Genesis 37:1-38:30 ~ Matthew 12:22-45 ~ Psalm 16:1-11 ~ Proverbs 3:27-32
Today is the 18th of January. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It is great to be here with you and great to take the next step forward. We’ve been traveling with Jacob and now we’re going to move into his son Joseph’s story. As we move through the story of Joseph, we find a lot of connection points to our own lives. So we begin, Genesis chapter 37, verse 1 through 38, verse 30 today. We’re reading from the New International Version this week.
Commentary
Think of the person in your life that you trust the most, the person that is closest to you, that you trust the most. Then think of a person that at this point in time you don’t have a whole lot of respect for, that you don’t trust the most. What are the differences between the two? Probably loyalty, consistency, honesty, truth. Probably time. The one you trust the most you’ve probably got some miles with. You’ve probably been through some ups and downs, some hills and valleys and mountaintops and maybe even deep deserts together. It is probably reciprocal. You’ve probably been there for each other, while the other person, maybe the one you struggle with or don’t have a lot of respect or confidence in has been the opposite of that in one way or another. What we’re describing is relationship. The person that is close to you, the person that you trust, they have your ear, you have theirs, you have confidence in each other and you can take them into your confidence. You can tell them deeper things that are going on that you’re thinking, that you’re working through, that you’re trying to process. You have this person and you can bring them into your confidence because you trust in them.
When I asked the question just a second ago, bring that person to mind, some of you may have brought God even to mind, God is the only one you can truly trust. We have to understand that is also a reciprocal thing. Relationships are shaped so that there is give and take. So a relationship with God is not a one-sided thing where we’re doing all the asking and all the receiving and all of the talking and we’re dominating the whole thing. That is not a healthy relationship.
According to the proverb today, the Lord detests the perverse but takes the upright into his confidence, which means God trusts the upright and brings them near into his confidence. This lets us know that this faith journey is not just the act of putting our trust in God and trying to walk with him but also that we are trustworthy with him, that he can put his trust in us. It is not enough to just go to church and sing songs about how we’re friends of God and he’s awesome and beats up the bad guys for us. This is about being in life together daily with a loyalty and allegiance that we would expect of the very, very closest person to us.
If we want to be the friend of God, then we have to be a friend, somebody who is trustworthy and loyal to God. We have to know that he is trustworthy and loyal to us. This is what relationships look like and this is what is available to us. May we live our lives in such a way that the Lord can take us into his confidence because this is what our hearts long for. If we’ll examine our lives, we’ll see that this person that we talked about at the beginning, this one that is closest to us, the one that we trust the most in the world, if they acted toward us the way that we conduct ourselves in this relationship with God sometimes, they wouldn’t be as trusted as they are. So are we upright? Are we true before God? Can he take us into his confidence? Are we a true friend of God? Looking in the mirror of that idea should explain a lot to us about the trajectory and shape of our lives.
Prayer
Father, we invite your Holy Spirit into that because this is our desire, that we are your friend, that you can take us into your confidence, that we can walk through this life with a confidence and loyalty and trueness that we haven’t experienced, and yet the invitation is there. It’s not you who has withheld yourself from us. It’s we who have withheld ourselves from you. So we invite your Holy Spirit into that. Bring up those areas that we have kept off-limits and those areas where secrets are being kept and we’re not being loyal and true. Come Holy Spirit, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Announcements
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
Hi everyone on the Daily Audio Bible. This is Nicki from Florida and I’m calling specifically for Dorcas from New York. Dorcas, I would love to connect with you. I am also totally blind. Maybe I can help. Maybe I can be there. Maybe I can be a friend. I don’t know, but I have been totally blind my whole life and I also know of all of the technology. I work for a company that makes some of it and so maybe I can give you some help. I don’t know, but Dorcas, I feel for you, Sister. I’m sorry you don’t have a lot of help. This must be a very hard road for you, but I would love to connect with you. I would love to pray with you. I would love to help you and be there for you. You can email me. My email address is Jesusgirl71@gmail.com. I would really love to hear from you. My heart aches for you. I feel for you and I’m so sorry for what you’re going through with your work and everything else, but know that you’re not alone. So in any case, again, this is Nicki from Florida. I would love to hear from you or anyone. I’m praying and listening to everything and I’m loving the Bible. I’m on Facebook as well and I’m on the DAB Friends group. Anyway, thank you to everyone and to Brian and Jill. Again, Dorcas, I would love…
This is Christine with a barking dog and I’m calling in specifically for Becky. Becky, I’ve been listening to you. I feel like I have a friendship with you way back from when you were Becky from Norway. And now I think you are Becky from Philadelphia. I wanted to thank you that you called in the other day. It was a sad day for you. It was your birthday and I appreciate your calling and being vulnerable and showing us all that we all have good and bad days. And yet you were so encouraging. Your voice is always so encouraging and such a welcome thing to listen to. That was one day when you needed support from some of us. So thank you for showing all of us that God is faithful and God allows us to have highs and lows but that you called in both to encourage and just sincerely ask for help. God bless you, Becky, and I hope today is a better day and I hope this year to come is blessed.
Happy New Year, Daily Audio Bible family! I am thanking God for all of the things that he has planned coming into 2017. Thank you to all the new listeners. I promise that you will not regret becoming a part of this amazing ministry. On that note, I just listened to January 14th and know that Brian Hardin and his brother have lost their mother. There are no words to say what I want to convey to you, Brian and your family, but knowing the man that you are and that you have been going on these 12 years being a part of the DAB community, I know that God is with you and you are with him. I know that your family is going through a trying time, but as you keep saying about margin, that definitely is going to come into play here. I appreciate so much that you didn’t take a day for yourself or a week for yourself as many of us probably would. Again, it just goes to show the testament of your dedication to this community and this family. I thank you from the bottom of my heart and thank God that your mom is now with him, rejoicing with him and I do believe that they are having the best party ever. Your mom and your dad are joined together and while everyone here that is left behind when loved ones pass, we do know that there is a day coming when we will all be together. I thank you. I thank the people behind the scenes. You have a wonderful partner in Jill. God definitely yoked the two of you together. He knew the reason and it just continues to inspire me to be a better wife, a better person and a better Christian. I love you, DAB family. Cheers! Asia from Munich.
Hello, this is Heather from Louisiana, a 3-year Dabber but first-time caller. I am one of the residents from Louisiana that lost their home, personal belongings and vehicles in the flood of August 2016. Received about 4 feet of water through our home. It is now January and the progress on our home is minimal and it just seems everyone is backed up and in this predicament. My family of four and my brother are sharing space with other family members as we all flooded, and I’m just kind of reaching out to God individually on my own and decided this week it’s time to reach out to my DAB family and ask you guys to pray for us also, not only myself, but my community and neighbors. So many of us are displaced and although you might not see it, we’re struggling down here in Louisiana and we just ask that you give God your prayers to strengthen our laborers here to move expeditiously and get us back home. We just want to go back home. I know there is nothing impossible for God. I’ve seen some great miracles through our community and just hope that maybe this time you could help us see a miracle down here in Louisiana. Thank you.
Hi family. This is Biola from Maryland. I hope you’re all doing well. Brian and Jill, God bless you. Dorcas from New York, Sister, I prayed for you through the night. I was so moved by your cry for help. You know what occurred to me, Sister? If you read Matthew 20 and Mark 10, these two chapters in the Bible are really important because this is where Blind Bartimaeus and two blind men cried out to Jesus. They cried out with all their might and even when people told them to shut-up they cried out louder. And you know what touched me? The Bible says Jesus stood still. When he heard their cries, he stood still and then he called them to himself and healed them. Sister, as you have cried out to Jesus, in the name of Jesus, he will come to your aid. I pray right now that your son who is isolated from you will begin to move closer. I pray that as the word of God has said that he will encompass us with favor and with his shield, Sister, the Lord will encompass you with favor and with his shield, so much so that people who do not even know you will go out of their way to satisfy you with favor, in the name of Jesus. That the Lord will provide for you, that he will bring people around you to support you and help you, you’ll no longer feel lonely. If you’re not plugged into a local body, the church of Christ, I pray that you will find a good church to plug yourself into so that you can have people that will surround you. God bless you, my sister. I will keep praying for you. Becky from Ohio, I’m thanking God for his protection and deliverance for your son. What an awesome testimony. Our God is a good God. Lisa, I’m praying that God would comfort you and restore all that you’ve lost. I pray for favor with your insurance company, that they will approve full replacement for you and I pray, Sister, that God would give you double for your trouble, in the name of Jesus. God bless you.
Hey Brian. This is Byron out in Florida. On Saturday I went to go play the podcast and for some reason it wouldn’t play. I just keep tapping and tapping the play button and it wouldn’t play at all, so I just restarted my podcast app and I tried it again and it started to play, but I couldn’t hear anything. I could see the numbers moving, but there was no sound or it was very low. I spent a while just fussing with it, trying to get it to work out, and finally, almost about a minute into the podcast, I got the sound working. And just the timbre of your voice created a reflective thought in me, ‘oh no, his mom is gone.’ And I zipped back to the beginning of the podcast to see if it wasn’t so. Brian, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m so sorry. You are our leader in this community and it seems that through the trials and tribulations of your life, you are emboldened to be brought ever closer to God and you bring us closer to him too. Through the travail of Ezekiel’s birth, when your eyes got scratched up in Israel, when you broke your foot in that car accident, and through all the losses that you’ve had in the last year, your constancy in the word of God has taught us that it needs to be constant in our lives too. I’m looking forward to the day when I can say to your mom and your dad, to their face, thank you for living the lives that they did because it has changed my life and the lives of my family. I love you, Brian, and I’ll be waiting to hear you tomorrow.
Hi, my name is Jessica. I’m calling from Pennsylvania, first-time caller, but I’ve been listening on and off for about five years. I’m calling because my husband wants to go to church and things have not been going well. We’ve been really hurt by some of the leaders there and I’m just ready to give up. I know God has called us to church ministry, but it is really hard to get through some of the hurt and move toward forgiveness, especially when it seems like the other side doesn’t want to reconcile. He has a meeting with some of the leaders on Friday that I think will be kind of pivotal in our decisions for next steps. I ask you to pray for him and the leaders as they meet together and for our family of faith to decide what to do next. Thanks family. Bye.
Hello fellow Dabbers. This is the 11th of January. I just listened to all the prayer requests and the Holy Spirit led me to share this with you. I am Studious Workman in Beaverton, OR. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give ear to my pleas for mercy. In your faithfulness answer me. In your righteousness enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. For the enemy has pursued my soul. He has crushed my life to the ground. He has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore, my spirit faints within me. My heart within me is appalled. I remember the days of old. I meditate on all that you have done. I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you like the parched and. Answer me quickly, O Lord. My spirit fails. Hide not your face from me lest I be like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord. I have fled to you for refuge. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on level ground, For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life. In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble and in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant.