12/22/2016 DAB Transcript

Zechariah 2:1-3:10 ~ Revelation 13:2-18 ~ Psalm 141:1-10 ~ Proverbs 30:18-20

Today is the 22nd day of December.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  Oh my goodness, we are in the final countdown toward Christmas Day now.  I’m excited for the festivities of it and the joy that is contained in it, the wonder and the mystery that God came to be with us. We can get overwhelmed in the festivities when the simple truth can be seen by those who actually maybe even dread the holidays because it doesn’t look like everyone else, or that is the perception, when the reality of the holiday is that God is with us.  Like the psalmist was saying in our reading previous to this – where can I go from your Spirit?  This idea of being alone on the holiday, yeah, that is not real.  That is not a reality.  We are not alone because God has come to be with us.  The whole point of the word Emmanuel, the whole point of this holiday, may we hold onto that even as we move into the scriptures for today.  

We’re reading from the book of Zechariah that we began yesterday and we’ll be kind of camping out in here for a little bit.  We’ll continue forward, reading from the Holman Christian Bible this week, Zechariah chapter 2 verse 1 through 3 verse 10.  

Commentary

Okay, so there is some incredible advice contained in the prayer in the book of Psalms today that really lands this time of year.  We’re a couple days out from Christmas, which means you may be about to travel or you may be about to host family that is traveling in. There may be any number of things going on now and you get together with everybody you grew up with but who are now adults and have families of their own or have moved to other parts of the country and are living different lives and somehow everything gets all jumbled together.  It’s like a time warp and you go back all those years to when you were kids and any number of things can start, all the little idiosyncrasies of different generations and all this kind of stuff, and before you know it, volatile things are being said, things that are pregnant and waiting to birth a bad day.  The psalmist gives us words for that and a prayer for that and a choice to be made now ahead of time before it ever gets started in the first place.  

Lord, set up a guard for my mouth. Keep watch at the door of my lips. Do not let my heart turn to any evil thing or perform wicked acts with men who commit sin.  Do not let me feast on their delicacies.  Let the righteous one strike me.  That is an act of faithful love.  Let him rebuke me.  It is oil for my head.  Let me not refuse it.  

Prayer

Father, we give authority over our mouths, our tongues, the words that form down deep in the soul of ourselves and then are formed up through our mouth and spit out into the world and can’t be unsaid.  We give that to you now.  We even give our inner monologue, the things that we’re not saying out loud, that we’re governing but are there in our hearts, we give that to you.  

This is a season that reveals your unwillingness to remain separated from us, that you want to be with us and we want to be with you in all things.  May we represent you well in this season in all of the gatherings that will be taking place, millions of them, millions and millions of them around the world.  May we be a light.  May we shine the kingdom’s brightness through our homes and every step we take. Wherever we are may it be holy ground because you are there within us and you have not been inhibited in any way by our own foolish choices or foolish choices of words.  Come Jesus.  We need you in this.  Come, we pray in your holy name.  Amen.  

Announcements

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The More Gathering is another thing we’ve been mentioning.  There is certainly still time for that last minute Christmas idea and it is bigger than an idea.  It can be life-changing.  That is not just talk.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes which is why we continue to do it.  It’s an incredible amount of effort and requires a great team to do it and it is just a lot of work on behalf of the hearts of the women who come, but I’ve seen with my own eyes that it is worth it.  So check that out at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  You’ll find it very easily, everything you would want to know.  So we have the advance registration pricing and that will end at the end of the year.  Be sure to give it a look over and some prayerful consideration.  So that can be found at www.DailyAudioBible.com as well.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com where everything else can be found. Thank you humbly, deeply, really from my heart.  Thank you that we can be this community for each other.  So the link is on the home page.  You can find it in the app by pushing the More button in the lower right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 that is the number to dial.  

And that’s it for today.  I’m Brian. I love you.  I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.  

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Good morning everybody.  This is Alicia from Kansas.  Today I believe is December 18th and I just wanted to call and give a praise report.  I thank you all for praying for my daughter Keegan.  I had out of a mother’s anger and a mother’s heart divulged something to her father wanting to blame him and we are not married, but I broke her trust. I called in and asked for prayer for this and I just wanted to tell you all that Keegan and I have been talking. She has walked away from our Lord but that doesn’t matter.  The fact that I can still be a light in her life and that I’m able to…  There was a time in my life when I was a cruel, self-centered, self-seeking, self-pleasing alcoholic and today I can humble myself and admit that I did wrong and it was uncomfortable but praise God.  Thank you all for your prayers.  I’m listening to the prayer line right now and halfway through and realized listening to all the prayers and all that moms that are hurting for their wayward children that I needed to call in with my praise report. The Lord is faithful even though we are not faithful.  We don’t always get the answer that we want, but I know that my identity does not lie in my children.  It lies in who I am in Christ Jesus.  For you moms out there that are hurting, lean into him.  Grow into him.  He is our Abba Daddy, our Father, and he is our Bridegroom.  He is the best husband of all.  So just wanted to call and say that.  I hope everybody has a blessed week and look forward to listening to Brian tomorrow.  Alright, be blessed.  Bye-bye.

Hi DAB family.  My name is Beloved by the Beach.  This is my second call.  I’ve been a listener since the beginning of this year and honestly wept the first time I heard the prayer line.  The love that people have for each other that they’ve never meet and may never meet, it is truly overwhelming and such a lovely, wonderful example of the kingdom of God.  I’m calling today to encourage people who haven’t called who want to call to call.  One woman mentioned she was hesitant to call because she is a crybaby.  Evidently I’m a crybaby too.  There are lots of us.  Nobody is going to be able to pray for you if they don’t hear what you need.  As somebody who struggles like they are constantly on the outside, I found a family here.  I pray along with you all.  I especially pray for the names that I haven’t heard frequently because when I first started listening the devil was whispering in my ear that it was all the same people being mentioned and prayed for which simply isn’t true.  So I would like to encourage everybody out there who is hurting or lonely or just has a simple need, a physical need, an emotional need, to call in today and let us pray for you and know that people are praying for you across time lines, across the world.  In Jesus’ name, let all our prayers be heard.  God bless you all.  Amen.

Help me, Lord, upon this day to be more Christ-like in every way.  Help me choose the right words to say while at work and while at play.  Help me pray and talk to you.  Help me choose the right things to do.  Help my whole life become brand new.  Draw me always, Lord, closer to you.  Renew my strength when I feel weak.  Cleanse my heart and guide my feet.  Purify the things I seek.  Keep me humble.  Keep me meek. Guard my hands from things they touch. I seek your Spirit very much. Forgive me, Lord, when I don’t do right.  Help me fight the good Christian fight in the day as well as night.  Help me always to seek thy light.  Help me never to be too proud to say I’m trying to live in a Christ-like way.  And if I fail and start to sin, take me back Lord.  Please take me back.  BlindTony1016@gmail.com.  I would like to give a shout-out to Rumbii.  Hope all is going well with you and your family.  And Mark B. and Troy N., my friends down under.  Yeah, and my other Mark too.  I forgot about my other Mark too, Mark P.  Yeah.  Happy holidays to all of you.  Once again, my thanks to the Hardin family.  Love to the entire DAB community.  Happy holidays.  Alright. Bye-bye. Keep it flowing, y’all.  

Hey family.  This is Salvation is Mine in San Leandro, CA, calling in with another prayer that I hope uplifts someone today.  The title of this prayer is You Came as a Babe.  Let’s pray, family.  Dear Jesus, Blessed Savior, we thank you so much that you came to this world in human form. You didn’t come dome from the heavens as a Spirit for us to see falling from the sky.  You came from the most precious place that a human being can come from.  You came from the womb of a woman.  You came being formed as a human being.  You came as a babe to come and save us.  You grew up as a child with the wonders of the world in your hand, knowing that someday you would be on the cross, knowing that someday you would die for all of our sins, knowing that someday you would be at the feet of your own Father, just asking him to forgive us.  Lord, we thank you so very much that you came to us this way.  You came to us as a man who can feel.  You came to us as a man who could bleed.  You came to us as a man who could love.  You came to us as a man who would correct us and guide us and lead us in the way we’re supposed to go.  Thank you Heavenly Father.  Thank you Lord go for sending your son to us in this form that we could know the passion that was in his heart for his people.  We thank you so much for blessing us with this gift that we can’t even imagine that someone would give us.  We thank you so much, dear God.  We thank you so much dear God.  We praise and bless your holy name, dear Father.  In the blessed name of your son Jesus Christ I pray, amen.  Family, have a great holiday and please say Merry Christmas. Thank you.  Bye-bye.  

Hi, this is Bill Behrman.  Been a long time since I’ve called.  Many things have happened.  But first of all, I want to thank all of you that have prayed so faithfully for me.  I went back to Uganda.  I got a septic infection.  Died twice and ended up here in the States again after being medevaced at a rehab center. Now I’m pretty well okay, still having some trouble with eating with my arms, but other than that, everything seems to be okay.  But thank you so much for praying for me.  I pray, Lord, you bless everyone that is praying and thank you so much.  Lord bless.