DAY 780 - Is There Love in Your Church? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

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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: 1 John 4:7-21

** 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 1 John 4:7-21

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4&version=ESV 

Chinese: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4&version=CUV

Bible Study

     The word 'love' occurs twenty-seven times in this passage. John is trying to tell us one thing and that is love. He tells us in yesterday's passage that the secret of no fear is the presence of God in us. Here in today's passage he tells us "if that's how God loved us, we ought to love one another in the same way' (verse 11). But, can you really love? Is there love in your church? 

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

    How easy to write, how hard to achieve.  Only today I was talking to someone who, commenting gloomily on various experiences of actually church life, suggested that churches should have a 'danger' sign outside, warning people to expect nasty, gossipy, snide conversation and behaviour if they came in.  That, sadly, has always been a reality in church life.That is why, from St. Paul onwards, Christian writers have been at pains to insist that it should not be like that with us.  The rule of love, I say again, is not an optional extra.  It is of the very essence of what we are about. If this means we need some new reformations, so be it.       

N.T. Wright. The Early Christian Letters for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.158-159.

      We learn about love, we talk about love, but we cannot love. Why we can't love? 

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: Is there love in your church?

    The message I got from Jesus today is a very sad reality in all churches on earth, since the Early Church time. How can that happen that churches  be a place talking about love, teaching about love but people there people can't love.

     Jesus reminds me now from yesterday's theme, 'The secret to have no fear'. We should know by now that the secret to have no fear is because we have the presence of God in us that we can face every kind of crisis and still have that peace, the sign of God's presence in us.

     Why there is no love in churches? The answer is very simple. It's all about the presence of God, it's all about whether Jesus is Lord in someone's live. If there is the presence of God in someone's live, if Jesus is Lord in a real sense in someone's life, then, that someone will surely bring love to his/her church. Love, according to John in his letter, is the sign of God's presence.

     Is there love in your church? Can you bring more love to your church? 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to make sure that you are our Lord lording us each day so that we can be able to bring more love to our church.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please click this link to worship with us -

從心合一

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

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E

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