YOUR SORROW WILL BE TURNED INTO JOY

“MOST ASSUREDLY, I SAY TO YOU THAT YOU WILL WEEP AND LAMENT, BUT THE WORLD WILL REJOICE AND YOU WILL BE SORROWFUL, BUT YOUR SORROW WILL BE TURNED INTO JOY.” – JOHN 16:20

Whenever troubles enter into our lives, often our hearts become shattered by the sorrow they bring in. Often we wonder why this trouble to me and we get disheartened by this kind of thought. But Bible clearly states that there will be many trials in this world. Even then when we come across such trials, tribulations, our heart gets filled with sorrow.

            You might also be treading upon this path of sorrow, sufferings, sickness, poverty or might be under the clutches of sin. But today to you, who is going through this valley of tears; who is walking alone rejected by people; the Almighty God lovingly says: “Your sorrows will be turned into joy.”

            Yes my beloved ones, today Jesus whom you and I worship is going to wipe away all your tears. He will be going to emerge out as a comforter in all of your lives. Yes He indeed is going to turn your sorrows into joy and His strength will help you to overcome your weakness.

            There was a person who was very close to me when I studied my master’s degree. After our studies we got job in different places and we were separated. Soon after some years his family people started looking for a bride for him. As his salary was low he could not get married and his age was increasing which worried his family members a lot. Their heart was filled with sorrow and disappointment. One day he got a call from an organisation asking him to come for an interview. He went to the interview and got selected. The salary they promised was a big amount so he felt so happy and joined that organization. Soon after he got a job, his marriage got fixed and with so much of joy he was preparing for his marriage day. 

Nearly one month before his marriage day, he got an order from his department head that he was thrown out of the job. He could not believe it and his whole life seems to be suddenly filled with darkness all around. He doesn’t know what to do and he began to shed tears in prayers asking Jesus Christ to help him. As his marriage day came closer his heart filled with so much of sorrow and grief. In a week he applied to nearly 25 organizations but no one called him back. At that time he begun to put all his hope on God and surrendered his life completely in the gracious hands of Jesus Christ. Everyone around him thought his marriage life will go into a deep trouble as he had no job. As all doors seem to be closed in his life, Jesus Christ opened a way for him. Exactly one week before his marriage he got a job with the same kind of salary which he never even thought of. God blessed him and he blessed his marriage life too. Recently I spoke to him and I found that he was filled with so much of gladness and he told me that his life was filled with peace and blessings of Jesus Christ.

            My dear young friend, Jesus Christ will do the same in your life too. He is an unfailing, unchanging and loving God. He is much more powerful than the mountains of trials and sufferings heaped before you. Do not be disheartened. Jesus Christ will open a new way for you and He will turn all your grief to joy. He will go before you and He will make the crooked paths straight. Jesus Christ will surely fill you with His peace and joy. My dear beloved, you will live.

“For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.” – Psalm 9:18

NEED PRAYERS? WE ARE READY TO PRAY FOR YOU.

SONG I LIKE - 12 (FOUR DAYS LATE)

LIKED THIS ONE A LOT

LYRICS THAT TOUCHED MY HEART - 3 ("FOUR DAYS LATE")

 "Four days late" is a popular song written by Aaron Wilburn who is a Christian songwriter and comedian.

The news came to Jesus

Please come fast

Lazarus is sick

And without your help he will not last

Mary and Martha watched their brother die

They waited for Jesus

He did not come

And they wondered why

The dead watch was over

Buried four days

Somebody said

"He'll soon be here, the Lord's on his way"

Martha ran to him and then she cried

"Lord if you had been here

You could have healed him,

He'd still be alive"

But you’re, four days late

And all hope is gone

Lord we don't understand

Why You’ve waited so long

But His way is God's way

Not yours or mine

And isn't it great

When He's four days late

He's still on time

Jesus said

"Martha, show me the grave"

But she said

"Lord, you don't understand,

He's been there four days"

The grave stone was rolled back

Then Jesus cried

Lazarus come forth

Then somebody said

"He's alive, he's alive"

You may be fighting a battle of fear

You’ve cry to the Lord

"I need you now"

But He has not appeared

Friend don't be discouraged

'Cause he's still the same

He'll soon be here

He'll roll back the stone

And He'll call out your name

GHG - 5 ( I WILL RESTORE DOUBLE TO YOU )

“RETURN TO THE STRONGHOLD, YOU PRISONERS OF HOPE. EVEN TODAY I DECLARE THAT I WILL RESTORE DOUBLE TO YOU.” – ZECHARIAH 9:12

After I finished my schooling, I have joined a diploma course in electronics. I could not able to understand God’s will in my life at that point of life and so as I struggled in my studies, I hated my studies and my life.

Everything that had happened in my life seems to be against my desire. It was through God’s grace alone I finished my first two years and entered into the final year of my studies. My friends began to prepare for the entrance exam which is the gateway to get an admission to the degree course in a reputed government college in my city. I had no desire as I had no hope about my future.

At that critical moment, I used to get a severe stomach pain every month which troubled me a lot and it further made me to hate my life to the core. Soon I was diagnosed that I have big stones in my two kidneys. Because of those stones I was told that my kidneys got enlarged and doctors advised me to get operated very soon.

As I hated my life to the core, I murmured against God. Even as I murmured, I used to pray to God for help. As days passed by, my condition got worse and I used to get severe pain in regular intervals. On that particular moment, I decided not to go for surgery and to trust God for help.

Jesus Christ saw my tears and answered my prayers when I attended a New Year service on the early morning of 1^st January 2002. I cried badly on that day to Jesus Christ asking Him to heal me and help me to get through the entrance exam to get an admission in the government college. On that day, Jesus Christ spoke through Holy Spirit to me by giving Zechariah 9:12 as the promise for that whole year.

Our God is a God who is so faithful in His promise. He not only promised me but He also fulfilled His promise in my life. Exactly on the May month of that year, doctors checked me again and told me that my two kidneys were completely clean and there was not even a single sign that I had a kidney stone before. It was God who healed me completely. Ten long years have passed by. But I never got any pain after God had healed me on 15^th May 2002.

Not only that, Jesus Christ also enabled me to secure a rank in the entrance exam which was conducted on that year and He gave me an admission in the reputed government engineering college for the degree course in electronics.

As Jesus Christ promised me, He gave me double blessings. He healed me completely and gave me an admission in a college where many yearned to study but could not get through. I was not all an eligible person for His blessing but He blessed me through His abundant overflowing grace. I was not faithful to Him but He is so faithful to me.

My dear young friends, even today you might be struggling with physical sickness and struggling hard without any blessings. Today Jesus Christ promises you that He will restore double to you. You will be blessed and He will raise you high through His Golden Hands of Grace. All you have to do is look to Him humble and shed your tears in His presence. He will see your tears and He will not despise you. “You will get the answers for your tears and prayers” says Holy Spirit. God will never forsake you. You will be blessed richly by Him.

Don’t be pride about your strength. Look to God humbly and trust in His strength and not on yours. Remember God is against those who are filled with pride. How God reacted in my life when I got pride after receiving one of the greatest blessings of my life?

                                                                  ...................... To be continued in GHG - 6

FORGIVE, THEN MOVE ON - A DEVOTIONAL BY RICK WARREN

“Still, if you set your heart on God and reach out to him, If you scrub your hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in your home, You'll be able to face the world unashamed and keep a firm grip on life, guiltless and fearless. You'll forget your troubles; they'll be like old, faded photographs.” (Job 11:13-16 MSG)

As long as you focus on someone you resent, that person controls you. You're worrying about something he or she has already forgotten about.

Long before psychology came along, Job said there are three steps for inner healing:

1. Put your heart right. If you want to be emotionally healed from a hurt, you have to release the offender — whether you feel like it or not. Don’t try to get even. Forgive that person, and then release him or her.

2. Reach out to God. You need to invite Christ to come into your life and fill you with his forgiveness. Why? I don't think you can manufacture enough forgiveness in your life to handle all the hurts you're going to face, not only those of the past but those you'll have between now and when you die.

Do you remember the story of Corrie Ten Boom? She hid Jews in her apartment to protect them from the Nazis during World War II. When they were caught, not only were the Jews shipped off to the concentration camps, but Corrie and her family were, too. Everyone in her family was killed in the concentration camps except Corrie, and she endured torture and abuse. She later went back and met the guards who had abused her, and she forgave them. You can't do that with human forgiveness. You need God's supernatural power in your life in order to let it go and be able to say, “It wasn't good. It wasn't fun. It was bad. But I believe that God can bring good out of the bad, and somehow the rest of my life is going to be the best of my life.”

3. Face the world again. When we're hurt, we're tempted to withdraw into a shell, put up a wall, and decide never to let anyone else get close. You're really only hurting yourself when you do that. Letting what happened to you in the past define your identity is like driving a car looking into the rearview mirror. You're going to crash. You have to face the future and resume living. It doesn’t matter as much where you’ve been as it does where you’re headed.

Talk About It

What hurtful memory are you choosing to hold onto — something somebody said, did, or thought about you?

Pray this prayer today: “Jesus, I want my heart to be right. Please take this resentment out of my life. I choose to forgive [this person]. Help me to face the world again. Help me to focus on you in the future. Replace my pain with your peace. Replace my hurt with your healing. Replace my bitterness with your love. In Jesus name. Amen.”

This devotional ©2012 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission

THE WALL - 2

YOU WILL BE THE HEAD AND NOT THE TAIL

“Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it.”

                                                                                                                                - Genesis 37:24

Joseph got a promise from the Lord that he will be raised above all. But yet the above verse records that Joseph was in a pit.

You might also have got promises from the Lord that He will lift you high and yet you might be in a downward position in your life. You desire something to happen in your life that will make you happy but exactly the opposite is getting happened in your life and that makes you to get discouraged. You might have lost all hopes about your future.

My dear young friend, today God promises you that you will be the head and not the tail. God is going to change your failures to success; your trials to triumph and your grief to joy.

You might be in a pit like Joseph. God says to you today that you are not alone. Joseph was cast away by his own blood relations. God didn’t cast him away. God’s mighty hand was with him and it carried him to greater blessings. The same gracious hand of God will lift you up.

When I studied diploma, I had went through so many failures and disappointments that made me to hate my studies and life. I thought my life will end with the simple diploma. At that moment God promised me that He will raise me up. When Jesus Christ promised that He will raise me up, my life was in a total mess and I had no hope of receiving any kind of blessings. Jesus Christ is a God who is faithful in His promises. He began to bless my studies and my life. He opened a way for me to study an engineering degree and then masters degree. Now He had enabled me to pursue doctoral study in engineering. 

My dear young friend, Jesus Christ can do the same to you today. Once I was in a deep pit struggling to come out. His gracious hands had lifted me up and it carries me even today. Lord’s gracious hands took Joseph from the pit and raised him to a greatest position equivalent to a king. 

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Inasmuch as God has shown you all this, there is no one as discerning and wise as you. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall be ruled according to your word; only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you." And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt." - Genesis 41:39-41 

The same God who lifted Joseph will lift you up. Jesus Christ is with you and He will make you the head and not the tail. You shall be above only and not be beneath. You might have no one around to help you now. Jesus Christ is there for you to help you and give you hope about your future. My dear young friend, your future will not be cut off for it is in the hands of Jesus Christ. Do not get discouraged. Jesus Christ will wipe away your tears and He will raise you high.

PROMISE FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST