Comforter for the Comfortable?
“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.”
John 14:16
You know, you would think that out of everybody in the world, the people that should be the least confused with Jesus’ teachings it would be his own disciples. That was not always the case. In John 14 we find Jesus teaching his disciples about things that were about to happen in regards to His death. The disciples still had in their mind that Jesus was going set up His kingdom on earth any day now. Jesus was trying to explain to them how He had to die. He also made them a promise. His promise was that when He left this earth, God would send a “Comforter”.
“Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
John 14:17
Jesus was obviously referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Bible commonly refers to the Holy Spirit as the Comforter. Only a child of God can receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells us the world cannot receive him because the world does not know him or can even see him. This makes perfect sense as you cannot receive something that you know nothing about or can’t even see.
But why do we as Christians need a Comforter? We should be fine, shouldn’t we? I mean we are children of the Almighty God, Everlasting Father. If we are His, why do we need comforting? Sadly, for a lot of Christians, that type of reasoning is an accurate way of thinking. We often get to comfortable in life. We often sit back and want to watch others answer the call of God. We want to sit in our padded pews and tell ourselves that we are good right where we are at. We don’t want to reach out. We don’t want to over-extend ourselves. We don’t want to get out of our comfort zones.
We tend to let fear get in our way of being fully accessible to God. God calls us to do something and we immediately begin to think of reasons why we can’t. I will be the first to admit that God’s call is not always an easy one to answer. It may be something that we don’t feel like we are talented enough to do. It may stretch us out financially. It may take up some of our free time. Heaven forbid it be anything more than praying for someone. We get in a routine in our lives and we don’t like to deviate from it. This is my life. Don’t bother me with things that don’t directly affect me. I’m not comfortable with that. I don’t want to. Do we think Jesus was comfortable on the cross after being beaten? Did He WANT to die a horrible death? Did He WANT to be beaten and spit upon? Did He WANT to leave Heaven to come to earth?
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
John 14:26
The Holy Ghost is referred to as the Comforter because He is sent to all of God’s children to provide us with whatever we need to fulfill the task that God’s asks of us. God would never ask of us something that we could not accomplish through Him. When we say “I can’t do that”, we are right. We can’t. However, God can through us and that is exactly what He wants to do.
Have you ever seen the look on a child’s face when they do something for the very first time that they didn’t feel like they could accomplish? I remember the fist time my son hit the baseball in a real game. His face glowed. He smiled for the rest of the game. Every time he came back to the dugout from the field, he would ask me what I thought about that hit. When he hit the ball, he was so excited he forgot to drop the bat. He carried it all the way to first base. It didn’t matter that he was thrown out at first base. What mattered was he went up there and fulfilled what his daddy and the coach asked him to do. God is not calling all to be Babe Ruth and hit a home run. For a lot of us, He just wants us to be willing to get in the batter’s box and swing the bat. We miss out on so many blessings because we are too afraid to get out of our comfort zone and answer the call of God. Fear can be paralyzing. We can allow fear to get such a grip on us that we can’t move. That is why God sends the Comforter. So that we can allow ourselves to used by Him is remarkable ways.