The clock is ticking. Your very existence hinges upon one object: How long you can prevent the church from fully reflecting the image of Jesus, and thus delay Christ’s Second Coming and your demise.[1] If you were Satan, how would you try to prevent the Church from reflecting Christ’s image? What would be your primary method of attack?
If you were smart, you wouldn’t make your modus operandi obvious. You probably wouldn’t appear to the General Conference leaders with a pitchfork and red horns and tell them, “Follow me!” No, they wouldn’t fall for that. So, how would you deceive church folk? What would be a plan so cunning, so sly, that would actually fool God’s people into thinking they were saved when they weren’t? How could you delude the Church so that they’d believe they were rich, wealthy, and have need of nothing, when in reality they were completely wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked?[2]
You don’t have to guess much longer—Inspiration reveals: “Satan is seeking to veil Jesus from our sight, to eclipse His light, for when we get even a glimpse of His glory, we are attracted to Him. Sin hides from our view the matchless charms of Jesus; Prejudice, selfishness, self-righteousness, and passion blind our eyes so that we do not discern the Saviour.”[3]
The mode of operation is simple: Keep Christians from seeing Jesus at any cost. Do whatever it takes to prevent them from seeing, spending time with, and getting to know Jesus. If you can just keep them busy with things other than spending personal time with Jesus—especially if you can distract them with good things—you could, if it were possible, prevent the formation of the 144,000, disprove God’s claims, and permanently delay Christ’s return.
So if you, Reader, think you are saved, how do you know? In Scripture, we are told, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves…?”[4] If asked by an unbeliever, could you tell them with confidence and joy that you know you are saved? If you are honestly not sure whether you are or even how to demonstrate it from Scripture, you’re not alone. According to one survey, 70% of Seventh-Day Adventists do not have an assurance of salvation.[5] Personally, I find that to be extremely alarming: How can we as a church expect to see the everlasting gospel preached to all the world in this generation when the majority of Adventist membership is not even sure they are saved by this same gospel?[6] Unfortunately, this study’s age and our church’s recent trajectory seems to project an even bleaker reality for us now.
Why is it that so many of us do not have an assurance of salvation? Perhaps it is because we have bypassed one of the most important elements of salvation—a daily, personal friendship with God. While confession of sin, repentance, and commandment-keeping are all equally important when it comes to salvation, let us deal with the very root of the matter—the element which prompts all of these aforementioned components. What is obtaining eternal life really based on? Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”[7] When you have a daily friendship with God, you naturally do not doubt your salvation. It’s like, “He’s my Best Friend every day. I was just talking with Him this morning, and I know there is nothing between me and Him. How could I not be saved?”
The Devil tries to convince us that as long as we are doing spiritual things, we have a relationship with God. But this is not the case. Doing “God things” is not the same as having a friendship with God. In Steps to Christ, Ellen White asks some pointed questions to help us determine the depth and sincerity of our relationship with God:
“Who has the heart? With whom are our thoughts? Of whom do we love to converse? Who has our warmest affections and our best energies? If we are Christ’s, our thoughts are with Him, and our sweetest thoughts are of Him. All we have and are is consecrated to Him. We long to bear His image, breathe His spirit, do His will, and please Him in all things.”[8] This is the mark of true conversion and of a real friendship with God.[9]
What we need to realize is that Satan does not have to get us to fall into sexual immorality, drugs, gatherings of pleasure, or the love of money to be lost. These are some of his common tactics, sure, but I would argue that these things are merely means to his end, and not the end themselves. What is Satan’s end goal, you ask? Well, if you recall from our little introductory thought exercise, Satan’s strategies to destroy us all have the purpose of disconnecting us from a relationship with God. This means that Satan doesn’t care whether you are doing drugs or working in donor relations, whether you are skipping classes for parties or studying all night to get an A on your next exam—as long as he can keep you from a daily, personal friendship with God, his victory, and your downfall, is assured.
Satan is playing a masterful game of misdirection. He attempts to delude us with the notion that if we can just stay away from [insert sin here], we are safe because we aren’t directly sinning. Meanwhile, while we are so focused on “not doing x,” Satan works covertly to “choke” our personal time with God.[10] He knows that if he can just get us busy enough with “good” things to cause us to neglect our personal time with God, we will be lost.
I’ve known far too many people who have lost sight of God in Adventist schools—not because the sermons weren’t good enough, not because they didn’t have enough Bible classes, not because there weren’t enough opportunities to do spiritual things, but because they stopped having their personal devotional time. It started with a late study night, so they decided to sleep in and miss devotions. Then it happened again… and again… and again. The saddest thing is that I know I’m not the only one who has seen or heard of this.
Since I was converted in middle school, God has impressed me with the importance of personal devotions every morning. Attending public schools up until college, I realized just how vigilant I needed to be in guarding my personal time with God, so that He would preserve me just as He did Daniel in Babylon. Even though nobody else in my home was awake, I made it a priority to wake up between 4:30 and 5:30 every morning to spend time with God. I realized that Satan fought even harder to keep me asleep and to make me drowsy than he did to get me to directly sin. It occurred to me that the hardest battle of the Christian is often not to avoid sin, but to keep the relationship with God alive. If not for my daily morning manna throughout my school life, I definitely wouldn’t be studying theology now at Weimar University, for I would have starved and died a long time ago.[11]
But now that I am going to an Adventist college, Satan presents a different temptation: “Oh Isaac,” he says, “you don’t really need to get up early today to have personal time with God. You have sermon prep to do and biblical assignments to complete—doesn’t that count as personal time with God? After all, your first teacher in the morning always shares a devotional thought, has a prayer, and you talk about the Bible in your classes all day. Surely that’s enough and you can sleep in a bit longer! After all, how many other students in the dorms do you see waking up early to read the Bible and pray?”
Please, dear reader, don’t listen to Satan’s cunning. All he wants to do is sever the connection between you and God. He doesn’t care how many spiritual classes you are taking or how many Bible studies you are giving—as long as he can prevent you from having personal, open communion with the Father, he celebrates with that same evil smile as when he knows he has deceived yet another soul.[12] I echo the plea of Ellen White: “Guard jealously your hours for prayer, Bible study, and self-examination. Set aside a portion of each day for a study of the Scriptures and communion with God.”[13]
Allow me to share with you five tips to enrich your Bible study and prayer time. As I share, keep in mind these are things that I have personally found helpful, thus they are descriptive of my personal walk with God and not prescriptive for how you should spend time with Him. Nevertheless, as they have greatly blessed me, I believe that they can also be helpful for others who desire to revive their personal relationship with God.
- Read the Bible and the Conflict of The Ages series together. Fully absorb each chapter, passage, and verse. Don’t worry about getting through it in a year. Just ask God to show you His glory.[14]
- Try Bible marking. Write notes in your Bible and highlight with color themes. Physically writing in your Bible helps you retain what you learned.
- Start Bible journaling. I never would have considered myself to be a journaler until I finally tried it for myself; it’s been one of the greatest blessings to my devotional life. Find one takeaway from your Bible study or Conflict of the Ages series reading that morning and write it down. Journal what the text is saying, how the lesson applies to your life, and end the entry with a short prayer relating to the lesson you learned. Be flexible and open to how God is trying to reveal Himself and speak to you that day.
- Begin a prayer journal. Sometimes prayer can seem overwhelming—you don’t know where to start or who to pray for. Try picking one person or thing to pray for, writing a paragraph or two per day. It doesn’t take long before you have a list with dozens of entries. Highlight answered prayers.
- Go for prayer walks. A morning walk with God can help you focus while you pray. Try going out for 10-30 minutes to simply commune with God. Don’t make it a time just to ask God for things or to say thank you’s—talk to Him about whatever is on your heart. He’s your friend.[15]
Remember: Your devotional life doesn’t have to be robotic but it should be consistent and have structure. Never forget that the purpose of your daily devotions is to lead you to daily surrender to the will of God. Ask yourself at the end of every devotion: Does God have my whole heart? Am I fully surrendered to what God is trying to tell me this morning?
If you are so busy with academic pursuits, your job, clubs, or even evangelism that you are being neglectful of your personal time with God, you are simply that—being neglectful. I invite you to ponder the significance of Christ’s words: “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?”[16] The neglect of personal devotions is often the reason that revivals die, movements become extreme, and champions of the truth apostatize. [a]We cannot afford for this to happen to us if we hope to see the work finished in this generation.
Looking down to the final days just before Christ’s return, Ellen White remarked sadly, “Many a star that we have admired for its brilliance will then go out in darkness. Those who have assumed the ornaments of the sanctuary, but are not clothed with Christ’s righteousness, will then appear in the shame of their own nakedness.”[17] Could it be possible that you and I could be clothed with all of the ornaments of the sanctuary, a deceptive “form of godliness,”[18] in place of the robes of Christ’s righteousness? Imagine assuming all of the forms and trappings of Seventh-Day Adventism until the very end, just to be lost.[19]
The neglect of personal devotions is often the reason that revivals die, movements become extreme, and champions of the truth apostatize.
Dear reader, how is it between you and the Lord? Do you spend daily time with Him? Do you have daily personal time with your Creator? Have you gotten so busy doing the Lord’s work that you have neglected the Lord of the work? Are there some good things that Jesus is calling you to give up so that you can be sure you have the greatest thing?
Before you move on with your day, and before you even read the next article, you must decide: What are you going to do about your relationship with God today?
[1] See Rev. 12:12; 14:1-20; Matt. 24:14; 2 Pet. 3:9-12
[2] Rev. 3:17
[3] Ellen G. White, “Draw From the Source of Strength,” Signs of the Times, October 17, 1892, par. 6. Emphasis supplied. See also, Ellen G. White, “The Snares of Satan,” Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1923), 472-475
[4] 2 Cor. 13:5 (KJV)
[5] Delbert Baker, “Our Identity and Destination,” Adventist Review, accessed June 5, 2024, https://adventistreview.org/transformation-tips/2012-27/
[6] See Rev. 14:6; Matt. 24:14; 2 Pet. 3:11-12
[7] John 17:3
[8] Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1892), 58.
[9] See Ps. 73:25; 84:2
[10] Matt. 13:22
[11] See Ex. 16:19-21; John 6:53-58, 63
[12] “A smile was upon his countenance, which made me tremble, it was so full of evil and satanic slyness. This smile is the one he wears just before he makes sure of his victim, and as he fastens the victim in his snare, this smile grows horrible,” Ellen G. White, Early Writings (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1882), 152.
[13] Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1915), 100.
[14] See Ex. 33:18; Ps. 119:18
[15] See Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1892), 93.
[16] Luke 9:25
[17] Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1917), 188
[18] 2 Tim. 3:5
[19] See Matt. 7:21-23; 25:11-12