Friday, April 30, 2021

DAY 78 (2021) - Reward or punishment, it's your choice! (Please go to FaceBook(silastyng) to watch my video of this blog)

 



                      This drawing is according to Psalm 78:4-8



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.   Sing a song to praise God (you are welcome to use "Father, I adore you" which I have been singing every morning for the past 20 years or your own choice to praise God)

          Father, I adore You, lay my life before You, how I love You.
          Jesus, I adore You, lay my life before You, how I love You.
          Spirit, I adore You, lay my life before You, how I love You.
      

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 shine on you that you are able to discover your sins and be willing to repent:


     “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 and having Jesus as my Lord. 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 gifts to love God and His people. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen."


      Bible link: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%207&version=NIV

    Today's passage:
   

Psalm 78

A maskil[a] of Asaph.

My people, hear my teaching;
    listen to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth with a parable;
    I will utter hidden things, things from of old—
things we have heard and known,
    things our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their descendants;
    we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
    his power, and the wonders he has done.
He decreed statutes for Jacob
    and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
    to teach their children,
so the next generation would know them,
    even the children yet to be born,
    and they in turn would tell their children.
Then they would put their trust in God
    and would not forget his deeds
    but would keep his commands.
They would not be like their ancestors—
    a stubborn and rebellious generation,
whose hearts were not loyal to God,
    whose spirits were not faithful to him.

The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows,
    turned back on the day of battle;
10 they did not keep God’s covenant
    and refused to live by his law.
11 They forgot what he had done,
    the wonders he had shown them.
12 He did miracles in the sight of their ancestors
    in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea and led them through;
    he made the water stand up like a wall.
14 He guided them with the cloud by day
    and with light from the fire all night.
15 He split the rocks in the wilderness
    and gave them water as abundant as the seas;
16 he brought streams out of a rocky crag
    and made water flow down like rivers.

17 But they continued to sin against him,
    rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.
18 They willfully put God to the test
    by demanding the food they craved.
19 They spoke against God;
    they said, “Can God really
    spread a table in the wilderness?
20 True, he struck the rock,
    and water gushed out,
    streams flowed abundantly,
but can he also give us bread?
    Can he supply meat for his people?”
21 When the Lord heard them, he was furious;
    his fire broke out against Jacob,
    and his wrath rose against Israel,
22 for they did not believe in God
    or trust in his deliverance.
23 Yet he gave a command to the skies above
    and opened the doors of the heavens;
24 he rained down manna for the people to eat,
    he gave them the grain of heaven.
25 Human beings ate the bread of angels;
    he sent them all the food they could eat.
26 He let loose the east wind from the heavens
    and by his power made the south wind blow.
27 He rained meat down on them like dust,
    birds like sand on the seashore.
28 He made them come down inside their camp,
    all around their tents.
29 They ate till they were gorged—
    he had given them what they craved.
30 But before they turned from what they craved,
    even while the food was still in their mouths,
31 God’s anger rose against them;
    he put to death the sturdiest among them,
    cutting down the young men of Israel.

32 In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;
    in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.
33 So he ended their days in futility
    and their years in terror.
34 Whenever God slew them, they would seek him;
    they eagerly turned to him again.
35 They remembered that God was their Rock,
    that God Most High was their Redeemer.
36 But then they would flatter him with their mouths,
    lying to him with their tongues;
37 their hearts were not loyal to him,
    they were not faithful to his covenant.
38 Yet he was merciful;
    he forgave their iniquities
    and did not destroy them.
Time after time he restrained his anger
    and did not stir up his full wrath.
39 He remembered that they were but flesh,
    a passing breeze that does not return.

40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
    and grieved him in the wasteland!
41 Again and again they put God to the test;
    they vexed the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his power—
    the day he redeemed them from the oppressor,
43 the day he displayed his signs in Egypt,
    his wonders in the region of Zoan.
44 He turned their river into blood;
    they could not drink from their streams.
45 He sent swarms of flies that devoured them,
    and frogs that devastated them.
46 He gave their crops to the grasshopper,
    their produce to the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail
    and their sycamore-figs with sleet.
48 He gave over their cattle to the hail,
    their livestock to bolts of lightning.
49 He unleashed against them his hot anger,
    his wrath, indignation and hostility—
    a band of destroying angels.
50 He prepared a path for his anger;
    he did not spare them from death
    but gave them over to the plague.
51 He struck down all the firstborn of Egypt,
    the firstfruits of manhood in the tents of Ham.
52 But he brought his people out like a flock;
    he led them like sheep through the wilderness.
53 He guided them safely, so they were unafraid;
    but the sea engulfed their enemies.
54 And so he brought them to the border of his holy land,
    to the hill country his right hand had taken.
55 He drove out nations before them
    and allotted their lands to them as an inheritance;
    he settled the tribes of Israel in their homes.

56 But they put God to the test
    and rebelled against the Most High;
    they did not keep his statutes.
57 Like their ancestors they were disloyal and faithless,
    as unreliable as a faulty bow.
58 They angered him with their high places;
    they aroused his jealousy with their idols.
59 When God heard them, he was furious;
    he rejected Israel completely.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
    the tent he had set up among humans.
61 He sent the ark of his might into captivity,
    his splendor into the hands of the enemy.
62 He gave his people over to the sword;
    he was furious with his inheritance.
63 Fire consumed their young men,
    and their young women had no wedding songs;
64 their priests were put to the sword,
    and their widows could not weep.

65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
    as a warrior wakes from the stupor of wine.
66 He beat back his enemies;
    he put them to everlasting shame.
67 Then he rejected the tents of Joseph,
    he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;
68 but he chose the tribe of Judah,
    Mount Zion, which he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary like the heights,
    like the earth that he established forever.
70 He chose David his servant
    and took him from the sheep pens;
71 from tending the sheep he brought him
    to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
    of Israel his inheritance.
72 And David shepherded them with integrity of heart;
    with skillful hands he led them.

     

    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 to Jesus as you listen to him. 

    My Listening
    The topic I received from Jesus is Reward or punishment, it's your choice!

There is a Chinese saying, "People will never shed a tear until they see their coffin"! 

Well, this is the similar situation of the Israelites describes in this Psalm that they did not repent until God killed a lot of them. Then the rest started to seek for God. And this kind of history repeat and repeat again!

If this is also your story then you need to repent before it is too late.

If that is not your story then you need to be willing to use by God as an instrument to help more people to understand we are rebellious people and lead them to repentance. If we can be used by God to lead more people back to God as our loving Father, then we have lots of miraculous stories to tell our next generation and more generations. See how verses 68-72 tells us the reward and blessing if we follow God faithfully, a true blessing from generations to generations!

Well, reward or punishment, it's your choice!



Dear Lord Jesus,
Help us to understand our rebellious DNA and that we need your salvation. Lead us to follow you faithfully and we are being blessed from generations to generations. 
In Jesus name we pray,
 
Amen.

    
       
      Reflect on these questions:
     1. What inspiration have you received from today's catch and what have you heard from Jesus now?
      
      2.  What is your next step to be more closer to Jesus?
    
           Family Corner:
     Find an opportunity to share with your family the importance of today's message. 
     

        
Please click this link to worship with us - 
 
You are my hiding place

       To know, learn and practice the method of Time with Abba, please click this link: https://www.pastoralcareschool.org

       
    Starting from January 1, 2021, I started to lead you to read one Psalm everyday for 150 days that you can experience a powerful experience to use Psalm to pray and sing praises to the Lord. If you watch my daily morning prayer "Time with Abba, Singing and Praising" video, I am going to sing with you one song to praise the Lord!
    
    Praise the Lord that after a few months of preparation for this new series with a good friend, Alice Cheung, you can see a brand new look in my daily blog. Alice who is now the Vice Principal of Diocesan Girls' School (https://www.dgs.edu.hk/) is going to draw a painting each day to highlight the key message of that day's Psalm. You can see the photos below of Alice, one pictures was taken in Hong Kong of Michelle and me, and Alice and her husband Johnson. The other picture is with her Doctor of Education gown standing besides the Alumni Wall of DGS and with her name and the year 1984, the year she graduated in that school. She had been a principal of a high school for seven years and worked as a Vice Principal two years ago. 




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