Daniel 11:2-35, 1 John 3:7-24, Psalm 122:1-9, Proverbs 29:1
Today is the third day of December, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible, I’m Brian. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today as we come in out of the cold, find ourselves around this Global Campfire together, release the tensions, exhale, unshackle ourselves from all kinds of things that can hijack us and just come here into this peaceful oasis that we create together, every single day, knowing that whatever’s going on out there it can wait a few minutes. It’s not all gonna fall apart in a few minutes. These few minutes may change the way that we handle any number of things. I love that, I love that there’s this place. There’s this place that we come together and each day we take the next step forward in that place together. So, this next step forward we’ll be leading us back into the book of Daniel today chapter 11 verse 2 through 35.
Commentary:
I’ll talk about I John again, but let’s first go back to John, the gospel of John, to hear Jesus words that pertain to what I John is telling us today. So, from John chapter 13 Jesus tells us your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples, so let’s, let’s use that as the backdrop for what is being said in I John today. We will be known as a disciple of Jesus by our love for one another. Now, we move to I John and our reading today and I quote “if someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need, but shows no compassion, how can God’s love be in that person.” What we might recognize is, is that we’re right back to this same point that keeps getting pounded and pounded and pounded, from James, from Peter now from John. You have to live what you say you believe; your actions actually matter in the equation. We can’t make a faith claim that has no action to back it up. We can’t claim to walk in the love of God if we don’t love and care for one another. Faith and love aren’t just topics for discussion, this is a way of life. In fact, the way of life because it is the way of Jesus. Here’s how John puts it and I quote “Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other. Let us show the truth by our actions, our actions will show that we belong to the truth so we will be confident when we stand before God.” So, our faith in God tells us that His love for us is to be received and given away, when we’re trying to hoard things so that God’s blessings remain in our hands, we are supremely limiting ourselves. If we understand that God’s love has not run dry for the world, for the people on the earth, even after all of these thousands and thousands of years, His compassion and mercy and kindness and love for humanity has not run dry and will not run dry for us than we realize that we can be like a reservoir, receiving and sending out, receiving and sending out, constantly as a way of life. The love that we receive is the love that we give, is the love that we receive, is the love that we give, and it just keeps repeating itself. The best analogy I have ever come up with in the and so I use it often enough is some geographical landmarks that are biblical. The first one being the Dead Sea. We’ve read of the Dead Sea in the Bible, but that there is a Dead Sea and it’s a large lake that collects the water that flows down to the lowest point on the planet. The Dead Sea being the lowest point on planet earth, below sea level. Because it’s at the bottom, like there’s no lower than the Dead Sea, everything that collects there has nowhere to go. It’s run all the way down to the bottom of…of the land on earth and its dead and lifeless. Super cool place to behold but you don’t go into the Dead Sea thinking that you might see the fins of a shark or fish swimming around you. They won’t be, they don’t live there. It’s dead. On the other hand, not that far to the north of the Dead Sea is another famous body of water called the Sea of Galilee. Jesus did a majority of his ministry around the shores of the Sea of Galilee and the Sea of Galilee is also a lake below sea level. It’s the lowest freshwater lake in the world below sea level. The Sea of Galilee feeds the Dead Sea. It receives water from the nearby mountains and all of the streams that feed into the Sea of Galilee, it’s a freshwater lake. It’s not dead. It’s alive. I don’t, we know that scientifically, but we know that from the Scriptures. What did Jesus disciples, mostly do? They finished in the Sea of Galilee. It’s alive. The reason is that it has water flowing into it and water flowing out of it, making its way down to the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee is not stagnant or dead because of the inflow and the outflow. By the time of the water gets to the Dead Sea, there’s nowhere for it to go. It’s hoarded there at the bottom of the earth, where everything is dead. What I John is essentially telling us is there is no shortage of God’s love. We are either going to be hoarding it and allowing it to become stagnated with in us or we’re going to be a reservoir of inflow and outflow as a way of life. Understanding that there is no shortage of God’s love. It won’t stop flowing so we can give away all of the love in our hearts with corresponding action to back it up, knowing that there is an endless eternal supply. So, as we continue our journey into the holiday season and toward the end of the year, there’s some bombs being dropped here out of the Bible that so affect the way that we live if we would listen to them. There is no shortage of God’s love. We can receive his love and close our hearts and become stagnant or we can have open hands and open hearts and allow ourselves to be a reservoir that love is flowing into and out of. I’ve been at the Sea of Galilee lots of times and it’s been around a long time because it’s mentioned so much in the Bible so that body of water has been there for thousands and thousands of years and it’s not empty. And yet it is sending out billions of gallons from itself. As water flows out of it and yet it’s still there, it’s not empty. It hasn’t run dry. If we envision our hearts after this fashion, we have a good chance of being a lot more clearheaded and open-minded and openhearted, knowing that that love that rains down upon us is there to be temporary and given away because a new supply is constantly flowing in, its extraordinarily idealistic to think about it, but imagine what the world would look like if that were our reality. And then let’s understand that that is where everything is headed. That’s where we’re going because that is what the kingdom of heaven is shaped like according to the Scriptures. So, the quicker that we can transition into living in the kingdom with open hearts and open hands, the quicker that we get to participate in God’s intentions. Nobody should be unloved right; nobody should be unloved and we carry within us an endless continually replenished supply.
Prayer:
Father, we’re really describing how you are as told in the Scriptures that You are love and we are collaborating with You as Your body has the hands and feet of Jesus in this world when love is the currency of our lives. If we are ridiculed or marginalized, or any negative thing, if we pay that back with love, we have removed the power of darkness from the situation and removed it from the world. Love conquers all we’re told by the Scriptures. Holy Spirit, we ask that You reveal to us what that means to us, to our lives, into our stories. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is a home base and that’s certainly where you find out what’s going on around here anytime. But this is Christmas time. So, there are some special things going on around here. First off, it’s time to get ready for our virtual family Christmas party that we have each year and that happens by us calling in our holiday greetings to the community here that we’ve been sharing a whole year together every day with. And it’s pretty simple. We have a Hotline in our app, and we also have 877-942-4253 as the number that you can call and those are typically for prayer requests and encouragements and that’s how it is always except for this one week of the year when you can also call in your holiday greeting to the Daily Audio Bible Community. So, you can use the same Hotline, you can use the same phone number that you would normally use to call in a prayer request, in fact maybe you have a prayer request and you can use the prayer line or the Hotline to call that in but if you also have a holiday greeting don’t combine it in the call that you’re calling your prayer request in, make those separate. It’s the one time a year where it’s okay to hang up and call right back. And we will take those calls all the way through December 8th and then we will get to the business of putting it all together. So, don’t delay, don’t procrastinate. If you want to participate.
Let’s see, the Daily Audio Bible family Christmas box for 2021 is available now while supplies last. And it is, it is full of resources from Daily Audio Bible, some that you may want to keep, some that you may consider giving away or maybe you just want it all for yourself, but there are a number of items in there from the Daily Audio Bible resources that we’ve handpicked that we think will bring the joy of Christmas into your life as well as a connection to the Global Campfire that we have shared all year long. So, you can check that out, see the contents, look it over in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, in the Christmas section.
We have released Promised Land, Photographs from the Land of the Bible which makes a really fantastic gift. We decided that if we were going to do this, we were going to do it right and it is right. It is beautiful. It will last, it is made of very, very high-quality materials and I think does an honor to the effort that was put into it over many, many, many years. And so, it is a book of photography, obviously. But there are plenty of words in there describing the different regions of the Bible that the photographs are inviting us to look at. And so, it is, it is a wonderful piece. You can check that out at dailyaudiobible.com in the Shop as well.
And then, our brand-new Christmas album for 2021. It’s called Christmas Time and this resource was produced and arranged by my son Maxwell. So, if you search Maxwell Hardin or Christmas Time, you should be able to find it, that is out now.
And if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, thank you from the bottom of all of our hearts. Thank you for your partnership, we wouldn’t be here without it and we wouldn’t be here if you weren’t in this together. So, thank you. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.
And as always if you have a prayer request or encouragement or right now a holiday greeting you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top or you can dial 877-942-4253.
And that’s it for today, I’m Brian, I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.
Prayer and Encouragements:
Hey family, it’s Tony the Truck Driver calling in. I’m calling today for my brother Renzo. I heard his prayer request for his father looking for a job and his mother healing of her ear. And Renzo, I just said a prayer for you, we just lift you up as a family. Lord, we just ask that you bless Renzo’s mother. Lord, that healing would come to her ear in the name of Jesus, that she would come out better then she was before. Father, we pray for Renzo’s father as well that he would find a job better than the one that he had before. Lord God, that he would be able provide for his family. And we praying for you Renzo as well with your ministry, brother, it just helps me cause I wanna get a ministry going since my prison ministry, we can’t go into the prisons right now. So, I’m just trying to find my way and do some street evangelism or something. I know God is with you and the Holy Spirit is with you. So, I just bless you brother and also playing for Crystal and her family, her situation with her husband. I just ask Lord God that You would touch Crystal, her children, mend the relationship between her and her husband if that is Your will Father. And that You would just give her strength and faith in You. She’s waiting on You to move in this situation Father. God, we are praying healing for her and her family. In Jesus name. Amen. Thank you, family. Love you guys. Still listen every day. God Bless you. Tony the Truck Driver.
Good morning, everyone, it’s Susan from Canada, God’s Yellow Flower calling and I would like to pray for Daniel Johnson Junior. Lord God, just be with him as he is exhausted, and he is wanting to have rest in this Christmas season. I pray Lord God, that he would sit with You, that he would find rest in You, that he would find peace in You. I pray dear God that he would be still with You. And when he needs the energy, I pray that You would give him everything he needs to be Your faithful and good servant. I’d also like to pray for Tyler. I loved that phrase that you used Tyler, plastic forgiveness, that is so descriptive, but I pray dear God that Tyler would receive relief from You from this depression, that it would be lifted up, and that the forgiveness that he needs, would be real. Lord God, forgiveness is an action verb, and we have to decide to forgive, before we can feel forgiveness. So, I pray this on Tyler and that You would watch over him and just lift him out of this fog of gloom and raise him up, Lord God. In Jesus name I pray.
Hi DABers this is Ms. Sandra Florida, prayer going out for Taylor who’s struggling from depression and unforgiveness. Father God, we lift up Taylor to you in the name of Jesus. We plead the blood of Jesus over him Father. We pray that You empower him with Your strength. We come against the enemies, attacks on his thought-life, his imagination life, giving him bitterness and awful thoughts of unforgiveness Lord God. We know that’s not from You. And Father God, we know Your word says if you from your heart don’t forgive your brother, his trespasses, that You won’t forgive ours, Lord. And I know Father God, Your word says our healing begins, it begins with forgiving others. So, Taylor, I pray that you would take one step at a time, journal, write down the things that’s bothering you. Turn them over to the Lord. How big is it? Turn it over to the Lord. Forgive your brother or your sister those wounds that Satan keeps reminding you of, they are not worth carrying around. And after you do that, tell her, you make a journal about forgiving yourself. That’s the beauty, forgive yourself, forgive others. And I pray that God will set you free from bitterness, rage, anger, self-hatred and guilt. And I pray this in Jesus’ name. I will be praying for you; we’ll all be praying for you. We come against this depression and we pray God would just give you a joy that just is incredibly huge in your heart right now. That you wouldn’t be able to stop dancing. I pray that you turn on the radio, the Christian radio and that you start singing and praising and worshiping God. In Jesus name I pray. Keep praying brother.
Hello, Daily Audio Bible family. This is LaChula from Los Angeles. I heard a beautiful prayer request over the man in our families, particularly a husband and I just want to take the time to thank the Lord for my husband. In 2018, we went through a really rough season, particularly me, you know, trying to peel back the layers of my heart, my soul, my thoughts and really let the Lord penetrate into my heart and find the worthiness that I thought I didn’t have and peel away shame and guilt. Everything that, that made me come to just kind of like a breakdown at that time and my husband and I got separated at that time, but he never stopped praying over me. He continued to believe and through that he got closer to the Lord and you know, we did manage to go to counseling and hold onto our faith and rebuild. And so, although we’ve been together for 21 years, it feels like just two years of getting to know each other again. And I just want to say that God restores and God reveals and God is good. And my husband introduced me to the Daily Audio Bible and my life has been so much better for that. Thank you Brian and Jill and China and all your children for pouring into lives daily. I don’t know what my life would be like without the word. The truth the light God’s presence and I just want to say thank you and have a beautiful December, may it bring abundance.
Good evening family, I was recently diagnosed with COVID19 and I’m needing your help and prayer. I have a toddler that was just diagnosed as well, she’s not been feeling good tonight, she’s already thrown up twice. I’m asking for your prayers. My wife is currently pregnant with our newborn and I’m concerned that she might get it too. Calling on your prayers tonight.