Continual Sorrow

Rom 9:2  That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 

Imagine….great heaviness and continual sorrow in our hearts.

Yet we are Christians and we are told to count it all joy when we fall into different temptations.

Jas_1:2  My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations

Joy and sorrow.  This is the life of a Christian. It is the life of our Savior.

Our Savior wasn't all doom and gloom. 

Joh 15:9  As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 

Joh 15:10  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. 

Joh 15:11  These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. 

Joh 15:12  This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 

Joh 15:13  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 

Joy.

Luk 10:21  In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight. 

Rejoicing.

Jesus was not void of happiness, and neither should we be.  Likewise, Jesus was not without sadness, and weeping. 

In all things Jesus was ever mindful of the will of His Father, the will He was in complete agreement with. He created us with the ability to experience emotions. Did He want us to experience the emotions that are detrimental to us? No. He didn't want us to take on the burden of knowing evil, beyond the realization of its existence as something to be shunned. We chose to learn of evil in all its depths. When Satan said this--

Gen 3:4  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 

Gen 3:5  For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. 

He told Eve that if she ate that forbidden fruit her eyes - her understanding- would be opened and she would be like god- she would know good and evil. 

Up to that point she didn't know evil at all, this evil thing was a complete mystery. She did know this--

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 

Now, if I told you that you would die, and you knew nothing of death you'd want a bit of clarification, yes? God would NOT give a command void of comprehension.  He impressed upon Adam the knowledge of death as something to be shunned. He told him that he shall NOT eat of that tree. He told Him it was the tree of KNOWLEDGE of GOOD and EVIL. 

We all know what it is like to be told not to do something, and then we do it, and later we wish we had listened and not done what we'd been told not to do.  Adam had NOTHING but good surrounding Him, all His needs were met completely. Eve was the same, all her needs were met.  Satan tempted her into believing that she needed more than what she currently possessed. This knowledge of the thing called evil and the fact knowing of evil would make her something more than what she was penetrated something inside her and she let the temptation become conceived in herself.

God the Father and God the declared Son did NOT want us to know evil and the things that evil brings with it- but we chose otherwise.  As the Son took on flesh in that flesh He knew the sorrow of the flesh in the way we know it and His sorrow was great.   Is it any wonder the Apostle had continual sorrow? Is it any wonder that we too have continual sorrow, an underlying sorrow that will lie beneath any joy we may have.

Living without Christ as Christians longing for His return is amazing because we KNOW He will return for us, and be in us and love us right now, but it is still LIVING in a world filled with HORROR, with EVIL beyond imagining. We ARE pilgrims here, we are longing for a BETTER WORLD we know exists in Christ.

Yes, we continually sorrow as we continually HOPE.

Please, Lord, come soon! Please!

Let us be found in YOU now and forever!