OT DAY 283 - Parents, Rise Up! Don't Spoil Your Children! (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 and feel His presence. 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

        
             Bless the Lord, O my soul,
             and forget not all his benefits,
3              who forgives all your iniquity,
             who heals all your diseases,
4              who redeems your life from the pit,
            who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5             who satisfies you with good
            so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

                
                          Psalm 103:2-5

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 (Deuteronomy 21:18-23)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+21&version=ESV


18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, 20 and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’21 Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

                   Deuteronomy 21:18-21

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

      Yesterday's passage calls fathers to rise up to take their responsibility to be good fathers. Today's passage calls parents to rise up to take their responsibility not to spoil their children. More than that, if a son is stubborn and rebellious, then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. Wow! What does that mean? Did this stoning really happen?   

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

    

     The rule about the rebellious son is also in part concerned with order in the community. It concerns an adult son, not a child. An adult is capable of profligacy and drunkenness, which are likely to involve other people.  They affect the community and are thus the entire community's business. It is therefore his parents' responsibility to bring him before the community court. Their concern will also be that his action will imperil the entire family. The parents cannot let him simply use up its resources. He is himself protected by their not being able to take action against him on their own, maybe because of a grudge against him. The sanction of stoning shows how important the matter is.  

John Goldingay. Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.165.

      So, the question we need to ask today is not how God could be so cruel and inhuman to stone a stubborn and rebellious son? Or, did this kind of stoning really happen? If it did happen, then God is unjust and we should not believe in Him.

      The question we should ask is why parents do not take their responsibility to teach their children well that they become stubborn and rebellious affecting the whole community. The question is how we as members of a community have the responsibility to avoid this kind of stubborn and rebellious people to surface. Is it possible to stop that? NO! There is no way for us to stop people turning to the wicked and evil side to become stubborn and rebellious. But, we have the responsibility as parents to rise up to be better parents so that we can do our best to avoid spoiling our children.  

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Lead more parents to become good parents loving their children so that they won't become stubborn and rebellious.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you think we need more good parents? How can you help in this situation? 

2. If you are a parent, can you pray more with your spouse for your children? 

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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