Today's Reading: John 7: 1-9
**For a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf.
Please click this link to read John 7: 1-9
Bible Study
The feast of Tabernacles was the great feast in the Jewish year celebrating the completion of the harvest and commemorating God's goodness to Israel as they wandered in the desert following their exodus. During this festival, the people lived in booths or tabernacles(tents) for the seven days of the feast.
Here in this passage is talking about the different view of time between Jesus and his brothers. Jesus' brothers see that he is doing remarkable things and see Jesus simply as an extraordinary wonder-worker that Jerusalem was the place when everything happened that it was the time for Jesus to go to Jerusalem. But just as N.T. Wright says, "Jesus is aware of a time which is coming - but which hasn't come yet...And the plan, as John has already been hinting to us, has a Passover shape to it, not a Tabernacles shape...there are things about the festival of Booths which Jesus regards as pointing forwards to his own achievement. But Passover is when the lamb will be sacrificed.
So, the time for Jesus to go to Jerusalem to be crucified on the Cross was during Passover but not the festival of Tabernacles.
Do you think you can 'catch' God's time and moment in your life that you don't insist on your time like Jesus' brothers but God's timing?
Have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage of scripture we have just read. Offer this time up to God as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe"
Spiritual Journal
What I heard from Jesus today is: It's my time, not your time!
For Jesus brothers, it was the time to show the success like harvest of Jesus' achievement. But for Jesus, he got God's timing so accurate that that was not the time yet even though he did not know at that time.
We need the timing to so many things: when to buy and when to sell, when to get marry, when to have children and many more decisions that need a good timing. Do you know when is God's timing for you to proceed to do your own things?
Timing is still a "relational" question just like the "seeing". Actually from the beginning of John is all talking about "seeing", do we see Jesus as Christ and Lord of our lives, can we see the things Jesus wants us to see. And, now we have the timing, can we catch God's timing that from what we see we can act in God's timing accordingly. Wow! That is so difficult and yet so critical! It's all about "relationship", our daily intimate personal relationship with Jesus!
Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to see those things you want us to see and to be able to catch your timing to do the things you want us to do. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Chinese praise song - 祢讓我生命改變 You Transform My Life
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