Deep Comfort
Principle 3: Deep Comfort – Mourning hurt and guilt prepares the heart to receive God’s comfort.
(Matthew 5:4)
Basic Principle by Questions
- How would you feel if you needed something vital for life and you couldn’t get it or didn’t know how to get it?
- If you were neglected or abused, how might that feel personally and what kinds of responses does that kind of treatment evoke?
- How do you feel about your responsibilities to give to others some of the things they need to live? How do you feel when you fail intentionally or unintentionally to meet needs for others when you should and could have met them?
- By which do you seem to be more preoccupied: your feelings and reactions when your needs are not met or your feelings and reactions when you fail to meet the legitimate needs of others?
- How important is it for people to effectively deal with wrongs they have suffered, damage done to relationships, and sins they have committed? Explain “deal with”.
- Do you feel that God cares about damage done to you by others – intentional or unintentional?
- Do you feel that God cares about the damage you have done to relationships with others by what you have done or failed to do – intentionally or unintentionally?
- In your experience, what do people who have been really hurt by others do to deal with that kind of pain?
- How effective are those methods of dealing with the pain, sadness, disappointment, anger, or resentment felt by those who have been really hurt?
- What would it take to make right the relationships in your life that have gone wrong?
- What if no one initiates restoring a broken relationship with you?
- Who in your life has set a healthy example of how to deal with personal guilt?
How did they deal with it? - Who in your life has set a healthy example of how to deal with personal pain or disappointment? How did they deal with it?
- How would a person’s outlook on life and their level of hopefulness be enhanced if their pain/disappointment and personal guilt were appropriately, effectively healed?
Irreducible Minimums
- Loving comfort is the only real remedy for hurt, guilt, sadness, loneliness, and regret; and experiencing God’s comfort allows love to flow into us and from us. (Matthew 5:4)
- God is the Lord of all comfort and gives His comfort directly through His Holy Spirit, as well as through those who have experienced His loving comfort for themselves. (2 Cor. 1 :3,4)
- Prison of Unresolved Hurt & Guilt: Attempting to find comfort for hurt and guilt in the wrong places results in relief that is temporary at best and stops love from growing.
- God invites us to come and find rest from the burden and guilt we carry (Hebrews 12: 1 -2; Matthew 11: 28-30)
- The Psalmist practiced mourning hurt and guilt regularly and received the comfort God offered. (Psalm 40)
