Malachi 3:1-4:6, Revelation 22:1-21, Psalms 150:1-6, Proverbs 31:25-31
Today is the 31st day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy as it always is to be here with you today. December 31st is a joyous day to arrive at indeed. It’s a bit of a melancholy day. It’s like, we made it. Like, O we made it. This is…this is it. We’re gonna read the last pages all the way to the last words of the Bible and it was a year ago that we started this journey together. And we indeed shared one of the more interesting years of anyone alive today. So, I think we could say God has been faithful. We are here. We have arrived almost…almost to our destination. So, let’s dive in for our final reading of the year as we conclude the Bible together. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Malachi chapters 3 and 4.
Prayer:
Father…Father thank You. Thank You for bringing us back through again. Another year of life, another year on this planet, another year day by day step-by-step through the Scriptures. And we are here. We are here because You have been faithful to us and we are grateful for all that You have done in our lives over the last…over the last entire year, including a leap day, an extra day. Thank You. Thank You. There were times we didn’t know if we were gonna make it. We didn’t know if we’d be able to cope. We didn’t know if we were gonna be able to manage the title waves…the tsunamis of issues that just kewp sweeping over us and You are faithful. You always are. It’s just so often that we don’t realize that until we can look back. In the moment we’re always wondering where You went. When You’re carrying us, when You’re supporting and sustaining us, when You’re pulling us forward so that we can arrive at a place of hindsight and look back and say, “yes. I could not have done this if the Lord had not carried me but he did carry me and I am here.” And this is where we are. And, so, Father for these 15 years I am grateful for these 5478 days in row that we’ve been together as a community seeking to…to allow the Bible to speak for itself. I am grateful for the eyes to see and ears to hear that You give us as we need it when we need it. I’m grateful for everyone who’s ever been here, who’s ever…who spent a day or a week or a month or a decade. I am grateful. Thank You, God for my brothers and sisters. This could’ve never happened or existed if we hadn’t been in it together all along. So, I am grateful. And as we leave this time, yes, we will start over tomorrow, but we’re marking this and we’re letting it be what it is, a moment of tremendous reflection, a moment that could not exist were it not for Your faithfulness. So, there’s nowhere to go but forward. And, so, we do. We go forward reaching for You and reaching back to one another. I pray Your blessing most-high God over this entire community in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Announcements:
And that’s it, friends. 15 years. I don’t even know what to do with that. I…I mean we get to December 31st and conclude a year together and every time that happens, I know it’s coming, I know I’m working through the last week of the year and feeling the melancholy of it all, the anticipation of a new year, but also giving honor the fact that a journey is coming to a close. And we have read the whole Bible together, all of it - every chapter, every verse, every book, everything. So, now…like if you’re using th pp…now you have all the badges. You have achieved a year in the Scriptures. You’ve read the whole Bible. Well done. Well done. We did it. We did it in a year that gave us every excuse to bail. We did it. We did it in tough year and it will lead us forward and it gave us the nourishment in our spirits that we needed to just keep going and we kept going and we’re here. Well done. I realize the thing that makes this melancholy for me, the thing that’s hard about all this is I know tomorrow will come and we will start a brand-new journey. And, so, on that level I can say it will be the same as today, but it won’t though because I’ve done this 15 times. We’re bringing to close a journey in a community, and we will start over tomorrow and many, many, many, many, many of us will be here along for the ride and we’ll just keep going together, but I also know that this is goodbye. This is goodbye and I hate it even though I know that God is leading some of you in all kinds of new and exciting directions. And I know that tomorrow there will be thousands of people who have never been here before getting on board to take the journey across a year together and through the Bible together. But I’ve never really been super fond of sad goodbyes and in fact I’ve determined there aren’t goodbyes anymore in the Daily Audio Bible. It’s just “until we meet again’s”. And, so, for any of you who are moving in other directions as you have your New Year’s resolutions and you’ve completed this objective and you’ve read the whole Bible and you’re…you’re going into the new year then I am so thankful, so grateful that we could share a year together. And I say to you, until we meet again. And for as long as I can, as long as God allows, I’ll be here reading aloud the Bible for anyone who will listen to it anywhere on this planet any time of day or night. Don’t be a stranger. And for everyone who will flip the page into a new year and we will set sail again, I have a great anticipation for that. I have great anticipation for next year, a year when we will mend and we will look at mending, knitting things back together, restoring things in the Bible because I think that’s what this next year’s gonna represent around the world and in this community - a time to mend. And healing is so beautiful when its together. God has indeed given us each other, a family, each other, the family of God, brothers and sisters. And I am so grateful for you. The words fail. I guess I’m kind of at the point where I don’t want to stop talking so I can just keep talking, but at some point…at some point we have to acknowledge the fact that we have concluded our journey for the year 2020. We have read through the Bible together. We have moved through a year of life together. We are still here together. And I am grateful that we have been together.
And I pray, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May He make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He lift his countenance upon you and give you peace. May the strength of God go with you. May the wisdom of God instruct you. May the hand of God protect you. May the word of God direct you. May you be sealed in Christ this day and forevermore. Amen.
I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here next year.