Christ Our Abounding Comfort
(2Co 1:3-11)
God is the God of all comfort.
He comforts those who confess to be failure, and
He comforts with reward those who toil to comfort others.
Comfort refers to consoling those who
Face sadness, worries, loss, disappointment, injustice, solitude, toils, and pains, and
The bereaved, the orphans, the poor, the imprisoned, the troops in combat etc.
Even the dead are comforted by offerings.
While religions are man's attempt to comfort himself,
Faith is being satisfied by God's comfort, and
The life of this faith is refusing other comforts(Ge 37:35; Mt 2:18) and instead
Seeking the alienated and comforting them with God's comfort that abounds in oneself(2Co 1:5).
God made man in His image(Ge 1:28), and
He made him in order to destroy the devil(Ge 3:15) and
To comfort him by His comfort as a result(1Co 3:10).
For the Israelites were a people comforted by God,
He delivered them from their slavery of 430 years and
Led them through the desert by many miracles(Is 51:3, Is 61:2).
According to the prophecy that said that
Israel would be comforted over Jerusalem(Is 66:13),
The sanctuary was God's comfort for Israel.
When it was time, Jesus, the Son of God came to
The land of Judea where they were waiting for the consolation of Israel(Lk 2:25), and
He said, "Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days(Jn 2:19), because
Through the death and the resurrection of the temple of His body,
He would comfort all souls of men for He is the incarnate Word who was with the Father in the beginning(Jn 1:1, Jn 1:14).
As such, He refused to be comforted
By the devil after fasting in the desert(Mt 4:4) and
By the disciple who told Him not to die(Mt 16:23).
Jesus was rather despised, rejected, afflicted, pierced and crushed(Is 53:3-12), and
As He died, He said, "It is finished(Jn 19:30), declaring that He:
- Laid down His life according to the Father's word and resolved to be comforted only by the Father(Jn 10:17-18);
- Condemned the origin of sin(Ge 3:4-5); and
- Shed His redeeming blood and gave His soul as an offering for sin for all men(Is 53:10; Mt 20:28).
He was raised among the dead and
Ascended to the heavenly throne where
He is eternally comforted by the Father(Mt 16:19; Rev 3:21).
The Holy Spirit whom He sent
Comes in the name Yeshua to
Those who come before His name to be comforted by Him(Mt 5:3-4).
The church is where God's comfort abounds
Through worship, praise, preaching, repentance and prayer.
The Christian finds comfort
Only in the suffering, the blood of Jesus.
Therefore, he overcomes poverty, sadness, lostness, sickness, persecution, and tribulation, and
Goes out to seek and comfort with the abounding comfort of Christ
Those who are still lost in search of the world's comfort.
O Lord,
In the past, I have done many foolish things to console my heart.
But now, I do not need anyone else's comfort because
I have been abundantly comforted only by the suffering, the blood of Jesus!
With Your abundant comfort
Let me comfort those You have given me, those who are in tribulation.
Amen.