Be Blessed!

Last summer (2004) while working at K-Klassic I was in a Bible study led by Missy White in which we studied the beatitudes. I had read that passage in Matthew many times in my life, heard tons of sermons on it in my years of church growing up, and had even tried unsuccessfully to memorize the chapter a couple months before heading to Klassic but I had never REALLY gotten deep into what the scripture truly was saying. There was one beatitude that really struck a cord with me one hot summer day and I am reminded of it again this evening as God has put it on my heart to share about it. In Matthew 5:4 Jesus said "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Some of you might be thinking... "What happened, Julie? Did someone pass away? Did you get sent to the ER... Again?" I feel like people (including me) forget about this verse and put it on the back burner, until we attend a funeral or until we comfort a sad friend who is going through a tough break-up... But that's not the heart of what Jesus is getting at in this verse. He is calling us to mourn sin everyday. We are to mourn our own sin and the sin that surrounds us in our depraved world.

We are sinful by nature. Ever since Adam and Eve messed up in the Garden of Eden we were born into it. Just like an alcoholic inherits the genes of an addictive personality, so we inherit the addiction to self... sin. It is hard for us to come to terms with the fact that we are all sinners because we love ourselves so stinkin' much! We have the audacity to think this world and God owes us something because we are the center of the universe. I think if you are anything like me (and I think you are) you have probably at one time in your life pondered the disgusting thought that maybe... just maybe everyone else was just a character in the play that was your life. Gross huh? And it's this selfishness that blocks us from seeing our sin... sin blocking the view of sin. It blocks my view a lot of the time. I have fooled myself into thinking that I am a pretty darn good person. And sadly, my eyes are rarely completely opened to how disgustingly sinful I am, as they are tonight. And it's when they are open that I pray God will allow me to stay aware and stay on my knees mourning my sin. And it's only when God allows us to breakdown that wall of sin and realize how sinful we really are, that we are able to mourn that sin. And His kindness leads us to repentance. It's hard to admit to wrongs when you know the judge is going to throw the book at you... but God's not like that. He loves us. He wants us to acknowledge and mourn our sins so He can comfort us! Those who deny their sins can't be comforted, and their sins become like unattended malignant tumors that grow under the surface. Only those who admit they are sick can be healed by the one true Healer.

We are also called to mourn the sins of others. I am not implying that we should go around saying, "Billy, I feel so bad for you cause you are a SINNER." But I've learned that we should love the sinner, mourn the sin. It's so easy to not like someone who gossips about you, hurts one of your friends intentionally, or is living in a life of habitual sin. But we are called to love them by separating our love for them from our disdain for their sin. We have to hate their sin and mourn that it so easily entangles them and us. God calls us to pray for our enemies. It's hard to hate someone you pray for every morning, noon, and night. We must love in an unusual way... loving the unloveable. May people find us wonderfully weird in our acceptance of people and our rejection of sin!

PS If you are randomly reading my blog even though you don't personally know me (as some are in the habit of doing), I'd love to hear your comments.