Comfort Big Enough for Anything I Will Face

God offers me comfort big enough for anything I'll ever face, in life or in death.  To receive and enjoy that comfort, I must first know how greatly I need what God offers.

- Adapted Excerpt from Comforting Hearts, Teaching Minds by Starr Meade

 

How do I come to know my misery? 

• The law of God tells me.

Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful?  Of course not!  In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin.  I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, "You must not covet."  Romans 7:7

What does God's law require of me?

• Christ teaches me this in summary in Matthew 22:37-40

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with His reply, they met together to question Him again.  One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap Him with this question: "Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?"

Jesus replied,

"'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind'.  This is the greatest and first commandment.

And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Matthew 22:34-40

I cannot live up to all this perfectly.  

• I have a natural tendency to hate God.

As the Scriptures say, "No one is righteous - not even one.  No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God.  All have turned away; all have become useless.  No one does good, not a single one."

"They have no fear of God at all."  Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God.  Romans 3:10-12, 18-19

• I have a natural tendency to hate my neighbor.

"Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.  Their tongues are filled with lies.  Snake venom drips from their lips.  Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.  They rush to commit murder.  Destruction and misery always follow them.  They don't know where to find peace."  Romans 3:13-17

Isaiah 59:9-13

So there is no justice among us, and we know nothing about right living.  We look for light but find only darkness.  We look for bright skies but walk in gloom.  We grope like the blind along a wall, feeling our way like people without eyes.  Even at the brightest noontime, we stumble as though it were dark.  Among the living, we are like the dead.

We growl like hungry bears; we moan like mournful doves.  We look for justice, but it never comes.  We look for rescue, but it is far away from us.

For our sins are piled up before God and testify against us.  Yes, we know what sinners we are.  We know we have rebelled and have denied the Lord.  We have turned our backs on God.  We know how unfair and oppressive we have been, carefully planning our deceitful lies.