Saturday, January 4, 2014

DAY 595 - Are You Willing to Be A Fool for Jesus? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

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Confirmation from John Stott in 2009: 
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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 11:21b-33
** 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 11:21b-33

Bible Study

     Yesterday we talked about how Paul admits that he is a fool. Today, he lists those experiences only a fool would boast of. 
Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
      Paul lists his own 'achievements', all of them things that any normal person in the Roman world would be too ashamed even to mention, let alone to celebrate…
      Paul is at last writing his own 'letter of recommendation', but he's like someone applying for a job by listing all the things that would normally disqualify him straight away.  Prison, beatings, official floggings, stoning, shipwrecks: in the ancient world all these would mean not only that you were an unsavoury character whom most people rightly avoided, but that the gods must be angry with you as well…
     The crunch of the whole passage is therefore verse 30: if I am forced to boast, I will boast of the things that show how weak I am…
     Somehow the church in Corinth, and the church in the world of today, have to learn to stand normal cultural values on their head, to live the upside-down life, or rather the right-way-up life, of the true servants of the Messiah. 

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:2 Corinthians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.128.
     
     The life of a true servant of the Messiah is the life of a fool to a normal culture and to those who do not receive Jesus as their Saviour, Lord and King. Are you willing to live such kind of life? 

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 willing to be a fool for Jesus?

    What I got from Jesus today is a question that we may not want to answer. Why? Because even though we are Christians, lots of us still live according to a normal culture. We want other to see us as successful and wise, never the other way round, a looser and a fool. Who want to be that kind of person?

     You have a choice today, to choose the path in which Jesus, Paul and all the faithful servants of Christ experienced or to waste you time and life in the path a so called normal person would choose.

     Are you willing to be a fool for me? That's the question Jesus is asking you now!  How do you answer?  

 Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to be willing to be a fool for you so that your name will be glorified and your Kingdom be extended.  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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