DAY 752 - Don't Store up Riches (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 5:1-6

** 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 5: 1-6

English(ESV): http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James 5&version=ESV

Chinese: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=雅 各 書 5&version=CUV

Bible Study

     We need to know that this passage is not to condemn the rich people because some of the rich people are God's faithful servants providing money and resources for His Kingdom ministry.  We need to know who the rich people James is talking about and how we can't follow the way those rich people live. 

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

      
      The final condemnation of 'the rich' is not that they are oppressive, living in luxury and denying the workers their wages.  The worst thing they have done is that they have condemned the Righteous One and killed him.  They are responsible for the death of Jesus.
     Suddenly we realize who 'the rich' really are - and, almost certainly, where and when James is writing this letter. 'The rich' are the Jerusalem elite - the Sadducees and the chief priest - who live in their fine houses and grow fat on the proceeds of pilgrimages and sacrifices brought by faithful Jews, but whose attitude to God and his law is purely pragmatic…
     And now we come to the second fresh perspective on the whole letter, here unveiled in verse 3. "You have stored up riches' , warns James, 'in the last days.'   
     And in this new age one of the most inappropriate things you could do was - to store up riches.  God is turning everything upside down, exalting the poor and humble and bringing the powerful and rich crashing down - and yet you are trying to make yourself richer! 

N.T. Wright. The Early Christian Letters for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.33-34, 35.

      What insight have you got from this passage? 

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: Don't store up riches

    The message I got from Jesus today are in two ways.
First, how are you going to use your money and resources well so that at the end you won't be condemned by Jesus that you have stored up riches.

Second, how not to desert, hurt or kill Jesus servants because you think that you are rich, you know lots of things, far more better than God's servants, or may be they are wrong and you are right in your own thinking. 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us know how to use our money and resources well and that we won't store up riches for our selfish personal use. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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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