Verse By Verse Devotional On 2 Corinthians By Pastor Jack #7

Ours in Abundance!

1:5 "For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ."

Here is an intensely accurate portrayal of the Christian life: "Just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ."

O believer, listen to Paul here! Listen to God’s word! Your life is not found in avoiding suffering. It is found in the abundance of comfort that Christ affords in the midst of abundant suffering. In fact, if we have no suffering there is something very, very wrong. It means that we are not God’s children at all:

"If you are without discipline (of which all have become partakers) then you are illegitimate children and not sons." (Heb.12:8)

Suffering is part of God’s good plan for our lives, His plan to prune and mold and purify us so that we become like Christ, His plan to put our sinful flesh to death and make us come more and more alive in Christ. “The Lord disciplines those whom He loves” (Heb.12:6). If He did not discipline us with sufferings, then He would not be loving us, just as a parent who does not discipline his children is not loving them:

"He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently." (Prov.13:24)

And the more we suffer, the more our capacity to enjoy the comfort/fellowship/strengthening presence of God is expanded.

Do you see then how His discipline is not a curse but a blessing? It is not just that God’s blessings upon His children outweigh their troubles. It is that even their troubles are blessings He has sent. Both the hard things and the pleasant things are gifts of God, both the suffering and the comfort. But the combination of the two is the thing so very wonderful. Sufferings by themselves often do more harm than good. And reassurance is useless in the absence of trouble. But when the two are combined in one recipe, it yields the sweet, satisfying bread of faith that produces life as it was meant to be lived.

Abundant suffering from God + abundant comfort from God = abundant life

Our problems are big, but the Christ who strengthens us in our problems is much bigger. In this world we have tribulations, but He has overcome the world (John 16:33).

O Father, what abundant comfort You give to us in our afflictions! Even when my sufferings are great, Your comfort is there to carry me through. Forgive me for how I respond to suffering by always trying to escape from it instead of by running to Jesus for comfort in it. When trials press in around me, help me to flee into my Father’s arms, remembering that Your comfort is ABUNDANT!!