OT DAY 194 - No Medium Rare Steak Anymore? (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

      O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
          my soul thirsts for you;
          my flesh faints for you,
          as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

                             Psalm 63:1

                                                                       

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 17:1-16)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus 17&version=ESV

 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the people of Israel and say to them, This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. 3 If any one of the house of Israel kills an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp, or kills it outside the camp, 4 and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to offer it as a gift to the Lord in front of the tabernacle of the Lord, bloodguilt shall be imputed to that man. He has shed blood, and that man shall be cut off from among his people. 5 This is to the end that the people of Israel may bring their sacrifices that they sacrifice in the open field, that they may bring them to the Lord, to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord. 

                              Leviticus 17: 1-5

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
     This chapter is not easy to understand. Some Christians would ask when they read this chapter, "So, from now on I can't eat medium rare steak or steak tartare in Japanese or French style?" 

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

    

     Leviticus 17 focuses on a concern with blood, which is closely linked with life.  If you bleed and don't stop, you die.  The life of the flesh is in the blood, so there is something sacred about blood, because life comes from God. Therefore Israel has to be careful what it does with blood…
     At the beginning, God gave humanity no authority to kill animals(and thus eat them), but humanity took that authority.  God rolled with it as God often does with human acts but sought to safeguard their consequences.  So God here requires the killing to happen at the sanctuary, so it actually becomes a fellowship sacrifice, an occasion of sharing between the family and God. 

John Goldingay. Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.162.

      Now you have a more profound understanding of the importance of Fellowship Offering which is now our Thanksgiving Offering. We can eat meat even pork now, but for Israelites they can't eat pork and they have a special way to kill the animals following the rules they learned from the Torah, even in this age.

      This is another example of how God sets up regulations and rules to train the Israelites to listen and obey. For those who are non Israelites, it is not the question of your eating medium steak or not. The question is whether you know that everything is from God and He is willing to share what He has with you. The question is whether you are willing to listen and obey how God and the Church teaches you and do it. 

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to be able to listen and obey what you commands us so that we will be blessed and you can use us to bless other people.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”

Reflect on these questions:

1. Do you have a better understanding of Fellowship Offering(Thanksgiving Offering) after reading today's passage? Are you willing to increase your Thanksgiving Offering because of how God loves you and share with you what He has? 

2. How can this chapter helps you to be more willing to listen and obey to what God commands?

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

You may choose to follow my other daily blog:

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

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