Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 476 - Don't Make Cheap Offering (Please click here for English podcast)

Sunday, May 8, 2016

OT DAY 476 - Don't Make Cheap Offering (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

For it is you who light my lamp;
the Lord my God lightens my darkness.

For by you I can run against a troop,

and by my God I can leap over a wall.

Psalm 18:28-29

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 (2 Samuel 24:16b-25)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=撒+母+耳+記+下+23&version=ESV

And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 17 Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father's house.”
18 And Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David went up at Gad's word, as the Lord commanded. 20 And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. 21 And Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague may be averted from the people.” 22 Then Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23 All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the Lord your God accept you.” 24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25 And David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.

2 Samuel 24:16a-25

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

To make an offering is costly! That's what David understood and practiced in today's passage.

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

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

Offering always cost you. That is especially clear with the offerings that David makes, because they involve burning up a whole animal so that it goes up in smoke to God in its entirety. David also offers fellowship sacrifices, which God and offerers share - that is, some goes up in smoke and some the offerers eat in a fellowship meal with God. So even these offerings cost you. On this occasion David also has to pay good money for the land on which to build the altar. In his negotiation with David, Araunah may mean what he says when he speaks of simply giving up the land for this purpose, or he may be expecting David to make him an offer. Either way, it gives David the opportunity to declare that he does not want to undertake this action on the cheap.

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Samuel for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.167, 185.

So, are you a tither? Do you make cheap offering but using money generously to your own use? If you have true relationship with God, I don't think you would make cheap offerings! If you love God, make costly offerings!

Dear Lord Jesus,

Lead us to make good offerings to you and that we know that you delight in our offerings. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen.