Daniel 11:36-12:13, 1 John 4:1-21, Psalms 123:1-4, Proverbs 29:2-4
Today is the 4th day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy to be here with you as we…well…prepare to round out another week. This week we’ve been reading from the Christian Standard Bible. That’s what we’ll continue to do until the week is up, which…which is tomorrow. But we are here now, and the next step forward leads us back into the book of Daniel. Today we will read Daniel chapter 11 verse 36 through 12 verse 13.
Commentary:
Okay. So, yesterday when we were reading to the letter of first John we just formulated questions that were answered in the letter in our reading from yesterday and what began to emerge was this theme that love is non-negotiable in the kingdom of God. In fact, without love there’s no way to connect with God. Can we let that sink in for a second? Like I know sometimes we talk about these themes that get talked about often and they become cliché. And, so, we kind of tune out. We…we listen dimly. We think it’s more of a reminder than something that’s like a full front and center. And, so, we listen, and it just kind of passes by and it serves as a reminder, “yeah, I’m supposed to live and love. I’m supposed to love the Lord. I gotta do better. I gotta get around to that kind of thing”, when what’s being talked about here is front and center, like there is no knowing God without love. And loving one another is the evidence that we know God. Can we let that sink in? Can we let that be front and center because it’s absolutely paramount? So, I actually want to revisit again a portion of what we read today because the theme is relentless at this point and…and as we turn the page in today’s reading it’s not letting go. So, if this first letter of John we find in the Bible in the New Testament is being front and center and direct, then we should give it our full attention. And, so, I’m gonna reread some famous passages here. But can we put this front and center? Like, can we not listen dimly? Can we be present? Can this overlay our lives and then reveal to us what we must do from here? And, so, I quote. “Dear friends let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way, God sent His one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent His son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us, he has given us of His Spirit, and we have seen, and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God remains in Him and He in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and the one who remains in love remains in God and God remains in him. In this love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love. Instead perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So, the one who fears is not complete in love. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from Him, the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
Prayer:
Father, there’s nothing else I can say. You have said it clearly in Your word that's…it’s clear…it's…it’s not ambiguous. It’s right front and center that this is the bed rock, that without this, without love, without love into the world for our brothers and sisters, without love that is active without actively loving people that we don’t love, without loving people that we don’t agree with, without actively bringing Your love into this world we are wasting our time. And, so, come Holy Spirit, reawaken us here in these last weeks of this year to why we are here and what we are to do because our culture does everything possible to make us self-absorbed and self-focused, not because we need to be lifted up because that’s the way to get our money. And we have been deceived. We are here to actively love the world and to bring light into the darkness. And this happens by our very lives, not by our very words this happens by the way we live our lives. It doesn’t really even take a lot of words. It goes to the transformation happening within us. When this transformation reaches the tipping point, and there’s no going back and we have been transformed and we are no longer who we were then we begin to see things as You see things, and how You hurt for the world is how we hurt for the world and the compassion and the long-suffering that You have for the people of the earth we have that long-suffering compassion, even for those that we absolutely do not see eye to eye with. Love covers a multitude of sins You say in Your word. Love is such a central thing and we just coast by it. We just live into it dimly because it’s ubiquitous. We all know this is how it’s supposed to go but it’s time to become who we are supposed to be instead of struggling, struggling, struggling for the next decade trying to figure it out. It begins here. Love, love, love. Actively love as God has loved us. So, come Holy Spirit, this is not even remotely possible in our own strength. We can organize it and work it out for a half a day. We may be able to bite our tongue for even a week, but to be transformed until the default posture is first love instead of some sort of defensive position that we first, that we lead with love, we can’t do this without Your Holy Spirit. And it’s not like You’ve been withholding. And, so, we have not been paying attention, and that we have been living dimly into this. Now we are awake. Holy Spirit come, show us how to love. May we actively love through the rest of this season and into the new year we pray. In the name of Jesus, we pray this. Amen.
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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.
Community Prayer and Praise:
Hi everyone, this is Harold from St. Louis. I’m just calling in for a prayer request for my son Jonathan who is in Houston. He was taken to the hospital last night. He’s a type I diabetic. Basically, his sugar was over 300. He’s got a bit of an infection in his foot. They’re doing an MRI of his foot now, but they’ve already told him it looks like they might have to amputate his foot off. Just praying for him for strength and for healthiness and for courage and I just thank you everybody who will take the time out to pray for him.
Hey DAB family its Sky and Rebecca team Skybecca from Michigan with a funky black van named rhino. We just wanted to celebrate with you today that we’ve made it by the grace and strength of God to our seventh-year anniversary today. Yay. All praise and glory to God for all He’s doing in our marriage. We want to say a prayer of gratitude and blessing for all those who are faithful to their spouses and to God’s refining fire through their marriage. We would love prayers as we are leaving December 9th in our self-contained van and putting our few belongings in storage once again after losing everything in a large storage fire a couple years ago moving to Michigan to care for my dad. We are reminded again it’s good to lighten the load as we are only tent dwellers on this earth. So, Lord I pray protection over our belongings and for our family that we are leaving behind. I also pray for protection for us from COVID as we travel and safety over our van. And I would also like to pray continued healing for my older sister’s family, my aunt, Sue and Uncle Tim and my friends Sherry and Scott who are still recovering from COVID. And then also Lord we’d love prayers for all that we are to meet and share stories with and pray for along the way. And then last but not least love to have prayer for a new friend named Nina and her young family, her husband Johnny and the three little ones. Johnny’s recovering from a brain aneurysm and he needs surgery for another one. And, so, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit and Jesus would heal that aneurysm and it would disappear in the name of Jesus altogether.
Hey this is Micah in Awe in Kansas City. I just wanted to give a shout out to Sally or Stelly, I couldn’t hear your name that clear. They played your message on November 30th and you said you’re new to the DAB family. I just wanted to welcome you. I’ve been…I’ve only been here about a year and ½ but I love it here and I love my DAB family. All you other new listeners whether you called in or not, welcome and it’s great to have you and I know a lot of you are praying without calling in. It’s awesome to know that there’s praying happening…happening every day all the time.
Hello everybody it’s God’s Smile here. I’ve got some wonderful news for you. So, Maria had another attack, my helper. She had another horrible demonic experience and she turned to me and I was able to encourage her in the Lord and said I was praying and…and gave her a verse, a life verse for her to speak. And I just…just thank God for all that He’s doing in this young girl’s life. And I gave her the Bible and I showed her around it and I wrote her a card and so she…she read that and I gave her…I wrote down a lot of verses so that she can look up salvation. Not all of them of course because it’s…it’s a treat to find them yourself isn’t it? And when she went home, she’d only been home half an hour and she sent me a WhatsApp picture of the Bible verses she’s been reading. So, you know…she’s not fully got Jesus in her…insider her yet. I have challenged her. I said, do ask him into your life Maria. What have you got to lose? We’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain, haven’t we? So, I don’t think it’s going to be long. I really don’t. I’m so thankful for…just being able to share Jesus. It is the reason I live you know. It is the reason I live, to give his love and to reach those who are lost. So, please hold her and please thank Jesus for her life. Please cover her in prayer while we are dealing with this but I said to her…I said to her just quickly, when Jesus isn’t inside of you Maria the evil will say it and they will have __ . Anyway, times ticking away again. I’m so happy. Kiss kiss everybody.
Hello
DAB, I just wanted to say hi to I think your name was Jaelyn, the lovely young
person who sang that beautiful song to us and it aired on December 1st.
I just want to thank you because that…that really gave me hope, you know, that
we worry so much about the future but if the future includes kids like you who
sing their prayers over a family of believers there’s hope. So, thank you. And
I love you family. Bye.