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Daily Transcripts
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09/18/2015
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Isaiah 28:14-30:11 ~ Galatians 3:23-4:31 ~ Psalm 62:1-12 ~ Proverbs 23:19-21
Today is the 18th of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian and I am happy that we can be here together. Another day, another step forward through the scriptures. Another opportunity for us to come together in community and orient ourselves to God through his Word. So I'm thrilled that we can be here today. We’re working our way through the book of Isaiah and we’re not quite halfway there yet. We’re still kind of working through. We’re also working our way through the letter to the Galatians. So we’ll begin, from the English Standard Version today.
Commentary
Paul is saying some momentous things about our status with God, about the way that God sent Jesus, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might be adopted into God's family. Because we have been adopted into God's family, we can call the Father ‘Father’ just like Jesus. We’re no longer slaves. We’re children of God. We are a son and if a son, then an heir through God, joint heirs with Jesus to the kingdom. That is huge!
But there is this overlooked reframe moment in what Paul is saying. He says, “Formerly when you didn’t know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature aren’t gods. But now that you’ve come to know God or rather be known by God, how can you turn back to what was worthless, what was childish, elementary principles of the world?”
The key thing there is ‘known by God.’ It is engrained into our Christian subculture that we need to know more of God. It is in all of our songs and it is in all of our postures. More. More of God. More fully knowing God. Growing in that relationship. Knowing more.
The thing about relationships is that they are not one-sided things. A lopsided relationship ends up making one person full and one person empty. A true life-giving relationship is one in which you know and you are known and a truly intimate relationship is one where you are fully known and fully know.
Paul is saying ‘well, now that you’ve come to know God or rather that you’ve come to be known by God (which is both), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world?’
If we want to be in a relationship with our Heavenly Father, then that is to know and be known by God. It is not enough to just say ‘well, God knows everything about me because he knows everything about everyone.’ While that might be true, it is sort of like a pass allowing us to go, ‘well, I'm going to feast on every experience I can have about God. I'm going to do whatever I can to nourish myself, but I don’t really have to give of myself. I don’t have to walk with God. I don’t have to be present to God because he knows everything already.’
But that doesn’t look really like a relationship. It is more than a posture of heart. Like, ‘I'm opening myself to be known by God.’ It's an active participation. That is what relationships require. You just can’t know a lot of things about your spouse and kind of know your spouse because they are giving into the relationship but you're not so like when your spouse is moving toward you and pressing in to know you and you're just kind of like, ‘you already know all this stuff.’ Relationships are shaped like life is shaped and God wants to be in it with us.
So what if we changed our posture? What if we reframed this and understood that to be known by God is every bit as important as knowing God? And it is because Jesus talks about people who come to him on the last day and they say, “Lord, Lord, we did all this stuff in your name. We healed the sick. We ministered to people.” And Jesus says, “Depart from me. I never knew you.”
Yeah, I'm pausing for effect. It's not enough to just know a lot about God and to spend our lives trying to know more of him. A relationship is to know and be known. So may we spend the rest of this day kind of pondering that, but also living into it because there aren’t some magic tricks that have to happen. It is being present to the relationship, going through life in the relationship, not doing anything that will break the heart of the one we are in relationship with, actually being in a relationship with Christ. So certainly may we continue to press in to know more of God and to know God more, but may we open ourselves completely to being known by God, not just guided by God or directed by God, but to be known by God.
Prayer
Father, that is what we want. We want to know you and we want to be known by you. We want to be in such an intimate relationship that we can cry ‘Abba Father.’ So we make ourselves present to you. We invite you completely. We do most every day. We invite you completely, invite your Holy Spirit in to guide and direct us, and we need that desperately, but we want fellowship with you, intimacy with you which requires the giving of ourselves, the giving of our time, the ability to just waste time with you because we are in love with you. So come into everything, everything that we do today, everything that we are about today. All of the postures of heart, all of the conversations, every thought, word and deed, come into all of that. You are invited into all of that. As you invite us into your life, we invite you into ours. This is what love looks like. This is what relationship looks like and you have offered this to us and we’ve just tried to pencil you in. We’ve just tried to schedule you in, tried to make an appointment. We’ll have an emergency meeting if something is going wrong in our lives. We want you involved in everything. Everything. Everything, from pouring a glass of water to making a critical life-changing decision. We want you in everything. We are in a relationship with you. We want to be known by you. Come Jesus, we pray. Know us fully. Show us by the power of your Holy Spirit the places in us that we’ve segregated, that we don’t want you to know about, that we don’t allow you in. We want you in it all. Come Jesus, we pray. In your name we ask. Amen.
Announcements
Www.DailyAudioBible.com is home base. It’s the website. It’s certainly where you find out what’s going on around here, what people are praying for. The Daily Audio Bible Shop is there, so check it out.
We’ve talked about Reframe and we’ve reframed a lot of things all year, but Reframe the book is something that started shipping yesterday. Even the stuff we were just talking about, some of that stuff gets covered in Reframe and it is available now. Go to www.ReframeBook.com and if you haven’t gotten your copy yet, grab one while we’re still able to give away things, to give away more than what the value of the book is, while we’re still able to give away Passages, the first book, and give away the first chapter of the book to just kind of get going while it is in the mail and give away a great big discount on the Promised Land film. So check that out. Reframe is now shipping, which is almost two weeks ahead of schedule. I'm excited about that, so grab your copy today so we can go through this message together and really orient ourselves as we turn the corner toward the last quarter of the year, to just go blasting into that strong and come out the other side stronger and more aware as we move into a new year and make it the best, most fruitful year of our lives. That is my prayer, so check it out.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com. There is certainly a link that lives in the upper right-hand corner. Thank you profoundly, as I say every day, humbly, as I say ever day because those are the right sentiments, because that is the truth of my heart. Thank you for allowing this community to exist at all. If you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Spring Hill, TN 37174.
As always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to call.
And that’s it for today. I’m Brian. I love you. I’ll be waiting for you here, tomorrow.
Community Praise Reports and Prayer Requests
Like Satan, I was stubborn and I had to be the best. Hard driving, impatient, a cut above the rest. Insensitive, self-reliant and chronically independent. I even tried to compete with God. Was I crazy or just demented? Demented, that's the perfect word. It has that demonic sound. And demons did control my life. They ran me in the ground. It had to be poor self-esteem that made me so independent. Independence made me egotistical, critical, and in many ways a cynic. Being critical and egotistical has led to isolation. Isolation led me into sin and lots of aggravation. Once you're deep within the sin, you're far away from God and once again poor self-esteem will make you start to feel odd. The cycle just repeats itself. You feel you just can’t win unless some way you can get to God and make the cycle end. Now how does one get back to God? There are a lot of different theories. I guess that is why a lot give up. Their spirits often weary, especially if their spirit isn’t one that is from the Lord. Satan tries to make it hard for us to get restored, but really it is quite simple. Accept and just agree. Deliverance is a gift, my friend, that is absolutely free. You can learn to be dependent. God will always bring you through. Stay humble and compassionate because love will help you through. And as your faith and walk is stronger, you’ll become God's son and the cycle will be broken and your battle can be won. But there will be other battles and other victories too, as long as you stay close to God, but the choice is up to you. It's your thing. Do what you want to do.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible. My wonderful Christian friends, I'm reaching out this morning. It's 6:19 here in beautiful New Hampshire and just moved my family out into the country, from the city out to the country and I need your help with my wife and her alcoholism. We are having some issues with it. It seems to come and go. When I'm at work at night, the drinking seems to get worse. When I'm home, she doesn’t seem to drink so I would greatly, greatly appreciate your prayers and your thoughts to help us with this struggle. I have faith. I know this will happen and she will be healed in time with my faith, so again I ask that she is healed from her alcoholism. The other thing I ask of my lovely beautiful wife that I love so much is that she finds her way back to church and back to the Lord. She has been out of it for a few months now and we, my family, desperately need her back. The last thing I would say is also both of our kids really…her child, which would be my stepchild, but also our son who is 7, I really, really pray that we can get him back to church and she is onboard with it because she hasn’t been. This is so important to me and dear to my heart. We all need it. Same with my daughter, so this I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thank you.
Good morning family. This is Biola from Maryland. I hope you're all doing well. Brian and Jill, God bless you. God bless your ministry and this new direction you're taking. I pray that God will provide for your needs, in Jesus’ name, and the needs of the ministry. Brittany from China, I'm praying for you. I'm praying for first of all about her mother and the child, the child that is struggling with cancer. Father Lord, I pray that you will have mercy, that you would touch this child, O God Lord, and heal her or him, in the name of Jesus. And I'm praying for the little children who were involved in the accident, Jada, O God, and her brother. Father, Lord of Heaven, I pray that you would have mercy, that the swelling would go down, in the name of Jesus. Lord of Heaven, I pray that you would touch this little one, O God Lord, and heal her, in the name of Jesus. And lastly I'm praying for Brittany's desire to come back to the States, O God. Father Lord, I pray that you will make her path straight, that you will provide for her needs, that you will provide, in the name of Jesus. Pelham, I think is what you said, and Molly, Father Lord, I'm praying, O God Lord, they will discover their fervency in you as they build their marriage. I pray that they will build their marriage upon the rock which is Christ, in the name of Jesus. Lord, that they will return to their first love, O God Lord, that they will remember, O God Lord, even to pursue you, O God, even passionately, in the name of Jesus, Lord, and that you, O God, will be the first romance of their lives, O God Lord, and then each of them, in the name of Jesus. Melanie from the Bay Area, I'm praying that God would give you calm and peace in your situation, that he would be with your son and heal him. I'm praying for wisdom for you as you explain the situation to your son and pray for your job situation, that God would fulfill your heart's desire, in Jesus’ name. Paula, praise God for answered prayers. I'm praying that God who started a good work of reconciliation in your children's marriage will complete it, in Jesus’ name. I'm also praying that God would draw them close to him and open their eyes to a saving knowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Lastly, our sister from Charlotte, I'm praying that God would comfort you and give you a sense of belonging wherever he plants you, in the name of Jesus. Thank God for his peace and joy in your life. Amen.
Hey Daily Audio family, Rick from Massachusetts. Thanks Brian and all the Daily Audio family. Thanks and encouragement to all the prayer warriors out there. I failed to mention any because I might leave some out, I'm sure, and there are so many that don’t call in. Let us know that these prayers have power and although they might not be answered the way we expect, they are all answered. Pelham from Cullman, welcome to marriage. You already recognize that marriage brings many benefits, but it also can bring difficulties also. Paul warns us about this in Corinthians 7, so just stay in the Word. You know that. You were so faithful before you got married. Saint Matthew 6:6, I want to reiterate and support what Dr. John from Jordan, NY said on 09/13 about 7 minutes from the end. There is a lot in a name. Jacob which means deceiver was transformed into Israel. Note the name change. I hope you don’t take this wrong, but we know your heart by your prayers. I wanted to say something on this for quite a while, but fearing you would take it in a negative way, I held off. The labels we place on ourselves have more power than we know. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. Old is gone and new has come. We were all sinners at one time, but when we confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior, all our sins are forgiven, past, present and future. God puts our sins as far as the east is from the west, in the deepest sea, never to be counted against us again. Be blessed.
Hi family. This is Lisa in Tennessee. Today I'm asking you to pray for my friend and I'm going to call her J. J is a believer. She has been married to a man who is a nonbeliever for 5 years. While their marriage has been wrought with just multiple challenges and issues, J and her husband do have 2 small children that after 2 years of counseling on her own, her spouse declined to participate in that, she has filed for divorce and although I am aware of some of their marriage struggles because she has confided in me, she just recently revealed to me the extent of the abuse that she has experienced and so for the safety of herself and her children, she has chosen to flee from her home. She didn’t want to go to a shelter so she paid for a month in a hotel, but right now she just really feels as though her life is in shambles. A year ago she agreed to move to another state with her husband so that they could sort of start fresh with new jobs and new surroundings, so now she is 1000 miles more away from her family and friends. I just ask that you pray for the safety of her and her children and that she is able to be strong enough to formulate a plan for the short term. Finances and belongings and all those kinds of things right now are all up in the air. She just really needs to make a decision as to where she is going to go from here and a method of communicating with her spouse and just all the things. Pray for her children because it is kind of upheaval right now for them and they are just like 4 and 1, so very challenging time. I thank you so much. Love you all. Bye-bye.
Hello everyone. It is Michael D. from Texas. You can get a hold of me on Twitter at MichaelD5R. It's been a little bit since I called, but I miss you guys. I haven’t been able to listen as much to the prayer line as I had been able to lately. But I wanted to call out a couple things from a couple of days ago. I apologize, I don’t know any of the names that go along with these. But a gentleman called in and was talking about the helpless, hopeless and everything about that and looking at the root of that. Rather than feeling helpless and hopeless, to think of the hope that we have in Christ and the help we have in him and all of those things. That was really good. I wanted to kind of echo that and agree with you on that. That is a good word. Also, again, I know I say it a lot, but guys, don’t ever feel like it is a selfish request to bring up something that you need. It is actually a selfless thing to bring what we need to each other because that gives us the opportunity to be a blessing to each other, guys. So again, like I know it feels like ‘oh, well, you know, I just want to do stuff for myself,’ guys, it's important that we all stand together on the things that we need. That being said, I just wanted to bring up a proposal has been made for my position to increase and so I would like to ask you guys to pray for favor in that and that God's will would be done and all that because there is a lot of work that needs to be done with that. And also my little one, my 1-year-old has been throwing up some these past couple weeks and it has kind of come in the way of my wife being able to get with her group of friends. Love you guys. Thank you so much for the prayers and have a great day!
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Tamarie 09/18/2015 21:19 |
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