Jeremiah 51:1-53; Titus 2:1-15; Psalms 99:1-9; Proverbs 26:17
Today is the 27th day of October. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It’s great to be here with you today for, of course, the next step forward in the journey that we find ourselves on together. And if my math is correct, this is day 301. So, this is our 301st step of 365 steps on this adventure that is the Bible. And we’re kind of turning the corner on the book of Jeremiah and we’ve spent most of this month reading from Jeremiah in the Old Testament. We will conclude the book of Jeremiah tomorrow. We are also reading Paul’s letter to Titus, which we will also conclude tomorrow. But it’s not tomorrow. It’s today. So, from the Names of God Bible. Jeremiah chapter 51 verses 1 through 53.
Commentary:
Okay. Let’s talk about the proverb for second and then we will tie it to something that Paul says in Titus. Okay. So, do you know someone in your life that, they seem to be in every single argument around you, like, they are in everything, like, they can be around people and maybe overhear somebody debating or having a conversation and then they insert themselves into the equation, uninvited, as if they can’t help themselves? We all probably know people like that. Maybe we even are a person like that. The book of Proverbs counsels us that that is like sneaking up behind a dog and grabbing her by the ears. And I don’t care whether it’s a little dog or a big dog, that’s never a good plan because you’re going to get growled at, snapped at, maybe even bitten. That’s what you set yourself up for when you insert yourself into other people’s business and it doesn’t usually go well. And a lot of times we are that person, we might be thinking, well I’m just trying to help people, and I talk to people, and I’m just trying to help but what we’re not realizing is, we really like hearing ourselves speak, and we like to instruct people, whether they want it or not. We feel like we have a valuable opinion and it needs to be heard whether anyone wants to hear it or not. And then, pretty soon, nobody wants to hear it. And then we wonder why we don’t have any friends. And it’s because we keep grabbing a dog by its years by inserting ourselves when we’re not invited. Now, conversely, we probably also could bring to mind a person in our life that we think is full of wisdom and wise and it’s rare to find that kind of a person inserting themselves into every equation. Those are the people that we seek out. We actually want their opinion. We actually want to know what they have to say and what they might be able to share because they live a life that we look up to and they carry wisdom that we seek and we witness their relationship with God and we witness their self-control, like, we witness the evidence of that relationship and we seek it out. Paul refers to that kind of person in his letter to Titus. So, he’s going down a list of different life circumstances and behaviors that would be appropriate and proper in those circumstances. And then he says, after all, God’s saving kindness has appeared for the benefit of all people. It trains us to avoid ungodly lives filled with worldly desires so that we can live self-controlled, moral, and godly lives in this present world. So, like, so that we can live this way right now, so that we can live self-controlled moral and godly lives right now, while at the same time hoping for what we are expecting - the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So, Paul basically gives us an example or a view of the opposite of what the proverb is talking about and tells us that it’s available right now in this present world. Which brings us to the ultimate question of: why do we do the things that we do? If we don’t have any really deep relationships because we insert ourselves into everything and grab the dog by the ears all of the time. Then we can ask ourselves, what’s underneath that? Because that behavior is just an outpouring of something below and were exposing our own insecurities. And yet, according to the letter to Titus, God’s saving kindness invades that space and trains us to avoid things that are ungodly, in every way, and trains us to live self-controlled, including our tongues - self-controlled, moral and godly lives in this present world, in the right now.
Prayer
Father, that is what we want. All of the story that is let has led us to this place and all of the behaviors that go along with it, that are at times destructive or unhelpful, at minimum, we surrender that to You because it’s unlikely they were not aware, that were just completely unaware. And, so, we surrender those insecurities and those wounds and the assumptions that we continually formulate, the things that we invent in our heads all of the time. All of that stuff that motivates us in ways that are not self-controlled, moral, and godly in this present world, all of that we surrender to You and invite your Holy Spirit to come, restore, repair, heel, and make new again - those places that are trigger points for us in our behaviors. Come, Holy Spirit. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It’s where you find out what’s going on around here.
And, right now, what’s going on around here is the Global Campfire Initiative. And I talked at length about it a couple of days ago on a special program that was put out on the feed. So, you’ve got that. If you haven’t listened to it yet, that’s the whole story. Listen to that. It’s an initiative that has been internally going on for three years and all with the goal of, kind of, beginning to arrive where we are arriving now, and that is in integrated system that we can grow from and do what we do better and dream up new ways to continue to build community around the rhythm of the Scriptures, and in what we experience each and every day here around the global campfire. So, part of that has been building a completely new infrastructure over the last couple of years. Sort of a platform from which to launch some of these things. And the first thing being launched from this platform is a brand-new Daily Audio Bible app that will fully release before the new year. And it’s just a starting point. It’s like the 1.0 version but it definitely brings some features into the mix that have long been requested, like the ability to check off the days that have been listened to. So, like if you miss a day or two here and there and you just can’t remember which one it was, you’ll know that now. It just happens automatically. Or the ability to jot down some notes within your app. So, if you hear something that is jumps out, leaps out, and you just need to jot it down real quick so that you don’t forget, maybe you journal about it later or maybe it’s just a thought that you want to capture, that can all happen now. And you’ll be able to look back like a year from now, being able to look back to this time and see what God was speaking to you and what was going on in your life. It’s all there. And the Prayer Wall that lives a dailyaudiobible.com is being integrated into this new app so that you can access it from there, right in prayer requests, pray for people right from within the app. And for many years, the Daily Audio Bible app has been and $0.99 app. So, just to help out a little bit with the development costs. But as this was all being built over these last years, and with the app all of this year, I just felt God saying, give it away. And, so, all of this work to make a much better experience, is something that God is saying put out there for free. And, so, for us to do all of this we have to do it together and that is the Global Campfire Initiative. And, so, we looked for something that was very, very much rooted in the rolling hills of Tennessee and Hatch Show Prints are classic Nashville. So, we went on to Hatch, downtown Nashville, talked to them, created this beautiful poster that commemorates the community that we are, the global campfire. And, so, for those of you who can contribute $200 or more toward this specific thing, we have 500 posters, and they are well on their way to being gone. And we will send this to you as a memento as a commemorative, something…and it’s completely frameable…these are cool….so you can frame them, put them somewhere that you can remember, and constantly pray for your brothers and sisters around the world, but also know that you’re not alone. This is a constant reminder. We are in this together. We are moving forward together. So, you can check that out at dailyaudiobible.com. Just scroll down a little bit to initiatives and there it is, you’ll see it. Or there’s a banner in the Daily Audio Bible shop for it. It’s easy enough to find. Get involved as we make some big risky steps forward together. So, check it out at dailyaudiobible.com
And one of the beautiful things that we do so well here at Daily Audio Bible is pray for one another. So, if you are carrying some things that you don’t need to be carrying by yourself, you are not alone. There are a number of numbers that you can call if you have a prayer request or comment. If you’re in the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number. The number for the UK and Europe is 44-20-3608-8078 and the number for Australia and the lands down under is 61-3-8820-5459. Don’t go through it alone. You don’t have to. There are thousands and thousands of us who pray, every day.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayers and Praise Reports:
Hello DAB family. This is Joyful Noise from Southern California. Blessed Beyond Measure, I just heard your comment on the prayer hotline and, oh my goodness, what you said sister, every single day, I listen in to hear, how is Blind Tony doing, how did his surgery go? I want to hear one of Victoria S’s prayers. You know, how is Candice from Oregon doing…and…gosh…Theo and his two kids and praying over them and praying over so many of your children. I love that parents and grandparents continue to call in and ask for prayer over their children. The next generation is where my heartbeat is, so you can count on me DAB family, to pray for your kids as you have prayed for mine. Thank you so much for that. I just want to thank you, Blessed Beyond Measure, because I’ve just been trying to put into words why this community is so important to my day and so important to my walk, my walk with Christ. Ya know, every single day he sends us out to be missionaries. Ya know, I think it was Charles Spurgeon who said, ‘every Christian is a missionary or a counterfeit’. We’re all missionaries and God has already chosen our mission field and He calls us out into it every day. ____. You constantly point me to true north. So, thank you so much DAB family. Have a blessed, blessed day. And just know that I am praying for you. If you could continue to pray for my children, Zachary, Zoey, and Samuel. Some are in college some are in high school, some are post college, and they are all seeking their path and it’s such an amazing thing to watch but I know we cannot become weary, we cannot become complacent as it pertains to our children…
Hello DAB family. It’s Mark S. from Sydney Australia. Today is Tuesday, the 24th of October. I’m just ringing in response to the community announcement. My DAB family, I want to implore everybody to try and give as much as they can to this community project and I’m not trying to boast by saying this community has done so much for us. God has helped us so much for us. I for one put $200 in and, as I said, I’m not trying to boast. I‘m struggling financially but I think God deserves every cent and if you can afford it, as Brian said, please do. I’m trying to look beyond what Gods going to give me and double what I think for helping out. Brian, I love you. And just so everybody knows, I work in the IT industry and the type of set ups that Brian talks about, and I’ve worked with similar situations, he’s too polite to tell everybody, we’re talking 100s of 1000s of dollars of development costs and hardware costs. So, family, dig deep, because God is so wonderful and I can’t do without this community. I love you all. I thank you all so much. Love you family. Bye.
Hi. This is Steve from New Hampshire. Brian, thank you again, so much, for all you do. Appreciate it. I’m calling to pray for Terry from Alabama. You shared about your issue with pornography and I really believe that it’s representative of probably a lot of folks that aren’t calling in. But I want to pray for, as you asked for, healing, total deliverance for yourself and healing for your girlfriend in this regard. And, so, Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, the name above every name, the name that has the power to break the chains of any bondage, including pornography. And I just ask that You would set my brother free. In the name of Jesus, Lord, bring healing Lord, God, bring restoration Lord, God, minister to this girlfriend, that she would experience complete healing from the pain of this sin Lord, God. And thank You, Lord, that You are the Lamb of God that came to take away the sin of the world and we are free in You, whom the son sets free. Yes, free indeed. I praise You Lord. God bless you, Terry.
Yes. Good morning Daily Audio Bible people, DABbers. This is Diane from Newburg, Indiana and I’ve got a huge prayer request. I was given a gift from my birth of my voice, my voice and my song. And all my life everyone’s said, you have such a voice you have beautiful music, your songs are so beautiful. But from years of abuse and backsliding and gluttony and other sins, I destroyed my own voice. I’m asking you to agree with me that God will restore my voice. It may not be as high or anything like it was from my birth but that He will once again give me my voice back to honor and glorify Him. And I want to sing this song and I want you to hear this song from your heart, not from the terribleness of my singing, but for you to be restored. Father, restore them as I sing. Singing – God will make a way where there seems to be no way. He looks for ways to help us. He will make a way for us. He will be our God and hold us closely to His side. With faith and hope for each new day, God will make a way. God will make a way. Like the…