Comfort Me, O Lord; The Journey Is Too Hard Series

COMFORT ME, O LORD; THE JOURNEY IS TOO HARD

PART ONE

The comfort of God is not an abstract thing. Our God is always giving to His own children, but not when they are disobedient or rebellious. Those who know their need, will know that need fulfilled. It is not like pouring water into a glass. God does not pour out comfort or relief or support like it is water.

Comfort comes through a person, through the agency of another. Jesus spoke a most interesting statement on the betrayal night. This is it, {{John 14:16-18 “and I will ask the Father, and He will give you ANOTHER HELPER that He may be with you forever - John 14:17 that is, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. John 14:18 I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.”}}

That is the way the NASB puts it. The NIV uses Advocate while the Holman translation chooses Counsellor. The usage of “Another Comforter” in the KJV is the one I love the best, even though all the other words are correct in the way they portray the work of the Holy Spirit in God’s children.

Jesus was talking of the Holy Spirit when He said that, and he deliberately used the word “another” in saying “another Helper/Comforter” which means “another, but different, but of the same purpose and kind”. While on earth Jesus was a Comforter to those He called for His disciples. He was the perfect Comforter. However He sent the Holy Spirit into the world to be with His Church until He goes with the Church to heaven, and the Holy Spirit ministers to us now just as if the Lord Himself was beside us to help us in our trouble and distress.

Strong’s Concordance for this word ?a?????t?? offers the follow translations – (a) an advocate, intercessor, (b) a consoler, comforter, helper, (c) Paraclete. No doubt most of you have heard that the translation of Paraclete, taken from the Greek, means one called near, or one called alongside. That is exactly what the ministry of the Holy Spirit is. He has been sent by Jesus to abide in us, to seal us, but He is also considered as One who is beside you to help you, to comfort you, to plead for you, to intercede for you, to console you.

That is a very embracing ministry, isn’t it? The Holy Spirit is all that to us, for the Lord Jesus Christ said, “I will not leave you as orphans,” and He has not. He sent the same One as Himself for the Holy Spirit is God. Perhaps some of us find it more difficult to think of the Holy Spirit as God, but the Spirit’s purpose is not to draw attention to Himself but to Christ. He will always glorify the Son, not Himself. In that sense it is like He is in the background a bit. Some like to glorify the Spirit more than the Son but it must not be like that. {{John 16:13-14 “but when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come. John 16:14 He shall glorify Me for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you.”}}

When you are in need, help is at hand. That is an expression the world uses but for the Christian, it is even more correct. The Holy Spirit is “at hand” in other words, right there beside you. I know many of you are having personal battles with health issues as we are older, and one problem after another seems to emerge. We are realists. We know this will happen, but the Lord said in John 14 and the opening verse {{John 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me.”}}

We are not meant to be troubled. That means, not anxious or worried, fretting without knowledge, or feeling we have been abandoned. Some have said to me over time, “I just want the Lord to take me.” That is a decent statement and would link in with the message I gave on “The Tug of Heaven”. However what you really want in these distressing times is comfort. Comfort may come from family and friends but there is only so much comfort they can supply, and it is all related to this life. Our greatest comfort comes from above, from the ministry of the Holy Spirit as He sheds abroad in our hearts several things, and I would like to suggest some.