2023-03-28
Revelation 21:4 NIV
Sometimes we describe dying as “crossing the Jordan.” That’s because the Jordan River runs into the Dead Sea.
The story is told of an elderly Christian lady who was dying. For most of her life, illness had confined her to bed or a wheelchair. The family gathered to say farewell. Holding her hand, one of her grandchildren asked, “Are you afraid to die?” With tears of joy, she replied, “No, I’m not afraid of death because my Father owns the land on both sides of the river.”
What an answer! In heaven there will be no sickness, or depression, or pain, or loneliness, or fear, or grief, or any of the things that make life on earth so difficult. God’s Word says, “For you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings” (Malachi 4:2 NRS). Isaiah writes: “The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 35:10 NKJV).
When we lose a loved one in death, the question arises, “Will I see them in heaven; will I know them?” Yes! You wouldn’t know less in heaven than you knew on earth. Paul answers, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12 NKJV). Heaven will be the greatest family reunion of all time. And here is the best part of all: We will never be separated again.
Soul food: Job 32-34; Luke 21:25-38; Ps 69:1-18; Prov 8:27-29
2020-09-05
Psalm 13:1 NIV
When Kelly James and two climbing buddies died on Oregon’s Mount Hood, his brother Frank, a professor of theology, admitted: “It’s one thing to talk about death in the abstract. It’s another to cope with the death of someone you love…Death is ugly. We can’t – and shouldn’t – try to make it palatable with pious platitudes…One question haunts me, ‘Where was God when Kelly was freezing to death?’ For me not to ask would be a failure to take God seriously…I’m not suggesting mere mortals stand in judgment of God…God doesn’t report to me. But an honest question from a broken heart is a good and righteous thing.” David wasn’t afraid to ask God, “How long will you hide your face?” Then a few verses later the same distressed David declares, “But I trust in your unfailing love” (Psalm 13:5 NIV). Frank James continues: “Amid all the spiritual consternation God manifested Himself in my grief. Somehow He’s found in the disappointment, confusion, and raw emotions. This doesn’t exactly make sense to me, and I don’t like it. But my concept of faith has become Abrahamic…I must trust God even when I don’t understand…as Christians have confessed for centuries, ‘We look for the resurrection of the dead’ (See 1 Corinthians 15:42)…Amid enough tears to fill an ocean…we’ve had to bury loved ones. But we bury them with this promise, ‘For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive’ (1 Corinthians 15:22 NIV). It doesn’t indemnify us against grief…It does, however, take faith to depths where hope begins to poke through the heartache, like a sunbeam piercing a cloudy sky.”
Soul food: Eze 14:1-16:52; Luke 20:9-19; Ps 112; Prov 20:1-4
2020-03-30
2 Corinthians 1:3 NLT
When you lose someone you love, you go through a grieving process. And God will comfort you and walk you through it. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4 NIV). Grieving is the healthy way to process your emotions, to express your pain and move beyond it. Recovery doesn’t happen overnight; it happens in proportion to the size of your loss. Only small losses are healed quickly. Zig Ziglar says: “The longest twenty hours of my life were those right after my daughter’s death. When making her funeral arrangements, I had to listen to a salesman who was an incessant talker, and who told me thirty times that he wasn’t a salesman. Twice I had to leave the room; I simply couldn’t handle him. The night before, half asleep and half awake, I kept thinking my daughter was wondering when her daddy was coming to get her. The next morning I took a walk, praying and crying the whole way. When I returned, the Lord spoke to me in such a distinct way: ‘She’s fine. She’s with me, and you’re going to be fine too. I’m all you need. Keep walking. Keep talking. Keep praying. Keep crying.'” Grief and loss can’t be solved, but they are experiences you don’t have to go through alone. The best-known Psalm in Scripture says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me” (Psalm 23:4 NKJV). The sun will shine again. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Your joy will return – God promises it!
Soul food: Job 35-37; Matt 26:26-35; Ps 6; Prov 8:32-33
2 Corinthians 1:3 NLT
When we lose someone we love, we go through a grieving process. And God will comfort us and walk us through it. Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’ (Matthew 5:4 NIV). Grieving is the healthy way to process our emotions, to express our pain and move beyond it. Recovery doesn’t happen overnight; it takes time for us to work through our thoughts and emotions. Grief and loss can’t be taken away, but they’re experiences we don’t have to go through alone. It can help to remember that God’s close to us. He’s holding us and healing the wounds we have. The Bible tells us that God is the ‘Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.’ Knowing that He’s close brings us comfort when we’re experiencing situations we never thought we’d have to experience, and dealing with emotions which seem overwhelming. The Bible says: ‘Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me’ (Psalm 23:4 NIV). He’s always with us, no matter what we’re walking through. He’s giving us the strength we need when we feel weak and exhausted. In Isaiah 40, we’re told: ‘He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak’ (v.29 NIV). And He promises that joy will come back into our lives. In Psalm 30, it says: ‘Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning’ (Psalm 30:5 NIV). It might take a long time before we feel that joy again, but no matter how long it takes we can be comforted by that fact that God’s with us in the weeping and the rejoicing.
Job 35-37; Matt 26:26-35; Ps 6; Prov 8:32-33
2020-01-26
Philippians 1:23 NIV
When death takes someone we love. We’ll all have to deal with grief at some point in our lives. It’s not a quick and easy process. There are many stages to grieving, and we might go through these stages more than once. We need to give ourselves permission and time to grieve. However we’re feeling, we need to stand on verses such as: ‘Brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died’ (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 NLT); ‘Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength’ (1 Corinthians 15:42-43 NLT); ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled…My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am’ (John 14:1-3 NIV). Paul writes, ‘To depart and…be with Christ…is better by far.’ When we’re grieving, we sometimes might struggle to find comfort in these words. We want the person we love to still be here with us. But when we truly know that it’s better for them to be with God, we can begin to accept what has happened.
Luke 10:25-37; Eph 4:31-32; Gen 50:15-21
