Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 488 - Why We Have to Fall Back to The Old Sinful Route? (Please click here for English podcast)

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

OT DAY 488 - Why We Have to Fall Back to The Old Sinful Route? (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

Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength!
We will sing and praise your power.

Psalm 21:13

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 8:41-66)

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

46 “If they sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near, 47 yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly,’ 48 if they repent with all their mind and with all their heart in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray to you toward their land, which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen, and the house that I have built for your name,49 then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause50 and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them 51 (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace).

1 Kings 8:46-51

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

In the closing and climax of Solomon's prayer of thanksgiving he talks about the possible going back to exile due to the sins of the Israelites. Is that a warning or a prophecy?

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

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

Solomon's prayer closes with what may seem in the context another implausible act of imagination, and an initially unpleasant one. Here we are at a highpoint in the entire old Testament story, and Solomon starts talking about the people going so wrong in their relationship with God that God will get angry enough to let them be taken off into exile. Excuse me?
It's one of the points in the narrative when it helps to remind ourselves that the story as a whole is told not just as a piece of history but as a message for some people; and the people for whom it is told are those who have gone through that experience of exile. The books of Kings tell the story down to the exile, and thus they tell it for people in the time of the exile. It's a time when they could easily be quite depressed about their situation. The story invites them to face some facts but also to hear some good news. The bad news is that they are in a mess as a result of relying on their own religious and political insight rather than relying on and responding to Yahweh. The good news is that this does not mean the story has to be at an end. They can turn around and ask for grace.

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.44.

This morning I received a text message to request prayers for a couple and their family. They experienced God's miraculous saving acts quite a few times many years ago. But, they all walk away from Jesus, farther and farther each year and they are in a mess now! Like the Israelites, they were in slavery by Pharaoh, to be more accurate modern Pharaoh using money, sex and power. God led them to have an "Exodus" experience. But, like what Solomon prophesied, they went back to those darkness and they are in exile, in a total mess! How can I pray for them? I asked them to confess their sins and ask for forgiveness from Jesus. This is the conclusion of my message I wrote to them this morning: 歸回主, 跟從主, 一定得! Return to the Lord, Follow the Lord, sure win!

I really do not understand why human beings have to go back to darkness when they experienced the great saving power of God? Why?