Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 388 - I Do It My Way (Please click here for English podcast)

Monday, November 30, 2015

OT DAY 388 - I Do It My Way (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

All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O Lord,
for they have heard the words of your mouth,

and they shall sing of the ways of the Lord,
for great is the glory of the Lord.

Psalm 138 :3-4

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 (Judges 17:1-14)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges 17&version=ESV

5 And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest. 6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

7 Now there was a young man of Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. 8 And the man departed from the town of Bethlehem in Judah to sojourn where he could find a place. And as he journeyed, he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah. 9 And Micah said to him, “Where do you come from?” And he said to him, “I am a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah, and I am going to sojourn where I may find a place.” 10 And Micah said to him, “Stay with me, and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year and a suit of clothes and your living.” And the Levite went in. 11 And the Levite was content to dwell with the man, and the young man became to him like one of his sons. 12 And Micah ordained the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah. 13 Then Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will prosper me, because I have a Levite as priest.” Judges 17:5-13

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage 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

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage 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 people of God were without God and they did things in their own way! How can that be!

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

The last five chapters of Judges are increasingly troublesome; it is tempting to skip them and move onto the more Hollywood-like story of Ruth. They rub our noses in the reality of how things are within the people of God and in the world. Four times they comment that in those days there was no king in Israel, and at the beginning and end they add that everyone was doing what was right in his or her own eyes…Micah, his mother, and the Levite in this story are a bit mixed up, like Gideon.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.146.

This is such a sad situation to show how devastating it can be when God's people are without a king, a leader, a judge to lead them. Micah thought that it would be good if he got a Levite and God would bless him and his family. And, he got all kinds of idols and a shrine, thinking that those things could protect him and bless his family.
We have Christians doing all kinds of weird things nowadays. Going to church, but having all sorts of idols, colourful crystal and other things at home. How can that be?
I do hope and pray that you do not do it in your own way but in God's way. How do you know you are doing things in God's way? If you do not know, I don't think we can teach that today!

Dear Lord Jesus,

Teach us to follow your way and not our way. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. How do you feel the confusion of God's people in today's passage?

2. Do you do things in your own way or in God's way?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Today's Time with Abba daily reading:

Psalm 132:13-18

Daniel 7:1-28

1 John 1:1- 10

Proverbs 28:23-24

Photos of my copying the Bible using Time with Abba passages