“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
Joel 2:12 NIV
Weeping
The Weeping Wall is a set of cliffs, approximately 1000 feet high, located at the western base of Cirrus Mountain alongside Highway 93 (Icefields Parkway) in northern Banff National Park in Alberta, just south of the boundary with Jasper National Park. In spring and summer, the faces of the cliffs are usually covered with a series of cascading waterfalls. In winter, the waterfalls freeze into towering pillars of ice and become a well-known site for ice climbing
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I saw a memorable church sign the other day that said “sin kicks a hole in your bucket of joy.” What a powerful truth. The Lord pours joy into our lives as we walk with Him. That joy strengthens us as we desire to walk in purity. When we fall to temptation and allow sin into our lives, we immediately sense that our joy has flowed away. How do we deal with this? The Old Testament prophet gives the answer in Joel 2:12: “‘Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’” Sin in our lives ought to break our hearts. When we yield to temptation and fall into sin, the Holy Spirit will immediately bring conviction of that sin. When the prophet Isaiah was brought into God’s throne room, he immediately became convicted of his sin and cried out, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips.” Conviction of sin, Joel says, will always lead to fasting, weeping and mourning. As the Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin, turn your heart back to Jesus, weep, mourn and fast. The Lord always offers grace to those who do so.
These have been words from the heart.
Bob Beasley