March 31
"If Joseph and Mary had stayed their minds upon God by meditation and prayer, they would have realized the sacredness of their trust, and would not have lost sight of Jesus. By one day's neglect they lost the Saviour; but it cost them three days of anxious search to find Him. So with us; by idle talk, evil-speaking, or neglect of prayer, we may in one day lose the Saviour's presence, and it may take many days of sorrowful search to find Him, and regain the peace that we have lost.”
Desire of Ages, page 84 from the chapter, 'The Passover visit'
We saw that Jesus determined to help His earthly foster-parents in the next few weeks and years so that they would be able to stand the pain of the crucifixion. His method was to direct His parents to the Word of God, in addition to being the dutiful loving son they saw he was.
Note this. The parents had failed in their task but they had not been castigated for their failure. They were lifted up.
When we fail, and we do, we can literally beat ourselves up. We find a quiet corner and can harm ourselves. We might think we are taking God’s role and giving ourselves what we deserve. If we do that, and some do, we are only taking our cue from the picture of God Satan has been preparing all these years. God is not a heavy weight pressing us into destruction but a pair of lifting arms bearing us to heaven.
The words are not a permit to miss your time with God. The thoughts above encourage us to perform duties that give a better picture of a loving God who would have us avoid pain in the first place.
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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
