February 2

     “The childhood and youth of Jesus were spent in a little mountain village. There was no place on earth that would not have been honoured by His presence. The palaces of kings would have been privileged in receiving Him as a guest. But He passed by the homes of wealth, the courts of royalty, and the renowned seats of learning, to make His home in obscure and despised Nazareth.”

                   Desire of Ages, page 68 from the chapter, 'As a child'

    We move on from the early days of the life of Jesus and find ourselves beginning to walk in the steps of Christ as He grows in little Nazareth. Nazareth is not the centre of the earth now. It wasn’t the centre of the earth in those days, but as we learned, God sent the family to Nazareth to keep His Son well away from trouble.

     The importance of this is that He did not get the influence of the scribes up in Jerusalem. They did not influence him. Of course He didn’t get their influence which means that He was more open to the influence of his own family.

     Who influences you? One of the important things about prayer partners is that you can influence each other for good. A few weeks back after a certain Sabbath School lesson we formed 2 small groups for evangelism in the Netherfield church. During the Sabbath School one group decided on a person they felt they could witness to. They prayed about the person and then created a strategy to reach out to that person.

     As it turns out the original lady they were to reach out to has moved her location. Sensible thought changed their contact but not their strategy. Last week the lady they were to reach out to had a need. The lady wanted to know how to pray. Who better to teach her to pray than the ladies who were praying for her?

     Who then do you influence for good?

 

     Housekeeping details for you

     The point of this short blog will become clear if you decide to use this reading in the way we intend it. Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in healthy churches. You can see what that means if you head to the relevant Healthy Churches page of the website. We also want other churches to be healthy. That means you can join in our campaign to create healthy churches, with healthy people serving the people in those churches.

     A healthy church is one where Jesus comes first. A healthy church is one where the people work together to put Jesus first. One thing we are doing is to join people together to spread that news. I would like you to look at our prayer partners page. This will explain how we want you to use this short devotional. Very basically we want you to find a like-minded Christian friend who you will join with to : choose to pray together every day, decide together on a way to serve other people together, to help them grow as Christians - and to invite the Holy Spirit into your life every day. This blog that you will receive every day simply gives a common spiritual purpose. If you are a newcomer and want to join the blog with this object in mind click here