Mike Connell - Comfort in Times of Trouble

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Everyone experiences times of pressure, difficult, distress.When we're in pain, out thinking is affected, we tend to loseperspective, then isolate, and turn to false comforts.
The enemy of our soul likes to torment us, but God is a God ofComfort. We can position ourselves to experience great comfort intimes of distress. Learn how to experience the comfort of God,& the reality of His presence.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our LordJesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort,who comforts us in all our tribulation - that we may be able tocomfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with whichwe ourselves are comforted by God.
John 14:18 ... I will send to you another comforter.

Everyone experiences, at some point in our life, times of pressure,difficult, distress. How can we find solutions that work for us inthese times? How can we position ourselves to experience greatcomfort in times of distress. When we're in pain, out thinking isaffected, and we tend to lose perspective. We then easily isolate,and turn to false comforts. The enemy of our soul likes to tormentus, but God is a God of Comfort. Learn how to experience thecomfort of God, the reality of His presence, and the comfort ofScriptures.

Can you ever recall, as a child, being comforted during a time ofemotional distress? When someone actually connected with you,listened to you, understood your pain, and gave you reassuranceafterwards, so you felt better?
Sadly, many of us were not comforted, but developed ungodlyreactions. Discover what comfort is NOT, and what doeshelp.

Barnabus - The Son of Comfort - is a tremendous role model of aComforter/Encourager. Study the key qualities in his life that gavehim this ministry.
All of us can be encourager's and builders of people. See whatcomfort looks like in the life of this great Apostle.

Audio: The Comfort of theScriptures (1 of 3).mp3
Audio: Key Ingredients of Comfort(2 of 3).mp3
Audio: Are You a Comforter (3 of3).mp3

YouTube Playlist
YouTube: The Comfort of the Scriptures (1 of3).mp4
YouTube: Key Ingredients of Comfort (2 of3).mp4
YouTube: Are You a Comforter (3 of3).mp4

Vimeo Channel
Vimeo: The Comfort of the Scriptures (1 of3).mp4
Vimeo: Key Ingredients of Comfort (2 of3).mp4
Vimeo: Are You a Comforter (3 of3).mp4

Everyone experiences, at some point in our life, times ofpressure, difficult, distress. How can we find solutions that workfor us in these times? How can we position ourselves to experiencegreat comfort in times of distress. When we're in pain, outthinking is affected, and we tend to lose perspective. We theneasily isolate, and turn to false comforts. The enemy of our soullikes to torment us, but God is a God of Comfort. Learn how toexperience the comfort of God, the reality of His presence, and thecomfort of Scriptures.

KeyVerse: Romans 15:4 Whatever things were written before, werewritten for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort ofthe scriptures, might have hope.

Whatever was written before (speaking about the rest of theBible) was written with a purpose in mind - for our learning thatwe, through patience and comfort of the scriptures might havehope.

Oneof the things that's inevitable is that, everyone experiences atsome point in our life, times of pressure, difficulty,distress.

EvenJesus Himself had great distress. Jesus said: in the world you willexperience tribulation, or pressures, or difficulties.

Howmany recognise that life is not all sweet? Lots of stuff happensthat you don't like, or wish didn't happen. So what we're lookingat is: how to find solutions that work for you in thosetimes?

There are many sources of problems - you can probably addyour own list to this, but let me throw out some I was thinkingof...

Marriage can be a source of pressure and difficulty and pain.Family can be a source of pressure and difficulty and pain,especially when it comes to the beginning of the year - paying allthe bills. Then in their teenage years... there's stresses anddifficulty. So marriage, and broken friendships, can cause realpain and stress and difficulty.

Financial setbacks - how many have been through a financialpressure, difficulty, stress - and really feltsomething?

Acriticism can be extremely distressful. Injustice can be extremelydistressful; conflicts, disappointment. The list goeson.

Themore you look around, the more you see that we face a whole rangeof things - betrayals, sickness, redundancy. Life is full ofsetbacks and difficulties.

Thething we also should expect: that as a believer - it's normal tohave that; and as a believer - you'll have more, because you followJesus. How about that?

Itsays: Many are the afflictions of the righteous. However, thegood news: The Lord delivers him out of them all - and I'minterested how the Lord delivers. I want to know how to find, andexperience, the comfort of God in the midst of stress.

TheBible tells us here: that through the comfort of the scriptures.God has given you the Bible to produce specific things in yourlife: teaching, correction, reproof, and structure on how to live.But one thing it says here is: it's designed to bring comfort toyou.

Weneed to learn how to get comfort from the Bible, and to understanda little about it. There's a reason we need comfort - we can learnhow to position ourselves to experience great comfort in times ofdistress. In the next session, I want to share on how you cancomfort others with scriptures, and we'll see that very clearly injust a moment.

Sothere are three reasons that I thought of, primary reasons, why weneed comfort when we're in distress:

1)When your feelings are hurt - our thinking is affected, and we loseperspective. When you're in a lot of pain - it affects how youthink about yourself, about God, about life, about people, aboutchurch, about government, all kinds of things.

Yourthinking is affected when you're in pain, and the tendency is tolose perspective. Remember Elijah, when he got into tremendous fearand pain, he was fearful of losing his life. He totally lost hisperspective. In the end he said: I'm the only one in the wholenation that's standing for God; and God had to tell him: actuallythere's 7000!

Notice his perspective is all screwed up - and it's messed upbecause of pain that he's feeling; so one of the things we have torecognise is: when you start to go through feelings of pain, itaffects your perspective - how you think, and for a while you justdon't think straight.

Whatyou tend to do is to isolate. That's the problem, we tend toisolate.

Proverbs 18:1 He that separates (or isolates himself)seeks his own desire.