Ezekiel 37:1-38:23, James 1:19-2:17, Psalms 117:1-2, Proverbs 28:1
Today is the 18th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is great to be here with you today as we continue the journey, move through hump day here. We started the book of James yesterday or the letter of James in the New Testament. We’ll be can continuing that today, but we began the book of Ezekiel, one of the major prophets in the Scriptures quite a while ago and we’re continuing that journey for about another week I guess until we finish Ezekiel. But we’ll be moving through Ezekiel 37 today, one of my favorite favorite, favorite passages of Scripture, the valley of the dry bones. So, let’s dive in. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Ezekiel 37 and 38.
Commentary:
Okay. First off, in the book of Ezekiel today we read Ezekiel chapter 37 and I said that’s one of my favorite passages of Scripture. The valley of dry bones, that image all the way back from the first time ever read it, but every year that I’ve read it that imagery just sticks with me. You see that the people are in exile, you see that the people feel like they’re…they’re ruined and that they’re…they’re…like what’s gonna happen to them is really, really uncertain. And, so, Ezekiel has his vision…vision of the valley of dry bones. And, so, this is like an ancient battlefield and the dead were never burried, and they just sat in the open field until they became dry bones. So, a very long time they have been sitting there and there’s this valley of dry bones. And God asks, “can they live?” And it’s like such an interesting question because we can see the valley of dry bones is a vision, so it’s used in metaphorical sense even prophetically here. And, so, we can think about the dry bones in our own lives and then that question comes right? “Can these bones live?” And it’s more…it’s more confrontational than it seems when you think about the places that you think are dead inside of you. A question, “could these things live again” like…is like in your face because…well…and some of these things we’re like, “whether they could or not, they’re too painful. Like what I went through is too painful. Like I don’t even want to think about this stuff anymore.” Of course, Ezekiel doesn’t know whether the dry bones can live again. So, he says the right thing to God, “only you could possibly know the answer to that question.” And answering that question God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the dead bones, to call the four winds, the breath of life from the four winds. And he did and those dry bones came back together again, and they received muscle and skin and sinew, and they came back to life again. So, out of a battlefield full of defeated warriors, life came. That has always stuck with me and after a couple years of reading it it just really felt like the Lord was speaking into my spirit, “build a wind farm.” And not like a literal like wind farm with windmills creating energy to power my house, a spiritual windfarm, one that is continually calling to the four winds, the breath of life in every way possible. And, so, that’s why prayer in our community is so vital to our community. Yes, it keeps us in touch with each other. Yes, we cry together. Yes, we rejoice together. Yes, indeed we get to know each other as we stay focused and moving together through the Scriptures. Yes to all of that, but we are also calling the breath of life into what looks like it’s dead on a continual basis and it matters. It’s even why when we…when we began to roast our own coffee and import tea. It’s why the brand is called Windfarm because in every way that we can we want to be doing that, calling the four winds, the breath of life into that which is dead all around us.
And now let’s turn to the book of James and let me quote here, and I don’t think this needs a lot of interpretation really. Let me just quote from the letter. “Don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away and forget what you look like.” Is that the truth or not? I mean maybe we don’t look in a physical mirror like we’re fixing our hair for work and then we go to work and we don’t remember what we look like, but spiritually we behave this way all of the time. We can at one moment know fully who we are in Christ and that we are actually a child of the most-high God and then we can walk out the door and live like sons and daughters of the evil one or live completely confused and disoriented. We forgot our identity. We forgot what we look like. And, so let’s take that heart today as well, and just let it kind of ruminate, let it stew, let it just percolate through our…through our day. Let’s watch ourselves. Have we forgot who we are? Have we forgotten what we look like? Is that what our behaviors erratically are showing, or do we know exactly who we are in Christ?
Prayer:
Father, it’s kind of like James says, intellectually we know what the Scriptures say about who we are, we have heard the good news, but You’re saying You can’t just listen to it, You have to live into it, You have to become it otherwise it’s just…You’re just fooling Yourself. So, we don’t want any part of that. We’re here to learn, we’re here to grow, we’re here with the goal that we would be transformed into Your likeness because this is what the Scriptures tell us is happening, that this is what’s going on. And, so, when we claim our faith and then go out into the day and act like anything but a person who’s in love with You, then we are just fooling ourselves. And then we would have the audacity to be angry at You for not jumping into every beck and call, like it ever time we ring the little bell You’re just supposed to show up when we don’t even know who we are. And, so, once again we reorient ourselves to You. Our identity can only be found in You. You bestow an identity upon us, and You have done that. You have grafted us into Your family and made us joint heirs with Jesus to Your kingdom. That is who we are. May we live like it today. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
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We have the Global Campfire Initiative going on around here right now although this is the final day. And I won’t be mentioning it anymore. It will be concluded, and I just want to thank everybody. Honestly, it’s so humbling. I just want to thank everyone who has participated in this. So, happy. So happy to send you the heart album, the LP. I just love it. And, so, I’m so happy to be able to send that to you and I…I trust that you will hold onto it and treasure it and that it will be a memento of this year that we spent together in God’s word. The one thing that sort of stabilized the year, at least for me, in spite of all of the just challenges, some of the very, very…we have had some significant societal challenges in the last 12 months that have taught us a lot and the Scriptures being the constant through that…just…I thank you for your partnership as we continue to move forward and be in a position where we will be here no matter what happens in the world. And that is the goal. We will keep spinning the windfarm, right? We’ll keep calling to the four winds, the breath of life. We will keep speaking the word of God out over the earth as long as God will allow us to, as long as we stay in this together. And, so, thank you profoundly for everybody who has participated in this. Today, like I said, today is the last day. If you want to get involved and participate in this than here’s what you do, you can use the web, or you can use the Daily Audio Bible app. If you want to use the web go to dailyaudiobible.com. When you get to the website you will see up at the top, the navigation and you’ll see Initiatives. Press that button and you’ll find the Global Campfire initiative in there. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you’ll notice that there’s a little Drawer icon. It’s in the upper left-hand corner. When you press that the drawer opens. When the drawer opens, you’ll find initiatives. Press that and you’ll find the Global Campfire initiative. And again, I thank you with all my heart.
And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button that’s in the app. It’s the red button that looks kind of like a hotline button, lives kind of up at the top in the app screen. No matter where you are in the app you can find it. So, you can press that, or you can dial 877-942-4253.
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:
Good morning everyone it’s Susan from Canada God’s Yellow Flower calling and it’s the wee hours of the morning and it’s very quiet here and I am just loving the depth of the stillness of the time I have with God. And I just want to thank Him in the spirit of Thanksgiving for this month and always of course. I want to thank him and give him glory for in the midst of heavy trials we still have blessings and if we focus on God, we see the blessings. I hear the cold wind raging outside and here I sit in a warm cozy place. I look at our cupboards and they’ve got an abundance of food in there. I look at the relationship that my son Keith and I have developed through this illness that we are…that we are going through together and I just…I just praise him for the closeness and the love that we share and the bonds we have for each other. It’s only because of the Lord that we can do this. And I just give Him all the praise and glory for this time I have with my son before he…before he passes. So, there’s lots to be thankful for in the midst of crisis and just look for your blessings and be thankful. Love you all. Bye now.
Good afternoon DABbers this is Running Desperately to Jesus also known as Staying Desperately Connected to Jesus. I don’t even know where to begin with thanking everybody for their prayers. I was just so overwhelmed. I have fought with depression for a while; however never have hit the part where I went into a dark space and wasn’t able to pull myself out. But just like Moses’ arms were held up and the war was one and when his hands were let down the war was being lost, my Daily Audio Bible family lifted me up and the battle was one. So, although there still continues to be struggles, of course, in just daily living I know where to turn, first to God and then of course to my Daily Audio Bible family, which is so awesome. I wish I had the opportunity to meet every one of you. However, we all know that we’re striving for that mark to be with Him and will all get to meet each other one day. Again, I thank all of you. I…it took me a while to make this call because I wanted to be able to speak and not cry and I think I’ve accomplished it. Running Desperately to Jesus. Also Staying Desperately Connected to Jesus. I love my family.
[singing starts] Thank you Jesus thank you Jesus thank you Lord for loving me. Thank you, Jesus thank you Jesus thank you Lord for loving me [singing stops]. Father God thank You that You meet us where we are. Lord we invite You into where we are right now whether we are celebrating or we’re happy, joyful or we’re sad or worried and anxious and we’re afraid or we’re sitting in darkness. Father God thank You that You meet us where we are and thank You Lord that You meet us in our darkness. Shine Your light into our lives Lord. Shine so bright that…that everything else pales into comparison to You, that the shadows flee. Father God, we might feel that we don’t have strength to face tomorrow. We might feel that we don’t know what to do or that we can’t do what’s in front of us. Thank You, Lord that You give us what we need. Thank You for meeting us where we are and thank You for carrying us through. In Jesus’ holy and precious name. Amen. Hi guys is Michaela from Gloucester hope You have a blessed day where You are.
Good morning DAB family this is Eyes of a Dove in Snoqualmie Washington. I had a wonderful weekend but it’s like to me confessing something and then asking for your guy’s prayer and support. All of us on here are…none of us are perfect. And I know that we can all come across perfect or not. I think that’s what brings us all together. You know, we seek to be like Jesus. And I’ve come from a really broken past, broken marriage and at a time when me and my three kids we had nobody and I got into construction to take care of them but with that came pride and being the breadwinner and not wanting another…a man in my life, which led to actually finding a guy and after 2 ½ years of being together last night he asked me to marry him and I said yes. And it’s kind of a secret because shamefully we’re all together, our kids, and we know that’s not under the Lords…what He would want for us. And he wants us to be united under Him in marriage. And, so, I come to you and confess that I’ve been hiding out from you guys.Felt ashamed. And I would like you guys to lift me and Izzy and Braden and the kids all up in prayer. We all desire to be one family. All the kids have been bugging us for months and praying for us that we would and now we are. And now we have to figure out a way to have a wedding and we don’t want a big affair, but we do want our moms and dads there and with Covid restrictions in Washington state it’s made it much more difficult. So, if you all would just be praying the Lord would bless our union and continue to heal us and help us have a great marriage…
Unless the Lord had been my help my soul would soon have slipped into the silence. If I say my foot is slipping your mercy Lord will hold me up. In the multitude of my anxieties your comforts are my delight. I’m saying this particular verse from Psalm 94 verse 17 to 19 for my teacher sister all the way in California who called in, Dorothea, who shared her own anxieties with the overwhelming workload as being a teacher. I am in the same boat here in the UK by the way is Dr. Cano calling from the UK and honestly, I could relate to what you are sharing. The demands upon us are so many but we thank God that the burden that we get from Jesus is light because he carries every single weight, every single anxiety and we can find comfort in Him. And my prayer for you sis and my prayer for myself and every other person who’s working during this time is that the Lord will give us different strategies, wisdom to manage the workload. He will give us ways to communicate to those who are our seniors for them to support us in this work that we are doing, and the Lord will indeed crown our efforts with success in the mighty name of Jesus. I pray for all the first responders __ staff here in the UK, nurses, doctors, police officers, every single person who is working tirelessly during this time, may the Lord strengthen you, may he empower you, may He give you courage and wisdom. And even for those who are the recipients of our care, our students, our patients, Lord bestow your blessing upon each one in the mighty name of Jesus. God bless you my Daily Audio Bible family. I love you so much and thank you so much Brian for this wonderful ministry. I’ve been loving it for over three years.