Christ, the Source of Consolation

It is in the heart of God to want to comfort his people. We have to start with this central truth. All consolation for any suffering arises from understanding and, understanding, is a reflection of the heart. All divine consolation is the pure reflection of the heart of God.

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"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort" (2 Corinthians 1: 3).

It is in the heart of God to want to comfort his people. We have to start with this central truth. All consolation for any suffering arises from understanding and, understanding, is a reflection of the heart. All divine consolation is the pure reflection of the heart of God. Oh, how deficient we are in focusing this truth! The heart of God is our heart: In him we dwell and we are as in a home and within him.

Can we doubt his heart for a moment when in his breast he found the Lamb to offer in sacrifice for our sin? If, then, he did not spare his own Son, but gave it for all of us (Ro 8:32), can we have any doubt that quenches God's hope of consolation that nests in the depths of our deepest suffering and grief? In the very heart that Jesus gave us, we find the divine source of all true consolation that flows by our side in this valley of tears.

Daughter of affliction, son of tribulation: God loves him with all his heart. They are each pulse of life, each beat of love, each flow of compassion and each drop of understanding.

The heart of God speaks to your heart. Your deep love is in tune with your deep pain. Do you doubt it? Listen to his command to his servant, the Prophet: "Consolate, console, my people, says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem; tell him loudly that his time is now fulfilled, that his sin is forgiven; that he has received twice from the hand of the Lord for all his sins "(Isaiah 40: 1-2).

Take note of the tenderness of God's consolation.

It is like the heart of a mother. Who can have a heart as full of love, tenderness and understanding as hers? Take note of the moving words: "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you" (Isaiah 66:13).

From what source of such pure love, from what source of such profound depth of sensibility, from what so sweet side, do understanding and consolation flow in times of adversity and pain like hers? The heart of the mother is the first place where love enters and the last one comes from.

It is born when we are born, it grows with our growth and it clings to us throughout all the changes of life. Smile when we smile and cry when we cry.

When the years have clouded the view, the head is covered with gray hair and the snows of many winters curl his body, the love of mother is still as deep, lively and warm as when he had in his arms his newborn treasure. So also is the consolation with which God comforts his people. "As he whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you" (Isaiah 66:13).

We have presented the idea of ​​God's consolations as maternal. It also comforts us like a father. All God's corrective measures are paternal, so is his consolation. The hand that kills, the hand that gives life, the hand that hurts and the hand that sells is the hand of the Father. "If you endure discipline, God treats you like children; for what son is he whom the father does not discipline? "(Hebrews 12: 7). "As the father has compassion on his children, the Lord pities those who fear him" (Psalm 103: 13).

This image finds echo in the heart of every father and every mother. How calm it is to discover that the discipline of a test comes from the hand of a Father! He reproves us, admonishes and corrects us as a father does with the children he loves and this softens, calms and heals our wounds. "If this cup comes from my Father," exclaims the afflicted son, "then I will drink it without complaining. It has hurt my heart from side to side.

He may have afflicted me, but he is still my Father and I will offer him my reverence, submitting silently and submissively to the rod that only love has sent and that is already sprouting to become a precious fruit, making me a participant in his holiness. "

Accept, then, the consolation with which the Father seeks to sustain him and to calm him in his present calamity. Do not refuse to be comforted. To reject divine consolation because the hand of God has struck him is to cling to an angry and rebellious spirit against God.

The persistent refusal to all the promises, guarantees and consolations of his heavenly Father, says: "God has hurt me deeply and painfully, I can not forgive him and I can not forget the offense". Do you have reason to be so outraged? Out of love, he darkened his home with death, or did he transfer the earthly flower to flower in the celestial paradise?

Will he reject now the consolation that he would sincerely pour into his heart, exclaiming in the spirit of contumacy and rebellion: "My soul refuses consolation"? God forbid! Give your heart to that consolation as the flower thirsty to the dew and, with deep gratitude, exclaim: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of mercies and God of all consolation, who comforts us in all our tribulations" (2 Co. 1: 3-4).

It is a joy to think that in his own infinite heart, in the covenant of his grace, in the gospel of his love and in our Lord Jesus Christ, he has provided comfort for all the sufferings of his people! No new test can appear in his path, no pain that clouds his spirit, no new calamity that crushes him to the ground, that the God of all consolation has not anticipated in the comfort he has provided for his Church.

"How great is your goodness, which you have kept for those who fear you, whom you have shown to those who wait for you, before the sons of men!" (Psalm 31:19).

And what consolation the Lord Jesus Christ is for his people! There can be no revelation of God as the God of all consolation, except through Christ. He is the Depositary of our consolation, so much so that it is called "the consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:25). Christ is our comfort and the Holy Spirit is our Comforter.

Who can hear these words of tenderness and love that spring from their lips to the mourning hearts of their disciples on the eve of being separated from him and not feeling that Christ is really the consolation of his people? "Do not let your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwellings "(John 14: 1-2).

Does your pain arise from a feeling of sin? The blood of Jesus forgives. Is it because of a conviction of condemnation? The righteousness of Christ justifies. Is the power of sin in you? The grace of Jesus overcomes him. Is it because of some urgent temporary need? All his resources are in Jesus and he has promised to supply all his needs so that he does not lack bread and water.

Is it your suffering due to the deep pain of having lost a loved one? Where could I find compassion as tender as the heart of Jesus of whom it is written "Jesus wept"? (John 11:35)

Who can console that pain more than Christ? He can comfort and he does it. Are you in danger or are you facing a difficulty that seems impossible to overcome? Christ is all power and he will defend it against his enemy and will remove the stumbling block from his path.

Does any disease or decline in your health affect your spirit? He who "took our diseases" (Mt. 8:17) is his consolation now and will not let him suffer alone. He can heal his evil with a word or lay his bed in the midst of sickness with the support of his grace and the manifestations of his love, so that he can remain there with patience as long as he pleases ...

Learn from this topic to immediately take your problems to God. God wants me to use him as the God of all consolation. Why would he make himself known as such if he did not want you to turn to him immediately and without hesitation in every tribulation? These are sent for this purpose, which has "now ... friendship with him".

Many poor souls have met God for the first time in the midst of some deep and painful tribulation. It was not until God took from them all the earthly comforts they could see that they had been living without God.

But it is in the advanced stages of our life of faith that we know more about the character of God; we learn more of his loving heart and his revealed Word when we turn to him in our tribulations to receive the comfort that only he can give. Oh, the blessing of the divine closeness that has resulted from our sufferings! ... And we must not ignore the diverse means with which God comforts us. He comforts us with his words and the doctrines, promises and rules that we find there.

He comforts us through prayer, drawing us to his throne of mercy and having fellowship with him through Christ. What consolation flows through this medium! The moment we awaken and give ourselves to prayer, we are conscious of a mental stillness and an indescribable calmness in the heart.

Prayer has lightened the burden, dissolved the clouds and given proof of being an entrance for peace, joy and hope that surpass all understanding and are full of glory ... Nor let us forget that God, often, comforts his people by removing everything consolation apart from him. He told his Church: "Behold, I will draw her and bring her into the desert, and I will speak to her heart" (Hos 2:14).

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Is it taking you, dearly loved, to the desert of separation, tribulation or loneliness? You can be sure that it is to comfort him, to speak to his heart and to reveal himself as the "God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulations".

This is how we learn that, if we are to receive true consolation, we have to hurry to turn to heaven with faith to obtain it. It is a treasure that does not exist on earth. It is a jewel of heaven, a flower of paradise that does not exist in any mine or grow in any earthly garden.

We can make our own crosses, but we can not manufacture our own consolation. If we look for it among mortals, we only search for the living among the dead ...

Has Jesus given you too much comfort? Go and spill the excess in some wounded heart. Remember one of the purposes of God's consolation is "so that we may also comfort those who are in any tribulation, by the consolation with which we are comforted by God" (2 Cor. 1: 4).

What a privilege so great, holy and divine, to go home in mourning, to the room of the sick, to his bed, to the believer in Jesus who goes through some adversity or to the son of light who walks in darkness, and to strengthen and comfort him in God. Having this as our mission, let us be imitators of God, the "God of all consolation."

I want to remind you with what source of consolation you have: Your God is this God of all consolation. Since you possess the currents, the currents that carry you to your source, then everything that is in God is yours. Suppose yours is a case of extreme suffering. Imagine that you have family problems, that you are downcast by your circumstances, without friends and without a home.

However, despite all this, I put everything in balance and affirm that the truth that the God of all consolation is their God weighs more. Knowing that this blessing weighs infinitely more than all its lack and pain, I beg you to make the loneliness you are going through become an echo that reverberates with your shouts of joy and your songs of praise.

What if your home is desolate and your supplies are scarce? What if your heart feels lonely and your body is sick? What is all this if God is your God, if Christ is your Savior and if heaven is your abode? In the midst of his trials, sufferings and pains, he has more reason to be happy and to sing than the one that has the most splendid angels before the throne! The position of these is your own justice, that of you is the justice of God. They worship God from a discreet distance, you do it closely because you enter the sanctuary by the blood of Christ and call him "Father"!

Is it not a comfort to have the assurance that Christ is yours and that you are Christ's? With a Savior and Friend like that, with an Defender and Intercessor in heaven like Jesus, how comforted he should be in all his tribulations! Jesus knows him, others maybe not.

The world harasses, the saints judge; friends do not understand and enemies condemn, only because they do not know it or can not understand it. Jesus knows him! May this be enough for you. How comforting that you can admit him in every corner of his soul and in every secret of his heart with the assurance that he sees everything, knows everything and understands everything ...