SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/11/2020
10:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Result of Mourning
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:4
Message
of the verse: “4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be
comforted.”
We have
been spending a lot of time on looking at Godly mourning and now we want to
look at the result of this mourning, which is comfort seen at the end of our
verse: “they shall be comforted.” It is not the mourning that blesses, but the
comfort God gives to those who mourn in a godly way.
John
MacArthur writes “The emphatic pronoun autos
(they) indicates that only those who
mourn over sin will be comforted. The
blessing of God’s comfort is reserved exclusively for the contrite of
heart. It is only those who mourn for
sin who will have their tears wiped away by the loving had of Jesus Christ.
“Comforted
is from parakaleo the same word that,
as a noun, is rendered Comforter, or Helper, in John 14:16, where we are told
by Jesus was the first Helper, and the Holy Spirit is ‘another helper.’”
We will
now look at some OT verses that also speak of God comforting and the first is
from Isaiah who tells of the Messiah’s coming, among other things, “to comfort
all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead
of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning” (Isa. 61:2-3). Next we will look at a very familiar verse
from Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
What
happens as our mourning rises to the throne of God is that His unsurpassed and
matchless comfort descends from God by Jesus Christ to us. What ours is, is seen in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of mercies and God
of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will
be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which
we ourselves are comforted by God.” God
is a God of comfort, Christ is a Christ of comfort, and the Holy Spirit is a
Spirit of comfort, and as believers we have the comfort of the entire Trinity!
MacArthur
writes “Shall be’ does not refer to the end of our lives or the end of the
age. Like all other blessings of God, it
will be completed only when we see our Lord face-to-face. In the eternal heavenly state of God ‘shall
wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall no longer be any death;
there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain’ (Rev. 21:4).
“But
the comfort of Matthew 5:4 is future only in the sense that the blessing comes
after the obedience; the comfort comes after the mourning. As we continually mourn over our sin, we ‘shall
be’ continually comforted—now, in this present life. God is not only the God of future comfort but
of present comfort ‘God our Father’ already has ‘given us eternal comfort and
good hope by grace’ (2 Thess. 2:16).”
As
we read the Word of God, the Word of God will also give us comfort: “For whatever was written in earlier times
was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the
encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). In our passage from 2 Corinthians 1:4 we saw
that as God gives us comfort that we are to give comfort to others because we
have received comfort. 1 Thess. 4:18
tells us “Therefore comfort one another with these words.” Those words were about the rapture of the
church which is surely something to be comforted over especially in the times
we are living in.
MacArthur
concludes “Happiness comes to sad people because their godly sadness leads to
God’s comfort. ‘Come to Me, all who are
weary and heavy-laden,’ Jesus says, ‘and I will give your rest’ (Matt.
11:28). He will lift the burden from
those who mourn over sin, and He will give rest to those who are weary of
sin. As often as we confess our sin, He
is faithful to forgive, and for as long as we mourn over sin He is faithful to
comfort.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Happiness is something that I as a believer
surely need, and then as I am comforted through the Word of God it is surely my
desire that all who read these Spiritual Diaries that I write that they too
will be comforted and blessed by God.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Mourn over sin, confess any sin, continue to
learn contentment, humility, and have Joy in the study of God’s Word.
4/11/2020 10:38 AM
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