Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted (Matt. 5:4).
We would think that being blessed would have nothing to do with mourning, but our infinitely wise Savior puts them together here in this beatitude. And as the preachers say: "What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" (Mark 10:9). When we mourn for our sins and the sins of others, we shall be blessed--not only in some future day, but here and now.
Henry Ward Beecher reminds us that sometimes when "men think that God is destroying them He is tuning them." George Romanes, the English scientist and great man of Oxford, lost his faith, and in the depths of his disbelief wrote: "When I think, as at times I must, of the hallowed glory of that Creator which once was mine, and then of the loneliness and barrenness of life as I now find it--at such times I feel the sharpest pangs of which my nature is susceptible." But he came back to faith at last, and strangely enough, it was through his own sufferings. When blindness came to his eyes, the light of faith flooded his heart.
The blessing of God's comfort comes through the blood of Jesus, through the power of the Holy Ghost. By the assurance that God will glorify Himself over all the sin of the world, we may know that we soon shall be freed from evil and dwell forever in His presence. Our Lord is "the God of all comfort" (2 Cor. 1:3). And His promise is that He will comfort us in all our trials, "that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God" (verse 4).
MEDITATION PRAYER: "Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again....Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side" (Ps. 71:20, 21).
We would think that being blessed would have nothing to do with mourning, but our infinitely wise Savior puts them together here in this beatitude. And as the preachers say: "What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" (Mark 10:9). When we mourn for our sins and the sins of others, we shall be blessed--not only in some future day, but here and now.
Henry Ward Beecher reminds us that sometimes when "men think that God is destroying them He is tuning them." George Romanes, the English scientist and great man of Oxford, lost his faith, and in the depths of his disbelief wrote: "When I think, as at times I must, of the hallowed glory of that Creator which once was mine, and then of the loneliness and barrenness of life as I now find it--at such times I feel the sharpest pangs of which my nature is susceptible." But he came back to faith at last, and strangely enough, it was through his own sufferings. When blindness came to his eyes, the light of faith flooded his heart.
The blessing of God's comfort comes through the blood of Jesus, through the power of the Holy Ghost. By the assurance that God will glorify Himself over all the sin of the world, we may know that we soon shall be freed from evil and dwell forever in His presence. Our Lord is "the God of all comfort" (2 Cor. 1:3). And His promise is that He will comfort us in all our trials, "that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God" (verse 4).
MEDITATION PRAYER: "Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again....Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side" (Ps. 71:20, 21).
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