10/14/2020 DAB Transcriopt

Jeremiah 23:21-25:38, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17, Psalms 84:1-12, Proverbs 25:15

Today is the 14th day of October, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you and we’re approaching the middle of another month and I…I don’t know where the times going because it seems like it’s dragging on but it’s not. It’s moving fast. And, so, here we are almost to the middle of October these next couple of days will send us through the middle. And speaking of the middle, we’re in the middle of another week as we continue our journey. This week we’ve been reading from the New International Version, which is what we’ll continue to do. Jeremiah chapter 23 verse 21 through 25 verse 38 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we read Psalm 84 today and I can’t help but coming by this territory every year and talking about this. Like there’s all…so many things that happen in a year that have never happened before because the Bible is alive and it speaks to the depths of our souls in new ways, different things, even if we’ve been through the territory before strike us in new ways and apply in new and unique and inspiring ways, but there are some kind of like road posts along the way along this trail where it’s like, “yeah, this is always…we never need to forget this, we need to remember this always, this needs to get locked in for all time. And Psalm 84’s like that because it holds like very…like a very important key to how to live and it explains so much. So, if I say the word desire what is the first thing that comes up? Like a lot of times it’s like a sexual thing in nature. That word kind of evokes a…or if I say the word passion kinda the same thing happens. And if I say passionate desire we can apply that to, you know, like an athlete who’s training for the Olympics who’s like left everything else in their lives and focused on this one goal in life, while they, you know, are at a specific age and have specific abilities and are tuning those things so that as a world-class athlete they can compete. But normally these kind words, you put these kind words together and it gets erotic, which isn’t a bad thing, either one of them…like pursuing a goal or…or…or sexual desire or whatever that’s not like inherently a bad thing. Either way we can kind of understand the words. But we don’t usually use those words when we’re talking about God, an intimacy with God. And yet, let me read, let me just read from the Psalm. “My soul yearns even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” You see, that’s passionate desire. And we understand passionate desire. We just used a couple of examples, but we could find other ones but we’ve already kind of placed ourselves in those words, but we don’t usually think about them toward God. And yet in the Bible, we see the psalmist passionate with desire for God. A little bit later in the Psalm we read, “better is one day in your courts than a thousand anywhere else. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” This is a person whose focus is upon the Lord and the presence of God, to be in the presence of God is the most important passionate pursuit of desire. So, we can look at this and we can say, “yeah, I…I mean that’s true. I don't…like the level of passion that I feel toward my spirituality and my union with God is different than any of the other things that I’m pursuing in life. It’s different. I want that though. Like I would love to feel the way that the psalmist feels. I would love to live into that, with all of my heart. How? How does it happen?” And this is where we get handed the key. Worship. And the thing is, worship means a lot of things to a lot of people. Worship can be the songs that you sing in church when you are in church. But worship can be the records that you put on and play when you’re feeling low and depressed. So, this word kind of is more broad than we understand and yet we kind of define it pretty narrowly and it’s all kinds of religious baggage associated with it. I mean worship is a whole genre of music now, but if we want to get to the baseline then we would have to go back to the words that we spoke at the beginning - passion, desire. And one precedes the other, right? Desire precedes passion. Our desires lead our passions. So, it all begins with desire. So, when we apply our passionate desire in any direction it’s quickly going to become worship, especially if the expectation is life in some form in return. Worship is a word that describes where we focus our passionate desire in hopes of attaining life, which on the one hand means that we can worship just about anything and in just about any direction, but it also means if we acknowledge our source of life, like if that is a primary thing upon our minds, that God is our source of life, then all of life can become an act of worship, right down to our very breathing. Our breath is a gift of God and with every inhale we are receiving the gift of life. And with every exhale, we are releasing it in faith, that there will be another one. Th psalmist here isn’t speaking of theories. The psalmist here is speaking of experiences. The Psalm is attributed to the sons of Korah. Whoever wrote these words experienced union with God and could by comparison and say, “there’s nothing that can compare. Like no matter what the circumstances of life are, there’s nothing that I can pour my passionate desire into, give myself over to but my very source of life itself. Once that has been tasted, hard to…hard…there’s nothing that can compare. It’s hard to go back.” And, so, let’s aim our hearts in that direction. And the way to begin is to begin to observe ourselves, watch ourselves throughout the day with the idea that every breath, everything is an act of worship, everything that we do has the ability to open our eyes and make us aware of God’s presence because He is no less present to us. Like, we’re just usually not paying attention. Just because we’ve become aware of God’s presence doesn’t mean that God has come, that God showed up as we like to say. He never went anywhere. He didn’t show up. We did. He’s always with us. We just once in a while become aware of it. What if we stayed aware of it with this posture that our primary passion, that our primary desire is toward the source of life itself? There’s this old hymn that I heard growing up. I mean it’s still a famous hymn it’s still around but it's….it’s called “turn your eyes upon Jesus” and it describes what we’re talking about here because it says that the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. What if we put that into practice today? What if we practice it for the rest of the week and then just look back at how our week went and just see if any of this is true? What we find is that it is true and when we live into this with our passions and our desires focused toward the source of life, which is our Savior remarkable shifts can happen in very, very shortds amount…short amount…amounts of time.

Prayer:

Father, we invite You into that. You’ve given us an example. We see an example in the psalms. Now we have some understanding and we turn our eyes upon You. We turn our passion toward You. You are our hearts desire. Ultimately, You are our hearts desire. You are the source of life. And, so, why we have orbited around the lesser things that have promised us life is a mystery when You are the only source. And, so, we turn to You and ask that You open our eyes and make us aware of Your presence all around us, everywhere. You will never leave us. You will never forsake us, which means that You are here right now and always whether we’re paying attention to it or aware of it or not. But we want to be aware of it. Our passions and desires, they need to grow. We need to become more and more in tune, more and more aware and less and less asleep to it. And, so, come Holy Spirit lead us deeper into our desire for You we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it's…it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. So, certainly do indeed stay connected in any way that you can.

Check out the Daily Audio Bible Shop. There are resources there for this journey including the God of Your Story, the latest book, which is kind of a written…not kind of…it is an attempt to follow the path or some of the paths that we follow through the Scriptures each year and put that in the written form so if we’re ever disconnected from the Internet etc. etc. we can just keep the journey going, keep moving forward. And often, there’s just more context. And it’s just having it as part of the rhythm of life that resource was a very, very, hard, hard labor for this…for this purpose and to serve this community. And, so, God of Your Story is there in the Shop. Actually, one thing external to the Shop is a release that we had this year, a guided prayer and musical journey that we released back in July for the Long Walk called Heart, songs of the heart, a contemplative journey. And you get that wherever you get your music, so at iTunes or Google Play or whatever. You just have to go to the Shop. You can’t stream these. You have to purchase these albums. The reason is that all of these prayers, if you stream it, then all of these prayers get disembodied from the rest of the project and it’s just very weird, kind of like trying to read the Bible without any Hebrew context at all. But that album it seemed to have come at the right time in the summer time and struck a nerve and continue…the stories that I continue to hear from the project are…are incredible, the way that just taking a long walk, just going for a walk and puttin’ some earbuds on and just moving through and praying through the different emotions that we have really, really felt deeply this year and to invite Jesus into that and into the story moving us forward. That is a great resource. So, certainly, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage, and I thank you, I thank you for everyone who’s ever pressed that link or any of the links. Like pressing that link is why we’re here. And, so, thank you for those of you who have partnered with the Daily Audio Bible over the years. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if you prefer, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement 877-942-4253 is number to dial or you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the red Hotline button that lives at the top. Be very, very difficult to miss that. You can press the Hotline button no matter where you are in the world and you can share from there.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Last week I sat down with the Lord and He began to speak and brought me to a place where I could feel His love and I struggle with that like sometimes when I hear the verse perfect love casts out all fear, I feel like I’m missing something but that was the first time in a long time, 30 years of Christian, I actually felt His love, I felt loved and all I could think of was first John, you love Him because He first loved us and my heart just soared. I was going to go out for a walk and I’ve heard the words Daily Audio Bible and honestly I haven’t listened in two years but when I’m out on the walk and Brian began to read and to talk about God’s love and actually quoted that verse out of first John my heart just soared and I laughed right outload because God is so very faithful to give us what we need, to meet us where we are and that’s why I love Him because He always loves me first and always…

Hello, my name is James Blackstone and I’m calling in regards to prayer. I’m struggling with my faith and my belief in Jesus Christ because I’m at a time in my life where I feel like nothing is working out for me. I’ve been complaining a lot and getting angry lately. Truth is I’ve been struggling with drugs and alcohol the majority of my life. I went to the Dream Center program and did a year and I graduated. But when the coronavirus hit our program stopped. I chose to go back out on the streets and a relapsed. I messed up. So, here I am back in rehab. I need prayer for strength and that God will bring the right people in my life. I miss my mother. I haven’t seen or heard from her in over 20 years. I was in and out of foster homes when I was a kid. Please pray that my mom and family is healthy and protected in Jesus’ name. Thank you for everything and God bless all of you.

Good afternoon family this is Soaring on Eagles Wings from Canada. I, as we are approaching our long weekend or a Thanksgiving weekend, I want to pray for all the truckers in our family. I’ve always admired truckers and the skills that they used to navigate those trucks back and forth and reverse them and this year was going to take a driving course in how to…to drive a truck, not that I’m planning to go anywhere but I just wanted to learn how to drive. But Covid has put a stop to that. So, Father God we have a number of truckers in our family, they do long distances. It’s very…it’s not easy going all those miles and trying to be alert. I ask you therefore God to be their pilot. Cover their hands over the steering wheel with your hands so that you can turn it whichever way they ought to go. Give them far-reaching vision so that they can see ahead Lord God. Give them ears to hear what’s happening round about them and the skill to navigate these trucks in all the areas that they go. And Father, I pray that you keep them safe from Covid. Watch over their families as they do these long distances and leave their families. Protect them from danger. Provide for them. You know their every need. And, so, as I lift them all up to you, we thank God for truckers because they are the ones who move goods and services back-and-forth so that we can eat and drink and be thankful. So, every one of you today, be blessed. Know I’m praying for you. God loves you and so does your family.

Hi friends at Daily Audio Bible this is Karen in Florida and just calling in for prayer today. As I’ve listened to so many prayer requests, I’m praying with you. I’d like you to remember me. About two weeks ago I woke up at 4:30 AM and I’m a single lady, I have a 12-year-old child and I woke up to the sound of someone scratching on my screen at my bedroom window and I…I thought it was just an animal or something and I waited for a while and it was someone at my window and of course I called the police but no one was around that time when they showed up and…and didn’t do a whole lot really about it, just took a report and said, you know, it’s probably just not gonna happen anymore and I doubt we would find anybody and…and it was kind of disheartening but the screen is torn up and so now I am trying to figure out how to finance getting some better windows put in my house or getting an alarm system definitely getting some better lighting outside. It’s been a bit of a challenge to try to even get people over here to…to do anything. And, so, I had to wait a week for an electrician to…to show up to give me an estimate on the lighting for outside and I’d like to get some cameras and I’ve just become fearful it’s 2 AM on Saturday, October 9th or 10th and I’m awake calling in asking for prayers. So, please pray for me. I would appreciate it.

Good morning DAB family this is Paul of the Child Advocate from the LA area calling. I wanted first to do a shout out for all the first-time callers. Many of you who share that your longtime listeners, it’s so encouraging to hear your you say your first-time caller and just increasing our family so much and it’s just nice to get to hear another voice and start to recognize your voice. And I wanted to stay congratulations to China and Ben. I actually met China quite a few years ago now when Brian and family were in Los Angeles. She was just a little girl then and she was manning the table, the greeting table, and we chatted for a few minutes and she was just a darling girl. So, I’m so happy for the whole Hardin family. And by the way Brian, I’m going to become a grandmother again soon too. My daughter Allie, our daughter Allie is pregnant, and I wanted to ask for prayers for her. She has a rare condition known as cholestasis, it happens during pregnancy and this is her third pregnancy and she had it with one of her other boys. This one is gonna be a girl by the way. Anyway, it’s a liver disease and it’s very dangerous towards the end of her pregnancy. So, please keep Allie and her baby girl in your prayers. And I also wanted to give a little shout out to Brian on your book the God of Your Story. I faithfully read it along with listening and I have to say it enhances the reading…the listening and the reading so much. I mean you just kind of, you know, expand on what you’ve said, and I just enjoy it. Thank you so much.

Good morning or afternoon depending on where you are, I’m calling from sunny South Florida and I’m calling today in reference to the young man who called this morning regarding the issues that he’s having on his job. He said that he was a first-time caller and did not identify himself, but God knows who you are. I would just like to encourage you to just hang in on in there. I understand exactly where you’re coming from. Several years ago, I had the same issue. I was going to work doing everything that I needed to do, meeting all the deadlines that needed to be met, having all the parent conferences and student conferences as necessary; however, I was the target for the year. I continue to pray for them, and God delivered me from them. So, I want to say to you, be encouraged. Look to the hills from whence cometh your help. God knows all about us. One thing about it is He has promised never to forsake us. We’ve got to pray for the workplace bullies. Trust God forever. Cherish the moments.