Deuteronomy 11:1-12:32, Luke 8:22-39, Psalms 70:1-5, Proverbs 12:4
Today is the 29th day of March welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today. It’s great to be here with you every day including today. It’s great to be here around the Global Campfire as we continue moving forward and that moving forward will take us back into the book of Deuteronomy. We’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. Deuteronomy chapters 11 and 12 today.
Commentary:
Okay. We are in the book of Luke, obviously in the New Testament and we’ve come to this…this story. And we…we’ve seen this story before but I just…when I come to it in the Gospel of Luke it’s like every year this is one of the places where we kinda talk about something very specific. Even though every year at the Daily Audio Bible we’re talking about all kinds of stuff we’ve never talked about before, this story, I don’t what it is because it's…it’s always been a riveting story to me for some reason. But then after having been on the site of this story walking around it’s just…it’s like imprinted on my mind, mostly because the story…every time I come to it, I’m like this is…this is…this is how I have reacted more often than not. And, so, what happens here is that Jesus is on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And it's…it’s if you’ve never been there and like you don’t have a map or whatever, most of Jesus ministry would be situated on the northwest corner or the northwest shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. This is where the cities of Capernaum and Bethsaida, Chorazim, Magdala are, the cities that Jesus would’ve frequented. And it’s also near a main road that would’ve climbed up from the Sea of Galilee and headed west toward places like Nazareth and Cana. So, this is where Jesus spent most of His time. But when He got into the boat to sail with the disciples they were heading to the sort of North East side of things to another people and they were moving into a region that was controlled by one of the Decapolis cities and that city was known as Hippos or Sussita. So, a Gentile area, a Roman area, cosmopolitan area, a very non-Jewish area, but I mean, we should notice that by the fact that there were a herd of pigs being shepherded. That’s not something that you would find a Hebrew Shepherd typically doing. So, Jesus is exhausted enough that He gets the back of the boat and goes to sleep and when this storm comes up and it’s violent…and let’s remember like these aren’t like little kids rowing the boat for Jesus, these are experienced fishermen on the water. So, if they’re freaking out it’s a legitimate problem. And they were freaking out, enough to go wake Jesus up and I guess, you know, you’re terrified…so like, “we’re gonna drown”, you know, “wake up” and…and he does, and He instructs the storm to calm down and it does, which is an amazing thing to even imagine but definitely something that struck the disciples silent, “like who is this? Even the wind and the water obey Him.” That’s all going on before we ever get to that northeast side of things. And then we land on the shore and there’s this naked man running toward you. And I can…I mean…you visualize that whether you want to or not and there’s a naked man running down the shore and he’s yelling and he’s screaming, and he addresses Jesus, “what do You have to do with me? What do You want with me?” Or in another translations, “why are you interfering with me?” Like, I mean for me, I can stop right there and find myself in the story in that man’s response to the presence of God. The presence of Christ comes and then there’s this reaction immediately – “what…why are you interfering with me? What do you have to do with me?” We might not agree that we’d say that out loud to Jesus in that context, but our lives, that’s all you have to do is just look at our lives. What happens when we’re disrupted? When we’re disrupted, we immediately think it’s bad, we immediately start cursing the devil. But what we see in the Gospels is that wherever Jesus goes things are disrupted and He’s not bringing evil and He’s not trying to challenge the people by attacking them in some sort of way. He’s trying to bring light into the darkness, which disrupts what’s hiding and lurking in the darkness. And as soon as it comes on and is exposed then it starts squirming to find more darkness so that it’s not exposed. And when that light comes, and we’re exposed and we’re looking for a place to hide so we can feel safe, and we feel like “why are you interfering with me? What you have to do with me?” We may be speaking to the circumstance and rebuking the circumstance when God may be after something in us. So, I can, at least myself, I can see myself in that story but, you know, as the story goes on the evil spirits are thrown into the pigs who run into the water and drown and then the man gets dressed and is in his right mind speaking with Jesus and the people come around and they see this. And certainly, just seeing pigs floating in the water and the insane man, the demoniac well and in his right mind, that would be startling and disruptive for sure, but you would think on the one hand it would be a mighty power that would set that man free since according to the Scriptures he already been bound and put in leg irons and chained and under guard, and he’d always broken free of all that. So, to come around this man and find him with clothes on in his right mind having a conversation you would at least have to say a mighty power, like something extraordinary has happened. And in this case since everybody knew this demoniac and what he was capable of you’d have to think that this is a move in the right direction, like a positive move but it scared them so bad they were in terror to the point that they asked Jesus to leave. And that’s the part. That’s the part that just like…it’s like an arrow to the heart to come by this territory in Luke because that’s just it. We get…we get all whipped up in worship. We might have our hands raised and we’re like, “do with me what you will. Send your consuming fire upon me” and, you know, “take me and use me as a vessel” or whatever kind of sentiment that we would offer. We would say these things in our prayers and “I just want to be used by you, I just want to be available, I just want to be aware, I just want to know what’s going on so I can make some sense of this” and then God comes and it’s disruptive and perhaps makes us uncomfortable or brings us to a place of fear. And even though we can see the good, the power, the strength, even though we can see God at work, we…we can’t put ourselves in that story. We’re too afraid, it’s too risky, it’s too much out of our control, it’s too much out of our wheelhouse, it’s too much out of our comfort zone. And, so, in so many functional ways we…we ask Him to leave when He was coming to answer our prayer and invite us deeper. And that’s the thing about faith. For some reason we have it in our mind that it…it’s like…it’s gonna be easy and we’ll walk into it no problem and we’ll just keep growing in our faith but how in the world will we ever grow in our faith if it isn’t tested? Like, how does a muscle growth if it isn’t strained? How does anything grow if it’s not challenged? If all we are is operating in operating in our wheelhouse, everything is good, everything is under control, everything is in our control…well…if we’re gonna ask for more faith then that’s going to be answered and it’s going to be answered by us having to exercise our faith so that it can grow, which is the opposite of what we see happening with these people in this story, which is why it’s like an arrow to the heart sometimes to think I missed so many opportunities along the way because I wasn’t willing to step into faith. I wasn’t actually willing to live by faith. I can say over the years I’ve grown. I can say like if I look back 15 years or whatever when we were starting all of this, the things that were scary then are not scary now. I have grown in my faith, but any time we are ever going to grow in our faith it’s gonna be faith, which means we’re gonna be reaching for what we cannot know or what we cannot prove but we still know anyway. And that’s gonna bring tension. That’s always gonna stretch us. That’s what growing in faith looks like. And, so, let’s think about that today as we move into this week.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit come into that. So often we put labels on things and anything that’s hard is bad, but actually the hard things are the things that make us grow and they’re things that expand us, they’re the things that make us strong. And, so, help us to have a discerning heart and an acute awareness of Your Holy Spirit’s leading, the voice of the Spirit in our lives we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. 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:
This is Doctor John in Illinois. I was listening to the DAB the other day and just reminded of faithfulness. I listened to Victoria Soldier and Blind Tony and Jill and Brian and their family – faithfulness, faithfulness. And I listened to Victoria Soldier now and she’s crying out for help. And I think of all the times that she’s prayed, you listen to her so frequently and all these others - Blind Tony - and again I can’t even name all those I’ve listened to the last six years and they’re faithful. And, so, Lord I want to lift up them right now. Heavenly father would You…would You from heaven today and for all those Lord that are faithful that lift their voice to You that cry out and petition You Lord for all these others when they’re hurting and we all have needs Lord we’re all broken we’re all in desperate need of a savior. Today Lord would You be that Redeemer? Would You be that way maker that promise keeper? And father I’m thankful for this ministry, thankful God for this…these that cry out Lord in desperation for their brothers and sisters Lord even when they’re in need themselves. Lord would You meet that need today? And father, again would You bless the Hardin family Lord for their dedication. And Lord bless them because of all the suffering they’ve injured and all the hardships they’ve endured, but they do it with joy because of a hope in You and hope in Christ in His perfect service. Lord would You bless them today. Lord thank You for the DAB Lord bless this family and all those…
Hey this is DABber Danny from Southern Oregon. Micah in Awe you’re one of my favorite callers. You’re so compassionate and your voice comes through so powerfully and I just love it when you call in. So, when you called in and you prayed for me, I just really appreciated that, especially because I have a son named Micah and I long for him to be in awe of God’s glory. And he’s not walking with the Lord. He’s 18 and I wonder if you all could just pray for him. He is living on his own and he just found out he’s gonna be a daddy and the mom is only 16. And, so, if you could…if you could pray for them. I had the privilege of hearing from the Lord a couple of days before I found out and the Lord told me that this is going to be happening and so I was completely prepared when he actually told me. And, so, I’m OK with it. I think that this baby might, you know, turn him around and bring him into a closer relationship with us and also with the Lord, I hope. And, so, if you could all pray for my son Micah, I would really appreciate that, that he would just be a godly father. And he’s never wanted anything to do with God. So, anyway if you could pray for his heart, I would appreciate that. Love you all.
Hello DABbers, my name is Jay from the East Coast I’ve called before. I have a praise report. I had gotten a job after…since November 2019. It was very hard, a lot of applications, but I wanted to thank you guys and I know that you guys always pray and…but I’m also asking for prayer for my nephew who’s in the military. And he, in 2018, he suffered a loss of my brother, his father, and he took up to alcohol to…to…to deal with it and both his mother and father suffered from that and his father, my brother, it was part of the reason why he died. He is a young man. He’s afraid to go for help because he’s afraid of what it might mean for his military career. Please pray that he would do the right thing and that he would…that God would heal him from this addiction and also if he needs to get that help and it’s being offered that he will take it before anything else goes wrong. He’s very bright young man and dealing with a lot of…of emotional issues now because of the…the bad grieving, not grieving well and not having support to grieve because they’re pretty much locked…locked down where they are and all he has is on the base and just friends who would just not talk about things. He feels isolated. I need your help guys and especially those who were in the military who knows how that is. Thank you.
Hi this is Joseph from Dublin New South Wales Australia. My wife’s an Australian. I’m an American obviously. Just like to give a praise report and thank you all the Daily Audio Bible family for keeping us up in prayer. My wife gave a safe delivery to our son Gia on the 30th of April. And please pray for my wife for complete healing. She tore while giving delivery. And I’d also like to ask for prayer for me and my wife for reconnection in our marriage because lately we’ve been feeling incredibly distant from each other and I just I thank the Daily Audio Bible family out there. Thanks for keeping us up in prayer. Thanks bye.
Good morning Brian and Daily Audio Bible family my name is Glenn, and we have a son that has had a really bad alcohol problem that came to a head with his family in a pretty tragic way. He ended up being shot but God miraculously saved him, and he’s had an awakening that is very real but he’s in a place right now of trying to sort his life out and he wants…he wants the help that he needs, and he has a real firm faith in God. It’s been difficult but we’re just asking that you might pray along with us, that the things that need to occur will and that God will be gracious to him and his family and that he will touch his wife and children and comfort them and just that His will be done. Appreciate you guys. Love you very much. Glenn and Sharon.