Number 11:24-13:33, Mark 14:22-52, Psalms 52:1-9, Proverbs 11:1-3
Today is the 9th day of March. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is great to be here with you. Every day getting a little bit better, pretty much feeling back now from the excursion, the pilgrimage that we took to the land of the Bible and as we close this week out it’s good to be feeling as if everything is back and feeling mostly normal again. So, thank you for all if the prayers. So, we’re at the end of the week and we’ve been reading from the New Living Translation this week, which is what we’ll do today. And obviously we’ll be picking up where we left off yesterday, which takes us back out into the book of numbers. Today chapter 11 verse 24 to 13 verse 33.
Commentary:
Okay. So, we are in the season of Lent and that began a couple of days ago and we talked about it a bit then. And whether or not you observe Lent is totally up to you but it’s a long-running Christian tradition that goes back to the early church and, you know, when we talked about it, we talked about how you see people giving up candy bars or whatever, but that’s really not the point. The point is to spend 40 days contemplating what it cost to eradicate sin from your life, right, because sin leads somewhere. Like, this is what we’re seeing in the Old Testament with the sacrificial system. Sin costs something and Lent let’s know that it cost the life of our Savior. And, so, we say to God, whatever’s in my life that doesn’t need to be there in this season, I surrender it to you completely. I give you permission to reorder anything in my life. I sit with what it cost to bring me my salvation. And as we read from the Gospels today we’re moving into that story. And, so, it’s a poignant reading for this particular season as we go through the passion narrative again in the gospel of Mark to focus our attention on exactly where sin leads and what sin cost.
Prayer:
Jesus as we read this story from the gospel of Mark in this season we sit humbly understanding even from today’s reading that this wasn’t just something that you came to do in your spare time. This was an anguishing thing for you. You cried out to the Father for this to pass and yet you surrendered your will. This was not an easy thing to go to the cross. To eradicate sin from our story cost something dear and so often we take that for granted, but in this season and, as we’re moving through this story, we invite your Holy Spirit to bring it near, to bring it close for us to be able to understand the magnitude of your sacrifice. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
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The couple things that we’ve been mentioning this week are the Israel 2020 pilgrimage. That is filling up. And, so, we’re looking forward to going back in a year. And since we just got back and opened registration, just kind of letting you know that registration is open for Israel 2020 and you can get all the details at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section.
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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 and Praise:
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Lee from New Jersey. Today is March 6th and today is the first day of…Ash Wednesday. So, blessings to you all and may we bless each other and let us contemplate how we’re gonna enter this season. So, let’s do this. First off, before today is day 24, just saying that to remind myself what day it is…praying against gluttony. Angela from California, you called about depression and you need prayer for that and we’re on sister. Let the Holy Spirit guide you, pray through this, let the Holy Spirit guide you to help the less fortunate. Okay. And what you see by helping the less fortunate and you will interact with the less fortunate that how happy some of the less fortunate may be with so little and with so many problems that they have but yet they still rely on the Lord and the Holy Spirit to guide them through any situation that they’re in. So, that’s just the Holy Spirit speaking through me to you. And my brother Mark Street, thank you very much for that shout out. You are my brother from down under. So, we will be talking soon hopefully and hopefully I’ll get your email right. God bless you. Today’s day 24 praying against gluttony. So, here we go. Father God as we enter today Lord, today is the day of fasting Lord. May we keep You in our hearts and in our minds Lord. May we listen to the Holy Spirit and not to our hunger Lord, that if we have hunger, that hunger may be for You Lord, for Your spirit, for Your love, for Your passion, for Your word Lord. May the Holy Spirit live within us Lord. May there only be space for the Holy Spirit to be within us Lord, to guide us Lord, to satisfy our hunger Lord, to keep our minds sharp and to keep us focused on You as we enter into this season of Lent. May we leave the things that we don’t need Lord and get to see the things that You have put forward for us, that You have put in front of us…
Hello to my newfound family. My name is Natalie. This is my first year coming through the Bible with you and I am so grateful for you. On my heart today is a woman who called. As soon as I heard the word suicide my heart broke. I’m coming through a depression myself and I don’t know her name but she’s due to have a grandchild soon. She doesn’t even have joy about a grandchild coming and she’s reaching out for God. I just want to tell her…I want to remind her of this mission for this Daily Audio Bible and it is to bring the spoken word of God to anyone who will listen anytime anywhere and to do it in community so that no one has to ever feel alone again. She is not alone, you are not alone. And as another Daily Audio Bible listener said to Psalm…referring to Psalm 91, which is so beautiful because we can all go there in our Bible. I’m reading this for you, the woman who is so depressed. “The Lord says I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call in me I will answer. I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation.” I love you. I love you, woman who is going through such a difficult time right now. I can be reached at godsgoodgraces.trust@eachgmail.com. I need to reach out to you, you are loved by so many. Do not lose heart. My grandchildren live far from me. It is closer for me to get to Florida from Canada then it is to go see them in Canada. So, please don’t lose heart. You are loved. Reach out. You are doing the right thing by staying involved in this community.
Hey DAB family this is Tim in Tampa. I just want to thank all of you so much for all the prayers this last week. It has just been so touching and so moving to me. Cherry Chase, Pastor Gene, of course I remember meeting you there. You know, they say that we don’t remember days we remember moments. And meeting you and your family is going to be always one of those moments, just very special. Pelham, your analysis was dead nuts on. We are in a boxing match. It is a fight. And it’s a constant fight against the enemy and if you’re gonna live this life you signed up to be in the war and I believe I was just in a space where I needed somebody else to reach down and help me put the armor on. And I just want to thank every single one of you. I only have two minutes, so I’d need about five to thank everybody. So, apologies for not being able to mention everyone but you’re so moving to me. And I asked my wife last night, “so, you seeing anything in the last week, any changes?” She said, “are you kidding me? I got you back again.” So, I just really appreciate it. Realize that we’re in this battle. And thank you for helping me to put the armor on when I couldn’t and lifting my arms up when I couldn’t. And I just really appreciate that so much. Such a powerful, powerful thing that we have here of just thousands of people from all around the globe able to lift each other up and I just look forward to the day when we can all meet in heaven. Isn’t it gonna be great? Where all gonna be able to meet people that prayed for us that we never met before and we’ll have friends that we didn’t even realize that we had and relationships that will be wonderful and we’ll be able to see the things that were able to affect that we just don’t even see right now. But I do want you guys to know what an affect that you had on me this last week. Don’t stop praying. The war continues, but I want to pray for somebody. Pelham, you’re right man, let’s just jump into the ring with Pelham right now…
Father, I just want to lift up my Daily Audio Bible family right now. I just thank you that you are a holy, you are completely set apart. I thank you that there’s nobody else like you. I thank you that you never change, you remain the same in an ever-changing world, in ever-changing circumstances you remain the same and you are our most stable, most trustworthy, most faithful source that we can trust. I thank you that we can renounce the lies that we can’t trust anybody. That’s a lie because we can absolutely trust you and we can trust your heart in other people. Father, I ask that you would break off the fear of man, that we would stop being afraid of one another to open up to one another so that we can confess our sins one to another and be prayed for and be healed. And father, I also thank you that your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven in all of my brothers and sisters listening to this right now and for every person that truly does not know you and has never been born again but they are on that edge, they’re on that battle, that there being warred for the very soul and mind. And I just say, come into the kingdom of heaven. Be set free and be made whole. Yeshua is here and He is all you need, He is all you’ll ever need. He is truly life. And, so, father I just release your kingdom on your people that they would run and not grow weary, that they would rise up and persevere, that they would not fade, that they would finish this race you’ve given them. I ask that you would give them supernatural wisdom, that you would give them humility to learn new skill sets, to take care of their minds, their bodies, their souls. And father, I just ask that you give them wisdom for relationship skills, financial skills, whatever they need, that they would go after it and that they would learn and grow and to labor with you…