Friday November 6
Further Though: Read Ellen G. White, “The Test of Discipleship,” pp. 57-65, in Steps to Christ.
Ellen White tells us (among other things) that when we truly respond to the Master Teacher, “we long to bear His image, breathe His spirit, do His will, and please Him in all things” (Steps to Christ, p. 58). In the company of Jesus Christ, duty, she says, “becomes a delight” (Steps to Christ, p. 59). Now, from the Bible, consult Matthew 5-7. Here is the Sermon on the Mount, one of the great summaries of what the Master Teacher wanted His students to know and the keynote of the kingdom He came to establish.
Discussion Questions:
• As God addressed Adam and Eve, and also Jacob, so Jesus addresses us. He connects with our deep longings, and He startles us (as He did Bartimaeus) into reconsidering who we are and where we are going. In this light, think about how we teach the Bible to our children and to one another. What is the difference between mediocre Bible teaching and the compelling kind that really makes a difference in people’s lives?
• Is the question of where you are on life’s journey purely personal, or might it be helpful to discuss this with people you trust? How does the idea of the church as the “body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27) suggest that conversation with others can be one way of getting in touch with what Christ wants you to know?
• We learned on Thursday that as soon as Bartimaeus could see—as soon as he was rescued from his physical (and spiritual) blindness—he followed Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. On this road he heard, every day, the Master Teacher’s wisdom. Now, we may assume, he wanted to bear Jesus’ image, breathe His Spirit, do His will. Why would someone take “delight,” as Steps to Christ puts it, in following a standard as high as the one Jesus upheld in the Sermon on the Mount?
• Dwell more on the question at the end of Thursday’s study. How do we learn to discern between good and evil? How do we define what is good and what is evil? And why is what we do with that knowledge perhaps even more important than having that knowledge itself?
Inside Story
Miracle on an Indian Road
By Daisy Jung
The other day, my husband and I traveled to the city to buy materials for the chapel that we are constructing in a village in India. We also needed supplies for the student volunteers who were helping us share the gospel in the area.
My husband bought electrical equipment for the construction project, and I found 15 guitars for the volunteers and 100 notebooks for their classes. It was 9:00 p.m. when we started the three-hour drive back to the village. As my husband drove, we chatted and listened to music.
About a half hour before reaching home, a strange sound startled us. Dadadadada. Pang!The noise was quite loud. We were not sure what had happened. My husband stopped the car and stepped outside to investigate. A tire was flat.When we saw the flat tire, we looked each other and laughed loudly for some time. “How many times have we had a flat tire like this?” my husband asked.“Well, let me count,” I said. “If I include the bicycle, then it must have happened many, many times. Our life is really not boring, darling.”We didn’t have a spare tire. Stranded in the countryside in the middle of the night, we called Pastor Abishek for help. Music played softly in the disabled car as my husband calmly sat in the driver’s seat, waiting for the pastor. The car didn’t have a working air conditioner, and we soon began to sweat. I chased a mosquito around the car.
Suddenly lightning flashed across the dark sky, and thunder rolled. Raindrops splattered on the windows. “Honey,” I said. “This situation is quite unfortunate but funny. Life isn’t boring here in India.”
After some time, Pastor Abishek arrived to pick us up. We moved the 15 guitars, 100 notebooks, and electrical equipment into his small truck.
As we drove toward home, the pastor surprised us. “When you called me, my cell phone was on silent mode,” he said. “Even the vibration function was turned off so I could sleep. I don’t know how it happened that I woke up at midnight and looked at my phone at the very moment that you called. I normally sleep soundly the whole night through.”
Our hearts trembled as he spoke. God had woken him in the deep of night and impressed him to check his phone. God knew that two of His children were longing for home.
By now it was raining heavily. Lightning illuminated the road, and thunder roared. But we were happy because we were going home. Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Angel Abishek!
Names have been changed to protect the work of volunteers serving in a sensitive part of the world.
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