2 Corinthians 1:3-4 – Comfort

Daily Devotional Bible Verses

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4 ESV)

In countries such as Canada, we are generally blessed with abundant comforts. Most of us may have observed real need, real pain, people being hungry, not knowing when the next meal will be, being without clean water, not having adequate shelter, not having effective health care. But, I would guess that not many of us have actually experienced any of those hardships first-hand. It sometimes looks like God has given us too many comforts and has neglected other parts of the world.

Yet, with all our comforts, most of us like to complain about our lot. I swim regularly at the local Rec. Center and afterwards I sit and relax in the Sauna and listen to the other people. Not surprisingly perhaps, the favorite subject of conversation is ME and how fortune has mistreated ME. A few days ago I overheard one man bitterly complaining about the time it took him to rake and bag all the fallen leaves on his lawn, using a lot of invective punctuation. His friend readily agreed, saying: “I know what you mean. Every week, I have to take my **** ride-on tractor out of the **** garage and drive it around my lawn to mulch all the **** leaves, no matter whether the grass needs cutting or not.”

However, anyone who has visited a third world country cannot help being aware that we are truly privileged. God has provided us with comforts in excess of our needs, but He expects and requires that we comfort those in trouble with the comforts that we have received from Him. Personally, the first time I went on an Arms of Jesus mission to Guatemala, I went with the altruistic conviction that I was going there as a privileged first world citizen to give to and bless the under-privileged third world population. But, I discovered, much like many other people, that I was the one who was most blessed by the experience. I discovered that although we may have physical comforts in abundance that God expects us to share, many of the people we visited had spiritual comforts like hope, faith and love that they were happy to pass on to us.

Remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

Guest devotion by Bill Bradbury. Bill is the Director of Photography for Braecroft Video Studio (division of Braecroft Educational Services). He is also the President of Braecroft Educational Services and Chairman for The Arms of Jesus Children’s Mission Inc. Learn how you can become a guest writer here.