Tuesday, October 13, 2015

OT DAY 345 - How Can You Kick out Your Bad Habits (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.:
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

      You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
         you are my God; I will extol you.
                       Psalm 118:28

Confession and Repentance (Subjective Shifting Devotion Method http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html)

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 (Judges 1:1-36)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=judges+1&version=ESV

 19 And the Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron. 20 And Hebron was given to Caleb, as Moses had said. And he drove out from it the three sons of Anak.21 But the people of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites have lived with the people of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.
22 The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. 
                      Judges 1:19-22


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"


My Listening
      We completed the book of Joshua yesterday and concluded with Joshua's two last words, "Holy" and "Jealous". What Joshua wanted to tell his people is so simple, God is a holy God and God is also a jealous God. To be holy and to stay away from those evil gods is what the Israelites needed to do.

     In Judges, we can see clearly the Israelites not only not willing or not able to kick out those evil people and their religions, but they started to mingle with them, worship their gods and follow their lifestyle. 

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :
    
     Involvement with the Canaanite gods characterizes Israel's life for many centuries, from when Israel comes into existence in Canaan on into the period after the exile. Judges portrays the period it covers as a series of stories of apostasy, divine chastisement, divine mercy, and restoration. With variations, the sequence keeps repeating itself. Part of the logic of the sequence is suggested by the expression for "what was unacceptable" and "trouble," which represent the same Hebrew word. People do what is bad; God therefore makes bad things happen to them. Judges will portray these events as involving "Israel"…The expression of God's mercy comes in raising up a leader to deliver the people.  

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.94.





     Read from verses 4 to 26 and you will find out when the Lord was with the Israelites, they could drive out those evil people, many times. Then, read from verses 27 to 36, when we can't find the word 'the Lord was with them", then for seven times, different clans could not drive out those evil people leaving them to become traps and snares for them until God sent a judge to deliver them from suffering.

      What I received from Jesus to you is one question:

How can you kick out your bad habit?

      If you are not able to be holy, the Holy God cannot be with you because He is Holy. Then, just like the Israelites, you would not be able to kick out your bad habits, those habits unacceptable by God. Then, just like what it is described in the book of Judges, apostasy, divine chastisement, divine mercy and restoration repeatedly happen to your life non stop.

      Stop it, before it is too late!

      Help others to stop it before it is too late! 

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to kick out those bad habits unacceptable to you so that we can be holy.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Are you in a similar kind of cycle of apostasy, divine chastisement, divine mercy and restoration? 

2. How can you stop this cycle and to become a truly holy disciple of Jesus?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?


Today's Time with Abba daily reading that I recited loudly and copy the Bible is:
Psalm 115:1-8
Jeremiah 19:1 -21:14
1 Thessalonians 5:4-28
Proverbs 25:8-10

Photos of my copying the Bible using Time with Abba passages



 Golden Verse 




Other passages




Zoe Glory Ng Day 14


Praise and Thanksgiving
Let's give thanks for God with us. Let us praise Him:
10,000 Reasons


You may choose to follow my other daily blog:
Daily Devotion on Fire: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/

誰能使我們與基督的愛隔絕呢?

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