October 20
"This great purpose had been shadowed forth in types and symbols. The burning bush, in which Christ appeared to Moses, revealed God. The symbol chosen for the representation of the Deity was a lowly shrub, that seemingly had no attractions. This enshrined the Infinite. The all-merciful God shrouded His glory in a most humble type, that Moses could look upon it and live. So in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, God communicated with Israel, revealing to men His will, and imparting to them His grace. God's glory was subdued, and His majesty veiled, that the weak vision of finite men might behold it. So Christ was to come in "the body of our humiliation" (Phil. 3:21, RV), "in the likeness of men." In the eyes of the world He possessed no beauty that they should desire Him; yet He was the incarnate God, the light of heaven and earth. His glory was veiled, His greatness and majesty were hidden, that He might draw near to sorrowful, tempted men.
God commanded Moses for Israel, "Let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" (Ex. 25:8), and He abode in the sanctuary, in the midst of His people. Through all their weary wandering in the desert, the symbol of His presence was with them. So Christ set up His tabernacle in the midst of our human encampment. He pitched His tent by the side of the tents of men, that He might dwell among us, and make us familiar with His divine character and life.
"The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth." John 1:14, RV"
Desire of Ages, page 23 from the chapter, 'God with us'
We saw that God’s plan was not to come to this earth, in Jesus, as the great superstar. Jesus did not arrive as a celebrity. He had no fake tan, He had no publicity agent, there were no headlines. Instead Jesus came to live alongside us.
We imagine the setting of the life of Jesus and recognise that He was the son of a carpenter. He may have been an absolutely fantastic carpenter, but He was a simple working man working alongside other working men.
As He grew He told stories, just like the other story tellers, and yes, they may have been the best of all stories, but they were told so that other people could say, “I can understand this man.”
Jesus was also a chef. There was that time, really early in the morning, when He was beside the sea with a small fire and a few fish, offering to feed the men fresh from a failed fishing expedition. They may have been the best cooked of all fish from Galilee that day, but the food He offered was still the ordinary food that others ate.
There are those words in our reading,
“He pitched His tent by the side of the tents of men, that He might dwell among us, and make us familiar with His divine character and life.”
We are Christians. We are not to work alongside other people showing all the airs and graces of Prima Donna’s and celebrities. We are to be ordinary people, just like Jesus was. We should be looking to help other people become familiar with Jesus’ character and life.
Someone I know suggested that we are to depend on Jesus to change our life after the Second Coming. Sorry, we are to depend on Jesus to change our life before the Second Coming. There will still be much to change after – but we are to be different now. So different that people will understand just that little bit more about the character and life of God.
Can you and your prayer partner do that this week? You meet, you greet, you talk through what you can do together to let people know that you are just ordinary people, but serving an extraordinary God.
Last week I suggested you bake bread. This week I’m suggesting some training. Have a look at a different section of our website, here, and look at the very simple exercise I suggest for you.
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.
