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Daily Transcripts
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10/07/2015
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Jeremiah 8:8-9:26 ~ Colossians 3:1-17 ~ Psalm 78:32-55 ~ Proverbs 24:27
Today is the 7th of October. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian and it is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you again, today, for another step forward in the adventure that we began so many months ago – to walk the trail of the scriptures all the way from start to finish this year. And it’s exciting to look back and see how far we’ve come and it’s also exciting to consider all that is before us. So, we find ourselves reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible this week. We’re in the book of Jeremiah.
Commentary
Okay, so the apostle Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, is describing in our reading today what the shape of the life of a follower of Jesus looks like. And there are some do’s and there are so don’ts, or rather things that should no longer really be a part of that life. And it’s so often that we focus on the don’ts, right? Because we know what our struggles are. We know what we’re trying to overcome without realizing that it’s the do’s really that overwhelm the don’ts. So, when we only focus on the things that we shouldn’t be involved in, the things Paul that lists today, like sexual immorality or impurity or lust or evil desire or greed or anger or wrath or malice or slander or filthy language from our mouths or lies, lying to one another. Like we see these lists of characteristics and know that we have mastery over some of them and we’re still struggling with other ones and we can focus on those things and decide by brute force: ‘I am going to overcome these things.’ ‘I am going to defeat these things.’ Or ‘I’m going to get myself a mantra and I’m going to recite this thing every time that comes up,’ not realizing that there’s a deeper thing going on here, something that is utterly transformative: The life of the Risen Christ within us.
This is why Paul says if you’ve been raised with the Messiah then seek what is above where the Messiah is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on what is above, not on what is here on earth. So, if you’ve died to who you were and you are hidden with Christ in God, then it is the Messiah who is your life. So, all of the focus on what we’re not supposed to do really keeps our focus from the characteristics of what life should look like, if our focus and attention is in the fact that we have died to who we were, Christ the Risen One, the Son of the living God, one with the Father, God is in us. That’s the thing – God is now in us. Focusing on what that brings up in us really exposes the other things for the imposters that they are; not so much the things we’re constantly at battle with, but the absolute imposters that they are.
And this is one of those Reframe kind of moments. It’s very easy to stay in the battle against the things that so easily beset us, as the Bible says, the things we keep falling for. That’s just it. The things we keep falling for. They’re trickery that we keep falling for that is no longer a part of who we really are. We just habitually keep returning toward it and at the end of the day, when we turn toward these things, we’re effectively saying: ‘It’s not enough that God is within me. I don’t trust in that completely. I’m going to look for life outside the relationship.’ And we know how that will play out, in our marriage for example, and it wouldn’t go well and it’s not going to go well when we do this. So, Paul calls out the nobleness of what we have embarked in, in laying ourselves down and allowing God, the Risen Christ, to be within.
“Therefore, God’s chosen ones, holy and loved,” he says, “put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, accepting one another, forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, it’s the same as the Lord has forgiven you. Do that. He’s within you. You must also forgive and above all, put on love. This is the perfect bond of unity and let the peace of the Messiah to which you were also called in one body control your heart. Be thankful. Let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom and singing psalms, hymns and spirituals songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
That last verse that we read today, that is the summary of it all.
“Whatever you do, whatever it is, do it in the name of Jesus.”
If you can’t do it in the name of Jesus, then don’t do it. It’s about that simple and about that hard. I mean, what we like to do is go: ‘Okay, where is the line? How close to the line can I live my life? Being able to do whatever it is that I desire?’ And so what you can and what you can’t do in the name of the Lord Jesus is something that is very personal and very much involved in your personal relationship with God and in some cases that may look different for each of us because we each of us have different stories. This is why Paul even talks about this. This is one of his previous letters that we’ve already read.
“Don’t go around boasting in your freedom making other people stumble. What may be okay for you, may not be exactly okay for them. Whatever you do, whether it’s something you speak or an action that you take, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him.”
This is what the shape of life is. This is what it’s supposed to look like. It’s not an ideal that we know we cannot measure up to, like the law. It’s something that is clear and present and pervasive and disruptive and comforting because we can do this. We just have to slow down enough to pay attention to what we’re doing and ask ourselves, ‘Can I do this in the name of Jesus?’ And then we can proceed.
May we start paying attention because our lives can be shaped differently. They can be aligned with who we really are or we can keep the back and forth struggle. But if we focus on the things that life should look like, the things that we keep struggling with are going to be exposed for what they are.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for your Word and its practical nature, the way that it constantly appeals to our heart and calls us forward; and this is one of those areas that we need to be called out and called forward on. So we invite your Holy Spirit into this today. Begin to reorient the way we’re looking at things. Reframe the way we’re looking at things and allow us to focus on you and the characteristics that come by your presence in our lives as opposed to the brute force that we are trying to exert to overcome the things that we don’t want in our lives anymore. Your life overwhelms our life and your resurrection power overwhelms the darkness in this world, which means when we allow you to fully live through us, everything that we do is overwhelming the darkness in this world. May our lives align with that because this is what we earnestly desire. So we invite your Holy Spirit fully into all of this, asking you to lead and guide us. Lead us into all truth. Lead us deeper into Jesus today, we pray in his name, amen.
Announcements
Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website, home base. It is where you find out what’s going on around here and always plenty going on around here. And Reframe Tour is definitely getting ready to launch for the next 6 weeks in a row as we travel. And so I’m looking forward to being local, being here in my hometown and speaking in the Nashville area this Sunday, which is the 11th, and so if you are in the Nashville area certainly come say ‘Hello!’ I’ll be speaking at SouthView Church. Their website is www.SouthView.cc and you can get the address there and the time. So looking forward to seeing you.
Now, tomorrow is when we’ll do our first large small-group and we’re using Facebook and we’re using Periscope to do this. Periscope is an app that you can get that’s free and download that to your phone or your tablet and then search for Daily Audio Bible and then follow us and you’ll be alerted when we go live. The plan is tomorrow, which is Thursday, 7:30 pm Central time. So like I don’t have the times all over the world and it makes it kind of hard to do a perfect time for everybody in the world because like we’re in such different time zones. So it would be 8:30 pm on the East Coast and 5:30 pm on the West Coast of the United States. Maybe we’ll try that one out and see how that works. 7:30 pm Central time here in the rolling hills of Tennessee tomorrow. We’ll kind of talk about the first couple of chapters of Reframe, just kind of introduction, see how far we’ll get.
If you have questions that you would love hear answered about Reframe, email them to Reframe@DailyAudioBible.com in advance, like right away so I can get those. We can try some with Periscope but things fly by pretty fast and we’ll see how that goes. But if you email them in, we’ll try to make our way to some of those. And we’ll spend a little time together talking on Periscope and then we’ll move over to the Facebook group and I’ll spend a little time there, maybe an hour-ish and continue the discussion ongoing.
So looking forward to it, seeing how it works out. Haven’t tried one like this before. We’ve tried all kinds of live stuff before but haven’t tried one like this, so we’ll see how it goes. Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow night.
Okay, back to Reframe tour, the 18th of October, we’ll be in Charleston, SC. Www.DanielIslandFellowship.org is the website where you can get the information and we look forward to seeing you there. And then rounding this month, the 25th I will be in Richland, WA, at Columbia Christian Church. So looking forward to seeing you there.
Alright, we have launched the Reframe Films--five films that we worked incredibly hard on to create a cinematic experience that can definitely be done by yourself, definitely. Really suited for getting together some friends and just taking a film, watching it, and diving deeper into the discussion about reframing the way we look at things. And there’s a leader’s guide included in that and you can get it at www.Reframebook.com; but you can get it free. We’ll send it to you free. Like postage is paid to your door. We’ll mail the DVD to you and give you access to the downloads of the films if you’ll get enough books that will form a small group. So if you’ll buy 7 or more books at your local bookstore or order from one of the retailers that are online and then just e-mail us your receipt, we’ll mail that to you and send you a code and give you access to the films. If you happen to get 10 or more, we’ll send that DVD, give you access to the downloads, but also send you a signed first edition copy of Reframe, so an additional book.
We’re doing everything we possibly can to get this message out. And I have been on the Reframe discussion group. I guess we’ve had it going for a couple of weeks and it has been remarkable to see the nerve that it is touching, to see the places that it’s touching and what it’s bringing up in discussion. It’s fascinating but it’s also affirming because it comes from a very true place for me and it felt like I can’t be alone in this. And I’m seeing that, no, I’m not. And so we’re doing everything we can to let everyone we know about the existence of this project of this book. So small groups of friends getting together, kind of going through this is one of those ways to keep us in this message. I mean we’re in the Bible every day, right? And it can be gone. It can be taken from us so quickly if we don’t stay vigilant. And that’s how it is with anything that comes into our paths that is like a light bulb going on. You’re like I see more clearly now. It’s so easy to put things away and go ‘that was then, this is now,’ when what Reframe is something that is supposed to reframe the way we look at everything and live into not an old way, but a new way of life. So thank you for your support of that. Www.Reframebook.com is kind of the portal for all the things we were just talking about.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that on www.DailyAudioBible.com. There is a button in the upper right-hand corner of the home page. Thank you for clicking that. 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 family, this is Shannon from Texas and I have a praise report. I went for almost a year without a job and I don’t know if you remember, I called in once about working somewhere and that I was having issues. They wanted me to lie. I ended up quitting that job several months ago. Didn’t work there long.
But I have a new job that is a dream come true. It is definitely something that is from God and is something that is a ministry for me and it’s almost unbelievable that God has done this for me because it is so me. I can’t contain the praise and the gratitude that I have. And I just want to thank all of you who prayed for me. I love you, family. You mean the world to me. Have a great day. Bye.
Hi Dabbers, it’s Rawleen from California. I haven’t’ called in for a while and I wanted to call and give you an update. My son, David, was moved from San Quentin Prison near San Francisco to High Desert State Prison in Susanville, CA. He’s been there about 3 months and my husband and I have visited him twice. Takes about 6 hours to drive there from the Bay area where we live. I finally had a contact visit with him after 3-½ years. I could finally hug my son and feel his kisses on my cheek again. And I could hold his hand while praying with him. Thank you, Lord. I want to thank all of you who prayed for us before and continue to pray for us, including Sandy who sent me a recent message of encouragement. Please join me in prayer now. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you believing that you could work all things together for good to those who love you and are called to your purpose. We ask that you would turn our family tragedy into something beautiful. We ask for your continued protection of David while he’s in prison and his children while they’re without their father. Be with all of us and give us courage and comfort. Bring godly men into David’s life and let him be a light shining Jesus in the dark place. We ask this in the name of Jesus, your precious Son, amen.
Hello, my name is Margaret. I have a prayer request for wisdom. I have aging parents. They are needing help. They live in Arizona on the reservation. I am a Native American Indian and reservations seem like another world. That’s why I’m having trouble deciding on what to do. I don’t know what to do about helping my parents and they need my help and I’m the oldest of their children. And I’m starting to worry and carry all the guilt. I have a sister that’s taking care of them now, but she says that she’s burnt out and needing help and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I have to move home because I’m in Utah and they are in Arizona. Please pray for me. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Hey DAB family. Ah man, I’ve been listening and praying with you guys for quite some time now. I don’t know, man. I’m calling up for you guys’ prayers this morning. I guess, man, I’m really struggling with just like a defeated spirit. I don’t know, man, I just sense a hopelessness. It just seems like everything that I try to do as a religious man, I don’t know, it’s just falling apart and I don’t know, I don’t really get it. I’m staying focused on God, that’s for sure, but at the same time it don’t seem like things are working out like the way that I expected them to be. Anyway, I probably should have been calling in by now, but I listen to you guys and I don’t want to call in because it just seemed like my problems just seem so much more trivial than you guys’. Anyway, pray for me guys. I’ll be praying with you all. Thanks.
Good morning family, this is Sparkle from Tennessee. My heart is very heavy. I’ve been taking care of my 94-year-old mother-in-law and we have been through 2 years of spiritual warfare with someone that was supposed to be taking care of her and she ended up being a traitor and stealing from mom. Mom’s name is Pat and I’m just the daughter-in-law. I was married to her son and he died of cancer when he was 30. But we are struggling with having the finances that we need to take care of her. Today her attorney group is going to court and we’re trying to get an asset, a house, so that we can take that house and sell it and hopefully have some funds come back in to take care of mom. I always go to the story of Ruth and Naomi. I keep reading that because it’s always been such an inspiration to me when we’re on those swinging bridges of life and it snaps. These two women that continue to give me hope, help me to stay strong through God’s love. I’m so emotional today, I guess, because the court date is today. Dear family, just hold mom up in prayers.
Good morning, good morning my Daily Audio Bible family. This is Alphaio calling from Delaware. I just want to a share prayer that I came across and I hope it blesses somebody this morning. It’s a prayer for when things seems hopeless and chaotic. Jesus, some days my life seems to be spinning out of control. Everywhere I look I see chaos. Even in my own life, there are days when I long to just throw in the towel and say, “enough” and say, “where can I turn?” or “who can I talk to?” You’re the only one I know who will truly listen, Lord, and I know you have the answers but I can’t seem to find them. I long to see a little clearing in this tunnel. I need a little hope, Jesus. Your Word tells me I can come to you for that hope and that you won’t disappoint. That your load is easy and your burden is light. Give me a new perspective, Lord, and blow away the cobwebs that keep cluttering in my mind and my vision. Every time I’m tempted to become discouraged or depressed because of the negativity of the situation, help me turn my eyes on you. Help me to remember all the times you’ve been there for me and all the ways you put me through difficult times. I forget to thank you sometimes, but I am so grateful for your faithfulness. When things look hopeless, I will hope in you. You died to give us hope, not only eternally so we can live forever with you, forgiven and free, but you also provide a way daily for us to live about the cares of this world. Thank you for reminding me of that in your Word. Your Spirit lives in us, in me as your child and follower. Sometimes I forget that. Thank you for understanding me and loving me just as I am and thank you for accepting me even when I was a hopeless case just as we were at one time. Perfect people in a perfect world would not have no need of your gift of hope. With my eyes on you…
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Tamarie 10/07/2015 20:50 |
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