Today's Reading: Matthew 11: 25-30
**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 11: 25-30
Bible Study
After Jesus' very serious warning to everyone who do not want to live a lifestyle of a different kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, Jesus gives us the secret to a restful and peaceful life.
N.T. Wright says:
Jewish writings had, for a millennium and more, spoken warmly about the wisdom of the wise. God gave wisdom to those who feared him; a long tradition of Torah-study and piety indicated that those who devoted themselves to learning the law and trying to tease out its finer points would become wise, would ultimately know God...You needed to be a scholar, trained in languages and literature, with leisure to ponder and discuss weighty and complicated matters.
Jesus sliced through all that with a stroke. No, he declared: you just need to be a little child. Jesus had come to know his father the way a son does: not by studying books about him, but by living in his presence, listening for his voice, and learning from him as an apprentice does from a master, by watching and imitating. And he was now discovering that the wise and learned were getting nowhere, and that the 'little people' - the poor, the sinners, the tax-collectors, ordinary folk - were discovering more of God, simply by following him, Jesus, than the learned specialists who declared that what he was doing didn't fit with their complicated theories.
That's from Bishop Wright pointing us to understanding the reason why so many Christians are in distress, depression and even cannot sleep each day. Why so many Christians, even learned Christians bring confusion, division, jealousy, bitterness and all kinds of darkness and sins to their churches and people around them.
Do you know why? Are you one of them? How can you help those who act like that to repent and come back to a simple daily intimate personal relationship with Jesus?
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: What's the secret to have a restful and peaceful life?
What I got today from Jesus is perhaps one of the most important messages you have got since you become a Christian. I have been helping so many people for years and years to get out of their depression and darkness, but many refused to believe the answer is so simple. They rather insisted on their own way of reasoning and every possible way that you can think of but not the most simple way Jesus gives us today.
Jesus comes to the Father like a child, a baby and see how Jesus lived for that three powerful years towards the Cross. Last Sunday, that was two days ago, a dear sister grabbed my hand when I was giving the bread to her during communion. She said, "Bishop, I got cancer and are going to have an operation on November 1." I prayed for her at that time and prayed for her after the service. Do you think she can have a restful and peaceful life before and after November 1. The secret is where is she in the relationship with Jesus. Let's pray for her and for each one of us that we do not go the worldly way to find rest and peace but to follow Jesus simple and easy way.
Come to Jesus each day, open the Bible and let Him speaks to you, comfort you and just be with you. Come to Jesus like a child, a baby to enjoy the rest and peace that only Jesus can give.
Jesus says, "Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is near!"
Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to follow your good example that we can come to you each day, to give all our burdens to you and to enjoy the rest and peace from you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
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