Devotions about Loneliness | from Devotional Christian

I Need Christian Friends

April 8, 2010

I need friends in my life. I don’t just mean friends who make me laugh or smile, but friends who love me enough to share what God is doing in their lives and who are willing to share correction with me. I need friends who will help me grow to be more like Christ. I was reminded of this a couple weeks ago over a cup of coffee.

I asked my friend how I could be praying for her and what God had been teaching her that week. As she opened up and shared her heart with me, I was amazed. Her zeal for God was contagious and I wanted more of that. Her love for others broke through my heart of selfishness and the Holy Spirit began convicting me that I too need to selflessly love and care for others more. I left that coffee shop freshly encouraged to love God more and to live each day in service to Him.

I think this is what the writer of Hebrews was referring to when He said: And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Heb 10:25)

As a part of the body of Christ, we are called to grow into His likeness, through His Spirit’s enabling, as well as build up and support each other in the body. Paul reminds us in Ephesians 4:16: From him [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. God has not called us to run this race alone, but He has graciously given us the Body to provide encouragement, support, care and even correction at times.

I am thankful for the friends that God has given me who continue to point me to Christ and encourage me to live each day for Him. Let us learn from the writer of Hebrews and consider how we can motivate our friends towards love and good works, how we can point them to God, and how we can encourage them with the glorious hope found in the gospel of Christ.

[copyright, 2010, Emily Schankweiler; A Sacrifice of Praise]

Tags friendship, Hebrews 10:25, loneliness
Comments: #4

Is God Faithful When Life Hurts?

October 21, 2009

Filed In Daily Devotionals

“I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” (Psalm 119:75)

Often times in my life, affliction does not feel like God’s care being poured out on me. My heart is not immediately drawn to thanksgiving and gratefulness for the faithfulness of God on display. Rather, it feels like yet another hurt is being permanently woven into my tattered and war-torn soul. It seems as if another mound of questions are piling up and just waiting for an answer and a hope.

I can relate to the writer of Psalm 42 who said “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”

It’s at those very times that the gospel is so critical. But, how do we connect the dots between what we know is true about God’s faithfulness and what our hearts feel?

When tossed about by the waves, weary from crying and when no answer seems at hand, what is the answer? When my circumstances show many foes rising up against me and my heart is prone to wander and fear, what hope is there of peace? When my feelings start controlling my thoughts, how can I rest in God’s promises?

As D. Martin Lloyd-Jones puts it in his book Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure:

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? … The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: ‘Why art thou cast down’–what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: ‘Hope thou in God’–instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God’.

The hope of the cross gives me the confidence to know that God will never turn away from me in my need. Jesus died to meet my greatest need, and I need to preach this to myself every day. His power is greater than my weariness and suffering. The gospel reminds me that what Jesus has done is reason enough for my soul to rejoice.

It’s because of the cross that I can truly say “in faithfulness you have afflicted me” as I learn to see my sufferings in light of who God is.