Hi and welcome to Scripture Today, a Christian Blog on SteemIt.
My name is Richard and I am a Christian living in Australia. I'm married to an amazing woman and have three teenage boys.
I created this blog to simply share God's Word with anyone who wants to read it.
For this first post I decided to share a passage of scripture that has been important in my own life. It reminds me that God is always close at hand and that we need to rely on Him for all things. It also reminds me that Christians are His representatives on earth and that we need to care for others the way God cares for us.
2 Corinthians 1:2-10 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. (3) All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. (4) He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. (5) For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with His comfort through Christ. (6) Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. (7) We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us. (8) We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. (9) In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. (10) And He did rescue us from mortal danger, and He will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in Him, and He will continue to rescue us. (NLT)
The first two verses in this passage remind us who God is and what He has done for us - He is our Heavenly Father, He sent us Jesus and He is the source of all comfort.
Verse 4 shows us that the idea of "Pay it forward" isn't new. When we are troubled God can comfort us but, as His children, he desires us to comfort others. This theme continues through to verse 7.
In Verses 8-10 we are told of the kind of trouble the writer (The Apostle Paul) was going through. His very life was under threat and yet He did not waiver in His trust in God.
In our own strength that kind of trouble can easily cause us to fall into despair. We are told that Paul and those with him reached the point where they were crushed, overwhelmed and could no longer endure in their own strength, and yet the result was not to give up, go mad or lose faith in God. Instead it drove them even closer to God. They stopped replying on themselves (their own strength and abilities) and learned to reply on Him.
For those that may be unaware, the New Testament was written in Greek originally. When translated, it is not alway a straight forward process. Sometimes a particular Greek word may have more meaning than can be summed up in just one English (or other language) word. In the case of the word "Comfort", the Greek words (there are a couple) in the original text suggest that we have an active part to play in receiving God's comfort. We can not expect to just sit back and wait for God to comfort us in times of trouble. We actually have to draw close to Him. We have to call on His name and put all our trust in Him. We are also meant to have a heart for others in the same situation rather than becoming so bound up my our own troubles that we block everyone else out. Not an easy thing at all, but Christians need to support each other. We need to provide for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our fellow believers. We need to encourage each other in trusting God. That does not not mean pretending nothing is wrong and neither does it mean we can't have time to grieve or have time alone. However, we cannot get to the point of losing connection with fellow believers or to stop caring for them in their troubles.
I don't personally know what troubles you may be facing in your own life, but God does and He is very near. Life is full of troubles and, even as Christians, they will find us from time to time. That has certainly been my own experience.
Remember that Jesus suffered horribly for us. He understands and will not hold back comfort when we draw close to Him. Do whatever it takes to build your relationship with Him whether times or good or bad. Don't just seek Him out when something is wrong as that's not showing Him the love He desires. God should be our Heavenly Father 100% of the time and not just when we need something.
May God bless you.
Richard