October 16
“In heaven itself this law was broken. Sin originated in self-seeking. Lucifer, the covering cherub, desired to be first in heaven. He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw them away from their Creator, and to win their homage to himself. Therefore he mis-represented God, attributing to Him the desire for self-exaltation. With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving Creator. Thus he deceived angels. Thus he deceived men. He led them to doubt the word of God, and to distrust His goodness. Because God is a God of justice and terrible majesty, Satan caused them to look upon Him as severe and unforgiving. Thus he drew men to join him in rebellion against God, and the night of woe settled down upon the world.”
Desire of Ages, page 21 from the chapter, 'God with us'
We have to go back to yesterday’s reading to understand this paragraph.
“So in the heavenly courts, in His ministry for all created beings: through the beloved Son, the Father's life flows out to all; through the Son it returns, in praise and joyous service, a tide of love, to the great Source of all. And thus through Christ the circuit of beneficence is complete, representing the character of the great Giver, the law of life.”
Yesterday some lads in a Newark street found a pigeon that had been attacked by some youths. They took the pigeon to the vet because they wanted that pigeon to be healed. Today, those lads will receive a gift to say ‘thank you’ for their kindness to one of God’s creatures.
That is how heaven works. The law of life could be expressed incompletely as, “one good turn deserves another”
Our reading for today takes us to the time when heaven went wrong. The circle of love begetting more love was broken by Satan. Satan chose not to respond to God’s love by giving love in return to his fellow angels and to God. Instead he wanted to be the prime object of love. He wanted to receive love, not to give love.
Sin, we all know it, is not simply the actions we do which create hurt and disharmony. Sin is the thoughts in our mind where we exalt ourselves and our thoughts above God. Inevitably that attitude will have a result in our prayer. Try as we might we may ask in God’s name and according to God’s will – but so long as we think our name and our will is better than God’s will and name – we will find our prayers and their results only reflecting our desires.
The prayer today is two-fold. Ask yourself first, “Father, please encourage me to choose to follow you and your ways”. The second prayer is to ask God to return you to that circle of the law of life. To receive God’s love and then move on to offer that love to another of God’s creatures.
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.
