Be A Comforter

Isaiah 40:1, 41:13, 49:13b

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God...who takes hold of your right hand and says "Do not fear; I will help you." The Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

Matthew 9:36, Mathew 14:14, Matthew 20:34, Mark 1:41, Luke 7:13

Jesus was filled with compassion...

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

Three words were used in the NT for "compassion"; eleos and oiktirmos were usually translated as "mercy". Splanchnizomai was most often used for "compassion" and indicates being moved in heart (emotions), mind (intellect), and soul (will) to respond with action to comfort and relieve the suffering of another.

Johann Arndt

Give me … a compassionate heart, quickly moved to grieve for the woes of others and to active pity for them, even as our Lord Jesus Christ beheld our poverty and hasted to help us. Give me grace ever to alleviate the crosses and difficulties of those around me, and never to add to them; teach me to be a consoler in sorrow, to take thought for the stranger, the widow, and the orphan; let my charity show itself not in words only but in deed and truth. Teach me to judge, as Thou dost, with forbearance, with much (compassion) and indulgence; and help me to avoid all unloving judgment of others.

Samuel Chadwick

Compassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but It takes heart to comfort.

William Gurnall The Christian in Complete Armour "Why The Christian Must Be Armed"

No one handles poor souls so gently as those who remember the smart of their own heart-sorrows.

Jeremy Taylor

Relieve and comfort all the persecuted and afflicted; speak peace to troubled consciences; strengthen the weak; confirm the strong; instruct the ignorant; deliver the oppressed from him that spoileth him; and relieve the needy that hath no helper; and bring us all, by the waters of comfort, and in the ways of righteousness, to the kingdom of rest and glory, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Trample not on any (man); there may be some work of grace there, that thou knowest not of. The name of God may be written upon that soul thou treadest on; it may be a soul that Christ thought so much of, as to give His precious blood for it; therefore despise it not.

C.H. Spurgeon

Remember that your brethren and sisters in Christ, with whom you find so much fault, are God's elect. And if He chose them, why do you reject them? They are bought with Christ's blood, and if He thought them worth so much, why do you think so little of them? Recollect, too, that with all their badness there are some good points in them in which they excel you. They do not know so much, but perhaps they act better than you. It may be that they are more faulty in pride, but perhaps they excel you in generosity. Or if perhaps one man is a little quick in temper, yet he is more zealous than you.

Look at the bright side of your brother, and the black side of yourself, instead of reversing the order as many do.

As your heavenly Father has pity on you, have pity on one another. Jesus, the Compassionate One, covers our sins with the mantle of His love! Be as tender towards those who sin as the Master was. He remembers that we are dust; remember this of others. I will not find fault with you, my friend, if I can help it, because you will be one day without fault before the throne of God! If God will so soon remove your faults, why should I take note of them?

Octavius Winslow Daily Walking With God

(When) we gently lead (the afflicted) to God - if we conduct him to Jesus, portraying to his view the depth of His love, the perfection of His atoning work, the sufficiency of His grace, His readiness to pardon, and His power to save, the exquisite sensibility of His nature, and thus His perfect sympathy with every human sorrow; we have then most truly and most effectually soothed the sorrow, stanched the wound, and strengthened the hand.

A.B. Simpson