Inside Story for Friday 3rd of April 2026

Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, also known as the Quarterly Mission Project Offering, will support projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere in the East-Central Africa Division. Thank you for your generous offering to help proclaim Jesus’ soon coming.

Kavono Kivatsi Samwele loved playing the drums in his village in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was a good life, playing the drums while his wife sang, as he waited to become village chief.

But then Kavono, who was in his early 20s, got an idea. It would be even more fun to accompany his wife on the drums if he could write the songs that she was singing. To do that, he needed to learn how to read and write. He noticed that a Seventh-day Adventist school had opened in a neighboring village, and he enrolled in the first grade.

At the school, he learned to read and write, and he also learned about the God of heaven. As he studied, he felt called by God to become a pastor. So, he gave up his claim as village chief and became an Adventist pastor. He also had a son named Kasereka Maghulu Kavatsi.

As a boy, Kasereka accompanied his father on pastoral trips and felt called also to engage in mission. But his talent was in entrepreneurship, so he went into business, establishing a farm, expanding into fishing, and then opening a clothing store. His businesses grew into a thriving empire.

Kasereka did not forget the Bible truths he learned from his father, and he returned a 10 percent tithe. After marriage, the couple’s first tithe amounted to US$10,000. Kasereka’s wife, the daughter of a church evangelist, said they also needed to give an offering of 10 percent. Kasereka had long been uncertain about how much to give for offering, and her appeal persuaded him. The couple gave another $10,000 for offering. After that, they regularly gave a 10 percent tithe and 10 percent offering, and they never lacked anything. “When you help the church, you get a blessing back,” Kasereka said.

Seeking to do his part to proclaim Jesus’ coming, Kasereka distributed copies of The Great Controversy to fellow business leaders and government officials. He opened an orphanage. He sponsored orphans and others in their studies, including helping them obtain master’s degrees and doctorates.

As he sought to bless others, blessings always returned to him. He put more than 100 people through graduate school, but many of the graduates couldn’t find work because of a lack of highly qualified jobs in the country. So, Kasereka ended up hiring them to work for him, and their skills proved to be a blessing to his businesses.

“You cannot outgive God,” he said.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/26b-01-inside-story-business-of-being-a-blessing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=26b-01-inside-story-business-of-being-a-blessing

Daily Lesson for Friday 3rd of April 2026

Further Thought: Before we were born, God loved us; He had a plan to know us and for us to know Him.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

He seeks us out, like a good Shepherd, and invites us to abide in Him every day. We merely need to choose to respond to Him, and then to exchange our wretchedness and our Laodicean condition for His good gifts (see Revelation 3:18-19).

Like the slow growth of a grapevine’s branches, our relationship with God might grow slowly, or it might come in bursts as a result of much-needed rain. Regardless of the pace at which we grow and the abundance of fruit that is produced in our lives, we need daily “sap,” or the Holy Spirit, to ensure that we’re remaining connected to Jesus.

“Abiding in Christ means a constant receiving of His Spirit, a life of unreserved surrender to His service. The channel of communication must be open continually between man and his God. As the vine branch constantly draws the sap from the living vine, so are we to cling to Jesus, and receive from Him by faith the strength and perfection of His own character.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 676.

“How is the dry disconnected sapling to become one with the parent vine stock? How is it to be made a partaker of the life and nourishment of the living vine? Only by being grafted into the vine, by being brought into the closest relationship possible. Fiber by fiber, vein by vein, the twig holds fast to the life giving vine until the life of the vine becomes one with the branch, and the branch produces fruit like that of the vine.”—Ellen G. White, Manuscript 67, 1897.

Discussion Questions

Summary: Before we can start growing in a relationship with God, we first have to pause to consider what our current relationship with Him is like. If it’s Laodicean or if our branches are not flourishing, Jesus has the perfect solution for our spiritual condition: to abide in Him.

<–Thursday

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/26b-01-further-thought-reality-check/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=26b-01-further-thought-reality-check

Our Sabbath School program has always been linked to the support of the Seventh-day Adventist Mission program. This video provides a little insight into this important work.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/mission-spotlight-for-april-4/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mission-spotlight-for-april-4

Join the Hit the Mark panel as they discuss the first lesson in the new quarter – Reality Check. It’s the fastest hour of the week!

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/reality-check-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reality-check-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school

Daily Lesson for Thursday 2nd of April 2026

Abiding in Christ can sometimes feel like one of the hardest things to do. We might know that it’s what we need, but the rush of life pulls us into its stream, and it all feels too hard. Following God can seem like the biggest burden ever, especially for those badgered by someone trying to get them to follow Jesus. This kind of religion can feel like drudgery because it’s all about external actions rather than what’s in the heart. Nothing could be further from what God desires, which is a relationship whose foundation is mutual love, not just rules; a chosen relationship (in which He first chose you) based on love and free choice.

Sometimes we might be partly connected to the Vine but not really abiding with every fiber of our being. We might go to church, pray, and do what we know is right, but inside we feel shriveled up. The truth is this: we can’t make ourselves abide in Jesus any more than a branch can make itself connect to a vine. God loved us first; He made the first move. Our response is always a reaction to what God has first done for us.

Image © Sherry Boettcher at Goodsalt.com

If you, meanwhile, look at how a grapevine survives through winter, you’ll learn a fascinating fact—the buds on the branches become dehydrated and isolated from the growing system until spring. When the soil warms up, the roots absorb water, and sap flows up through the trunk of the vine into the buds and then initiates growth. Without the sap flowing through the vine, no growth will happen.

The sap in a grapevine is like the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We might be like a dead branch, but when we choose to spend time with God, the Holy Spirit enters into us like the sap from the roots and brings us to life so that we start to grow. In the same way that we need to make a conscious choice to want to abide in Jesus, we must also ask for the Holy Spirit (the sap) to flow into our lives.

It’s actually the Holy Spirit who brings growth and ensures that we’re thriving and connected to the Vine. We need to ask daily for the Holy Spirit, who is here with us on earth to:

• be our Comforter (John 14:16-18),

• reveal Jesus to us (John 15:26),

• convict us of sin (John 16:7-8), and

• guide us into all truth (John 16:13).

<–Wednesday Friday–>

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/26b-01-linked-to-the-vine/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=26b-01-linked-to-the-vine