Well hello there today, so thankful you’re listening to the podcast for this episode, number 149, and just want to let you know that I’ve got some details about the giveaway items to celebrate episode number 150, which is just about here. I’m giving away things like gift cards for coffee, Amazon, to an online Christian owned small business (who doesn’t like supporting the small biz world?) and some other things. Several prizes, one prize per winner to spread out the fun and your chances of winning. And I’ll be sharing a...
Well hello there today, so thankful you’re listening to the podcast for this episode, number 149, and just want to let you know that I’ve got some details about the giveaway items to celebrate episode number 150, which is just about here. I’m giving away things like gift cards for coffee, Amazon, to an online Christian owned small business (who doesn’t like supporting the small biz world?) and some other things. Several prizes, one prize per winner to spread out the fun and your chances of winning. And I’ll be sharing a link to the post with the deets, the details, about how to enter. (Hint: it’s really as simple as leaving a comment on the post either on IG or FB.) So, that’s the news / housekeeping / update… and now, let’s dig into one of God’s promises, shall we?
Jan L. Burt (@janlburt) • Instagram photos and videos
Facebook
You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show podcast, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. This is episode number 149.
After wrapping up the series on Hot Topics, which hopefully encouraged you to lean hard on God’s promises even when it feels hardest to do so - now we are moving on to a promise that is full of comfort. And of course, full of hope, because most of us end up much more hopeful, more optimistic, after we’ve been on the receiving end of a whole lot of comfort.
I want to define the word “comfort” first, and then look at the promise from the Bible that offers us comfort.
Comfort: To soothe in time of affliction or distress.
- To ease physically; relieve.
to give strength and hope to
to ease the grief or trouble of
consolation in time of trouble or worry
a state or feeling of being less worried, upset, frightened, etc., during a time of trouble or emotional pain
Isaiah 51:12 (Amplified)
“I, even I, am He who comforts you.
Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies
And of a son of man who is made [as destructible] as grass,”
This is the Lord God Almighty speaking in this verse, and it is a very comforting verse. But if we don’t listen to what God says here, if we refuse to take heed, I don’t know that we can receive the comfort He has for us.
God says this: “I, even I, am He who comforts you.”
When I am in a bad place, things have gone really poorly and I am feeling it. I'm down, I will say that when I am offered comforting words from say my husband, one of my children, a dear friend, it’s great. It makes a difference. When I get a surprise letter in the good old fashioned snail mail, like the mailbox, that is really comforting. An email, a text, also super comforting. A comment on a post, a podcast review or book review, yeah, all those are very comforting. I think if you are an author, a speaker, podcaster, or something like that, maybe even if you are a pastor, it’s not the worst idea to have a “Happiness File” where you put things that are encouraging, like positive reviews, notes, cards, etc. Not to be vain, I want all of that in Jan’s life to hurry up and die already! But to be a comfort and to remind you to keep going, keep serving Jesus, because words like that can very well be sent your way only because the Lord has put it on the writer's heart to send them to you. Don’t quit serving Jesus.
How much better is it, how much more amazing, when God speaks comfort to us?
And we can know that it is His will to comfort us because we have these words from the pen of the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:4: God comforts and encourages us in all our troubles so that we will in turn be able to comfort others with the same comfort we have received. The Holy Spirit is referred to as The Comforter in John 14:26. So this is not a Jan-sized idea, comfort from the Lord. I am drawing directly from the Word of God and am not adding anything to it, so be encouraged that you have verses in the Old Testament and the New Testament to assure you that God wants you to comfort you. (And then, He wants you to comfort others…but not with your own means of comforting them, but with the same comfort He gave to you.)
God’s promise to you here is that He comforts you. “I, even I, am He who comforts you.” This feels pretty personal, doesn’t it? I think He wants you to take this promise personally.
He comforts you. Present tense, today. Also a promise that when tomorrow becomes today He will comfort you. This is an ongoing promise. On a continual basis, your God will comfort you.
I mean it when I say this feels personal and you should take it personally, because it is personal and it is personally meant for you. Right now. At this very moment. Take this personally.
Isaiah 51:12 goes on to remind us of the truth that whomever we fear in life, outside of the Lord God Most High, is not meant to be feared. You and I are to fear the Lord and not man. This verse asks why we fear a man, who dies, who is as destructible as grass.
Well, that’s a good question!
Let’s think on it for a moment and be honest in our thinking.
We tend to be fearful of people because we see what they can do to us. Cost us our jobs. Do us harm in some manner. Take something from us.
But if we step back and look at the bigger picture, the truest truth, are we trusting God above all else, or do we have a fear that God won’t take care of us in some way, shape or form and that is really what drives us in our fear of what man might do?
It’s June, summer time here in Kansas as I record this episode. And the lawn has to be mown (and technically I could say mown or mowed in this sentence used in this tense, but I am gonna go with mown) all summer long. Again and again. So, say I take a trip to visit the Flint Hills and I see natural grassland that will not be cut short all summer long. Contrasting my lawn and the grasslands, what’s the real difference come fall? At best, those grasslands will only grow for a season. And my lawn clippings? They are dead and done for as soon as the mower skims across them. So, that’s the point of reference God gives us. Fearing man is not sensible as believers, because they have the lifespan of a blade of grass in the final estimation of all things.
You cannot manage to go through life in this world and never come up against hard things. Hard things develop good character. Romans 5 says it far better than I just did, so read that chapter if you’d like to look into hard times and good character. Hard things are not always bad things. However, scary things are not something God wants you to live under with a sense of overwhelming doom and utter hopelessness.
That is not how you are to live when you follow Jesus.
Stuff happens. That’s a guarantee in this life.
What will we do when that stuff happens? Give in to fear, to despair, or receive the comfort that God is promising in Isaiah?
I am going to do my very best to choose the latter. And when I am really feeling the weight of something, I am going to lean fully on the Holy Spirit and ask Him to intervene, help me to be able to choose belief over fear, and then I will trust Him to do as He has promised.
Can you do me a solid and find someone to reach out to this week with something that will be hopeful for them?
How has God comforted you in the past?
Can you extend that comfort to someone in the next few days?
I think you may be surprised what God might do when you pass on His comfort to others.
This episode is a bit shorter than usual, but that’s probably okay since I’ve been long winded on the show recently!
As always when I drop a shorter episode, I am going to challenge and encourage you with this:
Keep your earbuds in as if the podcast were still playing (if you use earbuds…if you don’t, which I don’t, maybe improvise on this a bit). And use the remaining time that would normally be part of the podcast episode and spend it in prayer and also being quiet before the Lord, in a listening posture if you will.
This exercise is never going to add up to wasted or squandered time.
It’s so good to do this regularly, just you and the Lord, together in a quiet, focused setting where you are poised to listen and you share your heart with Him. I do hope you’ll do that today.
Thanks so much for listening today. Check out that link for the giveaway and also, along with the 150th episode of The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, I’m dropping the first seven episodes of my new podcast, The Prayer Podcast with Jan L. Burt.
The subject matter is pretty self explanatory and I hope you’ll check it out when it launches.
Have a truly blessed day, my friend, and remember that God’s promise to comfort you is a promise you can depend on, always, day after day.
I’ll see you next time.
Bye bye.
