Of Joy and Sorrow

Romans 15:13 “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

     Today I'm going to talk about grief and regret. This may leave you wondering, “Well, what's up with the starting verse then?” I've chosen this verse to start with because I'm not going to break down and discuss grief and regret, I'm going to discuss how they can actually be harmful to us if not kept in their proper place.

     We cannot escape the Biblical truth that we are far from perfect, we all know the famous verse.

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Every one of us has failed utterly at one time or another and this should breed a strong sense of humility in us. Humility is also something that we are told to work on. The Bible commands again and again that we are to humble ourselves before the Lord. It's not an easy thing to lower ourselves or to debase ourselves before another, we like to lift ourselves up! Pride however, is a dangerous thing. Thinking too highly of ourselves sets us up for failure.

Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Knowing that we are fallible and prone to sin and failure is good, we must understand that we cannot live this life by our own strength but we cannot let our remorse over our sin bind us.

     Now, back to the first verse. Though our lives are touched by the remorse over past deeds we should have joy -exceeding joy- because of what God has done for us! We are the sinners saved, the slaves set free, the lost who were found, the fallen lifted up, the broken mended, the ailing healed, the dumb given voices to sing, the blind made to see; how great is this thing God has done for us! Our sin is grievous indeed but even the horror of our failures and disobedience pales in the light of God!

Psalms 32:11 “Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous; And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”

John 15:11 "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Job 33:26 “He shall pray to God, and He will delight in him, He shall see His face with joy, For He restores to man His righteousness.”

Psalms 5:11 “But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You; Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them; Let those also who love Your name Be joyful in You.”

I think that although we must never forget where we came from, we dishonor God when we let our lives become ruled by the sorrow of remembrance. Our past is past and God through Christ has put that old man to death, why should we carry him around?

     Another facet of this is our pride and more specifically how sneaky sin can be. Take a look at this verse from Proverbs.

Proverbs 11:2 “When pride comes, then comes shame; But with the humble is wisdom.”

If we're walking around lost in our own shame, thinking about how horrible we are and assuming God can never use us...are we really just holding on to a perverse form of pride? Why do we feel so bad that our whole lives are shadowed, we were sinners what else would we do but sin? That knowledge should remind us of the mercy and grace of God more than it hurts our feelings. And again, yes, we should feel humbled by our pasts and by all the sins that even now conflict with our new spirit but God is not a god of sorrow and somberness! If we live without joy or without peace we'll notice something else, we're all the more susceptible to sin. You would think that being constantly aware of and lamenting our sin would keep us on the keen edge of awareness but more often than not it just keeps us from having power over it. Look at what Nehemiah says:

Nehemiah 8:10 “Then he said to them, "Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our LORD. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."

     Do you see that? “The joy of the LORD is your strength.” If we refuse to have joy from what God has done for us, where is our strength? We must stand firm in the promises of God, knowing that when He says we are forgiven that we ARE FORGIVEN! We're free! Not yet fully, not yet finally, but we are free from the punishment of our sins and at the end of days we will rejoice as sin is put to death once and for all!

     So don't let your humility become pride turned backward, don't let your regret rule your life. Be glad, smile, praise God for the wonder of his mercy and love. Let the light of truth banish the shadows and walk boldly down the path to heaven.

(I couldn't find a link that would work on here.....so just you'll have to follow it to YouTube and watch it there haha.)