Please join our new Mentor 123 campaign starting this coming Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013!
What you need to do is to find two more people meeting once a week for three months, encouraging each others to have daily devotion - a daily intimate personal relationship with Jesus!
To create a momentum to this new yearly campaign I am going to start a new blog and podcast on that day. I will direct my two blogs and podcasts to that new site to have a 40 days BREAK.BUILD daily devotion. For a preliminary format please go to this site: http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/ .
You can see the layout and titles of all 40 days. Come on , let's get two more people to start a daily tasting of Jesus wonderful banquet specially prepared for us!
Today's Reading: Luke 16: 10-18
**For a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link:
Please click this link to read Luke 16: 10-18
Bible Study
Yesterday's passage is a parable about money and this passage is an actual teaching about money. In fact it is perhaps Jesus' strongest and most explicit warning about the dangers of wealth. N.T. Wrights says:
The key to it all is in the opening verses: it's about faithfulness. Money is not a possession, it's a trust: God entrusts property to people and expects it to be used to his glory and the welfare of his children, not for private glory or glamour. Money also according to this passage, points beyond itself, to the true riches which await us in the life to come. What they are, we can hardly guess; but there are 'true riches' which really will belong to us, in a way that money doesn't, if we learn faithfulness here and now...
Putting the passage together, we find the underlying challenge to be faithful: faithful in our use of money, faithful to God rather than money, faithful in our hearts not just in our outward appearance, faithful to the kingdom which has now begun with Jesus, faithful to our marriages. As soon as we begin to think of money, or land or other people, as commodities we might own or exploit, we take a step away from our vocation to be truly human beings, God's true children, and towards the other master, who is always ready to accept new servants.
How faithful are you to God, to the use of money and to your marriage? Today we receive a very important teaching on the use of money that the key is faithfulness. How can you make use of this important teaching to be a faithful servant of God and not a faithful servant of "money"? How can you be faithful to your marriage because you are faithful servant of God?
The key to it all is in the opening verses: it's about faithfulness. Money is not a possession, it's a trust: God entrusts property to people and expects it to be used to his glory and the welfare of his children, not for private glory or glamour. Money also according to this passage, points beyond itself, to the true riches which await us in the life to come. What they are, we can hardly guess; but there are 'true riches' which really will belong to us, in a way that money doesn't, if we learn faithfulness here and now...
Putting the passage together, we find the underlying challenge to be faithful: faithful in our use of money, faithful to God rather than money, faithful in our hearts not just in our outward appearance, faithful to the kingdom which has now begun with Jesus, faithful to our marriages. As soon as we begin to think of money, or land or other people, as commodities we might own or exploit, we take a step away from our vocation to be truly human beings, God's true children, and towards the other master, who is always ready to accept new servants.
How faithful are you to God, to the use of money and to your marriage? Today we receive a very important teaching on the use of money that the key is faithfulness. How can you make use of this important teaching to be a faithful servant of God and not a faithful servant of "money"? How can you be faithful to your marriage because you are faithful servant of God?
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 "Gabriel's Oboe"
Spiritual Journal
What I heard from Jesus today is: Who is your real master?
What I received from Jesus today is a practical check of the way we use our money. Richmond Emmanuel Church will be facing a test of faithfulness concerning with the use of money. In the approaching of the end of our five years' lease of our present site, more than 75% of our people are in favor of purchasing our permanent property. We are in a serious process of discerning God's Will for our future and it will be a very challenging time for all of us. The key that I got from Jesus today through this passage is the key word today - Faithfulness.
I sincerely pray and hope that we can pass this test of faithfulness. Please pray for us that we can acquire a decision in unity after our discernment process.
I sincerely pray and hope that we can pass this test of faithfulness. Please pray for us that we can acquire a decision in unity after our discernment process.
Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us to be a faithful servant of you to know how to use the money you entrust to us for your glory and the welfare of your children but not for our private glory. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Please click this link to worship with us -
Shine Jesus Shine
Chinese praise song -
Stream of Praise 赞美之泉
Israel Study Tour Highlight DAY 4 - leaving the hotel we stayed for the past three nights to Jerusalem (picture taken at the hotel's beach, Sea of Galilee), Jordan River(John the Baptist place to baptize people), Biblical city of Beth Shean( Roman-Byzantine, Scythopolis, one of the ten Hellenistic cities of the Decapolis), early synagogue at Kibbutz Alfa, Qumran Dead Sea Scroll site, Jerusalem(we stay five nights at Christ Church Guest House inside the Old City besides Jaffa Gate)
