02/25/2020 DAB Transcript

Leviticus 16:29-18:30, Mark 7:24-8:10, Psalms 41:1-13, Proverbs 10:15-16

Today is the 25th day of February, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it is a joy and a pleasure to be here with you today. And this is the last time I get to say this, from the…from the shores of the Sea of Galilee. We will be…we’ll spending a little bit of this day in the Galilee region but we’re…we’re leaving and heading west all the way to the Mediterranean coast today where we’ll end the day. So, this is our last day and we’re saying goodbye to the Galilee. That’s always a little bit of a sad thing. This is such serenity. I…I…it’s my favorite place. I love to be in this region. So, we’ll be leaving today but we’ll talk about all…all of our moving’s around and what we did yesterday and all that in a little but let’s dive into the Scriptures for today. We’re reading from the Christian Standard Bible this week. Leviticus chapter 16 verse 29 through 18 verse 30.

Prayer:

Father thank You for Your word. Thank You for another day in Your word. Thank You for the way that day after day after day there’s this cumulative effect inside of us that we can feel transformation happening with in us even though we may not be able to explain it, kinda like seed and soil when the farmer doesn’t know how it happens but it does and that’s what’s taking place within us and we can sense it and we’re grateful for it. And, so, we continue to open ourselves to You. We continue to stay open to Your direction and leading in our lives. And, so, Holy Spirit we invite You to plant the word of God into our hearts, into the soil of our hearts today. And again, we invite that You help us to see where the good soil is in our heart and where some work needs to be done. Come Holy Spirit into all of this we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

Okay. So, here in the land of the Bible, we will be leaving the Galilee today and heading essentially through the Jezreel Valley and back to the Mediterranean coast tonight. So, it’s always a little…sad’s not the right word, but it’s the Galilea’s a beautiful, beautiful and…and quite serene place and then that kinda changes as you move away from the Galilee. We had a just beautiful day yesterday, gorgeous, beautiful, perfect climate, sunshine, lovely at…and the see if Galilea’s very, very still. And the water is up so high. Some the places that we visited, it was just amazing how much rainfall, how high the Sea of Galilee is.

So, we began our day yesterday…yesterday at the Mount of Beatitudes. And this is the traditional site where the Sermon on the Mount was given. And I mean the Bible says Jesus was outside of Capernaum up in the hill overlooking the sea of Galilee and that’s with the Mount of Beatitudes, that’s where this chapel is. And, so, we just began our day there and just went to the Sermon on the Mount, just allowed the words from the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety. It’s just basically, I read it. Like, what if we were sitting here? What if we were one of them? Instead of just trying to expound on everything like, let’s just take this in. And, so, that’s what we did and took some time to contemplate it and think about it. And, I mean as we’re walking in the footsteps of Jesus and kinda visiting the places where so much of His ministry occurred, we also spent a lot of time thinking about it. And, so we did that at the Mount of Beatitudes.

And then we went to the church Peter’s primacy. This is the place where after Jesus resurrection Jesus came back to Galilee any He cooked breakfast on the shore for His friends and asked Peter three times if he loved Him and invited him to feed His sheep and we just went into that story realizing that the last words that Jesus speaks in the in the New Testament is “you follow me”. And we…we considered what that looks like, or each of us. We each have an individual story to tell. We each come from so many different kinds of backgrounds. What does that look like? What does that mean? Like, so often we’re gauging how well were doing that based on how well somebody else is doing it and our judgment of that, but we just read the Sermon on the Mount and realized that’s not going…like that doesn’t go anywhere. What does it mean personally, “you follow me”?

And then we went down to the to the water. This is a place that you can get right to the water and usually there’s kind of a bit of a beach. It’s washed away. It was remarkable how high the water is but at the same time…how beautiful…how beautiful it was. I can’t remember ever…ever seeing that much water in the Sea of Galilee. So, this is a really, really good thing for this nation.

And, so, we departed there and went to Jesus hometown, His adult hometown, Capernaum, where He based His ministry. And there’s some really fantastic ruins of the fishing village Capernaum, including a pretty dramatic synagogue that was built later after the time Jesus but…but the a foundation is from the synagogue at the time of Christ. And, so, that is always pretty striking because you can see it, you can see the foundation and just know, like Jesus ministered, like He taught in this synagogue, He lived here, He knew people here, He laughed here, He ate here, He slept here. Where in the middle of it all, but it is a ruin. And, so, it’s like kind of a disconnect there until we realize that the message that Jesus was speaking was about having eyes to see and ears to hear, a kingdom that is within us, that this journey that…that we’re on, He’s within us and this kingdom is everywhere. And, so, then we begin to look around and see brothers and sisters flooding into Capernaum to see the same kinds of things that we’re seeing ands to chase the same kinds of things that we’re chasing. But we are the kingdom. And the life it’s in Capernaum isn’t in the rocks and isn’t really even in the fact that Jesus was there, it’s the fact that we were there. Jesus was there within us. Just to kind of put that into perspective was helpful as we moved through and looked at things. And just, yeah, I mean, that Jesus lived here at Capernaum is amazing.

Then we went and had a bite of lunch before and actually did a little bit of little bit of shopping time in the Galilee before getting on a boat and going out on the Sea of Galilee and it was really truly beautiful. Many time’s that we’ve been here there’s been wind and waves and wind advisories, but it was like glass out there today. It was just amazing. And, so, we kind of sailed toward the Mount of Beatitudes where we could even see the chapel that we had begun our day in the distance up on the hill and just shut everything down, shut it down to complete silence to drink that in and to taste of it and to allow moments for the Holy Spirit to be a part of the story that’s being told here in our hearts as we move through this journey. Complete silence, serenity, just to kind of hear the water lapping up against the side of the boat and the birds coming along, circling around us and just be still and know that He is God. One of my favorite…one my favorite things to do, especially so serene. I…I’m sure I’ve been out there and it’s been that calm….I just can’t remember. It was…water was really high and it was really calm. A beautiful, beautiful day out on…on the lake.

And then from there our final stop of the day as the sun set, and probably…I'm…it’s for sure one of my favorite places in all of Israel Bethsaida. And Jesus did ministry in Bethsaida. And it’s one of the places, at least for me…and not a lot of people go there. So, it's…it’s not overrun. And in fact, we had the place to ourselves for the most part today. And, so, just to kind of have that. And just the way that the city sits and because it’s not visited a lot it’s like stepping back in time in a way. It's…it…it’s almost as if this is what it would’ve been like. This is what it would’ve looked like. The pathways that we can walk around here, this is what it would be like. And I told the story of the first time I was ever there because it captured me, and it’s never let me go. Like that place just feels as close as anywhere that I’ve been in Israel as where I feel as if things are…things are similar to how they would’ve been. And, so, even though their ruins and the buildings are knocked down, so it’s not a living city it also has been built up and developed and, you know, there’s not a big church over something. It’s just kinda there and there’s jst beautiful pathways to walk…and walk with God and just spend time considering all that we’ve been through so far this journey as we prepare to leave the Galilee.

And that’s what we’ll be doing today, leaving the Galilee and heading toward the coast as I mentioned earlier.

Thank you for your continued prayers as we continue to move through all of the different phases and seasons of this story and this pilgrimage and all the different things that are being rearranged in our hearts. Thank you for your continued prayers over all of it. We feel it, we sense it, appreciate it, are deeply grateful for it. And tomorrow, after today happens, I’ll tell you what it was like to leave the Galilee and the different places that we visited. And, of course we’re continuing to post pictures and videos on social media of all the different places that I’m describing, the different places that we went to and visited. So, you can check that out as well as Israel 2021, the pilgrimage that we’ve got planned for next year around this time. You can find all the details at dailyaudiobible.com in the Initiatives section, Israel 2021.

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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.