Scripture provides several passages that comfort believers who have lost Christian loved ones. God desires that His bereaved people have His comfort through their richly feeding on these passages.
The Death of a Believer is Precious in God’s Sight
An unnamed psalmist declares that the death of a believer is precious to the Lord: “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints” (Ps. 116:15). Knowing that the death of our believing loved ones is precious to our Lord, we can take heart in the midst of our great sorrow.
God Wants Believers to Have Hope Concerning Their Christian Loved Ones Who Have Died
Paul makes known that God wants believers to have hope in their sorrow over their believing loved ones who have died because God is going to bring them back with Jesus when He send Jesus back:
1Th 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Comforting ourselves with these words, we will not sorrow without hope, as do those who are unbelieving, because we will certainly see our believing loved ones again!
Jesus’ Prayer is Answered Each Time a Believer Dies!
Paul taught that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord: “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). Every believer who goes into the Lord’s presence does so as an answer to Jesus’ prayer:
“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
Our believing loved ones who have gone into the Lord’s presence are now beholding Jesus’ glory that the Father has given Him! Their doing so is the Father’s answering the prayer of His Son!
Although we sorrow and grieve greatly over our departed loved ones, we rejoice also that their deaths were precious to the Lord, that we have confident expectation that we will see them again, and that our Father has answered His Son’s prayer and given His Son the desire of His heart by taking our loved ones to be with Him! May our Heavenly Father use these thoughts on these wonderful passages to encourage many of His children who are grieving over the loss of loved ones who have gone to be with the Lord.
Copyright © 2011-2024 by Rajesh Gandhi. All rights reserved.
