To be more gracious and forgiving for Jesus!

  

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dGHhsMLDqI

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 140:1-8; Jonah 1:1-4:11; Revelation 5:1-14; Proverbs 29:26-27

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

Key passage:

The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

4 Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 

4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant[c] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

                                                  Jonah 1:1-4; 4:4-11

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:  To be more gracious and forgiving for Jesus!

Jonah was a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of King Jeroboam II (2Ki 14: 23-25, 793-753 B.C.). God gave Jonah specific instructions to warn the people of Nineveh about his coming judgment on that city because of its wickedness, violence and evil ways. 

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a very wicked, brutal and immoral nation.  This was not an easy or pleasant prospect for Jonah, not only because the city was about 500 miles away, but because Israel hated the Assyrians and saw them as a great threat.  Jonah fled from the mission , refusing to deliver God's message to Nineveh for fear that they might actually repent and escape God's judgment.

Chapter 2 records one of the most beautiful and important prayers in the Bible. The prayers includes three elements:

1. Jonah's plea for God to rescue him from death.

2. Johan's confession of God's mercy.

3. Jonah's thanksgiving for God's miraculous acts.

When Johan admitted his sins that he had defied God, and he recognized that it was God who threw him into the sea and he confessed his sins, everything changed! 

God has his own ways to deal with those who walk away from Him or even, in Johan's case run away from Him. His mercy is beyond anything we can imagine and his love is above everything we can experience! 

Chapter 3 tells us that God gave Jonah a second chance to bring warning to the people of Nineveh. The Ninevites accepted Jonah's message, believing that they were doomed unless they turned to God for mercy. They repented, fasted and put on sackcloth.

Because of their true repentance, God canceled his plan of judgment! 

God gave Jonah another chance. God gave the Ninevites another chance. But, Jonah did not want to give the Ninevites another chance and he waited there to see how the city of Nineveh was about to be destroyed by God.

Rather than rejecting Jonah because of his bad attitude, lack of compassion and wrong response, God lovingly tried to convince him, through the miracle of the fast-growing vine, that he was concerned for him, for Israel and for other nations.

God has given you many, many chances through the past so many years, how are you willing to give another chance to some people around you that you find them hopeless and not willing to listen to your way?

Is your way truly God's way or just "my way"?  

What I received from Jesus today is a plead for you not stepping into the same mistake as Jonah did - insist on his own way!

God's way is always full of gracious and compassionate. How gracious and compassionate you are? Or you are just one of those 'stern" and "black" faces tyrant wanting all people to follow your own way? 

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us to really follow you and are willing to obey your way but not insist on our own way.  Transform us to be a more gracious and forgiving disciple of you that we can bring true freedom and healing to many people. 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. 

     

     You are welcome to join our Monday to Friday 7am-7:30am(Pacific time (Vancouver)) Worship, Devotion, Prayer

    https://us06web.zoom.us/j/3962567042?pwd=4qqbcGJ2zQl3tlTUvus4Qv6g7byZKy.1&omn=88167363288

Meeting ID: 396 256 7042

Passcode: 12345

     

Please click this link to worship with us - 

Open the eyes of heart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViBNqNukgzE&list=RDViBNqNukgzE&start_radio=1

    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