Our Devotional in Paul’s prayers continues.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
The short version is ‘God, please comfort those who are hurting.’ But Paul wraps that request in an awareness of God that is itself comforting. He starts by looking upward to the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father. This is the place to turn when you’re hurting: other people can provide comfort but only Jesus is Lord and only God is the perfect Father.
When the Bible talks about Jesus as Lord it means he is the one we have given the right to be in charge of our lives. We don’t do real well, in human strength dealing with things like sin and broken relationships; certainly not with tragic loss. But if we’ve allowed Jesus to own our lives, we can find strength. Jesus himself taught us to call God our Father in Heaven, to trust that he is the one who provides for us, and to pray that his perfect will be done on earth. (Matthew 6:9-13)
Two very different versions of that prayer:
