DAY 658 - Not Discipline, But Relationship (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: Ephesians 4:17-24

** 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 Ephesians 4:17-24

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

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=以 弗 所 書 4&version=CUV

Bible Study

     After an important passage of what unity can be attain when we have Jesus as King leading us each day to do His Kingdom ministry in His mighty Kingdom, Paul shows us the fruit of that result - Christlikeness.
     Paul tells us that you cannot change your behaviour unless you change your heart and mind. 

Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
      To be sure, Paul longs to see the young churches changing their behaviour.  The pagan way of life all around them is deadly.  But you can't alter behaviour without changing the mind; and the pagan, Gentile mind, he says, is foolish (verse 17), with darkened understanding and deep-seated ignorance (verse 18).  This in turn springs from sheer hard-heartedness.  A heart and mind like this produce moral insensitivity, the inability even to notice that some things are right and others are wrong.  Once that's in place, anything goes(verse 19).  You won't understand where the behaviour comes from unless you understand the state of heart and mind.  And you won't change the behaviour unless you change the heart and mind. 

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:Te Prison Letters. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.51.

     How can you change your heart and mind so that you can return to the original image when God creates you? So that you can be Christlike?

     

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage 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: Not discipline, but relationship

    What I got from Jesus today is a call for us to have a paradigm shift so that our hearts and minds can be changed to be more Christlike.

    Today I prayed for a brother. When I asked him what does he wants me to pray, he said, "I try my best to have all kinds of discipline so that I can be more closer to Jesus. But, I can't. I am in a mess!" The message I received from Lord Jesus to tell him is this, "Lord Jesus, help him to understand that it is not discipline but relationship. The only way to change us to be more like you is our daily intimate personal relationship with you, nothing more and nothing less."

    If you have been trying all your best for years to put off your old self and to put on the new self using discipline or any other method other than a daily intimate personal relationship with Jesus, you are just heading to a dead-end.

    Remember, it is not discipline, but relationship! 
    
Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us to truly enter into a renewed relationship with you following you as our King. Only you can tell us and guild us into that life changing daily intimate personal relationship with you so that we have a better chance to change our hearts and minds to be more like you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please click this link to worship with us -

從心合一

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

Change My Heart Oh God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtsHWFE6-w&feature=related

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/