Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 485 - God Says Do, We Say NO (Please click here for English podcast)

Thursday, May 19, 2016

OT DAY 485 - God Says Do, We Say NO (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

May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!

Psalm 20:5

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 Kings 7:9-8:9)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=列+王+紀+上+6&version=ESV

6 Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the Most Holy Place, underneath the wings of the cherubim. 7 For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles. 8 And the poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the Holy Place before the inner sanctuary; but they could not be seen from outside. And they are there to this day.9 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.

1 Kings 8:6-9

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 Ark (Covenant Chest) represents the presence of God protected by the wings of the cherubim. And, nothing inside the ark except the two stone tablets Moses received from God. What does that mean?

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

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

At the back of the hall was the inner room, the holiest place, where a priest went just once a year in connection with the need to purify it. There two gold-plated cherubs stood, imaginary figures that are part animal and part bird that symbolize the creatures that transport God's throne through the heavens and to the earth. They thus point to the presence of the invisible God, enthroned above them. In turn they stand over and protect the covenant chest, which becomes the only artifact within the inner room. Its presence there underlines questions about the relationship between the covenant that goes back to Sinai and the way Israel has become a state like any other. Will the state be willing to shape its life by what the two stone tablets say (the Ten Commandment)? Answer: no, actually.

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.33.

The tragedy of human beings is that we are created by God and we deliberately disobey God's command.

When God says do, we say NO, God is not our King anymore!