OT DAY 251 - God Disciplines You Is To Bring Out The Best of You (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

       
           Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O Lord,
                                and whom you teach out of your law,

                                  Psalm 94:12

        
 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 8:1-5)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy 8&version=ESV

“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. 2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you."

                   Deuteronomy 8:1-5

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

     No one like to be disciplined, right? Yet, if we have not gone through some kinds of discipline since our young age, what would we become? Today's passage shows us how God tells His people who were ready to go into the Promised Land to count God's blessings of disciplining them the past 40 years. It is very harsh, difficult and painful, and yet it is essential.  Why?

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

    

     Israel needs to be mindful of what God did in rescuing the people from Egypt…When you fear God cannot bring you to your destiny, think about what God did in initiating you on the journey…

      God relates to Israel like a father disciplining his son or a trainer disciplining an athlete to bring the best out of him or her. 

 John Goldingay. Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.127.

      Most English Bible versions translate the word as "to humble", Chinese Bible version translate as "to discipline", the Message translate as "to push you to your limits". God has been pushing me to my limits many times since 35 years when I was born again, so that He can change me. I was an arrogant, full of pride and self-centred so called Christian and God humbled me and pushed me to my limits using all kinds of harsh and severe ways. He brings out the best of me indeed!

       God disciplines you and pushes you to your limits is to bring out the best of you, like a father or like a trainer.  Do you understand?


Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to understand that you discipline us is to bring out the best of us. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. How did God discipline you the past few years? Are you angry about His disciplining you to allow all those bad things to happen to your life? 

2. Why He allowed that to happen? Did His discipline turn you from pride to humble, harsh to meek, rebellious to obedient, getting to giving, world-like to Christ-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

You may choose to follow my other daily blog:

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

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