“I cannot do this!  It is too great a task?!  How often have the men of God in history quailed before the onset of some great work which God was setting before them.  Moses made every excuse possible at the burning bush as to why he could not be the instrument of Israel’s liberation from Egypt. Jeremiah demurred from understanding the prophet’s office on the basis of his inexperience. Paul enunciates the same view of his own abilities on more than one occasion.  In the text before us, we find him saying what we must say ourselves.  We are in ourselves utterly unequal to the tasks set before us, but God makes us able by His gracious sufficiency which He extends to us.  How often do we feel the weight of our own insufficiency!  We say with Paul, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves.”  Over our own character, spirituality, discernment, and ability we must write, “Insufficient of myself!”

     It is good that we know that, however, because it keeps us humble.  Having faced our insufficiency, we must recognize that God has given us certain tasks to perform.  He wills that we should perform them.  “Wherewith shall I save Israel?” we exclaim, as Gideon did.  Paul had come to the same conclusion to which we must come.  Christ is the source of our sufficiency.  Whatever we ever accomplish will be the direct result of His sufficiency imparted to us.  Knowing Him, and knowing these things, we are confident in the success with which we will be enabled by God, “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament.”

     That He is so able to successfully impart His sufficiency to us encourages us to leave our own Sinai wilderness to undertake the labour to which He calls us in the cosmopolitan Egypt of His appointment.  We will gather the army, lamps, pitchers, and surround the Midianite camp.  We are of ourselves insufficient, but He is more than sufficient.  We shall succeed.

Where the Bush is Burning
Tomm Tice

     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.