Transitional Time Calls for Consecration

Transitional Time Calls for Consecration

Joshua 5:1-12

1 Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts sank and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

First thing first, consecration precedes conquest.

Consecration - the dedication of a person / object for a specific purpose or use. 

In life, we have many transitions in our life. All translations are important. 

1) Circumcision - A moment of trust - God's Trustworthiness 

Gen 17:11-12

Joshua 5:9

9 Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you." So the place has been called Gilgal to this day.

God asked Joshua to circumcise in the most inappropriate place, inappropriate time and inappropriate group. 

Numbers 14:4-11 

 4 And they said to each other, "We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt."

11 The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they."

God has delivered them from Egypt but Egypt was still inside their hearts. 

Deuteronomy 30:6 

God will Circumcise your heart so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live. 

2) Passover - A Moment of Thanksgiving

Joshua 5:10
10 On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. 

Exodus 12:26-27

The Lord has passover-ed their homes in Egypt. 

Recall of the great works done by God for your past so that we can be of gratitude. 

Thankfulness Comes from an experience of God. 

3) Manna - A moment of truth

11 The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. 12 The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan.

Senior Partner

Christianity is walking and working each day with a senior partner. Missionary in China

E. Stanley Jones described the divine-human partnership : 'God comes close to His children in a way that leaves them free to think and act, yet in a way that awakens the personality to aliveness and alertness of mind and spirit. His guidance is always sufficiently obvious to be found, but not so obvious that it does away with the necessity of thought and discriminating insight.' God's secrets are always 'open secrets' - open, yet sufficiently secret to make us think. 

He does not dominates our life, not overriding partnership.  

Impurity, pride or resentment can cause blocked channels to our partnership with God. 

Hebrews 2:5-18

Jesus was tempted in every ways as a human. In the person of Jesus, we have a God who can sympathise with our weaknesses because he faced the same temptations and difficulties as we do0

When I have to cross the bridge

Recently, I had a soul searching experience. It was a deep one. Sometimes when one comes to a bridge, no matter how tangy the bridge look, with limited confidence or knowledge about its breaking point, we just have to cross it. There is a slim possibility of turning back but it's not a good choice. You may end up worse than if you do not cross the bridge. It could be a hanging bridge with thunder lighting from above, winds blowing fiercely making it swing and shaky. But it is the only path presented to you, you have to cross it. 

Among the perils of life, you come to this bridge and you just have to cross it. At least be thankful, you are presented with an option albeit it's not what you like. 

Many deep thinking in the depth of the nights, soul searching when gazing at sunrise or sunset, there is only one answer : Just cross it ! 

Pace Vs Peace

Ecclesiastes 8:11

11 I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Psalm 147:10-11

10 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man;

11 the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Pace Vs Peace

My Pace or God's Pace
World Peace or God's Peace

It is a choice.

Turn Strong to meet the day

Are we strong enough for the day ? Can we rise above the care of the day ? 

Psalm 139:13-18New International Version (NIV)

13 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Psalm 139:13-22The Message (MSG)

13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
    you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
    Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
    I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
    you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
    how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
    all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
    before I’d even lived one day.

17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
    God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
    any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
    And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
    all the men and women who belittle you, God,
    infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
    see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
    Your enemies are my enemies!

When I awake, I am still with You. God is with us in our sleeping and our waking. 

Every morning lean thine arm awhile

Upon the window sill of heaven

And gaze upon thy God;

Then with the vision in thy heart

Turn strong to meet the day.

It is an unknown poet who wrote this. Very optimistic outlook. 
We could wake up gloomy and say, 'Oh Lord, another day.😫😩😞😔' or 
we say with energy and expectation, 'Oh Lord, another day! ☺️😊😇🙂'