DAY 611 - Are You Still Looking after by a Babysitter? (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: Galatians 3:23-29

** 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 Galatians 3:23-29

English(ESV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians 3&version=ESV

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=加 拉 太 書 3&version=CUV

Bible Study

      Paul leads us to think about a very important question of our lives: Are we grown-up children or are we still babies taken care of by babysitters. 

Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
      Paul's picture of the law in Israel's story now focuses on its task and role as a baby sitter until Israel should grow up…
      Paul's basic point is about the story of Israel between the time of Moses and the coming of the Messiah.  During this time, Israel was still a child and needed special looking after.  The fact that Israel need a babysitter during the period of childhood did not mean that the babysitter should continue to do the job once the child had grown up.  And what Paul is claiming throughout the letter is that, with the coming of the Messiah, Israel was at last God's grown-up child.  Israel had reached the age of responsibility, or trustworthiness.  And the word for 'trustworthiness' is the same as 'faith'.  Paul can thus declare that 'faith' - the same word in Greek can mean 'faithfulness', 'trust', 'trustworthiness', 'reliability' - is the sign of maturity, in other words, the sign that the babysitter is no longer needed…
      But how can belonging to the Messiah's people give them this status of being God's grown-up children?…For Paul, it is a matter of belonging to a particular community, the new royal family, the Messiah's people; and this family is entered through baptism.
      Baptism is therefore 'into the Messiah': it is the doorway through which one passes into membership in the single family God promised to Abraham.  

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:Galatians and Thessalonians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.40-41.
    

     So, are you a grown-up child of Jesus Christ? Or, are you still being taken care of by a babysitter or many babysitters? 

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

    The title I heard from Jesus today is: Are you still looking after by a babysitter?

    What I got from Jesus today is a warning to each one of us. A warning whether we are having a daily intimate personal relationship with Jesus or we still do not have that kind of relationship but have relationship of our babysitter or babysitters only. 

    Is Jesus your Lord and King? Or, is your babysitter, your group leader, your pastor or some people are taking the role of Jesus controlling you into a way Jesus does not want to?

     Jesus is Lord is what we need not our babysitter is lord, right? 

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to be willing to become grown-up children of you and not being looking after by babysitters. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please click this link to worship with us -

從心合一

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd2cO2sHbZY

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E

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)

http://discipler123.blogspot.ca/