Inside Story for Friday 20th of February 2026

Rene Tucaldo is chief financial officer of the 1000 Missionary Movement, whose headquarters in Silang, Philippines, were constructed with the help of a 1996 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering. Read more next week.

Rodel won Rene to Christ by taking him fishing.

Image © Pacific Press

Ellen White says, “Christ’s method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Savior mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, ‘Follow Me’ ” (The Ministry of Healing, p. 143). Rodel practiced Christ’s method: spending time with Rene, ministering to his needs, and winning his confidence. Then Rene followed Jesus.

After Rene returned to Christ, Rodel asked if he could stay at Rene’s house. Rene’s parents weren’t thrilled about having the young Seventh-day Adventist living in their home in the Philippines, but they didn’t say anything. Rodel also encouraged Rene to go back to school, and Rene did.

“I’m waiting for you to graduate, and then I’ll take you to Manila to become a missionary in the 1000 Missionary Movement,” Rodel said.

Rodel had served as a missionary with the 1000 Missionary Movement, an organization that is part of the Adventist Church’s Southern Asia-Pacific Division, when he had first met Rene about a year and a half earlier.

While Rene studied, Rodel lived with him and helped pay for his studies by working together in the rice fields. Rene graduated when he was 23.

Rodel made good on his promise and brought Rene to the headquarters of the 1000 Missionary Movement in Silang, near the Philippine capital, Manila.

But then he had another idea. He said Rene should further his education before becoming a missionary. The two young men enrolled in the Adventist University of the Philippines in Silang. Rene majored in accounting, and Rodel in theology.

It took six years for Rene to graduate. He didn’t receive any support from home. During that time, he married Love Jhoie.

After graduating, he worked as a company accountant for three months. Then he was fired for not working on a Friday night. He claimed the promise of Jeremiah 29:11, “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’ ” (NIV). He prayed, “God, I know that You have a plan for me.”

Months passed, and a hospital hired him as an accountant. But then he learned that he could not become a regular employee unless he was baptized into the denomination that owned the hospital. He resigned.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/26a-08-inside-story-losing-two-jobs-over-faith/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=26a-08-inside-story-losing-two-jobs-over-faith

Daily Lesson for Friday 20th of February 2026
Further Thought

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, Collier Books, 1952), p. 41.

“The Father is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.

“The Son is all the fullness of the Godhead manifested. The Word of God declares Him to be ‘the express image of His person.’ ”—Ellen G. White, Evangelism, p. 614.

“Christ is the pre-existent, self-existent Son of God. . . . In speaking of his pre-existence, Christ carries the mind back through dateless ages. He assures us that there never was a time when He was not in close fellowship with the eternal God. . . .

“He was equal with God, infinite and omnipotent. . . . He is the eternal, self-existent Son.”—Ellen G. White, Evangelism, p. 615.

Discussion Questions

<–Thursday

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/26a-08-further-thought-the-preeminence-of-christ/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=26a-08-further-thought-the-preeminence-of-christ