OT DAY 530 - Reaching out to Those Women Who Are Weak (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

       you take me out of the net they have hidden for me,
            for you are my refuge.

         Into your hand I commit my spirit;

             you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

        

                                     Psalm 31:4-5

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 (2 Kings 4:1-7)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=列+王+紀+下+3&version=ESV

Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” 2 And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.” 3 Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. 4 Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.” 5 So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. 6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”        2 Kings 4:1-7

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

           Elisha exercised his double portion spiritual gifts and authority to a widow here in today's passage. What is the message God wants to give us? 

     Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 

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

           The story about the widow of one of the disciples of the prophets illustrates some overlapping dynamics. Jesus points out that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's day (Luke 4:25), and the situation hasn't changed in Jesus' own day. There are no social security or widow's benefits; it is your extended family and your neighbours who are supposed to help you through when you are in difficulties, but the presupposition of the story may be that the whole community is in difficulty. You aren't necessarily protected from such trouble by the fact that your husband was a person who was truly devoted to God and involvers in ministry. Evidently the woman (or her husband, before he died) had taken out a loan in the hope that the situation would improve; maybe they would get a decent harvest and be able to pay the loan back. It hasn't happened. The collateral on the loan would then be that the children's labor would pay back the loan. This didn't mean they would be slaves, and if the system worked in accordance with the Torah they would be free again after a while, but the arrangement wouldn't be much fun for mother or children…
           Whatever is the case, they are present in Scripture to invite us to wonder at God's capacity to make extraordinary things happen and also to be open to being God's agents in reaching out in some way to women who can't have children or lose their children or lost their husbands. 

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.121-122.

     There are steps that you need to take to experience God's great power as what Elisha experienced:
1. You need to have a mentor to pass on spiritual gifts and authority to you
2. You need to have a heart to care for those women who are in need
3. You need to have the gift of discernment of when and how to exercise those gifts and authority

     Are you in the path of experiencing this kind of gifts and authority so that you can care and help those women who are in need? 

    Dear Lord Jesus,
    Help us to follow Elisha's experience so that we can use the gifts and authority you give us to care and help those women who are in need.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Reflect on these questions:

   1. Have you helped women who are in need before?

2. How can today's message to move you in a direction to care and help those women who are in need?

    3. What have you got from Jesus today?

10,000 Reasons

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

四十天的"破. 立"靈修:

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