October 25
“By His life and His death, Christ has achieved even more than recovery from the ruin wrought through sin. It was Satan's purpose to bring about an eternal separation between God and man; but in Christ we become more closely united to God than if we had never fallen. In taking our nature, the Saviour has bound Himself to humanity by a tie that is never to be broken. Through the eternal ages He is linked with us.
"God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son." John 3:16.
He gave Him not only to bear our sins, and to die as our sacrifice; He gave Him to the fallen race. To assure us of His immutable counsel of peace, God gave His only-begotten Son to become one of the human family, forever to retain His human nature. This is the pledge that God will fulfill His word.
"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder."
God has adopted human nature in the person of His Son, and has carried the same into the highest heaven. It is the "Son of man" who shares the throne of the universe. It is the "Son of man" whose name shall be called,
"Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6
The I Am is the Daysman between God and humanity, laying His hand upon both. He who is "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners," is not ashamed to call us brethren. Heb. 7:26; 2:11. In Christ the family of earth and the family of heaven are bound together. Christ glorified is our brother. Heaven is enshrined in humanity, and humanity is enfolded in the bosom of Infinite Love.”
Desire of Ages, page 25 from the chapter, 'God with us'
“You learn something every day.” Sorry, I should rephrase that, you can learn something every day. I learned from this reading that Jesus is in heaven complete with His human nature. I always knew that I was a Prince in the Kingdom of heaven. Now I also know how that has happened. I am not related directly to God as my Father. I am related to Jesus.
“In Christ the family of earth and the family of heaven are bound together. Christ glorified is our brother. Heaven is enshrined in humanity, and humanity is enfolded in the bosom of Infinite Love.”
What does that mean? Combine that with the first statement in our reading. We are now joined, unbreakably, with the family of God. Satan’s attempt at breaking the relationship between God and man has already foundered. The first part of God’s plan has worked. We are not only saved by God, we are related to God. We are now closer to God than Adam and Eve were.
That has an impact on our prayers. We pray to Daddy. We pray with familiarity. He understands our prayers because they are understood in His own language.
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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.
