Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 325 - Why We Are Always So Confrontational And Not Relational? (Please click here for English podcast)

Saturday, September 19, 2015

OT DAY 325 - Why We Are Always So Confrontational And Not Relational? (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 Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways!

Psalm 128:1

Confession and Repentance (Subjective Shifting Devotion Method http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html)

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 7:6-9)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua 7&version=ESV

6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads. 7 And Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan! 8 O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! 9 For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?”

Joshua 7:6-9

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
This is a very special passage showing us the ups and down of a leader. Just a short while ago, Joshua had a miraculous victory that could not happen. He was famous and everyone obeyed to his command. Then, he made a small mistake of letting 36 soldiers killed out of three thousands. That should not be a big deal. Why Joshua had such an attitude to God like that seeming that God did something wrong. Do you think sometimes we can just be like that?

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

Joshua assumes it is okay to be confrontational with God; he also finds God being confrontational back. His argument overlaps with Moses' argument when God threatened to abandon Israel; God's name will be discredited by such action. But Moses knew Israel was in the wrong. In a sense you can't blame Joshua for not knowing, but he may be at fault for simply as using that the problem lies in God. Or maybe that is often how things work in a relationship. I can easily assume that I am in the right and the other person is in the wrong, but when I come out with what I assume, I discover that the other person has another way of looking at the situation, one that makes me eat my words.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.31.

Next time when you are confrontational with God or God's servants or anyone, remember today's example. You may not be on the right side! Though it is difficult for us to admit that we are on the wrong side!

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to be very careful so as to examine ourself so that we will not get confrontational with God or His servants thinking that we are on the right side. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Have you been in a similar situation of confrontational with God or His servants? Did you think that you are right? What was the outcome?

2. How can you be in a better position next time that you won't be so confrontational but more relational?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

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

Psalm 105:16-22

Isaiah 30:12 - 33:12

Galatians 5:1-12

Proverbs 23:22

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

Today's Golden Verse