DAY 614 - The Pain of Your Children Being Stolen (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 4:12-20

** 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 4:12-20

English(ESV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians 4&version=ESV

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=加 拉 太 書 4&version=CUV 

Bible Study

      You can feel Paul's pain here in this passage, lots of pain. Why? Because some people steal Paul's children from him. It is a mother's pain to see her children do not want to grow up and following some bad people. Painful! 

Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
      The real reason for the break in their relationship has been the other people who have come in…They want to shut the Galatians out.  Remember chapter 2: they want to set up a two-level fellowship, an outer circle for Gentile Christians and an inner circle for Jewish Christians.  That way they can present themselves to their Jewish friends or family as proper, law-abiding Jews; and they will then compel the Galatians to come, to seek circumcision as the price of admission to the inner circle…
     Faced with this, Paul is almost in despair.  What can he do?  What can he say to make them change their minds?  He feels like a mother who, after giving birth, finds herself going through labour pains all over again, watching her children struggle to become the mature adults they were supposed to be.  Here he describes his aim for them very strikingly: 'until the Messiah is formed in you'.    
    

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:Galatians and Thessalonians. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.54-55.
     

      Can you feel Paul's pain? Do you have someone alienated you from those pastors/leaders who gave birth to you? Are you being alienated by some people from those you personally brought up? How painful you are? 

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: The pain of your children being stolen

    What I got from Jesus today is a reality check of whether we are in such kind of situation. Either being foolishly alienated by some people to leave those who brought you up in faith, or your own spiritual children being stolen from some people.

    I have quite a number of such experience. It is so painful! And, just like Paul, you do not know what to do or you cannot do anything. What you can do is just fasting, praying for their eyes to be able to see, for their ears to be able to hear that you are a servant of God and not that person or those people opposing you.

    How can we avoid that to happen? We can't! It is the cost of following Jesus and the pain to give birth to new lives. It is not easy to see them grow up "until Christ is formed in them".

    Can you grow up in Jesus and to be a mature disciple of Jesus? Don't give those who love you so much pain, please!

Daddy,

Help us not to step into those thieves'  trap so that we won't cause pain to those who brought us up and who love us. 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/