SECRET #8 OF FOLLOWING JESUS

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Once you have a right evaluation of yourself before God by reaffirming your spiritual bankruptcy without God, you are ready to receive the next two secrets of Jesus. You see, a right evaluation of yourself reveals you have a "wickedness" and a "wonder" about you. The "wickedness" factor says you are capable of doing almost anything at any time. It's a reflection of your weaknesses. The "wonder" factor says you are not as bad as you could be, because God created you specially and uniquely.

The 8th secret is found in these words of Jesus: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Now wait a minute! Blessed are those who mourn? Are you kidding? How can mourning be a blessed experience or one that makes you happy? As you can easily see every one of these snapshots goes against what you might normally expect. Jesus and His Kingdom always move to the beat of a different drummer.

Here Jesus is working with the "wickedness" dimension of who you are and suggests how to deal with it-learn to mourn over it. I see that mourning means to develop a sensitivity to that which keeps you from being and doing all that you were created to be and to do. This attitude builds right on top of the first. Once you have a right evaluation of your self, God, and others, it is natural to be sensitive to anything that might pull you down or pull you away from being and doing what's right. It's mourning over that which keeps you from Jesus and His Kingdom.

This is a mourning process. Learn to mourn over your wickedness or maybe it's more understandable to call them weaknesses. Weaknesses seem to be categorized in two ways. First, your inner vulnerabilities that make you prone to fall apart or to do foolish things. Second, the trials you face when you suffer loss or when you are in the midst of your various problems.

By the way, when you genuinely mourn, you must feel the pain. Moan and groan over it! Feel it! Don't deny your feelings about it! The pain is for real, so really feel it! If you mourn properly, you'll discover something of a surprise on the other end. You will find a sense of comfort and inner joy. This is really the process of reframing your weaknesses so you can have a proper perspective on them.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, you don't need to look for problems and troubles-either generated by you or delivered to you. They have already been scheduled for your endurance. One of the primary growth factors in life is developing your muscle of endurance. When you reframe your weaknesses, you set yourself up for greater growth. So, don't waste your sorrows, reframe them.

What is it that keeps you from walking with Jesus and living the Kingdom lifestyle? What keeps you drifting away from what you know you really want with respect to your faithfulness to Him? List it out and actually MOURN over it. There's something about identifying it and saying it that helps to push it out of your way.

NOTE one more thing within this snapshot. It says "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Focus on that second part-"for they will be comforted." You see, when you mourn over that which keeps you from God-whatever it is, Jesus says you will find an unusual comfort in the process. He will comfort you. This is what happened to the early disciples. Jesus was about to leave them. He told them that they were going to mourn over His departure. Then right away He said that He was going to send a comforter to them. He was going to send to them His Spirit to comfort them and encourage them.

SECRET #8 is: The follower of Jesus mourns over that which keeps him from God. So, try it out. Reframe your weaknesses so that you turn them into mourning. Then, you will be comforted by the Spirit of Jesus, Himself. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."