Abundant Suffering Meets with Abundant Comfort

UV 4219/10000 Abundant Suffering Meets with Abundant Comfort For just as Christ’s sufferings are ours in abundance ( as they overflow to His followers), so also our comfort ( our reassurance, our encouragement, our consolation) is abundant through Christ ( it is truly more than enough to endure what we must). 2 Corinthians 1 v 5 Just as Christ suffered enormously, we too inherit His sufferings and partake of His sufferings in our lifetime for no follower is greater than his master. What happened to our Leader, happens to us if we are living like Him in obedience to the will of the Father and in accordance with the word. Often, we might even feel that we have more than our fair share of sufferings in this world. But along with the abundance of sufferings, we also inherit and partake of abundant comfort for the Lord is also the God of comfort and hope. God Himself is our Comforter in the form of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comforts us with His gentle voice and touch. He causes healing of our inner hurt or injuries, healing not just of our bodies but of our minds and souls. Hence, having this hope of comfort, help and deliverance from the Lord, we are to overflow with joy and peace. We are able to endure much sufferings as we overflow with this joy and peace in our innermost being. The Lord consoles us with His word in our most desperate moments and strengthens us so that we can endure it to the very end. Jesus manifests Himself as the Balm of Gilead to calm us, to console us, to deliver us from pain and strife. When we meditate on the sufferings of Christ and how He patiently and meekly endured it as it was the will of the Father, we gain perspective and inner strength to endure even the most difficult of circumstances and emerge stronger and victorious. When Jesus looked at His disciples, He asked them whether they are able to drink the cup of suffering that He was about to drink from. We should like Him be willing to endure pain, scorn, humiliation, loneliness, betrayal, unjust punishment like Jesus and then, our rewards in the eternal realms will be abundant and more than proportionate to our earthly sufferings. Jesus cried out to the Father in His moment of greatest pain and forsakenness, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” for at that moment of greatest suffering, the climax of His life of sorrow and pain, He felt the burden of all man’s sin on His shoulders. Shortly, thereafter He was relieved of His suffering as His spirit departed from His body. Likewise, we can cry out to the Lord in our moments of utmost pain and suffering and the Lord who comforts and delivers will surely rush to our side and help us overcome. He gives us abundant grace to endure.