Sunday, January 5, 2014

DAY 596 - Want to Experience God's Power? (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 12:1-10
** 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:
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Please click this link to read 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

Bible Study

     Today's passage consists of two parts. The first part from verse 1 to 6, Paul boasts of his super experience better and higher than any false teacher can think of.

      The second part consists the "meat", even he has all kinds of high level spiritual experiences and seems top of the world but God allows Satan to attack him to the point he has no way out. And, in that kind of suffering and weakness shows forth God's power and he can be strong. 
Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
      The point is that he prayed hard and long for God to take the thorn away, and God said 'No'… Surely, Paul, the teachers would have said, it can't be God's will for you to suffer such a thing?  Claim the victory of Jesus over the satan, and you'll get rid of it!  Yes, says Paul, three times I prayed to the Lord about it…and God said -something quite different from what anyone had been expecting.  Now at last Paul is allowed, it seems, to reveal a direct word that he has received from God, but it isn't a word that will let him or anyone else become puffed up in their own self-importance.  Instead, it is one of the most comforting, reassuring, healing and steadying 'words of the Lord' ever recorded: 'My grace is enough for you; my power comes to perfection in weakness.'  This is, after all, the same lesson he was trying to teach the Corinthians at the beginning of the first letter.  In a sense, it is the underlying lesson he has been trying to teach them all through. 'When I am weak, then I am strong.'  God's power and human power are not only not the same thing; often the second has to be knocked out of the way altogether for the first to shine through as God desires and intends. 

 N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:2 Corinthians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.132-133.
     
     If you are in suffering or no way out, how could today's message help you to experience God's power? If you are flying too high, being too proud, would this passage help you to become more humble so that God can work through your weakness to show forth His power? 

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: Want to experience God's power?

    What I got from Jesus today is a question that everyone wants. Yes, of course we want to experience God's power! For sure! So, what do you need to do in order to experience God's power? Well, according to today's most powerful message, our own power has to be knocked out of the way in order that God's power to work.

      Do you believe that? Have you experienced that? What's your next step of action so that you can experience God's power more? 

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to be able to understand we have no power at all. Lead us to accept all those challenges and sufferings in our lives understanding that those things need to happen in order for us to experience you great power. 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): 
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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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