DAY 773 - God's Patience Is Our Opportunity (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

                               Today's Reading: 2 Peter 3:11-18

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Please click this link to read 2 Peter 3:11-18

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2 Peter 3&version=ESV

Chinese: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=彼 得 後 書 3&version=CUV

Bible Study

     Peter talks about we need to have more patience in yesterday's passage. Now, in today's passage, he talks about God's patience. While we are so impatiently waiting for God's answer to our prayers, God is actually patiently waiting for us to to live out what He prepares for us to live out. 

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

      
      The proper perspective is to regard anything that looks to us like 'delay' as an indication not that we have to be patient with God, but that God is having to be patient with us…
     One should be grateful for this 'patience', not angry with God for failing to hurry up when we wanted him to.
     This is very much what Paul has in mind in a passage like Romans 2.1-11.  It might be worth looking that up and pondering it; perhaps this is the sort of passage Peter has in mind. For Paul, 'God's kindness is meant to bring you to repentance' (Romans 2.4)…
     This seems to be what Peter is saying, too. 'When our Lord waits patiently to act, see that for what it is - salvation!' (verse 15). God's patience is our opportunity.  It is our chance to work on the holy, godly lives we ought to be living.  It is our chance, too, to spread the gospel in the world. Since we know that the day is coming, the day when new heavens and new earth will emerge, filled to the brim with God's wonderful justice, his glorious setting-right of all things, we should be working towards that already, here and now. 

N.T. Wright. The Early Christian Letters for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.123-124.

      So, when you understand God's patience is the key to give us peace when we are not patience, how could that change your life?  

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: God's patience is our opportunity

    The message I got from Jesus today is such a paradigm shift to all of us! Do you know how patience God is and how patience God's servants are trying to get you back to His Kingdom plan and to His vast army?

    The point is we as human beings never want that. We do not want to be under authority, of course not in an army. Do you know how an army operates?

    That's how Peter used two words to remind us that we should be in God's vast army:
1. Be on guard(verse 17): You never know how the enemy can come in to destroy you and your platoon in the time that you cannot think of. Do you know how to be on guard as a soldier?

2. Secure position(verse 17): God has put us into a secure position so that we are safe. But, the enemy force has their own way to pull you out from that position. No matter that position is your home church, your house group or your serving position in your church. Satan is going to try all his best to pull you out, destroy you, your group, your church and God's Kingdom plan. What a waste if you let him to win! 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to understand that your patience is our opportunity. Lead us to live out your Kingdom plan. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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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): 

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Daily Devotion on Fire (3 years and 3 months plan, one chapter a day to finish reading the whole Bible): 

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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