Infectious Comfort

I will be with him in trouble. Psalm 91:15

D.L. MOODY
It is a great thing to have a place of resort in the time of trouble. How people get on without the God of the Bible is a mystery to me. If I didn’t have such a refuge, a place to go and pour out my heart to God in such times, I don’t know what I would do. It seems as if I would go out of my mind. But to think, when the heart is burdened, we can go and pour those burdens into His ear, and then have the answer come back, “I will be with you,” there is comfort in that!
I thank God for the old Book. I thank God for this old promise. It is as sweet and fresh today as it has ever been. Thank God, none of those promises are out of date or grown stale. They are as fresh and vigorous and young and sweet as ever.

ERWIN LUTZER
No matter what our trial, we need two friends: a friend that “sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24), namely Jesus Christ, and at least one friend in the body of Christ. When I think of God’s comfort, I am reminded of the upper room where Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit. The Greek word for Holy Spirit is paraklétos. It means to “call along, beside of.” Jesus sent us the Comforter “who will abide with us forever. He will guide you into all truth” (see John 14:16–17; 16:13). God has ordained that He would be our friend who walks with us, be with us forever, and then give us others within the body of Christ who will walk with us through our trials.

PRAYER
Father, let me be comforted so that I may, in turn, be a comfort to others.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS
What is a distinct memory you have of the Holy Spirit comforting you during a personal trial?

What could you do to be used by God to comfort others?