Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 161 - We Are Lazy! We Don't Want to Have Commitment! (請按此處收聼廣東話 )

Monday, February 16, 2015

OT DAY 161 - We Are Lazy! We Don't Want to Have Commitment! (請按此處收聼廣東話 )

Two more days, on Feb.18 Ash Wednesday, we are going to have a 40 days Break.Build journey to meet God. Yes, to meet God just like in today's passage how Moses and his leaders met God.

Hopefully you can help one to two people to establish a lifestyle of having a daily intimate personal relationship with Jesus from then on.

Please pray for this 40 days Break.Build and be willing to be raised up by our Lord Jesus Christ to be one of His disciplers to lead people to Him daily.

Let us praise the Lord:

Ascribe power to God,
    whose majesty is over Israel,
    and whose power is in the skies.
35 Awesome is God from his sanctuary;
    the God of Israel—he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.
Blessed be God!

Psalm 68:34-35

Today's Reading: Exodus 24:1-11

** 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 Exodus 24:1-11

Chinese(CUV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=出埃及記 24&version=CUV
English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus 24&version=ESV

Bible Study

This is a very special passage telling us that God commanded Moses and other 73 top leaders to go up the mountain to meet God. It is time for God to make a covenant with the Israelites. The sacrifices they made is a special ceremony with important and terrible meaning.

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

God really met with Israel at Sinai. The average Israelite was protected from the scary aspect of that meeting; the peoples leaders met with God on the people's behalf. Key to God's meeting with them was sealing the new version of the covenant relationship, so the people who hear this story can have assurance about God's relationship with them. Key to the covenant sealing being effective is Israel's making its own commitment to God; so the people who hear this story need to affirm that commitment for themselves. God did make sure that Israel knew how it was expected to live in the future; so the people who hear this story can be sure that they know God's expectations.
The actions with the animals' blood are not regular sacrifices but a special ceremony that can be associated with the making of a covenant…The ceremony involved cutting up the animals and spattering the blood on the people and also on the altar, which stands for God. God and people are thereby saying, "May I be dismembered and my blood be spattered if I break this covenant." .

John Goldingay. Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.95.

Jesus died for us because we break this covenant! That's God's commitment. How can you show to God your commitment?

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 Felix Mendelssohn's On Wings of Song played by one of the greatest violinist Isaac Stern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yj3RSxZmBQ

Spiritual Journal

The title I heard from Jesus today is: We are lazy! We don't want to have commitment!

What I receive from Jesus today is a warning to those who do not want to make a commitment to God. There are so many Christians who are so lazy and do not want to make any commitment to God.

Today I went to our English worship and had a wonderful experience. Rev. Josh Siu successfully invited almost 100% of our young people in our English worship to find one to two friends to join my 40 days Break.Build journey. You can see the pictures I took this morning showing how they grouped two to three people together for that 40 days journey.

The funny thing is that when Michelle and I prayed for our younger son Athanasius before he went to bed just an hour ago. Michelle asked him, "Son, who are you with to have the 40 days Break.Build?" You know what he said, "Oh! I am so lazy. I don't know whether I can do that!" I said," Son, you want Jesus to help you to be able to go to UBC. You want Him to commit to you and you don't even want to commit to Him for just 15 minutes everyday! Is that reasonable?" He smiled!

Oh! We want to see Jesus, meet with Jesus, have Jesus to help us this and that and we don't even want to have that commitment Jesus wants us to have. Is that reasonable?

Today's conclusion is "We are lazy! We don't want to have commitment!"

Do you agree?

Dear Lord Jesus,
Tell us the commitments you want us to have and help us to be willing to have those commitments. 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 -