5-18 Rest Comforting Others

God uses us to comfort others, we are the hands and feet, eyes and ears. This is seen in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, 14. 

2 Corinthians 1:3-7

Walking with Jesus will nearly always bring us to a point of suffering. 

Many times we hear the idea that the best person to comfort you is someone who has gone through the same thing. That may not always be the wisest position. While this may not be wrong, but we know that person’s circumstances and surroundings were not our circumstances and surroundings. What we can be comforted in is any believer who has followed Christ and has gone through comfort through affliction. So those who have found rest in the Trinity through afflictions can now provide comfort. They’ve learned rest and can now help with comfort.

This happens when they share their testimony and the word of God through what they found comfort. So then through this they are sharing not just their own experiences, but sharing those things of above or the things of God. 

When we share our testimony of God’s comfort in our time of need, the scriptures He brought to us, or the realization of God’s promises in it, it can help others to see God in the process. 

How do we comfort others?

When you abide in Christ, you become more like him. The more we become like him, we talk like him, think life him, act like him. This then empowers us to reach out to others. 

John 15 Jesus talks about fruit of the vine. The fruit Jesus is talking about is looking like him. The way he bears fruit for the Father. So this then applies to us as we abide and bear the fruit of becoming more like Jesus. And all of this is because of our love for him. We don’t just comfort others because it looks good in their eyes, they need it, or that’s the things we are supposed to do, but it is because we love Jesus. Those 3 things may be true, but the real point is our abiding with the Lord. 

This is all a picture of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Even with this picture of comforting those with the comfort we are comforted with from others who have been comforted with the comfort of God through the middle of affliction and adversity. 

What did Jesus do in the Garden of Gethsemane, he brought prayer and received comfort. What is Paul asking to the church in Corinth: to pray. 

What will we do when we comfort others? We will pray. This is seen in the gospels with how Jesus performed his ministry. 

People need rest, and God has the solution.

We see an example of this 2 Corinthians 7:5-7