Time with Abba, Singing Praising 親親爸父，唱詩歌頌 : OT DAY 574 - When God disappeared from your story, you are soon to be disappeared (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 24:20- 25:30)

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=列+王+紀+下+24&version=ESV

20 For because of the anger of the Lord it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence.

And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And they built siegeworks all around it. 2 So the city was besieged till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3 On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 4 Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king's garden, and the Chaldeans were around the city. And they went in the direction of theArabah. 5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him. 6 Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they passed sentence on him. 7 They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him in chains and took him to Babylon.

2 Kings 24:20- 25:7

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

Today we finish reading 2 kings. It is a sad story that God's anger poured on His own people that after the Kingdom of Israel disappeared, the Kingdom of Judah disappeared because God disappeared from His people story! How scary!

Let's see how Professor John Goldingay tells us:

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

All this stands under the solemn words that introduce this final chapter: "Yahweh's anger was against Jerusalem and Judah until he threw them out of his presence." Maybe these words even embrace the words that immediately follow: "So Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon," implying that the very rebellion that Zedekiah undertook for what he thought were good political reasons was actually an outworking of God's decision to bring judgment on the city. The note about God's anger is actually the last sentence in chapter 24. The account of the rebellion and the siege and its aftermath contains no mention of God. It unfolds as a series of human decisions by people such as Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, and Gedaliah's murderers. God is missing from the story, having withdrawn from the city. Yet behind the scenes God's will is being implemented.

John Goldingay. 1 and 2 Kings for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p.189.

Tomorrow we are going to have our second Community Talk. Dr. Sai Kui Lee, Chairman of the Board of Vintage Garden flew from Toronto to Vancouver last Friday to help us to give a talk to our community about how to care for seniors! When I asked Dr. Lee what he is talking about, he said, "I am going to share God's story about Vintage Garden." Wow! That is so simple and yet so concise and focused!

Yes, when our story is full of God's story, our lives are being blessed and God will use us to bless many people. When God disappear from your story, you are soon to be disappeared! Do you think so?!

Dear Lord Jesus,
Lead us each day so that our story is your story. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Reflect on these questions:

1. Do you think that when God disappear from your story, you are soon to be disappeared?

2. How can you live a life full of God's story? What recent God's story can you share with others?

3. What have you got from Jesus today?