“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation.”— Colossians 1:21-22
“Alienated from God” means isolation, loneliness, and a deep sense of not belonging. Separated from God, looking from afar at Him as an enemy rather than the Father who loves you, is a terrible, lonely place to be. Even as believers, we can feel alienated if we keep God distant.
The late Princess Diana once said that loneliness is the worst affliction human beings can suffer. This from a woman beloved and surrounded by thousands of people, yet for her own reasons, she understood loneliness.
Ephesians 4:18 tells us, “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.”
The ultimate loneliness is separation from the life God intends for us. Deep loneliness is not knowing and experiencing all He wants for us, not knowing His people and the love and support available to us.
God understands our need to be connected to other people.
That is why He invented fellowship.
That’s why a church can serve as a family for those who have no one else to love them.
Don’t let yourself be alienated from God. That’s why Jesus died —to reconcile all of us to the God who loves us, and to give us a group of people, however imperfect, to love us and to be loved by us.
“When Christ said: ‘I was hungry and you fed me,’ He didn’t mean only the hunger for bread and food; He also meant the hunger to be loved. Jesus Himself experienced this loneliness. He came amongst His own and His own received Him not, and it hurt Him then and it has kept on hurting Him. The same hunger, the same loneliness, the same having no one to be accepted by and to be loved and wanted by. Every human being, in that case, resembles Christ in His loneliness, and that is the hardest part, that’s real hunger.” —Mother Teresa
Pray, ask God to fill that need, and He will certainly hear your prayers and draw you close, to love you and give you a sense of belonging.
