Joshua 5:1-7:15, Luke 15:1-32, Psalm 81:1-16, Proverbs 13:1
Today is the 12th day of April, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is wonderful to be around the Global Campfire with you today. Every day is wonderful. This is the best place to be in the world for me, around the Global Campfire together, immersing ourselves in the Scriptures together. What an incredible journey we are on. And our journey in the Old Testament has led us all the way into the Book of Joshua. And as we’ve moved into the Book of Joshua, we’ve gotten to do something that we’ve been waiting to do since Genesis, and that is to go into the Promised Land. We crossed into the Promised Land yesterday with the children of Israel. So that’s where we find ourselves, just on the other side of the Jordan River, actually in the Promised Land. And memorial stones were placed, so that the children of Israel would be able to come back to this spot and remember what happened there, what God did there. And we talked about that yesterday and memorializing our own lives. And so, here we are in the Promised Land. Let’s take the next step forward and see what happens next. We’re reading from the New Living Translation this week. Joshua chapter 5 verse 1 through 7 verse 15 today.
Commentary:
Okay so, in the book of Psalms today, we get the opportunity to think about what God is like. And let’s just look back over our journey so far through both old and new Testaments. We’re, we’re into this now, we’re well underway. And so, we’ve been able to see the formation of the children of Israel. We’ve been able to see their freedom from slavery and their wilderness journey. And we’ve also been able to move through some of the Gospels now and watch Jesus move about on earth and see what He has to say and what He does. And so, are we getting the picture thus far of a God that is disinterested and aloof and above it all and doesn’t really care? Like, that’s not the picture that the Bible is drawing. When God began to give the instructions to Moses about how this culture would be shaped, we saw him give very detailed plans for what would become, what would come to be known as the tabernacle. And this is where he would dwell with His people in the middle of their camp, like right in the middle of it all with them. That doesn’t seem dispassionate, that doesn’t seem aloof, that doesn’t seem arrogant or disinterested. So, we wonder things like does God have feelings? And this isn’t an attempt to like humanize God down to our level. But in some ways, we only have so much capacity as human beings to comprehend the un-comprehendible, the Most High God, the creator of everything. Things that we have discovered and that we know and things we have no idea about. But does the way that we live affect God? Does He get exasperated? Does He lament? In the Psalms we read today, but no, and this is God speaking, “but no, my people wouldn’t listen, Israel didn’t want Me around. So, I let them follow their own stubborn desires, living according to their own ideas. Oh, that my people would listen to Me.” That’s, that’s the voice of God coming from the Psalms. That doesn’t sound disinterested or aloof or distant, because God is not distant. He is not indifferent. He’s never stopped caring for His people. The fact that we have the Scriptures as a gift to reveal God, so that we might reach toward God, lets us know that He wants to be known. This is what we call a relationship. And we’ve been in, like we, we’re made for relationship. People are made to be in relationship with each other and with God. We’re made for relationship, so we know if we’re in a relationship. And we probably know that, like indifference doesn’t work in a relationship. And yet, we blame God for indifference all the time, when we don’t get what we want. And usually, we’re the ones that are being indifferent. Or putting it back in God’s words, “Oh, that My people would listen to Me. So, let’s, let’s give that some thought today. And make that a point to meditate on. Our actions, our thoughts, our words and our deeds, affect the relationships that we’re in, including our relationship with God, because He has given Himself to us and for us. He has given His heart to us, He loves us. You can’t be in love and be completely indifferent and aloof. It doesn’t work and God is not being that way toward us, it’s usually the other way around.
Prayer:
And so, Father, Father, we repent for using You as a means to an end, as a way of accomplishing something or getting something for seeking Your favor and blessing. We want these things and need these things as Your children, but You already know that before we ask. So often we think You are indifferent towards us, when so often we are not listening to You. And we repent of that, and we repent of breaking relationship with You and then turning around and blaming You for breaking relationship with us. We can be stubborn and stiff-necked and unbelievably selfish toward You and we are sorry. We are growing up, we are learning. We thank You for Your patience and endurance in our lives toward us. Show us how to love You in a way that brings joy to Your heart. We ask, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Announcements:
dailyaudiobible.com is home base and that is the website an app and that’s where you find out what’s going on around here, as I say every day.
I wanted to take a few minutes now that I believe we are in the clear again, to just briefly talk about what we were experiencing last week. We had some technical difficulties last week that were really, really mystifying. Mystifying, in part because they were not affecting everybody and those are, like those of you who are in app development or any kind of development, web development, code development of any sort, and you have something that’s like deployed that’s out there in the world and you begin to have technical problems. Well, if it’s not affecting everybody, then those can be the worst things to find because you have to begin to divide and conquer. It is isolating down exactly what’s going on with what specific kind of phone or what specific kind of tablet or whatever. What’s going on here and like tracking that down, and then reproducing it can be really difficult. And so it was, but it will be two weeks ago tomorrow, tomorrow night. We began to get some emails, people getting logged out, couldn’t get back logged, logged back in. Things weren’t working in the login area. And then by Friday morning, we knew like they’re coming in. Like we’re getting all kinds of interaction here. There seems to be a problem. And so, then trying to determine whether this is affecting everybody are not, and understanding that it’s not affecting everybody. In fact, most everybody’s not being affected, but lots of people are. Yeah, we just started digging in and it wasn’t but a day before the entire development team was on this, literally tearing everything apart trying to find out what changed because nothing had changed. We hadn’t recently done any kind of an update. Nothing new was introduced. Only to find out after a week of this, that there wasn’t anything wrong and that we hadn’t like nothing in our code was out of place. We were being affected by a problem on down the line, with one of our technology providers and we weren’t the only ones being affected. So, I don’t want to make a long story tedious and longer. The net is that we’ve migrated our entire infrastructure three times in the last two weeks to completely different server architecture. But once we got away from the updates that were installed underneath us, everything started working perfect again. So, if you have had some troubles logging in and using the resources the app, like the Hotline or any of that stuff. Everything should be back to normal right now and working fine. Which leads me to simply say within the next couple of months here, we’ll probably be having a fireside chat. Like, I’ll probably take some time to actually sit down and tell you a whole story of really rethinking our our whole technology footprint underneath it all. And it’s not a new story to me, like this is a story that really kind of began when COVID began and has been being processed and reengineered and rethought for well since then. So, we’re way, way, well underway and we never stopped developing, we just started thinking about what the future looked like. But we are not quite at the place to have kind of a little bit more of a lengthy conversation about it, but we will before this year’s out. But I am getting on here today since enough people were affected that I think yeah, this, this, sometimes when we have these like little isolated incidents they do affect people and we fix them but they really affected a very small segment of people with a specific kind of phone or something like that. This affected kind of people of all across the board. Whether you are Android or Apple device or whatever. So, I’m getting on here to let you know, all should be well and thank you for your patience with us as we were really tearing everything possible apart, only to find out, it wasn’t us. So, thank you for your patience. Thank you for your prayers. Technology is a beautiful thing that we deeply depend on in this day and age. But then when it’s not functioning properly, we find tremendous amount of frustration in that and I’m one em. I find tremendous frustration in that. And so, I just wanted to let you know, all should be well and we’ll continue this discussion in the future.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible. Thank you, humbly, we couldn’t be here, this technology couldn’t exist, we wouldn’t be continually striving to improve and perfect it, if we weren’t in this together. And so, thank you, humbly for your partnership. 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, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that’s 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 DAB family, this is Laura in Colorado, and I just had some things I wanted to call in and update you about. Over a year ago I had called and asked for prayer about a little baby that was abandoned in her NICU. And I know many of you prayed and we’re just so grateful for that. We were able to have her and love her every day for over a year. But last month, a decision was made to move her to a different home out of state. And that has just been really hard for our whole family. So, if you could just pray for comfort for especially my little kids, they’re just kind of confused and this is probably the biggest loss they’ve ever experienced to this point in their life. And if you could just, please continue to pray protection over this sweet baby and the, God’s will for her life would just be fulfilled, He would bring Godly people in and around her and we know she’s in His hands. As we’re in Holy Week, I just keep also thinking about the story where the, Jesus is at dinner and this woman comes in and breaks this expensive bottle of perfume and pours it all over Him. And you know, the disciples are upset about that. And He said that she did this to prepare His body for burial. And I’m not sure why it keeps striking this year, but it just keeps making me think that, so this whole time that He’s, you know, in trial and carrying His cross and hanging on His cross, his body has been, you know, dipped in this oil and He just has this scent. And I just keep imagining that, even in the middle of this suffering, He’s just keeps catching these whiffs of, these comforting and meaningful fragrances to guide Him through. And that was just meaningful to me this year for some reason.
Hi DABers, this is Shepherding Outside Seattle. I’m a pastor of a small church, like thousands of people around the world. And there are a lot of voices in the church that what you to do this or do that. Or listen to this or listen to that. And I would ask for your prayers for myself and others like me, that we would hear and tune into the voice of God. His word, help us to be faithful to His word against all odds. And proclaim His word, lift up Jesus in appearances and sensible and winsome way. I really value your prayers and ask for this prayer for wisdom for us, that we would see God, even when we don’t even realize that we see Him. That we would understand and see the things that we’re missing. That they would come into focus for us. That we would be God’s shepherds, loving the flock and directing them to Him only. So, I ask for this, in Jesus name. Amen.
Hello, my DAB Family, this is Unwavering from North Carolina. Many years ago, this prayer community prayed fervently for my daughter Jillian. And now, I’m coming to you all, asking for prayers for my daddy, Elton. I’m currently at his bedside as he suffered an emergency on Sunday night. Palm Sunday, so I’m asking for your prayers. He is 72 years old and really just a God-fearing man who was in great shape, ate healthfully and worked out. So, I just wanna lift up all of those of us whose lives have just been, just turned around suddenly, due to a family member falling ill or just life’s circumstances, just being lifey. So, Father God, we put the enemy on notice that he cannot win this battle with your sons and daughters, like my father Elton, and anyone else that is right now. For all of heaven backs up the word of God when it is prayed accurately, affectionately, and fervently by those in agreement. Therefore, with prayer, faith and belief we pull down to earth the healing, health and wholeness that rightfully belongs to your children. Jesus, Himself, bore their sickness and disease for every organ and every cell, every muscle, every tissue, every nerve, every vein. We claim them functioning and continuing to operate properly. Father God, we believe in the amazing testimony that Your sons and daughters who are falling ill, who are sick, Father God, that they would have a supernatural healing and a supernatural blessing. And they will tell the story of how good You were to them and all of us.
Shalom, Daily Audio Bible, this is Dwayne from Wisconsin. All praise and glory to our wonderful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Today is April 7th, it is Good Friday. I would like to lift up Anna, in the Trenches. She called in Lord, with her last mend to be prayed for her family. Her husband just had some surgery on his leg. Lord, we ask for Your intervention that You would heal his leg but more importantly, that He would take the time to get the rest that he needs to recover from this. We ask that You be with Anna and her three children, as she home schools them. Her 8-year-old daughter, her 12-year-old son and her disabled 12-year-old, 18-year-old son. Lord, what a blessing that is, we want to lift that up to You for praise and glory. That Anna and her husband are taking on the responsibility to care for this 18-year-old disabled son. Lord, in Your eyes he is not disabled. We ask that You be with Anna during this time and all the times that she feels that she’s down and needs to be lifted up, Lord. That You will be there for her and give her the peace, understanding and strength she needs to get through this time. And that she will be able again to home school her children, what a blessing that is Lord, that she is willing to do that, along with her husband. And that she is feeling pain and fatigue, Lord. We ask that You come upon her, Lord, and give her that strength that she needs to know that You are there with her. And that when she lays her head down at night Lord, that she will get a good restful sleep. And be able in the morning, to see the light of You in her life and the life that she is to her children and a blessing she is to her children and her husband. Anna In the Trenches, we lift you up to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God bless and Amen.