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Daily Transcripts
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10/25/2015
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Jeremiah 48:1-49:22 ~ 2 Timothy 4:1-22 ~ Psalm 95:1-96:13 ~ Proverbs 26:9-12
Today is October 25th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I’m Brian. It's great to be here with you today, although not coming from the rolling hills of Tennessee, but coming from not really the mountains of Washington, more the desert because I'm in kind of the Tri-City desert other side of the mountains from the ocean area. I'm looking forward to bringing Reframe to Columbia Community church this morning, but before all that, here we are, a brand new week. What better way to start this week than consecrating it to the Lord, of course, and immersing ourselves in the scriptures? So it's a new week. We’ll read from the Names of God Bible and continue through Jeremiah.
Commentary
We finished 2 Timothy today and, as I’ve been saying for the days that we read it, this is the last letter. We have more letters to read from Paul. We’ll start another of Paul's letters tomorrow, but in the order of things, this was the last letter he wrote to Timothy, the last letter he wrote of his life before his execution. It is so bittersweet and heartbreaking and compelling at the same time just to have those personal touches in it, a personal letter preserved.
Bring my coat when you come. Come before winter.
Those kinds of things give us just a little bit of a personal view into what Paul was going through – a condemned person awaiting execution. That is where one of the most compelling pieces of scripture is found.
I have fought the good fight.
In the context, he is saying, look, my life is coming to an end and I'm going to be poured out as a sacrifice to God. Sure, that is true metaphorically, but it is also him speaking of how he knows the way he will die. Being a condemned man waiting for the executioner's blade, just waiting for that time to come and not knowing when it will be is hard to process. It is from this that he is able to say if this is how it goes then I left nothing on the table. I didn’t withhold anything. I fought the good fight and I’ve finished the race. I didn’t pull up short. I finished. I’ve kept the faith all the way to the end. I believe on the other side of this there is a prize and it is waiting. It is waiting for me and the God that I trust in who is fair, I know that he will give me that prize on that day and he will give it not only to me, but also everyone, everybody who is waiting for him to come again.
This posture from Paul, as controversial as he was in his day, shows us his true passion, his true faith, all that he hopes in and it is the same for us. It is all that we hope in and hope for. So when we get to this passage every year and I read those words, I think I want to be able to say that. I really do. I’ve fought the good fight. I have completed the race. I have kept the faith. Don’t you?
That doesn’t just happen. It is not a given. We live our lives and we know that there are assaults against us. It is not just always Satan coming against us in some sort of way. We come against ourselves far more. We become the worse enemy to our faiths ourselves most of the time with fear, doubt, false assumptions about God and everyone else and the world that we live in, all of the things, because life is unfolding and is mysterious. No matter how we prepare for it, there is always a wrinkle. It is difficult, as adventures always are, especially the ones that are epic. And this life that we’ve been given is an epic adventure. We just most of the time don’t live as if that were true. We mostly try to circle the wagons and just figure out how to build a circle around ourselves that is comfortable. But no matter how we prepare, it is an adventure.
We look back on some of the things that we’ve been through and as the distance gets between us and that experience, we begin to get some context and we see that God has never abandoned us and we see that we’ve learned a lot along the way. We have gained wisdom and context and perspective on this journey. But that is looking back. As we look forward, it is still the great mystery that requires the leap of faith every day, sometimes moment by moment, sometimes a conscious choice to believe in the face of doubt, to trust in the face of uncertainty. This is life and this is where Paul has landed.
I’ve finished strong. I’ve finished well. I’ve finished. I’ve completed the race. I’ve kept the faith.
May we all strive for that, not just as something in the distant future, as a point on the horizon, but may we live into it every day. May we be able to lay our head down tonight and say the same thing.
I’ve fought the good fight. I’ve finished the race. I kept the faith.
May that be true of us. It won't be true at that distant point on the horizon if it isn’t true tonight and tomorrow night and the next night. We have to live this adventure of trust and faith. We have to live this every day if we want to reach the end and be able to say it in all honesty.
Prayer
Father, this is one of the reasons we come to the scriptures every day, to orient ourselves to you, to know that we have what it takes to fight the good fight, to know that we have the grace in our lives from your Holy Spirit to complete the race, to know that we can take the leap of faith and say we’ve kept it. So we invite you into this day. We want to be able to go to bed tonight having kept the faith, having fought the good fight. So we need you to help us in that because there are so many things that come at us, so many variables, so many unknowns, so many interpersonal relationships, so many circumstances. We can’t navigate this without you. Why we have ever tried is beyond foolishness, but we certainly have tried and we certainly do try but we certainly do fail without you. So come Holy Spirit and guide our steps today, be a part of everything. You are invited. Every conversation we have today, every word that is spoken out of our mouths, every private thought, you are invited into that. Every action, you are invited into that. Not just invited, but needed, desired. We want intimacy with you. We want this to be a collaboration. The conversations that we go into today, we want to go in with you. You're there. It is not something that is happening outside of you. We want you there, all the choices that we need to make today, we need you there in those. We seek your counsel. We want your friendship. We need your presence. It is available, so we make ourselves present to you in it all. Come Holy Spirit we pray. Show us how to fight the good fight. Show us how to complete the race. Show us how to keep the faith. We ask in Jesus’ name, amen.
Announcements
Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website, home base. It is where you find out what is going on around here. Of course, what is immediately going on around here is that I am going to go over to Columbia Community Church and bringing Reframe. I'm looking forward to that. If it is early morning and you're in the area and you're like, hey, what are we going to do? Well, come to Reframe. Www.FamilyFaith.com is Columbia's website. It is where you can get the address, times, etc. Looking forward to seeing you this morning.
I will be traveling through tomorrow, going to spend the day with our friends up at Logos tomorrow and so we’ll talk about that later tomorrow because I need to get going now. Thank you for your prayers over the travel as we travel.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com. There is a button. It is red. It is in the upper right-hand corner of the home page. If you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.
Of course, as always, if you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to call.
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
Hello DAB family. It is Tony the truck driver from Pennsylvania. Just checking in with everybody. Haven’t called in a while. I'm still listening every day. Thank you, Brian and Jill, for all that you do bringing God's Word alive each and every day to all of us. That we can share in community with each other, it's just great. I just want to say hello to Blessed Like Me. Brother, keep encouraging us. I love to hear your voice, man. It encourages me. I know it lifts up a lot of us. Blind Tony, still listening to you. Keep the poems coming. We love them. Love you too, brother. And Pastor Gene, praying for you and your ministry and your husband. And also I want to pray for the guy, I don’t remember his name, but he called about his children who were taken in foster care. I'm just praying for you. Never give up. The Lord can do many things. He knows your heart and he knows that you’ll see your children again and get them back. We just stand in faith, brother. We know that your prayers will be answered in God's perfect timing. And family, I just want you to lift up Northampton Prison where I'm involved in ministry, just have a lot of brothers that have a lot of prayer requests and just lift them up. A lot of issues that they are going through in their lives and they are trying to find God, so if you guys could lift them up for me, I would appreciate that. Thank you very much. Love you guys. Still listen every day. God bless.
Good morning Dabbers. This is Forgiven from Michigan. I travel for my job and I heard a lady cry out for prayer because she now travels too and her husband is an alcoholic and they’ve got two daughters. I just want to pray for her, lift her up in the fact it is so hard. I'm glad, Lord, that she listens. It's so hard sometimes. Brian is reading about Paul in jail and how he is writing this last letter and it tears me up and then I hear Jay talking about how he is reaching out because he was touched from Oregon. I thank you, Lord, first off for Brian. Well, back up, first off for you. Thank you, Lord, for putting it on Brian's heart to start up the whole Daily Audio Bible. I pray, Lord, for his strength, for his family. I just thank you, Lord, for this connection that we have all around the world. I heard a call from Singapore this morning. I thank you, Lord, that as I travel, every morning I can get up and I can hear your Word. Faith comes by the hearing of the Word and I thank you, Lord, so much that you led me to Daily Audio Bible. Thank you, Lord.
Hi, this is Casey in Calgary. Thank you for being there. I feel so connected with you. I’ve been praying along with each of you all year, but now it is my turn to ask for prayer. I'm feeling drained and exhausted, coming to the end of myself. After four years of separation, my divorce happened in March, ending my marriage of 26 years. At the age of 49 I’ve gone back to school to get training in the field of library science, an area I’ve always loved and longed to venture. I'm working from 4 to 8 a.m. to sort of pay the bills and then go to class. And then I go to physio for an injury I received at work when a forklift hit me from behind. Then I go home and study, except Mondays when I have Bible study and Wednesdays when I volunteer at the library. I think you're starting to see the point. I'm really overstretched. And then I fall into bed exhausted. I get about four to five hours’ sleep a night. My four children, age 18 to 23, whom I stayed home and home-schooled for 15 years are estranged from me, blaming me for my marriage breaking up and it is partly my fault. I'm not perfect and I made my share of mistakes, I know, but to have the children who were my whole life for so many years want nothing to do with me breaks my heart. My 20-year-old son who goes to the same church as I do and serves on the board asked me two weeks ago at Thanksgiving to stay away from them. Everything is just piling up and I wonder how long I can keep this up. I want the abundant life that God promises. I just pray for God's wisdom and strength and guidance. I want his will in my life, so I just ask that you would pray for me as well.
Hey Daily Audio Bible family. This is Sheila from Massachusetts calling. Jay from New Jersey, it was so good to hear from you today. You said something. You said you have no mother and father and that you feel like you have a complete family because of the DAB family. For those of you who think God doesn’t speak any longer, that miracles don’t happen, that was a miracle that Jay said that today for this very reason. Two days ago I was thinking. I'm an only child and as I was listening to the DAB I thought I feel like I have brothers and sisters. I feel connected to the world through my DAB family and I actually feel love in my heart for everybody that calls in and even the people who have never called in. I feel their presence. I feel an obligation to them and know they have an obligation to me through Christ to be praying for each other and lifting each other up. I was too embarrassed to call in and say that and then you called today and said your family felt complete, so to me that is God speaking to us through our brothers and sisters. So I praise all of you. I'm thankful for all of you. God bless you all. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
Hey DAB family. This is Danny in sunny St. Pete, FL. I request prayer for my wife and her place of employment. Yesterday there was a little scare. A former employee returned and threatened to harm himself and other people in the building. To make it a short story, the police were involved and he was escorted off premises. Well, today my wife just texted me and informed me there is more trouble, but she can’t elaborate right now, so I urge everybody to pray in the name of Jesus that everybody in that building is safe, that the perpetrator is safe, that he repents and comes to his senses, whatever is troubling him in life. Just pray for everybody involved and pray that nobody harms themselves or other people. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen. Thank you, DAB family.
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Tamarie 10/25/2015 11:07 |
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