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What a Fruitful Devotional Feels Like · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Well, what's the difference between just reading the Bible like
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  Speaker 1: any other book and having a profound, heart stirring encounter
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  Speaker 1: with the Living God through its pages. Today a very
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  Speaker 1: rare look into Pastor John's personal devotions where he welcomes
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  Speaker 1: us into one of the practices he uses before reading
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  Speaker 1: the Bible in the morning to prepare his heart to
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  Speaker 1: encounter God, but before we get there. Like all the
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  Speaker 1: resources from Desiring God, this episode comes to you at
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  Speaker 1: and give biblical answers to one of life's toughest questions.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for considering it and for partnering
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  Speaker 1: with us, and thank you if you already do so.
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  Speaker 1: As we wrap up our annual read through the Bible
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  Speaker 1: this week, what exactly are we looking for in that practice. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we want to encounter the living God himself. Our aspirations
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  Speaker 1: are that high for the discipline. But what exactly does
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  Speaker 1: that feel like? That's the bold question from a listener
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  Speaker 1: named Josephine. Hello, Pastor John. I love to read my
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  Speaker 1: Bible every day and to get to know God better.
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  Speaker 1: I have heard you talk about the importance of not
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  Speaker 1: just reading the Bible, but reading in such a way
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  Speaker 1: to see the peculiar glory of Christ shining from the
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  Speaker 1: pages into our eyes to stir our hearts. It's unique
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  Speaker 1: type of reading, requiring genuine faith, regeneration, and the power
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  Speaker 1: of the spirit. But I don't really know if, or
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  Speaker 1: how or when this happens in my own life. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: I make discoveries in the text that really stir my heart.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't. Can you bring us into your own
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  Speaker 1: Bible reading and articulate for me the difference between simply
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  Speaker 1: reading the Bible and those precious, rare times, not every
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  Speaker 1: time in which you are met with the glory of
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  Speaker 1: Christ shining in the pages of Scripture. I presume this
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  Speaker 1: does not always happen, But what's it like for you
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  Speaker 1: when it does?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, as risky as it is. I'll try to give
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  Speaker 2: you a glimpse into this morning's meeting with God in scripture,
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  Speaker 2: and I say it's risky because our fallen heart, our
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  Speaker 2: sinful heart, John Piper's sinful heart, is so primed for
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  Speaker 2: pride that to speak of our own experiences almost inevitably
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  Speaker 2: passes over into boasting as contradictory and insane as that is,
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  Speaker 2: such is the nature of our remaining corruption. But perhaps
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  Speaker 2: since you asked, the good may outweigh the risk in
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  Speaker 2: this case. One of the reasons we don't meet God
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  Speaker 2: profoundly in his word as often as we would like
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  Speaker 2: is because our hearts are so unprepared and out of
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  Speaker 2: sync with spiritual reality when we come. Wesley Duel, in
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  Speaker 2: his book let God Guide You Daily, page seventy seven,
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  Speaker 2: said I have at times read as many as fifty
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  Speaker 2: chapters from God's Word before I was completely alone with God.
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  Speaker 2: Now don't hear me saying when I quote that, have
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  Speaker 2: a nice neat daily prescription for how to get alone
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  Speaker 2: with God, namely, read fifty chapters of the Bible, then
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  Speaker 2: you'll be in tune. We all know that's unrealistic, but
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  Speaker 2: I mention it for two reasons. One is to point
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  Speaker 2: out the fact that we may be that out of
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  Speaker 2: sync spiritually and emotionally and psychologically with the Bible, so
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  Speaker 2: that when we read, our frame of mind and the
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  Speaker 2: disposition of our heart and the spiritual receptivity of our
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  Speaker 2: heart are so out of step with the spirit of
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  Speaker 2: the passage that we're reading that nothing happens can't happen.
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  Speaker 2: And the other reason is to say that even though
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  Speaker 2: reading fifty chapters of the Bible every day is unrealistic,
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  Speaker 2: reading fifty chapters on a two day retreat in solitude
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  Speaker 2: in the motel that your spouse gave you as a
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  Speaker 2: gift is not unrealistic. Have you ever pursued it? Have
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  Speaker 2: you ever asked for it? Have you ever gone that
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  Speaker 2: hard after God? So many people complain about God not
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  Speaker 2: meeting them. They've never even conceived of what Wesley Dowel
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  Speaker 2: regularly does to find God in his word. One of
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  Speaker 2: the ways that I seek to have my heart prepared
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  Speaker 2: for scripture is to sometimes spend fifteen or twenty minutes
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  Speaker 2: reading a book by someone who I have learned over
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  Speaker 2: the years has seen more glory in the scriptures than
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  Speaker 2: I have, and they're very good at showing it to me.
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  Speaker 2: Their sight and their experience prepares me for my sight
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  Speaker 2: and my experience. Their taste prepares me for my taste.
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  Speaker 2: So this morning I read this on page one hundred
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  Speaker 2: and fifty nine of volume one of the works of
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  Speaker 2: John Owen, these words. I'm sitting in my chair in
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  Speaker 2: complete solitude and quietness. And here's what Owen wrote. There
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  Speaker 2: is more glory under the eye of God. And I
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  Speaker 2: think what he means by that is, there's more glory
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  Speaker 2: in the sight of God that God sees than recognizes.
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  Speaker 2: There's more glory under the eye of God in the size,
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  Speaker 2: groans and mournings of poor souls filled with the love
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  Speaker 2: of Christ, pursuing after the enjoyment of Him according to
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  Speaker 2: his promises. He sees more glory in their fervent prayers
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  Speaker 2: for His manifestation of himself, unto them in the refreshments
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  Speaker 2: and unspeakable joys which they have in His gracious visits
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  Speaker 2: and embraces of His love. Then in the thrones and
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  Speaker 2: diadems of all the monarchs on the earth. Nor will
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  Speaker 2: the poor, sighing, groaning seeking souls part with the ineffable
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  Speaker 2: satisfactions which they have in these things, for all that
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  Speaker 2: is in the world, or that the world can do
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  Speaker 2: for them or unto them. When I read that this morning,
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  Speaker 2: there rose up in my heart a strong yes, Yes, Lord, Yes,
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  Speaker 2: I am sighing, I am groaning, I am mourning. I
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  Speaker 2: am longing for these enjoyments, for these refreshments, for these
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  Speaker 2: unspeakable pleasures, for these visits and embraces of the love
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  Speaker 2: of Christ. I want them more than I want all
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  Speaker 2: the world or what it can do for me. And
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  Speaker 2: in the very longing and crying out, I tasted the
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  Speaker 2: love of Christ for me, the visit of Christ. Don't
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  Speaker 2: you think that C. S. Lewis is absolutely right in
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  Speaker 2: what he says over and over again, namely that the
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  Speaker 2: perfect fullness of the enjoyment of Christ reserved for the
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  Speaker 2: future when we meet Him face to face and all
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  Speaker 2: our sin and all the hindrances to joy are removed.
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  Speaker 2: As it says in First John three, that perfect fullness
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  Speaker 2: of the enjoyment of Christ's presence is experienced, really, substantively, authentically,
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  Speaker 2: spiritually in the very longings for it. It's an artificial
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  Speaker 2: thing to separate our deepest yearnings and achings and longings
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  Speaker 2: and cryings for Christ, from his presence and his sweetness
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  Speaker 2: and the tastes of his visits and his love. That's
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  Speaker 2: an artificial distinction. The longings are themselves a sweet taste
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  Speaker 2: of the bread of heaven. The yearnings are themselves a
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  Speaker 2: sweet detection of the aroma of paradise. The inconsolable desires
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  Speaker 2: of your soul for Christ are themselves a divine work
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  Speaker 2: of the Holy Spirit, communicating to you in advance some
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  Speaker 2: measure of the sweetness of Christ himself in Heaven. Then,
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  Speaker 2: having spent about twenty minutes reading John Owen, God met
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  Speaker 2: me in Romans nine. Now this is a very familiar
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  Speaker 2: chapter to me. I have read Romans nine a hundred times,
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  Speaker 2: and I wrote a big book on the first twenty
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  Speaker 2: three verses of this chapter. And it is the curse
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  Speaker 2: a fallen man that familiarity breeds contempt, or at least indifference.
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  Speaker 2: And I am not immune to being callous to scripture,
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  Speaker 2: because I know it so well. But God had prepared
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  Speaker 2: me through his servant John Owen. My heart was in
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  Speaker 2: a frame, a disposition, a tenderness, a susceptibility, a readiness,
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  Speaker 2: And for some reason, and I do not know why,
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  Speaker 2: when I got to verse fourteen fifteen and sixteen. God
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  Speaker 2: showed up in an unusual way. And you're right, this
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  Speaker 2: does not happen every time I read my Bible. But
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  Speaker 2: now this next sentence I'm gonna say really matters because
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  Speaker 2: so many people.
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  Speaker 1: Say, well, what's the youth?
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  Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. No, when he does, it's worth a
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  Speaker 2: year's reading. For I mean, if he showed up once
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  Speaker 2: a year, it would be worth reading every day, wouldn't it.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, come on, are we real or are we fake?
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  Speaker 2: So I read this? What shall we say? Then? Is
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  Speaker 2: there injustice on God's part by no means? For he
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  Speaker 2: says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I
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  Speaker 2: have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I
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  Speaker 2: have compassion. So then it depends not on the one
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  Speaker 2: who wills or runs, but on God who has mercy. Now,
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  Speaker 2: Paul is raising the issue of God's justice here because
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  Speaker 2: of his choosing Isaac over Ishmael Tacob over Esau because
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  Speaker 2: or before they were born or had done anything good
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  Speaker 2: or evil. And Paul's answers, no, no, God is not
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  Speaker 2: unjust in his choice of one over the other. Why
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  Speaker 2: because I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
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  Speaker 2: I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. This
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  Speaker 2: is God talking. In other words, because I do what
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  Speaker 2: I do in freedom, My doings, my choosings, are not
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  Speaker 2: governed by forces outside of me. John Piper, I am God.
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  Speaker 2: This is part of my glory as God, and it
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  Speaker 2: is always just to uphold God and to it act
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  Speaker 2: as God in his glory. He interprets what he means
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  Speaker 2: when he says that in Exodus and says, my doings,
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  Speaker 2: my choices are not owing to man's willing or running,
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  Speaker 2: not man's choices, not man's deeds, but are owing to God,
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  Speaker 2: who has mercy. And all I know to say is
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  Speaker 2: for the next half hour or so, my mind moved
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  Speaker 2: back and forth, back and forth through Romans chapter nine,
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  Speaker 2: as the absolute freedom and righteousness of God washed over me,
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  Speaker 2: subdued me, broke my presumptions, shut my mouth, filled me
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  Speaker 2: with thankfulness, caused me to weep for lost people very
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  Speaker 2: very close to me, gave me sweet assurance that God
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  Speaker 2: can do anything he please in this world in absolute
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  Speaker 2: freedom and sovereignty, and therefore there is hope. So much
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  Speaker 2: more happened, but time is up, and I hope that
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  Speaker 2: gives you a little glimpse into what you were asking about.
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  Speaker 1: If God showed up once a year, it would be
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  Speaker 1: worth reading the Bible every day, wouldn't it. Yeah? Amen,
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  Speaker 1: As our hope for twenty twenty six, we bring to
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  Speaker 1: the table of spiritual preparation and the yearning for Christ's presence,
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  Speaker 1: underscoring the necessity of approaching the Bible with a tender
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  Speaker 1: heart and an openness to God's revelation. But we do
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  Speaker 1: position ourselves for the encounter, and to that end we
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  Speaker 1: use the Navigator's Bible Reading Plan. Pastor John and I
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  Speaker 1: both use it. We'll be using it again in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty six, putting ourselves in a place to encounter God
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  Speaker 1: like this every day. Join us by downloading the Navigator's
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  Speaker 1: Bible Reading Plan online. It's the same plan every year.
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  Speaker 1: We just print it out and get ready for January
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  Speaker 1: first with us. Thanks for joining us today. Have a
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  Speaker 1: question about your daily Bible reading to ask Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: Find a link to email us and find our complete
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  Speaker 1: episode archive at the same place at Askpastor John dot com.
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  Speaker 1: Ten dollars a month. Ten dollars a month. That's all
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  Speaker 1: see you on Thursday on Christmas Day. See you then,