**This is a very important passage to me for this is the passage John Stott gave me when I visited him with my son Ignatius last July in the senior home he is living near London. This is what I wrote in the second post of this blog early last August:
My recent visit to John Stott
John has been my spiritual father and mentor since 1991. My son, Ignatius, and I are so blessed that he welcomed us to his home in England and blessed us.
I told John that when I prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ of what He wants me to do when I become a bishop, Jesus' answer was, "Do what is in Acts 6: 4 'We will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word."
The Lord told me to help our people to establish an intimate relationship with Him through prayers and to teach them to listen to Jesus' Word.
When John heard this he smiled, looked at me with the loving eyes of a father and said, "Silas, you have listened well. Yes, I believe so. Let me give you what I heard from the Lord to you. Then he asked Ignatius to read 1 Thessalonians 2: 1 - 13
You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition. For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed - God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us. Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who beleved. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.
John told me that this is what he got from the Lord to me. He told Ignatius to stop three times when he read the word "mother", "father" and "word". Explaining that are the three keys words he received from the Lord Jesus Christ to me in two aspects:
1. To have the gentleness of a mother and the passion of a father in order to build up relationship with God and His people.
2. To be a steward of God's Word.
John also confirmed the findings in my research that:
1. There are less than 10% of Christians have daily devotion which makes the "Parable of the Growing Seed" unable to work out as from "Stalk, head, full kernel to harvest". Without a daily intimate relationship with Jesus, the stage stops at the first phase - the stalk or even wither at this stage.
2. Every Christian needs a good Discipler to help for a period of time(Jesus used three years)to ensure a healthy daily devotion habit. As in Paul Stanley and Robert Clinton's "Connecting" clearly stated "In order to know and follow Christ, a disciple needs to extablish habits that will affect his or her character and destiny. Such habits are essential to the disciple's lifelong pursuit of Christ. Habits do not develop easily; human nature resists change...the effort needed to break or establish habits to the great amount of energy initially needed by a rocket to overcome the earth's gravitational pull. Once out of the earth's atmosphere, however, the rocket glides with small amounts of energy."
I have confirmation of these two main findings from many Christian leaders including my two Fuller professors, Rev. Dr. Richard Peace and Rev. Dr. John Drane(John is John Stott's succesor as the Chaplain of the Royal Family, England).
John then gave me his new book he wrote in 2006 "Through the Bible Through the Year". I was shocked to receive his gift for what the Lord asks me to do a 1,189 days of Daily Devotion through my block is the similar idea that John had in this new book. He goes through the whole Bible in a year as in a Daily devotion format for his reader. I told John about my vision and he smiled again and told me that that is a very good and accurate vision from the Lord.
At the back of John's "Through the Bible Through the Year" are two comments:
"I can't think of anyone who has been more effective(than John Stott) in introducing so many people to a biblical world view. He represents a touchstone of authentic biblical scholarship..."
BILLY GRAHAM
"Stott's mission is to pierce through all the encrustations and share direct contact with Jesus."
NEW YORK TIMES
John was recently named by TIME magazine as one of the world's most influential people.
He gave Ignatius his newest book "John Stott - The Last Word" wrote in 2008. For a young man of 20 to be blessed by John Stott and have John's newest book with a personal message written and signed by John this morning is a big gift from the Lord to my son!
What John received from the Lord to me is almost 80% of what I got from the Lord many weeks ago as in Acts 6: 4 but more detailed. How wonderful and miraculous that this could happen and how blessed I am to receive such kind of confirmation and blessings from the Lord through John Stott.
