Comfort

Be content with the things you have.  Contentment isn’t getting what you want, but being satisfied with what God has given you.

Jere. 17: 5-8   8 Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the Lord.  6  “For he will be like a bush in the desert And will not see when prosperity comes,  But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,  A land of salt without inhabitant.    7  “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord And whose trust is the Lord.  8  “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.

Psalm 139  1-18   1   O Lord, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;  You understand my thought from afar.  3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.  4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all.  5 You have enclosed me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me.  6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.  7 Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Or where can I flee from Your presence?  8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.  9 If I take the wings of the dawn,  If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,  10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.  11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,  And the light around me will be night,”  12        Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.  13 For You formed my inward parts;  You wove me in my mother’s womb.  14        I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;  Wonderful are Your works,  And my soul knows it very well.  15 My frame was not hidden from You,  When I was made in secret,  And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;  16        Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;  And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  18          If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.  When I awake, I am still with You.

2 Cor. 5:1-10   1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven,  3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked.  4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.  5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.  6Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.  7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.  8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.  9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.  10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.