Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep!

Following up on my previous post I want to explore this whole issue of emotion a little more. This time, we won't only be exploring the emotion of joy but a slew of other emotions as well. I want to show that the Bible not only commands us to have joy in God but that it also commands us to hate and grieve as well. All emotion commanded in the Bible should be understood in this way: an appropriate and proportional emotional response to spiritual truth. And we should realize that the reason we are commanded to have these emotions is because God does and He calls us to be like Him - perfect. Our verse will be Romans 12:15 (shown in context here as Romans 12:14-16):

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight."

Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. What an odd command - and it is a command. No Bible-believing Christian would ever say that we are not commanded to bless those who persecute us -because this text clearly tells us that we are commanded to do that very thing. In the same vein, no Bible believing Christian would ever say that we are not commanded to rejoice with those who rejoice or weep with those who weep. But the curious thing that strikes me in regards to emotion is this: how can I possibly be expected to feel sadness to the point of weeping over someone else's suffering - particularly if I am rejoicing and full of joy? How can I possibly be expected to rejoice and be sincerely glad with those who are glad - particularly if I am suffering? The key to all of this is love.

If I sincerely love a person I will be deeply moved at their suffering and at whatever they are experiencing that is causing them to weep. I would be cold-hearted and cruel if I did not weep with a mother who has just lost her only child. I would truly be in sin if I did not grieve with a man whose daughter was just raped and killed. It would be abhorrent and perverted not to weep over their loss or not to go through the pain with them. The same goes for rejoicing. If I truly love another person I will be deeply glad and happy for them when they experience a good thing in their lives. It would be selfish and sick of me to allow jealousy or indignation to rule me when someone has been given a blessing I don't have and want. I would simply prove the wickedness in my own hear if I listened with indifference as someone tells me of a great and joyous event in their lives.

"Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good."

Romans 12:9

This verse, from the same book, in the same chapter, and in the same passage of the Bible, admonishes us to make sure that our love is genuine and not conjured up or done from duty. It is an impossible command to follow because as sinners we always default to duty and rules. What Paul means is that love must be felt and practiced - not one or the other. Both the emotion and the outflow of it must be there for love to be genuine. Otherwise it is simply a duty or simply an emotion. "Love must be sincere...bless those who persecute you...rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." The important thing to see is this: if love is a genuine love then the subsequent emotions and actions will be genuine and a natural outflow springing from my love. My deep and heartfelt love for my wife produces grief when she is hurting and that is appropriate. My deep and profound love for my parents causes me to be willing to give up my comfort that they might come to know the Lord. Sincere love produces appropriate emotions in response to other people's situations as well as actions. Love is the root of all other emotions. We are to hate evil because we love God and people. We are to be glad when others have been given a good thing because we love God and love people. If love is sincere and heartfelt, our subsequent emotions and actions will be the correct ones.

If, however, our love is not sincere and heartfelt we will not sincerely weep at the loss of others, nor will we rejoice at the joy of others. It will all be fake, coerced and disingenuous. The tears may flow, but they are not real tears. The words of rejoicing may come, but they are not sincere. If our love is not sincere and heartfelt - neither will any of the consequent emotions or actions.

Let's look at Jesus for an example of appropriate and sincere emotion. "Jesus wept" is the shortest verse in the Bible. The situation is this: Martha and Mary, dear friends of His, have just lost their brother Lazarus. As Jesus arrives, Martha and Mary meet Him - first Martha, then Mary. Upon seeing their grief at the death of Lazarus and the grief of others who are friends or family, Jesus weeps. He weeps because He hates death and sees the profound effect that this has on His friends. He genuinely loves them all and shares in their grief. Jesus felt the emotion with them and it produced sincere tears and sincere grief. He felt the emotion with them because He loved them sincerely.

Now some might say that this has nothing to do with joy being an emotion, but it does.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."

Philippians 4:4

We are commanded to have joy in the Lord at all times. Not just when things are going well or when life is comfortable and free of suffering. The question is this: is God asking us to walk around with perma-smiles, or is He asking us to have a deep and profound, heartfelt emotional joy in Him as opposed to our circumstances? The answer is, of course, that God is commanding us to have a deep joy and gladness in Him at all times. How do I know that this is so, you might ask?

In Deuteronomy 6:5 God commands us:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your HEART and with all your SOUL and with all your MIGHT."

This shows us again, that God is after a genuine, heart-felt, deep, emotional love not just choice and lifestyle because these can be imitated. Lifestyle can be imitated and so can choice and a lifestyle that does not flow from an emotional love for God does not honor God nor does it shine forth His infinite worth and glory. Of course, the problem is that in my own flesh, I cannot have such an appropriate love for God and this is the sad truth of our depravity. We can fake the actions and the lifestyle, but we cannot fake the emotion because we are depraved and sinful to our core. Nonetheless, God commands the genuine emotion of love for Him from us.

Then, in Deuteronomy 30:6 God makes a promise. Aware of our inability to produce the genuine love for Him that He commands, He says that He will give us this love so that we may live:

"And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live."

Isn't that amazing? God's promise to us is that He Himself will give us the genuine love He requires of us. God knows that we cannot obey the first and greatest command and therefore takes action on our behalf to bring such genuine love about. He also promises us that when we have this genuine and heartfelt love for Him, we will live. But we’re still not at the end of this argument.

"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules."

Ezekiel 36:26-27

God says that He will bring about the promise of Deuteronomy 30:6 by putting His Spirit in us. By giving us the Holy Spirit, God will bring about the genuine emotion of love in our hearts. The reason is obvious. God loves Himself perfectly in Trinitarian relationship. God the Father is the prime; Jesus Christ is the image, face, representation and wisdom of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the love and joy that the Son and the Father have between each other flowing forth into the third subsistence of God - the third person of the trinity. So what love is God really putting in us when He saves us and makes us His? It is His own love for Himself.

"And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."

Romans 5:5

It is by the Holy Spirit put in us and living in us that God produces love for Himself as He commands. God has given us the one thing we could not produce - the deep, profound and emotional love that He has for Himself. And my point in relation to joy is simply that from this genuine love flows a joy in Him at all times. Our circumstances may be terrible and our suffering might be great, but when we are FULL of His Spirit we will experience the joy that God has in Himself - the joy that naturally flows from the genuine love that He has for Himself. No one would argue that Jesus ceased to have genuine and emotional love for the Father when He suffered. Neither would we argue that in His suffering He ceased having the emotional joy of being one with the Father. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and it produced genuine love and genuine joy flowing from that love. We can obey the command in Philippians 4:4 only if we are filled with the Spirit (which will be the topic of my next post where I will show that we are indeed commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit and that this is a command that can also be obeyed by asking for it). It's easy to disregard the command because it deals with something we can't control. But the command is there and it is dead serious. God threatens terrible things if we will not be glad in Him:

"Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart...therefore you shall serve your enemies..."

Deuteronomy 28:47-48

The command to be happy and to have joy is not one to be taken lightly or to be ignored. God's passion for His own name and His own worth does not make room for conjured joy and "a choice" to have joy. Our joy must be genuine and that can only flow from a deep and genuine love for Him.

Two final verses will put this to rest.

"I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

John 17:26

Do you see that God puts the love that He has for Himself in us? Do you see that this is done, according to Romans 5:5 by putting His Holy Spirit in us? Like I said, my next post will try to show that we can quench the Spirit and that we are indeed commanded to be filled with the Spirit - so there is something for us to do when our joy is not genuine or sincere.

"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them."

John 17:13

You see, it is not some glib and dry decision-based joy we are given. It is a real and lasting joy that the Holy Spirit can give us. The very emotion of joy that Jesus has in Himself is the joy that we can have - no, we are commanded to have.

Blessed be the name of the Lord!