While I was speaking at a conference, our hosts gave my wife and me a picturesque cabin to stay in, right on the side of this beautiful mountain. I was unusually motivated to get my exercise there, because it involved hiking up this scenic mountain all the way to the top. As I headed back down and neared our cabin, I had this notion that it would be nice to make the last stretch a romantic walk with my honey. There's a song I used to whistle to her outside her dorm window. (This is the place you go "Ahhhh!") Yeah, we were in college and we were engaged-a song we later had sung at our wedding. It starts with the words, "Because you come to me." Lapsing into romance mode, I started whistling our song. Little did I know my wife wasn't there! So no one came. I walked alone.
Let's face it. Life is actually like that sometimes. There are times when you really want-you really need-someone to walk with you, and there's no one there. Either they won't or they can't. Sometimes people who care about us would like to walk with us through what we're going through, but they just can't; they don't understand, they don't know how to help, they're too busy with their own issues, or they're just not there for any one of a hundred reasons. Maybe as you're listening today, you're just tired of walking alone.
What I'm about to say may sound too good to be true, but I would not offer you false hope. You don't ever have to walk alone again.
The reason that is not just a hollow hope is because it doesn't depend on the love of some human who may be there or may not be. It depends on the love of the God who made you-who is always there.
Listen to this ironclad promise of Jesus Christ in Hebrews 13:5our word for today from the Word of God. "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.
He says never. He's offering you a "never leave you" love. Some of Jesus' last words on earth to those who belong to Him are these: "Surely I am with you always" (Matthew 28:20).
After listing every conceivable force on earth, or in heaven, or in hell that might take His love away, Romans 8:39 says,
Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
No loopholes. No conceivable situation in which you will find Jesus and His love not there. But experiencing His love isn't automatic. In fact, the Bible explains that the central reason for our loneliness and our aloneness is that we're living outside of God's love. We're like the earth deciding to leave the orbit it was created for, revolving around the sun, to just go off on its own. All life would cease, of course. We've decided to run our own life instead of living for the One who gave us our life, and we're out of the orbit we were made for. The Bible describes us as being
"without hope and without God in the world"
Ephesians 2:12 Our loneliness is ultimately cosmic loneliness. We are lonely for God.
But He loves you so much He wasn't willing to lose you, so He sent Jesus. That's His one and only Son, and He sent Him to die for the sin that separates you from Him. So He could forgive you, so you could live in His love, so you can be in heaven with Him forever. And now that love is working inside your heart. You can feel that. He's drawing you His direction. This can't be a one-way love, though. You have to open up to what He died to give you. How do you do that? Well, you tell Him that you are placing the rest of your life in His hands; hands that bear the eternal evidence of His love for you. You can tell how much He loves you. Look at the nail prints in His hands.
Today is your day to grab Him as your personal Savior from your personal sin and experience the love that you were made for.With Jesus in your life, will you ever feel lonely again? Sure you will. There'll be lonely times, but you'll never be alone again. You have His word on it.
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