I have a 13-year-old daughter, and as I watch her navigate junior high, I’m reminded regularly that it’s not easy being a 13-year-old girl. I’m grateful that she has the love and support of her dad and two older brothers. But as her mother, my shoulder is uniquely prepared for her to cry on, because I’ve been a teenage girl and experienced all the affliction that comes along with it. Now I can comfort my daughter – or at least I can try in those rare moments when she doesn’t have earbuds in her ears. 🙂
For the next few weeks, we are going to look at 2 Corinthians 1, where we’ll see several lessons we learn from times of affliction. When Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Corinth, he had a complicated, turbulent relationship with them. But they had this common bond: they belonged to God and shared in His comfort and mercy.
“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.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
In these verses, Paul described God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. In fact, he repeated himself – mentioning God’s comfort four times in just three verses. Paul obviously didn’t want us to miss this point: in times of affliction, God is our comfort.
Sometimes I wonder if God is tired of hearing about my problems, like He’s a bored friend who wishes you’d get it over already and move on. But God’s comfort has no limits, because He is perfect and infinite. He knows all things, including our innermost thoughts. The comfort He gives is the perfect comfort of the faithful Heavenly Father.
The comfort God gives is so abundant that it will overflow from us to others. As we receive God’s comfort, we’re also being prepared to share that comfort with others. Just as God works through others to comfort us in our affliction, He can use us to give His comfort to others.
No matter what you face this week, God will abundantly pour out His comfort.
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[…] month we’re studying the lessons we learn from affliction in 2 Corinthians 1. Last week we saw how God is our comfort from 2 Corinthians 1:3-5. In the next two verses, we see how God uses […]