As I begin this post to publish come morning I am counting gifts; my life is one huge gift with treasures loaded each day. Today one of my treasures went HOME. After many months of trying to keep cancer at bay, she closed her eyes here to open them THERE. I miss her already. Her laugh. Her generosity. Her eager intellect. She was a sponge for the Word of GOD. She was/is my Sister in JESUS and my friend.
2 Corinthians 5: 1 For we know that if the tent, our earthly home, is torn down, we have a building from God—a home not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens.
5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. 6 Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—7 for we walk by faith, not by sight—8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.source
2 Corinthians 1:3 Blessed [gratefully praised and adored] be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts and encourages us in every trouble so that we will be able to comfort and encourage those who are in any kind of trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 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]. source
Here’s the thinking train: The Father loves us as much as He loves JESUS and He let JESUS suffer. He loves us, we have to know He will allow us to suffer too; I am confident though we will never be allowed to suffer to the extent that JESUS did, nor could we. All our suffering has a purpose – to save us from ourselves and perhaps help those we love or even needy strangers to see JESUS for themselves. All that JESUS suffered had a purpose – again, it was us; to save us from hell – eternal death.
BUT. The Father also comforted JESUS and He comforts us. Read our verses again. If you recallMatthew 4, you know JESUS was so comforted that angels actually came and physically attended Him. He had been forty days in the wilderness where satan tried with everything he had and still failed to distract Him, discourage Him, dissuade Him, or in any wise defeat Him. The Father allowed that!
BUT when the work was done. Comfort came! The angels came and ministered to Him. I am imagining they came with food and water and Word from the Father. Comfort comes in proportion to the suffering.
2 Corinthians 4: (NLT) 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. source
We are glad you are here; stay a while, look around, and be encouraged. We estimate there to be over 3,000 posts here at The White Stone Blog. Please know my hope is ALWAYS to help and NEVER harm. I have voiced many opinions and thoughts here since 2007 and by now I MAY NOT EVEN AGREE with all of them and some of my grammar and punctuation likely needs editing. But this is changeless: JESUS is our ONLY Savior and Hope. Do you KNOW Him?
