09/21/2018 DAB Transcript

Isaiah 37:1-38:22, Galatians 6:1-18, Psalms 65:1-13 , Proverbs 23:24

Today is the 21st day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today to do our daily tradition, right? To take the next step forward in the Scriptures and just allow God’s word to wash into our lives, to wash over us to allow peace to come into our presence right now, wherever it is we are, whether we’re in car or on the train or in the shower or wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we simply exhale. All of the things that are stressing us out can wait a few minutes. God wants to come into the center of all this, and allow His word to come and wash over us. And, so, we trust Him in that. So, we’re reading from the book of Isaiah and we’re past the halfway point in the book of Isaiah. We’ve been reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week and today we’ll read Isaiah chapter 37 verse 1 through 38 verse 22.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we concluded Paul’s letter to the Galatians today, which means we’ll be moving into another letter, the letter to the Ephesians tomorrow. But in his final chapter, Paul told us some of his final thoughts. And some of those final thoughts are immediate counsel to our lives. He said, carry one another’s burdens. In this way you will fulfill the law of Christ, right? So, that’s chapter 6 verse 2 and that one verse right there is something to meditate on, like, continually. We are to shoulder one another’s burdens, which is what we do here every day through prayer. But we’re to do this in everything. In this way we will fulfill the law of Christ. So, we can deduce that the law of Christ then is outward facing toward one another. And Paul clarifies that. For if anyone considers himself to be something when he is nothing, he’s deceiving himself. So, like we were saying yesterday we’re free to deceive ourselves, we’re free to be deceived, if that’s what we want to use our freedom for. But again, deceiving ourselves, creating a false reality, and living a lie seems counterproductive. Paul goes on to say that each person can examine his own work then he can take pride in himself alone and not compare himself with someone else for everybody’s got their own load to carry on. And we need to remember that when we’re swept into this game of comparison, when we are trying to find our identity based upon how well we are doing versus how someone else is doing. It’s not helpful. It pulls us toward envy, which is deadly. It’s a poison to our souls. The way that we combat this is to keep our eyes on the path that we are walking, to keep our eyes on the road as it were, right? We’re driving in a car, we’re moving down the highway, we’re doing the speed limit, we’re watching where were going. If we start looking around at everyone, and I don’t just mean being aware. If we start looking around and comparing our car to their cars and we’re looking behind us, and we’re looking to our sides, we’re not looking where were going. It’s not going to go well. We each have a unique path. When we keep our eyes on that path while being outwardly focused and shouldering one another’s burdens of our brothers and sisters around us, then  we can truly celebrate whatever God is doing in anyone’s life because God is continuing to lead our lives forward an is doing what he needs to do in our lives and we can rejoice because were all moving toward shalom, we’re all moving toward wholeness, and we’re all being knit together as the body of Christ, one in the Spirit.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. It’s a constant thing. It’s continual that we are invited toward envy. Everything in our culture pulls us toward what we don’t have and what someone else might. And what we don’t have but if we did have become the magic that will make our lives work. None of those things are true. You are the author of life. You are the only one who can make life work because You created life. And we are sitting here comprehending these words of this prayer because of that fact. You have given us life and it is a gift. And when we spend that gift of life by simply comparing it with someone else’s story or our own deficits we’re missing the point. We rejoice in You and we thank You for this gift of life and we invite Your Holy Spirit to lead us on our path. Come Jesus we pray. In Your mighty name, we ask. Amen.

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