The morning
Manna will be provided at 6am. Thanks. Studying In
the Crucible with Christ in the SSnet.org series Lesson 4, may the Holy
Spirit be the speaker to your heart. The Topic today
is: "Suffering to use a Christian for Himself making them more pure
showing their weaknesses and they lean on Him" for Morning Manna in the
Sabbath School Lesson In the Crucible with Christ". The Opening
Hymn will be 229 "Spirit of the Living God" The Sabbath
School Quarterly, downloadable from SSnet.org in the Teacher's Edition is on
page 63 and for the laymen edition or Standard Edition, on page 44. The SSnet.org
site allows anyone, anywhere to read the lesson in their own language. Choose
your own language to see God speaking also to your heart. ---Ellen White
presents great insights about Suffering. There are many reasons that suffering
suddenly comes over us: it is the prophetic last days or Time of Trouble period
that kicked in (still future or very near?); my individual character is fine
but God has windows of onlookers in heaven that He want to demo me to them; my
individual character has some weaknesses and the Holy Spirit's role is to point
out sin and lead to righteousness; it is a learning experience for myself about
myself; and who knows, other reasons as well? ---Ellen White
in this citation from Testimonies for the Church vol. 5 page 316 [easy
to remember: John 3:16!] described for us that sometimes suffering is to show
us our weakness in character and to fix it as He wants it. ---The natural
man asks always why God left me when trouble comes. No He doesn't. It is your
testing time and you should know who you really fight against: self in the
wrong hands of control! Either myself in Satan's hands or self-seeking ventures
following Satan's lead more and more into the world and its habits and
cultures. ---Cultural
romanticism will not help us in our character growth. Culture habits are like
social pillows to help people fit in with everybody and that gives a nice
pleasure in the feelings. But it cannot help the character at all.Cultural
transformation is needed wherein the participants consciously select with
biblical glasses on the senses according to God's Word and will. ---Characters
have to be tested by God. Maybe unfallen worlds are asking for a test to see
proof of endurance against temptation? Maybe Satan is accusing us on the basis
of our sin-history long ago? But God knows better and is confident that we are
going to lean on Him, lean on Christ, lean on the Holy Spirit, all the same
thing and outcome. ---I watched a
video of a non-adventist pastor of Malaysia who told his story this month: He
said that he was pastor of a very big youth church where they sing loud, with
spotlights, with everyone raising their hands and shouting 'Amen, hallelujah'. ---The young
people got ecstatic emotional experiences of cracking down for God, or for God
as he thought. He was for 13 years their pastor. Young still. He organized the
leaders. He programmed them and control the whole program to get the youth act
according to their festival style of worship: dancing, acting, swinging while
singing, focusing on the self until they cry... ---Then he
resigned this month. ---Reason? He
read Matthew where someone said to Jesus, "did I not preach or teach for
You? And the Lord said: I do not know you". ---Suddenly,
his eyes opened and he saw his youth worship style as "program based"
and not "content based". Where is the Word of God? It is
"self-based" and does not really prepare the youth for the future. He
got worried and resigned. ---There is a
lesson for us in this as well. Transformational Youth Ministries in Adventism
based on these festival/emerging church styles, are not the ideal of God.
Period. Ask this pastor of Malaysia. Kinetic movement worship with loud acoustics
and strange melodies borrowed from the “Canaanites” Ballad styles and fashion
around us, is not God’s way either. ---The young pastor
asked himself how many people he came in contact are non-believers? He could
not count ten. His busy program planning for control and God's youth cut all
changes of meeting non-believers. ---So he resign
not to put his light under a bushel but to bring out God's Word to the
non-believers, he said. ---Watching his
video with examples of his old preaching style in the youth meetings,
definitely convinced that he needed a serious change. The Holy Spirit cannot be
heard properly in loud digital synthesizers, drums, electrical guitars, and
self-focused songs with marshmellowing Christ over it. Cannot, the Bible says.
Why? The individual needs to know their Bibles to perceive evil. ---If one
neglects regular Bible study, one is going to fail the test. ---So start
immediately reading God's word every day.