HE comforts through HIS people...

Another comforter that GOD uses when we’re in pain is HIS’ People.  We need each other. 

We were not made to be isolated from each other.  There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger CHRISTian.  We need each other to make it.  If you don’t have any family we are your family.  The church is a family.  That’s what GOD meant the church to be.  You need to be in a family. 

2 Corinthians 1.3-4 (NIV), “The GOD of all comfort comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from GOD.”  

If you’re hurting today, you are not alone in your hurt.  You think your problem is unique, that is not true.  No matter what problem you have it is not unique. 

Hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of people over the history of humanity have had the very same problem you have right now.  For your own sake, you need to find a church family.  Don’t just be a spectator; be a participator.  Meet some people so that when you go through the crises of life there are people there to help you. 

If you’re not in pain, what does this verse say?  Can you remember that pain you went through months ago, or years ago?  If you can, you have an obligation to help other people through the same hurt you’ve gone through. 

GOD allows us to go through problems, comforts us, so we can turn around and comfort other people with the same comfort we’ve received. 

You don’t know all the lessons you learned from it?  People in pain don’t need advice.  They just need someone to say, I understand.  I know what it’s like to have a child die.  I know what it’s like to go through a divorce.  I know what it’s like to loose your job overnight. I know what it’s like to miss a goal, a dream. 

GOD never wastes a hurt.  If you have had a problem in your life that you have gone through, you have an obligation to other people to help them through it too.  That’s your ministry.

GOD wants to use the hurts you’ve had in your life to encourage others.  Whether you’ve learned anything or not, just the very fact that you can say, “I understand, I know where you’re coming from.  I remember the loneliness.  I remember the pain.  I remember the rejection.  I remember what it felt like to be brought up in the home of alcoholic parents.  I know what it’s like to be brought up where my mom walked out the door and never came back.  I know what it’s like.”   In any given church, there are other people going through that very experience right now.  They need your comfort.  They need your help. 

Just a thought from the front porch…