OT DAY 190 - Obeying God's Command Is Your Identity to Be God's People (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. 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

      You have set up a banner for those who fear you,
                      that they may flee to it from the bow.

                             Psalm 60:4

                                                                       

Confession and Repentance

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 (Leviticus 11:1-12:8)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+10&version=ESV

And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. 3 Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 4 Nevertheless, among those that chew the cud or part the hoof, you shall not eat these: The camel, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you.

                              Leviticus 11: 1-4

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage of scripture 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
     Chapter 11 is about very specific and complicated rules of what can the Israelites eat and what they cannot eat. Chapter 12 is about what a woman who gives birth to a baby needs to do and not do. All these rules are from God directly to the Israelites to show that they are being separated from other people.    

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

    

     Food is an expression of identity.  God takes that fact and makes it contribute to the forming and articulating of Israel's identity.  Jews don't eat pork; it's one of the things that makes them stand out and keeps them separate.  Thus "you are to consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy". The rules about what Israelites can eat are not merely its version of the kind of rules that every culture has.  These are brought into a relationship with Israel's distinctive vocation to be God's people.  God is holy, which means being different, being set apart.  Israel is holy, which means being different, being set apart, as the Jewish people have always been…
     In connection with these rules and then the rules about childbirth, translations traditionally use the word "unclean." which gives a false impression about childbirth, menstruation, and womanhood.  The word is a positive one denoting the possession of a quality, not a negative one indicating the absence of something (that is, the absence of cleanness).  

John Goldingay. Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.147-148.

      If we are not Israelites, we do not need to follow those rules in chapter 11 and 12. So, some Christians start not reading the Old Testament here because they think it has nothing to do with them.

     Wait! You need to remember that all those rules God commands in Leviticus is to demonstrate the change of Lordship. God says so and they do it accordingly. How much they experienced God's mighty power that they could do things like that is the real question. 

      My challenge is that how well do you respond to those commands you know from God and do it or not do it according to what God teaches you through the Church and to you personally. That is your challenge! 

Dear Lord Jesus,

      Help us to know your commands and be willing to do it accordingly.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:

1. Have you thought that reading those rules is useless? What do you think now?

2. How well are you taking God's challenge to you daily of doing what God says ?

Praise and Thanksgiving

Let's give thanks for God with us. Let us praise Him:

10,000 Reasons

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

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

You may choose to follow my other daily blog:

Daily Devotion on Fire: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/

Daily Devotion on Fire 2: http://bishopsilas2.blogspot.ca/

Break.Build: http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/