Today's Reading: Matthew 18: 8-14
**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 18: 1-7
Bible Study
This passage is actually the second part of yesterday's passage of the need to be Jesus' little child and the mandate to receive those little children.
N.T. Wright says;
So who are these 'little one's'? They include weak, vulnerable children, of course, as we were thinking in the previous passage. But they also include those who are weak and vulnerable at other times of life, too: the cripples, the chronically sick, the elderly and infirm, refugees, women, any who find themselves on the human scrap-heap that our world throws people on to when it can't think what else to do with them.
Speaking about the parable of the ninety-nine sheep and the cutting off of hand, eye and foot, N.T. Wright says:
The sovereign God isn't happy to say 'well, we've still got ninety-nine, let's not worry about the odd silly one that drifts away from the flock - probably not worth much anyway.' No: this is the one that matters.
Anyone who has ever tried to break a bad moral habit will know that it sometimes feels like cutting off a hand or foot. Anyone who tries to stop a bad attitude toward others will know that it's almost as hard as plucking out an eye. And the habits and attitudes, that Jesus has in his sights in this passage are as hard as any. Cutting off the 'hand' that refuses to give to the poor; cutting off the 'foot' that refuses to walk to the soup kitchen to help out; and, in particular, plucking out the 'eye' that refuses to notice the weak, the vulnerable, the helpless all around us, in our cities, on our streets, in our wider world; all these pose a challenge every bit as severe today as the day Jesus first issued it.
That's from N.T. Wright, so what do you think? How well are you doing in this kind of "little children ministry"?
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 target?
What I received from Jesus today is the need to identify your target of those little children that Jesus entrust to you! Try your best to take care of them!
Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to know how to care for those little children you entrust to us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Please click this link to worship with us - Above All
Chinese praise song - 全地至高是我主 You Are Top No. 1
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:http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/