfied now that his life had been worthwhile. It also gives us some insight into Paul’s character, i.e., what made Paul the outstanding person that he was.What we have in this text is what I call "A Snapshot of Paul's Character. "This "snapshot" can also help us to build character in our own lives. Paul wrote that he had “fought a good fight.” What did he mean by that? His life, like ours, was a daily battle to do the right thing. Like us, he had to fight with Satan every day, because Satan wanted to pull the great apostle down and ruin his witness. It is no different in our lives. Every Christian has a target on his back, and Satan takes aim at that target everyday. We are never free of his temptations. Also, Paul’s fight was with false witnesses who wanted to call people’s attention away from the centrality of Christ. It was a constant fight. It is still a fight today. There are always people who want to get us sidetracked on religion and ritual instead of focusing on Christ. Christian character is obviously built on devotion to Christ. We cannot be Christlike in our character if we don’t give our complete devotion to Him. There were other things that Paul had to fight, but what I have shared should suffice to help us build our character. Like Paul we need to fight a “good” fight. That means that we hang in there and keep on fighting, even when things are difficult. Paul wrote that he had “finished the course.” Another translation of this is, “I have finished the race.” Paul saw his ministry through to its conclusion, i.e., he did not quit. You know the old saying: “A winner never quits and a quitter never wins.” What was this race that Paul was running? He was primarily called to be the missionary to the Gentiles.(Isn't it interesting that when God wanted to call a missionary to the Gentiles, He chose the meanest, and most feared Jew of that day to do it?) This would have been difficult for Paul in the beginning, because until his Damascus Road experience, he had been a devout Jew. This meant that he could have nothing to do with Gentiles. After that experience his ministry was mostly about and among Gentiles. Think of all that Paul had to do to overcome his lifelong prejudice. The fact is, though, that he did it. He went all over Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, and eventually to Rome, carrying the gospel to the Gentiles. Now that he was about to die, Paul could look back on his life and see that he had finished what God had given him to do. If you want to build Christian character in your life, you need to find out what it is that God wants you to do. If you don’t already know what it is, find out, and do it to the best of your ability, following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. When we get away from God’s will, God’s purpose for us, we are wasting His time and ours. What is the “race” that God has given you to run? Will you see it through to the end? Paul wrote that he had “kept the faith.” I interpret this to mean that through it all Paul stayed true to his faith in Christ, and to the doctrines that His faith led him to. Paul did not stray from preaching Christ, and from living for Christ. If we would build Christian character, we would stay true to Christ and to His plain teachings in scripture. We cannot let ourselves get sidetracked with minor arguments over faith and practice. Are you “keeping the faith”? Do you quit when the going get's rough? Are you keeping the faith in spite of what others might say about you? Bro. Joe
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“Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous.”
Peter called on the Christians to whom he wrote to be “of one mind.” Does being of one mind mean that we agree on everything? This is a misunderstanding of what being of one mind is. Being of one mind does not mean that we walk in lockstep with each other, and that we Christians cannot think as individuals. Usually, if people are all of one mind in that way, it means that someone of great influence is in control of the group’s thinking. In a group of people, Christians included, individuals will have various opinions on any given subject. For Christians to be of one mind means that these ideas have been discussed and some consensus has been reached – hopefully brought about by the will of God. This means that for Christians to really be of one mind, we have to learn to disagree like Christians. How can we disagree like Christians? For one thing we have to have respect for our fellow Christians. It is difficult to have what we perceive to be the “right idea” supplanted by someone else, but a Christian is supposed to be able to humbly admit that another’s idea might be just as good, or better, than his or her own. Another thing is that if Christians have prayed as a group in order to come to God’s consensus, the Holy Spirit will reveal what the right idea, or the right course of action, should be. The “one mind” that we are to come to is the mind of Christ. What does Christ want us to do? We can be of one mind, because we can discuss different approaches and accept the right course without getting our egos involved in the decision. This is where the problem comes in. Many times we are not of one mind because someone has to have his or her own way all of the time. Many churches have what we call “matriarchs” and “patriarchs” who will tell you without hesitation that they have always run the church, meaning that they will do so until they die. The “one mind” becomes the one mind of which human being is running the church. Thus, church problems arise. Jesus said, “I will build my church.” This means that your church and mine belongs to Christ, not to a powerful group within the church. Paul wrote that Christ is the “head of the church.” This means that, after all is said and done, decisions for any particular church of any denomination will be determined by what Christ wants.This demands prayer, respect and humility on the part of Christians. In 1 Peter 3:8 Peter actually revealed the things that can help us to be of mind. The first thing that he wrote about was that we should have compassion for each other. This means that we will be aware of the feelings of other people. If we have compassion for each other, we will not run roughshod over each other. The second thing that he wrote about is that we should “love as brothers.” If we love as brothers, we might disagree, but we will not “fall out” with each other. We might not accept our brother, or sister’s, idea, but we do accept and respect them. The third thing that he wrote was to be tenderhearted. This is the opposite of “hardhearted.” It is almost the same as being compassionate. It means that we are aware that our brother or sister in Christ has feelings and that we do not want to be offensive to him or her. The fourth thing that he wrote about was to “be courteous.” This should certainly be a virtue that Christians show for each other. Courtesy should extend to every area of the Christian’s life, wherever we are, especially in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about these things in your own Christian relationships. Bro. Joe “A man’s (or woman’s) steps are established by the Lord, and He takes pleasure in his way. 24. Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, because the Lord holds his hand.” (CSB)
I took walking for granted until I went through six chemo treatments for cancer, then I realized that walking was a real blessing. Most of the time I could walk, but they were not sure steps, and I never knew when I might fall. My wife, Mary, stayed close to me all of the time in order to catch me if I fell, or to help me get back up. Those were trying days, but it was in those days that I learned the value of the words: “Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, because the Lord holds his hand.” If it had not been for the Lord, I would have been in despair. I don’t know how people who do not know the Lord, or even care to know Him, make it through times like that. I have read that people who depend on the Lord are just weak, and need to learn to make it on their own. More power to you unbelieving brother or sister, but I prefer not to walk alone. I prefer that my steps be “established by the Lord.” Lest you consider me self-righteous, I have made many steps that were not established by the Lord and those steps did not serve me well. I have tried both in this life, and I have found that having the Lord hold my hand has been much better. I recommend the same to you. These words really captured my attention as I read this psalm: “A man’s steps are established by the Lord, and He takes pleasure in his way.” Notice that the first “He” was capitalized. This means that when the Lord establishes our steps, He takes pleasure in the way we are walking. I like to think that the Lord takes pleasure in the way I am walking, but I know that He doesn’t always. That’s why I’m glad that He is holding my hand, because when I take errant steps, He is there to hold my hand and catch me when I fall. This is reminiscent of Simon Peter when he asked Jesus to let him walk on the water. You remember that Peter was doing fine in walking on the water until he began to look at the wind and the waves and took his eyes off of Jesus. His first steps out of the boat were ordered by the Lord, but the other steps Peter took on his own. The wonderful thing about this is what happened next. Peter cried out to the Lord to save him, to keep him from being overwhelmed by the waves. I have been on the high seas in turbulent waves, and I know how dangerous they can be. Jesus did a remarkable thing. He reached out and took Peter by the hand and lifted him out of the turbulent water. That surely hits home with me, and I hope that it hits home with you. It almost makes me weep with a mixture of joy and shame when I remember how many times over the years Jesus has had to reach out, take my hand, and rescue me from life’s “turbulent waves.” I can’t imagine life without that outstretched hand. The remarkable thing is that His holy hand is outstretched towards us all of the time, and all we have to do is reach out and take it. Many times, as I have attempted to minister to people, have I wanted to take their hands and put them in the hands of Jesus, but this always had to be their decision. Maybe you need to reach out and take the hand of Jesus. I have written this article for some reason and you might be the reason. You might be going through some tough times right now. Read this closely: Jesus knows what you are going through and He will take your hand and lead you through whatever it is that is troubling you now. Let the Lord establish your steps today, and it will be His pleasure to take you by the hand and lead you through. Do it!!!! Bro. Joe “Don’t let your heart envy sinners; instead always fear the Lord.
18. For then you will have a future, and your hope will never fade.” (CSB) The tenth commandment admonishes us not to covet anything that anybody else has. In fact coveting means that we want something that somebody else has. A word that is closely aligned with coveting is envy. Proverbs 23:17 tells us:“Don’t let your heart envy sinners.” We look at someone whose life in no way honors God, and we wonder why they are doing better than we are? We might say: “It looks to me like God would help me to have more than the person who is not living right.” In the first place, this is the wrong motive for serving God. If we are serving G“Don’t let your heart envy sinners; instead always fear the Lord. 18. For then you will have a future, and your hope will never fade.” (CSB) The tenth commandment admonishes us not to covet anything that anybody else has. In fact coveting means that we want something that somebody else has. A word that is closely aligned with coveting is envy. Proverbs 23:17 tells us:“Don’t let your heart envy sinners.” We look at someone whose life in no way honors God, and we wonder why they are doing better than we are? We might say: “It looks to me like God would help me to have more than the person who is not living right.” In the first place, this is the wrong motive for serving God. If we are serving God for what we can get out of Him, we need to take another look at our service. The fact that someone else has more than we do is no measure of our standing with God or with the world. What another person has does not take anything away from you. The most important thing is not what we have, but what we are in our hearts. In fact, to go beyond this text, the Bible tells us not to envy anybody. Christians should rejoice in other people’s successes, and be the first to congratulate them and be proud for them. We cause ourselves a lot of problems when we think that we have to “keep up with the "Joneses.” The truth is that if you could get what the “Joneses” have, you would then want what the “Smith’s” have. I think you get the point: Be satisfied with what you have and do not worry about what other people have. If we envy someone, it is difficult for us to love them and to have a good relationship with them. It bothers me that there seems to be a lot of envy of rich people in America today. It seems to me that to build an argument on envy is to build a poor foundation for life. If somebody worked for what they have, they deserve it. If someone inherited what they have, they also deserve it. It is not any of my business how they got their wealth. If they got what they have by breaking the law, I will leave that between them, God, and the law. I just know that I do not want to waste one minute of my life envying what someone else has, no matter how they got it. Envy does not promote love, and it does not promote good relationships between people. We cannot build our lives on envy and live close to God. Our text tells us that instead of envying sinners, or anyone else, we should “fear God.” That means that we are to have the utmost reverence and respect for God, and we cannot have that if we are wasting our time on envy. Envy does not, and cannot, please God. If something cannot please God then it will certainly interfere with our relationship with Him. When we envy, we are focusing on “things” instead of on God/Jesus. When we envy, we are not concentrating on serving the Lord. When we envy, we harm our relationship with God. Envy is a sin and sin always decimates our relationship with God. We will not stop envying until we realize that it is a sin. When we realize that envy is a sin,we will know that it is not a good thing to have in our lives. We need to examine our hearts and minds and determine if there is anyone that we envy for any reason. If we discover that there is envy in our hearts, we need to confess, repent and turn from it like we would any other sin – and stop it! Why? Envy is the pits and will not bring anything good into our lives. Bro. Joe od for what we can get out of Him, we need to take another look at our service. The fact that someone else has more than we do is no measure of our standing with God or with the world. What another person has does not take anything away from you. The most important thing is not what we have, but what we are in our hearts. In fact, to go beyond this text, the Bible tells us not to envy anybody. Christians should rejoice in other people’s successes, and be the first to congratulate them and be proud for them. We cause ourselves a lot of problems when we think that we have to “keep up with the "Joneses.” The truth is that if you could get what the “Joneses” have, you would then want what the “Smith’s” have. I think you get the point: Be satisfied with what you have and do not worry about what other people have. If we envy someone, it is difficult for us to love them and to have a good relationship with them. It bothers me that there seems to be a lot of envy of rich people in America today. It seems to me that to build an argument on envy is to build a poor foundation for life. If somebody worked for what they have, they deserve it. If someone inherited what they have, they also deserve it. It is not any of my business how they got their wealth. If they got what they have by breaking the law, I will leave that between them, God, and the law. I just know that I do not want to waste one minute of my life envying what someone else has, no matter how they got it. Envy does not promote love, and it does not promote good relationships between people. We cannot build our lives on envy and live close to God. Our text tells us that instead of envying sinners, or anyone else, we should “fear God.” That means that we are to have the utmost reverence and respect for God, and we cannot have that if we are wasting our time on envy. Envy does not, and cannot, please God. If something cannot please God then it will certainly interfere with our relationship with Him. When we envy, we are focusing on “things” instead of on God/Jesus. When we envy, we are not concentrating on serving the Lord. When we envy, we harm our relationship with God. Envy is a sin and sin always decimates our relationship with God. We will not stop envying until we realize that it is a sin. When we realize that envy is a sin,we will know that it is not a good thing to have in our lives. We need to examine our hearts and minds and determine if there is anyone that we envy for any reason. If we discover that there is envy in our hearts, we need to confess, repent and turn from it like we would any other sin – and stop it! Why? Envy is the pits and will not bring anything good into our lives. Bro. Joe “Jesus said unto him, if you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes. 24. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
While Jesus was on the “Mount of Transfiguration” with Peter, James and John, the other disciples were at the foot of the mountain awaiting their return. A father brought his demon-possessed son, who was having epileptic-like seizures, to be healed. The disciples tried to exorcise the demon, but were not able to do it. When Jesus arrived on the scene, the father approached Him about the situation. The verses above recorded the conversation. Jesus told the father what He would tell us – believe, have faith. The father’s answer is interesting: “I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” This is a painfully honest prayer, and if we are honest, there are times when we could say the same thing. We like to think that our faith in Jesus is complete and that we always have unmitigated faith. If your faith is strong all of the time and you do not ever need Jesus’ help with it, more power to you. The rest of us human Christians have to sometimes struggle with it. The fact is that Jesus knows where we are in our faith at any particular time, and He wants us to be honest with ourselves and with Him. If we are having a difficult time believing at a particular time, there is no greater help than the object of our faith - Jesus Christ. Those who never ask for help seldom get it. I want to point out that the father said, “with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” He brought his emotions into the matter. Have you noticed that we are emotional about what is important to us? When we come to Jesus, He looks into our hearts and determines the validity of our requests. I think that Jesus knew the man’s heart and knew that he was sincere, and that he really wanted to believe with all of his heart that Jesus could heal his son. The man’s call for help in his belief was not a hindrance to what Jesus could do, but a help. Like this father, we need to seek Jesus honestly with our whole hearts. Jesus knows the sincerity of our hearts. This doesn’t mean that we need to cry every time we talk to Jesus about our troubles, but it does mean that we should bring, not just our logical minds,into prayer, but that we should bring our hearts into it. At the same time, if we are struggling with believing that Jesus can do as we ask, we need to honestly confess it. In contrast, we need to consider the problem that the disciples had. They wanted to know why they couldn’t do exorcise the demon. Jesus answered them that, “this kind can come forth by nothing but prayer and fasting.” What Jesus means is that we cannot experience the power of God if we do not spend time in prayer on a daily basis. Jesus was telling these disciples, as He would tell us, that in order to really serve Him we need to spend time in prayer, and that we would be so involved in seeking Him that we would not even take the time to eat. In other words, Jesus was telling His disciples that they need to get “prayed up” if they were going to serve Him. We need to take heed to this admonition. In the final analysis, the boy was healed. The father’s honest prayer brought forth the power of God. In the mean time, the disciples learned a valuable lesson about the importance of prayer. I hope that we get it too. Bro. Joe “But I myself said: I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and futility; yet my vindication is with the Lord, and my reward is with God.” HCSB
In the first three verses of Isaiah 49, Isaiah shared that God called him to prophesy before he was born, and that God put words in his mouth to tell the people God’s will. Yet Isaiah felt that he had labored in vain. He couldn’t see that he had done any good at all. The Israelite people just kept doing what they wanted in spite of God’s commandments and in spite of Isaiah’s prophesying. I know how Isaiah felt, and if you have served God in any capacity, you probably feel the same way. We preach and preach, we have church and have church, we pray and pray, and we hope and hope, but things still seem to go on as before. Instead of getting better, the spiritual and moral situation seems to be getting worse. Understand that to people who have no interest in the Bible, church and spiritual things, things are going rather well – right on schedule. Does that mean, then, that we have lost and that we, like Isaiah, feel that we “have labored in vain”? It doesn’t mean that at all. As you have heard before, God has not called us to be successful, just to be faithful. The problem is that we forget history. (That’s why it is important to know something about history.) There has never been a time when the world was in perfect moral order, yet God has continued to call people into His service, and He continues to bless His Church. The point is that we enter the world at a particular time in history and it is our duty, or privilege, to serve in that time. We can wish that things were like they were in bygone years, but it will never be. My formative years were in 40’s and 50’s. I have often wished that we could return to the simplicity of those days. (It might be worth it if we could take air-conditioning and medical science back with us. lol) However, I realize that, while those days were simple to me, there were older folks who wished they could go back to the 20’s and 30’s during that same time. Since the fall of humankind in Genesis, the world has not been a perfect place, nor will it ever be on this side of history. We just have to be faithful and serve God in the time in which we live, and trust that He knows what’s going on. Which brings me to Isaiah’s conclusion of the matter: “Yet my vindication is with the Lord, and my reward is with God.” The vast majority of people paid no attention to Isaiah and went on their merry way, doing as they wanted to do. Isaiah came to realize what we must realize, i.e., it is not our fault that people pay no attention to God of we have been faithful in serving Him and telling others about what He did for us in Jesus. If we are “walking the walk” and not just “talking the talk,” we can feel vindicated as Isaiah did. (Warning: I’m about to get “fussy” here!) One of the problems is that instead of being Christ’s Church in a sinful world, we play at being the church and society does not take us seriously. That is our side of the problem. We need to live the Christian life before people so that they can take us seriously. We need to love people like God loves them so that they can take us seriously. We need to stand up for what is right, remembering Paul’s admonition in Ephesians 4:14-15: “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slieight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. 15. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head even Christ.” But even when we have done our best, we will still just need to trust God and know that our vindication is in Him and not in our effectiveness. Our labor for God is never in vain, for He is still in charge. Selah Bro. Joe “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers.”
How would you like to prosper physically in accord with your spiritual prosperity? We pay close attention to our physical health, but do we spend a lot of time checking out our spiritual health? It is important for Christians to keep check on their spiritual health. How can we do this? We can measure our spiritual health based on our closeness to the Lord. How much time do we spend in prayer and Bible study? How are we doing in our relationships with fellow Christians? How about our guilt levels? Are you having a problem with guilt because you know that your spiritual life is in the pits? There are some disciplines that you can practice that will help you to improve your spiritual health. The first of these has already been mentioned – prayer and Bible study. You cannot be close to the Lord if you are not spending time in prayer. Our relationship with Jesus is built on communication, and prayer is our source of communication with Him. In prayer, we talk to Him and then we meditate and listen to what He wants of us. I am not writing about prayers where we only ask God for what we want. I’m writing about prayers that include confession, repentance, intercession (praying for others), and petition (making requests). We need to read our Bibles prayerfully, carefully and systematically. Along with prayer and Bible study, in order to have good spiritual health we need to praise and worship the Lord. I do not mean just praising and worshiping Him in church. I mean that we should have a lifestyle of praise and worship of Him. If you will think about it, you can find lots of reasons to praise Him every day. Learn to consciously look for those times. You will find that the Lord is in the process of blessing you all of the time, even on bad days, if you will just pay attention. When you praise the Lord, you are worshiping Him as well. The psalmist had the right idea: “In God we boast all day long, and praise thy name forever.” You need times set aside for praise and worship both privately and publicly, but you can find plenty to praise and worship Him for in everyday life. If you really want to enjoy and profit from prayer, Bible study and praise and worship, learn to really love the Lord. I can’t tell you how to do this, except to tell you to surrender your heart to Him. The Bible tells us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5 CSB) This love for God should reverberate to loving people as well. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, He said this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”(Matthew 22:37-39) We are to love God and people – all people. Certainly, if we read the Bible, pray, praise and worship God and love Him, we will also love people. 1 John 4:20 tells us: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” Perhaps there are other things that I could relate to you that would help you achieve spiritual health, but those listed above should suffice. Give some thought to your spiritual health. It is just as important as your physical health. Bro. Joe “A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance (face): but by sorrow
of the heart the spirit is broken.” Proverbs 15:13 ”All of the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart has a continual feast.” Proverbs 15:15 “A merry heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones.” Proverbs 17:22 Since my last blog was about the capacity of a Christian to mourn over things that should be mourned over, I felt that I should follow it up with the other side of the emotional coin – a “merry heart.” While there are things that we should mourn, our lifestyles should reflect the joy that is in our hearts. Our hearts should be merry and it should show on our faces. If we have broken spirits we will not reflect the joy that is in our hearts. A broken spirit is the result of not being able to get over the mourning. This means that the negative things of life have depressed us and we can’t move on from them. Jesus told us not to worry, because worry cannot change anything. It is this worry over life’s negative things that cause our spirits to be broken. We are to meet all of life in faith. We are not only saved by faith, but we are sustained by faith as well. Faith will help us to meet all of the contingencies of life and still maintain merry hearts. We can take Paul as an example. When Paul wrote the Book of Philippians he was in jail in Rome, yet in this book he wrote about joy and rejoicing. An example is found in Philippians 2:17-18:‘Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. 18. For the same cause also do you joy, and rejoice with me.” One would think that Paul would be filled with complaints about his situation. What was Paul’s secret? If he mourned, it was over things that really mattered, and usually had something to do with someone else. He did not mourn over his own sufferings, but rejoiced that he could suffer for Jesus. This takes more than a “Sunday-go-to-meeting” faith. This takes a faith that is rooted deeply in the heart and makes a difference in the way we feel, the way we act and the way we look. Paul definitely did not have “a broken spirit that dries the bones.” We need to strive to have that kind of faith. I love to be around people who love to laugh. I understand that we cannot always laugh, because not everything can make us laugh. But I treasure the joy of laughter in my own life. I discovered years ago that, unlike other people, instead of having fits of crying when the going got hard, I would laugh “like a hyena.” I can remember when I was in college (o.k. it was a long time ago) when the pressure got almost unbearable, I would have fits of laughter. I’m not writing this to brag about my own faith, but to tell you that it is often better to laugh than to cry. A lot of the time, I was laughing at myself. If we have merry hearts, we will learn how to laugh at ourselves. I’ve known people who loved to play jokes on other people and would laugh and laugh at them. When the tables were turned and the joke was on them, they pouted and complained. That’s not a real Christian spirit. That’s not even a good human spirit. I am not implying that we should laugh and be merry all of the time. I have already written about times to mourn. I am simply stating that we will be better witnesses for Jesus, and better people, if we will allow the joy of Jesus in us to show on our faces. If you want to be a “contagious”Christian, I suggest that you work on having a merry heart and a face that reflects it. To start, I suggest that you take the advice of one of my seminary professors and go look in a mirror and laugh at yourself for awhile. He said that was a healthy outlook on life, and I agree. Bro. Joe “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
I believe that one of the main tenets of the Christian faith is joy. The Bible is filled with texts about joy. I have preached a lot of sermons about joy over the years. But in the text above Jesus said that we are blessed, or happy, when we mourn. What in the world is Jesus talking about? Then we read in James 4:9: “Be afflicted and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness." Do we have a contradiction here? It is not a contradiction. The Bible teaches us to be joyful, but we cannot be joyful about everything. The same Christian heart that has the capacity to be joyful should also have a deep capacity to mourn. Christian mourning does not erase Christian joy. Jesus has given us His joy (John 15:11) and it can never be taken away from us. But, for example, when we see people doing something that might destroy their lives we certainly can’t laugh it off. We should mourn for them. When we realize that someone is not a Christian and is about to die, this is certainly something to mourn about. Jesus and James were not calling us to a lifestyle of mourning, but were reminding us that there are real things to mourn about in this world. I have daily joy in the Lord and enjoy my fellowship with Him, but when I look at the condition of our world today, I have to mourn as well. When I read about what is happening in Syria, for example, I cannot laugh it off and say it doesn’t matter because it’s not touching me. When I read about Christians being persecuted in places like China and Iran, I mourn for those brothers and sisters in Christ who do not have the freedom to worship their Lord. I mourn when I read about people who are starving to death in Africa. It breaks my heart to see children bloated from malnutrition, while their leaders live in luxury. It causes me to mourn when I read about women who are in disastrous marriages where their husbands beat them unmercifully. I mourn when I read about the boys who were sexually abused by the assistant coach at Penn State. I mourn when I see churches divided, not by great doctrinal issues, but by the clashing of egos. I don’t mean to depress you, but you will have to agree that there are things that should cause us to mourn, and if we do not mourn because of them there is something spiritually wrong with us. This is the concern of Jesus and James in the two texts that we have seen. We who have the joy of the Lord also need to have the capacity to mourn over things that we should mourn over. Jesus gave a promise with His statement on mourning: “they shall be comforted.” When we mourn, it does not destroy our faith in Jesus. It does not cause us to blame Him and wonder why people have to suffer. When we mourn, Jesus brings the comfort of the Holy Spirit into our lives. This is partially what Jesus meant when He told us in Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me all ye that labor and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Christian mourning does not cause us to get depressed; rather, it makes us lean on Jesus and take these sorrows to Him. We are comforted because mourning leads us to prayer, and when we pray we find the peace of the Lord. Jesus and James are not calling us to be depressed, but they are calling us to care. A heart that is filled with the joy of Jesus is a caring heart, and a caring heart is empathetic with the suffering of the world. Jesus and James are not calling us to live unhappy lives. They are calling us reach out and help others who are in need. This will not drive us to unhappiness, but it will drive us to agape (agapay) love. Agape love is an active love. (John 3:16 comes to mind.) Go on in the joy of the Lord, but realize that it is not wrong to mourn over things that should be mourned over. Bro. Joe “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord.”
Have you ever heard anyone say, “I’ll get you for that”? Worse yet, have you ever said, “I’ll get you for that”? When I taught school years ago (more years than I want to remember) I heard children say those words a lot. I could have put it off as “child’s play,” except that in the “adult world” I heard a lot of the same thing. In fact, I have heard a lot of it in the church. It is a natural human tendency to want to repay someone for something that they have done to us. I’ll just have to confess that I have to watch that tendency in myself. There is just something about us that can’t stand feeling that we have been bested by another person. As natural as it may seem, the Bible tells us over and over again that we are not to seek revenge for wrongs done to us. Why? Because, for one thing, the Good Lord knows that there is no such thing as final revenge. We can’t get even, because the person who we got even with is not dead and will try to get even with us. There is just no end to it. The best example of this that I know of is the Arab/ Israeli conflict. They are always trying to get even with each other, and all that happens is that the conflict just keeps spiraling out of control. In my memory, almost every one of our presidents have tried to bring peace between these two factions – all to no avail. Why? Because they think that they just have to get even. This conflict has been going on for, give or take, 5,000 years, and until they realize that there is no such thing as revenge, it will continue. ( I have often said that the only solution to that conflict will be the second coming of Jesus Christ.) What is the antidote for this poison called revenge? The Bible gives us one word that can bring an end to seeking revenge – forgiveness. Jesus set the perfect example for us. According to Luke’s gospel, the first words of Jesus from the cross were, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I know that we are not Jesus, but He has given us the capacity to forgive as well. Paul gave some advice in Ephesians 4:31-32 that could take care of a lot of our penchant for revenge: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour (shouting at each other), and evil speaking (slander), be put away from you, with all malice. 32. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted (compassionate), forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” The point is that we, who have been forgiven, should also be willing to forgive. After all, Christ did not have to forgive us for our sins against Him, and we have all sinned against Him. But in His grace, mercy and love Jesus forgave us when we asked him to. This is the all more reason for us to be forgiving. In order to do this, we must have forgiving hearts. How do we get forgiving hearts? We do it through a lot of prayer for those who have offended us. We have to depend on the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He will help us forgive – if we really want to. Almost every church problem that I have encountered, and after 52 years in the ministry I have seen a lot of them, could be solved with three wonderful words: “I forgive you.” Those three words are right up there with “I love you." When you feel the urge to think, or say, “I’ll get you for that,” Just remember Jesus’ words from the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and forgive them. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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