Amos 4:1-6:14 ~ Revelation 2:18-3:6 ~ Psalm 130:1-8 ~ Proverbs 29:21-22
Today is the 11th of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is a pleasure to be here with you today as we start another week. We don’t have too many starts to weeks left in this year. That is crazy to think about. It is crazy to think about how fast a year goes, but here we are, third Sunday in the season of Advent.
Advent, of course, is a season in the church used for a couple of reasons. One, to put ourselves in the position of the children of Israel waiting for their Savior to come and then his arrival. That is what Advent means, arrival. So that is what we’re doing as we move our way to Christmas and understand and deeply contemplate the mystery. But we are also still waiting for the advent of the Savior, his arrival back, and so we use this season to contemplate that. It is a season that just overwhelms us with the shopping, the parties, the goodwill, and all the beautiful things that are Christmas. A lot of times we don’t take the time to relish in the mystery and contemplate deeply what happened that altered the trajectory of the world and the arrival of God in human form. And so we observe this. We pay attention to it as we continue forward in this season.
SONG played on today’s DAB “God With Us” MissionSong http://apple.co/2gQfYej
So it’s a brand new week. We’ll read from the English Standard Version this week and pick up where we left off, moving our way through a few days of the book of Amos. Today chapter 4 verse 1 through 6 verse 14.
Prayer
Father, the cry of the psalm is the cry of our heart and so together we say out of the depths we have cried to you, Lord, and we ask you to hear our voice. We ask your ears to be attentive to the voice of our plea for mercy because if you should mark and count our iniquities against us, who could stand? Because we know we could not. But we do know that with you there is forgiveness, an endless supply that is beyond description or understanding. With you there is forgiveness and it leads us to awe. We hold you in awe and reverence. We fear you. You are amazing and sovereign. We wait for you. Our soul waits and we hope in your word. Our soul waits for you like watchmen wait for the morning. We hope in you, Lord, because with you there is steadfast love, never ending, never wavering. There is no other place like this and with you there is plentiful redemption. So come, Holy Spirit, plant the words of the scriptures deep in our lives today. Plant them deep at the level of our identity and come, Holy Spirit, and indwell us. Lead us forward into all truth, we ask. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.
Announcements
Www.DailyAudioBible.com, that is home base and it is where you find out what is going on around here and I’m going to tell you what is going on around here right now. It amounts to three items:
1. It is time to call in your holiday greetings so that we can have our Annual Christmas Party, also known as Daily Audio Bible Family Christmas. We’ll be putting that together real soon, so be sure to get your call in. All you have to do is call the prayer line: (877) 942-4253 and just put words and your voice to your holiday wishes as you greet your community in the Daily Audio Bible. The only trick to this, the only real rule to this is that because it is the prayer request line, you don’t say a prayer request and incorporate it into a holiday greeting. That won’t work. Just call your holiday greeting in as one call and then if you have a prayer request, call that in as a different one. So that is that.
2. The Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box is getting dangerously low and we’ll be selling out soon, so if it was something that is kind of on your list that you keep not quite getting to, get them while you can. They are going to be gone here probably in the next several days, so you can find out all about that including its contents. We have packed it full of resources this year. You can see that at www.DailyAudioBible.com in the Shop.
3. The More Gathering for Women will take place this coming April, April 2017, early April over in the mountains of Georgia where we do this each year. That is coming up and we have advance pricing until the end of the year so that you can consider taking advantage of this for Christmastime because it is a one-of-a-kind gift. It is like giving the woman in your life her heart back for Christmas, so we try to make this available and you can find out all about it at www.DailyAudioBible.com. Just look for the More Gathering in the Initiatives section and you’ll find out all of the details that you would want to know. So take advantage of that.
If Daily Audio Bible is something that has become a part of the rhythm of your life and is a life-giving source to you and you are a part of the community here, then thank you for your partnership with the Daily Audio Bible. We are a community and everything that happens here is done as a community, so your partnership, well, it’s inseparable from the Daily Audio Bible being able to go on. So thank you for your partnership here as we’re ending the last part of the year. There is a link. It’s on the home page of www.DailyAudioBible.com. If you’re using the app, you can push the More button in the lower right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.
And, of course, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment or holiday greeting, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
Hello my Daily Audio Bible family. This is Ossie James calling from Japan once again. Firstly, I want to thank you all for your prayers about my shoulder and also my parent’s visit to Japan. My shoulder is healed up and I haven’t even had to go to the doctor or anything. It started healing up pretty much as soon as my prayer went on the prayer line. And yeah, my parents had a wonderful trip to Japan and my dad preached twice in our church and the message was well received, but sure, there were attacks. My wife who was doing translating just before the second message got very sick and she was still very sick a while after that, but she was able to do the translation. And my parents, after the second message, the train they were on to get to our place got stuck because of an unfortunate situation that occurred further up the line and yeah, but they were able to get a taxi to our house, even with little Japanese ability. So God is amazing and he’s done so many amazing things for us and I want to give a big thank you to David in Kansas for his prayers for us. Mate, you’re a real inspiration to us all, how you have gone from someone who was really suffering to someone who is praying for everyone. You’re an inspiration, mate. Keep up the good work. Love to you all. Ossie James in Japan.
Hello Daily Audio Bible community. This is David in Kansas. It’s December 6th. This is my prayer for healing. Please pray with me. Merciful Father, Almighty God, Blessed Lord Jesus, we come before you to pray healing over our community, those who surround our community and those who hear the prayers of our community. We ask for full miraculous healing and give you nothing but praise. Lord, today I have actually four calls where either they didn’t leave a name or I couldn’t quite understand the name, but you know who these people are and you know their needs. I’m lifting them up to you, Lord, and asking the community to pray for them with me, but you know who they are. First, there was a woman who called. Her father was having surgery for pancreatic cancer today on the 6th. We’re lifting that up to you, Lord, and asking for the surgery to go well. I think it probably would have happened by now, by the time I make this phone call, but hopefully it went well and you can heal this man. There was a woman who called last week for a prayer for Betty who was going in for a mammogram and biopsy. We ask that this goes well and she gets good results. A man who called about his grandfather who had heart surgery on the 29th of November. Again, you work outside of time as well as knowing things we can’t know. We know that you will be able to heal this man and be with him no matter when we pray for him. And finally, there was a woman who called for Steve who is undergoing surgery for cancer. We are asking you to pour out healing upon Steve and get him back on his feet as soon as possible and heal him of cancer. Thank you for praying with me, family. I love you. Goodbye.
Hi, this is Victorious Soldier. I’m calling tonight to pray for the Dabbers. I wanted to welcome Brian and Jill back. I know you are tired but illuminated from the wonderful time that you had there. And I’m just so glad that you had a great and blessed time. I want to pray for He Sings Over Me and pray for the encouragement of the people in Pittsburgh. I want to pray for Paul F. from Barcelona to do with the children. Don’t give up on us, Paul. I didn’t know about it and so glad you brought it to light. Let’s come together and pray because the more we pray, the more God will have something happen. We have to pray until something happens. Salvation Is Mine, thank you for that. I’m talking to Laura about depression. I want to pray for you, my sister, because the joy of the Lord is your strength. God has it for you. It’s right there. Don’t give up. I’ll continue to pray with you, my sister. I want to pray for Tim, both of the Tims, one from Tampa and one from Edinburgh. Gracious Father, we praise your holy name. Lord, we just thank you for your power and your glory. Lord, we lift you up, Lord, because you are God and above you there is no other. O Lord, in the name of Jesus, you touch the slaughter of the young babies in Barcelona, Lord. O Father, you put a standard against it. O Lord, you have your way. Lord, you step in. You show up and show out, Lord. O Lord, in the name of Jesus, touch my sister, Laura, in Houston, Lord. O Lord, you lift her up from that depression. Give her your joy, Lord. Let her see you and know that you are with her, Lord. O Lord, you have your way in her life, Lord. You guide her and you keep her and you direct her, Father. In the name of Jesus.
Brian and Jill, shalom. Dabbers, it’s Kathleen M. from Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. It’s been a long time since I’ve called in. Still listening daily and praying daily. I’m requesting prayer for my grandson who is 3 and has been diagnosed with glandular fever. It’s not very nice. It just looks yucky and he’s uncomfortable and sad and unhappy. So I just ask that we all pray together for healing, quick healing. The prayer of the righteous availeth much power. All together we can knock on the gates and come before the throne and know that healing will be released and he’ll be made well and whole quickly. Bless you all and thank you all. Love you all. Merry Christmas. And Ezekiel must be about 3 or 4 by now. Okay, bless you all. Bye.
Hi Daily Audio Bible. This is Rebecca from Michigan and I was wondering if you would pray for me during the Christmas holiday, that God would just bless me with a lot of cheer and joy because sometimes Christmas bums me out because I really don’t have a lot of money and I don’t get paid for the week of Christmas. I only get paid for New Year’s Day and so I know Christmas is not about money. It’s about the spirit of things. I do enjoy the Christmas songs. I love them. For you married people, you’re so lucky to have somebody to spend Christmas with because I’m single and sometimes as a single person you don’t get invited to a lot of things, especially since I’m 51 years old. You really get left out. And it would be cool if God brought me some friends to spend time with during Christmas. I have family but sometimes family is doing their own thing. You don’t know if you’re going to get invited to something or not, so I did it for Thanksgiving. I did my own thing. It was pretty cool. I didn’t eat a lot of turkey or eat a lot of food so that was good. I have a dog and I’ll probably go spend time with her because pets, they kind of cheer you up better than people sometimes. I think God gave this little dog. I’ve had her for 10-½ years so yeah, that would be cool if you guys prayed for me to have a fun Christmas. I’m always afraid of spending money because I’m afraid I won’t make enough to make it through this Christmas. So prayer would be awesome. Yeah, thank you. Have a nice Christmas you guys. I love you and I thank you for your prayers. Bye.
Hi DAB family. This is Christy P., the missionary to the Philippines. Today is December 7th and I asked for prayer for Jerry, the inmate who has been in prison for more than 20 years and it was his __________ today and I have really exciting news to say. Praise God, he was acquitted, so after 23 years of waiting, tomorrow Jerry will be a free man. Thank you all for your prayers. God is so good. Thank you again. God bless.