Sunday, October 20, 2013

DAY 519 - How Can We Be So Comfortable? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)


**NEW link for the  15th: 13th 100 days 24 hours prayer campaign (We are going to use this 13th list leads up to the 15th. 13th from March 15 to June 22, 2013. 14th from June 22 to August 31, 2013, 15th from Sept. 1, 2013 to Dec. 9. 2013)

                               Today's Reading: 1 Corinthians 4:9-13
** 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 1 Corinthians 4:9-13

Bible Study

     Paul in the previous passage tells us that many people include Christians have become like kings. In fact, we should be prisoners. Those prisoners being dragged at the end of the victory procession when a general came back to Rome. We are not kings, but prisoners, to be on display to be laughed at by people. 
Bishop N.T. Wright's says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
     Their own apostle, the one through whom they came to faith and learnt of Jesus and his death and resurrection in the first place, is not like a king or victorious general leading a triumphal procession.  He is one of the prisoners, the bedraggled and humiliated captives, pulled along in chains at the back...

       Paul's picture of himself, going around the Mediterranean world in and out of trouble, prison, danger and scorn, is designed to shake them out of their complacency.  And the underlying point, here as in 1:18-2:5, is clear: do we or don't we follow a crucified Messiah?...

      When people insult him, he offers blessing; when they persecute him, he bears it patiently; when people tell lies about him, he speaks gently and kindly in return.  What sort of a person behaves like this?  Only someone who believes that God's wisdom is revealed in the tortured and broken body of his beloved son...And if Paul needed to make this point to the Christians in Corinth, what would he say to comfortable Western Christianity today? 
   
N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:1 Corinthians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.49-51.


       Are you following a crucified Messiah? How comfortable you are now that you have lost that call to live uncomfortably for Jesus as a display to many just like those prisoners? 

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: How can we be so comfortable?

    What I got from Jesus today is a warning if we have been seeking a life to live comfortably to the point of a royal lifestyle. Jesus wants us to die on our own cross just like Him so that other people may live. 

     How much have we sacrificed that we are not seeking for more comfortable so that other people eyes will be opened to follow our crucified Christ but not a victory king.  

Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to understand that we really cannot be so comfortable if we are following you as our crucified Messiah. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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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): 
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): 
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