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Daily Transcripts

10/01/2015
Isaiah 62:6-65:25 ~ Philippians 2:19-3:3 ~ Psalm 73:1-28 ~ Proverbs 24:13-14
Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Today is October 1st and so we certainly do enter into a new chapter of our adventure because we’re in the final quarter of the year and beginning a brand new month. Congratulations for making it this far. It is certainly an achievement, but we realize it wasn’t that much of a sacrifice after all, to be in the Bible every day. Now we’re on the homestretch for this year, but we’ve begun a relationship with the scriptures that we pray and hope never ends in your life. So a brand new month, we’re still working our way through the book of Isaiah. We’re still in the same week, so we’re reading from the Easy to Read Version.

Commentary:

So it’s beautiful to read Psalm 73 here on this particular day because it describes a person’s transition from being confused about God, even estranged from God because of misunderstanding or a false assumption, to understanding that God with us is the only hope there is. I found that like a little kiss on the cheek from the Heavenly Father today.

Asaph, who wrote this psalm so many thousands of years ago, is describing a human condition, a predicament that is very alive and well now, is absolutely still going on, has always been going on, of people as they try to locate God and where they are in relation to him so that there can be some sort of relationship. It's fascinating. If I just read a few lines here that could have been written on a blog yesterday:

Wicked people are successful and I'm jealous of those proud people. They are healthy. They don’t have to struggle to survive. They don’t suffer like the rest of us. They don’t have troubles like other people. They are just proud and hateful. It's easy to see how they are. It's just as easy to see how they are, as it is to see the jewels and fancy clothes they wear. If they see something they like they just go and get it. They do whatever they want. They make fun of others. They say cruel things about them. They plan to hurt people in their pride. They think they are like God. They think they are the rulers of the earth. Even God's people turn to them, do what they say. Those people are proud. Those people are wicked. They get rich and they keep getting richer, so clearly I don’t really get anything by keeping my thoughts pure. What good is it to keep myself from sin when this is happening to them and I'm just here suffering and feeling punished every morning? But I don’t want to say that out loud because that would make me a traitor to your people, so I’ve tried to understand. But I don’t understand.

That was written thousands of years ago but it is in us all. We want what we don’t have. We don’t understand another person's story so we look at them and judge them and misunderstand them and assume things about them from the confines of our own story, not willing to be in our own life or finding our identity as compared to somebody else's journey and it is confusing and it is depressing at times. It is difficult. So we turn to God and with mistrust in our voice ask the questions about why these things might be true, not realizing that it is not God, #1, and identity as compared to somebody else is no identity, #2. Identity can only be bestowed on us by the Father and he has done that.

So Asaph turns the corner. He says this is kind of where I was. This is almost what I stepped into. He kind of lays that out at the beginning of the psalm.

God is good to us, to those whose hearts are pure, but I almost slipped and lost my balance. I almost fell into sin.

And then he describes the struggle of trying to watch all of this stuff happening and wonder why it can’t happen for you. Then he makes this beautiful transition. He has an encounter with God and he says:

Then I understood what will happen to those who really are wicked. Clearly they are in danger. You make it easy for them to fall and be destroyed. Trouble can come suddenly and it will ruin them. Terrible things can happen and it will finish them. Then they will be like a dream. They will be forgotten.

That is exactly what happens to a person trying to navigate their life on their own terms in their own strength. It really doesn’t matter what kind of resources you have. You can have all the money in the world and your life can still collapse in so many ways. It's just a matter of scale. We keep repeating the same cycle until we finally wake up to the fact that there is no hope. There is no other hope outside of God. There is no other place to go.

So Asaph just calls it what it is. He says:

I was just so stupid. I was thinking about all these people and it upset me and then it upset me at you, God, and I was angry with you and I acted like a senseless animal. The thing is I'm always with you. You hold my hand. You lead me and fill me with good advice and later you’ll pull me into eternity with you in heaven. And in heaven who do I have but you? And if I'm with you, what on earth could I want? Maybe my body or mind will become weak, but you are my source of strength. You are mine forever. Everyone who leaves you is lost. As for me, all I need is to be close to you. I’ve made you, Lord God, my place of safety and I'm going to tell everybody about that.

Such a beautiful transition from the God we’ve made to God with us which is exactly what we’ve been doing all year by using this word ‘reframe’ to kind of guide us as we move through the scriptures, to rethink, to reframe, to restart an actual first person relationship with God because without it, without walking with God, what are we doing? We’re like my son's hamster on this little wheel that he just keeps running and running and running and running on making no sense. There is nothing outside of a relationship with God. What are we trying to do when all we’re doing is comparing ourselves to somebody else? When all we’re doing is looking around us and not looking to God? We have no orientation, there is no compass, there is no North Star. We don’t know where we are and we don’t know where we’re going and we don’t know why. These things can only be achieved in relationship with God. This is how we’re made. Nothing will work any other way. This is how we were created.

May we take this beautiful psalm and the way that it transitions as Asaph confesses what has been going on in his heart, realizes what is going on in his heart, and reorients himself to God. May we do the same.

Prayer

Father, this is like a constant. We’re just constantly needing to reorient ourselves to you. It's like not something that we can set and it never changes. We’re constantly bombarded, but as frustrating as that can be, it is actually a good thing because it keeps us hungering for you. It keeps us conscious so that we are constantly orienting ourselves to you, being drawn to you in order to walk with you. That is a relationship. It is hard work, the hard work of staying committed to a relationship. You have done the hard work of being committed to us. You continue to do the hard work of staying in relationship with us. So it is not like you’ve just made it hard for us, we just have to keep trying to pursue you and you have to keep taking steps back and we don’t know where you are or what is going on. No, you are about the hard work of commitment because if we treated anyone else in our lives the way we treat you sometimes, they would for sure abandon us. If we betrayed other people that we are committed to in our lives the way we betray you sometimes, they would leave us. But you don’t. Why is a mystery, but you don’t. You do the hard work every day of staying, the hard work every day of being in a relationship, making that available to us. It's we who are the problem, not you. So we invite you again and we turn our hearts again. Jesus, come. Come for this day. Come for this minute. Come for this hour and we keep calling you. Come Jesus. We open ourselves to you and you keep inviting us forward deeper into a relationship. So we reach for you and grab your hand. This is what a relationship is shaped like. So come Jesus and transform us. Make us faithful. We ask in your name, amen.

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website. It’s home base. It is where you find out what is going on around here. Today is October 1st, so today is kind of a special day. It is a day we’ve been sprinting toward for the last couple months. Today is the official release date for Reframe – From the God we’ve Made to God with Us. One of the most important things that I’ve ever done in my life was writing that book. It's everywhere today. If you haven’t got a copy, get one. Please. It's going to help. For those of you who got it early and are kind of already into it, hopefully you know exactly what I'm saying. Get some for your friends, go through it together.

I’m looking forward in the coming weeks to going through it together with you. That will be…well, we haven’t exactly set the date, probably sometime next week. We just wanted the book to be released and so it was everywhere, where people could get it anywhere and participate, but in preparation for that we’ve set up a Facebook Group where there is really, really great conversation already happening from those who are kind of in the book right now. That is real easy to get to. Just www.Facebook.com/Groups/ReframeBook and it will take you right there and you can dive in and meet people who are involved in reframing their relationship with God right now.

Also just grab the Periscope app. I have heard even just from traveling and speaking just a little bit people going “yeah, I can’t find the Periscope app. It's like $1.99. It's like this. It's like that.” Periscope is free. If you're on a tablet, I went to figure out what that looked like and it was like, oh! If you're on an iPad, if you're on a tablet, especially like an iPad, and you're looking for an iPad app, it is actually an iPhone app, so you have to just click the iPhone thing. But it's free. So just grab the Periscope app. Just go to wherever your app store is, whether it is Android or iOS, Apple, and search for Periscope and get that app and then search for Daily Audio Bible. You’ll find us. Follow along and then when we go live, I’ll be announcing when it is going to happen, but when we go live, it will just alert you. It will say “Hey, it's on.” And you can just click a button and bam! You're in. Simple. Very simple. Intriguing technology that we’re excited to use. We’ll go through this together.

So if you haven’t had a chance to get your copy of Reframe yet, go to www.ReframeBook.com. Plenty of places to order it from. Plenty of places to get it fast. Or go to your local Christian bookstore or Barnes & Noble and grab a copy. Super, super, super excited. Uber excited to interact with you about this and that we begin to till the message into our hearts, changing us like this psalm today, transitioning us from finding our orientation compared to other people and finding our orientation to God, changing and transforming our orientation to data about God, like amassing a ton of facts about God and transforming that into a relationship with God. I'm very much looking forward to that.

And I'm very much looking forward to being on the road with this message today, the launch day of Reframe this afternoon. Certainly pray for me about this. I have the chance to speak at the Story Conference here in Nashville and looking forward to that.

Then next up on the calendar is a week from Sunday, so the 11th of October, Reframe is in Nashville, right here in Spring Hill, in the suburb of Nashville where I am located. So I'm looking forward to that and I really would love to meet you, Nashville, wherever you are in this big, sprawling metropolis that we call home. I hope you can come out. I’ll be speaking at SouthView Church. Their website is www.SouthView.cc for more information. Check that out.

The week after that I will be in the Charleston, SC area, then the week after that, which will be the 25th, Richland, WA, November 1st Louisville, November 8th Chattanooga, November 15th San Diego. You can find more information about those dates at www.DailyAudioBible.com.

Alright, if you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com. Thank you for your partnership, profoundly. There is a link in the upper right-hand corner. If you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And 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 Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hi, my name is Jayala. I'm from Colorado. This is the first time I'm calling in. I’ve been listening to the Daily Audio Bible for about six years now. I’ve never called in before. I listen to everybody all the time. I cry with you guys. I hold your prayers up all the time and I feel connected to you all like you're my family. I thought it was time to call and I thought it was time to ask a request for you to simply pray for my son who is 23 years old. He is a heroin addict and we’re going to try to get him clean. I’ve researched it and I found out some things we can do to help him, but I'm praying that God gives me strength to be patient with him and to just love him and be able to go through this with him. It's tearing our family apart and his brother and sister just…we love him so much. We have a motto in our family and it comes from Lilo and Stitch. It’s “ohana means family and nobody gets left behind.” I just thank you all for your prayers in advance. You all have a blessed day.

Hi family. This is Pastor Gene from Bradenton, FL. Brian, we just finished listening to a very belated podcast of Hashtag Reframe and we were listening and also laughing a little bit with your choice of music. My husband sends you a message. He says that he has a hard time reconciling the quiet reader Brian with the noisy rock star Brian. So there you have it. That's from Pastor John. We love you, Brian, and we can’t wait to read your book and we are so excited about sharing it with others. We love you deeply. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for my brother, Show Me God's Love. I am agreeing with him in prayer and with his encouragement and I pray that your peace and your presence will overwhelm my brother's life. You know what his needs are and you know how much he loves you. Come to him and overwhelm him with your love and the peace that surpasses all understanding. Bless my sister Vanessa from Arizona. It was so good to hear her voice after so long. Bless her and strengthen her. Bless my brother Peter from Toronto. How we love him also. We pray for his strength and that you will continue lifting him up, Lord Jesus. Father, I am sorry about my sister who called saying that her son and his significant other are alcoholics. I pray that he may be able to walk away from alcohol and into the arms of Jesus who can fill any gap in his soul. Father, I want to thank you for my brother Mike from Toledo, and for my sister Candace. Their prayers touched me deeply, their prayers for our family touched me deeply and I'm sure they touched the throne of God at a critical time where our family needed it the most. Father, I thank you for this beautiful family and I know that you're taking good care of every person with every one of their prayer requests. Bless them abundantly. I pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hi everyone, this is Sarah. I just wanted to call in because I am trying to get caught up with my listening and this morning I listened to Brian and Jill speaking about Song of Solomon and oh my gosh! I could just feel the heat in the room as you two spoke about this. I love how Jill felt embarrassed and weird because I would probably feel that way if I was doing this with my husband. But you guys are a lovely couple and I can tell that you're so much in love as you read that. On another note, I want to say thank you for the prayers. We went to our home school group, a new group that we’re going to, and we just feel warm and welcome, so I'm very thankful for that. It was funny because we saw a lady that recognized me that was in my first home school group. Okay, this is the third one and she recognized me. She said, “are you with __________?” (I'm not going to say the name.) And I said yes, I was. And she said “was? What happened?” And I said, “well, we just didn’t fit in.” And she said, “why? What was wrong?” And it was funny because she actually recognized (this was God, okay?) the reason why I felt the way I did without me even saying anything. She said “was it because they’re clicky?” And I said, “thank you, yes.” And I actually addressed how I felt to the person in charge…

Yes family, this is Matthew F. from Du Quoin, IL. I just learned a coworker's niece has been in an auto accident in Maryland. Her name is Lauren H. and the report is that she has a coma or she is in a coma. So in Jesus’ name, we proclaim that, Lord, you are a healer and by your stripes that Lauren is healed. We speak out into the atmosphere of her condition. We speak life into her condition. We say, “wake up, Laruen, and be well, in Jesus’ name.” I pray, family, that you’ll agree with me in these prayers and that you continue to pray for Lauren as she recovers, in Jesus’ mighty name.

Hi, this is Anna from Maryland. I'm calling for prayer for Richard C., the one who lost his foster kids. My heart goes out to you, Richard. I just thank God that you have just such a love in your heart. Remember David. God forgave David and he blessed him tremendously. Lord, in the name of Jesus, you know his heart and you know what happened. But Lord, you are a forgiving God and you are a merciful God. O Lord, open up the doors and give him back his foster kids, Lord. O Lord, the love that he has in his heart for those kids, Lord. Let those kids be the blessing that you called them to be in the family, Lord. O Father, you bring them together, Lord. O Father, in the name of Jesus, Lord, I ask you also to touch Lauren in __________ who’s been sick. O Lord, in the name of Jesus, Father, I know that you are a miracle worker, Lord. I know that you can do __________ the Lord. Stretch out your nail scarred hands, O Lord, in the name of Jesus. O Lord, you heal their bodies, Lord. You work a miracle, Lord. O Father, in the name of Jesus, let them see the miracle and know that only our God can do, O Father, that you are the same God yesterday, today, and forevermore. O Lord, I thank you for touching those who lost their loved one, Lord. O Father, the one in the accident. O Lord, I ask you to strengthen that family, Lord, as only you can, Lord. O Father, in the name of Jesus, whatever the question, Lord, you give them an answer, Lord. You let them know that you are a comforter, Lord. You let them know that it is not…

Good morning everybody. Hey, this is Annette A. from Oklahoma City. Just got back from Fort Smith, AR and the Reframe Tour. Hey, well done, First Presbyterian Church. I tell you what, that is probably one of the nicest, most inviting churches I think I have ever been to. You guys are awesome and you rock. There wasn’t a person in there who didn’t greet you with kindness and openness like you were their best friends in the whole entire world. I personally want to thank you guys for that. It made me feel so at home being so far away from home and I'm sorry that I didn’t get to stay too long for the after party because I sure wanted to, but I was on a real tight schedule. Hey guys, check this Reframe out. Check it out. Let God out of the box, right? Let him flourish in your life and bless you in ways that you could never imagine by being his friend. I tell you, he blessed us with the most beautiful sunset ever known to man last night and I think that was because we were being obedient, right? And doing a good thing, so he wanted to reward us with something beautiful. That's what happens when you have a relationship with God. You're doing the right thing and he takes care of you because you're taking care of him and his business. Alright? I love you guys. I’ll talk to you all real soon, okay? Bye-bye.

Tamarie 10/02/2015 09:25

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