November 1
Had Israel been true to God, He could have accomplished His purpose through their honour and exaltation. If they had walked in the ways of obedience, He would have made them "high above all nations which He hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour." "All people of the earth," said Moses, "shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee." "The nations which shall hear all these statutes" shall say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." Deut. 26:19; 28:10; 4:6. But because of their unfaithfulness, God's purpose could be wrought out only through continued adversity and humiliation.
Desire of Ages, page 28 from the chapter, 'The chosen people'
There is an issue here that I met when reading in the New Testament this morning. This snippet from a verse is found in 2 Timothy, “Demas in love with this present world has deserted me.” I would ask you to indulge me and recognise that Demas simply didn’t want to obey. He wanted to go his own way.
Obedience is not the way of this world. A policeman speaking on a recent police programme on the television said that as time goes on people simply do not want to obey the rules of the society.
That characteristic can be found among Christians as well. People may learn that God wants this way of doing things or another method of living life. They might want to avoid doing God’s will. On being asked about their lifestyle people may say, “But God is a God of grace and not obedience. So long as I’m not hurting other people God will understand.”
The passage above does outline that God is a God of grace. The reading also shows that God is also a God who wants obedience.
God’s grace-full plan was for obedience and wonderful blessings. After all, God does have the whole world in His hands. The people would simply follow God because they loved God, blessings would follow. The people of Israel chose another way. However God did not simply abandon His people or His world in a fit of pique. God continues to carry out His plan and purpose – through you.
It might be that there might be adversity for you but God will continue to care for you. As we saw in our reading yesterday God really does care for the lilies of the field, the sparrows – and the Wren’s. Take time, with your prayer partner to recognise that he or she, or one of the people you are praying for, may be living in a time of adversity.
Could you work out a way to help someone in such a condition over this weekend? Could you offer a little of God’s grace?
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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
From October 21st this site will continue going through 'Desire of Ages' - but begin to advance rather faster than one paragraph at a time.
Our sister site, at the Upper Room, will progress at a rather slower pace - one paragraph at a time. If you want to head to our sister site for the slower trip through an excellent book you will eventually follow a link to the Upper Room. This will start on October 21st.
