March 30
As Joseph and Mary should return from Jerusalem alone with Jesus, He hoped to direct their minds to the prophecies of the suffering Saviour. Upon Calvary He sought to lighten His mother's grief. He was thinking of her now. Mary was to witness His last agony, and Jesus desired her to understand His mission, that she might be strengthened to endure, when the sword should pierce through her soul. As Jesus had been separated from her, and she had sought Him sorrowing three days, so when He should be offered up for the sins of the world, He would again be lost to her for three days. And as He should come forth from the tomb, her sorrow would again be turned to joy. But how much better she could have borne the anguish of His death if she had understood the Scriptures to which He was now trying to turn her thoughts!”
Desire of Ages, page 83 from the chapter, 'The Passover visit'
A family we know has had a pretty rough week. The first thought was, “how can we help?”, the second thought was to give Christian encouragement, “we love you”.
A family Jesus knew were going to have a rough week. His first thought was to think, how can I help them best? His solution was this, “look at the Word of God.”
That is not to say that He didn’t offer His love and His aid. Jesus, though, realised that dealing with feelings of hurt and pain is best done as work is done on the heart through the mind. After all, it was His Father God who said to Isaiah, “Come let us reason together.” God didn’t say, “Let’s have a hug”, nor did God say, “Can I help you with your immediate tasks?”
We have a wonderful institution at our church called Sabbath School. We look at a topic a day, exercise our minds a little, search the Scriptures and look for ways that the Word of God can guide us before we get into troubled waters.
Jesus wanted to help His Mother in advance of the trial she was to face, so He gave her guidance from the Word of God. You might want to strengthen yourself in advance. Take a peek at the Sabbath School lesson for tomorrow. The topic may not immediately suit your needs – but it might at a later date.
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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
