Humble Weeping

James 4 cont'd:

Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

These verses must be read in context, not just pulled from the chapter.

We are told her to be miserable and mournful.  Right before these verses, we were told to cleanse ourselves and purify our hearts, drawing near to God, in order to see the devil flee.

These verses refer to repentance, something we don’t hear a lot about these days, unfortunately.

True repentance (sorrow for sin and a decision to turn from it) involves mourning and weeping.

When we are truly sorry for hurting a friend or a family member, it hurts our hearts that we’ve done something that caused another person grief. And we come in humility to ask forgiveness, with a heavy heart of repentance, hoping they will forgive us.  Sometimes they do…and sometimes they don’t.

However, God forgives us when we repent.  When we truly humble ourselves to him and repent over lust, believing lies, thinking evil thoughts, etc. and it causes our heart to mourn before him, he receives us and forgives us….always.

And then…he exalts us.  He doesn’t exalt us above others.  He exalts us to the same place his son Jesus has…that of sonship…right next to his throne.

Pretty cool, isn’t it?

Repentance does involve sorrow and gloom because we feel heavy over what we’ve done.  But the good part is that joy comes when we are forgiven…and restoration.

He remembers our sins no more.