Latest / Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris / 04 10 2024 Caring for the Community

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04 10 2024 Caring for the Community · Your Daily Portion with L. David Harris

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