“The God Of All Comfort”
[2 Corinthians 1:3-7]
Everybody likes to be comfortable....
Thermapedic mattress $2500.00....
This book begins with a doxology..... about suffering and comfort.
The Greek word rendered comfort/consolation is found 10 times in these verses.
The word tribulation thilipsis 3 times and suffering thema 4 times.
Paul tells us several factors about God’s comfort:
1. God’s comfort is experiential - “God of all comfort” (3).
Paul’s realization of divine comfort was more than hypothetical or even theological.
Paul knew of God’s comfort from his own personal experiences.
2. God’s comfort is universal - “all our tribulation” (4a).
God’s comfort is available to all people (especially Christians) in all their troubles.
There is no situation so adverse that God cannot comfort us.
No matter what we are going through He has dealt with it before....
3. God’s comfort is reciprocal - (4b).
God intends that everything He gives us be passed along and shared with others.
We receive comfort from God that we might give comfort to others....
It’s one thing to try and comfort someone clinically, it’s an entire different thing when we can comfort someone from the well of personal experience!
Oswald Chambers wrote: If you are going to be used by God, he will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all; they are meant to make you useful in his hands.
4. God’s comfort is proportional - (5-7)
The greater your thilipsis the greater God’s comfort!!!
To the degree that we pass through adversity to that degree we will be comforted.
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“The seeds of divine comfort are best sown in the soil of adversity.”
For the Christian suffering is never meaningless...
Let’s capitalize on our adversity by letting God comfort us and then pass that along to someone else who is suffering!
