Deuteronomy 2:1-3:29, Luke 6:12-38, Psalms 67:1-7, Proverbs 11:27
Today is the 24th day of March, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it is a joy to be here with you around the Global Campfire where it’s always nice and cozy and where God’s word is allowed to speak into our lives. It is a joy to be here with you today. So, yesterday we started the final book of the Torah or the Pentateuch, which is the book of Deuteronomy. And, so, that’s where we’ll camping out for a little while. And as we mentioned about Deuteronomy, these are the final discourses, the final things Moses has to say to the children of Israel before he becomes a part of their history. And they move on forward without him. These are the things that he wanted to say. And, so, some of this is a review but it’s being said to a new generation on the precipice of crossing into the Promise Land. And, so, we’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Deuteronomy chapter 2 and 3.
Commentary:
Okay. So, in the Gospel of Luke today we…we revisited what’s known as the Sermon on the Mount and we went to that at length when we went through in the Gospel of Matthew. The gospel of Luke has a retelling of this, a little shorter one. But again, when it…when we listened to Jesus words at the Sermon on the Mount it’s like He is describing something that ignites something in our hearts, but it seems that He’s describing a way of being in this world that’s really almost the opposite of the way that it seems that the world works, which is somewhat His point. “God blesses you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.” And like, we’re not trying to be poor, usually in our life. “God blesses you who are hungry now, you will be satisfied. We’re not usually going for that. “God blesses you who are weak now. In due time you’ll laugh.” We don’t usually go for that…like that’s not we’re waking up in the morning with the agenda to do, like how…how much can I weep today? Conversely, He says, “what sorrow awaits you who are rich”, which is the objective, is to accumulate. Like, that’s the way of the world, and it keeps providing us products and services to buy to make us feel like we’re getting somewhere. And Jesus says, “you have your only happiness now if you do that. What sorrow awaits you who are fat and prosperous now. A time of awful hunger awaits you. What sorrow awaits you who laugh now”, right, so on and so forth. Essentially, Jesus is kind of describing the wheel of humanity, like the way that things keep repeating themselves. So, on the one hand, Jesus is talking to the people who are at the bottom, the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are like at the bottom of the Ferris wheel, as it were. They are in a good position because they can get off the wheel. Their entanglements have been stripped away. They can have eyes to see. They can see there’s a completely different way of being here, you don’t have to play all those games. But those who have, right, those who have things that they need to hoard and protect, those who have arranged for a life that now they’ve gotta try to figure out a way to keep it and not let it slip through their hands. it’s not gonna…it’s not gonna bring the satisfaction that we were looking for. It’ll just keep spinning. Those who are at the top now, some day will be at the bottom. It just keeps spinning and spinning and spinning. Jesus is modeling a way of being here that is true to how we were created to be and it’s almost opposite of the way that we…we live, the way that we think things are. So, if we did live into this, what would our lives then look like? I mean, what can we expect? Because we often have like a quid pro quo kind of mentality. “If I sacrifice. If I do this. If I am faithful, then God is bound to be nice to me. He’s bound to give me what I want.” What can we actually expect though? And Jesus says, “what blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. When that happens be happy. Leap for joy. A great reward awaits you in heaven. And if you are willing to listen, I say love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who hurt you, someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other cheek, if someone demands your coat offer your shirt. Give to anyone who asks. 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 them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great and you will truly be acting as children of the most-high for He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate just as your father is compassionate. Do not judge others and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others. It’ll all come back against you. Forgive others and you will be forgiven. Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full. This is such a different way of living, of being in this world because it’s one that isn’t tethered to this world. If all of your investment of all of your life is to accumulate things you can experience for the short period of time that you have health and stamina to build it up, that’s all there is. What Jesus is saying is there’s kind of a currency that flows through the kingdom of God that reveals no one is lacking in anything, there’s nothing to hoard. And if you want to operate in God’s kingdom, then you’ll have to be sort of like an open water source. We talked about the Dead Sea, I don’t remember, like month ago or whatever about how there’s no outflow and how it is dead. But how the Sea of Galilee, billions of gallons of water running through their and it hasn’t run dry. That’s how the kingdom of God works, at least as described by Jesus. And we can see that the things, the treasures that we’re laying up for ourselves, they can be earthly but that’s all there is. But if we’re storing up treasures in heaven…if we’re living from the inside out with the objective of not how much we can get while we’re here, but how much we can give…and I’m just talking about money…I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about our hearts, our lives, the weight of who we are in this world. The fact that we are here as a child of the most-high. What are we doing with that? The odd thing about the kingdom of God according Jesus is that when you are wide open like that, when you’ll give anything, you’ll lack nothing. So, once again we have some things to think about as we go into our day about how it is that we are participating, how it is that we are in God’s kingdom, like how that is actually lived out in our lives, in our postures, in our motives, in our heart
Prayer:
Jesus, we invite you into all of that. We wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t the desire, if it wasn’t a desire to know and understand your will and your ways in our lives and to be nourished from within by the word of God. And, so, we want to be actively participating in your kingdom on this earth and revealing it. And we’re gonna have to have eyes to see so we get glimpses. And we want to be fully awake. And this is our prayer. Wake us up to see what’s really going on here. We are so tethered to our physical senses that so often it feels like whatever is happening to us in our bodies around us in circumstance, this is all there is. And you’re simply telling us if that’s how you’re going to look at it, then you are exactly right, that’s all there is, but if you open your eyes there’s so much more. Open our eyes God. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In Jesus name we ask. Amen.
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