Saturday, September 7, 2013

DAY 476 - How Can You Pay The Debt of God's Love? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)


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Today's Reading: Romans 8:12-17


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Please click this link to read Romans 8:12-17
      Paul wants us to be clear of the issue he brings up in the previous several passages. If Jesus took us out of the prisoner-of-war camp, we are not being controlled by anything or anyone, and we do not want to control anything or anyone. We are willing to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. We are not in debt to 'the flesh' but we are in debt to God who loves us. 

Bishop N.T. Wright's says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright):
     We are debtors to the God who loved us, who has saved us, and who is leading us home to the land we have been promised, the eventual new creation.  inheriting that, we shall for ever be in God's debt, and should recognize that already and live accordingly.  Debtors, after all, are under an obligation.  Some Christians speak and live as if everything simply comes to us from God while we sit still and merely receive it.  But God's gift and call to us are not for ourselves alone, but for the purpose of working through us to bring about the transformation of the world.

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:Romans: Part 1. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.145.

     So, how can you pay this debt, the debt of God's love? 

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: How can you pay the debt of God's love?

    What I got from Jesus today is a direction for our lives. According to this passage, we have two ways of paying this debt:
1. Saying 'No' to all kinds of things that our physical bodies tell us they want.  Paul describes this as 'putting to death' your sinful nature.

2. Your saying 'No' to your sinful nature leads you to be transformed continuously so that God can work through you to bring transformation to other people as well as to this corrupted world.

    So, what kind of sinful nature that you have to put to death in order that you pay the debt?  Recently I heard quite a number of similar stories from people of various churches about a situation that Christians need to put to death. It seems not a big deal but it shows our sinful nature: to take control.

    A Christian came up to another Christian saying loudly, "Do you know you are sitting on my usual place?" This seemingly funny mentality happens everywhere causing various consequence. The sad thing is, for those who say this, they do not know that is from their sinful nature: to take control of even a designated chair in their church. Is that wrong? Yes. How can people stop doing that, putting to death of this "taking control" mentality? Difficult!

    This is only one of many not so serious examples. So, do you have anything like that? How can you pay the debt of God's love? 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us be willing to put to death those things we want to take control or to be controlled so that we can be a channel to bring transformation to this world.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.


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