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Most of us eat every day,
some of us too much, because yesterday's

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food is not enough to supply energy
for today's needs. Why then, do

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some of us expect yesterday's portion of
heavenly manna, the word of God to

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keep us through today's challenges. On
this program, we are going to change

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all of that. Let's experience God's
words today and receive the power we need

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to live healthy, vibrant lives.
Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host,

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author speaker, Elle David Harris.
Good morning, good morning, good

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morning. It is Monday, October
thirty, twenty twenty three. Hello,

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my name is El David Harris.
I am your host, and this is

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your Daily Portion where we give you
God's word every single day, and today

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is no exception. We are continuing
in our Lesson study series. God's mission,

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my mission, and our caption for
today is our excuses. Here we

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go again, false views, our
excuses, false views. We'll get into

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that in just a moment, but
first I like to say welcome to you

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and ask you to go over to
your Daily Portion dot com. If you've

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not done so already, join our
online community, and please understand, if

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you go in there, you are
free to ask questions, make comments concerning

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the lesson. This is not a
reactive space for you. It's reactive for

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me because I come to you every
single day and been doing so for thousands

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of consecutive days, and now it's
your opportunity to speak back to me.

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I see the chat loading up while
we are online. But this is a

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platform where we can have vibrant discussion
and I won't necessarily come to you.

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There, you come to me,
and there I will respond, and we

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can also have responses from people around
the world. There are hundreds of people

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already linked in to that space at
your daily portion dot com. I hope

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that makes sense to you. Yep. Let's go ahead and pray and then

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we will get underway. Father and
Heaven, thank you for giving us this

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privilege to open your word again.
Please teach us not to use our false

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views of the world, and you
to limit us in our obedience. In

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Jesus' name, I pray, Amen
and Amen again. Yeah. So there

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are so many false views. I
don't need to point them out, but

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we need to be very clear when
God speaks to us that he has given

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us the power to respond. He's
given us enough information in order to move

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forward. Otherwise we couldn't be responsible
for disobedience, right, So he gives

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us all that we need to move
forward, not necessarily all that we want.

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That's a different study. And he
has expectations of us. He wants

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us to move forward in faith full
stop. It's as simple as that.

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And so we're going. As for
those who have been watching and listening for

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many years, you see that I've
made it an adjustment to how I address

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each of these lessons. There's always
some action step. There are action steps

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each time because we have, I
think, become so accustomed to listening and

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reading and philosophizing, if that's a
word, and becoming super intelligent gluttons,

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that we don't know how to actually
apply this stuff, right. And so

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that's why we move to action steps
every single day. And so the first

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one, the first one, we
will use Jonah chapter two and verse two

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as the backdrop. In my distress, I called to the Lord and he

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answered me. From the deep in
the realm of the dead, I called

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for help, and you listened to
my cry. We want to acknowledge God's

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universal sovereignty, and I want to
add the universal because there are kings and

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queens around the world who have sovereignty
in their human realms right their countries,

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their kingdoms. But what we're talking
about is God having sovereignty everywhere bar none.

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And so even though Jonah was in
the belly of a fish or a

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whale, you see it in the
New and the Old Testaments, it was

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a creature in the sea. Yes, regardless of the geographical and situational contexts,

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we should recognize and affirm, not
just identify, but a firm God's

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sovereignty, understanding that His power has
reach with no boundaries, even in the

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depths of the sea, even in
the instincts of a creature in the sea,

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even in the realm of the Nnovites
and the the Assyrians, and wherever

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else in the world or universe,
God has absolute sway. And so Jonah's

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experience was that there was a storm
and there was a great fish. This

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illuminates God's dominance over all creation.
Because God is the one that sent the

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storm, He is the one that
sent the sea creature. God demonstrated his

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reach and power even to the depths
of the sea where Jonah might have thought

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he could escape. Divine inter action
number two. Number two balancing personal purity

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and missional engagement. Oh, this
is a big one. Let me read

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from the Book of James, chapter
one and verse twenty seven. The Bible

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reads religion that God, our Father
accepts is pure and faultless. Is as

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pure and faultless. Is this to
look after orphans and widows in their distress

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and to keep oneself from being polluted
by the world. Now, let me

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just say that Jesus when he prayed
the high priestly prayer in the Book of

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John is recorded in the Book of
John. Oh, my goodness, my

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brain is frozen. Chapter seventeen.
Oh boy, I can't believe I've forgotten

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that after all of these years.
Chapter seventeen. I believe it is where

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he says, I'm not asking you
to take my children out from this world,

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your children out from this world,
God, I'm asking you to keep

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them unspotted. I want you to
keep them holy. Okay. And so

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the fact that we are to be
pure, the fact that we have the

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privilege of being saved, because the
Gospel is the power of God unto salvation

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even to us, that should not
cause us to feel like we need to

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put on gloves and masks and some
kind of hazmat suit when we go into

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the world. Though God is not
saying that we should avoid being with people

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who are lost our purpose. Our
purpose is the same as Jesus was to

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seek and to save that which was
lost. We will get our hands soiled,

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We will have experiences with people who
are not connected to God. And

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our purpose is to become God's hands
in his feet, to become his voice

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in the darkness of this world.
He said that we are to shine as

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lights in this wicked and perverse generation. And so the fact that Jonah Jonah

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saw their wickedness, he figured he
would be like isolated from them, and

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he felt like that that would negate
God's directives to him. See, we

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are not supposed to become so prissy
and clean that we can't connect with people.

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Our purpose is to be empowered by
God through holiness and then go out

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and reach as many people as possible
with the plan of self, so they

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too can be saved. And so
the action step in that vein is strive

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for a balanced Christian life that maintains
holiness, yes, while actively engaging on

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the mission that God has given us
to extend His love and salvation to others

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and number three distinguishing between our role
and God's role. There is a problem

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we have as humans. We sometimes
try to take on God's work without God.

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Sometimes we attempt to replace or supplant
God in his work, and that

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causes confusion. And so the Bible
reads in First Corinthians, chapter three and

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verse seven, so neither the one
who plants nor the one who waters is

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anything, but only God who makes
things grow. We have to recognize that

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it is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of

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his good pleasure. It is his
business, and therefore we are to engage

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in missions with a servant mentality,
right focusing on obedience and faithful witnessing,

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and in trust the outcome to God, and trust the outcome to God.

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Now, Jonah was an instrument,
not the converter of Nineveh. Similarly,

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we are tools in God's hands,
not the saviors of the people. The

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salvation of souls is a divine act, not our role. We are to

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bear, witness, plant seeds,
and leave the transformation to God. We

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have no excuse. Peace. Thanks
for joining us listening. Friends. Always

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remember we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from

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the mouth of God. This has
been your daily portion with El David Harris.

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Make it a great day. Yeah,