DAY 426 - It Won't Work, but You Still Do It for Jesus! (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

If you can listen to Cantonese, please go to this link to "This week's sermon" for my preaching last Sunday(July 14). It's a very good one: http://www.emmanuelvoice.org/

Kneel 3 Minutes A Day Campaign started on June 27, 2013: http://discipler123.blogspot.ca/2013/06/day-404-i-will-return-kneel-3-minutes.html

Please join us!

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

Update  for Leslie Tuesday July 16, 2013:

X-ray today, Doctor said good. May go home soon but they forget Leslie is still on tube can't eat, will try soon. 

Today's Reading: Acts 21:27-36

** 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 Acts 21:27-36

• English(ESV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts 21&version=ESV
• Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts 21&version=CUV

        

Bible Study

      Today's passage gives us an answer to my question yesterday: Did Paul make a mistake?

     No, Paul did not make a mistake. He should know that how he backed off to do the foolish things those leaders told him to do won't work. But, he still do it. Why? I think because he got it from the Lord to do it. 

     See how this passage describes another big riot after what he did. It didn't work! But let's hear what bishop N.T. Wright says: 

     Yes, wherever he goes there is a riot.  But that is because he is being loyal to the true, if extraordinary and dangerous, purposes of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the creator God who will one day call the whole world to account.  Every vindication of Paul is another advance signal of that eventual day.  The God who called the pagan Cyrus to rescue Israel from Babylon (Isaiah 45:1) can and will use Roman justice, for all its glaring faults, to show in advance that Paul has done nothing worthy of death.  Learn to hear the story in these terms, and to wrestle with today's complex problems of faith, politics, justice and loyalty with new courage and hope.

N.T. Wright. Acts for Everyone, Part 2. Louisville,KY:Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, p.151.

     So, the point in this passage is not whether Paul's way of doing things worked or not. It is the fruit of how he accomplished that can give us courage and hope in our complicated modern world of faith, politics, justice and loyalty.

          

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: It won't work, but you still do it for Jesus!

   

    What I received from Jesus is a very interesting but fearful invitation. Just like Paul, or any of the courageous prophets in the Old Testament like Elijah, Jeremiah or Daniel. All of them did something they knew that it would not work but they still did it. Why? Because God told them to. How can we learn from their examples? Faith and courage in the midst of darkness and hopelessness.

    The thing I received from Jesus today is purely relational. Most people won't do those things they think it won't work, right? Real listen and obey is that if we know it is from the Lord, even we know that it won't work, we need to do it. May be the Lord is testing your faith and courage. May be you will know the fruit in ten year's time. But, you need to do it! 

Dear Lord Jesus,

Lead us to have the faith and courage to do the thing you ask us to do even we think that it won't work. Help us to have the total trust in you that we can be able to do it.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

You may choose to follow my other daily blog: 

Daily Devotion on Fire 2(One year New 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/

Twitter version:http://twitter.com/bishopsilasng

Bible in One Year blog by Rev. Nicky Gumbel

https://mail.google.com/mail/?tab=wm#inbox/13ee3bf1b3036c5f