Receive encouragement and a promise of future restoration!

  

Please click this link for the video version of today's blog :

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 the Lord

      

     Confession and Repentance (Subjective Shifting Devotion Method) 

      https://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/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 sins 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."

3.  John Stott's daily prayer of Christlikeness (Christopher J.H. Wright, Cultivating the fruit of the Spirit. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2017, 13)

**Please click this link to read how God used John Stott to change my life:https://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/07/

           "Heavenly Father, I pray that this day I may live in your presence and please you more and more.

             Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up my cross and follow you.

             Holy Spirit, I pray that this day you will fill me with yourself and cause your fruit to ripen in my life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Today's Time with Abba:  Psalm 125:1-5; Ezekiel 39:1-40:27; James 2:18-3:18; Proverbs 28:2

Please click this link for today's Time with Abba one year Bible: http://twa.pastoralcareschool.org/

Key passage:

 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the fall of the city—on that very day the hand of the Lord was on me and he took me there. 2 In visions of God he took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose south side were some buildings that looked like a city.3 He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze;he was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand. 4 The man said to me, “Son of man, look carefully and listen closely and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Tell the people of Israel everything you see.” 5 I saw a wall completely surrounding the temple area. The length of the measuring rod in the man’s hand was six long cubits,[e] each of which was a cubit and a handbreadth. He measured the wall; it was one measuring rod thick and one rod high.

6 Then he went to the east gate. He climbed its steps and measured the threshold of the gate; it was one rod deep. 7 The alcoves for the guards were one rod long and one rod wide, and the projecting walls between the alcoves were five cubits[f] thick. And the threshold of the gate next to the portico facing the temple was one rod deep. 8 Then he measured the portico of the gateway; 9 it[g] was eight cubits[h]deep and its jambs were two cubits[i] thick. The portico of the gateway faced the temple.

                                                                              Ezekiel 40:1-9

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.

    

The topic I received today from Jesus is:  Receive encouragement and a promise of future restoration!

What do you want if you are very sick lying on the bed thinking that you are not going to have any future or even tomorrow? 

Encouragement and a hope of future, right?

That's how God did to His people through Ezekiel in Chapter 40. 

It's about a vision of the renewed temple from chapter 40 to 43 that God gave to Ezekiel in 573 B.C., 25 years after he was deported to Babylon. The purpose of that vision was to encourage the people that God would restore to them His glory in the future of the restoring of His new temple.

The vision might be just a symbolic image describing the eternal condition in Revelation 21-22. It might also be a symbolic temple describing the blessings of the millennial kingdom. 

Anyway, it was God's special message and encouragement to His people that someday His presence and glory will be restored through the rebuilding of His temple in Jerusalem.

If you can have just a little bit of imagination, you can feel how painful the Jews were when they lost almost everything and being deported to Babylon. No money, no power, no future, without anything! 

For hundreds of years the temple was the symbol of God's presence and now it was gone. 

What could they still have if God was gone?

Now you understand why God gave such vision to His people through Ezekiel. 

Actually it has not happen yet because the millennial kingdom has not come yet. But, the Word and prophecy of a possible future gave hope and strength to God's people in the time of total darkness.

So, what does this message has to do with you? 

At least, you need to know that God will never leave you no matter what happen to you! 

And, if you remember that, understand that and believe that, you will live every moment encouraged with a hopeful future!

Dear Lord Jesus,

Thank you for your abiding love each day. Help us to understand and experience that you are always with us each day that we will never be left alone.  In Jesus Name I 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, to be holy - that is to do what Jesus wants you to do and not to do what Jesus wants you not to do?

    

    Family Corner:

     Find an opportunity to share with your family the importance of today's message. 

     

    

     

Please click this link to worship with us - 

Change My Heart, O God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtsHWFE6-w&feature=related

    Please click this link for today's Time with Abba one year Bible four passages: http://twa.pastoralcareschool.org/

   For the Chinese version of this daily blog and video, please click this link (中文版請按此連結):

    https://timewithabbaprayinglisteningchinese.blogspot.com

     

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

       My first blog "Devotion on Fire"  was written in English only  (July 17, 2009年7月17日至November 22, 2012年11月22日). Each day one chapter of Bible, from New Testament and then Old Testament. Completed in four months and three years:

http://bishopsilas.blogspot.com/2009/07/blessings-from-rev-dr-john-stott.html

My second blog "Discipler 123"  was written in both Chinese and English (March 6,2011to December 31, 2016 ):

https://discipler123.blogspot.com/2011/02/day-1-choose-light-away-from-darkness.html

and "Time with Abba" blog and video (January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2024): 

https://discipler123.blogspot.com/2017/01/1-2017.html

 

 

Connecting Workshop 2025(Session 2)

Bishop Silas Ng on Three Streams

 https://youtu.be/xiSOSFF9Iw0?si=puDWFD9Cx01ADm-o