DAY 39 - It's All About Relationship! (Cantonese Podcast click here)

Hi brothers and sisters,

I'm in Chicago for a three days meeting and will be back home this Thursday around 11p.m.. I did try my best to put my podcast online till 4a.m. this morning but the hotel internet system is too slow for me to put a podcast. So, if you would like to listen to the podcast for this post then you have to wait until Thursday around 11:30p.m.. Sorry about that!

Please click the title above for the audio podcast "Discipler 123" Cantonese Version.

You can subscribe to my podcast feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/discipler123

You may choose to follow my first blog which I started in July 2009. The easiest way to go to my first blog is to type my name "Silas Ng" and have a google search. It will be on top of the list and the name of the blog is "Devotion on Fire". The site of this blog is:http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html

Today's Reading: Matthew 18

Please read Matthew 18 and listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ would like to tell you before reading my Spiritual Journal below. If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method you may click this link directly for the method: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf.

Please click this link to worship with us - All I Need Is You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-UDWk6e_aE&feature=related

Please click this link to read Matthew 18:

• Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 18&version=CUV


• NIV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 18&version=NIV


• ESV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 18&version=ESV


• Message: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 18&version=MSG

Jesus called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18: 2-4

What I received from Jesus today is: It's all about relationship!

That's what Jesus wants to talk about in this chapter. The Kingdom of heaven is all about relationship. It's about how you change and become like little children to be with our Heavenly Father daily, just like children love to be with their fathers. It's about how you care for your lost brother and the brother who sins against you. It's about why you cannot forgive your brother. Well, it's all about relationship!

I am now in Chicago attending a very special meeting with a number of Anglican Mission bishops. We have the honor to have the author of the book the sower, Rev. Gary Hoag, to teach us stewardship. I would like to link a message of his book to this chapter. And I would like to use some very important message in the second chapter of the first part namely "Move from two-kingdom bondage to one-kingdom freedom".

Here they are:

We are commanded and equipped to live in the image of a God who in His very nature is relationship. That's the starting point for understanding the concept of the biblical steward. When we read the Genesis account, we understand that God created us for relationships at four levels: our relationship with God, our relationship with our self, our relationship with our neighbor and our relationship with creation.

Gensesis 1-2 paints a picture of the first man and woman in whole, healthy, and life-giving relationships at all four levels. That was God's purpose in creating us in His image. Unfortunately it didn't stay that way, We know that when sin entered the world, it brought brokenness at all our level.

So the definition of stewardship is "reflecting our creator God through whole, redeemed relationships on all four levels, and glorifying God by practicing in each the ongoing work of the steward."

This is a rich, theologically-sound, biblical understanding of what it means to be a steward in the Kingdom of God. The key to this definition is that we serve as stewards, not owners, of these relationships. They are not ours. They belong to the God who brought them back to us when we had lost them through our disobedience. We are commanded to nurture and honor and deepen these relationships. To do so, we must continually place them all into the hands of God and under His authority. When we do so, we live as one-Kingdom stewards. In this Kingdom there is only one Lord. Everything belongs to Him. Everything!...And we respond to the Lordship by serving as the godly steward.

The result of living as a one-Kingdom steward is freedom.

I can't copy and paste more but I hope my point is being made clear. Unless we return to the original planned relationship of father and son, father and daughter relationship, we will be in bondage and not freedom.

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to return to you daily as a little child longing to be close to you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please click this link to worship with us - Draw Me Close to You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLNL49TFC_8&feature=related

Welcome! The purpose of this blog is to encourage those who join our Disciplers 123 to have a place to start their daily devotion - a wonderful and intimate time with Jesus. There are three reasons for you to use this blog as your daily devotion:

1. A healthy spiritual diet - One chapter of the Bible daily. We really need at least one chapter of Bible daily so that we are well fed.


2. A good example of Spiritual Journaling - What I have committed for 1,189 days(the Bible has 1,189 chapters) to write this daily post is not for teaching purposes but this is my daily spiritual journal - I write down what I hear from Jesus and how I experience His intimate relationship with me each day. I have launched a wide-spectrum research on daily devotion and have found out that there are less than 10% of Christians that are having daily devotion. Out of that 10%, many having daily devotion are doing so because of guilt (they know that they are Christians and need to have daily devotion and feel guilty if they don’t do that), duty (they need to fulfill their duty as a Christian) or study(lots of Christians primarily use their daily devotion as a time to study the Bible). I do pray and hope that you will make up your mind to have a relational daily devotion so that you can have an intimate time with Jesus. I pray that you will write your own spiritual journal as well.


3. An online discipler – One of the reasons that so many Christians do not have daily devotion is because they do not have a discipler. A discipler can help them build up this basic element of discipleship when they first become Christians. The best way for you is to have a discipler to walk with you for a certain period of time so that daily devotion become a good habit. Or, you may have a small group of two to three people to encourage and be accountable to each other so that you won’t stop your daily devotion. I offer myself as your online discipler to walk with you daily to enrich your spiritual journey. So, shall we start this journey with Jesus Christ our Lord now!