Tuesday, November 19, 2013

DAY 549 - Love Is Future, Not Duty (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)


**NEW link for the  15th: 13th 100 days 24 hours prayer campaign (We are going to use this 13th list leads up to the 15th. 13th from March 15 to June 22, 2013. 14th from June 22 to August 31, 2013, 15th from Sept. 1, 2013 to Dec. 9. 2013)

Want to know why I have been writing and recording my blogs and podcast daily since August 10, 2009? Click these three links:

Confirmation from John Stott in 2009: 
http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
My MicroMacro Discipleship, A missing DNA in Discipleship Development: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/07/introduction-micromacro-discipleship.html
Subject Shifting Devotion Method(Inspired by John Stott in 1991: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html

                               Today's Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:8-13
** If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from my Devotion on Fire blog:
http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html
To use this simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link:
 .Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf

Please click this link to read 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

Bible Study

     Yesterday's passage tells us that all those things about love can't happen in you unless you have received that most important spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit. Today's passage tells us when we receive the gift of love then everything leads you to God's future. A bright and glorious future! 
Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
     So often the moral demands of the Christian life are presented within a framework which speaks of duty: a cold, hard slog to attain a distant and seemingly impossible standard.  But Paul sees all of life within the framework of God's future - God's future which has burst into the present in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and especially in his resurrection, which has marked him out as God's Messiah, the world's true Lord.  In that future, Paul sees a world of joy, delight, and above all of love.  So in the present there are three things which point into the future (verse 13): faith, which looks at the God made known in Jesus and trusts him for everything; hope, which looks ahead to God and what he will do in the future, which is already assured by Jesus' resurrection; and love, which will finally know as it is known, and embrace as it is already embraced. (see 8:3, and e.g. Galatians 2:19-20 and 4:9). 

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:1 Corinthians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.174-175.


     Wow, are you more secure and joyful now as you know that love leads you to God's future? 

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":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

Spiritual Journal

    What I heard from Jesus today is: Love is future, not duty

    What I got from Jesus today is such a good news, wonderful good news!

     Lots of time, love turns out to be mere duties: OK, as a husband, I have to be more patient, more kind, I have to do more of this, more of that, more...Oh, too much duty. I can't do it! That's how it happens to many husbands and wives. 

     No, remember you can't love. Love is like the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. You can't do those eight characters. When you repent and return to God's Kingdom, when Jesus is your Saviour, Lord and King. Then those eight characters will naturally surface, and blessings will come to you and through you to others. The same as verse 4 to 7, when you repent and return to God's Kingdom, when Jesus is your Saviour, Lord and King, then you will be filled with the Holy Spirit and He will surely give you the gift of love and many other spiritual gifts. Then you can love and love will leads you to God's bright and glorious future! 

 Dear Holy Spirit,
Fill us so that we can receive the gift of love leading us to God's bright and glorious future. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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一首愛歌


10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman
You may choose to follow my other daily blog: 
Daily Devotion on Fire 2(2 years plan -One year New Testament, one year Old Testament): 
http://bishopsilas2.blogspot.ca/
Daily Devotion on Fire (3 years and 3 months plan, one chapter a day to finish reading the whole Bible): 
http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/
Break.Build (40 days daily devotion- First Baby Step for new Christians): http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Emmanuel330 (40 weeks First Step Bible Study): 
http://emmanuel330.blogspot.ca/

This blog:

Discipler 123 (Daily devotion using N.T. Wright's NT for Everyone as source)
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