DAY 742 - Obey Your Leaders And Submit to Their Authority (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 13:17-25

** 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 13:17-25

English(NIV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews 13&version=NIV

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=希 伯 來 書 13&version=CUV

Bible Study

     The author concludes the book of Hebrews with a command for all Christians to obey their leaders and submit to their authority. You should know it well that the conclusion of a book is very important. So, being able to obey our leaders and submit to their authority should be very important. The reality is that since Early Church time till now, most Christians have problems of obeying their leaders and submitting to their authority.  

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

      
      I was chatting with a friend who had recently become a bishop.
      He was and is a wonderful man, scholarly, wise, outgoing, full of ideas and devotion and love and goodness.  You might have thought any church would be glad to have him as a leader.
     'How are you finding it, then?' I asked.
     'Trying to be a leader in this church', he replied, 'is like trying to take a cat for a walk!'..
     All too often, it seems, Christian people behave in the same way.  The present mood of Western society, in which all authority seems suspect, and all power is assumed to corrupt people, gives an extra excuse to people who want to do their own thing rather than submit in any way to what anybody else says. 

N.T. Wright. Hebrews for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p.176-177.

      How well are you doing to obey your leaders and submit to their authority? 

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: Obey your leaders and submit to their authority

    The message I got from Jesus today is a command from the supreme commander, our Lord Jesus Christ, to each one of us as His disciple and part of His vast army. (Ezekiel 37:10)

    Let's try your best to think of a picture and condition of what would happen in a severe warfare if most of the soldiers, captains do not obey their general and are not willing to submit to his authority. Everybody die, right?

    Do you know we have been in a severe spiritual warfare since the Early Church time, or even since creation? Do you remember how God trained those Israelites so that they obeyed Moses and Aaron and submitted to their authority?

    The reality is that since Early Church time as told by the author of Hebrews today, we have a tendency not obeying our leaders and not willing to submit to their authority. The consequence might be deadly, not only the poor growth of quite a number of churches, not only the hurting and attacking of God's servants, but also the destruction of a whole nation when Christians and churches are not able to protect their nation from the 'spiritual genocide' launched by Satan himself.

     I have been a priest for 26 years, a Rector for 18 years and a bishop for five years, I have experienced the similar situation as Bishop Wright describes of what his friend experienced - Trying to take a cat for a walk!

     I have been praying, fasting and doing any possible spiritual way you can think of to teach and lead those who Jesus put under my authority to obey their leaders and submit to their authority. It is such a difficult task!

     So, is it possible to start with you, start with you today that you are willing to obey those leaders anointed and appointed by our Lord Jesus Christ and be willing to submit to their authority. Just like soldiers and captains obeying to their general. Can you do that for Jesus? 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to be willing to obey our leaders and submit to their authority so that your Kingdom will be extended and your name will be glorified. 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