Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning, Good morning. It is Wednesday, November
twenty seven, 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 themes in the Gospel of John, and
our caption for today is rejecting the source of life.
Rejecting the source of life. We'll get into that in
just a moment, but first I'd like to say welcome
to you and ask you to please go over to
your Daily Portion dot com, please join our online community,
pick up the Your Daily Portion book, and especially please
go ahead and click that number seven, click the number seven.
I need one thousand of you, but I prefer ten thousand,
but one thousand of you to click that number seven
and subscribe there because this is one of the ways
that we continue to build faith and fellowship. Let's go
ahead and pray, and then we will get underway. Father
in heaven, we thank you for this day and for
getting us thus far into our work week. And I'm
asking you to give us the stamina to continue to
work because the time comes when no one will be
able to work for you. Father, I'm asking you to
please help us to embrace you in all ways. In
Jesus name, I pray, Amen and Amen again. You know,
it is actually silly of any of us, and I'm
being kind, really complementary almost. It's silly for any of
us to reject the source of life. Yesterday we were
talking about believing in the new birth experience, believing and
having a new birth experience, right, And so I'm thinking
that if we are reborn because of God, the one
who created us, then why would we reject him. Why
would we be rejecting him when new birth is the
only pathway to eternity with God. Yeah, those who reject
eternity with God or really rejecting God, rejecting life. It
doesn't make sense for me to continue to breathe this
air that I am borrowing from God if I am
rejecting Him in my spiritual experience. Okay, let me read,
Let me read from the Lesson, and then we will
we will jump in to the Bible here and I
quote the contemporary humanistic way of thinking begins with doubt.
So we begin naturally with doubt. People question everything in
order to determine what is truth, that which survives the
fire of cross examination they accept as rock solid knowledge,
something on which to place one's faith. Some apply the
same method to the Bible, calling everything into question from
a scientific, historical, psychological, philosophical, archaeological, or geological perspective in
order to determine what truth is in the Bible. The
very method itself starts with and builds upon doubt in
the veracity of scripture. Christ asked, when the Son of
Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth.
That's from Luke, chapter eighteen and verse eight. And so
what we want to do now is determine I'm not
saying that these things in Scripture cannot be held up
to scrutiny, of course it can. But should we be
scrutinizing the scriptures? These are the holy words of God?
Like should we be saying, well, if I cannot understand
it from archaeology, then it is not. Oh wait a minute.
So the Holy Spirit has given power to those who
wrote in the scriptures. They were God's pen men, like
they heard from God, and based on inspiration they wrote.
They moved, they were moved by the holy ghosts, and
they communicated what God wanted us to know. And so
the mysteries that God reveals or for our learning, but
the other thing are for him. Okay, let me just
go ahead and jump into the scriptures here and begin
with the Bible Book of John in chapter eight John
chapter eight and verse twelve. What we want to do
is avoid the pitfalls of rejecting life. Avoid the pitfalls
of rejecting life. And we begin here. Then spake Jesus
again unto them, saying, I am the Light of the world.
This is Jesus speaking. He's in real life. He's right
there with them. I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but
he shall have the light of life. And so your
tip in that regard is to actively choose to follow Jesus.
This is a deliberate action. This is something that we
must decide every day, all day long. Choose actively, deliberately
to follow Jesus by studying his words and applying his
teachings to life. You see, when we intellectual life these things,
and then we begin to scrutinize them, it is less
likely for us to act. Can I say it just
another way? There are times that you will learn things
at work or in university. You may learn things in training,
and until you actively determine that you are going to
put some steps into place in order to actually apply them,
is just theory for you. This is why in psychology
there is practicum. When you study psychology, there's practicum. You
have theory and practicum. When you do business, there is
theory and then there are internships. Right then in medical sciences,
like if you are a respiratory therapist or a nurse
or a doctor in medical school, you do the theory
and then you have clinicals. Why because people who intellectualize
things and only do so just become philosophers. No disrespect
to the philosophers. But I'm saying it's just a lot
of questions. It's a lot of making myself intelligent. But
if I don't move to clinicals, practicum, internship, then it
is just something that's in my brain. And so accepting
the light of the world, accepting Jesus Christs to now
put his teachings into action, and we have to decide
deliberately every single day and moments throughout the day that
we're going to do that. And now, in Hebrews Chapter
ten and verse thirty five, cast not away therefore your confidence,
which hath great recompense of reward. And so we want
to hold fast to the faith that God has given
to us, hold fast to the faith that we are
developing over time. You see, we ask God to increase
our faith. We have experiences that test our faith, and
our faith muscles get stronger. And therefore we need to
ask God not to allow us to be confident in
our own thoughts, confident in our own victories or past victories.
When we have more faith today than we had yesterday,
or we have more faith at ten am than we
had at nine am, then we hold fast to God
through faith and continue in confidence knowing that in the
end analysis there is great recompense of reward. I'm thankful.
I'm thankful. And then, of course, in John chapter one
and verse twelve, we go back to the baseline of
our experience with God. We go back to the baseline,
and that is, but as many as received Him to them,
gave he power to become the children of God, even
to them that believe on his name. So we go
back to basics. On a regular basis, we embrace Jesus,
not just as a historical figure, not just one that
could be demonstrated as having lived on planet Earth based
on some archaeological dig No, we do more than this.
We embrace him as our personal savior and Lord, not
only the one who created and saved us, which is immeasurable,
but also as Lord, the one that I am surrendering
to every day on a momentary basis, on a momentary basis.
And so rejecting the source of life is non a
non starter for us. We don't get to do that.
We can choose to do that. But why you're listening
to me today, You're listening to God's word on a
regular basis. In other spheres, you're reading it for yourselves.
Why would any of us who are here under the
sound of my voice ever reject the source of life.
Just embrace, Embrace God, Embrace life. It's simple. Make it
a great day. 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.
Speaker 1: Yeah,