DAY 738 - How to Help Your Home Church to Become The Holy City? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

I would like to invite you to join us in a 100 days of prayer (From April 9 to July 17) for Michelle, our family and my ministry. Please click this link to join us to pray:
New 100 Days Prayer Campaign (2014.04.09-2014.07.17)

What you need to do is very simple. Choose one hour slot for the whole week to pray for Michelle, our family and my ministry. You may use the whole hour in prayer or you can still do you work in your office but use as much time as you can to pray and the other time work prayerfully that hour to pray for us. I encourage you to participate. We need you to join us! Trust in the power of prayers!

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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: Hebrews 12:18-24

** 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 Hebrews 12:18-24

English(NIV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+12&version=NIV

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=希 伯 來 書 12&version=CUV

Bible Study

     In yesterdays passage, the author gives a serious warning for those who are out of order or even wants to destroy the church. He encourages us to "make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy." Here in this passage, he shows us what is that means by comparing Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, the law and the Gospel, what holiness means. 

Let's take a look at what Bishop N.T. Wright says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright ) :

      
      The point about Mount Zion, and the living God whose home it is , is not that holiness doesn't matter, but that a new way has been found and accomplished through which the holiness you couldn't attain under the Mosaic law has at last been achieved…
      The most striking thing about it is that, according to verse 22, those who now live by faith and hope have already, in a sense, arrived at this heavenly city.  They already belong there; in prayer and worship they are already welcome before God's throne. 

N.T. Wright. Hebrews for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.161, 163.

      Do you think you have arrive in the Holy City? When was the last time you felt worshipping in the Holy City when you were worshipping in your home church? 

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: How to help your home church to become the Holy City?

    The message I got from Jesus today is a striking message and invitation. Three weeks ago I was worshipping at Royal Albert Hall in London with more than five thousand Christians during the two days of Leadership Conference of Holy Trinity Church Brompton under the lead of world famous song writer and worship leader Tim Hughes and Matt Redman. Wow! It was like worshipping in the Holy City! I think most people agree with me if they were there.

    The question is, do we have the same feeling when we are worshipping in our home church. If not, we are in big, big trouble. Because we need to find a way to go to some big conference to experience that heavenly worship but not in our home church. Actually, almost every Sunday I feel I am worshiping in the Holy City with angels and archangels surrounding us worshipping our Lord at Richmond Emmanuel Church.

     How can you help yourself and other people to feel like worshiping in the Holy City when you are worshipping in your home church is perhaps a very important challenge to you today. It is a relational question and not a strategic question. It is not how you remodel your service, how you make a better worship team, choir, music and so on. It is just like the difference of law and the gospel. God was so remote and holy and we as unholy people can't get there and no need to get there. They would die if they approached Mount Sinai. 

     When we have a true intimate personal relationship with Jesus and if that is real, we should be more and more holy and we can worship our Lord with those holy angels and archangels in the Holy City, no matter in your home church, Holy Trinity Brompton or Royal Albert Hall.

     Let's try our best to be more and more closer to our Holy and Mighty Lord and that we can help our home church to become the Holy City! 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to be holy and that we can help our home church to become the Holy City, worshiping you with all those angels and archangels surrounding us every time when we worship together.  In Jesus Name we pray. Amen.

     Please click this link to watch Rev. Dr. Paul Chun Chi Ng's encouragement to Richmond Emmanuel Church, Richmond, BC, Canada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_h9VFwnVcU&feature=youtu.be 

     Please click this link to watch Dr. Kuhn's encouragement to Richmond Emmanuel Church, Richmond, BC, Canada:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ4tk08Gsz8&feature=youtu.be

Rev. Nicky Gumbel and Mrs. Pippa Gumbel's greetings to the Anglican Mission Canada's National Conference May 15-16, 2014:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHpAEv_kl3c&feature=youtu.be

Please click this link to worship with us -

從心合一

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

Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbe7OruLk8I&noredirect=1

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