October 21
“Since Jesus came to dwell with us, we know that God is acquainted with our trials, and sympathizes with our griefs. Every son and daughter of Adam may understand that our Creator is the friend of sinners. For in every doctrine of grace, every promise of joy, every deed of love, every divine attraction presented in the Saviour's life on earth, we see "God with us."
Desire of Ages, page 23 from the chapter, 'God with us'
“You don’t understand me”, could never be our cry to Jesus. He does understand. True, he never suffered from the compulsion to attack His computer with a hammer, He never experienced road rage and the pains of never-ending sorrow and angst from watching too much Eastenders was never His lot – but Jesus does know us.
That knowledge is a good knowledge. I know one of our neighbours, I don’t know him too well. He is not a pleasant man. I dare not walk our dog past his house. I avoid him. I have the suspicion he is not a Christian. Jesus also knows that man. Jesus is that man’s friend.
I have a chance!
However I would never really know that unless I were to actually look for, ”every doctrine of grace, every promise of joy, every deed of love, every divine attraction presented in the Saviour's life on earth.”
Take a peek, read the gospels and see Jesus as He sought to know them – and realise He is still doing the same today 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.
