Daily Devotional

June 6, 2019

God Has Sent Warnings, but Few Listen

And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart, “The Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil.” Zephaniah 1:12, NKJV.

We are near the close of time. I have been shown that the retributive judgments of God are already in the land. The Lord has given us warning of the events about to take place. Light is shining from His Word; yet darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people. “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them …; and they shall not escape.”

It is our duty to inquire the cause of this terrible darkness, that we may shun the course by which men and women have brought upon themselves so great delusion. God has given the world an opportunity to learn and to obey His will. He has given them, in His Word, the light of truth; He has sent them warning, counsel, and admonition; but few will obey His voice. Like the Jewish nation, the majority, even of professed Christians, pride themselves on their superior advantages, but make no returns to God for these great blessings.

In infinite mercy a last warning message has been sent to the world, announcing that Christ is at the door and calling attention to God’s broken law. But as the antediluvians rejected with scorn the warning of Noah, so will the pleasure lovers of today reject the message of God’s faithful servants. The world pursues its unvarying round, absorbed as ever in its business and its pleasures, while the wrath of God is about to be visited on the transgressors of His law.

Our compassionate Redeemer, foreseeing the perils that would surround His followers at this time, has given them special warning: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” – Testimonies for the Church 5:99, 100.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 197.

Daily Devotional

June 5, 2019

Jesus Requires Wholehearted Commitment

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27, NKJV.

The Lord is testing and proving you. He has counseled, admonished, and entreated. All these solemn admonitions will either make the church better or decidedly worse. The oftener the Lord speaks to correct or counsel, and you disregard His voice, the more disposed will you be to reject it again and again, till God says: “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof…. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.”

Are you not halting between two opinions? Are you not neglecting to heed the light which God has given you? Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. You know not the time of your visitation. The great sin of the Jews was that of neglecting and rejecting present opportunities. As Jesus views the state of His professed followers today, He sees base ingratitude, hollow formalism, hypocritical insincerity, pharisaical pride, and apostasy.

The tears which Christ shed on the crest of Olivet were for the impenitence and ingratitude of every individual to the close of time. He sees His love despised. The soul’s temple courts have been converted into places of unholy traffic. Selfishness, mammon, malice, envy, pride, passion, are all cherished in the human heart. His warnings are rejected and ridiculed, His ambassadors are treated with indifference, their words seem as idle tales. Jesus has spoken by mercies, but these mercies have been unacknowledged; He has spoken by solemn warnings, but these warnings have been rejected.

I entreat you who have long professed the faith and who still pay outward homage to Christ: Do not deceive your own souls. It is the whole heart that Jesus prizes. The loyalty of the soul is alone of value in the sight of God. “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!” “Thou … even thou” – Christ is at this moment addressing you personally, stooping from His throne, yearning with pitying tenderness over those who feel not their danger, who have no pity for themselves. – Testimonies for the Church 5:72, 73.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 196.

Daily Devotional

June 4, 2019

The New Lifestyle Through Jesus

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Galatians 2:20, NKJV.

Self must die if we would be counted as the followers of Christ. The apostle says, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God…. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

When men and women are converted to God, a new moral taste is created; and they love the things that God loves; for their lives are bound up by the golden chain of the immutable promises, to the life of Jesus. Their hearts are drawn out after God. Their prayer is “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” In the immutable standard they see the character of the Redeemer, and know that though they have sinned, they are not to be saved in their sins, but from their sins; for Jesus is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. It is through the blood of Christ that they are brought nigh unto God.

As they behold the righteousness of Christ in the divine precepts, they exclaim, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” As sinners are pardoned for their transgressions through the merits of Christ, as they are clothed with the righteousness of Christ through faith in Him, they declare with the psalmist, “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” This is conversion.

When the Spirit of God controls the mind and heart, it turns the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. The law of Jehovah will then be regarded as a transcript of the divine character, and a new song bursts forth from hearts that have been touched by divine grace; for they realize that the promise of God has been fulfilled in their experience, that their transgressions are forgiven, their sins covered. They have exercised repentance toward God for the violation of His law, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, who has died for their justification. – The Review and Herald, June 21, 1892.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 195.

Daily Devotional

June 3, 2019

Faithful Stewards Provide for God’s Work

I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles. Isaiah 42:6, NKJV.

I had been shown that some people who are shrewd, prudent, and sharp in regard to the transaction of business generally, some who are distinguished for promptness and thoroughness, manifest a want of foresight and promptness in regard to a proper disposal of their property while they are living. They know not how soon their probation may close; yet they pass on from year to year with their business unsettled, and frequently their lives finally close without their having the use of their reason. Or they may die suddenly, without a moment’s warning, and their property be disposed of in a manner that they would not have approved. These are guilty of negligence; they are unfaithful stewards.

Christians who believe the present truth should manifest wisdom and foresight. They should not neglect the disposition of their means, expecting a favorable opportunity to adjust their business during a long illness. They should have their business in such a shape that, were they called at any hour to leave it, and should they have no voice in its arrangement, it might be settled as they would have had it were they alive.

Many families have been dishonestly robbed of all their property and have been subjected to poverty because the work that might have been well done in an hour had been neglected. Those who make their wills should not spare pains or expense to obtain legal advice and to have them drawn up in a manner to stand the test.

I saw that those who profess to believe the truth should show their faith by their works. They should, with the unrighteous mammon, make friends, that they may finally be received into everlasting habitations. God has made men and women stewards of means. He has placed in their hands the money with which to carry forward the great work for the salvation of souls for whom Christ left His home, His riches, His glory, and became poor that He might, by His own humiliation and sacrifice, bring many sons and daughters of Adam to God.

In His providence the Lord has ordained that the work in His vineyard should be sustained by the means entrusted to the hands of His stewards. A neglect on their part to answer the calls of the cause of God in carrying forward His work shows them to be unfaithful and slothful servants. – Testimonies for the Church 3:116, 117.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 193.

Daily Devotional

June 2, 2019

Never Dishonor God by Violating Righteous Principles

So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners. Proverbs 1:19, NKJV.

To every person is given his or her work. Each has a place in the eternal plan of heaven. It is the duty of fathers and mothers to overcome their own lawlessness, their untidy habits. Truth is clean and pure and of great value and needs to be brought into the character building. Those who have the truth, the love of the truth in their hearts, will make any and every sacrifice that this truth may have the first place in everything….

There are those in our churches who have much to say in regard to Christianity, but in whose presence we should always be guarded, for they dismiss the Word of God from their business transactions. When there is buying and selling to be done, God is not by their side. The enemy is on the ground, and he takes possession of them. Christian brotherhood and love is laid a sacrifice on the altar of greed. God, heaven, the precepts of Jehovah, His oft-repeated injunctions, are obliterated from the soul. They know not what it means to practice the principles laid down in the Word of God. They sell their souls for unlawful gain. So thick is the veil which blinds their eyes that they can see only the fraudulent gain. So hard is the incrustation that envelops the heart that it feels not the love and tenderness and pity of Christ for their fellow beings. The holiness and truth of God are shut out from their souls.

Will the people of God frown down all this corrupting influence? Will they give their hearts to God? Will they deal mercifully with their fellow mortals? Will Seventh-day Adventists bear in mind that they cannot swerve from truth in their dealings with their fellow beings, that they cannot violate justice or let go their integrity without forsaking God? Anything that dishonors Him will never benefit you. People who expect to prosper by violating the eternal principles of righteousness are laying up for themselves a harvest they will not care to reap. They place themselves in the enemy’s ranks and bring degradation upon themselves. Although for a time they may seem to prosper, they can never help to compose the family of God. – Sermons and Talks 2:133, 134.

From Devotional: To Be Like Jesus, p. 192.