Tuesday, December 31, 2013

DAY 591 - Are You Being Commended by The Lord? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

Want to know why I have been writing and recording my blogs and podcast daily since August 10, 2009? Click these three links:

Confirmation from John Stott in 2009: 
http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
My MicroMacro Discipleship, A missing DNA in Discipleship Development: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/07/introduction-micromacro-discipleship.html
Subject Shifting Devotion Method(Inspired by John Stott in 1991: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html

                               Today's Reading: 2 Corinthians 10:12-18
** 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 2 Corinthians 10:12-18

Bible Study

     Following last passage about capturing people's mind back to Christ, Paul explains why he was accused of boasting himself. The reason is the same as in earlier chapters about Paul did not have the recommendations from the other apostles but other leaders had those recommendations. So Paul used strong words boasting his genuine position as an apostle of Jesus hoping that the Corinthians knew and accept his true status. 
Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
      What it all comes down to is the true nature of the Christian 'boast': anyone who boasts should boast in the Lord!  He's already quoted this (it comes from Jeremiah 9.23) in the first letter to Corinth (1.31), where it stood as a sign that all the different things the church might want to boast of, not least its social and cultural advancement through teachers with more rhetoric than substance, had to be subjected to the humiliation of the cross.  Now he quotes it again with a similar though slightly different aim.  He wants to warn the church against those who 'commend themselves', but are not commended by the Lord. 

 N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:2 Corinthians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.111-112.
     
     How do you know if you are commended by the Lord? Do you know how to answer this question? 

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: Are you being commended by the Lord?

    What I got from Jesus today is a question not easy to answer, yet not really impossible to answer. Looking as Paul as an example is a good way to know the answer. We can see his Christlike character, his fruitful ministries and his powerful writings. Not difficult for us to know after 2,000 years but not easy for those Corinthians to be sure because some of their minds had been captured by Satan and they were unable to see.

     There is a Chinese saying I quote quite often when someone asks me whether this leader is a good leader or that Christian is a faithful disciple of Christ. I frequently use that saying:
The longer distance it is, the better you know a horse;
The longer time it is, the better you know a person.

     Time will prove whether we are boasting ourselves or boasting in the Lord if we really have to boast in order to tell people who we are. Time will prove of our Christlikeness and fruitfulness if we are commended by the Lord.

     Time will tell, for those who are able to see and hear what the Holy Spirit is saying. But, not for those whose minds are being captured by Satan.

     Who are you? Where are you now? In Satan's prison or in a daily intimate personal relationship with Jesus? Are you being commended by the Lord?

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to be as close as we can with you each day so that we have a better chance to be commended by you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

 Happy New Year!

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10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman
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- For Renewal or First Step for new Christians): http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Emmanuel330 (40 weeks First Step Bible Study): 
http://emmanuel330.blogspot.ca/

This blog:

Discipler 123 (Daily devotion using N.T. Wright's NT for Everyone as source)
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我呼求的日子，所有強敵都要轉身退後!

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