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 Tuesday, November twenty one, twenty twenty three. Hello,
my name is Elle 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 refugees and Immigrants. That's
refugees and immigrants. We'll get into that in just a moment, but first
I'd like to say thank you and welcome to everyone joining us, especially those
joining us for the very first time. I'm asking you to please go over
to your Daily Portion dot com, join our online community, and also let
us know where you are in the world, so we can see how you
are spreading the gospel because so many of you are cooking, share, share,
share, share, share and telling people that matter to you. Yes,
and also pick up the Your Daily Portion book at your Daily Portion dot
com. Let's go ahead and pray, and then we will get underway.
Father and Heaven. Thank you for giving us this new day and for the
privilege we have to be your children. Please help us to live like your
children. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen and Amen again. Refugees
and immigrants. Now, for those who are on social media, YouTube,
and on podcast land, you can respond to me here. Right, you
can put it in a comment or a review or whatever you need to do.
By show of hands. Let me see your virtual hand is going to
be a one. Right, if you have ever been a refugee or an
immigrant, type of one in the chat. If you have been an immigrant
or refuge go ahead and type of one in the chat. Yes, okay,
I used to be, and well, I guess I can't say used
to be. I am an immigrant in the country that I live now.
Yes, I'm now a citizen, but I am an immigrant. Right and
many of you are as well. Many of you have had to seek asylum
and refuge because of all kinds of political or other kinds of challenges in your
particular countries, and have gone to many different countries around the world so that
you could be safe. And so this is a discussion that really becomes practical
almost at the outset, because we know what it's like to move from a
country to another country for some reason or another. And so we're going to
look at various stories in the Bible in these few minutes that we have to
see if we can learn any spiritual lessons from their experiences. Let's begin with
Jesus in the Book of Matthew, chapter two and verse thirteen. That's the
Book of Matthew, chapter two, and I will read verse thirteen, and
the Bible reads and when they were departed, behold the Angel of the Lord
appeareth unto Joseph in a dream. So this is Joseph who was espoused too,
or whose spouse was to be Mary, the mother of Jesus. Right,
So the Angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying,
arise, take the young child and his mother and flee into Egypt,
And so just really easily here we see that this family Jesus included as a
baby became call them refugees and immigrants, refugees into Egypt, and so reflect
on the story of Jesus's early life as a refugee and use this as motivation
to empathize, empathize with, and aid modern day refugees. Can we keep
it as simple as that? Can you imagine if Jesus were kicked out of
Egypt somehow and his family. Can you imagine if somehow it was not a
place of refuge for them and something terrible happened as a result, where would
we be today? Where would we be today? And so we can empathize
if we have the experience of being a refugee or an immigrant. We can
see in the story of Jesus's early life how that it was of benefit because
remember the king was destroying children at the time, and God protected Jesus from
that destruction so that you and I could be saved. Jesus needed to come
here and to complete his mission, and if he dies prematurely, then that
mission would not be accomplished. Okay, So let's just go very simple there.
Now we go to the Book of Deuteronomy. The Book of Deuteronomy sorry,
chapter ten and verse nineteen, and the Bible reads love ye, therefore
the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Okay,
love immigrants as yourself. Do you remember when we read in Matthew chapter twenty
two, when the question of the commandments comes up, what is the greatest
commandment? The first and great commandment is the love the Lord or God with
everything that you are, everything that you have. And the second, miraculously,
yes, is like unto it, namely this love the Lord your God
with all that you have. I mean. The second is like unto it,
namely this love your neighbor as yourself. Yes. And we said that
to love our neighbors is to love everyone in need. Who is our neighbor,
everyone who is in need. We went through that story in detail.
And so now we say, there are people who become immigrants in countries,
and during that time as they're transitioning in I have experienced that I have done
this. There are certain things that we need when we make a transition into
a country. There are things about the society we may not fully understand.
There may be a way that we have to deal with with all kinds of
things, like from getting our normal everyday needs met to how we live in
my case, switching to on the left side of the road and the right
side of the vehicle you see, and so many other things. Of course,
I'm starting with the very simple, so we can easily identify with that
Ah. But people who are moving into other countries, who may be going
into countries where the language is different, the culture is completely different, the
living situations is different, how things are delivered to the home, like water
and electricity and all kinds of other things. It's different. We need to
learn to love people who were not from where we happen to be living or
domiciled, and then we are also fulfilling the law. Let me read it
again, Love ye, therefore the stranger, For ye were strangers in the
land of Egypt. God was speaking to his people. Treat immigrants and refugees
with the same kindness, respect, and love that you would want for yourself
were you in their position. Remember having to keep safe a yellow book,
a small little book about the size of an index card, actually smaller than
an index card. And it said alien, and it said I was an
alien into this country that I am living today. Okay, Let's go to
Psalm's chapter the Book of Psalms, chapter one hundred and forty six and verse
nine. Okay, and the Bible reads, the Lord preserveth the strangers.
He relieveth the fatherless and the widow. Some people as one of my neighbors.
He's a distant neighbor way down the hill. I remember during a recent
war he and his wife had Actually, his wife is from the place where
the war was happening, and she needed a special kind of healthcare, and
in her country it was more readily available, especially because she's from that country,
and well, something broke out over there was so terrible, and the
family was not only stuck in the country during the war, but they were
trying to flee to another country. It was a harrowing experience. And the
people in those neighboring countries, some of them supported the displaced, supported the
displaced. Can you imagine you go there for health care and then you have
to leave suddenly, and you're hoping that the neighboring country or the bordering country
will accept you. So we need to consider supporting organizations and community programs dedicated
to providing relief to refugees, orphans and widows. I think we've learned a
lot today. Every wonderful day. 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,