Genesis 23:1-24:51, Matthew 8:1-17, Psalm 9:13-20, Proverbs 3:1-6
Today is the 10th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and I guess that we have made it about 1/3 of the way through the first month of the year. So, well done on making it through a week and ½, step-by-step day-by-day. This is how we will work our way through the entire journey and reach our destination at the end of the year. So, this week we are reading from the Christian Standard Bible and picking up where we left off yesterday, Genesis chapter 23 verse 1, through 24 verse 51.
Commentary:
Okay, so like we were talking about at the beginning, we are one third of the way through the first month of the year. So, we’re a week and ½ into our journey and we have met a lot of people already and there’s a lot of people that we have yet to me and so it’s really easy to come through, like these are sort of disembodied stories, like, like the book of Genesis that we’re going through like, all of these stories are separate stories when in fact we’re being led somewhere. So, from time to time we’ll pause and reflect back and tie the story together. Basically, in this first week and ½ in the book of Genesis we’ve covered over a thousand years of time and traveled a thousand miles. So, basically when we began the journey a week and a half ago, we began to hear the origin story and how things got the way that they are and then we followed along the story of Adam and Eve and their offspring and the spiral downward as mankind used its knowledge of good and evil to attempt to become its own sovereign. This leads us to a place where there is only evil among people, which leads to a flood and we meet this person named Noah which is a reset. We follow that story and then we met a man named Abram. Now, that his name has been changed to Abraham we know who he is and it’s his family, this promised offspring, numerous as the sands on the seashore, that we will be traveling with the rest of the way. So, in today’s reading Sarah, Abraham’s wife dies and she is buried in the cave of Machpelah which is a place and actual place, even until today. So, Abraham buys this cave to bury his dead in and we watch kind of this ancient negotiation taking place, this burial cave it seems to be the first piece of property actually owned by Abraham, even though the Lord has promised him all of the land. And after Sarah’s death, Abraham sees that it’s about time to be thinking about a wife for the son of promise, Isaac. So, he sends his servant back to his family where we meet Rebecca. So, we use this time for a little pause and a little reflection back because now we are moving into the next generation. Abraham, and now we’re moving into the generation of Isaac. And just as a heads up, we’ll then move into the generation of Jacob, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God identifies himself many times this way, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These aren’t just random righteous people, Abraham is the patriarch, Isaac is the son, Jacob is the grandson, we’re moving through generations in the same story. And so, hopefully that gives us a little bit of context. Then if we move to the last thing that we read today in the book of Proverbs, and we have one sentence that covers two verses that pretty much give us a roadmap or a posture for how to live life. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways know him and he will make your paths straight. We’re basically being told that we don’t know all that we think that we know. And if that is all we are leaning on then there is most certainly a ceiling. But we also have the option of trusting the Lord with all of our heart, which means trusting God beyond what we think we know about Him or anything else. The Christian standard Bible, what we’re reading from this week say’s in all your ways know Him. Other translations say in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. And certainly, we understand the distinction metaphorically between a straight path and a crooked path and the truth probably if we’re being honest is that we’re quite familiar with what a crooked path looks like, which is why we would desire a straight path. If we want to walk a straight path then we’re shown how, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways know Him and He will make your paths straight. So, a straight path is made by the Lord. He will make your paths straight. We can’t make a straight path for ourselves. If we hadn’t figured that out by now. But there is a way, trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Prayer:
And so, Father, we invite Your Holy Spirit into that. It would be easy enough for us to simply declare we do; we do trust you Lord with all of our heart. When the truth is there are probably many areas of life that we don’t. We invite Your Holy Spirit to begin to reveal these things to us. Show us when we’re not trusting You with all of our hearts and You have given us reactions in our bodies that give us indications about this, things like anxiety that can be crippling or any of the triggers of our lives. It’s actually pretty easy for us to differentiate when we are trusting You with all of our heart and when we are not. We are usually just not paying enough attention. So, in this year when we are paying attention to awareness and becoming aware of what is going on inside of us and around us, we invite Your Holy Spirit into this: what are the areas in our lives that we are not trusting you? And Holy Spirit, come, comforter, come to us, reveal these things to us that we might fully trust You more and more each day we pray in the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com that is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here and as I say most every day can do that in the app as well. And if you don’t have the app then check it out at your app store whatever device that you have but the app has some features that are really, really important. For example, you can check off the days that you are listening to, find out the days you may or may not have missed. But as these days accumulate and as we check the boxes and as we move through the Scriptures into the different sections of the Bible every time that we complete a section we get a badge, we get awarded, we get that and that stays in our account there we go back and see the different sections of the Bible that we’ve been a part of and can see that we are making progress and see how far into the Scriptures that we are, so definitely check out the Daily Audio Bible app.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you, thank you, humbly. We couldn’t do this if we didn’t do this together and so thank you. 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 is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.
And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, the little red button up at the top, looks like a Hotline, hard to miss 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.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Hey everyone, it’s Margo in Liberia. And I try to remember each year to phone in and just say a prayer for the new year because I just think it’s so important at the beginning of each year to orientate ourselves towards the will of God in our lives and towards using our lives for glorifying Him. So, Father I pray for each one of us as we are listeners of the DAB. I pray that You would continue to sanctify us, make us more like you. Help us to grow into Your image and to spread the fragrance of Christ wherever we go. I want to pray for joy and peace and happiness for us this year, sure, because I know I want those things but more than that I pray that we would use our lives to glorify You. That we will wake each day remembering how Holy You are and what You’ve done for us and the fact that we are saved by You. Father, help us to serve You and love You and Honor You with every bit of our strength. That there would be nothing in our lives that is more important than You. Help us to know the truth, to not be deceived, to not be desensitized by the things we see in the world, to believe in lies that are told to us by the world or even by our brothers and sisters. Father, please help us to love You more every day and this year would just be the start of more and more years where we devote ourselves to serving You and loving You and glorifying Your name. Let us be truly Your instruments. We love You. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Love you guys.
Good evening Daily Audio Bible, this is Deb from Michigan. I am calling in to just say thank you, so much for all the encouragement I’ve been hearing and the prayer requests that I’ve also continued to hear. The thread of hope on this line is immense. And for as much as there is so much tragedy in this world right now, there is still hope. And I hear it from all of you who call in to encourage and pray for one another and that is so huge. We are not alone, God is faithful, His mercies are new every morning. And so, I just wanted to say thank you to you guys. I want to shout out especially to the gal, the sweet sister who was encouraging us about the break up she just went through and how God was so kind to her by allowing that person to walk away because He knew that she wouldn’t. I so identified with that because I literally went through the very same thing right before Christmas and I had even prayed that God would take the scenario out of my life because I knew I loved so deeply that I would not walk away myself, so He was so good and kind to me to do that. And I am the better person and he is a better person too. So, I just wanted to encourage you all and say thank you again for being here. Love you.
Hi, this is Victorious Soldier, want to say Happy New Year and glad to be able to start all over again with our journey. I wanted to pray for Man of Wrath, I want to cover him and his family. I just wanted to be an encouragement for the fact that when you make mistakes, don’t worry about them. But God knows, He gave us an advocate with the Father that if we do sin that He can ask for forgiveness and God is merciful. God sees the sorrow in your heart for not sinning against him. Lord, You continue to touch Man of Wrath, he wants to be a good father, he wants to be the man you called him to be. We ask that You crown his head with the knowledge, You direct him and keep him. In the mighty name of Jesus. We ask that You touch Elenore, I want to pray for her and her family and her young children. And Lord, You have Your way, we ask You to touch that family, You touch that marriage. You have Your way. You be in the midst, Father. You help them to come together and to laugh together and just begin to praise God for all the things they have. Some young families wish they had a baby but ya’ll have a baby and a marriage and let God, ask God to come in and make it work. God can do exceedingly and abundantly above all we ask all those things. I wanna pray for DABers also who have COVID, I wanna pray that they be healed and that it doesn’t hinder and God would open doors that no man could close. In the name of Jesus. Lord, You have Your way. In the name of Jesus. Thank you Lord for China, thank You Lord for Brian. Thank You, Lord for 2022, we ask that You bring life and favor to all your DABers.
Praise God for this ministry, I praise God for everyone who listens each day, I thank God for allowing me to find this app, I thank God for the person who suggested the app. I am grateful what God is doing and the life of myself and my family. And, I’m so grateful for the word of God that is being spoken each day. I thank God for, we’re in day four. And I’m just blessed to be apart of what God is saying through this ministry. God Bless you all who are listening.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible community, Global Campfire time. Put your log on the fire, warm your hands. Breath the breath, the fresh air breath of God Himself. Whether it’s with Brian or Jill and China or with Ezekiel. And take this time, take a deep breath, sit down with your dearest heavenly Father, your best friend. If you’ve never invited him in, to be born again, invite Him, invite Him to come in, welcome him to come into your life. He knocks at the door of your heart, open that door, invite Him to be your best friend. And sit with him, let him put his big, strong arms around you. Trust in His word. Trust Him this day, this 5th day of January 2022. And just lean against his breast as He holds you and let His word wash over you and cleanse you for this day. Don’t just know about Him, know Him. I pray this for you my dearest friends. Be His best friend and let him …
Hey Daily Audio Bible this is John from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I hope you’re doing well, Happy New Year. It is the 5th of January and I wanted to call in to encourage anyone new or anyone returning to the Daily Audio Bible. Whether this is your first time going through the Daily Audio Bible together, congratulations on making that decision or your second, third, fourth, fifth, maybe 17th year, whatever the case might be or for anyone that’s started before but never finished that was me, years ago, I’ve been listening since 2012, wasn’t able to really complete each year. I’d get about halfway through the year and fall behind and then get frustrated and what I should’ve done was listen to the advice of people a long ago that said, if you miss a day don’t worry about it, just pick up on the day that you’re on, just keep going forward to just take another step, you’re in God’s word it’s gonna be okay. So, my encouragement to you is just take a day at a time. And don’t worry if you get behind and I just keep on going. You’re around thousands and thousands of people around the world that are going on this journey together and probably thinking the same thing. So, I wanted to encourage you, I wanted to pray for Brian as well. Heavenly Father, thank You so much for this Community. Thank You, that we can come around the Global Campfire each and every day, day-by-day, step-by-step. And yes, on the fifth day of January we can turnaround on this journey that we’re on and we can look at the land behind us. We can look in the other direction, we can see the great deep that we’re going into and we’re just so thankful that you’re gonna be there with us and guiding us Jesus. Thank You for the transformation that Your making in us through Your word. That’s what we are here for Lord Jesus, to hear Your word and to have it change and transform our lives, Father God. Thank You so much for Brian, Lord Jesus for his faithfulness for his dedication and his loyalty and commitment to You. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.