DAY 684 - Are You An Immigrant in God's Kingdom? Really? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

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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: Colossians 1:9-14

** 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 1:9-14

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 gives thanks to God for the change in the behaviours and lifestyle of the Colossians and that they can bear much fruit. He makes a metaphor of new Christians being an immigrant in God's Kingdom from their previous sinful kingdom. 

Bishop N.T. Wright says ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :
     When Paul speaks of God rescuing people from one kingdom and giving them another one, and of 'redemption' and 'forgiveness'  as the central themes of that rescue operation, he has the Exodus from Egypt in mind.  What God has done in Jesus, and is now doing for them, is the new Exodus, the great moment of setting the slaves free.  To become a Christian is to leave the 'Egypt' of sin and to travel gratefully towards the promised inheritance. 

N.T. Wright. Paul for Everyone:The Prison Letters. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.147.

     Have you been immigrated to God's Kingdom? What kind of new behaviour and lifestyle do you have for people to know that you really have immigrated to God's Kingdom? 
     

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: Are you an immigrant in God's Kingdom?

    The message I got from Jesus today is a check-up of our status in God's Kingdom. If we say we have been immigrated to God's Kingdom, then according to Paul, we need to have those new changes of behaviour and lifestyle. Do you have those? Do you have concrete examples that other people aware that you have been changed by Jesus? How? 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us to be able to live out our new life in you through our changes in behaviour and lifestyle so that your name will be glorified. 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