GODS ANSWER TO LONELINESS!

I once read about an elderly Christian lady who lived all alone. Partly crippled, she had to rely primarily on the good will & help of her neighbours. She spent some of her weary hours keeping a diary, although no one knew why; for she had precious little to record. Finally the Lord called her to himself. It is reported that she lay dead for several days before anyone missed her! In looking through her few belongings, someone discovered her diary. Most of the book contained nothing of interest. In fact, near the end of her life, as one monotonous day followed another, she wrote only three pathetic words on page after page: "No one came! NO ONE CAME!" In essence, she left a record saying, "I am so lonely!"

Read these quotes...

Alfred Lord Tennyson visited Queen Victoria and wrote, "Up there in all her glory and splendor she was lonely!"

Vance Havner was one of America’s greatest preachers for many years before his death. Before he went home to be with the Lord, his wife of many years died. After his wife passed, Havner called himself, "God's lonely old man." He was looking forward to being reunited with her in heaven.

Albert Einstein reportedly once said, “It is strange to be so universally known and yet to be so lonely.”

Loneliness strikes at the heart of the most famous & the totally unknown people of the world. 

Loneliness is a real problem and a real issue for everyone at one time or another.

Most of us do not think of loneliness when we view the Great Commission. This passage is often looked at as one dealing with evangelism, missions & church growth, & certainly those elements are in this passage; however there is much more here. Note in the Great Commission that the greatest person in the world, gave the greatest group in the world, the greatest task in the world, but He still realized that they would need the assurance of the divine presence with them in order to complete it. I do not believe Jesus told us of His abiding presence simply because of the need for power to carry out the task, but He promised His presence because He knew that all who live in this world face loneliness. 

Matt 28:18-20, And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

The question is, If Loneliness is such an issue! How can we be rid of loneliness! 

One man went to the psychiatrist and said, "Please doctor, make me a split personality." The doctor asked why. The man replied, "So I can talk to myself." Well, many of us talk to ourselves but the conversation can be depressing!

Note in the Great Commission that we find the answer for loneliness.

1. You Must have a Supernatural Identity... Jesus came to His disciples because they belonged to Him. He spoke to them. He commanded them. He promised them. He loved them. He led them. When you belong to Jesus, He comes to you, He speaks to you, He commands you, He promises you, He loves you & He leads you. He can remove your loneliness.

2. You Must have a Spiritual Community... The disciples were sent out two-by-two. Why didn’t the Lord send them out alone? The Lord knew we needed to have the presence of fellow servants along the road of life. Even serving Him requires fellow servants by our side. The Bible tells us not to abandon our meeting together. God meant for us to be in a community of believers. 

We need each other. The Lord is with us as Christians all the time, but He promised a special presence when we meet together. 

Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.””

The Pentecost event, when the Holy Spirit was first poured out on all believers, is an interesting occurrence. You see, Pentecost was the reversal of Babel! When the Tower of Babel was built, God confused the languages & people were separated from each other. At Pentecost, God brought all the believers together in unity even though they came from different languages, various countries and multiple backgrounds. They understood each other. 

Loneliness was replaced with love and partnership! Separation was replaced with association & fellowship. Those deeply involved in God’s work in the local church have a community of life and support around them at all times.

3. You Must have a Servant Mentality... "Go..make..teach..baptise.." Jesus tells us to reach out to others. One way to overcome loneliness is to minister to others. No matter how lonely you are, there are people out there that are lonelier than you are. 

Someone once said, “To have a friend, be a friend.” God says, “To have a friend, have the Friend closer than a brother & go serve in His name.” When we reach out to help others in Jesus name, loneliness evaporates. People are waiting for someone to take away their loneliness; God calls on you to go help someone else know of His salvation and love. When we obey Him, our loneliness flees!

A young boy named Bill was walking home from school with his arms filled with various things when suddenly he tripped and dropped them on the sidewalk. Books, a tape recorder, a baseball bat, baseball glove, & two sweaters spilled all over the place. Another student named David was walking behind him. He hurried over to Bill, whom he did not know, & helped him pick things up & carry them home. Bill invited David into his home. They drank a soft drink & watched Television. They became good friends. They did many things together over the next three years until they came to high school graduation night. Bill came up to David and said, "There is something I must tell you. You remember the day I was walking home from school & dropped my books and things? Well, have you ever wondered why I was carrying those things home that day? I had cleaned out my locker & was going home to kill myself. I was so lonely and life had no meaning, I was ready to kill myself. I had saved a few of my mother's sleeping pills & I was going to take them that afternoon. David, the day you picked up my books, you picked up my life. You saved my life."

If you want to overcome loneliness, look for someone to help. It will not only rid you of loneliness, you just might save someone’s life – or better yet, you might help them come to know Christ & experience a soul that is saved for eternity.

Someone has said that we need three basic things in life:

1. We need to be loved... You are loved and in Christ you are identified with Him. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. He loves you and abides with the Christian at all times.

2. We need to be understood... In Christ, you are understood. In God's loving family you discover who you are and what you are do with your life. I have found that a church family is a wonderful place to dispatch loneliness. There are people in the family of God who will love you, help you, pray for you, & work for the Lord alongside you.

3. We need to be needed... In the family of God you are needed. Everyone has something to do in God’s kingdom.

When I was a disciple my pastor told me I belonged & God has something for me...I asked what can I do! So I started setting up the chairs for chair. As time went on I was appointed as an usher. That ministry it locked me in & I was so busy, no time to be lonely! 

What can you u do for God in this church? You are needed! Find a place to serve God’s people. Don’t wait around to be served. You can defeat loneliness by being a servant to others.

Jesus told us to go out into the world & reach people! He promised to be with us. Because of His presence with us, & our presence in serving Him among others, loneliness can be dispelled & defeated! As we serve Him, He promises to be with us.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!

Count Your Blessings!

A man stood in our congregation and spoke about the fact that we should all count our blessings! He had been living here in Australia for 7 years. In 2016 his son was treated for cancer which cost 3k a tablet… If he had been back in the country he originated from he could never of afforded the treatment and his son may not be with us today! COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS!

Life comes at us fast. Some times good things happen, and other times we face an onslaught of difficulty after difficulty. When the waves of strife drive our faces into the dirt, we must not give up, lose heart, or stop trusting God. But lest “trusting God” becomes a mere cliché for us, God has ordained things for us to do to keep our minds fixed upon Him. It is a willful act that we must do to think upon Him and remember Who He is and what He has done. As Paul says in Colossians 3:2, “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” We are vulnerable to getting overwhelmed by the nonsense of this world, and it is imperative that we remember some things, particularly, that which is true about the many blessings which we have in Christ.

Surely, we can think of instances of answered prayer, of God’s provision, of God’s graces, of God’s good and perfect gifts to us, and of the mercy of God. We have the memories of past acts of God on our behalf, and we have the promise of our future inheritance in Christ to look forward to. In the meantime, we have the Word of God to remind us of the good heart of God. We should benefit from all three. Many times in Israel’s history, after a wonderful work of God, the Israelites would dedicate a song or build an altar in memory of what God had done. They were to tell their children of the mighty acts of God lest future generations would forget His faithfulness. We, too, need to look back and remember what God has done for us. There is hope in remembering where we were and seeing how God in all wisdom delivered us from ourselves or from enemies. God is so gracious, and we cannot take His grace for granted. Rather, we should thank Him for His provision, trust Him in the present, and think on the great blessings coming to us in the coming kingdom.

Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:8, “If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” Elsewhere, we read that he learned to be content in any circumstance (Philippians 4:11), and it was the constant presence of Christ which made his contentment possible (Hebrews 13:5). Paul didn’t learn contentment overnight, but it was over time through a great deal of suffering.  He learned not to overlook the basic, small provisions of God, but to be thankful for them.  With mere food and covering, he could be content.  Sometimes, God allows suffering to help us be mindful of all of the many smaller graces that He has given us in our lives.  It is easy to overlook things and take them for granted.  We should be thankful to God for them, as insignificant as they might seem.  Just comparing our state to somebody who is in a worse state does not necessarily make us feel better.  But if we thank God that we have the things that we realize that others might not be so fortunate to have, then our thanksgiving can change our perspective and bring us contentment.  We need to maintain Paul’s attitude of thankfulness for all things and in even the most dire and unfair of circumstances.  We need to make a point of it to thank God for the blessings that He gives us each and everyday.  One of the first steps into spiritual decay is to refuse to give God thanks after experiencing His goodness and seeing His power manifested on our behalf (Romans 1:21). If we fail to acknowledge Him, we can begin to feel proud and self-sufficient, which is a dangerous road to be on.  Rather, we need to acknowledge God’s provision in everything (Proverbs 3:5-6) so that we can stay on the straight and narrow path.  

God has been faithful, and He always will be. Even when we lack faith, still He is faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). Great is His faithfulness, and His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23). Every day God’s thoughts toward us are so numerous that they cannot even be counted (Psalm 139:17-18). So already we have more things to be thankful for than we can even name or count. We have “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Eternity in paradise is ours. When all else fails, God never fails, and His mercy, love, and kindness endure forever (Psalm 52:1).  As Paul knew firsthand, even in a dark, dank prison cell, these blessings stand fast. 

There is so much to be thankful for, and so many blessings to count. In fact, if only we could see all that God does, we would have more mercies than we could ever account for. Let us not let the missiles of the devil knock us down such that we forget that we have Christ and the many blessings of God. We should never lose hope, and we should always have reason to be thankful. So what are you waiting for? Start counting!