OT DAY 438 - What Do You Think God Really Reject? (Please click here for English podcast)

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

         Praise the Lord!
          Praise God in his sanctuary;
            praise him in his mighty heavens!

           

                    Psalm 150:1

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 (1 Samuel 15:1-35)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Samuel 15&version=ESV

       

       22 And Samuel said,

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
    as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
    and to listen than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
    and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
    he has also rejected you from being king.”

                                                                 1   Samuel 15: 22-23

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

          Saul did not listen to God's command to destroy those wicked people causing him to be rejected by God. Wow! That's scaring, right? Can you imagine if we do not listen to God's command someday, would God reject us? What do you think God really rejected?

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 

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

    

           So we are right to be scared of this story. It reminds us of what God might decide to do to us, insofar as we are Amalek…
           If we want to escape God's taking redress on the nation we live in, we would be wise to find a way of dissociating ourselves from its Amalek-like lifestyle. 

          

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.76.

         I have heard too many times people asked, "Does God has a bottom line? Do you think He will punish without mercy to some people when they cross over God's bottom line?"

         Well, the answer is in today's passage and in the passage of how God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. You can never imagine the lifestyle of those people that God destroyed without mercy. What you need to imagine is that whether your lifestyle would someday go with those wicked lifestyle!

         As a king, Saul had the responsibility to exercise God's punishment as a warning to his own people so that they are willing to  renounce those wicked lifestyle before it is too late. Have you got the point? 

Dear Lord Jesus, 

    Help us to listen and obey to your command so that we will be accepted by you and not rejected by you. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflect on these questions:

    1. What have you learned about God's bottom line today? How does your learning affects your lifestyle?

2. What are those lifestyle you need to stop? What are those lifestyle you need to continue or to start?

    3. What have you got from Jesus today?

Today's Time with Abba daily reading:

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

Photos of Copying the Bible to Pray the past three days in the AMiA 
Winter Conference, Dallas, Texas

Photo of Pastor Ignatius Ng's ordination as a deacon, Feb. 4 (Thursday)

Praise and Thanksgiving

10,000 Reasons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E

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

You may choose to follow my other daily blog:

Daily Devotion on Fire: http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/

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