“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”

– Jesus, in Matthew 5:4

2020 was the worst year of my life for mourning and grief! My older sister Marlene died in August, and then my wife Claudia (CJ to many) died in October. Even though CJ and I were mature Christians and understood that physical death was not the end of her real life, and that she would immediately be in Jesus’ presence after her last breath, it still was an awful, painful and disappointing experience to go through! I recently reviewed one of my blogs I wrote in September of 2020, about 1 ½ months before she died. I was sharing how we both felt about our own grieving, so I’m going to share an excerpt of that blog with you because I think it reflects how most people feel when they experience grief and mourning (you can read that full blog on my blog site at www.boomers4jesus.org ) :

“When I refer to CJ’s “status”, most folks think of her physical status in relation to her cancer. To be honest, it is not good. She is getting weaker each week, and struggles with shortness of breath and water retention as symptoms of this cancer. Fortunately, the pain has been quite manageable and the medication is doing the trick in keeping the pain down. It’s also good that she is still fully alert and enjoys reading, watching TV, listening to praise music, doing her Bible studies, and is still active on social media with friends. Saturday all of our kids & grandkids came over for the day and that was wonderful to have all 17 of us together!

While we both continue to pray for God’s  physical healing and have no doubt he can do that, and we know many of you are praying that as well, it is becoming more likely that God is not going to do that. CJ’s body is dying, and we are certainly aware of God’s presence and leading as we go through this process. As humans there is no easy way to go through this process, and to put it in human (not spiritual) terms, dying sucks! We both grieve those things we will never do together any more, and CJ grieves especially not seeing our 9 grandkids grow up, get married, etc. As those of you who have gone through this experience of losing a spouse, child, parent, relative, or friend, you know life is never always fair and the way we think it should be! It is easy as we face the process of physical death to fall prey to fear, discouragement, and hopelessness, especially if you don’t believe there is life after death.”  – from Sept. 9^th, 2020

We mostly think of grief and mourning in relation to the loss of a loved one. But you can also grieve over a broken marriage that leads to divorce, a serious accident or illness, a child who falls prey to addiction or criminal activity, the loss of a job, a broken friendship, or anything that seems like it should never happen and is just not fair or right! When anything like this affects us deeply, we have an innate sense that “this is just not right, this is not the way it’s supposed to be”!

So, what is Jesus getting at in the passage above when he says “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”? This is from his “Sermon on the Mount”, and this is the 2^nd of eight Beatitudes, or “Kingdom Values” that I would like to explore with you. These are values and character traits that Jesus wants us to develop that will reflect his character and bring glory to His Father. As we mature in, and live out, these eight Kingdom Values, Jesus will bless us with spiritual advantages that will strengthen us and give us unshakable hope as we face the chaos and darkness of our sin-stained world. These will enable us to see our lives, and our world, from God’s perspective. And that can lead to peace of mind and hope for an eternal future!

1) Mourning and grief are a response to the brokenness and sin that mars our world and affects us all!

Remember God’s perspective: He created us to live with him in the Garden of Eden, free from sin and all its evil effects. In that sinless setting, we would never get sick or die, there would be no wars, hatred, hunger, crime, abuse, or any of the horrible effects we see from sin every day in our fallen world. But, when Adam & Eve rebelled and sinned, they were banned from God’s presence and the result of sin was physical and spiritual death for all in the human race, and all of the brokenness and chaos that is our world today!

So when we mourn and grieve, our souls are crying out that this is not right, this is not the way it was supposed to be! Even in our sinfulness and separation from God’s intimate love, even in the hearts of those who don’t believe in God at all, there is an innate knowledge and sense that all of this horrible crap we see in the world every day is just not right, it’s not the way things are supposed to be, and we KNOW there should be something better than this in life!

2) Jesus is calling us to mourn like God does!

God hates the effects of sin in our lives also, and mourns and weeps for us as well! God is constantly encouraging people to repent from their sinfulness (turn and go the other way), and if they do, he will gladly forgive them, make life better now, and promise a future new Kingdom that will be like the Garden of Eden, restored and without any sin!

In the prophet Joel, 2:12-13, God says,
¹²  “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; ¹³  and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

Too many people just succumb to the horrors of sin, and in today’s culture, we have even come to accept and even celebrate some of the results of sin! It’s like people believe “this is just the way it is in the world, and nothing will ever change or get better!” BUT THAT’S NOT TRUE!! Jesus came to die for our sin, and his Resurrection overcame the power of sin and enables us to have his power to resist and overcome sin as well! And, while we still may struggle with the effects of sin, God promises to comfort us through his Holy Spirit and give us his amazing peace in the midst of whatever circumstances we may face.

3) Mourning as God mourns will give us an unshakable hope and lead us into a future Kingdom with Jesus, where we will have new bodies and never get sick or die!

Mourning and grieving means we DON’T accept the sinful status quo of this world, and we long with hope for God’s promise of a better world! It’s really very similar to the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1—“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen”.

Mourning reminds us that a new “morning” is coming, a better day and place in which all sin will be reversed, and we again joyfully live forever in the very presence of God on a newly restored and sinless earth!

John describes it this way in Revelation 21: 1-5:

¹  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²  And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” ⁵  And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Mourning and grief are hard to bear and endure. But in the midst of all that sense of loss and unfairness, trusting in God will remind us that sin is not the last word in his plan! Sure, I miss Claudia and wish the cancer had never happened, but because I know and trust Jesus, I also have great comfort in my life and look forward to the rest of my life on earth with peace, joy, and anticipation of what God has for me in the future! And, I find great comfort in knowing that Claudia is amazingly happy now in Jesus’ presence, and that all the pain and hurt she endured has already been reversed and wiped away, and she is restored to the beautiful daughter of God that she always aspired to be here in earth. And, we will meet again, as brother and sister in Jesus in the new and amazing family of God in his new Kingdom!

I don’t wish the experience of mourning and grief on any of you…

but, knowing that we will all experience times of loss and grief, perhaps many times in life;

I pray that that you will turn to God and let him help you to mourn and grieve as he does, and then trust him for the comfort, peace, and eternal hope for a new and better Kingdom that he so eagerly wants to give you, if you will just trust his son Jesus!

Most of us begin a New Year with optimism! We hope it’s even better than previous years, and many of us seek to change our lives and do better in many areas: lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier, be kinder, stop looking at technology so much, read the Bible more, go to church more, etc.  All “good stuff”! And, doing any of that will make your life, and this new year, a little better!

But, did you realize that God wants to bless us with “great stuff” that is far better than that? Jesus tells us in Mathew 6:33 not to worry about all the stuff we see around us, but rather “seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”!  What “things” is Jesus talking about here? And what does it mean when we say, and pray, that God will “bless you”?

In Matthew 5-7, we read the “Sermon on the Mount”, given by Jesus probably over several days. Here Jesus lays out what it means to become part of his Kingdom, both now and in the future, when he returns to rule the entire earth and universe. In the beginning of this sermon, in Matthew 5:3-12, Jesus gives us eight distinct “Kingdom Values” to live by, and if we do live them out, there is a distinct “blessing” for each one from God that will only be given to those who live out these values, with God’s help. These values are also character traits that reflect the perfect life of Jesus. And, if we live them out daily, we will reflect Jesus to others, bring glory to him, and be blessed ourselves!

In this and some following blogs, I would like to highlight these eight Kingdom Values. I was inspired to do this by reading a wonderful new book by Dr. Tony Evans called “Kingdom Values: Character (Greater Than)  Chaos. I would encourage you to read this book and get a fuller understanding of what these values are and how God will “bless you” by living these out! You will notice 2 very important aspects to these Values: 1) they are almost always the opposite of what this secular world values most, and 2) you cannot fully live them out and receive God’s “blessing” for each one unless you surrender to God and let him help you! Let’s look at the first Kingdom Value:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” – Matthew 5:3

The Kingdom Value: Spiritual Poverty!

Here Jesus is saying he will bless those who recognize that they do not have the spiritual capacity to address their own spiritual needs. The Bible says that because we are all born sinful, we are already “spiritually dead” and separated from God because of that fact! We can do all kinds of things to improve ourselves in body, mind, and spirit, but they all fall short of what only God can do for us. Thus, to be “poor in spirit” is to in essence declare “spiritual bankruptcy”, to recognize all my best efforts cannot come close to what God wants to give me spiritually if I surrender to his rule over my life. Tony Evans puts it this way: “A person who is poor in spirit understands that if God doesn’t act out of charity and give them what they need to live life as it is meant to be lived, they are going to starve to death spiritually.”

What does that say about common New Year’s resolutions? You can join a gym, lose all the weight you want to, feel great physically, fill your mind with all the positive thoughts to make you “the best you you’ve ever been”, and in God’s eyes, you’re still spiritually dead and impoverished and will miss out on the all the real power and blessings that he wants for you, now and forever! (I’m not saying that’s not good stuff, and being healthy is great, but don’t you also want the “better things” that God wants to give you?)

The apostle Paul was a powerful, influential, respected Jewish spiritual leader when Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus and literally blinded him for a brief time so that he could spiritually “see” who Jesus was, and then follow him. Paul came to see all his worldly fame and knowledge was useless and even the antithesis to what Jesus wanted to give him. When he finally came to know, love, and follow Jesus the “light came on” in his mind and he could see his previous life as spiritual garbage compared to what he gained by surrendering his life to Jesus! He described it this way:

Philippians 3:4, 7-11 (NIV)
⁴  If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:

⁷  But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. ¹⁰  I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹  and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

The Blessing: The Kingdom of God!

The “blessing” for spiritual poverty is that you get to be part of God’s Kingdom! And, it’s ONLY for those who recognize they are poor in spirit. Our culture values pride, personal success and strength, independence and control, a “self-made person”. We esteem those with power, control, and total self-reliance. Those are this world’s “winners”. In God’s upside-down Kingdom, he is basically telling us “If you think you have it all together and are the captain of your soul, go for it! But you will have no help from me, and you will never enter my Kingdom.” Just the opposite is true to enter God’s Kingdom:  he values humility, gentleness, and mercy, and only the person who sees they need Jesus as the source and sustainer of life is the “winner” and will inherit God’s Kingdom as a reborn and redeemed son or daughter!

The concept of God’s “blessing” can be described as “a state of well-being where Kingdom followers of Christ both enjoy and extend the goodness of God in their lives”. This becomes a normal way of life for a Kingdom disciple, not just a momentary feeling of happiness or energy. It’s similar to the idea of “joy” in scripture, which is described as an inner river that keeps flowing even in times of drought. The Holy Spirit is the source of all this peace, joy, and assurance. These are INNER resources that only God can give you!  And, it’s only for those who humble themselves before God and allow him to give them a brand new life as sons and daughters of his Kingdom, now and forever!

So as you begin 2023, it’s OK and even good to want to eat more healthy food, lose some weight, read the Bible daily, play more & better golf (my resolution, lol), and whatever else is productive and healthy for you. But, I hope you seek more than that! I hope you want to experience the inner power, peace, joy, and assurance that only come from Jesus as you surrender to his rule and live as a Kingdom follower. And the good news is, you don’t have to be perfect (because you’re not), and you don’t have to perform and look good for others! You just have to humbly trust Jesus, and ask him to help you!

I will soon write some more blogs on the other seven Kingdom Values that God wants to give us, and the blessings that come with them. Have a wonderful 2023! I pray the circumstances of your life are good and enjoyable for the most part. But even when they are not, I pray you will seek God’s Kingdom above all else, and experience the inner resources that will sustain you and give you peace and joy, no matter what!

¹⁴  For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵  from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶  that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷  so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸  may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹  and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ²⁰  Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. -Ephesians 3:14-21 (ESV)