Monday, August 19, 2013

DAY 457 - It's Relationship! It's Being Not Doing! (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)


**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)


Today's Reading: Romans 4:1-8

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Please click this link to read Romans 4:1-8

Bible Study

      Today's passage gives us a clear picture of justification by faith. It is not what you have done. It is not what you are doing. It is your trustful relationship with God. It is how you can be with God and not how much you are now doing for God. 

Bishop N.T. Wright's says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright):

     All Abraham did was to trust the God who declares the ungodly to be in the right... Genesis does not say, 'Abraham kept the works of the law, and so God established his covenant with him.'  Had it done so, it would have strongly implied that Abraham's true covenant family was to be defined for all time by the performance of those 'works' - which is precisely, of course, what many of the later rabbis wanted to believe...
    Abraham, in other words, started where we all start; in particular, Abraham started where pagans, non-Jews, start.  That was where God met him.  It wasn't where God left him; God did not say that Abraham was fine as he was; his initial trust in God's promise of a large family was simply the beginning of a process of testing, leading and transformation. But his main point is that Gentiles, non-Jews, come in, by faith, to covenant membership exactly as Abraham did himself. 

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone: Romans:Part12. Louisville,KY:Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.54-55.

     Paul wants the Jews to know it is not what they have or what they do to make them children of God. It is their personal relationship with God. It is how they trust God to make them true children of God. What have your listened today? 
                                    
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: It's relationship! It's being not doing!

    What I got today from Jesus is an invitation to enter into a true relationship with God. I have been an Anglican since I was a baby. Going back to my whole spiritual journey, actually there is not much spiritual journey but a list of doing list. I did this, I did that. Until four years ago, Jesus commanded me to start "doing" my blogs and podcasts. This kind of "doing" turns out to be my "being" with Jesus each day and everything change. Suddenly it is not doing anymore. It is being with Jesus. It is relationship. It is trust, pure trust. And trust is a very deep relationship! 

    Are you in a "doing" mode? Or, are you in a deep trusting relationship with Jesus each day? 

Dear Lord Jesus,

Lead us not to step into the trap of doing but to enjoy every moment to be with you each day.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.



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): 

Daily Devotion on Fire (3 years and 3 months plan, one chapter a day to finish reading the whole Bible): 

Break.Build (40 days daily devotion- First Baby Step for new Christians): http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Emmanuel330 (40 weeks First Step Bible Study): 

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世世代代頌讚你的作為，傳揚你的大能!

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