February 11
"Thus to Jesus the significance of the word and the works of God was unfolded, as He was trying to understand the reason of things. Heavenly beings were His attendants, and the culture of holy thoughts and communings was His. From the first dawning of intelligence He was constantly growing in spiritual grace and knowledge of truth.
Every child may gain knowledge as Jesus did. As we try to become acquainted with our heavenly Father through His word, angels will draw near, our minds will be strengthened, our characters will be elevated and refined. We shall become more like our Saviour. And as we behold the beautiful and grand in nature, our affections go out after God. While the spirit is awed, the soul is invigorated by coming in contact with the Infinite through His works. Communion with God through prayer develops the mental and moral faculties, and the spiritual powers strengthen as we cultivate thoughts upon spiritual things."
Desire of Ages, page 70 from the chapter, 'As a child'
Walking through Morrisons I picked up the adult education guide for Nottingham. I can’t say I was tempted by the flower arranging course. There was a little interest in an introduction to counselling but the Feng Shui course (I didn’t bother to check the spelling) left me cold.
There are lots of reasons why people take such courses. There is boredom, there might be career reasons, some might be seeking a new start in life or wanting to meet someone new.
I know that some people take courses to learn how to deal with personal issues in their lives. An anger management course may well be helpful, a communications course might begin to deal with inferiority issues but there are better ways for a Christian to develop Christ-likeness.
Jesus wanted to develop His character. We have seen that He sat at His mother’s knees, we know that He studied the Word of God, the Old Testament, for himself - and that nature was the background behind his on-going development.
There is a clue to the method that Jesus used in His study, a method we can use. You can see the clue in these words, “And as we behold the beautiful and grand.”
If we want new behaviour to reveal to the children in our families and in our churches – then we need to make sure that our growth is done by looking for, and at, beautiful and grand things.
As you invite the Holy Spirit into your life this morning would you take time to set out to look for something beautiful and grand which will help change your thoughts and your words?”
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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
