Blessed are those who mourn...

Ecc 7:2-4 (ESV) It is better to go to the house of mourning

than to go to the house of feasting,

for this is the end of all mankind,

and the living will lay it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter,

for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Matt 5:4 (ESV) Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Mourn (mawrn, mohrn)

—verb (used without object) 

1. to feel or express sorrow or grief. 
2. to grieve or lament for the dead. 
3. to show the conventional or usual signs of sorrow over a person's death. 

—verb (used with object) 

4. to feel or express sorrow or grief over (misfortune, loss, or anything regretted); deplore. 
5. to grieve or lament over (the dead). 
6. to utter in a sorrowful manner. 

Rom 6:23 (ESV) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Be A Neighbor

James 4:11&12(ESV) Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Romans 13:8-10(ESV) Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Micah 6:6-8(ESV) “With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness(mercy in KJV),

and to walk humbly with your God?

Luke 10:25-37(ESV)  And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”  And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”  And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

1 Corinthians 12:31-14:1(ESV) But earnestly desire the higher gifts. 

And I will show you a still more excellent way. 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts...

Full Faith

By T. M. Moore|Published Date: January 04, 2015

Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. [Hebrews 13:9]

Our survey of full and true Christian faith began with an exhortation to run our race with endurance (Heb. 12:1). The course of life is long and the course of Christian life is difficult and demanding. We can expect many distractions along the way – subtle voices telling us that concentrating on unseen things is folly, that if God really loved you He wouldn’t make your life so difficult, that worship on Sunday is sufficient, that others should be loving and sharing with you rather than you taking all the initiative, that you don’t need to submit to any church leaders, and that you don’t need more teaching from the Word, or that you can decide for yourself just what the Christian life really ought to be. There will be no shortage of voices suggesting that this whole “full faith” enterprise isn’t worth it, and that all you have to do anyway is just believe.

Such voices, however, are not those of the Word of God.

In every age there have been smart, clever, articulate, and persuasive false teachers who have led many believers into a compromised faith. They use all the language of Scripture and elevate the Name of Jesus, but their teaching departs from the truth of Scripture in subtle ways, and those who follow them never quite get around to knowing full and abundant life in Christ. The writer of Hebrews is as urgent about this as Paul and Peter and John: Do not allow yourself to come under the thrall of false teachers, no matter how appealing they may be, for you will not attain full faith in Christ sitting at their feet.

So how do we keep ourselves from being led astray by false teaching? By pursuing full faith in Christ day by day! The only way to keep from being led off the course of the race we have been appointed to run is to make sure that we are staying on that course, day-in and day-out. This means ongoing attention to both facets of full faith – making sure of the hope we have in Jesus Christ, and working to bring forth the evidence of that hope in every aspect of our lives.

Living the Christian life is a full-time endeavor. The tendency among so many contemporary Christians is to live their lives in niches – work life here, family life here, avocations and diversions here, church and Christianity here, and so on. As many studies and polls have shown over the years, the vast majority of those who profess to be born-again followers of Jesus Christ lead lives which are barely distinguishable from their unbelieving contemporaries. They spend their money in the same way, watch as much television, participate in the same diversions, carry about as much debt, and divorce at about the same rate. This is because they’re living their faith in a niche – the niche of church and Christian activities. This is where they do their “Christian thing.” The rest of their lives seem hardly affected by their profession of faith in the King of glory.

If this is how you live, then you will certainly be vulnerable to being pulled off the course of full and vibrant Christian faith. Our Lord Jesus has redeemed, not just the souls of those who believe in Him, but their whole lives. He has reconciled us, whole and part, back to God, and He is now in the business, by His Word and Spirit, of making all things new in our lives. Assured of eternal life because we have trusted in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation, we must now be about the business, as Paul puts it (Phil. 2:12), of working out – out, not for – our salvation day by day. We must strive to yield all our relationships, roles, responsibilities, possessions, and time to the Lord Jesus Christ. From these staging-grounds we may show the watching world the reality of full faith, evidenced in the undeniable power of transformed lives.

Live this way – live full faith! – and you will not be led astray.

For more by T.M. Moore, visit colsoncenter.org