Spiritual Prescription                        YOU CAN'T CONVERT YOURSELF
 
        Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.  John 3:7.
 
    Anyone knows that if you want to go to sleep, there are a couple of things you need to do.  You have to put your back against the mattress, as a rule (although I went to sleep one time working on a combine harvester).  You should turn out the lights.  You can turn your radio down to nothing, instead of forty decibels.  And it helps to close your eyes!  When my daughter was small, I got into the bad habit of lying down with her until she went to sleep.  The situation came to the place where she wouldn't go to sleep until I would lie down with her.  Sometimes I would have some place to go, and I'd look out the corner of my eye and say, "LuAnn, close your eyes."  She would, but the next time I checked, they would be wide open again.  I knew this one thing: if I could at least get her to close her eyes, it would surely help!
 
    In order to have a meaningful relationship with Christ, in order to find value in spiritual things, you have to come to the experience of being born again.  You cannot convert yourself.  But you can place yourself in the atmosphere where it can happen.  You don't have to sit and wait forever for something to hit you.  If you are running from God, and find at the same time that deep inside, you want to come into the right relationship with Him, you can at least place yourself in a religious atmosphere where the things of God are being presented.
 
    If you are a student on a campus and realize that you are unconverted, instead of skipping every meeting or trying to sleep or read your way through, you can at least go and listen when the gospel is preached.
 
    If you have found that the Bible is a dull book to you, and have left it to gather dust on the shelf year after year, you could at least take a few minutes each day to consider deliberately some passage on the life of Jesus, inviting God to meet you where you are and do His work in reaching your heart.
 
    The responsibility for meaningful communication with God has to be His, not ours.  But we can come to Him.  We can place ourselves in the atmosphere where He can get through to us most easily, and then invite Him to work His miracle of regeneration in our lives.

Spiritual Prescription                        INFORMATION OR COMMUNICATION
 
        Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  John 3:5.
 
    There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.  The same came to Jesus by night and said unto Him, "Rabbi, you're a great teacher.  You are a great miracle worker.  Let's discuss something."  Nicodemus came to Jesus with the idea in mind of entering into a discussion with Him.  In so doing, he identified himself immediately as a potential pseudointellectual--one who used the Bible and religious topics primarily as a launching pad for discussion.
 
    It is possible to keep God at an arm's length by talking about Him.  There are people who are looking for a method of forgetting God that will pass as a method of remembering Him (The Great Controversy, p. 572).  You can be a church member in good and regular standing, and yet be running from God through the pseudointellectual escape.
    
    So Nicodemus came and said, "Let's have a discussion--let's dialogue."
 
    And Jesus said, "What you need is to be born again."
 
    Jesus allowed Nicodemus to lead the conversation wherever he chose, but whenever Nicodemus paused for breath, Jesus brought it back to the real issue: "You need to be born again."
 
    "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."  Since the new birth, or conversion, gives us a new capacity for knowing God that we didn't even have before, it is only after the new birth that the relationship with God can really begin.  Before that time we find the Bible uninteresting, except as a basis for information.  But when God has done His converting work through the Holy Spirit, then we will find meaning in studying the Bible for communication with Him.
 
    An understanding of Bible truth depends not so much on the power of intellect brought to the search as upon the earnest longing after righteousness.  But who longs after righteousness?  It would have to be the converted person.  No one is going to long after righteousness unless he has been born again.  Paul says the carnal mind is at enmity against God.  So the new birth precedes a meaningful devotional life.

Spiritual Prescription                        CONNECTION WITH HEAVEN
 
        And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.  Luke 9:62.
 
    "Those who will put on the whole armor of God and devote some time every day to meditation and prayer and the study of the Scriptures will be connected with heaven and will have a saving, transforming influence upon those around them."--Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 112.
 
    "Those who will put on the whole armor of God."  Have you read about the armor in Ephesians?  Every facet of the armor has to do with the elements of a personal devotional life.  Word of God, prayer, sword of the Spirit.  Everyone of them has to do with the things concerning the fight of faith.  So if we will devote some time every day to prayer, meditation, and Bible study, we will be connected with heaven.
 
    I have heard people say, "I've tired that.  It doesn't work.  I wasn't connected with heaven.  Nothing happened to me."
 
    And I reply, "How long did you try?"
 
    "Three days."
 
    The only conclusion that I can come to is that if we determine that from now on, we are going to spend quiet time alone with God every day for the purpose of getting acquainted with Jesus and keep in touch with Him all through the day, and if we continue to seek this fellowship until Jesus comes, we will be connected with heaven.
 
    The person who does not stay with seeking God on a continuing basis is not going to be connected with heaven.  Our sole purpose in the devotional life is to seek Jesus.  We seek Him through His Word and through prayer, and we choose what material we read with this goal of seeking Jesus in mind.
 
    This involves commitment.  It involves effort.  At times there is a spontaneous desire to seek Jesus.  At other times, it requires a struggle.  But it is only as we make this commitment, as we make this effort, and daily seek Him, that we are connected with heaven, that our spiritual lives are really alive, and that the fruits of the Spirit are developed in us.  "If the eye is kept fixed on Christ, the work of the Spirit ceases not until the soul is conformed to His image."--The Desire of Ages, p. 302.

Spiritual Prescription                        LOOKING TO JESUS
 
        Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.  Isa. 45:22.
 
    In all our devotional experience, the need is to study for the purpose of communication or fellowship with Jesus.  Time alone at the beginning of every day to seek Jesus is the goal.
 
    If I am seeking fellowship with Jesus, am I going to spend more time studying the four Gospels or some point of history or prophecy?  If I'm seeking fellowship with Jesus, would I choose a volume of rebuke and reproof or The Desire of Ages?  Let's make a distinction here.  There are many people who have turned away from Ellen G. White and her writings because someone has majored in what we might call the instructional writings.  There are entire books that are primarily for the purpose of instruction, counsel, reproof.
 
    There are other books that we might call inspirational writings.  This doesn't mean that you can't find some instruction in the inspirational, and some inspiration in the instructional.  But there are these two general types of writings.
 
    A person who studies only in the instructional often becomes the type of person who goes around with a special testimony for his neighbor across the aisle.  He has a reproof and rebuke for every occasion.  Please don't misunderstand when we say that Testimonies to the Church can be a dangerous weapon in the hands of someone who does not know how to read The Desire of Ages and Steps to Christ.  If a person doesn't know how to sit with Mary at the feet of Jesus, and know personally His love and kindness, he can use the Ten Commandments as a lethal weapon.  The law and the  gospel must go together.
 
    The study of the instructional writings has its place.  But for the time of relationship with Jesus day by day, in order to become close friends with Him, we must study His life.  "It would be well for us to spend a thoughtful hour each day in contemplation of the life of Christ.  We should take it point by point, and let the imagination grasp each scene, especially the closing ones.  As we thus dwell upon His great sacrifice for us, our confidence in Him will be more constant, our love will be quickened, and we shall be more deeply imbued with His spirit."--The Desire of Ages, p. 83.  It is by looking to Jesus, uplifting Jesus, that we are changed into His image.

Spiritual Prescription                        FELLOWSHIP IN SPITE OF FAILURE
 
        That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.  1 John 1:3.
 
    John was known as one of the sons of thunder.  For three years he walked with Jesus, personally.  He knew what it was like to eat with Him, to travel with Him, to touch Him, to help Him with His necessities.  And for three years John bickered and argued with the other disciples about who was going to be the greatest.  For three years he still remained a son of thunder.  For those who think that conversion and walking in fellowship with Jesus always changes one overnight, and if it doesn't happen, one doesn't have a genuine experience, consider James and John and the other disciples.
 
    They fought and argued right up to the end of their time with Jesus--in the upper room they were still bickering about who was going to be the greatest.  They didn't "slip" into arguing!  They spent hours walking along the road, debating the subject.  And they were so aware of what they were doing that they lagged behind Jesus, and He would end up in town a quarter of a mile ahead of them!
 
    And when they finally caught up to Him, He would ask, "What were you talking about?"
 
    And they would change the subject.  They were embarrassed to admit what they had been doing, but they didn't stop doing it.
 
    Jesus treated them kindly, tenderly, and John continued to walk with Jesus even after Jesus left.  Years later he wrote it down, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."  He was speaking in the present tense.
 
    As John had continued his walk with Jesus, continued to commune with Him day by day, he had been transformed.  Now, instead of asking "Who's the greatest?" and seeking the highest place, he said, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God."
 
    The purpose of the devotional life is to come into fellowship with Jesus.  The purpose of walking, talking, and communion with Him is for fellowship.  And ultimately, through this fellowship, we will become like Him.

Spiritual Prescription                        SAVED FOR FELLOWSHIP
 
        I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  2 Cor. 6:16.
 
    There are those who say that our salvation is totally dependent upon the work of Christ, and that when we come to Jesus initially, we are just as saved as we will ever be.  This is true.  The thief on the cross was just as saved the day he came to Christ as he would have been 40 years from then, had he lived.  But he had the advantage of dying right away, which most of us haven't had!
 
    But although our salvation is based upon the work of Christ, none of us are saved any longer than we continue an ongoing relationship with Christ.  "Sinful man can find hope and righteousness only in God; and no human being is righteous any longer than he has faith in God and maintains a vital connection with Him."--Testimonies to Ministers, p. 367.
 
    It was the entrance of sin into the world that made our salvation a necessity.  And what was sin?  Sin was a broken relationship, separation from God.  No longer could God walk with man in the cool of the day, no longer could He communicate with us face to face.  It was to restore this broken communion that Jesus came to live and die for us.  Through Jesus we are restored to fellowship with the Father.  The purpose of salvation is not just that we can live eternally, free from sorrow, in the mansions prepared for us in heaven.  The purpose of salvation is to restore us to the fellowship with God that was severed when sin came.
 
    We are not saved by the devotional life.  We are saved by our initial, and continuing, acceptance of Christ's sacrifice in our behalf, by coming to Him day by day.  But for what are we saved?  We are saved to be the friends of God that we were created to be, saved for fellowship and communion and relationship with Him.
 
    This fellowship with Him gives us assurance of eternal life.  Through this friendship with Christ, through beholding Him, He is able to work the change in our lives that will bring us into harmony with Himself.  Through the relationship with Christ comes victory, power of obedience, faith, the fruits of the Spirit, and empowering for service to others.

Spiritual Prescription                        LOST THROUGH NEGLECT
 
        How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?  Heb. 2:3.
 
    "If Joseph and Mary had stayed their minds upon God by meditation and prayer they...would not have lost sight of Jesus.  By one day's neglect they lost the Saviour; but is cost them three days of anxious search to find Him.  So with us;...we may in one day lose the Saviour's presence, and it may take many days of sorrowful search to find Him, and regain the peace that we have lost."--The Desire of Ages, p. 83.
 
    When we have lost sight of Jesus, the devil has a way of working to keep us from finding Him again, doesn't he?  When my attention is away from Jesus, Satan comes in with his big guns blazing, and I fall and fail and sin.  Then he says, "Well, now, God is probably mad at you.  You'd better behave yourself for a couple of weeks, while you give Him a chance to cool off, before you try coming back again."  After ten days he hits me again, and I fall once more.  Then he insists I have to wait another two weeks!  This kind of waiting can go on and on.  We can have the experience of losing Jesus at camp meeting, supposing Him to be in the company, and taking a whole year to find Him again.  Why?  Because He's lost?  No, because of neglect on our part.
 
    "Many attend religious services, and are refreshed and comforted by the word of God; but through neglect of meditation, watchfulness, and prayer, they lose the blessing, and find themselves more destitute than before they received it."--Ibid.
 
    Have you ever observed a reformation that was followed by a deeper apostasy?  Have you ever seen a revival on a campus or in a church, and discovered after it was over that things were worse than before it came?  What is the problem?  Neglect of meditation, watchfulness, and prayer.
 
    Had Joseph and Mary done as Jesus did, and been about their Father's business, they would not have lost sight of Jesus.  That was their business.  And that's my business today--to stay close to Jesus.
 
    The principle involved in salvation by faith is the trolley-car principle, not the battery principle.  There is power no longer than there is connection with the line above.  None are living Christians unless they have a daily experience in the things of God.

Spiritual Prescription                        LOST AND FOUND
 
        But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey.  Luke 2:44.
 
    Jesus was 12 years old the first time His parents took Him along with them to the yearly Passover feast.  When they returned from Jerusalem, Jesus stayed behind.  Joseph and Mary didn't know it.  Supposing Him to be in the company, they went a day's journey without him.  But when night came on, they noticed that He was not there.  They sought for Him among their kinfolk and acquaintances.  But when they found Him not, they returned to Jerusalem, still seeking Him.  On the third day, they found Him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors and teachers of the law, both hearing them and asking them questions.  "And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.  And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:48, 49).
 
    There is a tremendous lesson for us in this story.  It's possible to lose Jesus and not know it.  The Desire of Ages, page 83: "In our association with one another, we should take heed lest we forget Jesus, and pass along unmindful that He is not with us.  When we become absorbed in worldly things so that we have no thought for Him in whom our hope of eternal life is centered, we separate ourselves from Jesus and from the heavenly angels.  These holy beings cannot remain where the Saviour's presence is not desired, and His absence is not marked.  This is why discouragement so often exists among the professed followers of Christ."
 
    It is possible today to lose Jesus in one day, supposing Him to be in the company.  When it began to get dark, Joseph and Mary discovered their loss.  Then they began to seek for Him among the kinfolk.  But they couldn't find Him.  Finally, they headed back to Jerusalem, and found Him where they had lost Him.  That's where you always find Jesus--where you last saw Him.  Go back to where you separated from Him.
 
    It's wonderful to have friends and relatives who know Jesus.  But don't depend on their relationship with Him.  You must seek Him for yourself.  We can stay with Him only through personal fellowship with Him day by day.

Spiritual Prescription                        TRUST ONLY IN GOD
 
        Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust.  Ps. 40:4.
 
    I was having a Week of Prayer one time with a group of medical students.  One question that was turned in asked, "Could you please tell us how to live the Christian life in a practical, down-to-earth way?  Not this Bible-study-and-prayer-and-witnessing bit, but instead give us something that's really practical."
 
    Bible study is compared in Scripture to the eating of the Bread of Life, drinking the Water of Life.  Prayer is called the breath of the soul.  And witnessing is compared to exercise.  So we could rephrase the question by saying, "Doctor, could you please tell us how to live a healthy physical life?  Don't give us this eating-drinking-breathing-and-exercise bit, but something really practical!"
 
    It's easy for us to miss it, because it is so simple.  There is no substitute for private communication with God day by day. Family worship is significant, public worship is significant.  But we must also have time alone with God for feeding our own souls.
 
    One time a fellow minister told me that he felt that the average layman was so busy making a living, keeping body and soul together, that he could not be expected to take time alone with God, that the minister would have to do this for him, and would have to pass on what he had gained.  Do you accept that?  I could not.
 
    I'd like to propose that one of our bigest problems in the Christian religion today is that people are constantly depending on people.  It's nice to have people around that are on the same wavelength, the same frequency.  But my relationship with Christ should never be dependent upon who is in town and who isn't.  I cannot depend on other people to do my thinking and my studying and my praying for me.  I must do it for myself.
 
    The devotional life is not something that we rope off, locking God in a box, leaving Him and going on without Him the rest of the day.  The focus of the devotional life day by day is to help me establish the practice of the presence of God all day long.  To know God's presence moment by moment, hour by hour, throughout the day, is our goal, and His.

Spiritual Prescription                        THE SOURCE OF JESUS' POWER
 
        And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.  Mark 1:35.
 
    When we consider the importance of spending time in personal communion and fellowship with God, we have Jesus' own example during His life here on earth.  Did He spend time alone with His Father?  We are told that often the early-morning hours found Him on the mountainside alone with God.
 
    "It was in hours of solitary prayer that Jesus in His earth life received wisdom and power.  Let...[us] follow His example in finding at dawn and twilight a quiet season for communion with our Father in heaven."--Education, p. 259.  "Daily beset by temptation, constantly opposed by the leaders of the people, Christ knew that He must strengthen His humanity by prayer.  In order to be a blessing to men, He must commune with God....Thus He showed His disciples where His strength lay.  Without this daily communion with God, no human being can gain power."--Counsels to Parents and Teachers, p. 323.  "From hours spent with God He came forth morning by morning, to bring the light of heaven to men."--Christ's Object Lessons, p. 139.
 
    If Jesus needed this communication with His Father in order to live the life of faith, how much more do we need it?  Genuine faith comes only through the relationship with God, studying His Word, and in prayer.  "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:17).  Without the ongoing relationship with God, we will not grow in grace.  The relationship with God is an absolute necessity.
 
    I used to think that the way to be a Christian was to try hard to live a good life.  Then, if I had any time left over, I was to read the Bible and pray a little bit.  But in order to have an ongoing, vibrant, healthy Christian life, we must take time for fellowship with Christ.  It's that simple.  This is where we must put our effort.  It is not an option in the Christian life, but the vital basis.
 
    When we come to God initially and accept the offer of his righteousness in exchange for our sins, our spiritual life begins.  With the daily renewing of our acceptance, with time spent daily in beholding Him, we keep the reality of our acceptance with Him, and spiritual life continues.