DECEMBER 22
"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8
Have you ever seen the invisible gorilla experiment? Well if you haven’t you can watch it here. The premise is that you are set a challenge to see how many passes the team dressed in white make with a basketball. While your attention is focussed on the task a man dressed in a gorilla suit walks right through the shot but most people, including me, do not see it the first time because they are focussed elsewhere. It is called ‘selective attention’ and was developed by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris in 1999.
Something happened to me this week that made me think. I was in a situation where I could have easily slipped back into an issue that had been resolved in my mind almost a year ago. I had pressure to, as it were, ‘step back into the arena’. I have recently returned from an excellent Christian retreat so it was an easy decision. I just repeated the word ‘No’ until I was heard.
I said to someone who challenged my decision,
“Look I am not the enemy here - I am the decoy. The devil is busy focussing the attention on me and while everyone is getting worked up he is boldly walking around the back and reeking havoc.”
It dawned on the previously dissenting voice that maybe I was right. Rather like the ‘selective attention’ experiment, we can be too focussed on the detail but what really matters is the bigger picture.
Remember in the scheme of it all, we are a strand of rope that holds the picture frame - with Christ in the centre. If we find that we are in the centre, then the proportion of the picture is all wrong.
Today's song is by the Gaither Vocal Band and is called 'Yes I know'
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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
