Devotionals

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Be Afflicted and Mourn


Focus: James 4:9
Be afflicted and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.

When first read, this verse you may do a double take. Why would God who gives us peace and joy, want us to weep and mourn? Why would He want us to stop laughing and cry instead?
The answer is simple. We are to mourn and weep over our sins. We are to not take our sins lightly. God takes them seriously and so should we. Taking our sins “seriously” would mean that we would be acutely aware of when we sin and how our sins affect our spiritual lives. And more importantly, how they affect our relationship with God. When we sin, it hurts Him, just as when someone sins against us, but even more so. Jesus suffered great pain, humiliation and rejection as He carried our sins to the cross. It is unfair and cruel to remind Him of His suffering (for our sake) every time we sin.
We will focus on three words in this verse: 1) afflicted, 2) mourn and 3) weep. In Strong’s Hebrew Bible Dictionary the definition for these words are: 1) afflicted: to be rubbed or worn, to be weak or sick, to grieve, make sick, oppressed, disconsolate;
2) mourn: groan, lament, sigh, bewail, with tears, weep, languish, wax feeble, sorrowful, droop; and 3) weep: bewail, complain, make lamentation, with tears, pour out, sweep away, be healed, to turn back, take alarm.
If we use these definitions, this verse could read: “Be afflicted (be weak or sick, grieve or disconsolate) and mourn (groan, lament, sigh, languish, be sorrowful and droop) and weep (bewail, pour out, sweep away, be healed, turn back and take alarm), let your laughter be turned to (groaning, lamenting, sighing, languishing, being sorrowful and drooping) and your joy to heaviness”. Reading it this way, gives an entirely new meaning.
Now we have a clearer understanding of why God wants us to weep and mourn (our sins). To do so, is to turn back from our sins, to be healed of them. When we have the mindset, attitude and spirit described in the definitions, we “see” our sins fully for what they are and the damage they do. This creates a change of heart and we no longer are “comfortable” with our sins and can no longer “laugh” them away. We take them as seriously as our Lord does.
So let us “be afflicted and mourn and weep…” our sins and be “pleasing in the sight of the Lord”.
Amen and God bless.

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