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 Friday, August
twenty three, 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 Book of Mark and our
caption for today is Childlike Qualities. Childlike Qualities. We'll get
into that in jail 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
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At your Daily Portion dot com. 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, thank you for giving us this day.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to pray, and
for the Holy Spirit who teaches us. Father, I pray
that we will value our children and also that you
will show us how to have childlike faith, have childlike
trust in you. Father, Please teach us the blessing of children.
In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen and Amen again. I
just want to say that my son, our son, Josiah,
teaches me how to be a father. He teaches me fatherhood.
Maybe that's a better way of saying it, like it's obvious,
like if you have a child, then you learn more
about fatherhood if you're a dad, right, because you have
the child. But it's not that. What I'm saying is
I did not get the I did not get the
understanding of fatherhood from my dad. But somehow God saw
fit to give us a man child. And through the
relationship of this manchild and I I am able to
understand what I didn't understand as a man child myself.
God has a wonderful way of bringing us into understanding
and to bring us into relationship with him. There are
things that I understand about my connection with God now
because of Josiah, and I'm like God, I thank you
because I couldn't have calculated this. I couldn't have planned it.
If I had planned it, I would have planned it
another way, you know what I mean, and then been
off track. So God gives us ways, and your story
may be different. He gives us all ways to see
and appreciate childlike qualities so we can have a right
relationship with God and right standing with him. Okay, so
that sounds all well and good. But let's go ahead
and begin reading from the book Desire of Ages, page
five hundred eleven and see where we can go from here. Okay,
And it reads Jesus was ever a lover of children.
So if you're if you are, Almos said, if you're
a child, you are obviously someone's child. Doesn't matter what
your age is. Right, Maybe you didn't feel loved by
your parents, or maybe you did. I don't know, but
Jesus was a lover of children. He accepted their childish
sympathy and their open, unaffected love so they didn't put
boundaries on this thing. They had a way of brightening
up and opening up in relationship that didn't have all
of the filters that humans have, didn't have all of
the discrimination that adults have. Right, these children were open
and their love didn't have all these unnecessary boundaries. Let
me keep reading. Their grateful praise from their pure lips
was music in his ears and refreshed his spirit when
oppressed by contact with crafty and hypocritical men. I hope
you heard that the language was complex, I admitted. So
he had people that were supposed to be his people.
I'm talking about grown folks who were leading among the
fellowship of believers if you want to say, the synagogue
at the time, and those individuals who were supposed to
be a welcome place, who were supposed to be a
place of reprieve so that they, together, them and Christ
could go into the world to win people for the kingdom.
But instead he found hypocrisy, He found criticism, he found hatred,
He found people who were really kind of wanting to
kill him, and some who would have if they had
the opportunity. I'm talking about early right, But somehow the
father positioned children in Jesus's life, that when they would
give their love, when they would give their praise, when
they would show sympathy toward Jesus, when they would show affection,
it was like it was like water to refresh a
dry soul. You see what I'm where I'm saying where
I'm coming from here, And so we need to learn
how to appreciate the children that God puts into our
space and not see them as a burden, not see
them as an interruption to the things that we would
like to do today, not to see them as blockers
and air quotes those who know, No, you know what
I'm saying, right, If you don't, don't worry about it,
it doesn't apply to you. We are to see our
children and children in general, as what a heritage from
the Lord. That means an inheritance. How do you feel
when you get an inheritance? You may not know what
it feels like, But if you today, whatever your financial
status is, if you receive an inheritance of a million
US dollars, how would you feel about that? You see
where I'm coming from. If you were to receive an
additional ten million US dollars as an inheritance how would
you feel about that? And so these children are an inheritance,
God said through the Psalms to us, And so the Bible,
I mean, the quote continues. Wherever the Savior went, the
beignignity of his countenance and his gentle, kindly manner won
the love and confidence of children. When you're around children,
they are they drawn to you? Or are they afraid
of you? Do they want to talk to you and
hear from you? Do they want to touch your face?
Do they want to give you hugs? A Are they
drawn to you or are they afraid of you? Are
they drawn to you? Or do they show distrust of you? Yeah? Well,
I will leave that right where it is. We're going
to page five hundred and twenty three. To those who,
like the young Ruler, are in high positions of trust
and have great possessions. It may seem too great a
sacrifice to give up all in order to follow Christ.
But this is the rule of conduct for all who
would become as disciples. Nothing short of obedience can be accepted.
Self surrender is the substance of the teachings of Christ.
Often it is presented and en joined in language that
seems authoritative, because there is no other way to save
me man than to cut away those things, which, if entertained,
will demoralize the whole being. There are times that we
have to hear like children who are being corrected. There
are times that when God comes to us, we have
to hear it like a loving parent who is stern,
who is authoritative, not having any other interest except our
best interest at heart. We have to hear it that
way because otherwise we would take it too lightly. There
are times that God has to chide us. There are
times that he has to chastise us. He said, like
children whom I love, I chastise you, I rebuke you.
I'm not treating you like fatherless children. I am treating
you like the one who has accepted you in the
beloved Jesus Christ. And there are times that you have
to be corrected, and it's painful. I get it, and
so I thank God for giving us a well rounded
reality about childlike qualities. Children who know that they are
loved take the discipline. They take the discipline from loving parents.
And so first of all, we want us to cherish
these childlike qualities. We want to value simplicity in worship. See,
children don't have complicated worship thoughts. We want to embrace
the refreshing spirit of children, and we also want to
be in obedience. It's a non negotiable in discipleship or
relationship with God. And of course we want to sacrifice
self for the blessing of others. Make it a great day, peace.
Speaker 1: 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,