Epaggelia

The 17th century Poet, John Milton said, “Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named not good ”.  Since the beginning we have not evolved to remedy our problem of loneliness, even with over 6.5 billion people on earth together at the same time, we still have a suicide rate that staggers the imagination, fuelled by the ancient problem of loneliness.  God from the start of our existence has worked to help us solve it, yet we still ignore the very answer to the problem. Even with greater communication skills and transportation technology, loneliness still sometimes gets the better of us. When God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone, I will make a helper who is right for him” (Gen. 3:18).  He gave us the answer in preventing loneliness. That is, admit we need help! It is our prideful arrogance that suggests we need no help, which can put us out on a limb without a friend. Can we admit that there is no better friend than Jesus? Solomon’s insight proclaims, “a man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother (Prv. 18:24). Jesus promised everyone His eternal presence, if we obey him in making disciples. 

Jesus said “…I am always with you until the end of time”. Matthew 28:20 God’s promise to give Himself to everyone who obeys Him, should be a delightful prospect for us, Acts 5:32, but sadly many of us lack faith in His promise of fellowship, sharing Himself with our spirit. Herein lay the root cause of our loneliness, that is a lack of faith in God and each other. If we do not believe that God or even our spouse doesn’t really want to be with us, then the pain of loneliness sets in. The world we live in today, is bent on convincing us that God doesn’t want to be with us. There are more agnostics and atheists in our Media than Christians, and we are influenced by them when we give more time to them, than to God’s word. The apostle John writes, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith”, 1John 5:4.  Worldly people often deny God’s presence in our life, but a Christian should never even dream of the Spirit of Christ not residing in our body. The apostle Paul ratified the divine promise when he wrote to Christians, “…you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God abides in you, Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Rm. 8:9). A sense of belonging and being wanted, conquers loneliness. God doesn’t want us to live our life here on earth, feeling like orphans. He wants to be an ever present loving Father, giving Christians the Spirit of Christ, defeating the ever encroaching problem of loneliness which this world of sin shoves upon us from time to time in our life.  

In 1935, the novelist H.G. Wells at age 65 on his birthday, wrote, “I am lonely and have never found peace”. Why? Because H.G. Wells never found Jesus as his personal Savior and friend! It does not matter how famous we are, or how rich we are, or how smart we are, if we do not know Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, we never get to experience peace with our Creator & Judge. There is a divine friendship which God wants every human spirit to explore and enjoy. Jesus equals peace because peace is friendship with God our Creator & Judge.  A favourite phrase of Jesus was to say, “Peace be unto you…”, He used it several times, but we should learn exactly what He meant when He said, “ My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives…(Jn 14:27). 

Ancient Gideon testified that God is peace, Judges 6:24, do you believe this?