Helping to Comfort, Encourage Hurting People With Godly Love

 If I said I’m King of Belgium, you’d say I’m crazy, right? I’ve never even been there. My family doesn’t even have ancestors from there. Except for liking Belgian waffles, there is no connection. There are lots of ways to prove I’m not their king.

We talked last week about how some might be scared if people made false claims about the Bible. Gal. 1:8 warns of this, in fact. The Spirit inspired Paul to write that if anyone – even an angel - preached another gospel, let them be accursed.

We can see several lessons from this. The Bible is truth.(John 17:17) So, we can learn truth – and whether something is true – by comparing it to God’s Word. If a person claims to be Christ, for instance, there are a bunch of ways to prove them wrong. Even if they could trick us into thinking they were doing miracles, Acts 1:9-11 says Jesus rose up to Heaven in the clouds after His resurrection. And, He will return the same way; jude and Rev. 19 show this, too. We could also look at who Jesus Christ is – He is God in flesh and died to take away our sins. Since He had marks in his hands and side after He rose from the dead, many believe He will have the same marks when He returns.

People can be hurt if others say “God’s Word says this” or “You need to do this” and it isn’t true. Even the early church had this problem; people kept wanting to add works to God’s free gift of salvation. Some books of the New Testament are letters to churches which address these problems, as well as other things.

So, we can use the Bible to share things like, to continue last week’s example, “We have a direct connection to God with Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5 among others) since He lives in each believer through the Spirit (several verses on the Comforter in John 14-16, Eph. 1:13-14). Jesus died once for all and took all your past, present, and future sin on Himself(Heb. 9:25-26, 7:25).We can see things about others, too, like how Mary was a sinner  in need fo a Saviour like us(Luke 1:47) who had other children besides Jesus(Mat. 13:55-6, Mark 6:3). That last may not seem important but it shows how we can pick things up when we read.

It’s hard for some to see that not all people who claim to be Christians are; but that’s how my King of Belgium example comes in. If I say I’m their king, what I do says nothing about the real one. Also, God didn’t want cartoon physics to apply. If He stopped every bad act, we’d hear loud voices booming out of nowhere saying to stop, or you’d have everything frozen the minute someone ran a red light, or anvils falling on peoples’ heads out of nowhere or other silly things. Laws of physics would be broken. Such a world might seem fun – till you have to go somewhere and you don’t just hit a traffic jam but a freeze frame.

The first thing people want when they hurt, though, is for us to care. They need to see that before they’ll listen to a King of Belgium or cartoon physics analogy. In our fallen world, sometimes the best we can do is listen and be an example of Jesus by being compassionate when someone is hurting. Let the Spirit guide you with words of comfort. When someone knows you care, they’ll let you share the truth of God’s Word. Just follow the Spirit’s leading so ou can get to the point where they’ll let you share the Gospel.