Zechariah 9:1-17, Revelation 17:1-18, Psalms 145:1-21, Proverbs 30:32
Today is the 26th day of December. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is awesome to be here with you today, the day after Christmas. So, how are you how holding up? I feel like I’m gonna be full for days. So, are you guys going out shopping and doing the exchange thing, the after Christmas 50% off 75% off sales? Oh, we do that sometimes. I’m not sure I’m up for it. But what I am sure that I am up for is the next step forward in the Scriptures, as we literally count the days down, right? The days left in this year are few and it’s now we start turning our attention toward finishing strong and well and begin to think about what next year’s gonna look like, but that’s the beauty of the week between the holidays, we have some time to contemplate. And, so, bringing the Scriptures into that contemplation is the right thing to do. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Zechariah chapter 9 verses one through 17 today.
Commentary:
okay. So, the last couple of days no doubt have been busy ones, right, with Christmas just yesterday. And probably the truth is, it’s been an exhausting month. So, we’ll probably be eating leftovers from yesterday’s feast. That is usually what happens in my family and maybe, you know, maybe some shopping, maybe some exchanges, maybe you’ve had family in and they’re starting to leave and migrate back to their houses or their towns or maybe they’re hanging out and will spend the next week with you and that’ll fun, but today, you know is the day where, you know, Christmas is now be behind us, which is so weird. It just comes and goes like that, all this anticipation, pushing us toward the end of the year and this holiday season, like, just like that it’s over. And, so, we slowly start moving away from the Christmas season and s our focus starts to shift toward what the New Year might look like. And our reading from Proverbs today gave us some incredibly wise advice that can help us as we’re thinking of these things. So, the proverb said, if you have been a fool by being proud or plotting evil, cover your mouth in shame. So, no matter how we’ve been behaving over the last couple days, it’s unlikely that we haven’t exhibited ourselves or, at minimum encountered pride. And this is…around this kind of…around this season we notice this in the over inflation of people, right, an over inflating version of ourselves that we portray, especially when we’re around loved ones that we only see once or twice a year and this kind of thing. In fact, I mean, over the last couple of days we may have endured hours of conversation with people that we love, but people that like to compare everything from their gifts to their careers to their spouses to their houses to their children. And maybe even worse yet, maybe we’re the ones, right? Maybe we’ve made others endure hours of our posturing. And so, what the Proverbs has to tell us today now that we’re through this season is to cover our mouths. And, so, this little piece of ancient wisdom, it can seem harsh at first blush because it’s basically telling us to shut up. But ,I mean, it’s actually freeing because what we’re being given permission to refrain from is the game of one-upmanship, right? We don’t have to one-up each other. We have permission to not have to do that. According to Proverbs, this makes us look like a fool anyway and we don’t have to do it. So, yeah, so going forward into this new year we can give that, you know, pour that into our cup and stir it around and sip it down because if we chomp down on our prideful words then we will not be saying things that do not need to be said and instead we can just simply be who we are, who we actually are, honestly. Like, we don’t have to step into the new year with this falseness about us that is something that we have to keep blowing up right? Like, the air keeps spilling out and then we keep inflating it and it’s a false version and we don’t have to do it. And maybe as we go into the new year we can just lose it altogether, right? We’re planning to shed some pounds so we could lose this too while we’re losing those pounds because we’ve learned this year in Scripture that our identity is…the only way we’ll have a true identity is found in embracing God’s mercy, His long-suffering kindness towards us. Like, we’re not gonna pose our way into His good graces, we’re not gonna over inflate ourselves and create a false version that’s gonna impress him. We do this will each other. What we’re saying is our identity comes from each other when it doesn’t. So, we don’t have to do this. We’re not required to pose and posture and over inflate and over exaggerate and hide, because that’s what we’re doing. We don’t have to create an image of ourselves that imagines what we would hope to be but isn’t anything like what we really are. It’s false, like, it’s a lie, we’re living a lie, it’s foolish, it’s gonna get us nowhere in the coming year. And according to Proverbs, like we said, we look like a fool. So, instead, as we contemplate the coming year over these next few days, we can contemplate what it might look like to just walk into freedom as we are because the apostle Paul told us back when we were reading second Corinthians that we’re invited to reflect the glory of the Lord upon the earth. That’s a pretty tough thing to do when you are over inflating a false reality that can’t be achieved from within our insecurities. All we’re doing then is trying to reflect a false glory upon the earth, a false glory that is aimed at us, and that is rooted in pride, and insecurity, and fear. So, think about it. Think about it in these next couple of days. You are invited by the Scriptures to be yourself, who you really are. And when you are that then you can truly reflect God’s glory upon the earth. So, if there were a worthy New Year’s resolution to think about, becoming ourselves, that would be worth it.
Prayer:
Father, we invite you into that because you have created us unique, individual, and you love us as you created us to be. And, yeah, we’ve made all kinds of missteps and inserted all kinds of things that didn’t belong in our story and they affect us and they pull us in all kinds of directions, but usually those are the things that are pulling us into what’s false, those are the things that compel us to over inflate, to posture, to pose, to hide, to be insecure. And, so, we’re inviting you into all of those places. Fill us in all of those places so that all we see of ourselves is what you see. And then we will actually be looking at ourselves as we really are, not through lenses of wounds, and woundings, and missteps, and mistakes. We’ll see ourselves as you do and if we can see ourselves as you do, then we are seeing ourselves as we really are. So, come Holy Spirit and help us to live into this in these coming days and in this coming year. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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