Most of us eat every day, some of us too much because yesterday's food
is not enough to supply energy for today's needs. Why then, do some
of us expect yesterday's portion of heavenly manna the word of God to keep us
through today's challenges. On this program, we are going to change all of
that. Let's experience God's words today and receive the power we need to live
healthy, vibrant lives. Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host, author
speaker Elle David Harris. Good morning, Good morning, Good morning. It
is Friday, December eight, twenty twenty three. Hello, my name is
El David Harris. I am your host, and this is your Daily Portion
where we give you guns word every single day and today is no exception.
We are continuing in our Lesson study series. God's mission, my mission,
and our caption for today is God Confidence, God Confidence. We'll get in
to that in just a moment, but first I'd like to say welcome to
you and happy happy preparation day. I hope that you are doing well.
I know that you are all over the world, and that's a blessing because
Jesus said He's coming back. After this gospel is spread into all the world
for a witness the Gospel of the Kingdom, like we need to have this
done, Like, let's get this done so that Jesus can come. I'm
tired of being down here. I live somewhere very beautiful, and you some
of you do too. But that, besides, that is besides the point,
beside the point. I don't want to be down here like this.
I want to go to heaven for a thousand years like God said, and
after that, I want to live on this planet the way He intended for
it to be. But before I get too far off into that, let
me just say welcome to you and ask you to go to your Daily Portion
dot com. Look on there. You'll see what I'm asking you to do
there and we can continue to build faith and fellowship. Let's go ahead and
pray and then we will get Underwe Father, thank you for giving us your
spirit. Please give us confidence in you in Jesus name, I pray,
Amen and Amen again. Yeah. So, one of my friends, his
name is Winston. He said that God that people can can effect the two
extremes without God, the two extremes, whatever the two extremes are. But
in order to find balance, we need the Holy Ghost. So some people
are overly confident. That's an extreme. When I say confident, I mean
self confident, overly confident in self and your capability. And you're like,
Dave, you're trying to give me a complex, Dave, is it that
you have a small mindset? No, if you really knew me how,
you wouldn't even ask that question. Ah. But if we have too much
confidence in ourselves, or we lack confidence all together, and we feel like
we can't do anything right, or we're fearful of every little thing. It's
always something you're afraid of. You're afraid of success, You're afraid of failure,
afraid of what people will say, You're afraid of who knows what else?
What if I don't get another opportunity? What if I get hit by
a truck? And I'm not making this stuff up, Like this is stuff
that I encounter with people all the time. I coach people every single day
of my life, well six days a week and multiple times sometimes in a
day, and I encounter this. So what God wants us to do is
to place our trust in Him. That is to say, have balance,
have a lot, a lot a lot of confidence in God. Put your
trust in God. Let's read now from the book The Acts of the Apostles,
pages two hundred forty and two hundred forty one. We'll get into that
now. The words of the Apostle and the description of his attitude and surroundings,
as traced by the pen of Inspi, were handed down to all coming
generations, bearing witness of his unshaken confidence, his courage and loneliness, and
adversity, and the victory he gained for Christianity in the very heart of paganism.
Paul's words contain a treasure of knowledge for God's people. He was in
a position where he might easily have said that which would have irritated his proud
listeners and brought himself into difficulty. Had his oration been a direct attack upon
their gods and the great men of the city, he would have been in
danger of meeting the fate of Socrates. But in with tact born of divine
love, he carefully drew their minds away from heathen deities by revealing to them
the true God who was to them unknown. You see self confidence says just
fire shots on the lie. You see the lie. Shoot at the lie.
You see the lie blow up the lie. You see the lie fill
in the blank, just hit it dead on, and it's like, wait
a minute, now, it is not necessary to irritate your listeners at all
times. Like there are times that because God gives us the power of His
Holy Spirit and gives us wisdom, that we are to handle certain situations with
kid gloves. Why because we're fearful. No no, no, no no.
Our confidence is in God. Ah. We are trying to position people
to hear the message my friend Darryl Davis. Darryl Davis taught me many years
ago because of where I come from and the way that I used to communicate,
because it's a harsh environment. I wasn't born harsh. I'm not naturally
harsh. I'm really peaceful. I'm a peacemaker. I don't want any controversy.
I don't like controversy. But because of my socialization, there are times
that I would just shoot messages straight at the target, bang and say things
and people couldn't process it. And I would say, well, what can
you What do you not understand about what I said? And it's harsh and
it's bold and it's forward, right and what he said was speak so you
can be heard, Dave, not just for the sake of speaking. And
I said, wait a minute, and he said, your way of doing
things, how's that been working for you. You need to speak so you
can be heard, not just for speaking sake. And I'm like, okay,
I got it. And from that day on, I have not had
the challenges that I used to have where communication is concerned. Yeah, things
can be mixed up, things can be misunderstood. I got it. But
God taught me through Darryl's insightful words, speak so you can be heard.
And Paul spoke so he could be heard. Ah. It was born of
divine love, and he carefully drew their minds away from those false gods by
revealing to them the true God who was to them unknown. What an incredible
experience. So here are a few things that we need to keep in mind.
One cultural sensitivity. It is not that we will bow and say that
it is okay to sin because in the particular culture, then that activity of
sin is acceptable. That's not it, that's not it. Paul's approach exemplified
that he respected the cultures and culture and belief of his audience, not that
he agreed, not that he acquiesced, but that he respected them enough and
what God wanted to do in them that he did not unnecessarily notice that word
necessarily ruffle feathers. Again, common ground. We talked about this the other
day. He also sought common ground, like he could agree with what was
true. What was true is that there was one of the so called deities
that they worshiped that said that was dedicated this space was dedicated to the quote
unknown God. So he could agree that they had one space for the God
for something they didn't understand. And it's like, okay, well let's use
that. So you worship, I worship, you worship God's I worship God.
Oh, here's one that is not familiar to you. I worship the
one True and Living God. Let's insert here. So common ground was very
very important when he was having this discussion, uh, in terms of faith.
And then I want you to think about explaining yourselves, explaining the truth
of God's word, the truth about things that lead and tend toward God patiently.
Patiently. Some preachers, teachers, people who give testimonies, people with
whom you work who are supposed to be believers, are so irritable, always
arguing and fighting on social media, always arguing and fighting on the bus or
at work about some point of Bible teaching. That's called doctrine. All Bible
teaching is called doctrine. I wish I had the time, And God is
saying, where are you getting this irritable spirit? That is not the way
that I taught you? So patiently explain hah, with meekness and with fear,
and of course, of course there must be integrity in the message.
Whatever you are sharing, there must be honesty and reverence and integrity in it,
because That's God's way. God confidence is what we need. Thanks for
joining us listening to friends. Always remember we cannot live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. This has been
your daily portion with El David Harris. Make it a great day. Yeah,