Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 327 - Your Sins Cause Your Whole Family to Suffer (Please click here for English podcast)

Monday, September 21, 2015

OT DAY 327 - Your Sins Cause Your Whole Family to Suffer (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 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
    all those who practice it have a good understanding.
    His praise endures forever!

Psalm 111:10

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 7:16-26)

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

22 So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and behold, it was hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. 23 And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the Lord. 24 And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. 25 And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones.26 And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor.

Joshua 7:22-26

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
Do you know why God had to destroy Achan and his whole family? Is God is full of forgiveness and mercy? Where is that forgiveness and mercy in this case? Why?

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

God doesn't deal with people in isolation from their families. What a saviour Rahab was! Through her involvement in the sex trade she saved her family from poverty or servitude, then saved the Israelite spies, then saved her family through becoming committed to God. Likewise Achan brings the wrong kind of "devotion" on his family through his breaking faith with God. Individuals can dissociate themselves from their families; Lot's wife did so, and Ruth did so. But the story reminds individualistic cultures that we are not just isolate individuals. Having faith and breaking faith is inclined to hold the family together.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.32.

I have seen quite a number of sad cases that the sin of a husband or a wife destroy the whole family. The destruction that a single person can bring to his or her family is beyond you can imagine!

On the contrary, we can lead our whole family to be blessed in a very special way. As our elder son, Pastor Ignatius Ng who is the Family Pastor of our church introduced the newly devised "Family Time" to the parents of our Awana program two days ago, our family started to do that yesterday. Just half an hour of doing "Family Time" gave our whole family a chance to share what we have not thought we could share and to enjoy a time what we have never thought of.

Here is a photo Iggy toke while Athan was reading a passage from the Jesus Storybook Bible (The Crossing of the Red Sea) and I looked at what he was reading:

Achan's example is a sad example of how a single person's sin can destroy the whole family. On the other hand, what we experienced of the blessing of "Family Time" is a good example of how a single person can bring blessing to his whole family. Please take a look at what we did and experienced yesterday and hope that you can start to do it weekly in your family. I am very sure that your whole family will be richly blessed!

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to know that what we do may bring disaster or blessing to our family and we are responsible for that. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you have any sin that you can not deal with which would sooner or later destroy your whole family?

2. What kind of action you need to do in order that you can bring blessing to your whole family?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Today's Time with Abba daily reading that I recited loudly and copy the Bible is:

Psalm 105:37-45

Isaiah 37:1 - 38:22

Galatians 6:1-18

Proverbs 23:24

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

Today's Golden Verse