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cember 16
“The heart of the human father yearns over his son. He looks into the face of his little child, and trembles at the thought of life's peril. He longs to shield his dear one from Satan's power, to hold him back from temptation and conflict. To meet a bitterer conflict and a more fearful risk, God gave His only-begotten Son, that the path of life might be made sure for our little ones. "Herein is love." Wonder, O heavens! and be astonished, O earth!”
Well, that is the end of chapter 4, we have been seeing some of the background to the birth of Jesus developing – and noted that while angels rejoiced it was only shepherds and a few wandering wise men who had really taken notice of God’s clarion call.
We also saw how it was that Jesus did not come to a friendly place, but came nonetheless. What do we encourage ourselves with today?
You may already be a parent, that joy may yet await you – as you hold your baby in your arms for the first time your thoughts are protective. Just as God set out to protect His Son on this earth so do we do the same.
Yet we are in a slightly different position if we decide we will provide the protection ourselves. There will come the time when our back is turned and our child faces danger.
When I was at college I was the cleaner at Newbold School. Timothy, still crawling, was my first-born. He loved ‘helping’ Daddy, especially in the nursery of the school. There came the day when I left him for a little while. I had another job to do. The thought came to my mind, “check on Timothy”. I moved quickly. He had decided to go for a swim in the water play area. If I had not decided that I would ask God to protect my child God knows what would have happened. However I had asked God to care for my son, and He did.
Ask God to care for you today. He will.
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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
