Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 343 - Why Troubles rather than Blessings (Please click here for English podcast)

Sunday, October 11, 2015

OT DAY 343 - Why Troubles rather than Blessings (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

This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

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 23:1-16)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua+22&version=ESV

14 “And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed. 15 But just as all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the Lord will bring upon you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land that the Lord your God has given you, 16 if you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them. Then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off the good land that he has given to you.”

Joshua 23:14-16

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
Who wants troubles rather than blessings? No one! But why Joshua said that?

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

The people who wrote and read the book of Joshua were not just talking theory or indulging in unwarranted, narrow-minded religious or ethnic prejudice they were people who knew the way Israel had let itself be led astray and had paid the price for it. The Canaanites were a technologically, politically, religiously, an theologically sophisticated and advanced people. The Israelites were none of those. The main way they had won victories over the Canaanites was through God's doing something extraordinary, not through their own capacities. They needed to take account of how easy it is to be influenced by sophisticated people. As Joshua puts it, such people become a trap and a snare, both in the sense that they lead them astray and in the sense that they cause them trouble and pain.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.83.

Who are those people you always with? Do you think they can see Christlikeness in you? Or, you are being pulled away from God following their worldly lifestyle? How is your relationship with God and how close are you with God lately?

Dear Lord Jesus,

Open our eyes to see who are those people you want us to be friend with and who are those you want us to stay away. We long for your blessings and do not want surrounded by troubles. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. What kind of people do you usually get along with? How much are you being influenced by non-Christian value systems?

2. Do you think you are in blessings or troubles? Why?

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 114:1-8

Jeremiah 16:16 -18:23

1 Thessalonians 4:1-5:3

Proverbs 25:6-7

Photos of my copying the Bible using Time with Abba passages

Golden Verse

Other passages

More photos of yesterday's TEC Thanksgiving Service.

TEC Board members with Archbishop Yong and Bishop Silas

Vintage Garden Board members with Archbishop Yong

Photos of Toronto Emmanuel Church's Sunday Service today. With Julia Yong's 97 years old mother and her brother, then Eddy Mak, one of our seven members of Vintage Garden Board and the Rector's Warden of Richmond Emmanuel Church.