Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 310 - Does God Make Any Exceptions? (Please click here for English podcast)

Friday, September 4, 2015

OT DAY 310 - Does God Make Any Exceptions? (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

15 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wondrous works to the children of man!
16 For he shatters the doors of bronze
    and cuts in two the bars of iron.

Psalm 107:15-16

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 (Joshua 2:12-24 that I recited loudly today)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua 2&version=ESV

12 Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that, as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father's house, and give me a sure sign 13 that you will save alive my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” 14 And the men said to her, “Our life for yours even to death! If you do not tell this business of ours, then when the Lord gives us the land we will deal kindly and faithfully with you.”

15 Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall, so that she lived in the wall. Joshua 2:12-14

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
God said to Moses that when the Israelites went into Canaan they had to kill and totally destroy all people there with no mercy because if they did not do so, those wicked people would teach them to do wicked things and they would turned away from God:

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, 2 and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. Deuteronomy 7: 1-2

16 But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded,18 that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 20:16-19

Does God make any exceptions to His own command?

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

The Torah had given no indication that God would make any exceptions when driving the Canaanites out of the country or that Israel was to make any exceptions when devoting the Canaanites, but the two men take for granted that there is no reason to drive out or devote anyone who submits to God. Like Jonah's declaration that all Nineveh is to be destroyed, whenever God threatens destruction the threat always presupposes "unless you repent." Rahab models the sensible way to respond to God's threats of punishment. Along with Ruth, she will appear in Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.14.

Yes, God make exceptions when we repent. What I received from Jesus to you is to read Psalm 107: 10-22 to you so you understand more about God's love, mercy and that He does make exceptions if we repent:

10 Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,
    prisoners in affliction and in irons,
11 for they had rebelled against the words of God,
    and spurned the counsel of the Most High.
12 So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;
    they fell down, with none to help.
13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
    and burst their bonds apart.
15 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wondrous works to the children of man!
16 For he shatters the doors of bronze
    and cuts in two the bars of iron.

17 Some were fools through their sinful ways,
    and because of their iniquities suffered affliction;
18 they loathed any kind of food,
    and they drew near to the gates of death.
19 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.
20 He sent out his word and healed them,
    and delivered them from their destruction.
21 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wondrous works to the children of man!
22 And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
    and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to know that you are full of love and mercy and you do make exceptions if we repent. Lead us to be willing to be with you each day that we can experience the power and protection of your mighty Kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you have a new understanding of God's love and mercy today?

2. How important it is that we know that God do make exceptions?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Today's Time with Abba daily reading that I recited loudly

Psalm 99:1-9

Ecclesiastes 7:1 - 9:18

2 Cor. 7:8-16

Proverbs 22:17-19

Photos of my copying the Bible today using Time with Abba passages