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cember 17
“About forty days after the birth of Christ, Joseph and Mary took Him to Jerusalem, to present Him to the Lord, and to offer sacrifice. This was according to the Jewish law, and as man's substitute Christ must conform to the law in every particular. He had already been subjected to the rite of circumcision, as a pledge of His obedience to the law.
As an offering for the mother, the law required a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering. But the law provided that if the parents were too poor to bring a lamb, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering, the other for a sin offering, might be accepted.
I note three things to look at in this first paragraph of the fifth chapter in Desire of Ages. The first is that Jesus had to conform to the law in every particular – even when He was a child and had no control of his own destiny at that time.
That begs the question – do we have to conform to the law in every particular? How do we answer that?
There is another matter which is mentioned, and which may answer the question, do we need to conform to the law? We can read, “… but the law provided that if the parents were too poor to bring a lamb …”
If God were not serious about keeping His law then God would not have provided the means to keep the law in the first place – even to the point of providing the means to make sure ordinary people, even the poorest, should keep the law.
Jesus was the son of a poor man, simply the son of a carpenter. He was a totally honourable man, we witness that in the way he continued to look for a wife in young Mary when found unexpectedly pregnant. That said, he was still poor. Oh, and the Mother? What a memory! What dedication to the ministry of her Son. She could recall her own song, which we call the Magnificat, some 30 or more years later.
Are you an academic? You are called to conform to God’s law. Are you on the dole, you are still called to conform to God’s law. Are you on your own? Absolutely not.
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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
