Good Morning Friends,
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts
us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the
comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
Paul uses two words in these verses to
describe the God we love and serve and follow. He is the Father of compassion
and the God of comfort. Both are interesting words.
Compassion means to be distressed because of
the pain that others are suffering. That describes God’s heart … God cares
about what His children are going through. When we hurt … He hurts. When we are
experience joy … He is joyful. God calls us to do the same … “Rejoice with them
those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” (Romans 12:15) God doesn’t
instruct us to do anything that He isn’t already doing. When Jesus saw the pain
of Mary and Martha at Lazarus’s death … He wept with them. (John 11:35) God
feels our pain … He hurts when we hurt.
Comfort literally means to come alongside.
That describes God’s actions. Not only does God care about what His children
going through, He comes alongside of them in their distress to provide help and
encouragement. He doesn’t always take away the pain … He didn’t take away the
cross from Jesus even when He hurt most severely … but God always is there with
us even in our darkness hour and our deepest pain. He walks with us through the
valley of the shadow of death … and every other valley we go through.
That is the God we love and serve and follow
… full of compassion and there to help.
And that’s what God calls us to. We feel His
compassion when we hurt … and we respond by being compassionate to those around
us … feeling pain when those around us hurt. We experience His presence in our
hour of need … and we respond by being present for those around us in their
hours of need.
God offers compassion and brings comfort and
calls us to do the same.
His, by Grace,
Steve
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