Deuteronomy 2:1-3:29 ~ Luke 6:12-38 ~ Psalm 67:1-7 ~ Proverbs 11:27
Today is March 24th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and it’s great to be here with you today. Every once in a while I hit the record button while I’m in the middle of a sip of Windfarm coffee. Sorry about that. So, we’re all set. Here we go. We began the book of Deuteronomy yesterday, which is basically three different discourses from Moses that happened to be the last things that he says in his life to the children of Israel. And it’s kind of moving back through the history that we’ve covered with them in a review. And it’s beautiful to kind of contextualize where we’ve been over the last little while, ever since we met Moses, which buttons this section of the Bible up nicely because we’ll be moving into completely new territory from this point forward. So today, from the New Living Translation, Deuteronomy chapter 2, verse 1 through 3, verse 29.
Commentary
As we travel along with Jesus, we’re on a little hill, a little rise, moving away from the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is the backdrop. It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful, beautiful place. And Jesus is laying out this message known as the Sermon on the Mount, this central teaching. And we’ve covered this before in the book of Matthew, but in the book of Luke, as we hear the retelling of what Jesus said, we see so clearly that the kingdom of God that Jesus is talking about and the way that it operates, the way that you operate within it is basically completely opposite of the way we live most of our lives or our initial reaction to things. Jesus just contrasts everything. And what he says to do looks the opposite of what we normally react or do, right? I mean, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If somebody hits you on a cheek, turn the other cheek. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt. Give to anyone who asks. And when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you. Love your enemies. Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid then your reward from heaven will be very great and you’ll be truly acting as children of the Most High. Don’t judge others and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn others or it will all come back against you. Forgive others and you will be forgiven. Give and you will receive.
You see, it’s like the opposite of what we normally do. If we’ll take the time to kind of examine this today, overlay it with our own hearts and invite the Holy Spirit, we’ll see that Jesus is outlining the fabric of the kingdom and how we do or do not operate in it, because if we read all this stuff backward, we would find ourselves in some of these things. For example, the opposite of what Jesus said to do would be don’t love your enemies. Don’t do good to those who hate you. Do bad to them. Curse those who curse you. Cut off your prayers for those who hurt you. If somebody slaps you on the cheek, slap them back. If anyone asks you for anything, don’t give it to them. Especially don’t love your enemies. Don’t do good to them. Don’t lend to anybody without expecting to be repaid. Judge others all the time so that you too will be judged. Condemn others so that you too can be condemned. Be unforgiving so that you can in turn be unforgiven. Don’t give so that you don’t receive.
I mean, if we look at our lives, we’ll see that some of these postures, they crop up. Jesus is inviting us to live backward to the way that we’re living a lot of the time. But backward to the way that we’re living a lot of the time is actually how the kingdom works. So may we give the postures of our heart some thought today.
Prayer
We invite you, Holy Spirit, into that. Come Jesus. These are your words. This is your picture of humanity. This is how you lived and this is your description of the kingdom of heaven. And we can find places quite easily that we are contrary to that. We invite you into that. We release those things, those postures, those attitudes, those reactions, those words, the things that we say that are contrary. We release all this. It’s all rooted in other places of our identity that only you can reach and so come. Come Holy Spirit. Change us from within and help us to live and represent and steward your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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And that’s it for today. I’m Brian. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports
Hi family. This is Salvation is Mine in San Leandro, CA. Today is Saturday, March 18th. I wanted to say thank you to everyone on the DAB that has reached out to me or has sent me a card or has sent me CDs or books or gifts. It was so unexpected and I so appreciate each and every one of you for embracing me with the love of Christianity that I have never seen before in my entire life. I just am so grateful for this family, for the love, for the genuine heart that everyone has for Jesus in this community. I really don’t even have the correct words to tell you how grateful I am that you guys care for me and that you love me, even though we’ve never met, but we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. And we will all be together one day in his glorious presence. So thank you. I will be posting more pictures of the items I have received in the next few days, but I just wanted you to know that I have so much gratitude in my heart for you and I will never, ever, ever forget how you’ve made me feel, that I am truly a part of a family because I don’t feel that way about my own family and I don’t think they feel that way about me, but the Daily Audio Bible people have truly made me feel that I belong. So thank you so much. God bless you. Have a good evening. Bye-bye.
Stanley in Maryland, this is John from Bethlehem, PA. It’s Sunday, March 19th and I just heard your prayer request after listening to today’s podcast and I wanted to share with you that it is no coincidence that yesterday, the 18th of March, I was in an Alpha program at my church here in Nazareth, PA and there was a story that was told during that service that was absolutely put there for me to hear to be able to tell you. And it goes like this. There were two soldiers. They were fighting in war together. They were in a foxhole together. One of the soldiers was dying. He said to his counterpart and his friend, “I’m dying. There is a certain man at a certain address back home that I need you to go see when this war is over because what he taught me is what I’m thinking about right now and I love him for that.” That war ended. That soldier that lived went back home. He sought out that person at that certain address and he knocked on his door and that person answered and he told him what his friend told him, that what he taught him as a young child was what he was thinking about right then just before his death. The person that answered the door broke down in tears. And the soldier said to him, “What is it?” And he said, “Oh my God, I don’t know why I ever stopped teaching.” What happened was somebody was impacted by what he had done and he had never realized the impact of it. Stanley, the work that you’re doing is impactful. It’s making a difference. You may not ever be able to reap the harvest, to see the growth, but the soil that you’re tilling is…
Hi, my name is Michael. I’m a first-time caller, calling from London, UK. I’ve been battling with anxiety more recently, anger in the form of self-attacking. It’s pretty much a daily occurrence, and I know I need to let go of my thought life and take responsibility because that is where it kind of lies, but I just need prayer for help in that capacity because it is not doing very well for my wellbeing. Thank you.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible. This is Janelli from New Jersey. I am so excited to be calling in. This is my first time and I’m just so blessed by the Daily Audio Bible and I’m really calling in for prayer. I’m newly engaged to my wonderful fiancé Janeen and he’s just amazing and this God-filled man that God has really placed into my life. And we’re just looking forward to having a Christ-centered marriage as we have a Christ-centered relationship and I’m calling on behalf of prayer and guidance that I can be the excellent wife that I know God has called me to be. I don’t have a lot of examples of biblical marriages so there are some fears there that I can do all that God has called me to do even though I know I’m strengthened by him. But I’m calling for my DAB family to really pray and wrap this around in prayer. And also there are feelings of doubt from the enemy that I can’t do this and that I don’t have examples, and I know that is from the enemy, but just prayer on how to stay strong against those doubts when they come in and battling them with scripture. Really looking forward to hearing and praying and moving forward. Thank you so much for this resource in my life. It really has taken off and changed my whole year. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Hi Daily Audio Bible family. This is James, the teacher in LA, and actually responding to the prayer request from March 19th by Stanley teaching out in Washington, D.C. And I guess I’m responding to Stanley, but I want to talk to you and I want to talk to Jordan in Detroit and any other teachers out there, especially new teachers. I can understand all too well the feeling of am I doing the right thing? Am I doing a good job? Being exhausted from staying up late regularly lesson planning and being challenged by your students all the time. Guys, and especially I’m talking to the male teachers in particular, you don’t understand the value that you have. Just statistically, especially if you teach in the city, this country is full of fatherless children. You might be one of the very few men who has ever cared for any of these kids and showed them what a man of integrity looks like, a man of God. And even if they have church in their lives, that is never a guarantee. You’re being challenged because __________ doesn’t like the Spirit, but at the same time they need it. And I’ve seen these kids grow up over the years and they come out the other side and they need an example of what it is to be an adult who loves God. So keep going. You’re doing the right thing. Love you guys. Bye.
Hi DAB family. This is Daphne P. calling from Roswell, NM. I would like for you guys to pray if you can for our mission trip to Tokyo and __________ coming March 24 to April 2. We have 12 people going and we are just praying that God would do a mighty work among Japanese people. Japanese are the second largest unreached people group on the planet, people here in America kind of don’t ever see. Japan is a solid mission field because it is so modern and so beautiful, yet the people’s hearts are so far from God, so many of them. And I’m just wondering if you would pray for them? I’ve been listening for, I think this is my eighth year. I have never called in before, so thank you guys for being my family and thank you for getting me through so much in the past. Just pray for us as we’re working with churches and doing street evangelism and prayer walking through Tokyo and __________. You can reach out to me on Facebook. Daphne P. so Facebook.com/Daphne P. I believe. But thank you so much for everything you guys do, Brian and this whole team. We just thank you and praise you for all that you’ve done for this community. God bless.