Today’s Blog Topics

1) Selfless Act

2) Best Counselling Advice Ever

3) A Verse with a Thought

4) Mile Markers and Stop Posts

5) Today’s Message:  Who Comforteth Us

"If God turn to us, no matter who turns from us."

- Adam Clarke

Selfless Act

Love is a selfless act. Sin is a selfish act.

Give of yourself, give to God and your neighbor.

Love, like faith, is an action, not just a sentiment or feeling.

Do, be, give-Love!

Best Counselling Advice Ever

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ- Galatians 6:2.

We lighten another’s burden by listening to them. But are we adding to their load by talking? Our words should always uplift and edify.

Are we speaking the Spirit of Christ (Love) or are we verbally hitting someone over the head with the law, which Paul called the ministration of death that was written and engraven in stone (2 Cor. 3:7)?

By love we are to serve one another. Understand that, “All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14).

Walk in the Spirit, be in the spirit. Listen. Love.

A Verse with a Thought

"Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance." (Psalm 89:14-15)

Pretty powerful stuff! Yet Oh, so easy when you consider that Mercy and Truth are what we are to lead with. If we become those two things, then there isn’t much to adjudicate. Justice is already done. Walking in Mercy and Truth is to walk in the light of His countenance. We become His image incarnate.

Mile Markers and Stop Posts

We have mile markers in life. These are significant events such as weddings, births, birthdays, deaths, relocations, new jobs and so on. We use these mile markers not only to remember our lives by, but to gauge how we have been living our lives. We determine our path and direction as well as analyze the trajectory of our time on this earth has taken to date.

We also have stop posts in life. As the name implies, stop posts are times (never places) when we stop and reflect on our past life, as well as project forward towards the future. New Year’s is one of those stop posts.

But here’s the thing. While for the most part, we have no control over when mile markers occur, we do have some control as to when stop posts happen. Remember, one is associated with an event, the other time. We do not have to wait for New Year’s to make new resolutions. We do not have to wait once a year to be grateful for what we do or don’t have, to have a mental, “check-up from the neck-up”, make vows of good deeds, prosperity or love. We can do all of these things (and more) anytime. In fact, as a child of God, we should always be in the mode of honest self-discovery, course correction, refreshing, confession, and amendment. It’s called repentance.

Plant a stop post today and every day. Resolve to adhere to the basic characteristics of God. They are righteousness, justice, faith, hope, and mercy. These are all components of the greatest attribute of them all, love.

Who Comforteth Us

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

This comfort is God’s grace. Grace is a boundless benefit from God bestowed upon our essence, being and very existence. Grace is a favor and divine largesse. Grace is undefinable in the sense that it is not manifest as a singular thing. In this passage, it is expressed in terms of a comfort.

This we can say about grace, it:

1) Grace is a gift. 2) Grace is a benefit and aid. 3) Grace is the consequence of God’s mercy.

God’s grace is truly boundless and limitless. He will load us full of Godly benefits, and load us still more, even when grace still abounds!

“But he giveth more grace….” (James 4:6)

“And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” (John 1:16)

“Grace for grace”. Receiving His divine gifts aren’t necessarily due to a lack of them or the presence of tribulation.

But there is a very unique feature or quality associated with God’s grace. It is a gift received with the intent of being given. Grace grows when given away because it has our experiences mixed with it!

We are to, “comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” We never have to worry about running out of God’s comforts and grace for He is the God of all comfort, He giveth more grace and even gives grace for grace!

God’s grace, comforts, and helps are never in short supply. We are to help spread these divine gifts and relate our experiences to others

“Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear” (Isaiah 59:1)

“For grace comprehends in it all that is good, and grace is an earnest, yea, a beginning, of glory; for, wherever God gives grace, he will give glory, and will not withhold any good thing from him who walketh uprightly.” (Matthew Henry)

Bill Hitchcock