Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 392 -When God's People Have No God And No King (Please click here for English podcast)

Friday, December 4, 2015

OT DAY 392 -When God's People Have No God And No King (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

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14

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 (Judges 21:1-48)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges 21&version=ESV

Now the men of Israel had sworn at Mizpah, “No one of us shall give his daughter in marriage to Benjamin.” 2 And the people came to Bethel and sat there till evening before God, and they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. 3 And they said, “O Lord, the God of Israel, why has this happened in Israel, that today there should be one tribe lacking in Israel?” 4 And the next day the people rose early and built there an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. 5 And the people of Israel said, “Which of all the tribes of Israel did not come up in the assembly to the Lord?” For they had taken a great oath concerning him who did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah, saying, “He shall surely be put to death.” 6 And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin their brother and said, “One tribe is cut off from Israel this day. 7 What shall we do for wives for those who are left, since we have sworn by the Lord that we will not give them any of our daughters for wives?”

8 And they said, “What one is there of the tribes of Israel that did not come up to the Lord to Mizpah?” And behold, no one had come to the camp from Jabesh-gilead, to the assembly. 9 For when the people were mustered, behold, not one of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead was there. 10 So the congregation sent 12,000 of their bravest men there and commanded them, “Go and strike the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword; also the women and the little ones. 11 This is what you shall do: every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction.”

Judges 21:1-11

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

Where can you find a place in the Bible that God's people had no God and no king nor God appointed leader? In this chapter! So sad!

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

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

God is absent from the story. Indeed, God has been effectively absent from the story for a long time. The last time God was the subject of a verb was the earlier part of the Samson saga, but God disappeared after chapter 15. Various people have talked to God and reckoned they knew what God was saying, but the story has not told us that God was actually involved in events or that God said anything. The scary exception to the last statement is the way God spoke in chapter 20, where on two out of three occasions God gave direction, but it did not lead to the expected result. It looks as if God has withdrawn from Israel and speaks more as an act of judgment than as an act of grace.
The New Testament warns churches about making the same mistakes as Israel made, and these last chapters of Judges form frightening examples of mistakes we might make as we go through the motions of consulting God but then just do our own thing.

John Goldingay. Joshua, Judges and Ruth for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.161.

The Israelites worshipped God and consulted God, but it seems that they did what they decided to do without waiting for God's command and confirmation.
Do you think you have done that before, asking God but then did in your own way?

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to wait for your answer before we start to do your work. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:
1. Do you think you have done that before: asking God but then did in your own way?

2. What you should do from now on?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Today's Time with Abba daily reading:

Psalm 135:8-14

Daniel 11:36-12:13

1 John 4:1-21

Proverbs 29:2-4

Photos of my copying the Bible this Tuesday using Time with Abba passages