DAY 669 - Where Do We Go When We Die? (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: Philippians 1:18b-26

** 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 Philippians 1:18b-26

English(ESV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians 1&version=ESV

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=腓 立 比 書 1&version=CUV

Bible Study

     Paul talks about where will he goes when he dies in this passage. Do you know where you will go when you die? Are you sure you know? 

Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
      One of the great questions that people have asked throughout human history, and still address particularly to religious leaders, is this: Where do we go when we die?  Until recently, most people in what used to be the Christian Western world would reply 'to heaven', with some also warning that there might be other destinations as well that ought to be avoided if possible. Now, however, with the decline of Christianity in the Western world, people are turning again to folk religion into one great sea of consciousness, or perhaps unconsciousness.  Some say (and really seem to mean) that we'll all become stars in the sky…
      Here Paul faces the question: will he survive his present imprisonment, and then be released so that he can visit them again, or will the powers of the world decide that he's better off dead?
      The curious thing about the second alternative is that Paul actually agrees with them: he would indeed be better off dead. 'What I'd really love', he says, 'is to leave all this and go to be with the king.'(from N.T. Wright's own translation of verse 23)… And the central thing about dying, as far as he's concerned, is that it will mean going to be with this Jesus, his Lord, master and king.
     Nowhere, in fact, in the New Testament do we find people talking about 'going to heaven when they die'.  The closest we come is when Jesus says to the penitent brigand beside him on the cross that he'll be in paradise with him that very day (Luke 23.43).  But in the Jewish thought of the time 'paradise' was not usually a final destination.  It was thought of as a place of blissful rest where the dead would wait until the day of resurrection.
     Paul seems to have a similar view.  Immediately after death, he implies, the Christian goes to be with the Lord.  This language is perhaps the best and safest Christian way of talking about life after death.

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:Te Prison Letters. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.91-92.

     Have you got any new insight about where will you go when you die today? How can your new 'catch' help you to live everyday full of faith, hope and love?
     

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: Where do we go when we die?

    The message I got from Jesus today is a crucial one for us to live everyday a joyful life not to be frightened by the fear of death. If you talk about going to heaven when you die, you are talking about going to a place you do not know. When we talk about we will be with the King, Jesus our Lord when we die, we are talking about a relationship. A relationship we have already established before we die.

     Yes, 'What I'd really love', Paul says, 'is to leave all this and go to be with the king.' Are you in line with Paul? It is a relationship, a daily intimate personal relationship that you know and should be very sure. It should not be a place, a place you do not know and never can know until you are there!
     
Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us to be with you daily so that we are sure when we die we will go to be with you in a better way than when we are on earth. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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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)

http://discipler123.blogspot.ca/