OT DAY 208 - God Bless You And Smile on You (Please click here for English podcast)

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http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

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Silence

1.   Put on your “brakes” and stop for a moment of silence

2.   Wait for God. Breathe deep for God's peace. Exhale your worries.

Praise and Thanksgiving

1.   Think through your day, all the times that made you smile

2.   Thank God for all those moments, and for all those people

3.   Open your heart to praise the Lord

         Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
           lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts;
           his name is the Lord;
             exult before him!

                             Psalm 68:4

                                                                       

Confession and Repentance

1.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to work in you:

     “Dear Holy Spirit, shine your light into the places of darkness in my life. Show me my sins, everything that blocks me from encountering God. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”

2.  Through the Holy Spirit, examine yourself for a short silence and then pray:

     "Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for our sins and being victorious over death and sin. I confess my sin to you(pause, to tell Jesus what the Holy Spirit has shown you). Forgive my sins by your blood and help me follow you. Holy Spirit, fill me that I may be able to receive your gift to love God and His people. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen."

The Word (Numbers 6:1-27)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=numbers+6&version=ESV

Aaron's Blessing

22 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

24 The Lord bless you and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

²⁷ “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

                              Numbers 6:22-27

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"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

My Listening
     This is the famous Aaron's blessing which is a priest blessing. Do you know how important this is since Moses time that God consecrates priests to minister to His people and bless His people? 

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

    

     The blessing then speaks of God's face shining on us. When the sun shines on us, we feel good. When someone who loves us smiles at us, we feel good. The smile is a sign of love. It is linked with grace, another key theological term.  There is something unpredictably and mysteriously gracious about being loved…It is underserved, inexplicable, yet real.
     Lifting the face suggests someone with power and authority raising the eyes to look with favor on a suppliant.  Such a person has the power to make things go well for you. More literally God "establishes well-being for you." " Translations often have peace for this word "shalom", but it suggests a much broader reality than this: not peace of mind but life working out well.
     The priests' blessing is God's blessing  It is one of the many ways that God acts via other human beings in relating to us, speaking to us, and working in us.  The priests declare God's name over the people. A person's name stands for the actual person, so God's name being over us suggests God's being over us.  The priests' declaring the blessing means people become aware of God's intention to bless them, but it does more than that. The priests are God's means of conveying the blessing…"I myself" bless them, God says. 

John Goldingay. Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.16-17.

      It is talking about the important of the blessing of ordained priests. I still remember the time in 1988 when I was ordained as a priest that I could have the right to say the priest's blessing:

      The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord;
      and the blessing of God Almighty,
      the Father,
      the Son,
      and the Holy Spirit,
      be amongst you, and remain with you always.
      Amen.

      I felt God's smile greatly on me last night when I was in the Installation of the Rt. Rev. Melter Jiki Tais as the 6th Bishop of Sabah. It was such a glorious celebration, with two Primates, two Archbishops, 19 bishops, 56 priests, 2 deacons, 30 pastors and 1,500 people in the All Saints' Cathedral, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah! 

      We received the blessing (as I put above) by the Most Rev. Datuk Bolly Lapok two times, in the Installation and the dinner. His Grace Archbishop Lapok is the Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in South East Asia and Bishop of Kuching and Brunei Darulsalam. Archbishop Lapok's Kuching diocese has 150,000 Anglicans. 150,000 Anglican in one diocese! One of the joyous moment is to be with the newly consecrated Bishop of East Kowloon(Hong Kong), Rt. Rev. Dr. Timothy Kwok. Bishop Timothy and I both served in the Diocesan Youth Committee of the Anglican Church of Hong Kong from 1987 to 1994, seeing a good friend and walking together into the Cathedral is such a blessing to me indeed!

      I sincerely hope and pray that you may be able to understand how important it is for God to give you a priest to bless you so that you can experience how God bless you and smile on you.

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to cherish and love our priests so that we can receive your blessings through them and experience your smiling on us.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:

1. Do you understand more about the importance of your priest(s) in your life? 

2. How can you prepare yourself in a better way the next time your priest bless you? 

Praise and Thanksgiving

Let's give thanks for God with us. Let us praise Him:

10,000 Reasons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E

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Daily Devotion on Fire: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/

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