OT DAY 572 - Renewed but Relapsed, God Won't Pardon (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 have multiplied, O Lord my God,
          your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
           none can compare with you!
        I will proclaim and tell of them,
          yet they are more than can be told.

        In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,

           but you have given me an open ear.
        Burnt offering and sin offering
           you have not required.

       Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
           in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

        I delight to do your will, O my God;
           your law is within my heart.”

        

                                                             Psalm 40:5-8

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 23:31-24:16)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=列+王+紀+下+23&version=ESV

31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.32 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. 33 And Pharaoh Neco put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there. 35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco.
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.37 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.

                                                                2 Kings 23:31-37

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

           It is not easy to understand why God did not give any chance to those kings of Judah after the disobedience of King Josiah. Well, when you repented and turned back to the old route of sins and fall into the same sinful pattern of your ancestors, do you think you would till have a time to have God pardons you? 

     Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us: 

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

             In Judah's history,the ending of the nation's life (of which we will read in 2 Kings 25) might seem an enigma after Josiah's magnificent reformation…
            On reflection, humanly or sociologically speaking, Josiah's failure is not so surprising. It takes a lot to change a culture, particularly in a context where cultural change happens very slowly…
            Second Kings puts the point theologically. In this connection, too, there are limits to what Josiah's reformation could achieve. There is a sense in which repentance changes everything; it restores the relationship between people and God. There are limits, however, to the sense in which it cleans the slate. A murderer who repents does not then get pardoned and freed from prison. This would make too little of the offence. Theologically as well as sociologically, the repentance in which Josiah leads the people does not simply clean the slate. It is significant that 2 Kings speaks not of God's unwillingness to forgive but of God's unwillingness to pardon…
              Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood that is still carrying out from the ground. Perhaps his action still could not be pardoned. 

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.185-186.

           

           I think the key for God did not pardoned their sins is because they got back to the old route of what Manasseh had done as describes in 2 Kings 23:25-27:

      25 Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.

26 Still the Lord did not turn from the burning of his great wrath, by which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had provoked him. 27 And the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.”

             Don't think that you have repented is OK. If you have not continually changed and be renewed, the old pattern of the sins of you and your ancestors is going to pull you back to your old self and you will be finished! 

             Keep on walking your daily walk with Jesus. That's the only way! 

    Dear Lord Jesus,
    Help us to know that you are the One who we have to listen and obey. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Reflect on these questions:

   1. Do you think God really would not pardon people's sins like that?

2. How can you be more careful of what you have been doing and to check always whether you are already off track that may cause your own life? 

    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:

http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

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Discipler123: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.rec.app

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Welcome to use my first blog: Read one chapter of Bible a day 

     http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/day-1-i-am-blind.html

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