What Is Your Comfort?

What Is Your Comfort?

“Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.”

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Then we read further what Jesus did for as long as He was in the body. He humbled Himself, so that He became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.

We cannot live the life in Christ we read about in the first verse without having His mind. If we have the mind that was in Jesus, we can also live the life in Christ we read about. However, if we seek comfort from people, we will never attain to what is written in the second verse.

We read that before the day of Pentecost the apostles quarreled among themselves as to which of them should be considered the greatest. Luke 22:24. They could not come to this one mind, and the result was rivalry among them. They could not esteem each other higher than themselves. Jesus was a servant among them. When you are a servant, it is not difficult to esteem the others higher than yourself. In this mind of Christ it is easy to have the same love, etc. In this connection we are exhorted to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us; and Paul continues: “Do all things without murmuring and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless.”

Since it is God who works, one could think that the exhortation to do all things without murmuring and disputing should be unnecessary. But it was necessary, because God’s work is that we should humble ourselves, and that goes against our natural understanding. Nevertheless, if we have the mind of Christ, we will also have our comfort in Christ, and then we do not need any other comfort.

He who did not revile again when He was reviled was the same One whom death could not hold. He was the One who received a name above all other names. Let us always remember that! We will not gain a tried faith without sufferings. 1 Pet. 1:6-7.