DAY 749 - Need to Know Who The Bad Guy Is (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: James 3:13-18

** 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 James 3: 13-18

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

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=雅 各 書 3&version=CUV

Bible Study

     The author tells us that those who cannot control their tongues to set fire on everything are being sent from hell in yesterday's passage. Today he wants to tell us how can we have the discernment of who is from hell and who is from heaven. If you do not know how to discern, you are going to make a big mess yourself and to your church sooner of later.  

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

      
      What James is talking about is 'bitter jealousy and contention's, a spirit which is always carping and criticizing, which cannot let a nice word go by without adding a nasty one, to take the taste away. And when someone with that kind of spirit claims to be healthy - claims, for instance, to be a practising Christian - James has a sharp response.  Such a person, he says, is boasting.  They are telling lies against the truth (verse 14).
     The diagnosis goes deeper still.  He has already said that the tongue is a fire set aflame by hell; now (verse 15) he says that a mindset like that comes from the world of demons…

N.T. Wright. The Early Christian Letters for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.23.

      Do you have such kind of people around you? Are you one of those people? How can you acquire a better way of discernment so that you won't be deceived by those people?  

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: Need to know who the bad guy is

    The message I got from Jesus today is a warning to us that we need to know who the bad guy is according to today's passage.

    Actually it is not difficult, but we as human beings are so easy to be deceived. 

    Now, let us read verse 16:
    "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice."

     Those are the bad guys. But wait, those bad guys would say something to you that they are not that kind of persons but they frame the good guys to be those kind of persons and some people would believe. How sad!

     Now, let us read verse 17:
     "But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere."

     Do you think someone can pretend that they belongs to those as describe in verse 17? Bishop N.T. Wright says it is not easy. He says:

     They are hard to acquire and hard to maintain.  They can only be sustained at great personal cost.  They only appear where there has been a steady habit of prayer and self-discipline;  even then they may take a while to show themselves.  It would be worth spending the time to work through the words in this list one by one.  Do it slowly.  Review your life in the light of them.  You might want to make a note of the times, the places, and particularly the people, that make it hard for you to live in this way - and then to pray for strength, and for this wisdom from above, to hold firm when the challenge comes round once more.

    That's from Bishop Wright and I totally agree with him.

    You really need to acquire that discernment from Jesus to know who are those belong to verse 16. And, you need to become those who belong to verse 17. If not, sooner of later, you are going to make a big, big mess! 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to have the gift of discernment from you to know who are the bad guys so that we won't make a big mess destroying our own church. 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