Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 311 - Stay Holy if You Are to See God Act (Please click here for English podcast)

Saturday, September 5, 2015

OT DAY 311 - Stay Holy if You Are to See God Act (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!
22 And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
    and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!

Psalm 107:21-22

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 (Joshua 3:1-5 that I recited loudly today)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua 3&version=ESV

Then Joshua rose early in the morning and they set out from Shittim. And they came to the Jordan, he and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. 2 At the end of three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “As soon as you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it. 4 Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.” 5 Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” Joshua 3:1-5

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
The new generation of Israelites had not seen God acted. Their parents did but they all died. So, after forty years what would this new generation hope: Will God act?

What would you hope? Would you like to see God act mightily? Today's passage teaches us if we want to see God act, we need to do something first. What is that?

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

In preparation for God's appearing at Sinai, the Israelites spend three days sanctifying themselves. The preparations here will be similar to those at Sinai: they will keep away from anything that would make them taboo and unable to come near God at all (things such as death and sex and moral wrongdoing, because these are all alien to God's own being). They need to stay holy in those ways if they are to see God act.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.17.

Professor Goldingay's words "because these are all alien to God's own being" give us a clear picture why we need to stay holy first in order to see God act. God will not be with us unless we are holy because holy is the way for us to be able to come close to His being. His being is HOLY!

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to be willing to stay holy so that we can be able to see you act. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Are you able to stay holy recently? Have you seen God act recently?

2. What have you got from Jesus today?

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

Psalm 100:1-5

Ecclesiastes 10:1 - 12:14

2 Cor. 8:1-15

Proverbs 22:20-21

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