JULY 7
"After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly." Acts 4:31
The story is told of a little boy sitting in church with his mother. On the platform behind the pastor were three flags; the little boy asked her about the first one. 'That's our nation's flag,' she said. Then he wanted to know about the second flag. She whispered, 'That's the Christian flag.' Finally he asked about the third flag. Telling him to be quiet, she whispered, 'That's for those who died in service.' Innocently he asked, 'Which service did they die in, the morning or evening service?' It brought a rye smile to my face when I read this but seriously do we contribute to church being an exciting place or somewhere where you could ‘die in service’? Instead of us thinking about what exciting things we could do, let us submerge ourselves more into the word, Gods word, to let him instruct us as to how we can make church growth sustainable, and yes, exciting.
In Testimonies for the Church 5:276 E.G White counsels “Our life should not be all bustle and drive planning about the things of the world, to the neglect of personal piety and of the service that God requires. While we should not be slothful in business, we should be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”
Our challenge today and everyday is to spend more time planning our route to heaven, rather than our way through the earth.
To listen to this timely reminder from Bryn sung by the Oak Ridge Boys that Jesus is coming soon, click on the picture.
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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
