OT DAY 70 - Can God Discover Your Faithfulness When You Are Being Tested (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

Starting from today we add one important thing to our daily devotion. We start our devotion with one to two verses from the Psalms to praise God. We always have so limited vocabulary when we want to praise God. Let's learn from the Psalms so that we can be able to praise God in a better way:

You, O Lord, are a shield about me,
    my glory, and the lifter of my head.     Psalm 3:3


Today's Reading: Genesis 22:11-19

** 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 22:11-19

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis 22&version=ESV

Chinese: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=創 世 記 22&version=CUV

Bible Study

      Today we read one of the most horrible passages in the Bible. Abraham took a knife to slaughter his own son! And, that is a test! A test of what? 

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

    

     Sometimes tests happen for the benefit of the person being tested…But this story is explicit that the testing happens so God can discover something.  That was so at the beginning of the story in the reference to testing.  It was so when the angel bade Abraham halt the sacrificial act: "Now I know that you revere God; you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me." 

John Goldingay. Genesis for Everyone - Part Two. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.53.

      Do you think your next test would be like that? Do you think you can pass this kind of test? 

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: Can God discover your faithfulness when you are being tested

    What Jesus tells me today is something you may never think of. God will discover something in you that he may not know until you are being tested. Theologically this is impossible because in theology God is all knowing, there is nothing God does not know. But, what about this passage?

    I once know a pastor who told me he lost faith in God when his son died in a motorcycle accident when his son was 26 years old. From that time on until the time he told me that he was still doing a priestly job but it was just a job and he did not have any relationship with Jesus. How sad! That is just one of many examples I have experienced of a similar case of today's Abraham's experience. It is just the opposite way, all those people I know, they failed their test when they withheld someone or something not willing to offer that to our Lord. 

     Are you withholding something when Jesus wants to give you a test so that He discover that you are faithful and be willing to have Him as your Lord?

     A test like daily devotion, tithing, willing to help in a new ministry, willing to attend a retreat, etc. What are you withholding recently from Jesus that He cannot give His command to you as your Lord and King?

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us Lord. We really do not want to withhold anything from you but we are weak. Help us Lord.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

    Please click this link to the app. Andy Ng wrote. You really need to use that if you have an Android cel. Andy said he is going to do the App. for iPhone later:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.rec.app

Please click this link to worship with us -

從心合一

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

Amazing Grace My Chains are Gone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbe7OruLk8I

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/bio