March 23: Following His Guidance.
HIS PURSUIT
Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes.--John 19:39
C.S. Lewis describes his surrender to God's incessant pursuit: "You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." * Within two years he became a Christian. God doesn't give up on us, or on our loved ones, even when there isn't any evidence that we are accepting His efforts to reach us. Unrelenting in His pursuit, He guides our souls.
The name of Nicodemus is found in three accounts in the Bible, all in the Gospel of John. First, Nicodemus sought to meet Jesus by night (John 3:1-21), and even though he didn't publicly acknowledge Him, the seed of the gospel had been placed in his heart. The second is found in John 7:50, when Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, dissuaded the Pharisees from apprehending Jesus. The third and last account is found in John 19:39, when Nicodemus brought spices for the burial of Jesus. Three years had gone by, and the gospel seed finally showed its fruit. This was the process: "Too proud openly to acknowledge himself in sympathy with the Galilean Teacher, he [Nicodemus] had sought a secret interview. In this interview Jesus had unfolded to him the plan of salvation and His mission to the world, yet still Nicodemus had hesitated. He hid the truth in his heart, and for three years there was little apparent fruit...he had in the Sanhedrin council repeatedly thwarted the schemes of the priests to destroy Him. When at last Christ had been lifted up on the cross, Nicodemus remembered the words that He had spoken to him in the night interview on the Mount of Olives, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up' (John 3:14); and he saw in Jesus the world's Redeemer." ** Praise God! He does not give up on us!
My Response:_____________________________________________________
* C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: HarperCollins, 1955), 266.
** Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1911), 104.
HIS PURSUIT
Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes.--John 19:39
C.S. Lewis describes his surrender to God's incessant pursuit: "You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England." * Within two years he became a Christian. God doesn't give up on us, or on our loved ones, even when there isn't any evidence that we are accepting His efforts to reach us. Unrelenting in His pursuit, He guides our souls.
The name of Nicodemus is found in three accounts in the Bible, all in the Gospel of John. First, Nicodemus sought to meet Jesus by night (John 3:1-21), and even though he didn't publicly acknowledge Him, the seed of the gospel had been placed in his heart. The second is found in John 7:50, when Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, dissuaded the Pharisees from apprehending Jesus. The third and last account is found in John 19:39, when Nicodemus brought spices for the burial of Jesus. Three years had gone by, and the gospel seed finally showed its fruit. This was the process: "Too proud openly to acknowledge himself in sympathy with the Galilean Teacher, he [Nicodemus] had sought a secret interview. In this interview Jesus had unfolded to him the plan of salvation and His mission to the world, yet still Nicodemus had hesitated. He hid the truth in his heart, and for three years there was little apparent fruit...he had in the Sanhedrin council repeatedly thwarted the schemes of the priests to destroy Him. When at last Christ had been lifted up on the cross, Nicodemus remembered the words that He had spoken to him in the night interview on the Mount of Olives, 'As Moses lifted up the serpent in the the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up' (John 3:14); and he saw in Jesus the world's Redeemer." ** Praise God! He does not give up on us!
My Response:_____________________________________________________
* C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: HarperCollins, 1955), 266.
** Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1911), 104.
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