OT DAY 280 - From None of Our Business to It Is Our Business (Please click here for English podcast)

Please click the link below to my new 40 days Break.Build site any time you like to having a 40 days "Break.Build" daily devotion with one to two people as a discipler to help those Jesus prepares for you to disciple. You need to know that the call and purpose of my Break.Build and this Discipler123 blog/podcast is for you to become a discipler to help more people to have a daily intimate relationship with Jesus and then they can become disciplers too:
http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Please click these links to the app. Andy Ng wrote if you have an Android cel.:

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Break.Build: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.bb.app

Silence

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

2.   Wait for God. Breathe deep for God's peace and feel His presence. 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

        
             Bless the Lord, O my soul,
                                and all that is within me,
                                bless his holy name!

                
                          Psalm 103:1

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 (Deuteronomy 21:1-9)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+21&version=ESV

“If in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess someone is found slain, lying in the open country, and it is not known who killed him, 2 then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure the distance to the surrounding cities.3 And the elders of the city that is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not pulled in a yoke. 4 And the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word every dispute and every assault shall be settled.6 And all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley, 7 and they shall testify, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it shed. 8 Accept atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.’ 9 So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.

                   Deuteronomy 21:1-9

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 a weird passage. Someone dies and the elders of the cities around the area the person dies need to measure that place of the dead body to see whose responsibility it is for that city nearest to the body to do cleansing ritual. What has that to do with us? 

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

    

     The point is that murder stains the community and the land. Elsewhere the Torah speaks of it as an assault on God because humanity is made in God's image, or it speaks of the victim's blood crying out from the ground. So the stain needs to be cleansed, and the community has to take responsibility for this. They cannot say, "It was nothing to do with us." Or rather, they must say, "It was nothing to do with us" in that we as a community were not responsible for the killing, but "it is our business" in the sense that we will take on responsibility for dealing with the matter. 

John Goldingay. Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.163.

     What has it to do with us? Well, the community at that time in this passage means churches, the new community of Christ. If more churches take responsibility to take care of people and lost souls, this world would be different.

     The sad thing is, Christians are so easily to say, "This is none of our business." We really need to learn to say, "This is our business." And then,
we take responsibility to make our churches blameless and holy so that we can be able to take care of people and lost souls!


Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to be willing to take responsibility as Christians and churches.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you think this passage has something to do with us and with you?

2. How can you improve on taking more responsibility to take care of people and lost souls?

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

You may choose to follow my other daily blog:

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

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