Just a few minutes ago I received a text message from my mother: "We are heading to Emory for Dad's echocardiogram and follow up with this cardiologist. Please, pray. Love you all." And, mere minutes before I received this text message from Mom, our church administrative assistant, Sarah, asked for prayers for their family as they travel to Indiana to celebrate the life of their nephew and for traveling mercies during the trip. Her request was prompted by my asking her to pray for healing for my sore throat so that it won't disrupt our big family weekend. And even before these three requests for prayer were made, two more church members needed prayer for physical suffering and medical concerns. In the span of just about three hours or so, requests for prayer were exchanged in ways that depended solely on God's ability to bring healing, rest and peace to those struggling with life's obstacles.
In other words, God's people were leaning on Jesus through the church's cries for help, healing and deliverance. And God always, always hears the cries of His children!
During this day of myriad prayer requests, the Spirit directed me to 2 Cor. 1:3: "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 all in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves received from God." My first thoughts turned to the Holy Spirit--after all, the Spirit is God's Comforter, bringing hope and encouragement to all of us who suffer. In fact, it is the Spirit's role to come alongside (Gk. "paraclete"=come alongside, encourage) and restore us, strengthen us and prepare us for the moments when all we must do is wait upon the Lord and trust that God knows best how to meet our needs in Christ.
Honestly, seeking God in prayer, both individually and communally, is always the best place to be! Because we receive God's comfort through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, we, too, have the ability to pray and help and assist those who need comfort. This reality is biblical, and it's full of truth: those who receive comfort are given it in order to pass it on to those who also need it. In this way, the cycle of God's caring Holy Spirit brings peace and reflects glory to Jesus Christ. This was always God's plan--that we might receive comfort and give comfort with the comfort we receive from Christ.
Notice in the scripture above that God deserves praise for being a God of compassion and comfort! We raise our voices in thanksgiving to our Savior who delights in coming alongside us to hear our concerns, our worries and our fears without judgment or scorn. We praise God because He listens well and always chooses to heal us in ways that will honor Jesus and bring about the Master's best in us (Rom. 8:28). When we wait upon the Lord, will soar on wings like eagles and run the race of life without growing faint (Isa. 40:31). To receive comfort and pray for God's comfort in others' lives is to thrive as God's persevering, enduring people--the same kind of people He delivered from the wilderness and into the Promised Land millenia ago. Our responsibility and blessing is to tell God "thank you" time and time again for the ways in which God hears our prayers and responds to our cries, especially when it comes to our spiritual well-being and welfare. Our "thank yous" are best expressed in both prayer and compassionate action. Remember, we must be most concerned about the spirit as opposed to the body; after all, it is the spirit that lives on while the flesh slowly wastes away, day by day (2 Cor. 4). Listen to what Paul said about the spirit vs. the flesh in Rom. 8:9-11 (CEV): "You are no longer ruled by your desires, but by God's Spirit, who lives in you. People who don't have the Spirit of Christ in them don't belong to him. But Christ lives in you. So you are alive because God has accepted you, even though your bodies must die because of your sins. Yet God raised Jesus to life! God's Spirit now lives in you, and he will raise you to life by his Spirit."
And so, though we struggle with the pain and suffering of sin in our physical bodies, our spirits will always remain strong in the truth and understanding of Jesus' promises through scripture. As Paul says, "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16, NIV). And we are not to lose hope for we receive God's comfort and give it on a daily basis! Notice that in the aforementioned 2 Cor. 1:3 verse the word "comfort" is mentioned four times--FOUR TIMES! God wants to emphasize through Paul, to the Corinthian church and to the Church universal, that our Savior is always siphoning more comfort on our behalf so that we, too, might share that comfort with others. And the best way to comfort others? PRAY GOD'S WILL BE DONE IN THEIR LIVES! There can be no greater comfort than the knowledge that someone is praying for you! And when we pray for others, we also receive comfort from God! One of the byproducts of praying for others is faith--we are saying to God, through prayer, that only God can meet our needs and only God can help us while we suffer and only God can deliver us from our trials, troubles and tribulations. That's faith--well-stated and well-lived!
Interestingly, while writing this Broadcaster article, my wife texted me to let me know that our dog needed help from the veterinarian; Hazel experienced a minor emergency, but Mandi was there to help. So, what to do? You guessed it--I prayed for God to bring comfort to both Hazel and Mandi! God cares not only for our human comfort but also for the comfort of all humans, animals and our environment, too--God cares for all of His creation! So we must receive and give God's created order the comfort it needs by the power of Jesus' shared Holy Spirit among us. This same comfort God expects us to abundantly and liberally share. And here's a great thought, fellow Christ-follower: you'll never, ever, EVER run out of God's comfort in your life. So pass along the comfort of God's Holy Spirit to another through prayer!
Sometime this week you will need God's comforting Holy Spirit. That's a fact. Someone might even be praying for you in this very instant. When you receive that comfort, share it with someone else who needs it, too. But, above all, be sure to praise God through Jesus Christ, who is our compassionate Father of all comfort, who deserves to be praised for meeting our needs, the One who remains with us in our suffering and the One who rescues us (at the right time) from hardships. Let us never, ever underestimate the power of sharing God's comfort through prayer and through meeting the tangible needs of the suffering and oppressed. When we do, God promises to continue to pour out upon us the comfort that will bless us...without measure!
The Lord is our Comfort.
He knows you and I need comfort.
He also knows we are called to share comfort
So go and live likewise.
Amen.
Got comfort? Pass it on, friend!
><> Pastor Will <><
John 3:30--
