Power for Living: Volume 8 Number 1

Power for Living: Volume 8 Number 1 

The God of All Comfort.

Focus Text: 2 Corinthians 1:1 - 4

One of the paradoxes of the Christian life is that we experience the grace of God when we are afflicted and are weak (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Our God is the “God of all comfort.”Paul says that God comforts us in all our affliction. No matter what affliction we face and no matter how severe our afflictions are, God can comfort us in all our afflictions, and God continually comforts us in our afflictions.

People may comfort us for a certain period of time, but the Lord keeps comforting us until we are strengthened. There are several Scriptures which emphasize how God comforts us. We need to search them out and apply them to our lives, so that we can enjoy the comfort of the Lord in our trouble times.

The truth is that terrible things happen all the time. They do and we all ought to be thankful that they do not happen to us all the time. But there are times in the life of every person when we go through affliction and difficulty. There is no doubt about that.

 Jesus said, “In the world, ye will have tribulation.” You are going to have trouble, you will. But then He said, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

Not every person has the same difficulty. Some people have difficulty in a short time, other people have difficulty their entire life, but every person has difficulty. By the way, we all ought to be thankful that we do not have the same difficulty, otherwise, it will be difficult for one or two encourage and comfort another person in trouble times.

In the midst of trials, we have a tendency to murmur and complain, to upbraid, and strive, perhaps even to question God, maybe even the extreme to turn our back at God. And we have seen that again and again. This is our natural tendency. We do not naturally praise God in the midst of suffering. But if we are regenerated, if we are born again by the Holy Spirit, we have been instructed and we are led to praise God always. And especially so, we are trained to praise him in adverse circumstances, to praise him when we are suffering. When we need him the most. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Truly Regenerated People Have Learned to Look Upward and Praise God No Matter What the Circumstances are with them or around them.

 

The man called Job, in Job chapter 1, after he was assaulted by a series of trials that probably no one in this life will ever have to undergo, the kind of day that would knock flat anybody who did not have a solid foundation on a rock that does not move. Job  “got up and tore his robe and shaved his head, and then he fell to the ground in worship”. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised.” That is the response of a regenerated person to suffering: praise the Lord. May the name of the Lord be praised. 

And then Paul and Silas, when they were arrested for preaching the Gospel in Philippi. And when they were scourged and beaten and exposed to public disgrace in shame and then thrown into prison, a miserable, dark place. And they were shackled by the jailer there who soon would come to faith in Christ, though he did not know it. What did they do? At midnight in the pitch blackness and darkness, because the jailer had to call for torches when he went in there, in the pitch blackness, they are praising God and they are singing hymns to his name.

It is not our nature to praise God in adverse circumstances, but it is part of our new nature, having been born again, regenerated through faith in Christ, to praise Him always, because He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We can know God as the Father of mercies because on the cross Jesus Christ died without mercy in our place. 

We can know God as the God of all comfort because on the cross Jesus Christ cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” and received no comfort. God didn’t deliver Him from death, but only through death, rising Him from the dead, never to die again.

And so the Father of mercies and God of all comfort stands ready and willing today to receive whoever comes to Him by faith in Christ. Come and get this mercy. Come and get this comfort in all your affliction, bless Him for it, and comfort others with that same comfort.

 He will either deliver you from death or He will deliver you through death, but He will deliver you and bring you safely into His heavenly kingdom.

When we stand in the name of God, resting upon the Spirit of God, to say a word for the Lord Jesus out of love for our fellow men, all the grace of God is behind us.

We do not need ourselves to go through identical losses and sufferings to sympathise, because every one is different. We simply need to have had dealings with the comforting God in our pain. 

We know something of the confidence of the psalmist, “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble.” All such people “can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God”.

That God is the God of all comfort is firmly established. That He comforts by various means is also firmly established. What I leave you with is a reminder of the personal responsibility God has left with each of us to not only seek comfort when we need it, but also to position ourselves to provide comfort to others when they need it. God is the God of all comfort. His children, therefore, are comforted and also comfort others.

Prayers:

1.  Lord Jesus, I thank you for the comfort and joy you made available for me in my afflictions, help me to receive your comfort and joy and to be strengthened by them in Jesus name.

2.  Lord Jesus, help me through the comfort I have received by your word to be an instrument of comfort and joy to other people in their griefs and afflictions in Jesus name.

Thanks so much for going through this article: Power for Living.

It is a weekly publication of Ultimate Power Gospel Assembly Nigeria.

For prayers and counseling, contact:

Bishop Prof. Julius O. Soyinka 

juliussoyinka@outlook.com

+2348035822785