Tuesday, October 2, 2012

DAY 176 - Are You The Living Or The Dead? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)


**1100 DAYS of prayers now!!!
Please sign up for the new 11th 100 days 24 hours prayer campaign,
I need your prayers!!!
Please click link below.

**NEW link for the 11th 100 days 24 hours prayer campaign(from August 25 to December 03, 2012).

The easiest way is to take one hour slot for the whole week. What you need to do is very simple. Choose one dayThe easiest way is to take one hour slot for the whole week to pray for me, my family and my ministry, remembering the ministry of ACiC(ACiC has two Networks: ACiC, Anglican Coalition in Canada and AI, Asian Initiative). You may use the whole hour in prayer or you can still do you work in your office but use as much time as you can to pray and the other time work prayerfully that hour to pray for our ministry. This campaign is also to teach you that you need somebody to pray for you daily. I have been prayed for hourly the past 1,100 days and I have never experienced this kind of peace and protection before. It's just beyond words can express. If I did not listen and obey to Jesus call 1,100 days ago to start this prayer movement, I think I would be pulled into darkness and discouragement already! I deeply believe that this is a way to draw as many participation as we can in prayers. I encourage you to participate. We need you to join us! Trust in the power of prayers!

Today's Reading: Matthew 8: 14-22

**For a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf.
Please click this link to read Matthew 8: 14-22

Bible Study

What Jesus said to the teacher of the law in this passage is one of the most shocking things in the whole gospel story. No matter what kind of people you are, burying your father should be the first priority that you need to do.  How come Jesus says, "Let the dead bury the dead, you must follow me right now"?

N.T. Wright says:
We don't know if the man's father had actually died yet.  He may just have been getting older, perhaps becoming sick.  The man may have been using his future obligation as a way of postponing following Jesus for some time, possibly for several years.  He was, we may purpose, keeping his options open.  But when the saying was remembered it rang like a warning bell through the Jewish hearts and minds of Jesus' hearers.  What Jesus was doing was so important, so urgent, so immediate that it was the one thing that mattered.  Whatever else you were thinking of doing, this comes first.

That's from N.T. Wright. So, if you understand that the most important thing in our lives is just three words: Jesus is Lord, do you really let Jesus to come first in everything? Or, do you always postponing Jesus' command, Jesus' request or even Jesus' plead? How can Jesus really comes first? 


Let's 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 Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Chariots of Fire"



Spiritual Journal

What I heard from Jesus today is: Are you the living or the dead!

Today I received a shocking message from Jesus that I have never thought before.  Jesus wants to give us a challenging question of whether we are the living or the dead. You must be thinking, how come we are the dead?

But Jesus command to the teacher of the law is the answer to this question. Following Jesus right away and as their first priority is the living. Doing other things instead when Jesus calls them to follow even to the extreme example of burying of someone's father is the dead.

So many people always postpone Jesus' request. When you invite some non-Christians to church or to Alpha most of them may say, "Well, I am so busy now. Let me retire, and I'll follow you to go to your church." This is what Jesus is saying today. When Jesus called me to leave my job as a Music Officer in 1982, I tried all my best to postpone for a year using all kinds of excuses.

Lots of time we are just dead-man walking but not living-man running. You know how God called me at that time? He used the movie "Chariots of Fire"! This movie got the best movie in Oscar in 1982 and God led me to watch it five times. And, He used this movie main message, "When I run, I feel God's pleasure.", to change my whole life from dead-man walking to living-man running. I am going to play this most important 4 minutes in the movie now. For those who are just listening you can listen to the message and the music. But I would like to invite you to go to my blog and watch this 4 minutes movie clip because God might also want to use this 4 minutes to change your life:
From dead-man walking to living-man running.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwyltmUR3MU

Today is the first time I understand why this movie begins with a funeral and ends with a funeral! And in the middle is all about living-man's running!

Let's run for Jesus and when we run, we feel God's pleasure! 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Change our lives so that we can run for you and can feel your pleasure each day. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.


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這日子如同網羅忽然臨到!

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