Friendship for the Lonely
Home > Practical Helps from Jesus Life > Friendship for the Lonely
 
 My Workspace
 Read (thoughts of others)
Editors Scholars My Favorite People Anyone

3 entries for this category:

Get Close to Jesus
Jesus says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Stick to me and you will have joy." In order to have joy we need to cling to Jesus through prayer, worship, scripture, obedience, because Jesus is God in the flesh. Getting to know him is getting to know God, and God is the most joy filled being in the universe. Just look at creation -- it`s joyful. As John Ortberg puts it, In Genesis 1 when God is creating, it doesn`t say, "In the beginning it was 9 o`clock so God got up, went to work, filled out a requisition to create light, and said, `That`ll do.`" It doesn`t say when it came time to create animals that God created a cat, and said, "well, that`s good enough, I don`t want to make any more animals. Besides, I`m not so crazy about the cat anyway.`" That`s not what it says. It says, God created all kinds of things and it was good. Birds, fish, mountains, rivers, aardvarks, all of this is a reflection of God`s joy and his delight. And just like hanging out with a fun person helps us to have more fun, if we get close to Jesus his joy will rub off on us.



By: Scott Dudley
Category: Friendship for the Lonely
(1) Comments
Comment Helpful? Favorite Violation
An Example of God`s Care for the Lonely
I know of a woman named Carol who was a bit of a loner. She didn`t have very many friends. To top it off, two of her closest friends committed suicide, each within a year of the other. She was devastated by this whole thing, so she started to pray, and said, "Jesus, if you`re real, well then, would you please use me to help prevent this from happening to someone else." A few weeks later Carol was making a routine phone call and she ended up getting a wrong number; some woman on the East Coast. But instead of just hanging up like you normally do with a wrong number, for some reason she started talking to the woman on the East Coast. They ended up having a great conversation. At the end the woman from the East Coast said, "Hey, can we do this again?" Carol said, "Why not?" So they ended up talking every week. They`d talk about their jobs, they`d talk about their hobbies, and eventually Carol started talking about her faith in Jesus.

This went on for a year. Finally, Carol had a business trip to the East Coast, so she decided that she`d go see this woman who by now had become a friend. So they got together for dinner, and in the course of their conversation this woman from the East Coast told Carol that the night when Carol had dialed her number by mistake, she had decided to kill herself. She`d driven to a bridge, she was going to jump off of it, but she ran out of gas ''so that was God''. She ended up having to go home instead, a little bit disappointed. That`s when Carol dialed her number by mistake. Their weekly conversations gave this woman something to look forward to week after week. As a result, she started to get curious about Jesus and decided to check him out. She started going to church, started praying, began to feel like Jesus was a real person not just some concept, and he cared about what was going on in her life. She started to make some friends at the church she was going to, and all of that made her feel like she wasn`t alone, that the God of the Universe loved her, that she had a reason for being on this planet, and she began to have joy for the first time in years. All of that from one wrong number.



By: Scott Dudley
Category: Friendship for the Lonely
(2) Comments
Comment Helpful? Favorite Violation
The reason God made human beings is because He wants to be with them. The reason that there is this deep secret loneliness inside of every one of us is that we have been separated from Him. And there is something else you should know. You don`t have to wait. You don`t have to wait anymore. Jesus` final words to His friends as He was leaving the earth were,
  • I am with you always, even to the ends of the earth. ''Matthew 28:20''

    Wherever you go,whatever you do.



    By: John Ortberg
    Category: Friendship for the Lonely
  • Comment Helpful? Favorite Violation

    Jesus' Open Invitation to Friendship
    "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." ( Revelation 3:20)

    Jesus Defines the Greatest Friendship
    "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." ( John 15:12-15)

     


    Share | Jesus Central on Facebook