Friday: Further Thought – Reality Check
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
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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.
A reality check is essentially a wakeup call to take stock. One of the things I taught in business maths classes was the importance of trends (It’s really calculus but we don’t call it that for business students). As a simple example I would show a chart of a business making a profit on sales but with a bit of analysis of trends we could see that profit was falling and we had to work out why. A reality check would show that demand was decreasing, production costs were rising and so on. By looking at the trends, we could predict the ultimate demise of the business if nothing was done about the situation.
The calculus of Christianity is in many respects similar. We think we have a healthy spirituality but fail to recognise the trends that are creeping up on us. A Friday morning comment is not the place to write a thesis on Christian calculus but I will concentrate on just two that came to me as I studied this week’s lesson.
The first one is so cryptic (hidden in plain sight) that we have become comfortable with it. We have our own Christianese language we use when we are talking to one another, so that it has almost become a secret language. We talk about “keeping close to Jesus”, “being led by the Spirit”, “righteousness by faith”, and a whole lot more that is quite meaningful to us but incomprehensible to others. The issue I have with Christianese is that I think some of us are good at putting the right phrases in the right order and coming up with something that we all agree to without thinking it through. Hey, “Reality Check!” I can get AI to do that! (I know, I have tried it!) If you want a serious challenge, try writing a comment without using any Christianese! Those of you who read these Sabbath School Net comments to prepare for teaching a Sabbath School lesson, try to teach a class as though they did not know any Christianese.
The second reality check is that our networking must extend beyond ourselves. If we are just networking to one another to the exclusion of the world to whom we have been told to go and invite into the network (preach the Gospel Commission in Christianese) then we have to do something about extending the network. And we cannot do that if our language, and listening skills are limited to Christianese. (That is why my first point is so important.)
Our problem is that we are quite comfortable maintaining the status quo rather than exploring the environment. It takes courage and commitment to get outside our box.
Jesus said:
I agree Maurice! How did Jesus attract the masses? He spoke in common language to the common people in words that they understood. He contrasted his style with that of the Pharisees which frequently sought to impress with their high falutin language and their ostentatiousness. It was done to attract attention to themselves instead of to God. Jesus worked completely contrary to their methods and attracted the masses. This must have infuriated the Pharisees that this ordinary “lay teacher” was more effective than they. Jesus always sought to help the people realize that God loved them and wanted them to have a life better than they were living. He spoke to the heart using parables and stories which they could identify with. He wasn’t doing it to grow the Temple coffers but to grow the Kingdom of God.
We do a disservice to God and man when our motives in witnessing or evangelism is to build the Church instead of the Kingdom of God. Build the Kingdom of God by giving a faithful and understandable witness, and the church will grow as people join the Kingdom of God.
It is easy to fall into the trap of Phariseeism. To speak over people’s heads in an effort to impress with our real or imagined intelligence. I’m reminded of a saying that I learned many years ago, “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” It’s still true. Lord deliver me from the Pharisee in me!
I can relate to the popular statement: “Watch your thoughts, for they become words; watch your words, for they become actions; watch your actions, for they become habits; watch your habits, for they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” Fixing my eyes on Jesus requires forming a habit of continuous, sustained action, like a mariner in rough seas who keeps his eyes on the compass to ensure he stays on course. It requires me to consider how I will use my time and what I am going to gaze upon. It calls for the discipline of an athlete who fixes his eyes on the finish line and nothing else; in the same way, I must fix my eyes on Christ to win the race. Hebrews 12:1 urges us to run with patience the race that is set before us, reminding me to stay focused, remove distractions, and press forward with endurance.
My relationship with God is deeper since I moved fom my country where I was well equipped and resourced to live in to another country where I need to trust and rely on God’s promises to provide. This change in my life has brought me closer to God.
The Holy Spirit is ever needed to provide energy and power to our spiritual journey and relationship with Jesus and God.
The church will prosper mightily if she supplicated and listened to the Holly Spirit.
I leave it to God to help me find spots in my relationship with Him that needs grace and polishing.
At first reading,I misunderstood Ellen G White’s comment “Abiding in Christ means a constant receiving of His Spirit. Now that I know I have been baptized in Him, I must be aware of him in everything I do, and in every circumstance I am in that He is already connected to me.
It is I who must stay connected to Him by my awareness of his presence already in me. Otherwise, I find myself dependent on my flesh and my actions always come from my selfish self. Then sin seems to rule.
I believe that most of us have concluded that God is Love. In Him is found the essence of Love in all its forms – incluing Justice, Grace and Mercy. If God is synonymous with Love, all that He did in the past, all He does now, and all He will be doing in the future can only be understood in the context of His creative and sustaining Love.
Would we have Life if God ignored us? Rebuke, praise, correction – are part and parcel of His Love. “Whom God loves, He chastises” – Heb.12:5-11; Prov.3:11-12. Pruning is evidence that He loves us. It is most evident in the act of cutting away that which hinders spiritual growth; stands in the way of closer unity with Him. Would anyone believing that God loves Him reject His acts of ‘pruning/correction’, complaining that it causes discomfort or is not necessary?
John 15:26-27 – ”I will send you the Helper from the Father. The Helper is the Spirit of Truth who comes from the Father. When He comes, He will tell about me. And you will tell people about me too, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
My life’s compass was changed from uncertainty to certainty after accepting Jesus Christ as my Savior. He is the Vine, I am a branch grafted into Him. Abiding in Him by God’s Grace, I can do all things because His Love strengthens me – 2 Cor.1:21-22; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor.6:19, .Rom.15:13.
I believe the best motivation for us to develop an intimate relationship with Jesus is our effort to understand His love for us – this will draw us near to Him for eternity.
I agree, J C Zielak.
That God, who provides for us abundantly, all that we are humanly unable to provide for ourselves … does so with no charge to us, is show-stopping. That one of the things He provides is eternal life through forgiveness of our sins, is worthy of our total commitment … to wanting to dwell with Him forever.
Without Christ Jesus enthroned upon the heart there is no life.
“if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” Rom 8:10