Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 379 - The 3rd Trap for Samson - Pride (Please click here for English podcast)

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

OT DAY 379 - The 3rd Trap for Samson - Pride (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.:

Discipler123: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.rec.app

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

Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;
sing to his name, for it is pleasant!

Psalm 135 :3

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 14:10-15)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges 14&version=ESV

10 His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. 11 As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. 12 And Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes, 13 but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” 14 And he said to them,

“Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.”

And in three days they could not solve the riddle.

15 On the fourth day they said to Samson's wife, “Entice your husband to tell us what the riddle is, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?”

Judges 14:10-15

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage 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

Samson's first trap is "Me first". Second trap is "God last". Today's passage shows his third trap planned by the devil for him to step in. This trap is quite normal for those who are wise and have ability and that is "PRIDE".

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

Excess is Samson's middle name. After the winsome nature of the story concerning his birth and its background and the summary statements about his growing experience of God's blessing and the effect of God's spirit on him, it comes as a shock when the story fast-forwards to the time when he is presumably getting toward the end of his teenage years (people marry young in traditional societies, so it is difficult to imagine him as a full adult and still single, and he sure behaves like a teenager, with lots of energy but not much wisdom).

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.136.

What was he doing to make fun on the thirty companions, and they were like best men for his marriage. Why he did that? Foolish, right? No, that's his PRIDE! And you need to know that lots of time, pride kills!

Showing off his wisdom by making fun of thirty young Philistines is a foolish act because of his own pride.

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to humble ourselves so that we won't be destroyed by our own pride like Samson. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you have that kind of pride to do foolish acts? If you have, why you do that? If you think you do not have, are you a truly humble person, or you just do not want to acknowledge that you have that kind of pride?

2. How can you change?

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 124:1-5

Ezekiel 35:1-36:38

James 1:1- 18

Proverbs 27:23-27

Photos of my copying the Bible yesterday using Time with Abba passages

Yesterday's Golden Verse