Foreign.

Hello my friend Dr. Brad Miller here with the Daily Bible Refresh.

This is your daily reading of the Bible from a progressive point of view.

In a bit I will read the New Testament lessons selected from the Revised Common Lectionary for this very day.

The reading is understandable.

I use the Message version Relatable.

Please listen to the points to ponder and applicable with action steps you can take.

We pray and are done in less than 10 minutes.

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Here's today's reading from Colossians 1:9 14 from the Message version of the Bible.

Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven't stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will and so acquire a thorough

understanding of the ways in which God works.

We pray that you'll live well for the Master, making Him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard.

As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work.

We pray that you'll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul.

Not the grim strength of gritting your teeth, but the glory strength that God gives.

It's strength that endures the unendurable and spills out into joy.

Thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

God rescued us from dead in alleys and dark dungeons and he set us

up in the kingdom of the Son

he loves so much.

The Son who got us out of the pit.

We were in agreement, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.

Well, that ends the scripture and really just an encouraging bit of scripture there.

And let's get into a couple of points to ponder, teaching points about this passage here today that are going to be applicable to your life.

First is this.

Paul draws this incredible distinction between grim strength and glory strength.

And I think the difference matters more than we realize so much what we hear in our culture and honestly in a lot of our churches, is that faith is about toughing it out.

Pull yourself up, try harder, pray harder.

White knuckle your way to holiness.

That's really not what Paul says here at all.

He says the strength God actually gives us spills into joy.

That is, it doesn't drain you, it fills you up, it keeps you going.

And that changes everything, doesn't it?

Because it means the spiritual life isn't supposed to be an endurance test that you got to gut out or grit out.

And so that's just a matter of willpower.

Instead, it's a communal grace soak, sustained by something bigger than you kind of journey.

Every week I have a cancer related podcast and I talk with people who are kind of going through the unimaginable, dealing with cancer.

And I can tell you the ones who find their footing aren't the ones who grit their teeth and try to gut it out.

They're the ones who let themselves be cared for and let grace surround them.

And they are filled up by their community, by love, by something that can't fully be explained.

That's what we might call, and I would call glory, strength.

And it's available to all of us based on this scripture.

Second point to ponder.

Look at the language about rescue.

It says, quote, dead in alleys and dark dungeons.

Close quote.

And Paul isn't talking here about some abstract theological transaction here.

He's talking about liberation from the dungeon.

Real, lived, felt liberation from the cycles and patterns and systems that keep us stuck in those dark, dreary places.

That's why I love to take faith from a progressive perspective.

So this isn't like an escape hatch.

This is God continually pulling us out of the pits we fall into and the pits we dig for ourselves, for that matter, or that were dug for us by unjust assistance, by trauma, by the weight of the world pressing down of us, by the sins we seem to be doomed to be repeating.

And that's not just a personal moral failure.

That's the collective brokenness we have sometimes inherited in our life and sometimes participate in even without even knowing it.

So God's rescue is ongoing and it's wide.

It's not just about getting you out of your pit.

It's about a whole kingdom vision where everything bright and beautiful becomes possible for everyone.

So here's what I want you to do.

Here's an action step that you can do.

I want you to think about something in your life that you have been white knuckling.

Maybe it's your faith or your relationships or your marriage or the workplace or your health journey.

I want you to name it and kind of claim it and name it that I'm having a tough time with this God.

And just say it out loud and Then consciously release your grip.

Let the white knuckle go and be flowed.

Let the blood flow to your hands so you can hold things tenderly and lightly.

This is not because you're giving up, but because you're making room for glory, strength to come in.

So it's not all about you.

It's about others who are supporting you.

Maybe you might want to ask another person to kind of help you with that load by just sharing it with them.

Send a text, make a call, do a Facebook post.

Let yourself be held.

Let the load be lightened by others to share it.

That's not weakness.

That's how God works.

You know, my granddaughters are pretty little and when they were a littler, one of the things I loved most of the world was just kind of laughing with them.

Hold my lap and just kind of feel their body shake.

When they laugh, my body would shake too.

And there's no grit there, there's no performance.

It's just joy that spills out.

And I think that's a little tiny picture of what Paul is describing here.

A strength that's real and rooted in love and can't help but overflow with joy.

We're going to come back and have a prayer to close things out here in a minute.

Just a quick reminder that we have a resource for you called the ABC 123 Bible study method.

Free to you, my friend.

Just head over to our website, voiceofgoddaily.com that's where you can get it.

Let's pray.

God, we.

We're tired and some of us been gritting our teeth and so much that our jaws ache spiritually, emotionally, physically.

And we've been told to hang on white and knuckle it harder.

That that's the answer, but that's.

We're just finding.

We're finding ourselves exhausted.

So today we ask for the other kind of strength.

The kind that comes from you and comes from others.

The glory strength that doesn't drain us but fills us with overflowing.

Rescue us again, God, from the dead and alleys of our own stubbornness, from the dark dungeons of shame and isolation, from the cycles we can't seem to break on our own.

Remind us that your liberation is wide enough for everyone and we don't have to earn it.

Help us release our grip just enough to feel your hand underneath and let us laugh, really laugh, like children who know they are loved.

Amen.

My friend, I am delighted you chose to join me for today's reading.

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Thanks much.

My name is Dr. Brad Miller and I'll be right here tomorrow with your daily Bible refresh.

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Remember, God's loyal love doesn't run out.

His merciful love hasn't dried up, it's created new every morning.