This is from our Small Group study guide tonight:<\/p>\n
Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!<\/p>\n
Philippians 4:4 says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This passages and others like it have caused tremendous confusion in the body of Christ. More than once, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve stood by the side of a believer who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mourning the loss of a loved one and overheard something like this: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well Mary, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re praising the Lord with you today. Harold is home with his heavenly Father. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rejoicing right now with us. Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it wonderful to be able to praise God even in this? You are praising God, aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you Mary? You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not losing the victory are you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mary mumbles thanks then inwardly chastises herself for not being a stronger Christian. Why can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she sing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hallelujah Chorus\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at her husband\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funeral like she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supposed to?
\nI mean isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that what Philippians 4:4 tells her to do? Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it tell her \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and us \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to rejoice over death, loss, injury, trial, failure and defeat? Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it tell the elders of our church, who regularly pray with seriously afflicted people, to rejoice over eyes that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see, limbs that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t function, wombs that are barren, or hearts that are broken? Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it tell them to meet with grieving and trembling, the broken and the beaten down, and chastise them for not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rejoicing always?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhat is your gut reaction to the statements above?
\nWhat does it mean to rejoice in the Lord always?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is from our Small Group study guide tonight: Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! Philippians 4:4 says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This passages and others like it have caused tremendous confusion in the body of Christ. More than once, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve stood by the side of a believer who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mourning the … Continue reading Tough questions of faith<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-HZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}