DAY 807 - The Power of Silence And Prayers (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

This blog/podcast has people from 111 countries visiting and more than 1/2 million visits.

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: Revelation 8:1-5

** 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 Revelation 8:1-5

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation 8&version=ESV

Chinese: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=启 示 录 8&version=CUV

Bible Study

     Before the opening of the seventh seal, two things happened: a half an hour silence and many prayers. 

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

     When the lamb opened the seventh seal 'there was silence in heaven, lasting about half an hour'.  A sense of awe, expectation and anticipation…Everyone seems to be holding their breath.  This we sense, is the moment they've all been waiting for. We watch, hardly daring to breathe ourselves…
     the unexpected hush in heaven ought to tell us that something huge, something powerful, something utterly decisive, is now going to happen…
     We have already heard (5.8) that the prayers of God's people on earth are presented before God like incense, so that the sense of smell in the heavenly throne room is just as delighted and satisfied as those of sight and sound.  Now the angel approaches once more, and this time he is given a large quantity of incense.  The incense and the prayers, it seems, are not exactly the same thing.  The prayers are, perhaps, like the charcoal on which the incense will burn.  One way or another, the prayers of God's people, not least the prayers of the martyrs who lie under the altar itself (6.9-11), are coming before God's throne.  
     
N.T. Wright. Revelation for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.77-79.

      How much do you understand the power of silence and prayers? How much do you use silence and prayers in your daily 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: The power of silence and prayers

    What I got from Jesus today is an invitation to all of you to take silence and prayers more seriously and be willing to practice those disciplines. Nowadays people can't stand silence. Most people need sound, all kinds of sound. When they are in their car or at home, they'll turn on the sound of TV, radio or music, never silence. 

     Talking about prayers is another lost discipline. Prayer meetings usually are the event that most Christians do not attend. 

     No silence and no prayer is the lifestyle of modern Christians. But, more silence and more prayers is the lifestyle up there in heaven. Have you got the message Jesus wants to give you today? 
     
Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to experience the power of silence and prayers more and more each day so that we can acquire a heavenly lifestyle. 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