Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 336 - Don't Be So Stupid (Please click here for English podcast)

Saturday, October 3, 2015

OT DAY 336 - Don't Be So Stupid (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 I will lift up the cup of salvation
    and call on the name of the Lord,
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord
    in the presence of all his people.

Psalm 116:13-14

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 11:16-12:24)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua 11&version=ESV

18 Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. 19 There was not a city that made peace with the people of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. They took them all in battle. 20 For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses.

Joshua 11:18-20

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
Don't be so stupid of what? Well, according to today's passage, don't be so stupid to live against God's will so that someday God might harden our hearts as he hardened those Canaanites hearts!

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

God hardened the heart of the Canaanite kings, the Joshua story comments; that's a more literal translation. I have translated the phrase "stiffened the resolve" because in English the heart is inclined to suggest especially the emotions, whereas in the Bible it suggests the inner being more generally, and if it has a more precise focus, it is the will. The heart suggests the formulating of attitudes and the making of decisions. As we put it, these kings had to "make up their minds" what they were going to do about the Israelites. In the event, they behaved stupidly…Instead of recognizing the implications of what they had heard about the Israelites, like Rahab and the Hivites, they tried to stop them.
Why were they so stupid? The Bible doesn't always attribute people's stupidity to God's closing their minds, but sometimes it does so. God speaks of it in Isaiah 6, and Jesus takes up God's words in explaining that his reason for telling parables is to hinder people from understanding what he says (Mark 4). Jesus likewise assumes, as this story does, that people can reach a point where there is not any grace for them, only weeping and gnashing of teeth. In each case, closing their minds is God's act of judgment, as was the case when God hardened Pharaoh's heart or stiffened his resolve. In each case, people have reached the point where God says, "That's it," and deals with them by encouraging them to continue in their moral stupidity.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.62.

What I received from Jesus today is to turn the command to Joshua into our own situation. Killing all those Canaanites may mean our killing of all those immoral thoughts and acts in us if we have any. Don't continue your moral stupidity anymore, in case God says "That's it" to you!

Be HOLY because God is HOLY!

Don't be so stupid!

Dear Lord Jesus,

Open our eyes to see our stupidity if there is any, especially those immoral stupidity. Lead us to make a decision now that we cannot be so stupid to stay in that way. Help us to be able to help more people to get away from their moral stupidity. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you have any moral stupidity? If you think you don't, are you living in a life of holiness and Christ-likeness? If you don't, do you think your heart is already being hardened?

2. Do you think God is calling you to repent, to change? Do you think God is calling you to help some people to repent and to change?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Zoe Day 5 photos