Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Never forsaken, never abandoned.”
Our Bible verse for today: “The mountains may move and the hills may disappear, but even then My faithful love for you will remain.” Isaiah 54:10 (NLT)
Our thought for today: “God’s love never fails.”
Do you remember back in the early chapters of the book of Genesis as God was viewing His creation and He declared it all to be good? It reads like this: “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.” Genesis 1:31 (HCSB). Earth, sky, sun, moon, plants, trees, fish, animals, and man – God created it all and declared it all to be “good”. Do you know what was the very first thing in the Bible that God declared to be “not good”? It was loneliness. In Genesis 2:18 it says, “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.”
Psychologists tell us that lonely people are less happy, less healthy, and they die younger than those who are not lonely. And here’s the really sad part – it’s not necessary for anyone to be lonely. Just because a person doesn’t have a spouse – or even a boyfriend or girlfriend, there is still no reason for that person to be lonely. First and foremost, God Himself is willing and able to provide a relationship that is closer, more intimate, and more deeply fulfilling, than any relationship any of us will ever have with another person. In Hebrews 13:5 when the writer quoted God as saying “I will never leave you or forsake you”, he was simply repeating a sentiment that God had already expressed in multiple ways through numerous writers, all throughout the Old and New Testaments.
There is no better antidote for loneliness than a close relationship with God. But another and indispensable way in which God manifests His love and His presence to us, and a way in which He counteracts the loneliness we might otherwise experience, is by placing us in a good church family. A healthy and close church family is the perfect place for an otherwise lonely person to find people who love and care about them and who are eager to spend time with them.
At Oak Hill Baptist there are a lot of things we don’t have. We don’t have big crowds, and we don’t have a fleet of church vans; we don’t have multi-million dollar buildings and we don’t have a preacher with big hair and a television show. But we do have something else that matters even more – we have a close-knit church family who truly loves and cares for one another. We have an entire church of people who are involved in each others lives, spend time together, help each other, carry one another’s burdens, and they truly enjoy being together. I can’t count the number of times a church member has told me that this is the one feature of our church that matters most to them and for which they are most grateful.
As we learned in Genesis chapter two, it’s not good for us to be alone. If you are lonely I want to encourage you to find companionship first in a close relationship with God and second, in a good church family. God’s love never fails and the place you should experience that love, caring, and companionship the most, is in a good church.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 