THE BIBLICAL RESPONSE TO THE HUMAN EMOTION CALLED GRIEF!
By: Dr. Mike Jones
Saints, God in His all-knowing wisdom knows all that we go through in this sin-cursed world: He knows that life will throw us curves, during various battles, but we have to endure to the END!
The Word of God declares in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
Notice, the passage didn’t say, “for everything, give thanks: But in everything, we’re to give thanks!” Why? The Apostle Paul gives us the answer in the same verse, “THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD FOR YOU!”
Most of the time, our selfish response is: “Give thanks in the midst of this grievous time period that I’m going through … I don’t see any reason to be thankful!”
Here’s something else Apostle Paul tells us to do: Look at Philippians 4:4-7, “Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, Let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Look at what one of God’s chosen servants went through in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28, he describes all that he went through and when he arrived in Rome (his final destination), he didn’t complain one bit, but thanked God and took courage. [Note: In all that he endured, he called them “light afflictions!”]
I can see the expressions on some of your faces… “yeah, right… like you can read that into those verses.” Saints, I don’t want to ADD nor TAKE anything from God’s Word. Apostle Paul himself said it. Turn to Acts 28:15, “And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage.” He didn’t reminisce about hard times.
(Note: Forum of Appius was a market town 43 miles South of Rome and Three Taverns was a rest stop about 30 miles South of Rome.)
Book of Psalm was written by about 43 different writers. The Psalms are broken up into 5 DIVISIONS, and each division covers one of the books of Moses. Notice throughout the Psalms, the entire collection is entitled “PRAISES” in the Hebrew text. All the hardships they went through, they ended with some form of giving thanks to God; and yet, we have a better covenant than they had under the old covenant of Law. And we have the complete Word of God, whereby they only had the Old Testament. And we know that “All things work together for the good of those who love God.”
Here in ministry, we can look back over the past couple of years, and see those that flooded the altar for prayer for sicknesses, loss of jobs, deaths of love ones, spouse abandonment, etc; but in the midst of all the ministry trials and hardships of the congregation-one thing was constant: THEY NEVER FORGOT TO BE THANKFUL AND TO GIVE GOD PRAISE!”
When we read the story of Jesus raising His dear friend Lazarus from the grave in St. John Chapter II, and read in verse 35 that “Jesus wept,” many believed that He (like the others) wept because Lazarus had died, and therefore He (Jesus) grieved for him. When we do a careful study of this section of the chapter, we’d come to the conclusion that the Greek word in this chapter for Jesus wept derives from the connotation of silently bursting into tears, in contrast to the loud crying of the crowd in verse 33. Jesus’ tears didn’t come out of mourning for Lazarus, since He was there to raise him from the dead, but His weeping was out of grief for a fallen sin-cursed world that caused DEATH. (Remember: Isaiah 53:3 tells us that He was a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
So, what is grief that moves the heart of our God? When we read the definition (GRIEF), it’s defined as keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp deep sorrow; painful regret.
Psalms tells us that God has numbered the hairs on our head: Think about it. If God knows/numbers every follicle of hair on our head, he can certainly meet our every need, if we’re willing to keep our minds stayed on Him, in time of trouble.
(Adapted from the Teaching “THE BIBLICAL RESPONSE TO THE HUMAN EMOTION CALLED GRIEF“: all Scripture references are taken from the KJV unless otherwise noted.)