OT DAY 239 - To Keep God's Love Story Going (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/

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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

        
           I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
                               and I will glorify your name forever.
13          For great is your steadfast love toward me;
                               you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

                                  Psalm 86:12-13

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 gifts to love God and His people. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen."

The Word (Numbers 33:1-34:29)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers 33&version=ESV

These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. 2 Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the Lord, and these are their stages according to their starting places. 

50 And the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying,51 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places. 53 And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. 54 You shall inherit the land by lot according to your clans. To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance. Wherever the lot falls for anyone, that shall be his. According to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit. 55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.56 And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”
                             Numbers 33:1-2, 50-56

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 passage is important to all of us because it tells us the love story of God and the Israelites and the way to keep this love story to go on and on. 

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

    

     Reviewing the journey by giving the account of the route Israel has taken from Egypt to the edge of Canaan also has this effect: "Consider all the way God has brought you to get you here."

     There are also contextual features to God's instructions concerning the Israelites; occupation of the country. They include no commission to kill anyone. Like preceding instructions in the Torah, they speak only of dispossessing people. Numbers takes for granted the rationale for this. By their lives the peoples of the country have forfeited any right to live there. God kills two birds with one stone by throwing them out as a punishment and giving the country to Israel as a means toward fulfilling God's wider, more positive, and more far-reaching purpose for the nations. God also refers to the fact that the same principles will apply to the new inhabitants of the country: "What I planned to do to them I will do to you."
     To avoid that, as well as chasing the Canaanites out of the country, the Israelites need to destroy their forms and places of worship. Their forms of worship will mislead the Israelites into thinking of God the same way as the Canaanites do; specifically, they will think that God can be represented by means of an image. That common human assumption does not work for the real God. It can only mislead. Deuteronomy 4 will expand on that logic.   

John Goldingay. Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.91-92.

       This is a time for you to count God's blessings today from the time you enter into your love story with Him. Also, this is a time for you to reveal your spiritual journey whether you are still in the love story God's prepares for you to be on. Or, you are already on your own way living in the lifestyles God forbids you to live on, worshipping idols of all kinds that you should not worship.

      God is asking you today as He asked Adam in Genesis 3:9 :
      "Where are you?"

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Lead us to count your blessings of how you have been leading us in our love story with you. Help us to reveal our lives whether we are still in that love story with you. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. How do you feel when you count the blessings of your love story with God?

2. Are you still in that love story changing your lifestyles to be more and more Christ-like daily or you are more and more away from God to be more Worldly-like? 

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

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

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