Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, December 18th.

We all know what it feels like to face life's bumps and bruises, the struggles, the pain, the unexpected challenges.

But here's something incredible. God never lets us walk alone in those moments. He walks with us, offers his peace, and holds us close.

Stay with us as we dive into the God who cares enough to comfort us,

a source of hope and strength when we need it most.

I am persuaded that if most people knew what God was really like,

rather than reject him, they would

turn to him, they would love him and obey him. It is our own sense of unworthiness, our sense of

sinfulness, our disappointment within ourselves, our own rebellious spirit that causes us to have a very

distorted view of God. God is not a God who condemns men and women.

He's a God rather who comforts them. He's a God who cares. A loving father who cares for every

single one of us. And this is the title of this message, the God who cares enough to comfort us

when we hurt. And if you'll turn, please, to 2 Corinthians chapter 1.

And in this 2nd Corinthian epistle, Paul begins writing to the Corinthians, and he describes

God in the most beautiful fashion when he says in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord

Jesus Christ, the Father of Mercies, and the God of all comfort,

who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any

affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ

are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted,

it is for your comfort and salvation. Or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is

effective in the patient, enduring of the same sufferings,

which we also suffer.

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