Mourn: April 11, 2012

TODAYS WORD FOR WEDNESDAY APRIL 11, 2012.

MOURN

DEFINITION:

Feel or express sorrow; deplore; regret the loss of.

SCRIPTURE:

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

This Beatitude can only be understood by one who is a believer in Jesus as Savior. How can a bereaved person be blessed amid grief? Mourning means to have a broken heart. A believer understands what the Psalmist meant when he wrote in Psalm30:5, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” God has promised to comfort the mourner in this life and in the life to come. Sorrow lasts for a short time but God’s comfort lasts for a lifetime

Mourning is an action or emotion that comes upon one as a sorrow for sin, a broken heart over evil, or suffering. A mourner is so full of grief that he cries and weeps deep from within.

But Jesus, in this Beatitude, tells us that we will be blessed when we feel we have lost something or someone most dear to us because only then can we know what it is to be embraced by the One most dear to us, our Lord.

There are normally three types of people that mourn.

First is the person who is desperately sorry for his sins. He has such a sense of sin that his heart is broken. The second is the person who really feels the desperate plight and terrible suffering of others. It could be tragedies, sinful behavior or the evil that one faces in the world. And finally there is the person who mourns because of a personal tragedy, loss, or intense trauma.

Those that mourn shall be comforted according to II Corinthians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.” God gives the one that mourns a settled peace from within. He receives an assurance of forgiveness and acceptance by God and a fullness of joy which is a sense of God’s presence, care and guidance.

There is also an eternal comfort that God gives one who mourns. It is an assurance that one will pass from death to life and will spend an eternity with Him. It is an assurance that God will wipe away all tears and swallow up death into victory. There will be no mourning in heaven. (Revelation 21:4)

The scripture tells us to mourn for lost souls. The apostle Paul in Romans 9:1-5 grieved for his “countrymen according to the flesh,” and longed desperately for their salvation. When lost souls mourn their life of sin it brings them to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Mourning comes before repentance. The penitent publican we are told, in Luke 18:13, that when He decided to repent, “beat his breast saying God be merciful to me as a sinner.” Mourning is part of true repentance.

When you study this Beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” may you have a new understanding of the comfort God will give to you as believer in your time of need.

LEARNING:

We are memorizing this week the sixth commandment found in Exodus 20:13.

You shall not murder.

PRAYER:

May You break my heart in a new and fresh way so that I can reach out to help those who are mourning today? Thank You for the comfort you give to those of us who believe in You. Thank You for the message of this Beatitude. Give me and my family a desire to follow the teachings You gave us on the Sermon on the Mount.