Tuesday, September 23, 2014

OT DAY 16 - Work And Then Die. That's All? (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

      Today's Reading: Genesis 3:17-22

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Please click this link to read Genesis 3:17-22


Bible Study

     For many people, life is like working, and working, and working and then die. That is not God's original plan of creation. God intends us to be good gardeners working in His garden living everyday with satisfaction. But, human sin changes everything. 

Let's take a look at what Professor John Goldingay says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :
    
     Men and women are create to work; work is not a result of sin in the world.  And mastering the world and serving the garden would have involved labor and toil. At the end of a day's work in this ideal world, I imagine people would have felt tired.  In a strange way, that is part of the satisfaction of having done a day's work.  But now work becomes toilsome and laborious in a way God did not originally intend.  In Genesis 1 God did not explicitly bless the plant world but did declare it would be able to be fruitful, which was equivalent to blessing it.  Now as an act of punishment on Adam, the ground is explicitly cursed. The result is much less terrible than this might have implied.  One would expect a curse on the ground to mean it would grow nothing, but what God is doing is implicitly anticipating the result of throwing Adam and Eve out of Eden…The grisly truth is that when you have worked hard and eaten sufficiently, or even eaten well, this labor will continue until you return to the ground from which you were originally moulded.  The human person goes through the natural cycle that takes us from birth through growth to maturity and senescence and death.    

John Goldingay. Genesis for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.57.


      What have you got from today's message? Are you in that kind of toilsome and painful mood each day with no purpose but to work and then die? Or, are you working each day joyfully and fruitfully? 

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

Spiritual Journal

    The title I heard from Jesus today is: Work and then die. That's all?

    What I receive from Jesus today is a call to return to the garden of Eden. Jesus shows me that the garden of Eden is somewhat like what He said in Matthew 4: 17:

 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

     Through our repentance, we return to God's kingdom and that should be somewhat like God's original plan of garden of Eden, though not exactly the same. Anyway, those who have repented and are now in His mighty Kingdom should know and experience that we are working joyfully and fruitfully each day!

     And, someday we will experience what Revelation 21 and 22 says, the new Eden, the new Jerusalem! How glorious!

     So, you can choose working, and working and then die. But, what you should choose is to repent and return to His Kingdom. Jesus is Lord. Then, we should be able to work joyfully and fruitfully each day until we die. And our dying is just the beginning of our new journey into the new Eden! 

Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to experience joyfully and fruitfully working each day for your Kingdom's sake.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.


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Rev. Nicky Gumbel's daily devotion: Bible in One Year
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世世代代頌讚你的作為，傳揚你的大能!

  今日博客的錄影: Nicky Gumbel  牧師今日靈修博客: https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?e=590b90010b&u=607cd553028b55c8cfb706e8a&id=94c5e0eae4 Nicky G...