Feb 24, 2021 … Overcoming Loneliness

Berry Patch Devotions in 2020 - Day 55 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...  Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Michael W Smith singing … I’ll Be Your Friend…  Poignantly singing of how we Christians must - like Christ - be a friend of fellow believers to avoid loneliness in this world. 

LONELINESS ... The ever-present pandemic !! 

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Highlight Passage:  Ecclesiastes 4:9-10  [ESV] ... 

9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 

… God declares, thru Solomon, that “Lone Ranger” faith is always inadequate to handle live’s trials.       

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Highlight Passage [Context]: …  Ecclesiastes 4:7-12 [ESV] …  USE THIS LINK … 

… Solomon declares God’s feelings about loneliness. 

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Reference Passage: … Genesis 2:18 [ESV] … 

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 

…  From the beginning, God declares that it’s not good that man would be alone in God’s world. 

Reference Passage: … Matthew 29:20 [ESV] … 

3  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  

…  In His great commission, Jesus declares that He will never leave nor forsake His born-again disciples.   

Reference Passage: …  John 15:13-15  [ESV] ... USE THIS LINK … 

…  Jesus declares to His disciples (and to us) that He is the friend of any who follow His commands.  But do we?   

Reference Passage: …  Romans 8:38-39  [ESV] ... USE THIS LINK … 

…  Paul exhorts fellow Christians that NOTHING can separate a true, born-again, believer from the love of God … NOTHING!!   

Reference Passage: … Hebrews 10:24-25 [ESV] …  USE THIS LINK ... 

…  God commands Christians to gather TOGETHER, encouraging and helping one another, thereby dispelling loneliness.    

My Devotional Journal: Today's Our Daily Bread author, Lisa M Samra, AT THIS LINK   … Quotes author Maggie Fergusson in The Economist’s 1843 magazine, who wrote about loneliness in those times:  “It can be an affliction more harrowing than homelessness, hunger, or disease.” 

How many of my fellow Christian readers have learned that “Lone Ranger Christianity” just doesn’t cut it in this “dog-eat-dog” world.  Do I sense a robust “AMEN!”  I hope so; because loneliness is a pandemic which far surpasses Covid19 in our times, and always has since God declared (see Genesis 2:18) that it was not good that man would be alone.   And also when Solomon declared (see Eccles 4:9-10) that two, working together, is ALWAYS better than going it alone in life. 

So, … after meditating on all the truths above and taking in the linked song, whom here would join me today to reach out and be a friend to a fellow believer - or even a non-believer - when God presents someone - AND HE LIKELY WILL - who might need our help?  

Common, friend, let’s be friends with others today.  Let’s do our Hebrews 10:24-25 best to encourage and work together as Christians in these viral times which so produce an increase in the social pandemic of loneliness.  

My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh Abba Father, ... thank You, Lord, … for giving us the opportunity to be a friend to others … maybe even today.  

My Prayer Today:   Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray that all reading here will join me, … to break thru the loneliness all around us and be a friend - a <u>REAL FRIEND</u> - to someone else today.     … Amen 

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Blogger Note:  Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled “Our Daily Bread,” distributed online via email by RBC Ministries.  If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.