8.14.2008

God's Word and "Afflictions"

I am reading through Psalm 119 right now in my "quiet time." Psalm 119:50 says, "This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life." Then he goes on to say in verse 71, "It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your precepts."

The Word of God gives comfort in all the "afflictions" we face. But in a strange and unique way it is in "afflictions" that we learn the Word of God. I take great comfort in the promise from God to believers, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I take great comfort from "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine; or nakedness, or danger, or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

But it's only in the experience of affliction that I "learn" the preciousness of these promises and comforts and in a real way how they become such a comfort and so precious to me as a follower of Christ. The Word of God comforts us in affliction and the affliction is used by God to teach us the Word of God that brings us comfort in affliction. Beautiful!

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