November 15 and 16
“At this time the systems of heathenism were losing their hold upon the people. Men were weary of pageant and fable. They longed for a religion that could satisfy the heart. While the light of truth seemed to have departed from among men, there were souls who were looking for light, and who were filled with perplexity and sorrow. They were thirsting for a knowledge of the living God, for some assurance of a life beyond the grave.”
Desire of Ages, page 32 from the chapter, 'The fulness of the time' Take your mind way down south, cross an ocean or two, overfly continents and find yourself in the great Philippine archipelago. That, to you and me, is a great collection of hundreds of islands scattered across distant seas. While those islands are all under one government and one official language there are in fact many languages. And now they are a mixed up people.
The words of one local councillor come to mind, “What is sleep?” The work of rescue and recovery has been relentless. His own home has gone. He was one of the wealthy people. Water comes from taps, but only in the evening and it is brackish water. You can’t drink it without purifying it. How do you purify such water? You can only boil the water. Where is your kettle? Your kettle has been swept away.
In the time of Christ people were longing for something better than the old Jewish faith, the one they had been taught and had observed in the lives of the priests and teachers. The rulers were happy with what they had. The people wanted better things. There were souls looking for light.
The situation is just the same today. It is not just in the Philippines that people are looking for some assurance of a life beyond the grave. I wanted that assurance. My wife wanted that. We are not alone. We are just ordinary people.
There are other people that we meet every day. They are looking for something better. As Jesus put it, “The fields are ready for harvest.” It is time for us to ask people we know if they want something better and then to offer them the words they need.
What will you say? How about working out what you could say, or do, to offer some hope to people wanting hope?
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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
From October 21st this site will continue going through 'Desire of Ages' - but begin to advance rather faster than one paragraph at a time.
Our sister site, at the Upper Room, will progress at a rather slower pace - one paragraph at a time. If you want to head to our sister site for the slower trip through an excellent book you will eventually follow a link to the Upper Room. This will start on October 21st.
