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 Wednesday, April ten, twenty twenty four. 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 through the concept the principle of the
Great Controversy. Before we get into that, our caption, really I forgot
to tell you, is caring for the community. But before we get into
that, I would like to ask you to please go over to your Daily
Portion dot com. Please join our online community, pick up your Daily Portion
book, and let us know where you are in the world. At your
Daily Portion dot Com. This is a way that we continue to build faith
and fellowship. Let's go ahead and pray and then we will get underway.
Father and Heaven. Thank you for this new day and for the opportunity we
have to open your word again. Please give us your unusual wisdom, teach
us how to serve you today, and teach us what community really is like
in Jesus name, I pray a man and a man again caring for the
community. And in my lesson I actually underscored the term caring, caring for
the community. Let me ask you a question. Once we create community,
and I'm speaking to people of faith, especially those who are considered to be
leaders, like, once we create a community, do we actually nurture and
feed and protect the community. Let me ask you again, do we actually
once we are creating community? And one of the ways that we create community
is through what we're doing now, Like in churches around the world, we
have Bible schools, right and in those same Bible schools, like you can
actually become members there before you get baptized into the Fellowship of Believers. You
understand, and as we are in these environments and people are coming into our
fellowship through these Bible schools some of us call it Sabbath schools. Yes,
once they are in those are we nurturing and feeding and protecting those communities some
of you call them members. What about when someone is baptized, maybe it's
through a right a series of gospel messages or evangelistic messages as some people call
it. Once people come into the community through Bible schools or through baptism or
both, are we nurturing, are we feeding? Are we protecting? And
if not, the entire community is going to be lost. I need to
say that again. If we're not nurturing and feeding and protecting, it doesn't
make sense to build a community. It does not make sense to bring people
into our fellowship. Because Jesus the good shepherd, and I think that's an
understatement, Jesus the ultimate great shepherd. He nurtures and protects, and he
feeds the sheep. Just go to John chapter ten and see where Jesus speaks
of that. And anybody else is considered a hireling. Like if we are
unsupposedly on the team with God, if we are supposedly a part of the
community of faith, then we should have the same mindset that Jesus has.
Otherwise, we are considered to be like hired help hirelings that don't care because
the sheep are not theirs. They just allow the sheep to be scattered when
the wolves come. M something to think about. But we're talking now about
caring. In the lesson, it reads the early Christian Church grew not only
because it was its members preached and I underscored that the gospel, but because
they lived the gospel. Let's see an example of this from the Book of
Acts. Chapter Let's go with chapter six, first Acts, Chapter six,
and I will read beginning at verse one, and the Bible reads, now,
in those days, when the disciples were growing in number, a complaint
arose on the part of Greek speaking Jews against the native he break Jews because
their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. At least that's
what the perception of it was. I don't really have the time verse two.
So the twelve called the whole group of the disciples together and said,
let me just say, this is a practical move, this is a true
leadership move. This is what they did. They said, it is not
right for us to neglect the word of God, to wait on tables,
that is, to take care of these very specific practical needs. And you're
like, but Dave, how can you be in a community of faith,
like a fellowship of believers and not have those practical or felt needs handled or
dealt with. Well, this is not where it stopped. But carefully select
from among you. So this is a part of the strategy. And now
it's going into the tactics. This is what we're going to do to make
sure that people are taken care of. Well, Okay, select from among
you, brothers, seven men, specifically seven here we go, who are
well attested, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may put
in charge of this necessary task. So they were practical, they were tactical,
they were strategic. They dealt with the felt needs in a specific way
by selecting specific people who, by the way ha and not incidentally, were
to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So if our community of believers,
right, the fellowship that we are building, does not nurture hmm, does
not feed, does not protect, then we are not living up to this
specific guide that God has given us, the example that the early Church demonstrated.
Let me just see what else God has to say. Here verse four,
But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.
And so there were people in this community who were specifically set aside in
a spiritual, practical way for the ministry of the Word, and then others
would manifest the ministry by what practical hands on felt needs type nurture and care
and protection. You see where we're going with this, very well organized verse
five. The proposal pleased the entire group. So they chose Stephen, a
man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, with Philip and Prochorus, and
Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicholas and a gentile. Excuse me, Nicholas
was a gentile convert to Judaism from Antioch. Verse six. They stood these
men before the apostles, who prayed and placed their hands on them. So
those who were selected ha by God and from the fellowship to be the spiritual
leaders, if you want to say, servant leaders, these men who were
supposed to be ministering the Word in a specific way. Those individuals now are
laying hands on the people who were now going to do some more practical hands
on type ministry. Ah the Word of God continued to spread. The number
of disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly, and a large group of priests. Yes,
those people that you thought were lost, those people that you thought Jesus
did not love, the people that you thought Jesus was a critic of.
Well, it says here that even a large group of priests became obedient to
the faith. Why because God loves them. He loved them, He loved
all of the people, the leaders and the followers, if you want to
say, the people who seemed not to be getting the message when Jesus would
would cry over them, like in Matthew twenty three. But they were people
like Nicodemus who came. Yes, Nicodemus came by night. But he said
to Nicodemus, ah, you must be born again. He said to Nicodemus,
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten sons so that
Eu Nicodemus could be saved. And so there were a great number of priests
according to this message here Ha that became obedient to the faith. And so
caring for the community is not just building a community. It's easy to build
a community, ah, But to care is to nurture Hm the felt needs,
yes, and to let them know that they belong and that God loves
them and show it yes. And to feed, to give them practical feeding
and spiritual feeding, and to protect the community otherwise the community is going to
go right down the tube. Care for the community you build. Have a
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,