Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 404 - Big Joy, Doing Small Job for God (Please click here for English podcast)

Saturday, December 19, 2015

OT DAY 404 - Big Joy, Doing Small Job for God (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

I will sing a new song to you, O God;
upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,

who gives victory to kings,

who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword.

Psalm 144:9-10

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 (Ruth 4:11-22)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ruth 4&version=ESV

11 Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, 12 and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.”
13 So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. 14 Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! 15 He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him.” 16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. 17 And the women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
18 Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, 19 Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, 20 Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, 21 Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, 22 Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.

Ruth 4:11-22

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

Do you think the job Naomi, Ruth and Boaz did was a big job or a small job as compared to Moses, Joshua and all those prophets?

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

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

This genealogy of David feeds into the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. People slighted the honour of Jesus' mother, who got pregnant before she was married, but Jesus' genealogy shows that God has long been at work through women who were the victims of prejudice or through women respectable people wouldn't approve of. Tamar is in his genealogy (see her story in Genesis 38). Rahab is there (see her story in Joshua 2). Bathsheba is there (see her story in 2 Samuel 11). And Ruth is there. Jesus has a Moabite ancestor. ..

We could put the point another way. One of the contributions of the book to the Old Testament is its concrete illustration in the person of Boaz of what it means to be a restorer, a kinsman, a guardian, a redeemer. The importance of this portrait lies not least in the way Israel took the figure of the kinsman and the action of the restorer as an image for God and for God's action as restorer. The kinsman's vocation was to accept an obligation to care about members of his family in a way that expressed itself in a willingness to spend his energy and resources to make it possible for their lives to be rebuilt when that was needed. That was what God did for Israel, treating Israel as members of the family, asking no questions about whether they deserve to be in the mess they are in, and expending energy and resources to make it possible for their lives to be rebuilt when that was needed.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.186-187.

You are being called by God to be just like Naomi and Ruth doing small job for God as faithful followers of God, no matter how difficult lives become.

You are being called by God to be Boaz doing small job for God as restorer for God, expending energy and resources to make it possible for lives of many people to be rebuilt when that was needed.

Are you willing to do that?

If you are, big joy will come to you, not only to you, to your family, but may be to the whole world! That's what "Joy to the world" really means!

That's how God can use your life to bring joy to this world, if you are willing? Are you willing?

Dear Lord Jesus,

Open our lives that we can be willing to expend energy and resources to make it possible for lives of many people to be rebuilt. Come Holy Spirit, pour down your fresh anointing on us that we can be restorers doing small job for God so that we can experience big joy. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. How are you going to be influenced by the lives of Naomi, Ruth and Boaz?

2. Are you willing to do small job for God, to be faithful followers of Jesus and to be restorers so that you and lots of people can experience big joy?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Today's Time with Abba daily reading:

Psalm 143:7-12

Zephaniah 1:1-3:20

Revelation 10:1-11

Proverbs 30:11-14

Photos of my copying the Bible the last two days using Time with Abba passages