Skip to main content

Comfort

                 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (II Corinthians 1:3-4)

                We love because he first loved us. (I John 4:19)

                What do you think of when you think of comfort. Nice, cozy fires, warm blankets, cool breezes, soft clothing that doesn’t squeeze, pinch, or otherwise bother you; a hand on your shoulder, good food… I agree. All those things can and do comfort. But comfort is a con/com- word, meaning “with” and -fort comes from the same root as fortify, fort, and forte, all of which have to do with strength. Yes, I know, I’ve said this before but this is one of the reasons why God allows bad things to happen. If He didn’t, we would have no need to become strong, no reason to show anyone any compassion, no reason to give them comfort/strength, and ultimately, fewer ways to love them. We learn how to give it by needing it ourselves.

                The other consideration should also be no surprise, but it might be something we don’t think about often enough. We comfort after we’ve been comforted, with the comfort we receive from God. We love because He first loved us. It’s not too big a stretch to say that we love after we’ve been loved, with the love we receive from God. A sort of odd prayer comes to mind…

                Lord Jesus, comfort us to teach us what comfort is and so that we can comfort others. Teach us to recognize Your love for us in our days so that we can learn how to love others.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more