September 09, 2010
Comfort
Our adult Sunday school chairs are slat-back solid wood, similar to an older style of library chair. To make them more tolerable, some folks bring cushions to sit on. However most of us just sit on the hard surfaces and later moan and groan. After an hour of class you have to stand up very slowly to get the circulation going again. There has been some conversation about getting new chairs (I’m in favor!), but you really have to laugh at our need for comfort. None of us would likely sit in a window until midnight like Eutychus (Acts 20:9).
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Gail;
-----And of course, Eutychus paid the price. It sounds like many in your Sunday school are paying the price, also, albeit not quite as expensive. But I don’t laugh at the need for comfort. God created man with that need. He placed him in a very comfortable garden that no doubt was conducive to all his God given pleasures. It must have been beautiful to see. It kept him well fed with delightful food for which he and Eve (delights to one another) need not sweat. They were perfectly honorable people given an honorable place with everything in its own way invoking a sense of pride holding proper decorum towards God. The need for comfort did not well up in him when he ate from the forbidden tree. It was made apparent by the disastrous discomfort his choice brought upon himself and all the universe.
-----Today, all things groan from a bondage to decay, being subjected to futility by Adam and Eve’s indiscrete act. This present time is full of suffering, not only from the consequences of our own actions, but also from improper conditions thrust upon us by the acts of others completely out of our control. The natural frailties of our own bodies, minds, and emotions just add to this suffering. But even though we must endure this into which we were born, God does not disparage our longings for comfort.
-----In fact, He also longs for us to have comfort. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (II Cor 1:3-5) His longing for our comfort goes beyond just the spiritual comfort of mind provided by salvation, “...let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him.” (Rom 15:2) We often hear the saying, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” The gun is only a tool which is used to defend a life and to feed it, as well as to steal it. It is the use of the gun that is right or wrong. Comfort and pleasure are also tools. It is the use of them which also is right or wrong. But God does want them used, “In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; God has made the one as well as the other...” (Eccl 7:14). He just wants comfort used properly, because these are tricky times in which we live.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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