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 Thursday, February thirteen,
twenty twenty five. 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, God's Love and Justice, and our caption for
today is love and Evil. Mm hmm, love and Evil.
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. I want you to pick
up your Daily Portion book and also please please when
you get on that website, click the number seven. I'm
not asking you to type a number seven in the chat,
click the number seven at that website and become a
part of that community as well. To continue to build
your spiritual life 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 and Heaven, thank you for
giving us this new day and for loving us enough
to give us your son. Thank you for giving us love,
giving us the antidote against evil. Father, Please teach us
to serve you with all of our hearts today in
Jesus name, I pray Amen again. Okay, so we're still
discussing I don't know if you would say interplay or
the tension between free will and people making the wrong decisions.
But the reality is, as I've said to you for
the last couple of days, that we all have the choice.
We have a decision to make. Are we going to
choose to love God He loves us like He loved
us first, so it's not a difficult decision. Or are
we going to allow the world and the devil and
the things that went wrong in our lives and the media,
and all kinds of other things, even sometimes church hurt
to determine that we will hate, love or be in
fear of God, meaning to be afraid of God, like
what is the decision that you're going to make? And
so love and evil, love and evil. Let me go
ahead and begin with the quote here from the book
The Desire of Ages, and I will read at page
twenty two, and it reads, the earth was dark through
misapprehension of God, meaning people didn't understand God, that the
gloomy shadows might be lightened, that the world might be
brought back to God. Satan's deceptive power was to be broken.
So God's goal in this discussion here was for people
to really get to understand who he is, meaning God.
And the contrast is stark, like the devil and how
he moves his manner of bullying and pressuring and cajoling
and drawing and tempting and deceiving people, pressing people with trials.
God wanted that reality to be seen very clearly so
that when we do make a decision it's a solid one.
It's a solid one that we don't have to second
guess because we know, unfortunately, what it's like to be
on the wrong side of this thing. And people who
have been bitten, like some people say here in Jamaica Land,
we love once bitten twice shy. You understand like the
first go around or the first few times you go
around this thing and you feel the sting of it.
Sometimes it doesn't click. But at some point, at some point,
even human beings get it in our minds to say,
you know what, m M, I'm not about that unnecessary
pain life. I am not about turning away from the
one who loves me toward the one who clearly hates me,
the one who pulls the rug from under me after
I have done God forbid things that please the enemy.
You see where I'm going with this, but let me
keep reading here. The exercise of force is contrary ooh,
somebody needs to hear this. The exercise of force is
contrary to the principles of God's government. He desires only
the service of love. So he is not going to
bind you in a room with some kind of proverbial
or spiritual handcuffs and say that you're gonna love me
no matter what. He's not going to dress you up
like a dolly baby in some creepy movie scene. No,
he is giving all of us the privilege of seeing
his love, of allowing the enemy to go so far
and no further, just so we can see the nature
of our enemy. But God is always there. He's always watching,
so that we can make not only an informed decision,
but a solid, eternal decision. One day we will have
made our final choice for God or against him. Let
me keep reading here. Here we go only by love
is love awakened. To know God is to love him.
Can somebody attests to that and say I love God?
Like if you say, before you type anything in the chat,
if you're saying that you love God, that means you're
saying that you also know him. You have a close
relationship with him. You walk with him, and you talk
with him, and you put your plans before him, and
you are allowing God to transform your mind and to
either stamp to approve your plans, or to guide you
to another pathway as his providence may indicate. Okay, so
if you say in the chat, now you love him,
this is what you're saying. And more. Got to know
God is to love him. His character must be manifest
in contrast to the character of Satan. You want to
know why so many terrible things are happening on planet Earth,
besides the fact that the enemy is evil and does
not care about you and wants to seek to kill
and to destroy. Besides that, God is allowing it so
that we can know very clearly what we're up against.
And by the way, sometimes people are saying, oh, well,
that is why would God allow that? Well, listen, God
is the one that can restore all things and make
them better than where they were before the destruction. You understand,
So don't worry about that part. I just want to
say that God has free will too. I just want
to let that settle in like God has free will too.
I wrote that in my notes at the top of
my lesson. Jesus, while living as a human being, could
have chosen I'm talking about after he put on human flesh,
as the prophets mentioned, right after he put on human flesh,
he could have chosen to not go through with saving us.
You realize when he was in the garden of Getsemite,
under the load of our guilt, under the load of
our shame, under the load of ours sin, that Jesus
could have decided when when he was sweating as it
were great drops of blood. He could have not said nevertheless,
not as I will, as thou wilt, but as I.
He could have said the opposite of what he actually said.
I'm getting the words mixed up, but you know what
happened there. And he could have decided even after that,
when he was on the cross, he could have said,
you know what I'm gonna call right now, twelve legions
of angels and destroy all of these wicked people cry
and crucify him. He could have said, these humans are
going to get what they deserve, as opposed to him saying,
oh God, please forgive them, for they know not what
they do. He could have chosen that, and he also
could have chosen unfortunately. No, I shouldn't say that. I
take that back. Edit that out, y'all. If you're listening,
edit that out of your brain. Forget the unfortunately part.
He could have chosen to sin, Thankfully he didn't. He
could have chosen to sin. I was trying. I was
about to say, unfortunately, he could have chosen to sin.
But if I put that word in there, unfortunately, then
that means that I am questioning the method that God chose,
like I am not questioning that. So fortunately, he could
have chosen to sin, and I'm very thankful that he,
even more fortunately chose not to sin. He chose to
allow the Holy Ghost to lead in his life while
he was living on planet Earth as a human. I
need you to understand this was not a test, it
was not an exhibition. Jesus could have chosen to sin,
but thank god Jesus made the right choice and didn't.
What's your choice?
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,