12/31/2016 DAB Transcript

Malachi 3:1-4:6 ~ Revelation 22:1-21 ~ Psalm 150:1-6 ~ Proverbs 31:25-31

Today is the 31st day of December.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible and knowing that it is the 31st day of December, we know that this is the end of the year, which means we will complete the Bible today, this journey that we have been on all year, since last January 1st.  It has brought us to this point and now we can look back over the year and see how the Bible every day in our lives makes a profound difference to the way that we look and feel about the world we live in and ourselves.  It’s a day of contemplation and maybe a little melancholy, but much rejoicing.  God has been faithful to us and it has been a beautiful journey.  

But we can talk about that maybe a little bit more at the end, but right now we should get to what we get to every day, the word of God, and we will finish today.  Malachi chapter 3 verse 1 through 4 verse 6.  

Commentary

Well done, friends.  Well done.

Prayer

Jesus, we thank you.  We thank you for this year, this year of stretching and growing in so many ways. We thank you for your faithfulness to us and the gift of your word and the gift of community and for allowing us to be on this planet at this time where this kind of technology can draw us together all over the world.  We thank you. We thank you for this community, Lord. We have done our best to love each other well and to honor you and it has been a beautiful trip around the sun again. We thank you for the sun rising and setting each and every day, constant, as constant as your word in our lives. And along with the book of Revelation, we mimic that and say come.  Come, come Lord Jesus.  Yes, we are longing for your ultimate arrival when all things will be made new, but we are saying in the meantime continue to come for us. Continue to renew us.  Continue to restore us.  Continue to make us whole again that we might be men and women created in your image, intertwined with your spirit and making an impact in restoring this world.  So come Jesus.  Come into our hearts.  Come into our minds, our bodies.  Come into our spheres of influence and all those who are around us.  Come, Lord Jesus, however you choose.  We just want to be near you.  We just want to be wherever you are going.  So as we end this year, we do so in worship and honor to you, your name, your glory, your authority, your power in our lives and in the world.  As we turn the page, we prepare to jump in again, to jump into a new year, a fresh start and we want every day of the next year to be one that we walk in lockstep with you in the great dance of life that you have invited us into.  So come, come Jesus, we ask in your name.  Amen.  

Announcements

Well, we get to the end of the year and it is like we’ve said all the words of the Bible, what else is there to say?  It’s been quite a year, hasn’t it?  A really fascinating year indeed.  So today completes 11 years, 7 days a week of the Bible being read fresh daily.  That blows my mind.  I can’t believe we’ve done this.  I can’t believe I sat down in front of the microphone like this.  I think back 11 years and it is a different life, but it is a different life because of God’s word and you.  We have done something really, really remarkable together in taking the adventure of a lifetime through the scripture and seeing just how profoundly it changes things. So well done, well done for another year.  

Every year I kind of say something similar to this:  I realize that this is a melancholy goodbye to some of you. I realize that some of you may go on into something else so I just bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit as you continue your faith journey.  I encourage you to never let the Bible be absent from your life, no matter how that looks.  

Then I also realize probably for most of us we’ll turn the page together and leap into a new year.  That really is what we’ll be doing.  We’ll be taking this step of faith across the hour of midnight and releasing the year 2016 into our own personal history and it will become a piece of history and we will be present in a new year.  I long for that.  I look forward to that fresh start because it is a representation of what is happening inside of us every day.  We get this fresh start with some fresh goals, dreams, aspirations.  May those be centered around the rhythm of the scripture in our lives because it keeps our lives moving in a proper and appropriate direction.  We may do all kinds of things that are mistakes or that are even intentional, just walking away, but having the Bible as the center rhythm of our lives keeps us constantly knowing which way to go.

So we’ll take this leap together tomorrow, but we’re here right now.  We’re here in the waning moments of a year, of a difficult year, an inspiring year, a productive year, a good year.  It’s been so good, all of you that I’ve gotten to meet in person this year.  Thank you for coming to say hello.  That has been a joy and I look forward to the same in the coming year.  So may we all find rest, rest in knowing that we can release, we can let go of the year gone by and hope that we can step forward into what is to come.  May we do it with joy and peace and rest.  There is a hope that is beyond hope and it is planted in the most ancient and deep parts of who we are and we know it.  If we would heed it, if we would rest in God as we move into the new year, we will find balance and margin in our lives that allows us to live from a full and true place and spread this peace, this wholeness, this shalom to everything around us.  

So may the Lord bless you and keep you.  May he make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.  May he lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. May the strength of God go with you. May the wisdom of God instruct you. May the hand of God protect you. May the word of God direct you. May you be sealed in Christ this day and forevermore.  Amen.  

I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here next year.  

SONG Played on today’s DAB “Be Still My Soul” Kari Jobe http://apple.co/2hhusag