Today’s Reading: Galatians 4
Welcome! The purpose of this blog is to encourage Christians to have daily devotion - a wonderful and intimate time with Jesus. There are three reasons for you to use this blog as your daily devotion:
1. A healthy spiritual diet - One chapter of the Bible daily. We really need at least one chapter of Bible daily so that we are well fed.
2. A good example of Spiritual Journaling - What I have committed for 1,189 days(the Bible has 1,189 chapters)to write this daily post is not for teaching purposes but this is my daily spiritual journal - I write down what I hear from Jesus and how I experience His intimate relationship with me each day.
I have launched a wide-spectrum research on daily devotion and have found out that there are less than 10% of Christians that are having daily devotion. Out of that 10%, many having daily devotion are doing so because of guilt (they know that they are Christians and need to have daily devotion and feel guilty if they don’t do that), duty (they need to fulfill their duty as a Christian) or study(lots of Christians primarily use their daily devotion as a time to study the Bible). I do pray and hope that you will make up your mind to have a relational daily devotion so that you can have an intimate time with Jesus. I pray that you will write your own spiritual journal as well.
3. An online discipler – One of the reasons that so many Christians do not have daily devotion is because they do not have a disciple. A discipler can help them build up this basic element of discipleship when they first become Christians. The best way for you is to have a discipler to walk with you for a certain period of time so that daily devotion become a good habit. Or, you may have a small group of two to three people to encourage and be accountable to each other so that you won’t stop your daily devotion. I offer myself as your online disciple to walk with you daily to enrich your spiritual journey. So, shall we start this journey with Jesus Christ our Lord now!
Please read Galatians 4: 1 – 31 and listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ would like to tell you before reading my Spiritual Journal below. If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from this blog. You may click this link directly for the method: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf . (You may begin with a song to praise the Lord and complete you devotion by singing another praise song.)
Please click the links below to Galatians 4:
Chinese: http://www.o-bible.com/cgibin/ob.cgi?version=hb5&book=gal&chapter=4
ESV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204&version=ESV
NIV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204&version=NIV
Message: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204&version=MSG
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Galatians 4: 4 - 7
Today I had a most wonderful, special and long daily devotion time with Jesus. A time of almost two hours of study through various commentaries and another four hours through two sharing opportunity with my son Ignatius,. I then 'chewed' on what Iggy said before I heard what Jesus wanted me to write on today’s blog. Well, only He knows that today is my regular weekly day-off and today I was more prepared to spend six hours with Him!
Some people think that I am suggesting in my blog that we don’t need any study but just listening to Jesus, which would be a shallow Christian experience. Not so! We might listen to wrong messages if we are not trained and built firmly on solid ground. If I didn’t need studying, I wouldn’t have had to go to Nashotah House Episcopal Seminar in Wisconsin for my three years M. Div. 26 years ago. I also started 3 years ago at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena for my D. Min. My point is that even though I went through all those kinds of intensive studies, I had been a priest without much transformation for years until I was free from all kinds of enslavement into a daily intimate relationship and experienced the full rights of being a son(v.5).
Ignatius told me what a blessed time he had the past three days attending the Breakforth Conference in Edmonton with 7,000 Christians all over Canada, with another seven young people from our church, Richmond Emmanuel Church. Ignatius told me that Pastor Francis Chan said: “We as Christians always talk about love but do not act on love. To put it in perspective, it would be like telling my daughter to clean her room. Later she would come back and tell me that she memorized how to clean a room, and had a group of people studying how to clean her room, and even knowing the Greek terms for cleaning a room, but she has not yet cleaned her room.”
Jesus told me that this is how Paul wrote this chapter of Galatians 4. Those Christians in Galatia were in a position to receive the inheritance, beginning with the promised Spirit of his Son.(v.6) Instead, they went back to the enslavement of previous ways of life abandoning the true God and not having a personal relationship with God (v. 9). Paul had emotional feelings of anguish for those people because they, like little children (v. 19 – 20), had not been growing but needed to be delivered again. As Paul says:
My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you! Galatians 4: 19-20
When I brought Ignatius to see my spiritual father John Stott and to be blessed by him in July 2009, John gave his last book(John Stott – The Last Word, 2008) to my son. And John says there,
"What is God’s purpose? I want to share with you where my mind has come to rest as I approach the end of my pilgrimage on earth and it is – God wants his people to become like Christ. Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God."
That is the problem of the Galatians 2,000 years ago and that is the same problem of Christians living in today’s world. Have you received Jesus' message today?!
Dear Lord Jesus,
Thank you for the past six sweet hours with you. Help me to experience and live out Christlikeness daily. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Prayer items today:
For ACiC/AI
Bishop: Rt. Rev. Silas Ng
Network Leader: Rev. Peter Klenner
Administrator: Mrs. Zenia Cheng
Pray for one ACiC/AI church one day at a time
Church of Redemption, Calgary
Rector/Senior Pastor: Rev. Ikechukwu Chukuka
We have started our 2nd phase of 100 days of prayer. I am calling you in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ to fill in your names in the new list below. Many wonderful things have happened in the past 100 days. Can we follow our King, our Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ to use an hour’s time to pray for His protection and blessings to my new ministry as the Bishop of ACiC/AI, all our ACiC/AI clergy, leaders and people? Pray that in the Holy and Mighty Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we can win over Satan's tricks, in order to strengthen our brothers and sisters so that His Kingdom will be extended. Please click this new link to participate in our 2nd phase 100 days/24 hours Prayer Campaign (Nov 29, 2009 to March 8, 2010)
Welcome! The purpose of this blog is to encourage Christians to have daily devotion - a wonderful and intimate time with Jesus. There are three reasons for you to use this blog as your daily devotion:
1. A healthy spiritual diet - One chapter of the Bible daily. We really need at least one chapter of Bible daily so that we are well fed.
2. A good example of Spiritual Journaling - What I have committed for 1,189 days(the Bible has 1,189 chapters)to write this daily post is not for teaching purposes but this is my daily spiritual journal - I write down what I hear from Jesus and how I experience His intimate relationship with me each day.
I have launched a wide-spectrum research on daily devotion and have found out that there are less than 10% of Christians that are having daily devotion. Out of that 10%, many having daily devotion are doing so because of guilt (they know that they are Christians and need to have daily devotion and feel guilty if they don’t do that), duty (they need to fulfill their duty as a Christian) or study(lots of Christians primarily use their daily devotion as a time to study the Bible). I do pray and hope that you will make up your mind to have a relational daily devotion so that you can have an intimate time with Jesus. I pray that you will write your own spiritual journal as well.
3. An online discipler – One of the reasons that so many Christians do not have daily devotion is because they do not have a disciple. A discipler can help them build up this basic element of discipleship when they first become Christians. The best way for you is to have a discipler to walk with you for a certain period of time so that daily devotion become a good habit. Or, you may have a small group of two to three people to encourage and be accountable to each other so that you won’t stop your daily devotion. I offer myself as your online disciple to walk with you daily to enrich your spiritual journey. So, shall we start this journey with Jesus Christ our Lord now!
Please read Galatians 4: 1 – 31 and listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ would like to tell you before reading my Spiritual Journal below. If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from this blog. You may click this link directly for the method: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf . (You may begin with a song to praise the Lord and complete you devotion by singing another praise song.)
Please click the links below to Galatians 4:
Chinese: http://www.o-bible.com/cgibin/ob.cgi?version=hb5&book=gal&chapter=4
ESV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204&version=ESV
NIV: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204&version=NIV
Message: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%204&version=MSG
But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Galatians 4: 4 - 7
Today I had a most wonderful, special and long daily devotion time with Jesus. A time of almost two hours of study through various commentaries and another four hours through two sharing opportunity with my son Ignatius,. I then 'chewed' on what Iggy said before I heard what Jesus wanted me to write on today’s blog. Well, only He knows that today is my regular weekly day-off and today I was more prepared to spend six hours with Him!
Some people think that I am suggesting in my blog that we don’t need any study but just listening to Jesus, which would be a shallow Christian experience. Not so! We might listen to wrong messages if we are not trained and built firmly on solid ground. If I didn’t need studying, I wouldn’t have had to go to Nashotah House Episcopal Seminar in Wisconsin for my three years M. Div. 26 years ago. I also started 3 years ago at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena for my D. Min. My point is that even though I went through all those kinds of intensive studies, I had been a priest without much transformation for years until I was free from all kinds of enslavement into a daily intimate relationship and experienced the full rights of being a son(v.5).
Ignatius told me what a blessed time he had the past three days attending the Breakforth Conference in Edmonton with 7,000 Christians all over Canada, with another seven young people from our church, Richmond Emmanuel Church. Ignatius told me that Pastor Francis Chan said: “We as Christians always talk about love but do not act on love. To put it in perspective, it would be like telling my daughter to clean her room. Later she would come back and tell me that she memorized how to clean a room, and had a group of people studying how to clean her room, and even knowing the Greek terms for cleaning a room, but she has not yet cleaned her room.”
Jesus told me that this is how Paul wrote this chapter of Galatians 4. Those Christians in Galatia were in a position to receive the inheritance, beginning with the promised Spirit of his Son.(v.6) Instead, they went back to the enslavement of previous ways of life abandoning the true God and not having a personal relationship with God (v. 9). Paul had emotional feelings of anguish for those people because they, like little children (v. 19 – 20), had not been growing but needed to be delivered again. As Paul says:
My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you! Galatians 4: 19-20
When I brought Ignatius to see my spiritual father John Stott and to be blessed by him in July 2009, John gave his last book(John Stott – The Last Word, 2008) to my son. And John says there,
"What is God’s purpose? I want to share with you where my mind has come to rest as I approach the end of my pilgrimage on earth and it is – God wants his people to become like Christ. Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God."
That is the problem of the Galatians 2,000 years ago and that is the same problem of Christians living in today’s world. Have you received Jesus' message today?!
Dear Lord Jesus,
Thank you for the past six sweet hours with you. Help me to experience and live out Christlikeness daily. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Prayer items today:
For ACiC/AI
Bishop: Rt. Rev. Silas Ng
Network Leader: Rev. Peter Klenner
Administrator: Mrs. Zenia Cheng
Pray for one ACiC/AI church one day at a time
Church of Redemption, Calgary
Rector/Senior Pastor: Rev. Ikechukwu Chukuka
We have started our 2nd phase of 100 days of prayer. I am calling you in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ to fill in your names in the new list below. Many wonderful things have happened in the past 100 days. Can we follow our King, our Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ to use an hour’s time to pray for His protection and blessings to my new ministry as the Bishop of ACiC/AI, all our ACiC/AI clergy, leaders and people? Pray that in the Holy and Mighty Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we can win over Satan's tricks, in order to strengthen our brothers and sisters so that His Kingdom will be extended. Please click this new link to participate in our 2nd phase 100 days/24 hours Prayer Campaign (Nov 29, 2009 to March 8, 2010)
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