Righteous Grief

Luke 19:41

As he [Jesus] approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it

Matthew 21:12

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.

Jesus may have overturned the money tables in the temple, but he wept over it first.

Every action we carry out on behalf of the kingdom of God must always be, first and foremost, rooted in a heart of love.

So often when we read through the Bible, we approach the human antagonists (Satan is the true antagonist) of the story with judgment and disdain. 

And we do the same thing in our real lives. 

We look at people who walk in certain types of sin with judgment and disdain. 

But that’s not what Jesus did.

Oh how we need to pray that we would see the world—and people—the way Jesus does. 

For those people who don’t know Jesus and live in sin, may our hearts be grieved because they don’t know the God we know. May we be grieved that they don’t know his presence and peace and freedom.

For those people who are in the Church and live in sin, may we remember that we also sin (on the daily;), and may we be grieved because they don’t know some aspect of the God we know.

So while righteous anger is absolutely not wrong—and even confrontation about sin, especially in the church—it must always stem from a heart of love for God’s people and for the lost.

Oh Lord, thank you for the examples of Jesus we can follow from Scripture, and help us to see the world, and people, through your eyes. Amen.