Daniel 8:1-27, 1 John 2:1-17, Psalm 120:1-7, Proverbs 28:25-26
Today is the 1st day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is a pleasure, it is a joy, and a day of rejoicing that we’ve made it this far. So, we’re at the last day of a week, but the first day of a month, and it’s the first day of the month of the last month of the year. So, off we go friends. This is our final adventure for this year. The day that we conclude this month we will conclude this year and will conclude this revolution through the Bible. So, let’s dive in and take the next step forward. All this week we’ve been reading from the Contemporary English Version, which is what we’ll do today. Daniel chapter 8 verses 1 through 27 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in first John and in harmony with the letters from James and the letters from Peter, John taught that the evidence for a claim of faith is to be a transformed life otherwise it’s an untrue claim. And he said it like this, “but if we claim to know Him and don’t obey Him we are lying, and the truth is in our hearts. We truly love God only when we obey him as we should and then we know that we belong to Him. If we say we are His, we must follow the example of Christ.” So, as we can see, John doesn’t mince any words any more than Peter or James did about these kinds of subjects. And why would he? I mean, the fundamental goal of our faith is that we might live our lives as Jesus did, right? And becoming Christlike isn’t just something that we, like, that we say, like, we claim. It’s something that we have to become, which requires our participation and our collaboration with God. And this doesn’t just apply to our interaction with God, it touches all of the relationships of our lives, which is something that John pointed out. So, in his own words, “if we claim to be in the light and hate someone, we are still in the dark, but if we love others we are in the light and we don’t cause problems for them. If we hate others we are living and walking in the dark, we don’t know where were going because we can’t see in the dark.” So, I mean John’s point here as we begin this final month of the year is pretty clear and that point is, talk is cheap. We can claim whatever we want but if our words and our deeds are not in alignment with each other then we aren’t living truthfully. And, okay, that’s fair enough and penetrating. I mean, that’s a glass of cold ice water in the face. But why are we pulled toward what is false? According to John, the problem is that we’ve put our trust in the world. So, in John’s words, “don’t revolve the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world you cannot love the Father. Our foolish pride comes from this world and so do our selfish desires and our desire to have everything we see. None of this comes from the Father.” So, let’s be clear. When John spoke about the world he’s not referring to planet Earth. Instead, he’s describing the system that the world…basically the system that mankind has devised to navigate this world without God. So, if we’re gonna put our faith and our hope in a system that is designed to exalt man then we are trusting in the world and God is not in that. And this is why our sensual cravings for everything that we see and our pride in our accomplishments and our pride in our material possessions, this is why they can’t fill the void in our souls. Like, if we’re going to tether ourselves to this kind of existence, then according to John, we can’t make claims of faith that are true. And if that’s a not a stark enough awareness, John informed us that the world system that we may have put our trust in and that we may give our loyalty and allegiance to, its destined to fade away. So, we’ll take some time today here at the shiny threshold of a new month to examine ourselves by actually contrasting our claims with our actions, like getting observant and watching what it is that we say versus what it is that we do, that we’ll find that our deepest insecurity is tied to our attempts to make life work without God, right, the world’s system. And we’re looking to the world to give us meaning and purpose. And, so, we obviously react in pride and selfishness or we surround ourselves with stuff so that we can mask the emptiness. John challenged us to pull away from the fading world system and realize that we’ve been given so much more than the world could ever offer. We’ve been swept into the dance of eternal life. So, here we are, first day of the final month of the year. It’s a sprint to the end of the year and there’s a lot of territory to cover and not to mention the fact that is going to be a busy month. Let’s embrace what we’re talking about today. Our words and our deeds must be in alignment or our faith is false. That’s stark, but we are invited to pull away from the world system knowing that eternal life is ours. And if we will embrace this and choose to bring our claims and actions into alignment we will be walking on a narrow path that leads to life, even in the busy seasons of the year.
Prayer:
Father as we enter into this new month, we invite Your Holy Spirit into what we just talked about and every other moment, everything that’s going to happen by surprise, everything that’s going to happen by plan, every interaction, every conversation, every gift we’re gonna bye, we want You to be part of all of this. Come Holy Spirit. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudibible.com is the website, its home base of course, and it’s the home of the global campfire that continues to burn on day by day as we take steps forward.
And, so, and we’re taking steps forward into a brand-new month now, which, I guess, you know, I guess we can’t be more in the holiday season then we are and along with that always brings the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Box and this year is no different. Daily Audio Bible family Christmas Box is chock-full of resources, goodies in there that you will want to keep and goodies in there that you will want to give as gifts. And, so, you can check that out at dailyaudiobible.com. This is our opportunity to kind of bundle these resources together and offer them as inexpensively as we possibly can because we know, we pray over them, we know that they go into the world and do what they’re supposed to do and land in the lives that they’re supposed to land in. So you can find that at dailyaudiobible.com in the Shop in the Christmas section.
So, the Christmas Box is in there along with the Daily audio Bible Christmas cards for 2018. And they are imprinted with “Hope” on the front of them, the word for the year. And they are beautiful and beautiful to give away. And there’s nothing gaudy about them, like, they’re not Daily Audio Bible advertisements, they’re just Christmas cards, but a great opportunity for you to invite those that you love, those you care about to take the journey through the Scriptures with you in the coming year.
Also, the Family Christmas project, the musical project that we released, which is very contemplative and beautiful. It’s like the perfect holiday companion to, you know, to the evening, like, after a long day and you’ve got the Christmas lights on and maybe there’s a fire going or all the other lights are out, maybe some hot cocoa or whatever and you’re just kind of breathing in the season, just meditating on that. The Family Christmas a project is the perfect companion for that kind of environment. So, check that out dailyaudiobible.com as well. You can order a physical CD, physical copy. Of course, you can get this music on Spotify or Apple music or iTunes as well if you are streamer or a downloader. Just look up my name, Brian Hardin and Family Christmas and you’ll find it.
Also, the More Gathering for women, early registration is open now and now we are beyond excited about what God will do in the mountains of Georgia this coming April. And, yeah, pray about it. If you’re supposed to be there then register and come. If you’re supposed to be there and bring someone, then maybe this is this the Christmas gift that they will never forget, the most unique gift that they ever got, something that they anticipated and then something that delivered and lasted the whole year. That’s what happens at More. So, check that out as well at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section or you can just go to moregathering.com for more information, all the information that you would want to know about the gathering is there.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.