God is With You; Now Be With Others

(guest devotion from my brother Chris)
A study on 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
God is With You; Now Be With Others
3-5 All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.

How comforting it is to hear Paul's affirmation that our living and loving God comes alongside us when we go through hard times!  We know this, but when troubles strike, we quite often get amnesia.  We become worry warts.  We rely FULLY on OUR wisdom, strength and abilities and forget that God planned for this, mapped a way through it for you and is now, and forever, applying his abilities to bless you through it.  NO MATTER WHAT "IT" IS!  

I've read this section of scripture several times in my life and I've always taken comfort from this understanding of God's eternal presence.  Reading it this time around though, in preparation for our study of 2 Corinthians, God led my attention to the next part of this sentence and the sacred charter given to us in it.  Paul goes on by saying "...and before you know it, He brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us."

Have you ever received a gift and given a thank you in return?  God is pouring gifts on us daily that are far too numerous to count or separate.  How on earth would we go about "writing" God a thank you for each of these blessings?  This section of scripture makes it clear.  He blesses us so that we, with grateful hearts, would bless others in need.  Our world is suffering from the effects of sin and we carry the cure.  When we show kindness, give selflessly and get involved with those in need around us, we dispense the love of Christ through our actions, and in doing so, show our heartfelt thanks to a loving, living God.

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Thank you dear Lord for your continued blessings.  Work in me a generous, selfless Christlike love for ALL so that I can get and keep busy at the work of sharing YOUR love with the world!

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