Hosanna Restoration Church

If God wants His people comforted, then that is what we should do. Did you know there is a difference between being comforted and being comfortable? The truth is that God’s Word is a word of comfort, but it does not necessarily make people comfortable. You know as well as I do that it sometimes makes us squirm. For instance, as we recently touched on the God kind of love, it is a comfort to know how He loves us, but it is a challenge to love the same way.

At times it seems that as Christians we have an aversion to the idea of people being comfortable and therefore we hesitate to comfort them like we should. It is true, that people can become lethargic in their relationship with God, but that is not because they are comfortable or comforted; it is because we get lazy!

It is not just in the Old Testament that we are encouraged to comfort one another. In 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5 and verse 11, the Lord tells us to comfort, encourage, and build each other up. The only way to do this with anything that has substance and that will last is with the Word of God. As we read on in Isaiah 40, we are reminded that God’s word is the only thing that lasts. Other ideas and theories have come and gone, but God’s Word just keeps on going and producing good fruit.

God told Isaiah to speak tenderly to His people. I think Isaiah had to chew on that some before he did it. He had been telling those people to straighten out for quite some time and now God was saying to comfort them. As a pastor, there have been times when things were going on that I thought God should bring the hammer down on, and all of a sudden He would have me speaking with comfort and it seemed to me that it could only make the problem worse. Of course, His ways are far above mine and His way always works.

Think about it, have you ever been in a situation when your flesh wanted vengeance and the Lord said mercy? Jesus is called the Prince of Peace and comforter, along with many other things. He said He would send another comforter. Why would He send a comforter? Did He do it just so we could be comforted? No! He did it so that we could comfort others with the comfort that we have receive.

He will take care of convicting the world and the body of Christ, if we will be faithful to speak the truth in love. God said to tell His people that their sins were forgiven. He decided it was time to clean their slate. He did the same thing for us when Christ came and paid the price for the sins of everyone in the whole world. That truth is a comfort for all, even if it makes some people uncomfortable. Lets be sure to take the love of God and use it to comfort people even if some get uncomfortable.