Closer To Heaven
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Dear Adventist Today Supporter, I’m writing to provide an important update regarding our year-end fundraising campaign. After posting yesterday’s update, we discovered additional donations that had come in through the mail but were not included in our initial count due to a processing error. We apologize for this oversight. With these contributions now accounted for, […] Source: https://atoday.org/important-update-exceeding-our-year-end-fundraising-goal/
Daily Lesson for Wednesday 1st of January 2025
God not only loves people of His own free will, but He also invites them to love Him in return. That God grants them the ability to freely choose whether they will accept or reject His love is apparent in (among other places) Christ’s parable of the wedding banquet.
Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com
In Christ’s parable of the wedding banquet, a king arranges a marriage for his son and sends out his servants to “ ‘call those who were invited to the wedding,’ ” but “ ‘they were not willing to come’ ” (Matthew 22:2-3, NKJV). More than once the king sent out his servants to call them, but they ignored his call and, even worse, seized his servants and killed them (Matthew 22:4-6).
Later, after dealing with those who had murdered some of his servants, the king told his servants, “ ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding’ ” (Matthew 22:8-9, NKJV). After another episode of a man without a wedding garment being cast out, signifying the need to receive a wedding garment from the king to attend the wedding banquet, Jesus closes the parable with the cryptic but highly meaningful phrase, “ ‘Many are called, but few are chosen’ ” (Matthew 22:14, NKJV).
What does this mean? Those who are finally “chosen,” the “elect,” are those who have accepted the Lord’s invitation to the wedding. The term translated “call” and “invite” throughout the parable is the Greek term kaleo (to call, invite), and what determines who is finally “elect” (eklektos) is whether one has freely accepted the invitation.
In fact, God calls (that is, invites) everyone to the wedding feast. However, any one of us can refuse God’s love. Freedom is essential to love. God will never force His love on anyone. Sad to say, we can reject having a love relationship with God.
The “elect” are those who accept the invitation. For those who love God, God has prepared things more wonderful than anything that we could possibly imagine. Once again, it all comes down to the question of love and the freedom inherent in love.
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What about your life reveals that you have accepted the wedding invitation and have come appropriately clothed? |
(0)Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/25a-01-many-are-called-but-few-are-chosen/
The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has announced a sweeping new policy banning all forms of movement during Sabbath song service. The initiative, dubbed “Statuesque Sabbath,” aims to eliminate what church leaders are calling “distracting kinetic worship.” Elder Rigid Stockstill, chair of the newly formed Committee on Motionless Melodies, explained the rationale behind the decision: […] Source: https://atoday.org/satire-all-movement-banned-during-adventist-song-services/
1. Memorize All 13 Sabbath School Memory Verses Each Quarter – Commit to learning every single Adult Sabbath School quarterly memory verse so you can recite them from the pulpit with the confidence of an ordained minister. 2. Master the Art of Nominating Committee Evasion – Perfect your “I’m suddenly very busy” face and strategically […] Source: https://atoday.org/satire-top-10-adventist-new-years-resolutions/
The studies in this quarters pamphlet encourage us to see God’s Love and Justice, just as we may sing in
Hymn 79 – O Love of God, How Strong and True! which is a beautiful theme hymn for our studies.
Sabbath afternoon talks of Peter saying three times that he loves Jesus, hence three wonderful hymns how we can sing we love
our Lord Jesus:
Hymn 236 – I Love Thee,
Hymn 321 – My Jesus, I Love Thee and
Hymn 248 – O, How I Love Jesus.
With the
Marvelous Grace – Hymn 109 of our loving Lord, we see he freely loves us as sinners. Our hymnal has a wonderful section in it named “Love Of God”. Here we find eight hymns about the glorious love of our God:
Hymn 74 – Like A River Glorious,
Hymn 75 – The Wonder Of It All,
Hymn 76 – O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go,
Hymn 77 – O Love of God Most Full,
Hymn 78 – For God So Loved Us,
Hymn 79 – O Love of God, How Strong and True!,
Hymn 80 – O World Of God and
Hymn 81 – Though I Speak With Tongues.
On learning of Israel and it’s many troubles with God still loving them, we can ask ourselves if we can sing
Hymn 533 – O For A Faith that will not shrink, all because
God’s Free Mercy Streameth – Hymn 110 (Monday). Tuesday states the same, and ends with
Amazing Grace – Hymn 108.
These hymns keep popping up all through this week’s lesson study.
Please continue to search the scriptures this week to be blessed, and to bless many others.
To learn unknown hymns, you will find the accompaniment music for each one at: https://sdahymnals.com/Hymnal/
Another great resource is for when there is a hymn you wish to sing but can’t find it in your hymnal. Go to https://www.sdahymnal.org/Search and in the search bar type a special word in that is in the hymn. I am sure you will be amazed at the help you will be given.
2 Timothy 2:15 KJV – “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
(0)Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/1-god-loves-freely-singing-with-inspiration/
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