Wednesday, September 4, 2013

WEEK 12 - New Friendship : Go And Be Reconciled (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)




Today's Reading: Matthew 5:21-26

**For a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link: Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf.


Please click this link to Matthew 5:21-26


Bible Study
     
     To be able to enjoy the power of God's Kingdom we have to change a great deal of our previous lifestyle. There are lots of things for us to break in order to build a lifestyle of Christlikeness. Here in this passage Jesus gives us a very important thing to change: reconcile with your enemies.

     Actually this seems a mission impossible if you really have enemies or someone who did something bad to you and your family. How can you go and be reconciled?

Bishop N.T. Wright says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._T._Wright):
     In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes the commands of the law and shows how they provide a blueprint for a way of being fully, genuinely, gloriously human.  This new way, which Jesus had come to pioneer and make possible, goes deep down into the roots of personality and produces a different pattern of behaviour altogether.
     It begins with smouldering anger against someone very close to you.  All right, it may not result in murder; but the point of the commandment against murder was not that you should stop short of killing someone, but that you should never get near even the thought that you wish they were dead...Every time you decide to let your anger smoulder on inside you, you are becoming a little less than fully human.  You are deciding to belittle yourself...
     What's the alternative?  Jesus offers two remarkably specific and practical commands.  Be reconciled; make friends. How simple that is - and yet how hugely difficult and costly!
     In particular - and this is very striking - reconciliation takes precedence even over worship...You must live, day by day, in such a way that when you come to worship there is no anger between you and your neighbour, your sister, your brother.  Impossible? Jesus implies that it isn't, now that he is here to show the way...Make friends, not enemies. 
             N.T. Wright. Matthew for Everyone, Part 1. Louisville,KY:Westminster         John Knox Press, 2004, p.22.



Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage of scripture we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe"



Spiritual Journal

     The topic I received from Jesus today is : 
     New Friendship: Go and be reconciled
     
     What I received from Jesus today is a command for all of us to listen and obey. It is not a theory that you say to yourself, "Ah, I know it. OK." No, is not that. It is a command from Jesus to you. It is a command for us really to go and be reconciled.

     Jesus reminds me of what happened last June when I was in Colorado with five ACNA bishops and four AMiA bishops. We were in our second day going for white water rafting. Bishop Trevor Walter was sitting next to me. I was so moved by Jesus at that time and this passage was right in front of my soul. I said to Trevor, "Trevor, I ask for your forgiveness of all those things I have done to you. Anger, separation, bitterness and everything I hurt you. Please forgive me." Trevor looked at me with tears and said the same thing to me. From that day on, we become good friends again.

     One of the bishops took a photo the day when we prayed up in the mountain of 11,000ft. when  Trevor and me were holding hands praying together. That's what Jesus means "Go and be reconciled". That's what "Make friends, not enemies" means.

     Do you have someone you need to say sorry and ask for forgiveness? Do it now before it's too late. What Jesus says that those who says to his brother "You fool" will be in danger of the fire of hell. Actually that's the place where they dumped all the garbage to a place called "hell" outside Jerusalem and burnt those garbage to ashes. The garbage including dead animals. So, that place was full of bad smell and with fire always. They named that place "hell".

     If we are not willing to go and be reconciled, we are in danger of becoming garages being dumped and burnt! The fire of anger has eaten so many people alive! Don't let that to happen to you.

    Go and be reconciled! 


  


Dear Lord Jesus,
Remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh that we can go and be reconciled. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Questions for group discussion

Topic:  New Friendship  : Go And Be Reconciled

新友情: 與敵人復和

Passage: Matthew 5: 21-26

Questions for group leaders
1. Read Matthew 5: 21-26 again now. Do you have enemies and the fire of anger has been eating you?

2. Do you have someone you need to say sorry and ask for forgiveness?

3. After discussing with today’s theme, what is your plan to go and be reconciled with one of those enemies? Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal that person to you now that you can do it today, before it is too late!

4.  What is the highlight for you today? 


Please click this link to worship with us:
English praise song-
10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman


Chinese praise song - 
我要向山舉目(詩篇121篇) I Will Lift Up My Eyes to The Hills



You may choose to follow my other daily blog: 
Discipler123(Daily Devotion, with English and Cantonese podcast)

Daily Devotion on Fire 2(One year New Testament): 

Daily Devotion on Fire(3 years and 3 months plan, one chapter a day to finish reading the whole Bible): 

Break.Build(40 days daily devotion- First Baby Step for new Christians, with English and Cantonese podcast): http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Emmanuel330 (40 weeks First Step Bible Study, with English and Cantonese podcast): 
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