The Pilgrim Path---II Corinthians 1: 3-5

"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. For as we share abundantly in Christ's suffering's, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too."

The Lord's College of Wisdom and Knowledge

The Lord has designed that in our loss, heartache, affliction, woe, we come to Him---and pour out our hearts. As we found in Sunday School yesterday, a helpful lesson relearned in Isaiah chapter 40, is to, "Trust and Obey." Dr. Lloyd-Jones used to say, just because you are a Christian though, doesn't mean, "you don't find it hard not to act like a human being." Our first inclination is not always to rely on the LORD---especially in dark and difficult times. Perhaps, it's because we'd hope for more of an explanation? But as Raymond Ortlund, Jr. says---and I heard Dr. Warren Wiersbe say it, "We don't live our lives on explanations---but upon the promises of God." The LORD knows what He is doing. He is the Rock, His ways are perfect---just and right is He. In worship, I'm going to have to trust Him, and rest in His wisdom. And---In the difficult times I know: HE will be the God of Comfort to me---and To You...in all We face...

"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." Isaiah 40: 1

God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit---they come---with the truth of the Word. Meeting us in hurt and loss. They love us and lift us up. Miraculous and marvelous. Only a follower of Jesus Christ understands the long path---but the light dawns, and life returns!

"...thy own life becomes the hospital ward where thou art taught the Divine art of comfort. Thou art wounded, that in the binding up of thy wounds by the Great Physician thou mayest learn how to render first aid to the wounded everywhere. Thy limbs are broken, that is the setting of them thou mayest have a personal acquaintance with the anatomy and surgery of the heart. Dost thou wonder why thou art passing through some special time of sorrow? Wait ten years are passed. I warrant thee, that in that time thou wilt find some, perhaps ten, afflicted as thou art. Thou wilt tell them some day how thou hast suffered and hast been comforted; then as the tale is unfolded, and the medicines applied which once thy God had wrapped around thee, in the eager look and glistening eye, and the gleam of hope that shall chase the shadow of despair across the soul, thou shalt know that stored life with such a fund of experience and helpfulness. Store up a careful memory of the way in which God comforts thee. Watch narrowly how He does it. Keep a diary, if thou wilt, and note down all the procedure of his skill..." F. B. Meyer

The LORD "schools" Us---so we might, in Love---begin to benefit others...Comforts are meant to be "shared" once we've received them...

"When the night lowers and the tempest is coming on, the Heavenly Captain is always closest to the crew...Great hearts can only be made by great troubles. The spade of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper, and makes room for consolation. God comes into our heart---He finds it full---He begins to break our comforts and to make it empty; then there is more room for grace. The humbler a man lies, the more comfort he will always have, because he will be more fitted to receive it." Charles Haddon Spurgeon

"I find Christ to be Christ, and that he is far, far, even infinite heaven's height above man. And that is all our happiness. Sinners can do nothing but make wounds that Christ may heal them; and make debts, that he may pay them; and make falls, that he may raise them; and make deaths, that he may quicken them; and spin out and dig hells to themselves, that he may ransom them." Samuel Rutherford

Grace and Peace in Jesus Christ Our LORD, Pastor Jason