Esther 8:1-10:3, 1 Corinthians 12:27-13:13, Psalms 37:1-11, Proverbs 21:23-24
Today is the 20th day of August welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian and it is wonderful to be here with you today as we come in out of the…well…here in the rolling hills of Tennessee it’s coming in out of the heat and not coming in out of the cold at all, but we’re coming out of the heat into this oasis, this cool place around this Global Campfire where we can let it all go and focus on the Scriptures as they inform the choices and decisions and steps that we will continue to make each moment by moment in each day by day. So, we have…in the Old Testament been working our way through the book of Esther. We will conclude the book of Esther today. It’s been a high drama story. Haman the antagonist met his end yesterday. His plot to annihilate the Jewish people though is still intact. And, so, let’s reach our conclusion on the book of Esther by reading chapters 8, 9, and 10 today.
Commentary:
Okay. So, yesterday we were talking about this…the Holy Spirit, the gifts that are bestowed by the Holy Spirit, that they are to serve the body and that they are to serve the Lord and that we are all part of a body and no one part can say to any other part that I don’t need you or I don’t want you because we collectively make a whole, a body, and every parts needed to make of that body, whether it’s a seen part or an unseen part, whether it’s pretty part or a hidden part. No matter what, it’s a part, a necessary part of a body, the body of Christ in this world. And, so, we can seek the Holy Spirit and seek the giftings of the Spirit and serve the Lord through them, but when it’s really about our attention…like drawing attention to ourselves then we’re forgetting that we’re a part of a whole and that comparison leads us nowhere, which leads us to what Paul just lays out in the 13th chapter of first Corinthians. We can have all these gifts that we want. We can jump up and down and draw attention to ourselves. We can do noble things we can do impressive things, but if we do not do these things in love they do not do or mean anything. And that’s kind of a line in the sand. For example, can you be jealous in love or envious in love or raging in love. That gives us a bit of a plumb line to inquire of ourselves. Am I doing this in love or am I doing this in selfishness or envy or some other thing that is not going to serve God or the body, is only gonna serve ourselves? Love is the currency, or maybe…maybe the blood of the body. Love is the blood flowing through the body. A necessary irreplaceable piece. We’re dead without blood, right? Paul says, without love, I am nothing. So, let’s think about that and let’s go into the rest of our day loving and loving well.
Prayer:
Holy Spirit we can’t on our own in our own strength. Certainly, we can love those who love us and we can be patient, we can be extra kind. But to just embody love, to just be Your love in this world and to try to in some way offer love wherever we go, we don’t have the capacity. Only through the power of Your Holy Spirit can we achieve anything even approaching this. But as we think about it, as we just consider, man what would it be like to just love. That is such a serene and peaceful place to think about because it overlooks so many of the things that we get so entangled in, so much of the bitterness and resentment, so much of the depression, so much of the anxiety comes from places that we feel wronged or wounded. And if love could fill those spaces. So, Holy Spirit come into our brokenness, the places that we find it really difficult to operate in love and fill those spaces with Your love. Help us to understand that, that it’s not…it’s not by brute force that we’re just acting like we’re loving, it’s that we need You to fill us in those spaces so that it’s not our will or our love, it is Your love flowing through us, filling us, healing us, restoring us, and then going out into the world. Come Holy Spirit, we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com, that’s home base, that is the website, that is where you get connected and find out what’s going on around here. And all of these things can be found inside the Daily Audio Bible app as well.
And, so, be aware of places like the Community section, where there are all the different links to the social media avenues that we post on and interact on as well as the home of the Prayer Wall. The Prayer Wall lives in the Community section of the app or the website and it exists as a vehicle that is always on, never off, always available where we can always go and ask for prayer, always or we can…we can go and offer prayers. And we’ve talked about this before but it’s very, very easy when things are hard and we’re having to do some endurance and we’re growing weary and we’re getting weaker and weaker, it’s very easy for us to get very focused on our pain or whatever it is that we’re suffering and whatever the challenge might be. And, so, we focus on the disruption and then we want to talk about it to a lot of people. So, we keep telling the same stories and asking for the same kinds of prayers when as wonderful and helpful as it is as it is to have the body of Christ around us, sometimes focusing outward, especially in the wee hours of the night, right, when you can’t just make the rounds on the phone or whatever. Sometimes, offering prayers, reaching out in prayers for other people who are also in pain who are also enduring something, reaching toward them, feeling connected in that way gets…well…it gets things in perspective and keeps us from becoming so wound up into our own story. And that is an important piece of our spiritual journey, to understand that we are knit together as a body, and when one hurts, we all hurt. And, so, to participate in healing in any way that we can, even just going before the Lord on behalf of someone, that is a beautiful thing that we have done well here at the Daily Audio Bible around the Global Campfire. So, the…the…the Prayer Wall is very important to that equation. So, certainly be aware of it and use it daily, often.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible thank you, thank you humbly and with a heart of gratitude. Thank you for your partnership. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t do this together. And thank you for your partnership as we navigate summertime. Appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.
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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 evening DABbers please pray for my grandma that has multiple myeloma. Please heal her…I mean please pray that God will heal her and please pray for her that she will have a lot of fun with us in the pool and she will…and she will be…I mean and she will have a lot of energy. In Jesus’ name I pray.
Hello DAbbers this message is for Jonathan from Denver. I’m calling to encourage him and acknowledge him that he just confessed he has a problem with an addiction. And I really wanna tap you on your back man because you’re very brave to do such as this. I suffered the same thing. I…I went through this addiction of pornography and it last for many many years, 25 years in my life and what I had to do, the same as you did. Basically, just surrender to the Lord and He will give you the strength and the self-control to get rid of all this junk, all this material that you have. Just focus…focus on the thing that you have, that you are able to. Focus on what you are able to do and God will provide you the strength and the power and the will and all the self-control to carry on until you completely destroy this out of your life. He will put you…and Jonathan, He will put you good friends that will guide you to a different path. And just rely on the Lord and I’m sure as He did for me and many others He will give you the power to come out of this addiction. And I’ve been praying for you and for all the community, everybody that has any addiction, doesn’t matter if it’s pornography or anorexia or, you know, alcohol, drugs. I’ve been praying for all you guys. Love you all. And thank you Brian for this wonderful podcast. Cheers. Blessings everybody. __ here from Australia. Bye.
Good morning DAB family this is Tito Ramirez calling from Southern California. I wanted to call today and have you guys pray with me over my mom Mara. She is in my life her and Brian Hardin are the two people that I’ve seen just really turn themselves inside out to serve the Lord. My mom came to this country and became a citizen, but she came from Peru and always had a heart for serving the Lord. And she started raising money. All my life all my life I remember my mom raising money and putting in her own money to build churches and Peru. And then she funds out of the money that she raises and her own pocket the pastor’s salary that goes around and preaches at these churches that she built down there because she didn’t want him encumbered by any red tape from any religious institution. And she, once my sisters and I got into Graduate School she partnered with our…with our universities here in Southern California to take the medical and dental schools there and set up free medical care in these churches that she built. And it was a great experience for the medical students and the dental students and the hygiene students. And they would take volunteer doctors and dentists and they would just go serve man, just give away free medical care until they ran out of stuff. And they did that every year. And my poor mum is suffering right now in the hospital. She’s had some small strokes and it sounds like she’s having another one this morning. And I just want to cover her in prayer. She's…she’s a retired nurse and she just reminds me so much of my own kids when I take them to the doctor to get a shot. She’s become so scared, you know, and it just feels so different. But please provide cover her in prayer, that the doctors would diagnose her quickly, that they would treat her effectively, that the Lord would send the Holy Spirit to comfort her and give her peace so she’s not afraid. I love you guys. Thank you so much for praying for my family. You guys are the best.
Hi this is Anonymous. I just wanted to call in and ask for some prayer because…it seems so silly…but my husband and I have very different needs when it comes to intimacy. And in order to not make him feel bad about his drive not being as high as mine is I’ve kind of gotten sucked into porn and I don't…I don’t want to go to that. I…I want that relationship with my husband, but I don’t know how to make that happen or get to a place where I’m content with what we have. So, if you guys could just pray for me, I would really appreciate it. Thank you.
Hi, my DAB family this is Julie calling from the UK. I’ve been following the DAB since the beginning of the year. So, I’m doing quite well with it really considering I’ve had such a tough time. And I’m just asking for prayer really because I just cannot get out of this anxious state I’m in. My life is just not there. I just feel I can’t do anything. I just sit in the same chair everyday feeling weak and reading my Bible and listening to the Daily Audio Bible. I’ve had a lot of changes in my life. I’ve moved to a new…a new country and I’m just struggling. I miss my family so much. And I don’t know whether I should be here or go back. I’ve only been here…I’ve been here three years, but I just feel that I need some…some prayer to…to guide me whether I should return or stay. This anxiety is just unbearable. And I’m just praying that you’ll all pray for me or at least one of you will pray for me and that I can trust in God to help me, bring me through this. Thank you.