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Daily Transcripts
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12/10/2015
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Amos 1:1-3:15 ~ Revelation 2:1-17 ~ Psalm 129:1-8 ~ Proverbs 29:19-20
Today is December 10th. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. How are you today? In the thick of the season preparing for Christmas, I imagine that is what most of us are doing, but we have come to the right place in preparing for Christmas. Step away for a second and just let peace surround us, center ourselves in the scriptures, take another step forward as we contemplate this unbelievable beauty that God came to earth to rescue us. Today we step into another book and it gets moving pretty fast here. Even though we’ve reached our final book in the New Testament, we have a ways to go in the Old. Today we will begin the book of Amos.
Introduction of a New Book (Old Testament)
The prophetic words of Amos were written down in the book called by his name and come from the lips of a very normal, ordinary person. He is not a man that has status. He is not trained in the priesthood. He's just an ordinary guy living an ordinary life. He lived in the Judean city of Tekoa while Jeroboam II reigned over Israel and Uzziah reigned over Judah. The northern and the southern kingdoms are experiencing tremendous prosperity and peace. They haven’t seen this kind of prosperity since the days of Solomon so it would seem odd by our standards that God would take a very ordinary countryman to deliver a very harsh message of impending judgment on Israel and the surrounding countryside. That is exactly what he did.
Everything looked prosperous and well but corruption had found its way to the core of the people. They have abandoned God and they are consumed with their idol and pagan worship, the poor being misused and oppressed, greed rules the hearts of the nation’s leaders and true to form God sends a messenger letting everyone know that this isn’t going to work out well. Judgment is going to come upon them, but also utterly true to God's character, he is always leaving a way out and he foretells of the remnant that will experience revival and restoration in the land. You would think after these many thousands of years we would know the drill and yet it seems that we’re still grappling with the same thing, trying to grasp the very simple concept that God is all powerful, almighty, he is our creator, he is love, he is sovereign and we’re nowhere near as powerful as we think we are. One way or the other, the hard way of judgment or the easy way of repentance, every knee will bow to his authority.
So we begin, reading from the God's Word translation, Amos 1:1-3:15.
Prayer
Thank you, Father, for your Word and, Jesus, we hear you and we respond to what you are saying to the churches through John and the book of Revelation – return to me, change the way you think and act, repent. In other words, reframe what you're doing and the way you're looking at things and do what you did at first. So Jesus, it is like a readjustment, whether it is a major shift or a fine tune, it is something that we have to do every day, something that we have to do several times a day. It is not something that we can really do on our own. It is not something that we’re capable of self-managing. We need your Holy Spirit, but you have sent your Holy Spirit to be in this world among us and in us, comforting and guiding us, leading us into all truth, and so we invite that. Holy Spirit, come. Come, you are invited. Show us the adjustments that we need to make in our postures and all of the things that make up our lives, all the things that will make up this day. We invite you into all of it. Not just invite you, we’re desperately in need of your counsel. We’re desperately in need of your companionship today. You’ve offered it and we acknowledge it. You have made your presence available to us. We are making our presence available to you. We want to walk through this day with you and you with us. You can speak anything you need to into any part of our lives you want to. There is nothing that is off-limits to you. You can change the whole paradigm of the day or the whole paradigm of our lives. You are welcome anywhere that has anything to do with us. Come, help us to do exactly what you’ve said – return to you. Change the way we think and act and do what we did at first when we fell in love with you. Jesus, our prayer goes beyond this. It is not just that we want to keep resetting. It is that we want to reach a point where we have fallen more in love with you than we’ve ever been. Irreversibly changed, that the work that you are doing in us of sanctifying us is actually changing our identity and the entire makeup of who we are, the way we think, our natural reactions, the way we speak, our motives, our ambitions, all of this. We want it to be changed today incrementally so that every day we are becoming more and more holy, more and more set apart to you. We cannot do it on our own. So your Holy Spirit is welcome, completely, unreservedly, nothing off-limits. Come, we need you. We need you now. Come Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Announcements
Www.dailyaudiobible.com is the website. It’s home base. It's where you find out what’s going on around here and yeah, it's Christmastime. It's Christmastime around here and everywhere else so it’s Christmas stuff that is going on around here.
The Daily Audio Bible Christmas Box is available and it is full of all of the resources that we’ve painstakingly crafted over the last year, two years, three years, four years, that we’ve worked hard on to help us to be prepared and open for the prayer we just prayed. So definitely check it out. Check that out. There is stuff in there that is fun and there is stuff in there to go deeper, stuff in there that we’re going to want to keep and there is stuff that we’re going to want to give away, so check it out at www.DailyAudioBible.com in the Daily Audio Bible Shop.
The Daily Audio Bible Christmas cards are available for those of you who send out Christmas cards every year. We craft these every year. They are a beautiful way to invite those that you love, care about to take the journey through the scriptures with you next year.
The calls – so Daily Audio Bible Family Christmas is coming up here in a week, week and a half, two weeks, somewhere in there. So we’re taking the calls and we use the prayer line for that where you can call in your Christmas wishes, your holiday greetings to the community that you’ve marched through all of these days together with and we celebrate the year and we celebrate the season together. Use (877) 942-4253. The only rule about is it is the prayer line, so don’t call in a Christmas wish and a prayer request and put that in the same call. It is just impossible for us to edit all that. If you have a prayer request, call that in and if you want to call in a holiday greeting then call it in separate.
The other thing that we’re talking about right now is the More Gathering, our women's conference that we do every year. It's coming up this April 7-10. I’ve mentioned a number of times that it makes for a very one-of-a-kind, unique gift. This is why we make it available at Christmas for early registration with the discount as discounted as we can go, so check that out. You can check it out at www.DailyAudioBible.com. There is a banner there. Or just go to www.MoreGathering.com and you’ll get the information that you're looking for. It is remarkable. Remarkable. So check it out.
If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com. There is a link in the upper right-hand corner of the home page. Thank you, really, honest. Thank you. Daily Audio Bible exists every day and shows up every day because of the partnership and support of the community. So thank you for your partnership. 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
Good evening my DAB family. Mark S. from Sydney Australia. I'm ringing for an update praise report and continued prayer. I know many of you have prayed for my healing with my ex-wife. I rang in a few weeks ago telling you I was unsuccessful in getting a face-to-face meeting to apologize to her and there was no response from an email saying I was sorry. Well, God has softened my heart and things that used to annoy me no longer do. One example of this was on a regular basis my children were dropped off late on their exchange for my week with them. Just tonight it happened again. I had a text message to say that they were running late. I texted back and said okay. Two hours later they still had not arrived. I rang up my ex and she didn’t answer. I rang up my ex's new husband. He did not answer. I rang my son's phone who usually never picks up, but this time he did. I asked to speak to his mother. I heard her say she was busy. I asked to speak to her new husband. I waited 5 minutes and eventually he did answer. He said to me they were running late because they were at a party. I calmly said if it was easier, I would pick them up tomorrow. In the past I would have been really upset and annoyed by this and this time I thought it would give me time to give this praise report and also give my Christmas message. The miraculous thing is I just received 2 nice text messages from my ex. From so much anger and bitterness a month ago, there is now a glimmer of hope for reconciliation. Please pray for full reconciliation. A quick shout-out to Biola and Slave of Jesus. I just listened to Sunday the 6th's community prayer and I heard your prayers for me. Thanks. I certainly feel your love. God bless all. Mark S.
Rising up early, seeking your favor. Today is a very important day so I ask you, my Father, to strengthen my hand and bless me as I go on my way. I'm going to lift you up, Father, and glorify your name and let the world know that I'm no longer the same. You bless me completely and even though I am now blind, you’ve given me a new life with a totally made up mind, a mind that wants to serve you and do only your will, standing on your promises, my calling fulfilled. Bless me, my Father. Strengthen my hand. Let the world know that I'm truly your man. The message I bring is one of salvation and escape from the world with its foul degradation. So many doctrines, so many beliefs, so much hatred, so many griefs, no one seems willing to seek a higher, better way. The insanity only escalates day after day. Help me, my Father, to represent you well. Let the world know that I have a story to tell, a story of mercy, a story of grace, a story where everybody everywhere has their own place, open, honest, and seekers seriously trying, without greed and guile, treachery and lying. So help me today, Father, to let my little light shine and also let the world know that it is your light, not mine. So I'm seeking your favor as I start my day. Please bless me, my Father, as I go on my way. BlindTony1016@gmail.com. It was nice hearing your voice again, Asia and Delta Alpha Foxtrot. Garth, haven’t heard from you lately, brother. Time to check in. And __________, where are you? Joe the Protector, yeah, time to check in, brother. Anyway, hope everybody has a wonderful, wonderful holiday in the making.
Good morning Daily Audio Bible family. This is Vanessa from New Mexico. I'm one of those that never calls in, but I heard a message from Laura from New York the other day and I needed to call. Laura, I just want to say to you my daughter went through a 3-year battle trying to get custody of her boy. We stood and we prayed and we prayed and we prayed and, Laura, one of the scriptures that I stood on was “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings of eagles. They shall run and not be weary and they shall walk and not faint.” Laura, stand on God's Word. We will be praying for you, all of us here at DAB. We love you. Just be firm, Laura. Don’t give up hope. Stand. God bless.
Hi family. It's Drew from the Bay Area. I have a praise report. I want you to know that God loves us so much that he gives us encouragement even in the winters of our lives. Thank you for praying for Martha and Edgar. I can’t tell you the joy that she has now that her son Edgar is feeling better. He is taking his meds. Here's a 27-year-old boy that had given up on life and now she is encouraged and he is encouraged and the dad is encouraged. They know God is working because he is a glorious God. I know we take credit sometimes because we pray, but we give all the glory to God. He is so good. My friend Mike, he is now coming out of his funk after 10 years of being divorced. Please pray for him. His OG (I’ll refer to him as OG because he doesn’t want to be known, sorry about that) and his daughters are doing better, but he has a new lift in his life and he is believing the Word of God. Thanks to Brian and 1 John, the writings that God has given us to direct our lives and to forgive ourselves from sin. I wanted to share this. I just prayed Psalms 126:5 – for all those who are weeping, this is for you. It says that they that sow tears shall reap in joy. God hasn’t forgotten you and in your sorrow God knows what you're going through and he is going to return you to joy, so don’t wallow in sorrow and pity and feel bad for yourselves and the bad things that you see because God is working everything for good. Richard down under, God is going to lift you up, my brother. He is going to restore your boys and he is going to do such a big thing in your life you're not going to even be able to imagine it.
Hello Daily Audio Bible family. This is Alphaio from Delaware. Let us pray. Dear Lord, we come into your presence this morning boldly making our petitions and requests and thanksgiving. God, you are our creator, the giver of life and this is not __________ but an amazing gift from you. You have been a constant provider in our lives whether we see it or not. Every situation that we face in our lives contain in itself eternal blessedness if we can face it when we __________. You are fashioning us each day as the potter does to his clay, building us into vessels of noble character. Help us not to resist your reformation of our lives, but to walk in partnership with you at every turn of our lives. Help us to be like David, a man after your own heart. Lord, forgive us for not letting you work in our lives to be who we are meant to be. We have become so immune to the things that happen around us. We are more selfish than ever, only thinking about ourselves and how to be better. The lies of media have taken over our desire for intimacy with you. We have loved the world and what it offers that we have forgotten that your call for us is to make the world a better place by sharing your message and being the example that you are in our lives. So dear Lord, transform our thinking and our lives that we may become the disciples you really formed us to be. Let us shine your light in this dark world that even those who don’t know you may see Christ and come to believe in your lordship. Heal us, Lord. Heal our broken hearts. Heal our children. Heal our spouses, our parents, our friends and even our enemies. May you increase our desire for you because there is nothing more important than to have a personal relationship with you. Help us to see just like the blind man. Help us to see the needs of others that we can meet them. Help us to see our faults and…
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Tamarie 12/10/2015 14:36 |
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