Confidence in God's Comfort

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Southeast Christian Church

Apr 19, 2021

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is a cliche that we love to throw around. But not only is it not helpful at all (narrowly escaping death isn’t exactly the kind of life we are aiming for), it is also false. Sometimes suffering doesn’t kill us, but it doesn’t make us stronger. Sometimes suffering brings us to the darkest times in our lives. The pain becomes too much to bear and we crumble.

This is why Paul begins his letter in 2 Corinthians talking about the God of comfort. He wants to give truth to the Corinthian church to prepare them so that they won’t be swept out to sea by their troubles. He doesn’t just tell them about the comfort that God offers, he proves it and assures them that it is enough.

We may cognitively know that God comforts us, but we don’t always believe it. If we fully believed that God will give us the comfort we need in our suffering, we would go straight to him every time. But instead of going to God, we often try to handle the suffering on our own. We go to other worldly things for comfort such as food, alcohol, relationships, sex, entertainment, etc., and we wonder why we don’t feel any better.

In order to have confidence in God’s comfort, we can read the Bible to be reminded of the countless times God has provided his people with comfort in all of their trials and sufferings. We can talk to friends who have experienced his comfort. And we can experience God’s comfort for ourselves by going to him before trying to find comfort anywhere else.

Reflection/Discussion Question: Do you have confidence in God’s comfort? Why or why not?

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