OT DAY 17 - Sleep with A Smile! Die with A Smile! (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

     Today's Reading: Genesis 3:23-24

** 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 Genesis 3:23-24

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

Chinese: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=創 世 記 3&version=CUV

Bible Study

     Yesterday, we talk about we should be able to work joyfully and fruitfully each day until we die. And our dying is just the beginning of our new journey into the new Eden! Today's passage gives us a parable that we cannot go back to Eden, unless...

Let's take a look at what Professor John Goldingay says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

    

     Adam and Eve must be banished from the garden to make sure they do not take from the life tree in their current state…
     So the closing part of the parable represents the awareness that we live in a world that is not paradise.  It is not directly our individual fault, but we cannot find our way there unless God lets us do so.  And it represents the awareness that we are going to die…Fortunately, God will also begin a process whereby the way to life will be reopened…
     Human disobedience meant that creation was subjected to futility, so that it longs and groans for its redemption (Romans 8: 19-22).  But Genesis 1, with its commission to humanity, suggest this did not mean the spoiling of its perfection.  Rather, whereas humanity was made to move toward a goal, its failure meant it moved away from that goal instead.  We do not live in a fallen world; we live in a world that has not reached its destiny…
     There was a point when humanity had to choose whether it wanted to go God's way, and it chose not to.  The Adam-and-Eve story gives us a parabolic account of that.  They ignored the red light and crashed the train.  God brought the first human beings into existence with their vocation, and they turned away from it.  

John Goldingay. Genesis for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.61-63.

      What have you got from today's message? Are you turning away from God's given vocation or are you living out His given vocation? 

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: Sleep with a smile! Die with a smile!

    After I completed yesterday's blog and podcast until now I have received a strong message from Jesus and that is today's topic:
   Sleep with a smile! Die with a smile!

    According to what we've got yesterday, human beings are created to work and be a good gardener for God's garden. After each day's work, we should be able to experience the satisfaction and joy and that our work will always be fruitful. 
    Most of the time when I finished each day's work and went to bed, I slept with a smile. Really, I smiled and then I went asleep. That's satisfaction! That's joy! Because I am in God's Kingdom, in His garden and I feel myself a good gardener doing a good work. I smile and sleep!
    There is a Chinese word to describe those who die well and that is "Die with a smile". What I receive from Jesus is that if we can sleep with a smile each day, it proves our intimate personal relationship with Him each day. And, when we finish our earthly journey, we can die with a smile. Then the smile will go on when we open our eyes to start a new journey of work in the new Eden!
    Is that beautiful!
    Sleep with a smile! Die with a smile! That's God's intention of His creation.

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to be able to sleep with a smile each day so that one day we can die with a smile to enter into a new journey in the new Eden.  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