DAY 683 - Show And Tell, Signs of Fruit And Growth (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

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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: Colossians 1:1-8

** 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 Colossians 1:1-8

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

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=歌 羅 西 書 1&version=CUV

Bible Study

     Paul starts this letter using a scene of gardening to describe the growth of the Christians in Colossae. He is joyful to hear that the wonderful new plant of the gospel has been planted, and is now bearing fruit and growing. 

Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
     Paul doesn't say that he's heard about their new-found holiness and obedience to a strict new moral code; he does indeed want them to live a new sort of life, but that will come in due time.  He puts his finger instead on the key thing, the fruit that appears quietly but surely within a genuine Christian community soon after it's been planted.  Epaphras, he says (a man from Colossae who has come back to Paul in Ephesus) has told us about 'your love in the spirit' (verse 8).  That's the sign. 

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:The Prison Letters. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.142-143.

     What kind of signs have you noticed for fruit and growth? Where?
     

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: Show and tell, signs of fruit and growth

    The message I got from Jesus today is a check-up of our personal spiritual life:
1. Do you have the signs of fruit and growth in your personal spiritual life? 

2. Does your church has the signs of fruit and growth?

3. Have you heard from anyone telling others of those signs?

4. Are you willing to be that someone to tell other people of those signs of fruit and growth so that more people are being encouraged, just like how Paul encouraged the Christians in Colossae. 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us to be able to bear the signs of fruit and growth so that other people are being encouraged.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman

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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): 

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