The God of All Comfort

Last year at this time we introduced a new devotional source. First 15 is designed for the first 15 minutes of your day, and can be delivered direct to your phone or tablet. The devotional’s main partners are: All Shores Wesleyan Church, First Baptist Church Universal City and Mississippi College.

Each day’s devotional is divided into six parts including a worship music video. The one that follows is also part of a series of articles on God’s Promises. The first time we featured just the text content, but this time around we’re going to give you a fuller experience of how each day is formatted; however please click the link and read there in order to visit other content on the website.

God Promises His Comfort

Scripture

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:3

Worship

You Hold It All Together | All Sons & Daughters   (see below)

Devotional

2 Corinthians 1:3 tells us of a wonderful aspect of God’s character, that he is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.” In a world wrought with depression and hurt, we have a Father who is the source of all comfort. We serve the God of compassion and love. Let’s allow the truth of God’s comfort to fill us today. Let’s rest in the goodness of God’s presence and let him minister to any areas in which we feel hurt or depressed.

David tells us in Psalm 34:18, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34 comes in the context of David fleeing from Saul’s persecution. David, in this season of his life, knew all too well what it’s like to need comfort. His circumstances were anything but peaceful. But in this moment, God faithfully delivered him again from the hands of Saul. David writes, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing” (Psalm 34:6-10). David took refuge in his faithful God and found comfort. He placed his trust in the Father of all comfort and found deliverance.

It really is true that “those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” The same God of David is your God. You are his child. Seek him today that you might “taste and see that the Lord is good!” All of us are broken. All of us are hurting. All of us need the love of our heavenly Father. Where in your life today do you feel hurt? Big or small, God cares about whatever pain you might be going through. Your Father longs to heal whatever is holding you back from fullness of life in him.

Deuteronomy 33:12 says, “The beloved of the Lord dwells in safety. The High God surrounds him all day long, and dwells between his shoulders.” You are God’s beloved. You were bought at an incredible price. He’s opening up his arms to you today, asking you to simply come and find refuge from all the hurt and pain of the world in him. He desires to hold your heart today and speak his healing love over any part of you wounded by the things of the world. Spend time in his presence today allowing the Spirit of God to mend you. Allow God to cry with you, hold you, speak to you, and draw you into his process of inner healing. God’s promised you his comfort, and he’s always faithful to deliver on his promises. All that he asks of you is to make space in your heart for him and receive. Spend time today talking with the “Father of all mercies and God of all comfort,” and experience the power of being wrapped up in the powerful and loving arms of God.

Prayer

1. Ask God to make his nearness known to you today. Receive his presence and experience his profound, limitless peace.

“The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” Psalm 145:18

2. Open to God any part of your heart that is wounded or needs comfort. It could be the wound of a parent, spouse, friend, colleague, etc. Whatever you feel hurt by today, talk to your loving heavenly Father about it.

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalm 34:18

3. Receive God’s comfort. So often healing comes simply by the compassionate love of God. As our Father, God suffers as we suffer. He hurts when we hurt. Let his nearness and love comfort you.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:3

Go

Healing takes time, but it is time well worth spending. We are not meant to go without the love and comfort of our heavenly Father. Seek out his presence. Spend time at length simply being loved by him. Make space for God to work and find out how willing and able he is to bind up and heal any area of your heart that feels broken.

Extended Reading: Psalm 34

Don’t Be Anxious

A few days ago at Thinking Out Loud, I wrote a post called “We’re All Afraid,” and noticed that many of our modern worship songs involve our need to cast our worries and anxieties on God, and that many of these songs are being sung at this particular time in the United States, where weather disasters and gun violence seem a constant threat. You can read that post here, and click through to listen to the songs.

Then I discovered that in addition to BibleGateway.com tracking our verse requests, it’s possible to find out which Bible verses are the most highlighted on eReaders. This appeared on Joel J. Miller‘s blog, and as always, C201 readers are encouraged to read items by other authors at source; this one was titled The Secret Behind The Bible’s Most Highlighted Verse.

The current issue of The American Prospect features a short piece on ebooks and social reading. It mentions in passing that the Bible is the Kindle’s most highlighted book and that the most highlighted verse of all is Philippians 4.6:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

It’s no scientific survey, admittedly, but it seems telling that the most underlined passage in the most underlined book addresses worry, doubt, and disquiet. Maybe we have a problem with anxiety out there. I know I have one in here.

Only half an answer

The passage is a favorite because it offers something for us to do with our worries. We’re directed to take them to the throne of God, and I’m sure that works for some. But the truth is that it’s not a complete answer to our problem.

If we read the simple admonition, it’s easy to see Paul as some sort of Bob Newhart character yelling, “Stop it!” But before you think I’m being flip, let me redirect the blame to the people who first invented our scripture notation system.

Paul obviously did not insert the chapter and verse numbers in his letters as he wrote; scholars in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries did that. And while this system has its merits, it also creates problems, including accidentally altering the meanings of certain passages — or at least the meanings we take from them.

What we miss

Paul’s statement is not merely a blunt admonition (don’t do it). It actually comes with comes with a rationale (you don’t need to do it because…). But the rationale is one we might miss because of the verse numbering.

If you read commentators before the advent of the numbering system, they do something different with the emphasis and structure of the passage. The end of verse 5 says, “The Lord is at hand.” The start of 6 says, “Have no anxiety about anything. . . .” Ancient commentators like John Chrysostom and Theodoret of Cyrus read these as one verse, not two separate verses. Chrysostom quotes it as, “The Lord is at hand, in nothing be anxious.” Theodoret’s treatment is the same: “The Lord is near. Have no worries.”

Let me repeat that: “The Lord is near. Have no worries.”

That’s what the passage actually says, and what Chrysostom and Theodoret commented on. But the verse numbering causes an unnecessary break and distortion in the meaning, particularly if we read the scripture as granularly as verse-by-verse, expository teaching often leads us to.

The full picture

Read instead as the ancient Christians read it, Paul’s statement is not merely that we should take our anxieties to God, good as that may be. It’s that the judge of the universe is near so we can have confidence that wrong will be set right. It’s not about trying to suppress our worries and trust God, which is for many a necessary but challenging effort that contains within it many of its own worries. That’s the wrong focus. It’s about the realization that God will soon wipe away every reason for worry. It’s a reminder of our real hope.

Our eyes are on the wrong thing if we’re merely praying to have life’s worrisome aspects eliminated so we can carry on stress free. Rather, we have no reason for anxiety because the judge of all the earth is already on his way.

To be clear, it’s easier to write these words than live by them. But if we needed to be convinced of anything, it is not that prayer is a means to reduce our anxieties. It’s that Christ is coming.

“The Lord is near. Have no worries.”