Author: Daily Audio Bible Transcripts

Jeremiah 1:1-2:30, Philippians 4:1-23, Psalms 75:1-10, Proverbs 24:17-20

Today is the 3^rd day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we bring to a conclusion another one of our weeks together. And I guess we’re preparing as we move forward from here to encounter the first full week of this 4^th quarter of the year beginning tomorrow, but we are here. And we concluded the book of Isaiah yesterday which brings us to another book in the grouping known as the major prophets.

Introduction to the Book of Jeremiah:

This is called Jeremiah. And it’s an intriguing book, a lot because…because of Jeremiah. Like he didn’t…he didn’t really want to be a prophet. This wasn’t like his most exciting time and he’s authentic about it because God tells him to do things that he doesn’t exactly want to do and there’s plenty of times he just wants to walk away because nobody’s paying any attention to him and his prophetic words, like the ministry that he’s doing on behalf of God, speaking for God is only getting him persecuted because things have been going pretty well in the society. And, so, for a prophetic voice to come and say, ‘hey where this is going isn’t going to end well.” When nobody can see any evidence of he’s just dismissed or harassed or persecuted. And he gets very much persecuted before the story is over. I mean it’s just…it’s not good for…it’s not good for the economy to have somebody like Jeremiah out in the streets of Jerusalem prophesying that things are gonna get bad. But Jeremiah was faithful and as it turned out what he was saying was accurate. And, so, in 587 BC…so we’re looking back a long ways as we go into this story…but in 587 Babylon invaded and the Babylonian empire conquered Jerusalem and the city fell. And much of the…the development from Solomon’s era, including the temple, the temple of God was destroyed in that conquest. But if we put ourselves in sort of the mindset where things are prosperous, things are going well, we’re generally at peace, economy’s doing well, people are prospering, like we have ourselves kind of in that mindset and listen to Jeremiah we’ll see like why they would want him out of circulation and we’ll see that what he was saying was the truth and it allows us to kind of examine our own hearts in our own time. So, we’re reading from the Lexham English Bible this week, which is today. Jeremiah chapter 1 verse 1 through 2 verse 30.

Prayer:

Thank You, Father for Your word. Thank You for another week in Your word. And as we get ourselves moved into this new quarter, we are grateful and hopeful, and we rest in You. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com that’s home base, it’s certainly where you find out everything, everything that…that guides the Global Campfire and what we do together.

The Community section is there. That is how to get connected. That’s where the Prayer Wall is. So, if you’ve never been, that’s probably the place to start and get connected. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage. I thank you profoundly and humbly for your partnership. I say…similar things every day because they’re always true. It's…it’s a community endeavor that we’re on and we…we need to be in it daily. And, so, thank you for your partnership. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that is your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always is the case, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, if it’s pretty dark inside your head right now or the circumstances in your life are looking like you can’t carry this load, there’s a place to reach out. Like, you may still have to move through these things, but you don’t have to go by yourself. Just knowing that there are people thousands by the thousands all over the world that are going through this too, that are going through these kinds of things too, but that we’re in this together. That makes a difference. And, so, you can reach out. There’s the Hotline in the app, which is the little red button at the top 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.

Isaiah 66:1-24, Philippians 3:4-21, Psalms 74:1-23, Proverbs 24:15-16

Today is October 2^nd welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we move forward and take the next step through the Scriptures, and yeah we’re at the beginning of a new month and a new quarter. And, so, we’re just getting oved in and an understanding of where we are and doing what we talked about yesterday, thinking about finishing well, finishing strong in a…in a year that has done a lot to challenge us. So, let’s dive in. And we’re working our way through the book of Isaiah, and we’ve actually reached the conclusion. Today will be our final day in the book of Isaiah for this year. We’re reading from the Lexham English Bible this week. Isaiah chapter 66.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in Philippians today we kinda dropped into the middle of something that was being said that we had finished up with yesterday. And, so, we see Paul kind of doing the boasting thing again where he’s like…he’s kinda forced to boast in order to defend himself from things that people are saying. So, he’d rather not be doing this at all, but he has to do it. And, so, he’s saying what he’s done. Like, “I was circumcised on the eighth day. I…I’m from…I’m an Israeli. Like, I’m a natural born Hebrew from the tribe of Benjamin. I was a Pharisee. I was so zealous about it I persecuted the church. I was blameless in keeping the law trying to be righteous before God.” And then Pals says, “but all the stuff that I did, it doesn’t mean anything to me. It…it's…it’s a loss. Like, I count it as a loss because of what I have gained in Christ.” And that juxtaposition is Paul again saying what he has always said in his letters. “I was trying to obey the rules. I threw myself at it wholeheartedly. I wanted to be able to be righteous before God, so that I could one day be welcomed by God, so that one day I would be righteous before God. And, so, I did all the right stuff, but it wasn’t going to me there. So, now I realize it was a loss, like I count it as a loss because of what Jesus has shown me since I’ve met the Lord.” And once again this is Paul trying to say, “the rules are not the relationship. The rules do not come before the relationship to gauge whether there is a relationship.” For Paul that’s like backwards, for Jesus as well. The spirit of the whole thing had been lost and so all that was left were rules when the rules were actually a byproduct of a relationship. And basically…I means…here’s a way of looking at it. If you’re married…even if you’re not married you’re gonna understand this…if you’re married you don't…you don’t dig out your marriage covenant and read it every time you have a fight, right? Every time you have a disagreement you don’t dig out your marriage license and begin reading and say, “wait a minute. These were our vows. This is what we said.” I mean there are times that this needs to happen, but this isn’t what defines the relationship. Love defines the relationship. And when two people are in love than the rules become apparent and you don’t have to like study and ritualize and try to make the relationship work by the rules. If there’s no love there it’s going to be pretty tough to do. And this is what Paul is trying to argue. Like he had tried to do this, always knowing his failures because the law showed him his failures, always having an understanding of God being displeased because of his failures. Everybody felt that way. Like nobody could live up to the law. Everybody felt that way on a continual basis just looking for the other shoe to drop. And that’s what Paul is trying to say. Like that’s not freedom, that’s not freedom. Christ came, fulfilled the law, God began a new thing by raising Him from the dead, faith in Jesus makes us righteous before God, fulfills all of those requirements that we think we have to live up to. We are free to be in love with God, free to be in love with God as He is in love with us. Rather than understanding him as an angry deity we now see Him as Father as our Papa as a loving child would refer to their parents. That’s what Paul has been after today. And, so, he says something very famous. “I haven’t achieved that. That’s where this is going. We are all on that path. Why would you want to turn from that path and go back into bondage because somebody’s telling you something different than what I’ve been telling you. Let me tell you my credentials.” And then he goes through his credentials. “I have done this.” That’s his point. “I have done this with all of my heart, and it cannot be achieved, but Jesus came and revealed Himself to me and revealed how this actually works. It’s a leap of faith and I have not achieved this. I can’t achieve this, it can only be achieved inside me by God”, which is the same for all of us. We can’t achieve anything. Everything that we have is a gift from God. “So, I haven’t achieved it” Paul says, “but I am trying. Like I am doing one thing. I am forgetting the things that have gone behind me and I am pressing toward the things that are ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” And that should do for us what it would’ve done for the Philippians and what it did for the Philippians. And it encouraged to them. It reminded them. And, so, yeah most of what we just talked about are things we have talked about before, but Paul repeats these things in the letters and the letters got passed around from church to church so people were being continually reminded in those early days, just like we are continually being reminded now because we forget. And in the same way we get back to the rules. We know our failures. We know we can go to the Father and ask forgiveness but we know our failures. And, so, we live sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. We live feeling as if we don’t keep our act together something bad’s going to happen when that’s simply…at least according to Paul, at least according to Jesus, that’s not how this works. And, so, once again we are reminded of God’s mercy and grace and we need to press forward because of the deep and growing love of the relationship that we have with God. The rules become apparent. There are things we wouldn’t do against our spouse because we love them, and we wouldn’t want to break their heart and we wouldn’t want to cause them pain and suffering. There are things that we wouldn’t or shouldn’t do in our relationship with God for the same reasons because we are committed in a covenantal relationship and in love. Let’s remember that as we head into the end of the week.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You. We thank You that You loved us first. There is nothing we can do. There is nothing we have done to earn that. You have loved us and come for us. And this salvation that we are working out in fear and trembling isn’t about how often we step out of line. It’s about us being aware of what we will not do because we are committed to You, because we are in love with the creator of our souls, with the lover of our souls. So, Holy Spirit come. Make this a reality. May we live into this fully in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here.

Still reeling, not reeling, just still kind of floating from the announcement we made yesterday about China and Ben expecting their first child, their first baby. And the outpouring of love and good wishes and prayers is so encouraging. It’s like a lifting…lifting spirit and we need that. We need…we need our spirits lifted in these days. And, so, thank you for…for that. And thank you for your continued prayers and…and…and just joy we go through this process and through…then through the winter months and into the spring and then as spring brings new life and this spring will bring really new life into our family and so we’re very excited. And thank you. Thank you for your…your love and being a part of life here in community as…as we move forward.

I remind you that the website is home base. And, so, and it’s not very complicated. It’s actually made to be pretty simple.

There’s a Community section, that’s where you can get connected on social media and that’s where the Prayer Wall is. There is a Shop full of resources for the journey through the Bible in a year. And there’s Initiatives, things that are going on around here. So, be…be aware. Check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, I can’t thank you enough because the reality is if we didn’t do this together, we wouldn’t be doing this at all. And, so, so grateful, so humbled that we can take this journey, day by day step-by-step fresh every day moving forward in life together in community. Like this is really happening, we’re really doing this together. And what a joy that is but it wouldn’t happen if we didn’t do it together. So, thank you for your partnership. There’s a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a Give button in the Daily Audio Bible app in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement 877-942-4253 is the number to dial or if you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app…and if you’re not you should…you should be…this is the portal into community, there’s a Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top, No matter where you are in the world you can…I mean that’s sittin’ in your pocket. You got a Hotline, you got a way to reach out at any point when your shouldering things that you just can’t carry anymore or when you’re so full of joy that you just have to tell somebody because that’s community. That’s the friendships that we have forged as we’ve just gone verse by verse page by page, chapter by chapter book by book all the way to here in the Bible. So, you can always reach out there.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello this is Lacey from Cape Cod Massachusetts I’m an elderly woman alone in the world with no family. It’s just me and my precious dog and Jesus and I’ve had some serious serious health issues with my back and I’m severely arthritic but my dear precious dog has been very sick and I beg your prayers that…for healing for her and mercy for me because I just cannot imagine life without her. The loneliness and isolation is just so painful. And before Covid…but now with Covid it’s 10 times worse. She’s my baby and my precious companion and I need her, and I love her. Please pray for mercy. Thank you in Jesus’ name. God bless you all. Thank you. I’ve been listening for over a year…about a year. Bye-bye.

It is September 26^th this is joyful Jay from the Everglades. I just want to say thank you DABbers. Thank you, Brian, Jill, China and all who make this daily campfire happen. I’m a longtime listener and very rare caller. Change is coming. My fear of saying the wrong thing is less than my fear of not being known by a community of believers who live fearlessly in loving each other and want to be known by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Oh Lord to let people in, to let people know me, you know this is my struggle. Thank you for opening my year and opening my heart. Thank you to all of those who call in on a regular basis. Your voices, your accents, the cadence in your speech. This is how I’m getting to know you. I will not know you because I can see you, but I will know you because I know your voice. Your words bring me joy and at times lay a heaviness on my heart. Just hearing the different tones, the tunes of all your voices and songs. I am crying as I listen to people saying they prayers. Hearing the songs, hearing the prayers, hearing the encouragement is nourishing to my spirit, leaving me wanting more of this community and a desire to change and desire to be known by you. Thank you, Lord Jesus. This is JB saying thank you for all of you calling in and setting an example of caring for each other in prayer. Have a great day. Blessings in the Lord Jesus. Bye.

Good morning DAB family this is Dawn of a New Day from California calling to lift up our sister Tammy from Canada. Tammy God has you in the palm of His hand as your reaching out, your crying out, your trusting and believing even in the face of not feeling like you can still hold on and trust God. In the name of Jesus, you will not crack, you will not fold, you will not lose your mind. You will get the best sleep you have ever received ever. And Father we give You praise, we give You glory, and we give You honor right here and right now not just for Tammy’s sweet sleep but for every person that has insomnia for every person that feels as if their sleep deprivation is cracking their life God. We trust You are Lord. We lift this ministry up to You God. We lift up every prayer request. We lift up our sister who was invited by her two brothers who is excited to be a part of our DAB family God. We lift up each and every heart the grows in Your word that loves Your word. We lift up every single person that listens and absolutely believes and trusts You more God. I pray that we will spread this word of this ministry, that we would then learn and grow and serve, believe God that we would reach out and reach in and…and absolutely not give up. We love You like never before, and we thank You now for loving us back. We love you Tammy. Your DAB family is calling out your name and glory not just this day but in all the days to come and we will hear your testimony of your breakthrough and sweet sleep. God bless you sister. Thank you for calling in for the first time. DAB family sew a seed of support today. God bless you all.

Good afternoon DAB family this is Lady of Victory on Monday, the 28^th of September calling in for Jody who called in for prayer for Desiree, a 15-year-old, I believe, who has been diagnosed with cancer that has metastasized to her lungs and other parts of her body. So, we want to lift her up in prayer. God, we thank You, we glorify You, we magnify You because You alone are worthy to be praised. God what a report to have said about someone so Young who is dealing with all that she’s dealing with God. And yet according to Jodi she is not lost for Jesus joy. Some of us have been diagnosed with a lot less God and we have turned our backs on You. And, so, God we thank You for the joy that Desiree has in You in spite of God the diagnosis. Now God our prayer is that You would heal her on this side of every disease God. We recognize that cancer is a name and You said that at the name of Jesus every knee is going to bow. And, so, God we tell cancer to bow in the name of Jesus. God, and we lift her up before You. We ask that a miracle will be performed for Your daughter. God but if that is not Your perfect will for Desiree’s life God it sounds like she’s ready to meet You and to hear those words good and faithful servant well done. And that’s not what we want God while ultimately that’s all of our desires. God but we want her healed on this side, but we also want Your perfect will to be done and established. Comfort the hearts of those around her God who are lifting her up who have to see her suffer. Do it for Your glory.

Hi, DABbers I may first time call inner just started listening to the Daily Audio Bible this January, it is an answer to prayer, truly. I just wanted to call in because after five years of having Ménière’s disease, it’s a…a vestibular disorder a balance disorder, I was able to, little by little, build up an art business but I got very used to working alone, as hard as it was. And since social distancing has occurred, I’m just having a really hard time I find now connecting with people and I’ve always been so gregarious. And there’s so many winds of doctrine out there I…I don’t feel like I fit anywhere anymore. And I…I know that that’s not God’s will for me, that His will is that I live in community but I’m very, very, very confused and I feel very lost and in a real desert place. Not depressed but lonely but yet I feel that there’s this glass around me that I can’t cross over. Also, if you’ll pray for my son. He’s been an addict for 10 years. He’s living in Philly now in a sober home but he’s…he’s using when he can and just so afraid of him dying. God has kept him for 10 years even as a homeless person and he’s had many, many maybe over 40 rehabs. But I really hope that you hold Jesse up in prayer and for his complete deliverance…

Hi family is Purely Pampered of main. I have an answered prayer praise report to call in. Yesterday we helped my son and his fiancée move into a new apartment about an hour away. My future daughter-in-law found a full-time job and today my son started a two-month temporary job. Right before we left their apartment for the last time, I asked them to indulge me and I thanked God for all the wisdom they gained through the challenges they’ve had these past 2 ½ years living there more than I could never go onto and I prayed that as they closed and locked the door they could let go and leave behind all of the pain and look forward to their new beginning. I told them that hundreds of thousands would be rejoicing with them when I called in this praise report. Thanks to each of you prayed for them and thanks to each of you that took the time to call in and pray for them. I won’t list your names, but you know who you are. I so appreciate you. There’s just no explaining how it feels, for others lifting up my family’s needs. Thank you. Please continue to pray for all of us dealing with transgender pansexual and gender spectrum issues in our families. We so need those prayers. I love you family. Bye for now.

Isaiah 62:6-65:25, Philippians 2:19-3:3, Psalms 73:1-28, Proverbs 24:13-14

Today is the 1^st day of October welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you. Welcome to the fourth quarter of the year, three quarters of the year behind us, yeah. It…it’s weird when you just start thinking about it isn’t it? It’s like we crossed through the new year and we got into the new year and then it…well…we went to Israel and then…then we got back from Israel and there was this virus going around the world and things were closing down and…and then it’s just, you know, been a number of things that have dominated the conversation and dominated and even change the way that we do things around the world since then. And, so, now we find ourselves kind of on the home stretch. Three months is a long time so we’ve got a lot of territory to cover in the Bible and quite a bit of territory to cover in our lives but knowing that we are turning into the home stretch gets us…well…starts getting us to think about how we want to finish this year, or it should. We can just go…we can go stumbling like a tumbleweed through into the new year or we can be firmly rooted and planted as we move into the new year. It’s like we say at the beginning of every week, it’s shiny, sparkly, new week, and we get to choose how we’re going to live into it. Well, we have a shiny, sparkly, final quarter of the year and how next year is gonna look is gonna, in part, be dependent on how we live this final quarter of the year. And, so, that's…I mean that should hold some gravity. It’s weighty. It’s not scary. It’s just a reality. The daily choices that we make are gonna…are gonna tell the story of how we end our year. And, so, just being aware of that, knowing that starting something new means…well…is best accomplished by finishing well what we are already doing. And, so, let’s band together brothers and sisters. We’re on the same ship here and let’s finish well in our lives and in the Scriptures. And one other thing, when we’re done with our reading today, I have something to announce, I have something to tell you. And, so, make sure you stay tuned for that. Okay, we got a new month and a new quarter and all that but we’re in the same week that we were in so we’re reading from the Lexham English Bible this week and picking up where we left off yesterday. Isaiah chapter 62 verse 6 through 65 verse 25 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we’ve got a brand-new month and we’ve got a brand-new quarter and it’s the final quarter of the year. So, it’s kind of the home stretch. And we find ourselves in the book of Psalms today seeing a crossroads, something very appropriate with this transition into the new quarter into the new month to consider the crossroads. And we’ve talked about crossroads many times on our journey through the Scriptures this year, especially when it comes to wisdom, when it comes to Proverbs and understanding that wisdom is at every crossroads yelling to all of humanity, “hey this is the way to go. That’s not the way to go.” And it’s always available if we’re paying attention. So, we kinda have a picture of a crossroads today in the book of Psalms. So, Psalm 73 is what we read. And Asaph, he’s not feeling strong. He’…he’s completely down about what he’s seeing. It’s perplexing to him. It's…it's…it’s supremely frustrating. And his frustration, although we are reading this back by thousands of years, his frustrations are still frustrations on the earth today because what he was seeing is, basically that he’s trying to be a righteous person among righteous people but when he looks out across his culture it’s like the evil ones are the ones that are…are rising to the top. It's…it’s like those who are corrupt are the ones who are actually prospering and seem…seemingly having such a very, very nice life. And, so, he’s like, “I was at a precipice”, basically, “I was about to fall off the wagon. I was about to slip. I…I…it almost happened. I almost went overboard. I envied the proud. I saw them prospering and even though they were wicked and I envied them.” And he’s asking himself, “what is it all for. I’m disciplining myself. I’m trying to be righteous. I’m trying to live into a holy life. And its hard and all of the things that could possibly go wrong seem to but I look out and I see people prospering who couldn’t care less about you Lord, couldn’t care less about where this is all going, couldn’t care at all what you might have to say to the…to Earth’s people.” And, so, he says and I’m quoting, “surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence and I have been plagued all day and rebuked every morning. If I had said I will speak with us,” in other words, “if I had been willing to say this out loud in front of people behold, I would’ve acted treacherously against your children’s generation. When I thought about how to understand this it was troubling in my eyes until” and we’ll get back to that in a second because the “until” is the crossroads. So, like we’re probably tracking with what Asaph is saying here. We probably have felt that way in one way or another. We may feel that way continually right now going through the year and the seasons that we’re going through. The thing to understand is that we’re at a crossroads. Life always brings us to a crossroads and life brought Asaph to a crossroads. So, he’s like, “when I thought about how to understand what I’m seeing it was troubling to even try to understand until”, the crossroads, “until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their fate.” So, what we see is Asaph being honest in his human perception. He’s not…there’s like no sugar coating to what he’s saying. He’s crying out. He doesn’t understand. It doesn’t make sense. And, so, rather than just going on a bender and some sort of way like, just going, “forget it. I’m not being righteous anymore. These guys have the easy way. I’m going the easy path.” He…he didn’t do that. He went into the presence of God instead. And in the presence of God he was reoriented in the way that he was looking at things, right? Because he went into the presence of God and the world didn’t change when he left the sanctuary. Like it was all the same thing. It was his perspective, the way that he saw, the way that he had eyes to see and ears to hear that it changed. And what he realized was there is more going on than I understand, which is something that we learned so clearly in the book of Job, but it’s something that we learned so clearly in so many of the stories of the Bible. What he began to realize with this was that the foundation that the wicked had built their lives upon was frivolous and wasn’t a foundation at all and had no eternal value and was nothing in the grand scheme of things, that their security, although they might’ve felt secure wasn’t gonna help them at all. In light of eternity they were completely exposed and completely unprotected. And one of the ways that the lights went on for Asaph, like one of the ways that he got eyes to see was that it wasn’t about other people prospering and him not. It was about his envy of what they had that he longed for that he didn’t have, which led him into the tornado of comparison that was spinning him around so that he couldn’t see up from down anymore. But once he got his feet back on the ground in the presence of God, he could see how he was behaving and confess. And I’m quoting, “when my heart was embittered, and I felt stabbed in my kidneys then I was brutish and ignorant. With you I was like the beasts”, right? was acting like an animal. Once he had gotten reoriented he was able to see. He was able to see clearly what was really happening. And he said, “I’m continually with you. You have hold of my right hand. You will guide me with your advice and afterward you will take me into honor. Who do I have in the heavens, except you? And with you I have no other desire on earth,” right? There it is. He’s made the choice at the crossroads. The envy has been released. “With you I have no other desire on earth. My flesh and heart failed but God is the strength of my heart and my reward forever.” A beautiful picture of repentance. And repentance as we’ve talked about so many times, like it  sounds religious and it sounds hard but it’s changing your mind. It’s like just opening your eyes and seeing things clearly and going, “ahh…I was looking at this wrong and changing your mind and moving in a different direction. That is repentance and that’s what we see here. Asaph had first of all, noticed some discrepancies, some inequities that were bothering him. He was watching people prosper that he felt like they shouldn’t because they don’t honor God in any way. And yet God’s people are here still slogging along any he becomes envious, which is poison to the soul. And once envy and comparison get inside of us, kind of all bets are off, right? Have we not had the same experience? Like, once you go there all you can do is come up short or if you’re doing better and you’re making comparisons to people who are doing worse than you then all you can do is become proud, which is disaster in the making, as we know. And, so, to come back into God’s presence, say the truth, say what it looks like and then be humble before God knowing, “I don’t know all there is to know and I am certainly not looking at the big picture. I am looking at the little picture. The big picture is that I am a child of the most-high God. I am a joint heir with Jesus to the kingdom of God. I’m not lacking here. I don’t have to be better than anybody else. All I need is God’s presence.

Prayer:

Father, that leads us into this new month and thank You for that. We need it badly, badly. And, so, Holy Spirit we invite You to plant it deeply in our lives in the soil of our hearts. We need You. God, we need You. You are all that we need. When we are in Your presence and we are aware of it we realize we lack nothing. We have all that we need. We are going in the right direction. We are going somewhere good and we love You and we trust You and we invite Your Holy Spirit to continually bring this back to mind, that we might continually reorient ourselves to You by repenting. When we find our feet are about to slip and we’re about to go off the deep end we run do You. Come Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and it’s where the Global Campfire lives. It’s where we gather in community. It’s home for us.

And I was mentioning yesterday that there’s something to tell you today. And I mentioned earlier before we started reading theirs something to tell you today. And there’s something to tell you today. And I’m telling it with the utmost joy. And I can also tell you that, joy has been in short supply this year, at least for me, maybe for you too, well I know for lots of you too. So, when you get a little something that’s full, just full, seeping, dripping with joy it's…you just want to share it. And, so, I want to tell you this. I guess it was a few weeks ago that we made a discovery, or a discovery was revealed to us and that is this. I don’t even know how…I’ve never actually ever said this before. Jill and myself, we have a daughter. Her name is China and you probably know that, and she’s married and her son-in-law, his name is Ben and they have informed us…you see where this is going? They have informed us that they will be having a baby, yeah, this coming spring, spring of 2021, April of 2021, we are expecting the newest addition. And man, it is such a bright spot. Like when I’m feeling overwhelmed or just bowled over, just to remember there’s a new one coming, a new little baby coming brings so much joy. So, they let us know a couple weeks ago and we had to keep it all under wraps because China is announcing this on Daily Audio Bible Chronological and social media and all of her friends and etc. etc. etc. today. So, I had to wait until today to let you know. But is this exciting or what? I have been wanting to tell for…well…I’ve wanted to tell since the next day after I found out. But here we are, and I get to say it. China that are pregnant. We are so excited. Thank you for your prayers over them. over China. She’s never done this before. It’s a brand-new thing but she glows. She glows…she…they are so happy. We are so happy for them. We were having dinner and she just kind of blurted it out…like it was so nonchalant that I had to…we just stopped and said, “wait. What…what are you talking about?” So, we had to make all the plans, let the rest of the family know and how this is gonna all rollout. Max found out and he’s like, “dude, you impregnated my sister.” And it’s been a really, really, really bright spot in a pretty challenging year. Wouldn’t…wouldn’t you say it’s been…I mean…I know it’s been challenging for just about everybody. So, new life, new life is coming. And I’ve been then thinking about the day that I would announce this since China was like a little girl. And, so, here it is. China, our little sweet baby girl has went and grown up and went find her…found herself a spouse, and now…now they’re beginning their own family and we are rejoicing and there’s really nothing else I could say today to top that. So, I’m just gonn let that stay right here and maybe we can all be lifted and maybe we can all rejoice and pray a prayer of blessing over them. In fact, let’s just end that way today.

Father thank You. Thank You for what You have created in making a community like this one, such a diverse community all over the world. Such a strange new invention, that we could be alive to be a part of this moving through the Bible together in community. And we have gotten to know each other and we have gotten to know so many stories over the course of the year but over the course of all of the years, so many stories so many miles so much joy and so much shouldering of burdens but today is a happy day. And, so, we thank You for China and we thank You for her contribution to the Daily Audio Bible all of these years and all those words and all of those verses all of those times through the Scriptures, and now it comes time for her and Ben to begin a family of their own and we are certainly gushing and we are certainly overjoyed, but we know that You are too, that You’ve been looking forward to this and we are looking forward to this. And, so, we pray blessing over them as they move through this pregnancy as they…as they continue to understand the transition that becoming a parent will be as they begin to live into that as they begin to settle into this idea that new life is coming and we bless them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And we pray these things in the beautiful name of the risen Christ. Amen.

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

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello this is Cheryl from Ontario I just started listening to the DAB earlier this year and I have called in before a couple times, but I especially want to express my appreciation for this podcast and community. I love the way Brian reads the Scriptures slowly and meaningfully and hearing all those who call in. I pray for the requests and rejoice with answered prayers and enjoy hearing those with encouraging words. God is at work and God is so good and gracious. Just to mention a few people. Maria, missionary in Mexico who called in for her coworker Barbara with a tumor. I’m praying for her but I also wanted to…I was also reminded to pray for you and your husband as a missionary pilot because I have known firsthand the blessing and benefits of this ministry and how challenging and stressful it can be. Also, someone had mentioned the groups struggling with addictions. I would like to mention a couple other groups that are struggling as well, those in nursing home facilities who don’t have the usual visitors or programs. I used to go in twice a month to do music programs and I know how important it was to them and it’s hard on families that can’t visit so easily and freely. The other group are those with mental illnesses or the development play challenge for handicapped who depend on social gatherings and activities. I know a few of these folks were really having a hard time. There are others I’d like to mention but my time is about up, so I just want to say for now blessings on you all.

Good morning family I hope you are well it’s Monday it’s a rainy Monday but that’s all right it’s going to be a good Monday because God’s got us. I was listening today…I’m caught up. That’s a “yay! Praise you Jesus!” I’m caught up. And, so, and Brian you’re just your killing it friend. Like this whole idea of maturing. Like the moment I try to point to someone else and say you need to be doing this or why are you doing that, or you need to believe in this. I need to look at the mirror and I need to mature. Wow. That floored me. And then yesterday at church there was a woman who sang and I’m not gonna sing for you, but I will read it to you, and I think that it goes with what Brian has been telling us. I need you you need me where all a part of God’s body. Stand with me agree with me where all a part of God’s body. It is His will that every knee…need should be supplied. You are important to me I need you to survive. You are important to me I need you to survive. I pray for you you pray for me I love you I need you to survive. It goes on to talk about I won’t harm you with words from my mouth. That song is just so beautiful, and I encourage you to go listen to it today. But above all let’s look in the mirror. Let’s tell each other we need each other. But above all let’s point our hearts and minds up to God and say we need you to survive. All right family make it a great week you are loved and appreciated. Peace.

Hello, DABbers this is Duncan the piano man from Fredericksburg Texas. As I make this recording it is September 28^th. On October 2^nd we will have marked the first anniversary of the date my wife Sharon went to be with the Lord after 43 years and two months of marriage. That was last year at 8:52 in the evening Central Daylight Time. I want to mark that date not with just sitting here and grieving which I will do but I will also want to mark that date with some sort of celebration of life, of her life just as I did for my anniversary. I’m asking prayer for me, yes for me as I observed that date. I hope to take a very of very, very pleasant and dear friends to a favorite restaurant that Sharon and I would often visit after church for lunch or after…some other time just on a whim. And I’m gonna just do that Friday if nothing else. So, I’m asking you to pray for me. Also, I’ve been very thankful for hospice. They have…the grief counselor has been super but now I’m going to a seminar or weekly support thing at our church now called grief share and so far, I’ve been very impressed. I don’t like pad answers that quote the…quote the Bible ala King James or some other translation and…and say yada yada yada that’s it, as if they don’t really know because they don’t. I like it, I like to work through it and that’s the way it is. Thank you very much. God bless you and any of you who are grieving you got my back too and I have yours, I hope.

Hello, DABbers I’m here with Ben and Hock and we heard the prayer request for Bryson and Desiree and we are praying for them and we know that Jesus can do all things. He can heal both of them. And for Bryson we just pray Lord that you will let him not feel embarrassed about his teeth, that you’ll take away the pain, that he’ll just be filled with joy and the friends and family that he has will just make him happy and that he won’t, you know, feel sad about his teeth and that they will grow back in and be perfect and beautiful and that his body will be healthy and strong. And for Desiree we pray the same thing, that she would just be completely healed, cancer be gone in Jesus’ name because God has all power and is able to do all things and we believe that, right guys? Yeah. And, so, we just wanted to say that we are praying and thank you for putting out those requests so that we can pray and we’re praising God for what he’s going to do and we look forward to hearing the praise reports. And here’s the scripture that I read this morning, “the young lions do grow tired and hungry but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” So, I’m sharing that with you and everyone. Enjoy your day. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Hey guys I just wanted to call in in regards to the prayer request from Janice from Arizona for Desiree who has cancer all over her body and had to amputate her legs when she was younger. And man I just…really…really made me sad and I just want to pray for her and just want to, yeah, lift her up to the Lord. Father God I just want to pray for Desiree Lord. I pray that You would heal her, that You would remove all the tumors, all the cancer cells in a miraculous way in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. God encourage her, continue to just give her the joy that only comes from You. Surround her with the body of Christ to encourage her to look to things that are not seen, the joy that time is not seen when we have suffering all around us, the joy that is in You. So, God I just pray for full healing, for full healing Lord and let it be a glorious…glorious day for You Lord. Let Your name be glorified through all this. God I just pray for everyone that calls in about cancer. I pray that You would bring healing. In Jesus’ name I pray in Your powerful name Lord bring this healing I pray this in Your name Jesus. Amen. And guys I continue to ask for prayers for my wife who also has cancer. Pray for a…a miraculous healing from the Lord Jesus. Thank you all. Bye. And this is Sonny from Florida.

This is the __ calling from Israel I’m enjoying listening to the Scriptures in reading along with Brian on 28 September 2020. It’s Yon Kippur the day of atonement and I wanted to share and encourage DAB listeners of how Ephesians 6 helped me see the light and is my life Scripture, but I always come back to and stand on. I was saved from living in a very dark and sinister life of drugs and sex and witchcraft. Ephesians 6 was the chapter that showed me that I was not struggling against people but the stratagems of Satan, the darkness and spiritual forces of wickedness. I had to put on the armor of God the belt of truth the breast prayed of righteousness the shoes of the gospel of peace holding the shield of faith to extinguish the evil that is coming against me putting on the helmet of salvation to protect my mind and lifting the sword of the Spirit to let God’s word accomplish that which it was sent to do. As I was praying with close friends the other day, I realized that all the attacks my family’s currently experiencing are not with flesh and blood but spiritual wickedness. Getting out a bottle of oil I began anointing my house the doors and gates and in a loud voice commanded the devil to get out of my home and leave my family alone in Yeshua’s name. I then proceeded to slam the door feeling a lift in the spirit and a sense of freedom. So, I pray for all the DAB listeners who are struggling with the confusion of who they are fighting against. I pray that you will become strong in the Lord and in the might of His strength to outwit the enemy and that you will be filled with the Spirit of God so He can help you stand strong fighting through this journey we call life. Hallelujah.

Isaiah 60:1-62:5, Philippians 1:27-2:18, Psalms 72:1-20, Proverbs 24:11-12

Today is the 30^th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you as we cross through the center of a week together and bring to the conclusion another one of our months together. Today is the final day of the third quarter of the year. Ahh man…that’s where we are. One quarter of the year to go after this and I pray that it’s glorious in all of our lives. But let’s dive in and finish this quarter well, finish this month well. We’re reading from the Lexham English Bible this week. Isaiah chapter 60 verse 1 through 62 verse 5.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we end a month and a quarter, we find ourselves in the book of Philippians, and Paul is speaking to his readers and essentially…well…first of all, telling them what he’s told everybody in his letters, “this is all going somewhere. Everything is happening for a purpose. We are headed somewhere good.” And then he invites them to get on the same page so that they can all go where this “somewhere good” is going. And, so, he tells them, “having the same love, united in spirit, having one purpose, do nothing according to selfish ambition or according to empty conceit, but in humility considering one another better than yourselves each of you not looking out for your own interests, but also each of you for the interests of others.” And it would be easy enough for us to say, “well…I mean that’s kind of part of the Christian faith. That’s the posture. That’s…we all know that.” Well we…we have to live that though. Like, it doesn’t matter if we know it know it but don’t live it or do it. What’s the point? Well for Paul it's…it’s important to get on that same page because that’s the Jesus page. Like that’s the page we’re trying to get on. And, so, he says, “look, basically, look at Jesus. What I’m telling you is what He did. He was God”…well…I’ll just quote it…”who existing in the form of God did not consider being equal with God something to be grasped.” That right there is saying a mouthful, “but He emptied Himself by taking the form of a slave, by becoming in the likeness of people. And being found in the appearance like a man He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore”, and it’s because of this obedience that Paul is saying this, “therefore God exalted Him and graciously granted Him the name above every other name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, of those on earth, of those under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.” That’s where this is all going, and we go there, we follow that path, that narrow path that leads to life by becoming imitators of Christ. That’s a page we all need to be on. And Paul gives some words to what that looks like. And even as I was reading it just a minute ago, I was like, “wow, right here as we’re gonna go into the final quarter of the year, and it’s gonna be a roller coaster of a quarter of a year, it always is. It’s the fourth quarter of the year. So, it’s like major holidays like Christmas in the next quarter of the year, but there’s also domestic things here in the United States, like an election in the next quarter of the year. And that’s always fun. You know, it’s popcorn eating fun.” And, so, Paul’s words to the Philippians really ring true in the season that we are in. And, so, I quote Paul as…as we end our time together today. “Do all things without grumbling and disputing in order that you may become blameless and innocent, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine as stars in the world, holding fast to the word of life.” I don’t know, could there be any better advice for going into this next season of our lives, this next season of the year, and this next season in the Scriptures?

Prayer:

Father we thank You. You remind us, always, You are continually bringing us back and orienting us to You and it happens almost every day because we need it. It’s crushing here in the swirl of everything that…that happens. It’s confusing here when we try to navigate on our own. It’s confusing here when we try to play by the rules of the cultures that we live in and its hard. And yet You are with us and it becomes less difficult when we step back and let go realizing You are the sovereign Lord and we are Your children and we are going somewhere good and it doesn’t matter what things look like at the moment, ultimately we are going somewhere good with You and we can access that spiritually now. We can live into that now. This isn’t something we have to wait for it’s something that we are transformed into and we are in process. And some days, we are more of a failure than a success and other days we are more of a success than a failure. And typically, that is very very much tied to how much we are paying attention, how much we are aware of Your presence and guidance in our lives. So, we confess we need You now more than we have ever needed You before and we need to pay attention and stay awake now more than we have ever had to before. You are inviting us into maturity. This…this season we’ve been in, this year that we’ve been in, it’s been a bit of a crucible, is refining us. We’re fighting to get through it as fast as we possibly can, but it is a refining time and You are purifying us and preparing us for what is yet out in front of us. And, so, we embrace that. We embrace it by stepping back, letting go of all the control mechanisms that we are trying to leverage to make life work. It just doesn’t work without You. And all we need is to be in Your presence and aware of it. And, so, that is the goal. That is the goal of this next quarter of the year, to be awake, to be alert, to stay completely aware of Your presence and Your guidance in our lives. Come Holy Spirit into that we pay. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here. Of course, if you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you kind of have that in your pocket. You can find out what’s going on around here on the app as well. And one thing that I can tell you that’s going on that I can’t really tell you. What I can tell you is this. Tomorrow I’m going to tell you something that’s going on around here and I even think you might want to know about it being a community like we are and all and I can’t tell you today. I have to tell you tomorrow. It’s a very specific thing. So…so, stay tuned until tomorrow. But while you’re waiting for all of that just be aware of all the things that are available at the website – the Daily Audio Bible Shop, the different resources that are there for our journey through the Bible in a year to just…to encourage, to enlighten, to deepen, to widen and just to bring joy into the journey as we make our way through the Bible. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com as well. There’s a link that just kinda lives on the homepage. 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, you can just hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top 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 next month, which will be tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello Daily Audio Bible family I…I’m baking birthday cakes for my two grandchildren who were born a day apart and I’m listening to the prayer line and I’m just so grateful to God for the Daily Audio Bible, for Brian Hardin, for the way that he has been obedient to God’s calling on his life and all of the support and the beauty that his wife Jill has brought into women’s lives also and China, listening as a double DABber all the wisdom that she imparts every day and just the peace and love and beauty of her life that she…she speaks about. But it’s all of the voices on this prayer line that have healed me so greatly. And I want to thank Radiant Rachel. So, I’m sitting here making these cakes and I am kind of murmuring and complaining and grumpy at my husband because we had a friend show up at the door the other night with no mask on, no call ahead. And my husband goes…he says that the door…Ken you better not have COVID and then walks right out and starts talking to him. Meanwhile I’m thinking, what is going on? But this is the way our lives show up. And, so, all night long I spent frustrated at him and now this morning we prayed, and God is going to use it to break my husband free of the need to please people. And, so, I…I know God’s greater than the COVID, but God gave us a brain to use as well. He gave us His Spirit of wisdom so we gotta be wise as well. So, thank You God for your love. Thank You, Father God for people like radiant Rachel who call up and encourage us and bless us sometimes with our own words. How humbling is that? So, thank You Lord for Your love Your mercy and Your kindness and I lift each one of us up…up and pray that You would give us that spirit of encouragement and help us speak words of life and light into each other. In Jesus’ name.

Disappointments are many and sometimes they hurt quite a lot
and with time the pain may lessen but forgotten they’re not
because they’re based on dreams and fantasies that we create in our own mind
visions of what we believe will make everything just fine
but then disappointment enters in and we get shaken to the core
A shot of reality that’s impossible to ignore
we don’t get what we wanted but we lose what we’ve gotten
either way the dream is shattered and the future starts to look rotten
but sometimes we push on any way and stubbornly persist
trying to bend realities to our wills with the strength of our own fists
refusing to submit refusing to bow refusing to even entertain the possibility that the disappointment just might be a blessing somehow
because God said that all things will work out for our good when we stay focused on him
even through disappointments when the future looks grim
and God you also said you keep in perfect peace the mind stayed on you
so help us to truly live into those words stand both faithful and true
and help us to grow to the point where we can honestly say not my will father but thy will be done
and to fully rule us and accept it that it’s you and not us that should always be number one
for you said that every knee would bow and every tongue would eventually confess that it is only your grace and mercy that allows us to be so abundantly blessed
so help us to stay humble totally trusting in you
knowing that your words are both faithful and true
so that when disappointments come as often they will
we’ll have the strength and good sense to just hold on and be still

Hey, my brothers and sisters this is the Prodigal calling in. I’d like to take this time to thank Brian and his family for all the sacrifices and everything that they’ve done to be here today. I’ve been a rodeo clown at this rodeo for 15 years now and the changes have been amazing from iTunes reviews that said he had a creepy voice to where we could be lost without his voice every day, without our shepherd. It’s him. His service crash, just amazing stuff. His initiatives, the Wind Farm Café and all that sort of stuff that many of you new people don’t know. But Brian’s been trying everything God has sent him to help grow this community and resource this community. And, so, I’m grateful to have participated along the way and made friends, virtual friends anyway, along the way. And it’s so amazing. We had people who needed kidney replacements, Robert I think is name was. We had crazy Natasha from New York. We had I remember Tony first home, Blind Tony’s first poem. I remember when Slave of Jesus showed up on the scene and remember what a powerful prayer warrior Sinner was. He disappeared again. So, come back my friend. You were in inspiration to us all. I remember Biola’s first call. The memories along the way. Going to Israel Brian. I remember his…his trip to Rwanda. I remember the…the container…the shipping container he made into a school over in Africa. Just everything. God has…has just been divinely guiding him. And, so, if it weren’t for Brian we wouldn’t be here. And if you’re here it’s because you’re meant to be here, and you’re meant to listen to Brian’s word and get out of it every day. I’ve been getting different stuff every day for 15 years. And the Bible didn’t change, I changed. And that’s a beautiful thing. So, praying for you all. Praying for Brian and his family. And thankful for, incredibly thankful for all the gifts we been given. So, pray on and warrior on and you make it a great day. God bless.

Dear God, I want to lift up those who are having anxiety. I pray for the two anonymous callers who called in from Michigan who are just anxious about what’s going on in the world right now for safety for finances for their future. I pray for Drew who put in a prayer request to be able to trust people and for healing in his ear. He’s looking to have more people in his life but he’s having trouble trusting people. So, I just pray that the anxiety will go away. I pray for James the mighty warrior from Texas who is praying to stay on the path and Pelham who is praying for strength to stay on the path. I just pray that You will lift these people up and fill them with Your Holy Spirit so that they can reflect Your grace and Your mercy and Your love in their lives. I want to pray for those who are feeling overwhelmed right now. Please help us to stay prioritized to be able to filter through to get to what really needs to be done and not to worry about the rest. That everything that needs doing will get done in Your time Lord and that if we just give it to You that You will help to keep our eyes on You and to put You first in our lives. I also pray that You will just protect us from being guided in the wrong direction through things like the media. I pray for that little girl. Her mom called in and she’s being pulled in different directions through other family members and social media. I just pray that we will be a little filter in Your name. Amen.

Hello my Daily Audio Bible family I just listened…today’s Sunday 27^th of September and I just listened to a recording from Tammy and Canada. Tammy you were talking about how you couldn’t…all the sudden you can’t sleep and your mental health is…is at stake physical health is…is at stake. I just cannot begin to imagine what you’re going through because I know when I don’t sleep properly for just one night the next day I feel like a zombie. So, to imagine you’ve been going through this for over a month now its…its worrying to be honest. And I really…I pray the good Lord will lift…will hold you in his arms. I lift you up and ask the good Lord to please quiet your heart and whatever it is that is causing this to please take it away and give you peace. And, yeah, I know you’re hanging in there and I know it’s difficult but I want you to please not give up. Keep fighting because it’s a battle. Keep fighting. And if you if you do want to talk to someone you can reach me lucia_obi@hereho.co.uk and I would love to speak to you or to at least chat with you. I’m calling from the UK and I pray that the God Lord be with you. God bless you my dear.

Hello, DABbers this message is for James the mighty warrior. I heard your message this morning and it just makes me so happy to hear that there’s someone like you out there so joyful and a DABber in Texas that I never knew about. You make it feel like family James and because of you I put away my fear of calling in and just said, you know what Lord I’m gonna pray for James because you give me love for him. And, so, you asked for prayer James and I want to pray and encourage you to trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. So, it’s already answered for your brother. You are mighty warrior and I’m your sister out here in Arizona. I love you and I love you all DABbers. Bless you.

Isaiah 57:15-59:21, Philippians 1:1-26, Psalms 71:1-24, Proverbs 24:9-10

Today is the 29^th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we continue the journey, the voyage that we embarked on so many days ago, 200…I don’t know…270 something days ago we started our journey and here we are moving forward through one of the strangest years we’ve ever experienced in the rhythm of the Scriptures and our lives. It’s been such a gift to have in our lives. It’s been such a gift to have each other to take this journey with. So, we’re reading from the Lexham English Bible this week and we’ll pick up where we left off in Isaiah. And then when we get to the New Testament, we’ve got a new letter from the apostle Paul. It’s known as Philippians and we’ll talk about that when we get there. But first Isaiah chapter 57 verse 15 through 59 verse 21.

Introduction to the book of Philippians:

Okay. This leads us to the letter to the Philippians, although of note…and I don’t usually like talk right here in the middle but the we see yesterday we…we read as we were closing, Ephesians about putting on the whole armor of God and we see the inspiration for this in Isaiah today. But anyway, let’s move forward. Philippians. So, there’s…there’s very little debate among biblical scholars about whether Paul wrote Philippians, and there’s really not a lot of debate about sort of the circumstances behind Philippians, what ill Paul’s circumstances where. He was incarcerated. He was in Rome. He had appealed to the Emperor and he was awaiting trial. So, as Paul writes this, he is imprisoned. And the letters that he writes from…from…from incarceration are known as his prison letters, right, his prison epistles. We should also note that Philippians, as well as all of Paul’s letters, that these are some of the earliest, and in some cases, the earliest Christian writings, documents, that still exist. So, this letter that we’re going to read, even though we’re well into our year, this letter is earlier than the New Testament for sure. It became part of the New Testament. But there was no New Testament for this letter to be added to. This is a letter that predates the Gospels, predates the book of Acts. All of that stuff came a little later. And, so, this letter is roughly, couple, three decades after the life of Jesus, His earthly life and ministry. And Philippi itself, this is a Roman colony in the region of Macedonia, which is northern Greece today. And it was a prosperous city but the church that was founded there, they weren’t particularly powerful or wealthy or influential. What we’ll find is that they are rich in love and their rich in their concern about Paul who had come to them and brought the Good News. And, so, part of Paul writing this letter is just to encourage them and thank them because they’ve encouraged him. So, basically when the church in Philippi found out that Paul was in prison they sent a man named Epaphroditus, who was part of their congregation, to Rome to bring…to bring a gift, but also to bring the gift of love, like to lift his spirits and to find out how he’s doing and to bring word back. And of course, Paul being imprisoned in Rome, receiving a visitor, like a friendly face, you can only imagine the joy and the comfort and peace that that would bring. And, so, Epaphroditus stays with Paul while he’s in prison kind of trying to help care for his needs and just…just be there for him. But while he was in Rome with Paul, he became deathly ill and in fact, we’ll find out in the letter, like nearly died. And, so, when he recovered and was restored to health Paul was…was determined to send back Philippi and he carried this letter back to Philippi with him. And it shares of the circumstances and it’s meant to be…it’s meant to be encouraging. It…it’s meant to lift up those that read it. And as we’ve mentioned before, these letters, these letters…like we’re actually reading these letters as they were originally read. They weren’t silently read. Like you didn’t go to church, and you know to congregation one day and there are Xerox copies of a letter that had just come in and everybody gets a copy and then they just sit there and silently read. That’s not how letters worked. So, the letter would’ve been recited. It would have been read aloud before the congregation as if the reader were Paul. And in some of Paul’s letters, we even hear him saying, “although I’m not with you present…like I’m not physically with you, I’m with you in Spirit.” Those are in the letters, and those are supposed to be read aloud, like “I’m with you in spirit” that people took that to heart. Not literally like there’s some kind of a metaphysical thing going on here. More like the spirit of Paul, like what Paul is trying to convey, somebody else’s voice is being used but these are the words that are actually being said. The spirit of what’s being said is from the spirit of Paul. And what we see that he’s trying to convey, like what his spirit is trying to say to them is encouraging, is to lift them. Even though he’s in chains, even though persecution and marginalization is beginning to occur he wants to talk about the joy of salvation. And we’ll see that he wants to talk about perseverance, which we won’t be able to escape as we move forward. The idea of endurance as a necessary component of the Christian life is impossible to avoid as we move forward into the New Testament. So, like it's…it’s been crazy out there. Like I know you guys have noticed. It’s been a crazy year. It’s been crazy. And it’s still kind of crazy…like it’s still crazy if we’re just being honest. This has been a very disruptive year. Just a lot of uncertainty and a lot of divisiveness. And that’s only gonna amp up here, especially in the United States since we have an election year. So, it is kind of a crazy year with a lot of disruption. And, so, Philippians kind of comes in right now when we need it most, with joy and encouragement, I mean, with lots of things, but fundamentally, with words of encouragement and perseverance. And, so, we begin. Philippians, chapter 1.

Prayer:

Father we thank You for Your word. We love You Lord. We just…we’re continually thanking You for the gift of each other and the gift of Your word and we are grateful every day, but we worship You. We just take a moment to worship You. And it’s because of who You are, but the benefits that are bestowed upon us that we cannot get any other way that are just gifted to us when we reach out to You in faith, is unspeakable. It’s good news. And, so, we are grateful. We love You and we thank You. And as we move through Philippians, we invite Your Holy Spirit to bring words of encouragement into a very discouraging time. Come Holy Spirit and lead and guide us. May we put on the full armor on a daily basis knowing that we are equipped, that nothing can get to us, nothing can get to our spirits to destroy the union that we have with You, nothing can access that spot, that place unless we allow it. And we don’t. We declare it. Nothing is getting between You and us. You have never left. You have always, always been there for us. We confess we have come and gone more times than we could possibly count. But there’s nothing getting between us now. We need You now more than ever and we thank You for the opportunity for…for the odd circumstances that surround us to make us aware of our utter dependence upon You. And, so, we rest in that. We get to depend on You. We are fortunate. We have a rock and a redeemer. And, so, we rest in You. Lead us forward we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, it’s where the Global Campfire is, it's…it’s where we gather, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here, its where we get connected. So, let’s do just that and stay connected on our journey as we continue forward.

The Community section will be a great place to start. That’s where the Prayer Wall is and different links to different social media channels that we are on. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you, first of all. Thank you, humbly and gratefully. This mission that we started so long ago to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day for anybody who would listen to it has grown into this community that we now have and the Global Campfire that we come around every day and that has happened because we’ve done this together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible 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, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top in the app 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 DABbers today is Friday, September 25^th this is Lelah from Virginia. I’m a 9 or 10 year listener but first-time caller. I don’t often listen to the prayer requests but this morning I did, and I know God kept me on the program to hear the heart of Denise from North Carolina. Denise I too am in a 3- year marriage with no intimacy. I suffer greatly as you are suffering now, longing for connection to the one I love. Being lonely in a house full of people is so a very hard to endure. I am praying for you sister. Praying that your heart would be totally enveloped with the love of God for you, praying that you would not be jealous of your friends who have these seemingly perfect soulmates as spouses. My ability to endure and have peace about the situation came when I recognized that my desire for my marriage to be more had become an idol to me. I desired that more than I want to God. I was able to let it go and became satisfied with the companionship. It’s still not easy but it’s so much less painful. I’m praying for peace for you. The situation may never change but God will never change, and He loves you. Sink into His love dear sister. Cry in His arms. He is there for you. You are not alone. You have never been alone. I love you. I love all of you DABbers. Thank you for being such an important part of my life. Thank you, Jill, Brian, China and the rest of your family. May God bless you all richly. Thank you.

Good morning fellow DABbers Joe the protector from Georgia it’s Friday, Friday, September 25^th 7:54 in the morning. Just got finished listening to the DAB and I heard Pelham from Alabama call in and state how he wanted to start a new…a new part of his life by calling in for others and encouraging them. And, I don’t that is much as I need to or should. But Terry the trucker did call in the other day. Terry you’ve been a part of this community for a while and we should all be encouraging you. But I can remember just a couple years ago you called in when you had your accident. And brother, you know, I know you’re away from your family do to the COVID but you’ve been through worse, you know. If I remember correctly, you told us that…that you almost or could have died from that accident and you went down an embankment if I recall correctly. So, you know, you’ve been through a lot and the Lord’s still with you. He hasn’t a left you. And just consult Him as we all know we should at all times. Alright fellow DABbers you all have a blessed and wonderful day. See y’all.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Preston from Sunnyvale California today is September 25^th. I want to lift up today the people of Dubai or at least the people working there. Seems like we’ve been getting a few prayer requests from different people whose job situations seem to be in somewhat a challenging situation. So, I’d like to pray for them. Dear Father, we thank You for those of us who are called to work in foreign countries. We thank You for those of us who make the choice to live and work in places that are not their home. Father we love You and we thank You for calling us to…to…to be in those places Father. We ask that for those individuals who have called in, that You would make their work situations viable, that You would make those work situations…just smooth out those paths where they are crooked and make it so that they can continue to live and work and prosper in where they are. Father we love You and we thank You for sending Your son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins. We thank You that You sent the Holy Spirit to be our helper in these difficult times and we just ask that Your Holy Spirit make…make Dubai a hospitable place for these individuals who have called in. In Your precious name Jesus.

Hello, I just want to ask everybody to pray with me for Denise who called in from the Carolinas seeking intimacy with her husband. And Father we lift up Denise to You and her husband and we ask Lord that You would bless them with a battery relationship Lord God. We ask Lord God that by Your Holy Spirit You would move in each one of their lives and bring them together, knit their hearts together, knit their love life together Lord and bless them and their marriage Father in the name of Jesus. Denise is a believer looking to You and crying out to You and we thank You Father for moving in that situation in Jesus’ name. And if it would be good for them to go to counseling Lord God we ask that You would put that desire in their heart and lead them and guide them and direct them to a good godly counselor and we thank You for doing that Father. Thank You for Denise. Thank You Lord that everything is important to You, every need we have is important to You and that is an important thing that she is believing for You to work in. And we thank You for doing that work, for Your glory in the name of Jesus.

Well hello again fellow DABbers this is James the Mighty Warrior. I called in a couple of days ago. I really just was more or less edifying, exhorting the DABbers and expressing my regards for this….for this…for this family but I do have something to pray about this time and I’d like for you guys to pray with me. Actually, my wife and I, we’ve been separated for about two years and I hadn’t heard or seen her but maybe once or twice since then and it was very, very brief. But I called a friend of mine today and he told me that she had called his wife and explained to her that she had met some guy from O wherever and she’s going to be get married and she’s going to be filing for a divorce and all of that kind of stuff. But it’s so…it’s like a coincidence because over the last three weeks I’ve been dreaming about her, seeing her in visions and things like that. And, so, the Lord laid on my heart to fast and pray for her today and I did and I got on messenger and I hadn’t heard from my friend in a long time but anyway he told me that, you know, what had transpired. She had talked to his wife and she told em that we’re getting divorced and all this. So, guys, I just ask you all the pray for me, with me, that we could get the mind of God on this thing. I really don’t want a divorce even though we haven’t been around each other in about two years because I just don’t want another divorce, you know, for whatever reason. And I believe God is into reconciliation…

Hello this is the first time I’ve ever called. I’m Melissa from Louisiana. I was calling…I wanted to pray…I have a prayer request of my own. I’ve had multiple eye diseases for the last 20 years. About 18, 19 surgeries in both eyes. Last month I had a macular hole repair in the left eye but the doctor says that the right eye his family, my pressures a 4. It’s because the capillaries keep bleeding into the eye and it’s…it’s been inflamed for 10 years. I’ve been using steroids and it is not responding to the steroids. So, the inflammations causing everything from the macular…the eye is failing. So, I just…I believe in the Lord and I need everybody’s faith to help carry me to a miracle. I am believing for an absolute miracle, that the Lord will heal my eyes so I can see out of this eye, so it doesn’t hurt when I blink or move from left to right. So, there’s just a lot of pain and issues in this right eye and I just pray for a miracle in Jesus’ name. Thank you, DABbers.

Isaiah 54:1-57:14, Ephesians 6:1-24, Psalms 70:1-5, Proverbs 24:8

Today is the 28^th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we…as we move into our work week and work our way through the final days of this month. We’re reading from the Lexham English Bible this week and we’ll do what we do every day, we’ll pick up where we left off. In the Old Testament, that would be Isaiah chapter 54 verse 1 through 57 verse 14 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, we’ve been working our way through the letter to the Ephesians and today we concluded the letter to the Ephesians. And some…some of the more famous passages in all of the New Testament are in the letter to the Ephesians. And we’ve examined some of that as we’ve taken the journey. But as we concluded today again, some very, very famous stuff gets said. Like, even in closing, this letter packs a punch. It’s…it’s just like, if we would slow down and ponder, then it's…it’s less of a cliché or less of just a famous verse pulled out of context or a famous set of verses out of context that we just keep saying over and over and over again, but they’re not rooted in the rest of the letter in the sentences that are  around them and the thing that’s being talked about. So, let’s look at it for a second. So, quoting from Ephesians. “Finally”, which is a way of like saying in conclusion, “become strong in the Lord and in the mind of his strength.” Like, that’s just one sentence. But if we slow down and ponder that, it’s like, “yeah” we might have heard this a thousand times, which is why it doesn’t have the effect that maybe it should sometimes. “Become strong in the Lord and in the might of His strength.” We’re talking about God and the might of God’s strength. Just to become aware that this is even a possibility should blow our minds. “Become strong in the Lord and in the might of His strength put on the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil”, right? The strategies. “Because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.” Okay, so, the letter to the Ephesians has just given us a context and orientation to…to life…like what’s going on, but how much of our daily lives are we even aware of what the Bible just said? And if this letter is correct and true in what it’s telling us then it explains an awful lot about the confusion we face daily trying to figure out what in the world is going on, right…right? If we are not fighting against enemies that have flesh and blood then why are they…those the only battles that we fight? Like, why are those the only battles that we usually engage in? If there really is a spiritual realm and this spiritual…which we believe…but this spiritual realm then has influence and impact on the way we live our lives in this world. Well, if that’s not even a category, if we’re not even considering that this is a possibility well…well…well then, we have a veil. Remember when we talked about veils back in second Corinthians then we’re not seeing clearly. And when we’re not seeing clearly that brings confusion. And is it any wonder? Of course, it’s easy enough to go to the other extreme. And, you know, look for the devil underneath every rock, blame the principalities, the dark lords for making us oversleep and being late to work and getting yelled at today. Like, you can take it to the other extreme, which leads us to the awareness of what we have been aware of all along. There is no way to navigate this life without the Spirit of God’s presence, without the Holy Spirit’s guidance that is always with us, that will always lead us on the path of wisdom. Wisdom will be at every fork in the road saying, “this is the way, walk-in it.” Like, this is what the Bible has been teaching us all year. We can’t do this without God. We can try to do it in our head. We can’t contain God in our head, and we cannot figure out every problem of life in our head. We can just try to engage with our senses. It is not enough. We can go far off the deep end spirit…in spirituality. It is not enough. Only God, only the Holy Spirit of God that is within us can help us to navigate any aspect of our lives. And we can think, “Okay, you know, I…I get it. Like I get what’s being said here. I even believe this is the truth but it’s hard to know like how you…how you do this. How you continually listen for the leading of the Holy Spirit in every encounter, in every engagement, in every decision, and every everything and while the world is flying at us a million miles an hour, while everything around us is pressing in and demanding our focus and our attention. Like, how do you do it? Just because the Scriptures have made us aware, how do we live into this? The letter gives us some answers on that. We have been given resources for this. It’s called the armor of God. So…so, nobody is going to go to work naked today, right, probably? Like nobody is gonna get out of the shower and then just grab the keys jump in the car and drive to the office, righjt? Nobody’s gonna be pumping gas naked today or going to the grocery store naked and probably nobody’s gonna really be walking around their house for very long naked today. We don’t usually walk around naked. But why are we walking around naked spiritually so often? Why…why do we go out the door spiritually naked and then try to take on the day only to get crushed by the day? Because we’re walking around naked. There’s armor that has been given to us. According to this letter. And it begins with the belt of truth. That holds the rest of the armor together. So, if we’re gonna put on the belt of truth and then take it off the second we get out into the wild and we’re gonna deceptive and we’re gonna be deeply nuanced in that we do, well then nothing else is going to be held together. If we’re not gonna walk in truth, then it’s all gonna fall apart. Once we’ve got the belt of truth on, we have this breastplate. We have body armor, the breastplate of righteousness. And we’ve learned over and over and over and over and over in the Bible, we can’t earn our righteousness. This isn’t our breastplate. This is the righteousness of God and it covers our hearts when we walk out into the wild. And we’ve been given shoes, right, to walk around in. This is the awareness that peace is available. The good news of peace is available in every step we take. These are our shoes. Every step that we take makes us aware of the good news of peace, that everything around us because we are there, has the potential for the good news of peace. And we have the shield of faith that extinguishes the stuff that’s flying at us continually. Nothing can penetrate the shield of faith. We can drop the shield and get taken out. We can lay the shield down and get taken out. Nothing can penetrate the shield of faith if we’re holding it up, if we’re suited up. And our helmet is salvation, the awareness that nothing can take us from the presence of God. Nothing can take us from His hand. We are safe. We are saved. Salvation has come and been bestowed upon us. This protects our minds. And the attacks so much are on our minds trying to lead us into the darkest of dark places. But when we realize, “wait a second, I’m safe. Like none of these bunny trails I’m going down, all these fears and worries, all the existential angst even, like if I’m wearing the helmet of salvation, I become aware that I am safe in all of it, in all of the things that come against me and all of the things that I think about. I’m safe. I have a home base to return to.” And, so, we’re protected. That’s the point. That’s the point being made here, is that if we become aware of what has been bestowed upon us, we can navigate in this world understanding that we are protected. But it’s not just defensive. It’s not just like, “okay I’ve got my armor on.” We’ve also been given the sword of the Spirit, which is an offensive weapon. Like, we just don’t have to take it. We have a way to fight back. We have the sword of the Spirit, which, according to the letter here is the word of God, which, like we might think, “well…you know I’ve been reading the Bible, I’ve been listening to the Bible every day so I guess O got the sword. I guess when I read…when I listen to the Bible then I’m swinging the sword at the devil and he’s afraid. And I’m just swinging it in circles and all these bad principalities are staying away from me. But again, as we’ve talked many times, it’s not just about hearing. Like, it’s not just about hearing all this stuff, it’s about living into it. As we will learn later, you can’t just be a hearer you’ve got to be a doer of the word of God. God spoke about His word in Isaiah today in our reading. He said that it will accomplish whatever He sends it to do and it will succeed wherever it is sent. Like, that’s the power that that’s at our side, that we can draw out, that we can wield. And then last, we’re to pray in the Spirit at all times. Like…like what’s being said here isn’t that we just ignore everything else that’s going on around us, ignore everybody else that’s going on around us because we’re continually talking to God, we’re…we’re praying in the Spirit. What’s being said here is that the connection, the ongoing conversation never ends. It’s always available. It’s always on. It’s never off. And when we develop the gifts that have been given to us to where spiritually we understand that we are in constant contact with God. There is nowhere we can run from His Spirit. I think what we’re seeing here as we close Ephesians, if you’ve ever wondered how the Savior navigated life on planet Earth, this is how He did it. He may have used different terminology to describe it. He may…may not have described it as armor, I don’t know. But this is how He operated. This is what is available to us. Because of Christ nothing that He had has been withheld from us. We have everything He had. It’s just a matter of whether or not we are aware and paying attention and doing all that we can to live into this.

Prayer:

Father, that is our desire - to be fully mature, to be fully suited up and strong. Not so that we can just make it through another day. That’s never been the point. So, that we can be the light in the darkness. So, that we can be a part of Your ongoing work of reclaiming this world. We are a part of that story and You have given us what we need. We live so often as if we are lacking something. But You have given us all that we need. May we become aware. Once again, may we have eyes to see and ears to hear. Come Holy Spirit, lead us today. May we be in continual conversation with You today. May we always be aware of Your presence in our lives. May we not move in any direction without considering where You are leading. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and that’s home of the Global Campfire. And, so, be aware of that. And I don’t know how you could not be because I say it every day. But I do that for reason. It’s one of the ways we stay connected to each other. So, as I say often, the Community section, that's…there’s links to all the different places that we are on social media, but it’s also the home of the Prayer Wall.

And then also the…the Daily Audio Bible Shop. It's…it’s there stalked with resources that are for our journey together. So, certainly, check it out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if the mission that we share in common to bring the spoken word of God to anyone who will listen to it anywhere on this planet any time of day or night and to build community around that rhythm so that we’re not taking this journey alone. It’s a solitary endeavor. And when we take a journey through the Bible together, we realize we’re taking a journey through way more than a book…way more than a book. We are taking a journey through the Bible together but we’re taking a journey of life together in community and that makes a difference, a huge one. So, if that matters to you, if that has brought life to you, then I humbly thank for those who have partnered and will partner with the Daily Audio Bible. 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 that’s your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, there are a number of ways to reach out. You can hit the Hotline button in the app, the little red button at the top, which is probably the easiest way or there are some numbers you can call depending on where you are. If you’re in the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number. If you’re in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to dial. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number.

And that’s it for today. What a day. May the Lord bless and keep you. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey, everyone it’s Margo here from Australia/Liberia/UK. I don’t know where I’m from but right now what I do know is that I’m in Australia. So, we made it. I can’t really even believe it. Thank you for praying. Thank you to His Little Cherry that God would just flick us with His little pinky finger over to Australia. And that is exactly what He did. We got bumped off three times and managed to get on our fourth flight. Some people have been bumped off 10 times. So, it just really feels like this is a miracle. So we’re in another state to our home state but that’s fine. We’ll do our quarantine here. I was nervous about we have mandatory two weeks hotel quarantine in Australia and we’re now on day three. I was nervous about it because what bothers me is that we can’t go outside and get fresh air. And I just hoped that maybe we would have a window that could open. And on the way to the hotel in the bus my verse of the day came up and it was “whatever you ask for in prayer believe that you’ve received it.” And, so, I thought I’ll just pray, “God if there’s any way we can have an opening window I would be ever so grateful.” And when we got to our room, I discovered we don’t have a window that opens but guess what? We have a balcony. I can actually go out on the balcony. I can’t even believe it. It is like God has just blessed me beyond more than I can even imagine. I get fresh air. I can get some sunshine. I’m gonna make it through this two weeks. Thank you again for your prayers. My next prayer is going to be trying to get us back to Liberia. Hopefully will be next year. But hey one step at a time. All right guys love you all heaps. Bye.

[singing starts] my love who is Lord who’s the king who wields the sword who is the king on his throne who have we sat on the throne in the heart who is King but the Lord seek his face seek his honor seek his grace hold him there his forgiveness supplies your healing your repentance is unwielding all the things that were before your freedoms at the door come inside into his grace his love is anew come into the love of God honor him at the mountain hear the thunder hear the roar Jesus is our precious Lord we kneel down we cry our tears we shared our burdens so many years Jesus is Lord and God Jesus is Lord and God [singing stops]

Hello Brian Jill and all. God, I love you so much. I’ve been a listener for O probably seven years and I’m so blessed that this has come into my life. What I’m calling about is a prayer request for my grandson Bryson. I am so very blessed with seven natural grandchildren and six additional grandchildren from some folks that we raised. But Bryson is special. At one-year-old he was diagnosed with traverse myelitis. He was not mobile at all from his neck down when he went to the ER. And he has since been able to gain some mobility in his arms. He can open his hands. He cannot walk. He’s three now or will be three very shortly. The breathing treatments he had while he was in the hospital ruined his teeth. He’s just had all of his front teeth removed and the back teeth can’t at three. He has to wait until he’s 5, 6, 7 years old until he gets his front teeth back. At three he is so very embarrassed about this and of course the pain that happened as a result of this a couple days ago. Anyway, he has brought so much light into our lives. We all love him so very much and we…we pray confidently that he gets to heaven, number one. But if God can make his journey on this earth more palatable that would be an additional blessing. So, please pray for my grandson…

Hey this is Hank from Texas I actually just moved to Florida recently for my girlfriends job she’s pursuing, you know, she’s got a good opportunity here and I was able to get a good job myself here on the Atlantic coastline. But, you know, there’s just a couple things. I’ve been praying a lot lately __ for the Lord __ in our relationship __ which is great and…but we’re coming up on, you know, just the brink of a year. We’ve been, you know, going into the next month and I wanted to just, you know, she’s concerned about, you know, being engaged for more than a couple years __ get married in a few years and does not feel differently and I feel like the Lord definitely played a huge role in this relationship I…I..I can feel__ that next step, you know, at least the next several months and I do want, you know, I want the Lord to make that point clear and I do…I do want there to be a conversation around that detail. It’s been happy but I just __ the Lord just continues to follow our relationship and develop my thoughts around it. And I’ve been able __ for a while and pursue the opportunities __ just a beautiful adventure that we’re all on here. It’s my first time calling in but I’ve been listening ever since I’ve been __ up in Dallas Texas…

Hi dear family this is Janice calling from Goodyear Arizona a suburb of Phoenix. I just wanted to say that I’ve been listening every day. You’re all in my prayer book. And Denise today is the 24^th and I heard your prayer request about being lonely in your marriage. And honey I have been there. I have been there for years and years and years and years and I just want you to know you’re in my prayers and I’m praying that the Lord will send an older woman with wisdom and compassion and that you and she can have fellowship and that the Lord will fill your marriage in new ways. But it’s gonna have to happen from the inside out and God can do it. I’ve seen him do it here and I just want to praise Him for that, and I want to tell you don’t give up. Do not give up. Do not stop praying and neither will I. And I love you. God bless you all. Bye. Talk to you soon.

Hello DABber family this is Jody from Pennsylvania. God bless you Brian for your DAB ministry. I’m a new DABber since March and I’ve been so very blessed. I’m calling to ask for prayer for a young teenager. Her name is Desiree. She’s 18 years old today. I am calling on her birthday September 24^th. Desiree was Diagnosed with cancer in her leg when she was ten. She eventually had her leg amputated. Since then she has had surgery in her lungs to remove tumors. She now has a very aggressive cancerous tumor in her right lung, several cancerous tumors in her left lung and cancer in a lymph node in her art which is inoperable. Throughout all of this Desiree has capture Jesus joy and she’s been a wonderful witness of God’s love in her life. So, DABbers I am asking all who are listening to pray for God’s miracles healing for her body. Thank you. God bless you all. And God bless our prayers for Desiree.

Isaiah 51:1-53:12, Ephesians 5:1-33, Psalms 69:19-36, Proverbs 24:7

Today is the 27^th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is great to be here with you as we look out into this fresh, shiny, sparkly new week and we walk into it together, and we…we think in advance about the things that are coming our way that we know about in this week and we make some advanced decisions about how we’re gonna live into this week, as we walk with God and as we allow the Scriptures to speak into our lives and inform our choices each and every day. So, we got a brand-new week. We’ll read from the Lexham English Bible this week and we’ll pick up where we left off in the book of Isaiah…Isaiah. Today chapters 51, 52 and 53.

Prayer:

Father, thank You for Your word and thank You for bringing us into this brand-new, shiny, sparkly week, a week of transition because before this week is over, we will…well…we will be transitioning into a new month. And, so, we are grateful, and we invite Your Holy Spirit, as we continue to focus upon You. And as we talked about from the book of Ephesians a couple of days ago, we’re focusing…we’re focusing upon growing up, we’re focusing these last few days of this month as we prepare to go into the final quarter of the year on spiritual maturity knowing that if we’re gonna succeed in the final quarter of this year we need to start it well. And, so, come Holy Spirit and continue to lead us toward what is mature and what is wise in You, that we might be continually transformed from within, that the wisdom of God from Your spirit within will inform the choices and decisions that we make. And, so, the wisdom from within becomes the wisdom from without and that everything we touch is touched by the fruit of the Spirit that is being cultivated within us. Come Holy Spirit into this we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is our home. It’s our collective home. We are all over the world. So, this is the one place that we have in common and its where you find out what’s going on around here.

Check out the Community section. You can do all this in the app by the way as well. There’s a drawer icon in the upper left-hand corner. But check out the Community section. There are the links there to get connected on social media and…and…and get…and be…be a part of those discussions. The Prayer Wall is there as well in the Community section and that is very, very important place to be aware of because it’s a place of prayer. That’s why it exists. And we’re a community of prayer. And, so, there’s always somebody to pray for, and there’s always things to pray for. But it’s always there for us to reach out for prayer as well. So, that’s in the Community section.

Check out the Daily Audi Bible Shop there are number of resources there, many, and all kinds of different categories that have been developed over the year…the years for the journey that we are on. So, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if this is meaningful, than I am humbled and I am grateful for everyone who…who has ever partnered with the Daily Audio Bible as we continue this journey forward now working on our 15^th year. Thank you for your partnership. We wouldn’t be accomplishing the 15^th year or anything in this regard if we weren’t in this together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage of the website. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that’s your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, we have a Hotline button that’s in the app, you can push that little red button at the top and share from there 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:

Hey DAB family this is Jordan and Texas. Wanted to call in for Sean who called on the 22^nd. Sean you…you called in and were just feeling bad toward yourself, that you couldn’t stand yourself, and that you’re despicable. I just wanted to encourage you because I was praying for you and just felt led and I just wanted to call and encourage you that because you pray…you asked for prayer to be able to write, that you…that Jesus told you to write and you’re having great difficulty with that. And I want to pray for you. And anyway. Lord I just pray for Sean. I believe that…that…that was your name. I didn’t hear too well. But today you’re Sean. So, I pray God for Sean and ask God that You would equip him, You have equipped him, You’ve given him this gift to write, a desire to write and I pray that You would give him the first step to do that, to write something that You take off all the expectations he may have himself or lowered expectations he might have it himself, that he would see himself the way that You do, as someone with a gift, as someone with a story to tell, as someone who bears Your image. And, so, I pray God that…that maybe he begins with writing something simple and that You…that it would just turn into something…to exactly what You were hoping to see come from him and that…just those expectations are lifted. So, Father bless him and that. I pray that he’s encouraged in Jesus name. Amen.

Good morning fellow DABbers this is James the Mighty Warrior from Texas. But I’ve been listening to all of these great people that’s calling in for prayer requests and praise reports. Actually, I’ve been listening to the DAB for…since about 2012 and I don’t call in much, but I definitely listen to the podcast every day and the prayer requests and the praise reports from the community. I’m so grateful for this DAB app. Basically I’m calling up just for to pray for the nation, to pray for the DAB family, all the…all the prayer requests and the…everything that people are going through. I’m just thankful to be a part of this family but I do ask for prayer, that I would just, you know, stay in the right direction and that I would just stay on the path, you know, and I’m just thankful for every good and perfect gift that the Father has given me. I really don’t have anything to complain about. I’m just gonna praise Him. And yes, I’m going through like everybody else, but I can’t focus on it, I’m gonna focus on His goodness. You guys have a blessed day. Bye-bye.

Hi DAB family this is Hopeful, and I just heard Mary’s prayer request for her daughter who’s 25 who’s been battling cancer and I just want to pray over. She didn’t mention her name, so I’ll just refer to her as Mary’s daughter. Father we come to You right now and we just lift up Mary’s daughter to You. We just pray for complete healing over her body, that You would restore her speech, that her life would be a testimony of You and Your power and what You can do. And I just pray in Jesus’ name that You just give her peace and joy in her heart, that she would know that she is loved by You, she is loved by thousands of people who are hearing this and who are praying for her and we just lift her up to You right now in Jesus’ name.

Hi, my DAB family this is Truly Thankful Taylor from DFW the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. I’m just calling today for Denise from North Carolina. My sweet sister I just want to tell you how much I love you and that I am praying for you. I don’t ever want you to feel like your needs, your prayer requests are so small. God cares about the little things. He cares about the big things, but he also cares about the little things and when you’re hurting, He sees you and He knows what you’re going through. And, so, I just want to pray for you and your circumstances. God right now I just pray over Denise. Lord I just ask that You lift her up in this season God, that You would comfort her. Lord she longs to have companionship in her marriage. I pray Lord Jesus that You would give her those desires Lord Jesus. You have said in Your word that it’s not good for man to be alone and You gave him a companion Lord. You’d gave her a companion in her husband Lord, but the intimacy isn’t there. Lord, so I ask that You would ignite a spark. Lord Jesus that You would breathe over it, Lord Jesus. Breathe Your Holy Spirit over their marriage. God that that flame would kindle Lord and would begin to burn, burn with passion, Lord Jesus. Give them a passion and a hunger for each other, a healthy desire that it is Your will in a marriage Lord. And that I just pray an extra blessing of You over them God. May You fulfill every need, every desire Lord Jesus that she has. Give her peace, give her hope, give her strength, give her endurance. Thank You, Lord Jesus that she can stand firm in You Lord God. I ask that You would bless her and her husband and their marriage and their family in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Good morning DAB family this is Lady of Victory on Thursday morning the 24^th of September just finished listening to Brian’s podcast today and this call is for Mary and her daughter who has cancer, she’s 25 and been battling cancer since 2016 and has now lost her voice. Oh God, our God how excellent is Your name in all the earth, in all the earth. God we’ve searched high and we’ve search flow and we cannot find anybody who is like our God. God, we don’t understand the things that You do, the things that You allow to happen, but God when we cannot see Your hand, we have to trust Your heart. And God it sounds like that’s what Mary and her daughter is doing at this point God. We thank You Lord God that Mary is a heart and her daughter has a heart to be grateful and to worship You through this hard, difficult time. And yet, God we’re…we’re looking at it like, “really God? 25? And You said, ‘in everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning us?’” Oh God and it sounds like this lady is doing that God. Her mom says she’s never given up on You. She’s continued to have faith and to trust in You. And, so, God this is a difficult time of losing her speech and we don’t know why You’ve allowed it to happen. God we don’t know what the purpose is God but in Your sovereignty we’re asking if it’d be Your will that You would restore this Young lady’s speech God so that she can tell others about who You are God. That’s her hearts cry, is to tell others about who You are. Yes, God she…she’s living it out through her life, but she wants to use her voice. So, would You do that for Your glory and her good? In Jesus’ name.

Hello Daily Audio Bible this is Tammy calling from Canada I’m a first-time caller except I did actually just call to pray for someone. But I’ve been listening for almost 2 years now and this is such a blessing. I love hearing Brian. I love hearing all the prayer requests. I pray with you all every day and I really covet your prayers right now. About a month ago I started having severe sleep difficulties and disturbances and I’m just in the midst of…of working with doctors to figure out what’s going on but it…it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced before and after a month of…of very troubled sleep…and you can imagine that your mind starts to feel like it’s going to crumble and you’re losing your faculties…and that’s about where I am right now. My physical body is…is suffering, my mind is suffering. I have anxiety through the roof. And I just actually did a sleep study last night because I may have sleep apnea. Anyway, I just really covet your prayers, that God could hold me up in this time. I know he will but it’s so hard to convince yourself in the moment when you feel that you just simply can’t stand it anymore, the torture, it is mental torture, sleep deprivation. And it’s hard to see the good and it…it’s hard to see the reason why God allows these things happen. And, so, I thank you for your prayers and your support in this time because I don’t want to give up. I can’t give up for my family. Some days it is so incredibly hard. Thank you.

Isaiah 48:12-50:11, Ephesians 4:17-32, Psalms 69:1-18, Proverbs 24:5-6

Today is the 26^th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is wonderful to be here with you today as we bring to a close another one of our weeks together. And, this will be the last time we bring a week to a close in the month of September. We are winding our way to the end of the month. Not that that…not that that is that big of a deal, but it is a fact. So, anyway, we’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week, which is today and continuing our journey through the book of Isaiah. Today chapters 48 verse 12 through 50 verse 11.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for bringing us through the final full week of the month of September and…yeah…we’re getting ready to go to the final quarter of the strangest of years and once again we acknowledge Your faithfulness. And we’re here. You have been faithful. We have had plenty of trials along the way and You have been faithful, and You have carried us through, and we are once again grateful. And, so, as we release this week and become aware of the fact that it is becoming a part of our history, part of our past we look forward to all that You have yet to say to us in the coming months. So, come Holy Spirit we pray. We worship You. We love You. We need You. Make us more and more aware of Your never-ending presence in our lives we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, that’s where you find what’s going on around here, it’s the website, home of all the stuff, all the Global Campfire. This is where we are. So, check it out. Be familiar.

Check out the Community section. That is how to get connected. Check at the Shop. There are resources there for…for continuing our journey and taking it deeper and wider as we continue the voyage that leads us through the Bible in…in a year. And I can’t believe…it’s been such a year and it’s gone by quickly. It always seems like it’s dragging on but then when you look back it went past and that’s kind of where we are. And, so, it’s important for us to stay connected to each other as we prepare these next few months to finish strong, to finish strong in the Scriptures, but to finish strong in our lives and to be a light in the darkness because there is no shortage of darkness and we must light up the dark. And, so, let’s stay connected in any way that we can.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link, it’s on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner and the mailing address if…if you prefer the mail is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, 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:

Hi this is Jeanette from Denmark I’m originally from the states. I’m calling because my family, my husband and I, we’ve been active in service for the past year and a half, at least participating with local churches here and we’re experiencing the…we’re reacting very much to the stuff that’s happening in the states at least our government is also making sure that we’re using masks. And I’d like to pray for issues here on our island. So, Father I ask for Your grace to be over Funen to help them in their time of need, to help them us in our time of need, to use the time wisely for praying and getting in close in relationship with You. Help us to walk in the spirit of humble obedience and not fear Father and in bold joy knowing that You are coming to rescue Your children in the time that is appropriate. Thank You, Jesus that You love Funen and You love Denmark. Thank You that You know Your people here. Father I ask Holy Spirit that You would encourage dwell well in them Father and help them to hear Your voice. Thank You, Jesus for Your blood on the cross for all of us. Amen.

Good morning DABbers this is Danny would you all join me in prayer and lifting up all of the unloved wives out there. Heavenly father I just lift up all of these beautiful and precious ladies that you’ve created, these ladies Lord that you have put in the role of life. And Lord it’s not an easy role for sure and there are so many Lord that feel unloved by their husbands. Lord I just pray for these ladies, that they would be able to feel Your love and Your comfort and realize that they have no control over how their husband treats them or makes them feel but they do have control over how they feel. And Lord I just pray that You would do a mighty work in all of the hearts of these ladies, that You would replace their pain with joy Lord, joy in You, that they would stop looking at their husbands to fulfill that desire in them, a desire that You’ve created in us for fellowship Lord, and instead that they would fill that need with the fellowship with You God, that they would focus on their relationship with You and Lord that they would just hear Your voice in what to do next, how to be whole Lord. And I just pray that in their obedience Lord that You would bless them and keep them. And I just thank You Lord. Give them strength and courage in the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Hi everyone Tony the Narrator here. Thank you to everybody who got in touch with me about my DABC statement. That was really lovely. It’s really encouraging to know that you guys really do care. I just wanted to encourage all of you. I mean, on the Atlantic coast you’ve got storms and hurricanes on the way. On the west coast you’ve got huge fires happening all over the place. And basically, I just wanted to hold up every single one of you that’s a Christian in that area facing potential devastation. But I can’t help but remember the story of Abraham trying to convince God not to go ahead with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah where God basically says, if one righteous person is there, I will spare em’. And do you know what? This damage is not is not 100%. America will always be able to come back from this. This is just little things and that’s because of you. I honestly believe that that is your faithfulness, your righteousness that is saving the lives of millions of American people like literally because God would…would just go for it, my country to. Britain deserves it probably deserves it more than every other country in the world. It is our faithfulness that is holding our life…holding us together. Anyway, I love you all. God bless you. Be blessed.

Hello Daily…Daily Audio Bible community I just want to say hi. I want to give a shout out to my brother Clarence Daniels and Perry Daniels. My brother Clarence introduced me to this app and I’m so grateful that he did and I just…I’m looking forward to posting prayers and replying back to prayers and getting to know the Daily Audio Bible community because this is exactly what I needed. So, to everyone out there be blessed be safe, spread love, spread hope, stay positive and always, always, always put your trust in God. Thank you.

Good morning today is September 23^rd giving praise glory and honor to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who is King of King and Lord of lords. This is Lora Walking in the Wilderness from Georgia. Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Hello, my beautiful DAB family I wanted to share this thought with you all. I was thinking the other day about how much God loves us and this morning, it’s Wednesday, September 23^rd and Brian’s explanation of Ephesians, I think it was Chapter 2, reminded me of this. God loves us so very, very much. And I was reminded a few weeks ago of a commercial that was in the United States many years ago about a married couple who were getting ready to have a baby and they had to gather all the babies things and it was just changing their lives in so many ways. And at the end of the commercial it said having a baby changes everything. And I remember before we had our first child, I remember thinking, “oh yeah. I’ll bet having a baby really does change everything.” But when I had that first baby. O my goodness I couldn’t believe that having a baby would change everything. And I was thinking a few weeks ago about how much God loves us, how very, very much He loves us and that commercial came back to mind and I thought, “wow, knowing how much God loves you changes everything.” And it really does. Life is changed completely when you realize deep down inside how very, very, very much God loves you. So, my prayer for you today my…my beautiful DAB brothers and sisters is that you would know truly really know how very, very, very much God loves you because when you know that it changes everything. Blessings for you today.

Isaiah 45:11-48:11, Ephesians 4:1-16, Psalms 68:19-35, Proverbs 24:3-4

Today is the 25^th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here. I cannot believe it is almost the end of September. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We got…we got…we have some days to go, but man here we are getting ready to bring another month in for a landing in just a few short days. But everyday matters. Every day that we spend in the Scriptures matters. And, so, we have a few days left in this month and we can choose to embrace and end strong and finish well as we prepare to go into the final quarter of the year, but I’m getting ahead of ourselves here. So, rather than staying ahead of ourselves let’s center ourselves right here right now where we are, the 25^th day of September, the 269^th day of this year. We’re reading from the Contemporary English Version this week. Isaiah chapter 45 verse 11 through 48 verse 11.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we continue our journey through the letter to the Ephesians, this…this letter keeps telling us the story is bigger than you think it is, there’s a lot more at stake, you have to open your eyes and see what’s going on here, this is of big deal. And, so, we’ve been kind of looking…looking at these different vista points as we make our way to the letter. And today, basically, the letter is telling us something we probably don’t like to be told, but need to be told, “it’s time to grow up.” And we might be thinking, “well…I'm…I’m up in years, you know, I'm…I’ve…I’ve been a grown-up, I’ve been an adult for a long time now. I don’t need to grow up.” But, yeah, we…we probably have areas that we need to grow up in. For example, let me just quote what this letter suggests we should do. “Always be humble and gentle.” Like, I’m gonna go on but let me just pause there. Like are we that? Then we could say, “yeah. I’m mature in that area”, but if not, then there is some growing up to do. “Always be humble and gentle. Patiently put up with each other and love each other.” So, we’re seeing that maybe we all have some growing up to do. I continue to quote. “Try your best to let God Spirit keep your hearts united. Do this by living at peace. All of you are part of the same body.” In other words, we are all in this together and it will not work any other way. Just like our bodies, right? Our hand can’t just divorce itself from our body and it could be…it could be lopped off in some terrible accident but the hands not gonna live and the body’s gonna suffer. This is what Paul’s been saying all along in his letters. So, continuing. “All of you are part of the same body. There is only one Spirit of God, just as you were given one hope when you were chosen to be God’s people. We have only one Lord, one faith and one baptism. There is one God who is the Father of all people. Not only is God above all others, but He works by using all of us and He lives in all of us.” Again, like that last thing, “He lives in all of us.” Chew on today. God lives in you. And all the things that are being suggested in this letter are things we can live into. We can choose not to. And honestly, most of the time we do choose not to, but that doesn’t mean it’s not available and that it’s not real. Maybe we don’t have eyes to see. Maybe there is some growing up to do. So, the letter continues to tell us that in order to become mature, in order to grow up, that Jesus has equipped the church. There are apostles and prophets and missionaries and pastors and teachers so that we could all grow and learn to serve and understand that we are part of one body and then when we grow strong, we are all growing strong. And when we are weak, we are all weak. We are one. We are one body, and this is gonna continue, these gifts that God has given to help us to mature and grow. According to Ephesians this is going to continue until we are united by our faith and our understanding of the Son of God, then…and I’m quoting…”then we will be mature just as Christ is and we will be” brace yourself… “and we will be completely like Him.” That’s where this story is headed and according to the letter to the Ephesians and I’m just mostly quoting all of this, according to Ephesians “we must stop acting like children. We must not let deceitful people trick us by their false teachings which are like winds the toss us around from place to place. Love should always make us tell the truth, then we will grow in every way and be more like Christ, the head of the body. And Christ holds it all together and makes all of its parts work perfectly as it grows and becomes strong because of love.” So, maybe we do have some years under our belts. Maybe we do have lots of experiences upon this earth, but are we, for all of those experiences and all of those years, are we still spiritual children? Are we still immature? And if that were the case would that not explain so much about the rest of our story? Because so often we are confused at ordering our world around us with our senses is the key when actually life is inside out. If we are spiritually mature our world, our lives will fall in line accordingly because we will be spiritually mature. We will be closer day by day step-by-step into the likeness of Christ or re-quoting Ephesians, “we will be mature, just as Christ is and we will be completely like Him.” I mentioned where we are in the year at the beginning of our reading today and I was like yeah, we’re out in front of ourselves. There’s still five more days or whatever left this month, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But maybe just knowing that there are these days left in this month and then we will be turning into the final quarter of the year, maybe taking these days to consider our spiritual maturity, to consider maybe it’s time to grow up and stop being little kids in this. Maybe that’s what we spend our next few days preparing for and considering and meditating upon as we continue the journey forward because I would wager that a year like no other, this year, has done a lot of things but one thing that it has certainly done is expose different levels of immaturity in our lives. And I also would wager to say that, in order to finish this year well, this very very weird strange year we’ve been a part of and all the strangeness that is still out in front of us, we’re gonna need spiritual maturity. And, so maybe there’s nothing more important to focus on today and in the coming days.

Prayer:

Holy Spirit we invite You. We invite You because You have promised to lead us into all truth. We are counting on that. And as You lead us, we are being made mature, we are growing up, we are being transformed into the likeness of the Savior. This is the goal, and this is what we are after. This is what our hearts long for. This is what we are crying out for. It’s just that growing up exposes that we’re not. Becoming mature exposes, the areas that we’re not. And then we squirm, and we don’t like it because growing up takes work and requires responsibility and we don’t usually think of this in spiritual terms. And yet the quicker that we grow up spiritually and become mature within, the quicker we will be able to act with wisdom without. Come Holy Spirit we pray into this in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and…yeah…it’s where the Global Campfire lives. It’s the heart of community here. So, check it out.

It’s pretty simple. There’s just a few sections to get kind of dialed in. It’s not overcomplicated or anything like that. There’s a Community section. That’s where the Prayer Wall is. It’s where different links are to get connected on social media. There’s a Shop. It’s got a lot of different resources in it that we’ve crafted and created over the years, specifically for the journey that we’re on together. Makes a difference just to be connected in that way. I mean, there’s plenty of things to go deep but there’s just plenty of things just to be connected, just to feel connected…a whole Global Campfire line of things just to feel the connection, to wear the connection, to have some sort of reminder that we’re part of a community together even though it’s an interesting one, it’s a different kind of one, it’s all over the world. So, check out those resources.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link that just continually lives on the homepage. If you are using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that is your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is that little red button, it’s that little guy up at the top, press it no matter where you are in the world and you be connected 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:

What’s up everyone? It’s Evan Olson from Greenville South Carolina just calling in a prayer request for my friend/coworker. Quite a divine appointment from God really. I just put in my two weeks at the pizza place I’m working at and then God presented a great opportunity for a job for me and my wife __  us before but…anyways I worked tonight…I prayed after I put my two weeks in and my coworker his name is Alex and he was standing in the back doing dishes and I just said I’m gonna go talk to him because he never really…he just started like a week ago and I just figured I’ll go talk to him. So, I walked up to him and talked to him and I mean the next thing I know he was telling me about stuff he was going through. His wife has cheated on him. He is going through a lot of suicidal thoughts. He’s tried commit suicide 17 times. I asked him if I..I asked him if I could call into this show and request prayer for him and he said yes and it was just amazing because, well, the Spirit just presented an opportunity and I invited him to church and everything and I just request prayer…prayer for him because he’s in a really tough spot right now. Thank you everybody. I love the Daily Audio Bible, longtime listener first-time caller.

This is Kitty Cat from Pennsylvania. This name was given to me by my beloved brother Tad and he’s actually also a DABber. He listens to Daily Audio Bible. I listened about four years and I just…I…this is my first time calling in for a prayer request. My prayer request is, after 65 years of really really excellent health…health…I’ve been so blessed in my life…I was diagnosed about six months ago with __ cell cancer in my face that unfortunately travels to some nerves. Now I went for 33 rounds of radiation and…and my prayer request is that while I wait for the test results that the anxiety will just be gone and that I can just be a shining light to my family and my friends and everyone, you know, and…and hopefully try to help them go through trials as well. And this, you know, obviously I hope the news is good and I pray for good news that I’m cancer free in November but I ask that you just pray that the fear is taken away…I…and I just can be a shining light during this time. And I listened today Psalm 63, O my word, that’s great. My soul clings to you, my soul thirsts for you. Your steadfast love Lord is better than light. And I love the Daily Audio Bible. And I just…I’m so thankful that you can pray for me. Thank you this is Kitty Cat from PA. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Jesse I am a resident in a hospital in Georgia. First of all, God bless everyone. And I’m having some problems at my residency. I just ask that God would give me the knowledge and wisdom to do right. I am being evaluated now so I’m just asking for God’s favor and I would ask if you can all join me in that prayer. And I will also ask for His grace and thank Him for it. I’ll say a prayer. Father, I only come before you and I just give you the thanks for everyone on this network. I thank you Lord God for letting them know you, letting them know who …who to come to and who to trust. I thank you for creating us. I thank you Lord God for the love that you’ve placed in us to give to others. And I pray now Lord God that every miracle in everyone’s heart of God will be made manifest Lord God before their eyes. And I thank you O Lord. God bless everyone. I love you.

Hey everybody this is Pelham calling from the great state of Alabama. I can’t even give you a city anymore because the Lord is moving me around, protecting me, healing me, binding up my broken heart and trying to show me the extent of His love, which is infinite. But I’m…I’m making this little call here today for Terry the Trucker. I’m trying something new. I’m gonna try to start caring about others instead of caring about myself. Wow…let’s see how long that lasts. But Terry, your call played like five days ago or a week ago something like that and I wanted you to know that I remember the first time you contacted the DAB. I remember…I remember the first time that you reached out and boy it feels like a lifetime ago but I wanted you to know there’s a guy in Alabama that’s praying for your peace and your strength and for your family and I’ve got to confess I probably need to listen to your prayer request again because there’s so much going on in my world that I can’t pay attention for longer than a few seconds. And the Holy Spirit has been gently nudging me to try something new and try to stop focusing on me and focus on others. And I’ll tell you, that’s not easy. But the Lord is so cool that He gives us the…the opportunity to experience how hard His job is getting the deal with all of his children and all of the forgiveness and the cross. I love you guys. Just wanted to say I’m alive. Bye.

Good day DAB family my name is Ron from the Philippines and I’ve been living in Dubai for 12 years it’s my first time calling using the app. Firstly I’d like to thank the people who have prayed for me on the Prayer Wall. They have been great blessing and encouragement and right now I’m just asking for more prayers because I’ve recently just lost my job and I only have a month to stay here in Dubai to try to find a new job otherwise I will need to go back home which is going to be tough. And, so, I need your prayers for God to direct me to the path that He wants me to go to. I’m also asking for prayers for comfort because there are bad days where I would sleep with a heavy heart, have nightmares, and wake up with palpitation. And, so, I’m just praying for God to cover me with this piece. I’m also facing the fact that I might not get anything after 12 years of service because I still have a loan and they would probably involuntarily put my benefits to the bank to pay off the loan. I’ve talked to the company and it seems that there’s no way, but I know that God will make a way and God will provide. And, yeah, I just thank you because I know that once you hear this a lot of people would be praying for me for an…an…an amazing job opportunity as well. And that gives me hope and strength and I know that this is a great testimony in the making. I am very grateful for this app for strengthening my faith immensely and for the people who are going to the same thing. We just need to trust God and He has amazing plans for our lives. God is good in God is Sovereign and we take comfort in that. Thank you, family, God bless you all.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible community today is September 21^st 2020 and it is 1:40 AM in the morning Central Time here in Newburgh Indiana. This is Diane Olive Brown shalom, shalom I’m putting my log in the fire and I want to go back to the 17^th when I don’t know if it was a little girl or little boy but the song was so pure and so holy and I just wanted…I won’t be able to sing it like they…that little person did. [singing starts] Dear God please all the people that are in the fire. Please help them to be safe and not get harmed. Please help them to know that You are with them. Dear Lord, we love You so much. Dear Lord, we love You. You’re in our heart. We are in Yours too. Please help all the people to learn about You [singing stops]. Thank you little one.

Isaiah 43:14-45:10, Ephesians 3:1-21, Psalms 68:1-18, Proverbs 24:1-2

Today is the 24^th day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you as we lock in, buckle up, move forward, take the next step in our journey through the Scriptures this year. So, we’ve been working our way through the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament and we’re in the book of Ephesians or the letter to the Ephesians in the New and now we’ve got a ways to go…I guess about another 20 chapters in the book of Isaiah, one of the longer books in the Bible. And, so, let’s dive in. We’re reading from the contemporary English version this week. Isaiah chapter 43 verse 14 through 45 verse 10.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as we move our way through the letter to the Ephesians I have kind of referred to it as like this mountain road experience where we are headed to the top, and there’s all these turn offs along the long way and there’s beautiful vistas all along the path because that’s just kinda how I…I…I read Ephesians. There was this one year where I’m reading it and stopping and going, “wait a minute. What? What…what is being said here?” Just truly contemplate the level, like the bigness of some of the things that are being said. And, so, it’s always kind of been like this to me. We reach this point the Bible and it’s like, this is why this is called Good News. And if this is all true, then this is not just a life game changer, like this is a world game changer, this is a humanity game changer. And, so, in our reading today Paul’s saying like, “there was…that there’s a mystery, a mystery that God is revealing, a mystery that God has always planned to reveal and He’s revealing it now and this is the mystery: because of Jesus, the good news…well…let me just quote Paul, “because of Christ Jesus the good news has given the Gentiles a share in the promises that God gave to the Jews. God has also let the Gentiles be a part of the same body.” Now we’ve already talked about Paul being controversial and so we could understand from a more traditional Hebrew perspective that people would be against Paul in this declaration, but the truth of…of the Christian faith is that it is vastly, vastly a Gentile form of spirituality now. That’s how things have turned out in the last couple of thousand years. And, so, what we’re reading in Ephesians is that this is the plan, that God has grafted us into the master story that He’s been telling through the Hebrew people, that He has invited us all to be a part of the same body through the Savior, through Jesus. I know that we know that but if we would slow down a second, understand that we just kind of turned off into this little parking area and we’re looking out over the journey upward that we’re taking and it’s this beautiful scene, we could understand we are so fortunate. We are so, so fortunate that God loves us and has always loved us and has always intended us to be a part of His story. What Paul’s saying is your ethnicity doesn’t matter, what boundaries you live behind, what nation you are in, whatever the ide…ideology of your culture is, you are invited through Jesus to be a part of the family of God. So, indeed, that is good news. But…buckle up because we’re about to get a cosmic view of things that we probably will need to ponder today. There’s a reason for all of this. So…so, I’m quoting Paul again, “God who created everything wanted me to help everyone understand the mysterious plan that it always been hidden in His mind. Then God would use the church to show the powers and authorities in the spiritual world that He has many different kinds of wisdom. God did this according to His eternal plan. And He was able to do what he had planned because of all that Christ Jesus our Lord had done.” Okay. So, it’s good that we’re parked here at this vista instead of trying to drive because this requires us to widen our horizon and understand that there are way bigger things going on surrounding our faith. Like we try to work out our faith most the time to try…to just try to have some kind of balance in life and follow and love God and…but it’s really centered around our experience in our own consciousness, what we personally are perceiving that we are experiencing. Well, what Paul is saying is God has all kinds of wisdom and it’s being borne out in what He is doing and what He is doing is revealing this wisdom to the spiritual realms, to the unseen rulers and authorities, to beings in the heavenly places, the powers and authorities in the spiritual world. In other words, our lives and our faith and our pursuit of union with God reveals the wisdom of God beyond what we can physically, with our bodily senses, with our human flesh, perceive, that there is more going on in the spiritual realms than we may be aware of. This isn’t just about the rescue of our hearts. It is. This isn’t just about us walking with God through this world and being a light in the darkness. It is. But the revelation of God’s unlimited wisdom is being revealed in the spiritual realms because of this. Right? That’s something…that’s something to think about, that’s something to go ponder, that’s something to reread and consider, that the story is bigger than we knew or than…that we mostly paid attention to, that the weightiness of our lives is revealing the wisdom of God far beyond what we can see or perceive. And because of this, and I’m quoting again, “Christ now gives us courage and confidence so that we can come to God by faith.” In other words, the presence of God and our awareness of His presence is always available, and we can be confident and even bold about it. I mean…I know we know some of the stuff but if we slow down, like…as if we were…we were driving up a mountain road pulling off at the scenery along the way, we’d understand we are talking about really big things. And, so, as we end our short, short reading but power packed reading from the letter to the Ephesians today, Paul prays a prayer and it’s kind of Paul’s response to what he is sharing, like, “look at what is going on here, perceive this, understand who you are.” And then he prays this prayer. And, so, let me just, again, like…I’m kind of re-quoting a lot of what we already read, but let’s receive this prayer. So, Paul says, “I kneel in prayer to the Father. All beings”…and we just explored that…“all beings in heaven and on earth receive their life from Him. God is wonderful and glorious. I pray that His Spirit will make you become strong followers and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in his love. I pray that you and all of God’s people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. I want you to know all about Christ’s love. Although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.”

Prayer:

Father we acknowledge that’s big news and we acknowledge that we gloss over these realities, these spiritual realities daily as we just try to deal with the chaos that’s flying at us in…in…in our senses. And yet we are being shown today that there is way more going on and way more at stake than we ever perceive or pay attention to. But the deeper that we become aware of Your love for us, the deeper that we move into a committed loving relationship with You, the deeper we fall in love with You, the more we realize that Your love is too wonderful to be measured and that we become aware that our lives are being intertwined with You as You intended. This was always the plan, that we might be filled with all that You are. And that last thing, we don’t even know…we don’t even know how to think about it or how to become aware of it, that You would permeate us, that You would surround and envelop us, that we would…that we would as Paul said, that our lives will be filled with all that God is. That this so good there are no words. And, so, Holy Spirit we invite You to well up from within as we meditate upon these things today, that they might become the way we look at things, this would be the eyes that Christ looked at the world through, this would be looking through Your eyes. And in part, that requires us to look at ourselves differently. It requires us to look at ourselves the way that You do and then that requires us to look at everyone else the way You do, even the people that we think are the problem. And, so, come Holy Spirit into this we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

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And, as always, we’re a community of prayer. It’s a beautiful thing about us. It’s a…it’s a, come on…it’s a gorgeous mesmerizing thing about us, a distinctive, it’s a…I just…there’s nowhere else like it and it’s beautiful we get to participate in each other’s lives even though we are spread to the farthest corners of the earth. It’s a beautiful thing to hear each other’s voices, it’s a beautiful thing to get to know each other by voice. What a joy. And, so, yeah if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app, 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:

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Nalin from Dubai it’s my first time to call in. I’ve been listening to this beautiful program for eight years and now I’m a double DABber as well this year with China. Anyway, I would like some prayer requests for myself, my boss, and my colleagues. It’s been very tough since the COVID-19 and yes, we’ve had several cuts and we’ve had many issues and ups and downs and…but now we’ve got a dictator. A new manager came and she’s so dictatorship and rude and not the family-oriented atmosphere we have. And, so, I just want us for you guys to pray for me and my colleagues, especially my boss to be strong and hang in there and just to have the faith that we do our job and we get through this and we can conquer all with God. Thank you very much.

Hi this is Susanna in North Carolina I really need some prayer. I don’t feel like this is something that supposed to be between me and God and me learning to figure it out but I’m not doing a good job at all. I don’t know exactly what to ask for. I have a pretty good lot in life and yet I easily fall back into anxiety and live out of fear. I want to get back to a consistent level of joy and peace and having enthusiasm and drive for what I do each day, being able to trust God even when I can’t see around the next bend, to be able to rest in his light yoke. It’s a __ with me and something worth doing, to be able to rest in who he made me or made me to be or who I am now and in whose I am and to be finding my identity there. I don’t know if that’s one of those weird situations where you need something to actually cry about but…because I mean He’s…He’s been there for me and been faithful and I feel like I just have this mental battleground going on. So, if He gives you anything crave to pray for is appreciated for anything comes to mind. Thank you.

Good morning DAB family this is Chris from Virginia. Can you please pray for a friend of mine, he’s like a cousin, his name is Dennis? He’s going through some major intestinal complications and most importantly he is not saved and currently has a __ negative mindset. Please pray for his salvation. Please also pray for me as I am going to make an attempt to have a salvation conversation with him and just hopefully please pray that God gives me the words to share with him the vision I see for him and his future with just complete healing and salvation through Christ. Thank you all for all that you pray for. I love you all. Thank you, Brian it’s amazing what you do for us all. God bless you. Bye.

Good morning DABbers my name is Mary this is…I am a first-time caller and I’m just calling to request prayer for my daughter. She’s been fighting cancer since 2016. She’s 25 now. She has dealt with this like a trooper. She’s lost her hair. She’s not been able to walk. She’s done everything and she just loves the Lord and spreading the word. The reason I’m calling for prayer is right now she is losing her speech. She’s having trouble talking and this has been the hardest thing for her because she loves the Lord, she loves telling the people about the Lord and right now she can’t because she can’t speak very well and that’s really…really bringing her down because she doesn’t understand. And I just…I pray…I pray that God will restore her speech and will help her to continue spreading His love. We are so grateful for everything He’s done. He’s sustained her through all of this. She’s never stopped trusting in Him. But this one’s a hard one and I’m just needing prayer. It’s hard as her mom. It’s hard as her mom to watch her go to this and I just need more prayer out there to help with her speech. Thanks.

Hi, my name is LeeAnn it’s my first time calling. I’d just like to ask for prayers for my daughter. She has severe anxiety and she’s having trouble coping with it. Just asking for your prayers for her. Thank you. Thank you all for being here for everybody that listens to this Daily Audio Bible. I have found a lot of peace and comfort here through you guys. Thank you. May God bless you all.

This is Denise from North Carolina I’ve called in before about my situation. First I want to apologize for calling about something so selfish and something so frivolous when there’s so many other people suffering worse than I am, have more things going on that’s more significant than what I’m going through but hurt is hurt, pain is pain and I pray that you would pray for me and my pain. I called in once before about being in a marriage that has no intimacy. We’re friends and we do what God tells us to do but we have no intimacy and I’m lonely in my marriage. I also admitted to the fact that I had a previous affair and I ended that because I knew it was not of God because I was lonely and just wanted attention. I really miss that person even though I’m not supposed to. And I know it’s the spirit that I miss and it’s not the person because I need that companionship and __ . I ask that you pray that God would give me what I need so I can do what’s right and so that my husband and I can live a marriage that’s supposed to be fulfilling, which it’s not right now. We’re companions, we take care of business, we raise our children, but I’m not fulfilled and I ask God to show me what He wants me to do. I try to be all about God but it’s not the same as having someone to hold you and care for you and make you feel important. So, I ask that you pray that I will continue to do what God has me to do and God will open the doors up for me and I not be selfish in this.