OT DAY 248 - One God, One Loyalty (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

       
           The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty;
                the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.
          Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

                                  Psalm 93:1

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

The Word (Deuteronomy 6:1-25)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy 6&version=ESV

“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

                   Deuteronomy 6:1-9

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 perhaps the most important chapter to the Jews because they have been reciting it many times each day since Moses time until now. And, a lot of them really follow the instruction in verse 8 to wrap the Shama in their arms and bind that with a small box on their foreheads. I saw that with my own eyes three years ago when I was in Jerusalem and I was so moved. 

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

    

     Many people in the West in the twenty-first century find it hard to believe there is one truth or one God; they find it easier to believe that there are lots of versions of the truth or angles on the truth. We all then choose a "truth" that makes sense to us or that we like. Life is like the supermarket…
     The challenge "Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God Yahweh one" is a central expectation of Old Testament faith. In Judaism it is known by the word for "listen": it is "the Shema"…

     Declaring that Yahweh is one does imply Yahweh is God and the god the Canaanites called the Master is not God…

     In the traditional translation, the affirmation goes on to urge Israel to "love" Yahweh, but in English the word "love" suggests primarily emotions. The way Moses qualifies the word presupposes it has a wider significance. We are to "love" or dedicate ourselves or give ourselves to God with our whole mind, our whole person, and all our might. The word for "mind" is literally "heart," but once again in English "heart" suggests emotions…

     The commitment Moses is looking for is a self-giving that involves all people's energy and focus. It is exclusive of any other loyalty.  

John Goldingay. Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.114-116.

      One God, one loyalty! How does that sound to you? What Moses brings to the Jews is their emotion in a total way to love the only one God. We know that by now that most of them did not have that emotion. Or, using modern term, they lose that "feeling"!

      Do you have more than one God and many loyalty?
      How do you feel about the love of God and you?
      Do you have one God, one loyalty in a true sense and not just in theory?


Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to experience the wonderful blessing and great power of living out one God, one loyalty.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you have more than one God and many loyalty? How do you feel about the love of God and you?

2. Do you have one God, one loyalty in a true sense and not just in theory? How are you so sure about that?

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/

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