Tuesday, December 10, 2013

DAY 570 - Your Life Is The Best Qualification (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: 2 Corinthians 3:1-6
** 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 2 Corinthians 3:1-6

Bible Study

     Paul was being accused of writing his own recommendations. Those leaders in Corinth stirred up distrust in Paul. It is a fact that Paul did not have any recommendation from any of the apostles. How could he tell them that he is also an apostle without any proof?  
Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
     It is that the living God has written something in their hearts, so that they can never be the same people again.
     This, then, is Paul's qualification', answering the question of 2.16.  Paul is not 'qualified' in any human sense; nobody could be.  His 'qualification' comes from God and God alone.  And the only 'letter of recommendation' he needs, the only one he could ever have, is written not with paper and ink, not even with a chisel in a stone tablet like the law of Moses, but in the living beings, the persons, the prayers, the decision, the love, of this community in Corinth, where to date he had done his most thorough work.  'The letter kills, but the spirit gives life';  in other words, as he says in Romans 8, God has now done 'what the law could not do'.  God has given new life where the law of Moses had not been able to.  The resurrection of Jesus unleashed life into the world; Paul and the other apostles are simply the stewards, the household servants, of this new life as it bubbles up to refresh the whole world.  That is Paul's qualification; and that is the single vital qualification for ministers of the gospel from that day to this. 

 N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:2 Corinthians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.29-30.

     So, do you have the qualification Paul described? Are you willing to let the Holy Spirit to fill you each day that your life is the best qualification? 

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: Your life is the best qualification

    What I got from Jesus today is a reminder of how well we live as a Christian each day. Yesterday I was in a shop listening to the complain of a staff to a customer about a church in Vancouver. He was talking so loud that everyone in that shop heard the rumour he wanted to spread. I have a friend who works in that shop and she told me, "You know my boss told me that she does not want to be a Christian because of that man and his wife who are Christians." 

     I have this kind of examples everywhere and that's one of the main reasons why so many people do not want to be a Christian. Why? Because quite a number of Christians do not live like a Christian! 

      What Paul wants to tell us is that our lives is the best qualification to be a disciple of Jesus. And, it is the Holy Spirit to give us a renewed and transformed live so that we can be more and more Christlike. 

      Paul doesn't care what kind of recommendation you have, how many degrees you have, how successful you have been doing God's ministry. He cares whether your life can be the best qualification to be a disciple of Jesus, just like he as an apostle of Jesus.  And, that's how he talks about how we, as disciples of Jesus should be able to spread the aroma, the fragrance of Jesus.

 Dear Lord Jesus, 
Lead us to be able to have a spirit-filled life so that we can spread your aroma.   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- For Renewal or First 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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