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Communion With God

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 14, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 37.

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Communion With God

By Claude E. Eldridge

CLAUDE E. ELDRIDGE
Daily family worship ought to prevail in every Seventh-day Adventist home. Daily Bible study and earnest seeking of God ought to be the custom of every isolated Adventist, and of every young person who is not a member of a family prayer circle. Sabbath Bible study is not sufficient. As taking food but once a week would leave us physical weaklings, and probably cause our death, just so surely will a neglect of the “word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” result in spiritual weakness, and ultimately in spiritual death. There should be a daily partaking of that “living bread which came down from heaven.”
Do we realize what it means to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset;” to be overcomers, “perfecting holiness in the fear of God;” to be among the “hundred forty and four thousand”? If we ever stand on Mount Zion with the Lamb, and follow him “whithersoever he goeth;” if we ever become able to learn the “new song,” and to appear “without fault before the throne of God,” we shall need to develop a nobility of character which is, as yet, unattained by many.
“But,” we may say, “we keep the Sabbath, pay tithe, attend Sabbath-school and church, and are looking for the coming of the Lord.” All this is excellent; but is it sufficient to develop in us that degree of nobility required of God’s remnant people? “Looking unto Jesus,” we find him saying, “Search the Scriptures.” A little random Bible reading, a hasty glance at the Sabbath-school lesson Sabbath morning, or even some real Bible study on the Sabbath, can never assure us of the highest possible nobility in Christian experience.
Of the Bereans in Paul’s day, we read: “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” This is what you and I need,—a daily “looking unto Jesus,” in his Word; a regular partaking of “our daily bread.” And how can we do this better than in the beautiful old-fashioned custom of family worship, daily gathering young and old in our homes, and “looking unto Jesus,” “the chiefest among ten thousand,” until he becomes to each the one “altogether lovely,” “more to be desired . . . than gold,” whose return to earth becomes the longing desire in every heart?
“But,” objects some poor, tired, hard-working mother of a large family, “I have so much work every day that must be done, so many little details to fill in every moment, that it seems impossible to do more than to lay by the work on the Sabbath. Why,” says this dear sister, “I think I am doing well if I can attend meeting, and perhaps read my Bible a little Sabbath afternoon.”
“Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with . . . cares of this life.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.” Your food, clothing, and shelter the Lord has promised to add unto you. O that we might accept this definite promise of the Lord, realizing all that it embraces! It means that if we take time to study to show ourselves “approved unto God . . . rightly dividing the word of truth,” he will help us so to arrange our affairs as to be able to do every necessary thing.
Boulder, Colo.