Read to prACTice

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* Share the blame... I. Click here to READ   Ezra 9   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (After hearing the returning Levites, priests, and the Israelites committed sin by intermarrying with the peoples of the land who do not worship the Lord, Ezra, in his greatest distress, prayed to the Lord, crying...)  6 ...  “O my God... for our iniquities... our guilt...  7  ... we have been in great guilt...  10  “Now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments...  III. Reflection *  Questions :  Ezra prayed concerning whose iniquities? Whose guilt? Who has forsaken the commandments of the Lord? IV. Application Dear Lord God, I thank You for showing me that Ezra identified with his people. Their iniquities included his; their guilt included his; and when they forsook Your commandments, Ezra found hims...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* Walk the talk...   I. Click here to READ   Ezra 8   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (and so the time to return home has come for the second wave. At the beginning of the journey, Ezra asked people to fast and pray for safety and protection. Ezra said...) 22  For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who forsake Him.”   23  So we fasted and sought our God concerning this matter, and He listened to our entreaty. III. Reflection *  Questions :  Why should we have the shame that Ezra had? IV. Application Dear Lord God, I thank You for letting me see that the shame Ezra felt at the beginning of the journey was good. I thank You for sh...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* To beautify the house of the Lord...   I. Click here to READ   Ezra 7   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (The foreign and ruling king of Persia gave the Lord's people so many special treatments--financially, politically, socially, and spiritually to encourage them to freely go home to rebuild the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. Ezra publicly confessed...) 27  Blessed be the  Lord , the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the  Lord  that is in Jerusalem... III. Reflection *  Questions :  To Ezra the priest, what was the reason that he and his people were given unimaginably special treatments by a ruling foreign emperor? IV. Application Dear Lord God: I thank You for letting me see that all of the wonderful and unimaginable things that have happened to Your people from You directly,...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* God-made or Man-made...   I. Click here to READ   Ezra 6   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (after 20 years and a lot of delays from local troublemakers, the temple was finally completed, dedicated, and used for worship. And on the Passover that year... ) 22  And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the  Lord  had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. III. Reflection *  Questions :  On that Passover Day, the temple was filled with joy. Where did that joy come from? IV. Application Dear Lord God: I thank You for letting me see that not only joy comes from You, but also in Your presence there is fullness of joy ( Ps 16:11 ). I thank You for assuring me that it is You who makes people joyful. People might att...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* Arise! I. Click here to READ   Ezra 5   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  1  Now the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem, in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.   2  Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak arose and began to rebuild the house of God that is in Jerusalem, and the prophets of God were with them, supporting them. III. Reflection *  Questions :  What does it mean by arising in this passage? Toddler Samuel arose, too  ( 1 Sam 3:8 ). Were there any similarities? IV. Application Dear Lord God, I thank You for teaching me the similarities. Toddler Samuel was sleeping when You called him. He quickly left his sleeping. He immediately changed his position. He arose. He went from being passive to being active. Without hesitatio...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* The booby-trap killing fields... I. Click here to READ   Ezra 4   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  1  When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the  Lord , the God of Israel,   2  they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, “Let us help you build because, like you, we seek your God and have been sacrificing to him since the time of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us here.” III. Reflection *  Questions :  There are two conflicting words in the above passage. What are they? IV. Application Dear Lord God: I thank You for showing that people cannot truly seek God while they are enemies of one another. It's either hypocritical or deceiving. I thank You for showing me the wisdom of Your people in avoiding the deadly trap. I thank You, Lord Jesus, for taking me to this poi...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* Worship first, or the rest will burst...   I. Click here to READ   Ezra 3   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (upon returning home from captivity in Babylon...) 1  When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem.   2  Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God...  8  Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem...  11  ...  And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the   Lord , because the foundation of the house of the   Lord   was laid. III. Reflection *  Questions :  When d...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* Separation no more! I. Click here to READ   Ezra 2   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (among the people returning from captivity after 70 years...) 59  The following were those who came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan, and Immer, though they could not prove their fathers' houses or their descent, whether they belonged to Israel...  62  These sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there, and so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean. III. Reflection *  Questions :  How difficult was it to have been scattered in a foreign land for 70 years, and now had to prove the traces of the family tree? IV. Application Dear Lord God: I thank You for letting me know that it is very difficult to trace one's background and family roots after having been scattered in captivity in a foreign land...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* Waiting for the fullness of time... I. Click here to READ   Ezra 1   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (About letting the Lord's people go home from captivity in Babylon...) 1   In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the  Lord  by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the  Lord  stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing:  2  “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The  Lord , the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.   3   Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the  Lord , the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusal...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* Anything for anyone at any time...   I. Click here to READ   2 Chr 36   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (Persia was the super-empire of the world  at the time...) 23  “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The  Lord , the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the  Lord  his God be with him. Let him go up.’” III. Reflection *  Questions :  Besides being the king of Persia, who was Cyrus? IV. Application Dear Lord God: I thank You for showing me that besides being the emperor of the Persian empire, Cyrus was known to be the shepherd of the Lord;  Cyrus was the liberator of the Lord's people being exiled in his land; Cyrus did not know the Lord; Cyrus was named more than a century before he was born ...

To read this in Vietnamese, please click  here . ******************* Spiritual discrimination — a big barrier...   I. Click here to READ   2 Chr 35   first . II. One thing the Bible teaches:  (Egyptian king Neco was on his way to war against his enemy on the east side of the kingdom of Judah. King Josiah was out to engage king Neco...) 21  But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What have we to do with each other, O King of Judah? I am not coming against you today but against the house with which I am at war, and God has ordered me to hurry. Stop for your own sake from interfering with God who is with me, so that He will not destroy you.”   22  However, Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to make war with him; nor did he listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to make war on the plain of Megiddo.   23  The archers shot King Josiah...  ...