Comforted and Comforting

     Ah, the benefits of real comfort!  That may conjure up the vision of luxurious surroundings, state of the art conveniences, and tastefully elegant transportation.  These are merely creature comforts, however, and may arrive or depart at a moment’s notice.  Real comfort is soul comfort.  It is the sort of comfort which only “the God of all comfort” can bestow, and which only the redeemed can enjoy. It is the sort of comfort about which the Apostle speaks in our text today.

     All of us experience tribulations.  They are the dark forests through which we must pass before we “enter into the kingdom of God.”  However, as a child of God, we need not and will not, pass through those cheerless glens without true comfort that comes from the very hand of the Father.  Christ promised peace unto His disciples, which is “not as the world giveth.”  Our past experience is proof that He is as good as His word.  He comforted us with the preaching of the gospel, with the power of His redeeming grace, with the presence of His Spirit, and with the promises of Scripture.

     While He has our spiritual well being at heart, our Lord does not intend that we should merely enjoy the blessings of His comforts in selfish complacency.  The comfort we receive from the Lord is also to the purpose that we may comfort others.  Our comfort with which the Lord “comforteth us in all our tribulation” is in order “that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble.” Though empathy is of much use, it is not needful that we know every intricacy of another’s trouble. We minister out of the knowledge of the fullness of God’s comfort.  So, we can say with confidence to our brother, “I may not know the fullness of your sorrow, but I do know the completeness of God’s comfort.”  The substance of our comfort to others is what we received ourselves from the Lord.

     The knowledge of this both hallows our tribulations and sweetens our consolations.  We are both comforted and comforters.  Are you in trouble today?  God’s comforts are for you, and they will be the means of you being useful in the lives of others as a messenger of comfort.  Rejoice in His comfort and in the anticipation of being a comforter.