DAY 678 - God's Grace to Help You to Be Christlike (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: Philippians 3:12-16

** 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 Philippians 3:12-16

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

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=腓 立 比 書 3&version=CUV

Bible Study

     Verses 13-14 of today's passage is perhaps one of the top ten golden verses in the Bible. Most of us just like this verse, but don't want to spend some time to dig out the complete message. 

Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
     Paul ended the previous paragraph with talk of the resurrection which lies still in the future, and towards which, therefore all Christians are drawn like athletes sprinting towards the end of the race.  As he stresses in verse 13, it's important to concentrate on the one aim in view: keeping on going forward towards that goal…
     What then is the goal, the finishing line?  Paul describes it in verse 14 with an interesting phrase: the prize that is waiting there, like a silver cup or medal for the winning athlete, is 'the upward call of God in King Jesus'.  This has often been seen as simply 'heaven', the place 'up there' where Christians aim to go at the end.
     But this can't be what Paul means.  In verses 20 and 21, which we shall come to in the next section, he speaks not of our going up to heaven, but of the Lord, King Jesus himself, coming from heaven to earth, in order to transform the world and change our bodies so that they are like his own resurrected and glorified body.  Living in 'heaven' isn't the goal we are aiming at; rather, it's living in God's new world with our new bodies.  So the 'upward call' seems to be the resurrection life itself.  Straining forward towards it, like an athlete aiming at the finishing line and the prize that waits beyond it, means living in the present in the light of that future…
    When he's talking about what Jesus has done to and for him, the word means 'has laid hold of me', 'has grasped me and taken control of me'. But it's the same word, and that's the point.  All Paul's efforts after holiness, after the work of the gospel, after the eventual goal of resurrection, are not a matter of his unaided effort to do something that will make God pleased with him.  They all take place within the context of God's grace:  King Jesus has grasped hold of him, and all that he now does is a matter of responding in love to that firm hand on the shoulder. 

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:The Prison Letters. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.123-124.

     Wow! So this passage is not telling you to work hard so that you can finish well and then have a place in heaven. It is not about the future. Do you understand what this passage is about now?  
     

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: God's grace to help you to be Christlike

    The message I got from Jesus today is a total paradigm shift of our understanding of this passage. Most people used to take this passage as in the future, especially after we die and we get the prize and that is living in heaven.

    But, it is all about the present. It's all about how do we respond to God's love because of His grace so that we dare to strive our best like a 100 metres sprinter to dash through the finishing line to be Christlike.  So that we can be grasped by Jesus and be willing to be controlled by Jesus. If that really happen, then we win the prize. Not after we die, but in our lifetime. 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us to be able to run that race so that we can 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

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/


Rev. Nicky Gumbel's daily devotion: Bible in One Year
http://www.htb.org.uk/bioy