Loneliness - Is There a Solution?

Loneliness is not a nice thing.  I remember being away from home on my own on a study tour, and feeling very alone, isolated, cut off.  It’s just not nice.  Especially when things do not always work out as you would have hoped.  Friends all gone and feeling very alone. 

Christians also feel very alone at times, but for them it’s usually a temporary thing.  Christians have Someone to Whom they can turn at any time and in any circumstances.  Jesus told us that He’ll not leave us like orphans after He goes, but will send another Comforter (Jn. 14:16, the Holy Spirit) to be with us right throughout life in this world.  And when Jesus said He would do this, He kept His word, and the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost.

Just one important thing to note: if anyone does not have the Spirit of God living in his/her life, s/he is not a Christian.  To have the Spirit of Christ living in you is to be a Christian.  Every Christian has the Spirit in Him.  But have you?  Is Christ living in you by His Spirit? 

What a comforter He is.  It is Jesus Who baptises, or fills, us with the Holy Spirit, as the Scriptures clearly teach (see Mt.3:11; Mk1:8; Lk.3:16; Jn 1:33; Ac.1:5; 11:6).  This is something He does.  And when He comes to us and floods our hearts with His grace and power, then we know that we are not alone anymore.  To have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who is given to us (Rom.5:5), is what sets Christians off from the rest of the world.  The Spirit has been given to us.  Do you realise that?  Do you realise Who it is that is dwelling in your heart?  God the Holy Spirit.  That means that you will never be left alone permanently.  He is not only with us but is in us. 

Friends, I say these things in order to stir up your hearts to know that Christ lives in us by that same Spirit.  And it is the presence and power of the Spirit of Christ Who helps us to pray.  When our praying is nothing but groaning in the very depths of our hearts, then it is that the Holy Spirit interprets our groaning and presents our praying groans perfect before God the Father.  God loves groaners, not moaners.

So, if we want our prayers to be effective, we must seek the filling of the Holy Spirit on a day by day basis.  Jesus said, you remember, “Without Me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5).  Maybe much of our difficulty in prayer lies in the fact that our relationship with God is merely a formal one.  Perhaps we have been trying to ‘do’ Christianity in our own strength and without seeking His enabling.  Maybe we are all much too self-sufficient for God to bother with us.  Pride in our Christian faith leaves us untouchable by God.  If we don’t need Him, He’ll not bother us.  That seeks eminently fair, does it not?

So let us ‘get real’ about Christ and His service.  Read through the book of Acts and see there what the normal Christian life actually is.  There you see the church throbbing with spiritual life.  Is your church like that?  Is it truly a New Testament Church?  Is your Christian experience a reflection of that of the first believers?  Or have you rationalised your spiritual deadness by saying that we are now living in ordinary days whereas the days of the apostles were extraordinary?  Are you buzzing with spiritual life and vitality and is your church the same?  Is your church so alive spiritually that if Paul was here today he would feel compelled to write to your church a letter like the one he wrote to the Corinthians in an attempt to curb excesses?  Is vibrant spiritual life a problem for you and your church?  Praise God if it is.  Or have you settled down to a spiritual life of mediocrity and believe that to be the norm?

These are disturbing questions that bring conviction of sin to us.  But we must put right what is patently wrong in our walk with Christ.  The Christian life is not meant to be ‘ordinary.’  Had that been the case, the first believers would not have been persecuted, imprisoned, or martyred.  The early Christians were full of the Holy Spirit, full of joy, of power, grace, love, assurance; and we were meant to be like them.  Now there’s a challenge.