OT DAY 537 - When Crisis Comes, Do You Still Trust God? (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

       Love the Lord, all you his saints!
    The Lord preserves the faithful
    but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.

        Be strong, and let your heart take courage,

    all you who wait for the Lord!

        

                                     Psalm 31:23-24 

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 6:24-33)

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

24 Afterward Ben-hadad king of Syria mustered his entire army and went up and besieged Samaria. 25 And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver. 26 Now as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” 27 And he said, “If the Lord will not help you, how shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the winepress?” 28 And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ 29 So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” 30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body— 31 and he said, “May God do so to me and more also, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today.”

32 Elisha was sitting in his house, and the elders were sitting with him. Now the king had dispatched a man from his presence, but before the messenger arrived Elisha said to the elders, “Do you see how this murderer has sent to take off my head? Look, when the messenger comes, shut the door and hold the door fast against him. Is not the sound of his master's feet behind him?” 33 And while he was still speaking with them, the messenger came down to him and said, “This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”                                 2 Kings 6:24-33

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

           After Elisha advised the King to free the Arameans, today's passage talks about the Arameans came to besiege the capital of the Israelites and everyone was hopeless. Women eating their own babies! If you were the King, what would you do to Elisha? If you were Elisha, would you still have faith in God in the midst of the fear of losing your own life? 

           

     Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 

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

                    Women are eating their babies…It's not the only passage in the Old Testament that refers to their doing so. The siege of a city was a central feature of warfare in the ancient world…
            In the meantime, people experience moral breakdown…how desperate a situation is it that women can eat the bodies of their babies? This story presupposes that it is the king's job to settle disputes among people in the community and that they have the right to ask him to rescue them from unfairness and oppression and to put things right by replacing injustice with fairness and freedom…The woman has lost any sense of the enormity of their action in eating their babies.
           In turn, her protest causes the king to reveal his own hidden sense of hopelessness before God and his resentment in relation to Elisha. Is he resentful because it was Elisha who required the king to release the Arameans so that now they are in a position to cause such suffering to Ephraim again? Is he blaming Elisha as God's agent in bringing judgment on Ephraim?…Is Elisha failing to use the power inherent in him as a man of God? 

   

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.130-131.

       The most difficult situation for servants of God is somewhat in this kind of crisis. You saved the nation miraculously sometimes ago and in a short while because of what you decided disaster comes and you are being blamed for what you have done. So, what do you do?

       What I got from Jesus now is still what He inspired me two weeks ago about the Hebrew meaning of the word "Be Still" from Psalm 46. That's how Psalm 46 wants to tell us when we come to that hopeless crisis. That's how the two meanings of the word "Be Still" can help us:
1. Let Go: When we come to a hopeless crisis like what it describes in Psalm 46 somewhat like a nation would be destroyed, our lives would be totally trashed, we need to let go of all fear because God can do and is able to do everything. He is our Saviour, our protector, our provider, our Lord and our King. He won't let go of us! But we have to let go of all those fear so that we can get hold of His mighty hands to save us!
2. Don't Quit: When we come to a hopeless crisis like that, don't let go of those things God does not want you to let go. Stand firm, don't quit your job, your marriage, your family, your life and your hope.

      That's how Elisha did in tomorrow's passage. That's how God trained His servants, prophets to "Be Still"!

      That's how God wants to train you to "Be Still", so that you know that God is God!

    Dear Lord Jesus,
    Help us to be willing to take the test and challenge to be still so that you can use us to let people know that you are the one and only true God. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

    

Reflect on these questions:

    1. Do you think if you were in that kind of hopeless crisis, would you still remember today's message to carry you through?

2. How can you prepare yourself better so that you can "be still" next time you can't "be still"?

    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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