OT DAY 291 - Listen And Obey Start with Your Willingness to Give (Please click here for English podcast)

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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 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 you his angels,

    you mighty ones who do his word,
    obeying the voice of his word!

Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
    his ministers, who do his will!

Bless the Lord, all his works,
    in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!

               
                                    Psalm 103:20-22

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 26:1-19)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+26&version=ESV

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. 3 And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’ 4 Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.

16 “This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. 17 You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. 18 And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, 19 and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.”

                   Deuteronomy 26:1-4, 16-19

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

      My heart was beating very fast when I read today's passage. Why? Because for the past so many years I have been teaching people the importance of listen and obey. It is not easy to know whether we have really listened and obeyed to God's command. Today's passage gives us a simple, direct and important teaching of how to start this listen and obey process. You start to give to God and the needy!  

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

    

     Deuteronomy pictures Moses encouraging Israelites to imagine themselves inside the country they are still on the edge of, not only in possession of it but having already done a year's farming and able to thank God for the results and not for merely being in the country. Deuteronomy invites its readers to imagine what it would have been like to have that insecure background and then to be in a position to bring God the fruits of this land that has indeed become theirs...

John Goldingay. Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.182.

      Can you imagine God teaches His people to give as a way to show that they really listen and obey. Giving is not easy for lots of people. Giving while people are well and wealthy might be not so difficult. Giving as in today's situation that those Israelites were still insecure is so difficult. 

       Many Christians think they will start tithing or giving more than tithing when they have a better financial situation. That's not what God commands. God commands His people to start tithing and more start from the very beginning as a sign to show that they listen and obey.

       Yes, listen and obey start with your willingness to give! Our security is in God, not in money!

       Rebellious and stiff-necked start with your stopping to give, worshipping money as your god thinking that money can give you security! 

       Choose wisely!  

Dear Lord Jesus, 
Help us to be able to give more than we can give so that we are really listening and obeying to your command.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you agree with today's message that listen and obey start with your willingness to give? 

2. How you can change your lifestyle to give more to God and the needy? 

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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