April 1, 2014 Living In Loneliness Or Living In Love (2)
Tuesday April 1, 2014
For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” (Zephaniah 3:17 NLT)
There are two primary forms of loneliness that people suffer from:
1. Social loneliness – brought on by a lack of understanding in family relationships and/or a non-existent social network.
2. Emotional loneliness – the absence of a close loving relationship. Acquaintances may help with social loneliness but emotional health requires love and a committed caring relationship.
Our Heavenly Father made us to be in loving relationship with Him and with each other. When our relationship with Him is broken we are not being nurtured each day by His unfailing love. When we are hungry for the love of our Heavenly Father we are unable to receive love from, or give love to, others. When we draw near to God, and choose to be filled up each day with His love, then we are on our way to being emotionally healthy and stable enough to give to others what we have received from God.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12 NIV)
Loneliness can lead us into all sorts of immoral relationships. Sharing life with friends is a natural yearning of the human heart. Often when we are lonely and disconnected we seek sexual intimacy and use live-in relationships that are less than a life-time marriage commitment to fill the gap. However, all the physical contact in the world cannot fill an empty, lonely heart. We long for relationship in commitment. Our hearts yearn to be cared for and to be understood. Close intimacy in a committed loving relationship brings satisfaction and contentment to both participants. Nothing else truly satisfies.
There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” (1 Corinthians 6:16-17 MSG)
God desires to fill our empty, lonely hearts with His love. However, rather than seeking Him we seek to find it in another human being. We humans were never meant to meet all the needs of another. No person can be God for another person. When we are needy there is only one person who can meet all our needs and that is our Heavenly Father through His beloved son Jesus.
Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:27-30 MSG) God will honour all the promises He makes in the Bible. Why not keep company with Jesus and have a fulfilling relationship with Him? Along the way you will meet others who are in relationship with Jesus and together you will find the love you are unknowingly seeking.
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