Be sure: sin is the cause of your sadness, and only Jesus can give you back true joy
In some specific situations, where two people were condemned to death, the Romans used to apply an extremely cruel sentence. They tied the two people together, face with face, arm with arm, hand with hand, leg with leg, and so on. Then they killed only one of them and put them both in the tomb, bound. As the corpse decayed, it released substances that consumed the body of the one with whom it was tied.
In this way, we can better understand what St. Paul alluded to when he said: “Unhappy man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body, which bringeth me to death? “(Rm 7,24). He did not speak of his physical body, but of the sinful body to which he was bound.
Photo: Wesley Almeida / cancaonova.com
As with the condemned one, we do not have the strength to get rid of this body of sin that consumes us. We are so bound to it that we appear to form one body, and we are not bound from without, but within, in our heart.
We need someone to untie us and free us from this body that kills us and makes us rot in life.
Christians are the soft odor of Christ, but when you have a body of sin locked in your heart, your own heart becomes corrupted and begins to stink, with the foul smell, the air around you. Instead of being a cause of joy and happiness for self and others, it becomes a cause of suffering and unhappiness because it moves away from God and enters into discord with people to defend selfish interests.
The truth is that we are the first victims of this evil; we feel sad, depressed and abandoned, because we are sinners and in our hearts lives a leprosy called sin, which has made us numb to the loving presence of God. And the worst is that we can not run away from sin, as if one runs away from an unpleasant person. We can not escape because sin speaks to us from within our hearts (Ps. 36: 2), we take it with us wherever we go.
Only Jesus can give you back true joy.
Rest assured, sin is the cause of your sorrow, and only Jesus can bring you back true joy. It is necessary for Him to deliver you from this evil, to kill that leprosy and to change your corrupted heart into a new heart. Every person who thinks it is impossible for his sins to be forgiven him, goes into despair, and makes his condition worse than it was before. So trust God!
If you have ever felt lost because of something you did, if you were afraid of falling into hell, you felt desolate and without strength, if, after repeated struggles against one sin, once again you were overcome and felt like giving up, I have great news for you: only those who have felt this can experience what it is to be saved by the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and this same Jesus can eliminate his sadness at the root.
Article extracted from the book “Vencendo Aflições Alcançando Milagres” [Conquering Afflictions Reaching Miracles]
Márcio Mendes
Born in Brasilia in 1974, Márcio Mendes is married and the father of two children.Former cadet of the Brazilian Area Force Academy, Mendes is a missionary of the Canção Nova Community since 1994, where he works in areas related to communication. Theologian, he is the author of several books.