Devotional 46: God is our Comfort

Have you ever experienced having the wind knocked out of your lungs?  If you have, you will likely never forget that frightening experience. Sometimes life brings blows that figuratively knock the wind out of us—emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  Can you remember a time when you were without strength, hope, and the will to go on as you sat “gasping for breath”?   A situation where everything seemed to be tumbling down upon your head and you felt so very weak?   Where did you find comfort in your time of distress and need?  Often God uses others to point us to Himself when they have previously experienced God’s comfort.  

The Psalmist of Psalm 71 testifies that focusing on who God is during trying times brings comfort to those who trust in who He is.  After dwelling on the righteousness and mighty deeds of God the Psalmist says in verse 21-22a, “You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God.”  Hope and comfort came as the Psalmist remembered God’s character!  Comfort was also something that he expected to experience “again”.  Once you find your comfort in God you realize that none other gives such comfort as He gives. 

Again the Psalmist shows that meditating on God’s faithfulness to His word brings comfort as Psalm 119:48-52 reveals, “I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes. Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD.” 

Comfort is something that you really don’t understand until you have been comforted in God, because truly He is the “God of all comfort” as 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 makes absolutely clear: 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

I would encourage you to list out the times and ways in which God has comforted you.  Then ask God to help you share His comfort with others.  There is more than enough comfort in our great God to spread around to a world in need of His comfort.  

May the Lord help us to live out the Apostle Paul’s admonishment in 2 Thessalonians 2:15-17, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

  

With Prayer, Mark         © January 2013         Scripture quoted: ESV – Emphasis added

Verses for our meditation:  God is our Comfort

Psalm 71:19-21, Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?  You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again.

Psalm 86:15-17, But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant, and save the son of your maidservant. Show me a sign of your favor, that those who hate me may see and be put to shame because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

 

Isaiah 40:1-2, Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. 

Isaiah 49:13, Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the LORD has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. 

Isaiah 52:9, Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. 

Isaiah 66:12-13,  For thus says the LORD: "Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

 

Jeremiah 31:12-13,  They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. 

Act 9:31, So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. 

2 Corinthians 1:3-7, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

 

2 Corinthians 7:5-7, For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.

2 Thessalonians 2:15-17, “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.