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 Monday, October thirty, twenty twenty three. Hello,
my name is El David Harris. I am your host, and this is
your Daily Portion where we give you God's 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 our excuses. Here we
go again, false views, our excuses, false views. We'll get into
that in just a moment, but first I like to say welcome to you
and ask you to go over to your Daily Portion dot com. If you've
not done so already, join our online community, and please understand, if
you go in there, you are free to ask questions, make comments concerning
the lesson. This is not a reactive space for you. It's reactive for
me because I come to you every single day and been doing so for thousands
of consecutive days, and now it's your opportunity to speak back to me.
I see the chat loading up while we are online. But this is a
platform where we can have vibrant discussion and I won't necessarily come to you.
There, you come to me, and there I will respond, and we
can also have responses from people around the world. There are hundreds of people
already linked in to that space at your daily portion dot com. I hope
that makes sense to you. Yep. Let's go ahead and pray and then
we will get underway. Father and Heaven, thank you for giving us this
privilege to open your word again. Please teach us not to use our false
views of the world, and you to limit us in our obedience. In
Jesus' name, I pray, Amen and Amen again. Yeah. So there
are so many false views. I don't need to point them out, but
we need to be very clear when God speaks to us that he has given
us the power to respond. He's given us enough information in order to move
forward. Otherwise we couldn't be responsible for disobedience, right, So he gives
us all that we need to move forward, not necessarily all that we want.
That's a different study. And he has expectations of us. He wants
us to move forward in faith full stop. It's as simple as that.
And so we're going. As for those who have been watching and listening for
many years, you see that I've made it an adjustment to how I address
each of these lessons. There's always some action step. There are action steps
each time because we have, I think, become so accustomed to listening and
reading and philosophizing, if that's a word, and becoming super intelligent gluttons,
that we don't know how to actually apply this stuff, right. And so
that's why we move to action steps every single day. And so the first
one, the first one, we will use Jonah chapter two and verse two
as the backdrop. In my distress, I called to the Lord and he
answered me. From the deep in the realm of the dead, I called
for help, and you listened to my cry. We want to acknowledge God's
universal sovereignty, and I want to add the universal because there are kings and
queens around the world who have sovereignty in their human realms right their countries,
their kingdoms. But what we're talking about is God having sovereignty everywhere bar none.
And so even though Jonah was in the belly of a fish or a
whale, you see it in the New and the Old Testaments, it was
a creature in the sea. Yes, regardless of the geographical and situational contexts,
we should recognize and affirm, not just identify, but a firm God's
sovereignty, understanding that His power has reach with no boundaries, even in the
depths of the sea, even in the instincts of a creature in the sea,
even in the realm of the Nnovites and the the Assyrians, and wherever
else in the world or universe, God has absolute sway. And so Jonah's
experience was that there was a storm and there was a great fish. This
illuminates God's dominance over all creation. Because God is the one that sent the
storm, He is the one that sent the sea creature. God demonstrated his
reach and power even to the depths of the sea where Jonah might have thought
he could escape. Divine inter action number two. Number two balancing personal purity
and missional engagement. Oh, this is a big one. Let me read
from the Book of James, chapter one and verse twenty seven. The Bible
reads religion that God, our Father accepts is pure and faultless. Is as
pure and faultless. Is this to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Now, let me
just say that Jesus when he prayed the high priestly prayer in the Book of
John is recorded in the Book of John. Oh, my goodness, my
brain is frozen. Chapter seventeen. Oh boy, I can't believe I've forgotten
that after all of these years. Chapter seventeen. I believe it is where
he says, I'm not asking you to take my children out from this world,
your children out from this world, God, I'm asking you to keep
them unspotted. I want you to keep them holy. Okay. And so
the fact that we are to be pure, the fact that we have the
privilege of being saved, because the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation
even to us, that should not cause us to feel like we need to
put on gloves and masks and some kind of hazmat suit when we go into
the world. Though God is not saying that we should avoid being with people
who are lost our purpose. Our purpose is the same as Jesus was to
seek and to save that which was lost. We will get our hands soiled,
We will have experiences with people who are not connected to God. And
our purpose is to become God's hands in his feet, to become his voice
in the darkness of this world. He said that we are to shine as
lights in this wicked and perverse generation. And so the fact that Jonah Jonah
saw their wickedness, he figured he would be like isolated from them, and
he felt like that that would negate God's directives to him. See, we
are not supposed to become so prissy and clean that we can't connect with people.
Our purpose is to be empowered by God through holiness and then go out
and reach as many people as possible with the plan of self, so they
too can be saved. And so the action step in that vein is strive
for a balanced Christian life that maintains holiness, yes, while actively engaging on
the mission that God has given us to extend His love and salvation to others
and number three distinguishing between our role and God's role. There is a problem
we have as humans. We sometimes try to take on God's work without God.
Sometimes we attempt to replace or supplant God in his work, and that
causes confusion. And so the Bible reads in First Corinthians, chapter three and
verse seven, so neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is
anything, but only God who makes things grow. We have to recognize that
it is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of
his good pleasure. It is his business, and therefore we are to engage
in missions with a servant mentality, right focusing on obedience and faithful witnessing,
and in trust the outcome to God, and trust the outcome to God.
Now, Jonah was an instrument, not the converter of Nineveh. Similarly,
we are tools in God's hands, not the saviors of the people. The
salvation of souls is a divine act, not our role. We are to
bear, witness, plant seeds, and leave the transformation to God. We
have no excuse. Peace. Thanks for joining us listening. 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,