OT DAY 10 - A Real Human Being Obeys God's NO (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

            Today's Reading: Genesis 2:15-20

** If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from my Devotion on Fire blog:

http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html

To use this simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link:

 .Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf

Please click this link to read Genesis 2:15-20

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis 2&version=ESV

Chinese: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=創 世 記 2&version=CUV

Bible Study

     We are having perhaps one of the most important messages in the whole Bible today. Why? 

Let's take a look at what Professor John Goldingay says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

    

     The human being is duly charged to serve the garden and thus look after it.  It is God's garden; human beings are just its gardeners…
     The strange prohibition is that they may not eat from the good-and-bad-knowledge tree.  It is strange, because this looks like a means to receiving a life skill that will be important for their fulfilling the task God has given them.  So why are they forbidden access to the tree?
     Perhaps a clue lies in the way Solomon's prayer refers to this gift.  It is indeed a gift, for which Solomon prays.  God is lord of it.  Distinguishing between good and bad is an insight that belongs to God, so God claims the right to decide whether and when to give it.  It is a divine prerogative and a divine gift, and humanity cannot insist on the possession of such insight…
     To insist on taking it is to push your way into God's realm, to attempt to be like God.  There is also a more paradoxical related point: Reverence for God, accepting what God says and living by it, is the first principle of wisdom, the way to knowing the difference between good and bad.  So the tree would be the means of humanity's gaining that insight, by their not eating from it.  This restraint would be an expression of a wise attitude toward God. 
   

John Goldingay. Genesis for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.37-38.

      Do you have that kind of relationship with God that you can receive His YES or NO? Are you willing to stop when He says NO? Or, are you still insist on your own way to say YES and go ahead leaving God far away thinking you can get away from that NO?  

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: A real human being obeys God's NO

    What I receive from Jesus today is like the coming of a big storm. Because not listening and obeying to God's message today would surely put you into a big storm and you would be in a mess.

    How often are you willing to accept other people's good intention criticism? How often are you willing to accept NO from God or other people?

    How often do you sit on God's seat to tell people what is right and what is wrong? How often do you give people criticism that is not in good intention or you think that is good intention but in fact that is purely you want to take control? 

    If you can answer those questions, then you should be in a better position to understand what Jesus wants to tell you today, now!

    Jesus is Lord, not you!

    It is so easy to listen to Jesus' YES, but not easy or so difficult to obey Jesus' NO! 

    A real human being obeys God's NO! 

Dear Lord Jesus,

Open our souls to you so that we can obey your NO and not to do those things you say NO.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please click this link to worship with us -

從心合一

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJWZQyLzDRQ

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E

You may choose to follow my other daily blog: 

Daily Devotion on Fire 2(2 years plan -One year New Testament, one year Old Testament): 

http://bishopsilas2.blogspot.ca/

Daily Devotion on Fire (3 years and 3 months plan, one chapter a day to finish reading the whole Bible): 

http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/

Break.Build (40 days daily devotion- For Renewal or First Step for new Christians): http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Emmanuel330 (40 weeks First Step Bible Study): 

http://emmanuel330.blogspot.ca/

This blog:

Discipler 123 (Daily devotion using N.T. Wright's NT for Everyone as source)

http://discipler123.blogspot.ca/

Rev. Nicky Gumbel's daily devotion: Bible in One Year

http://www.htb.org.uk/bioy