Following the
apostle Paul’s words of thanks and appreciation for the Lord producing
salvation in the believers of Thessalonica, he presents a short prayer. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ
himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good
hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work
and word (2 Thessalonians
2:16-17).
Here, Paul states 5 truths, then he makes 2
requests of the Lord which remain true for all believers. These few lines
highlight much needed spiritual maintenance for Christian hearts for rising
above the difficulties of living in a spiritually harsh environment.
First,
the intimate relationship between God and believers is sensed as Paul directs his
thoughts through “our” Lord Jesus Christ
to “our” Father
God. Salvation has not produced some illusive or generic association of
religious people with an impersonal deity. No, every believer is directly
connected, as divinely adopted children (Eph 1:5), to their heavenly Father
through the Father’s son Jesus Christ.
Second, God the Father and Son were, and continue, to engage with
believers in selfless relational love. Which enables the third truth; God’s
love, once embraced through the gospel, produces eternal
comfort. Salvation is so comprehensive that the results are experienced
through eternal life which transferred us from being enemies to being children
in God’s secure comfort. Hostility with God is replaced with eternal relief
from the consequences of our sin. Isolation is replaced with Holy Spirit
enabled intimacy. We belong to God for eternity, unable to be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom
8:35-39).
Fourth, the loved and comforted child of God is gifted with hope. Not just
a momentary emotional desire that life may go well, but with an expectation of God
fulfilling all His promises as if already being fulfilled. This hope is
convincing, it’s certain because it comes at the expense of the Lord Jesus’ death
and resurrection.
Fifth,
spiritual hope within the Christian stands secured by God’s amazing grace. Without
God’s grace there would be no salvation, no relationship with God, and no
possibility of forgiveness with eternal life. Fear of separation from God is
replaced by the indwelling and sealing work of the Holy Spirit, guaranteeing security
that is not dependant upon our ability to live perfectly. Every blessing is
made and experience because of God’s grace,
which is accessed through belief in Jesus Christ.
With these 5 certainties in Paul’s mind, he asks
God to comfort hearts and to establish the comforted hearts in every good work and word (2Th 2:17). The idea
of comfort here, is that of calling near the believer so they can experience a depth
of loving grace that cannot be experienced from a distance. Comfort is critical,
for without it humans can easily drift away from intimacy with the Lord.
Comfort motivates the believer to stay close, to rest in Him while waiting upon
Him for needs to be met. Comfort’s target is the deep and personal recesses of
our hearts, where no one sees, other than God. However, everyone will be able
to see the effects of God’s comfort through our living.
This is why Paul asks God to establish His comfort. To establish simply means to set it firmly. In
other words, to attach comfort so solidly within the believer that it cannot be
moved. This is what enables good works and words to flow out from us in God’s
strength for God’s glory, even when life is difficult. May the grace of God impact
each of us in these ways for God’s praise and our blessing.
