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December 18 Daily Reading- Read the Bible in 1 Year
9 Plays7 days ago
Happy Hanukkah! If you would like to watch the 2025 Hanukkah service from the Messianic Jewish congregation I attend, you can find that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ5AT87INFU&t=5385s
If you would like to download my FREE calendar for keeping track of your commitment to read the Bible every day, you can find that on my site, here: https://www.inthefamilywaycoaching.com/pages/read-the-bible-in-1-year
Monthly memberships to support this event can be purchased on my site, here: https://www.inthefamilywaycoaching.com/offering_packages
Today we will finish reading the Book of 1John with Chapters 4:1-14, 16, 18-21, and Chapter 5:1-5, 11-15, and 18-21.
Today we will read and discuss the fact that WE WIN over bad spirits in the world; we win over sin, we win over satan; we win over the world itself, and we win against death! We do not need to be afraid of anything because God is love and love pushes fear away! We win because Jesus is in us and He is greater than satan, who is in the world.
If you enjoyed today's reading and feel like God has lit YOUR light please click the LIGHT button (it looks like a thumbs up or a heart) and consider subscribing to or following my channel, if you have not done so already done so.
If you know someone who might be interested in reading the Bible with me this year please SHARE today's reading with them! It's never too late to join in! Let's help this event grow and together we can spread the word about reading God's Word!
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Transcript
Introduction and Holiday Greetings
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome back everybody. to Today is December 18th. Today is also in 2025, the fifth day of Hanukkah. So as you can see, we have five lights lit on our menorah tonight.
00:00:15
Speaker
One, two, three, four, five. Thank you so much for joining me, whether you are following along on your podcast or whether you are watching the video somewhere. I'm so glad that you are joining me to- tonight.
00:00:29
Speaker
Well, I also want to give a special shout out to Kimberly. Thank you so much for joining us, Kimberly. I told you I'd get this shout out to you. Kimberly is our newest subscriber and viewer and with somebody I have known at work for a little while.
00:00:45
Speaker
I am just still always so amazed at the number of people that God puts in my path to talk about this event and to make connection with them. I am so thankful today, Kimberly, for you being my working partner. at work to- today. We had the most wonderful time today having conversation and I just really enjoyed your company and also having lunch with you as you came in at the in my during my lunchtime. wasn't your lunchtime, but you came in during my lunchtime. And I don't often get the chance to work with you since we're on different shifts, but today God's timing was just right.
00:01:21
Speaker
i just love God's timing. So I am so glad to know that we are connected in God's spiritual family. And now I am looking forward even more to spending time with you.
00:01:33
Speaker
So thank you for being here with me. And there's your shout out. I told you I would remember. ah Well, Kimberly, you may not
Bible Reading Tools and Resources
00:01:42
Speaker
know this already. i don't think you do.
00:01:44
Speaker
But we are using a bookmarking commitment calendar. And this helps us to keep track of our days that we have been following along and reading through the Bible this year. So we have gotten out our calendar if we are following along using our bookmarking commitment calendars. And we're going to take out our sticker or our marker, our pencil, our crayon, whatever we're using to cross off those days.
00:02:07
Speaker
Because we're about to hear the Bible today.
00:02:12
Speaker
If you are unfamiliar with the calendar, you can always download that at my website. I have a calendar there and all you have to do is click the download for it. I have the link down below in the description. And if you are looking to start again in January, I will be making the commitment to get that calendar up for everybody so that you can continue to follow along and start your journey off at the beginning of the year. If you have not been with us already since the beginning.
00:02:40
Speaker
I started out with this event having two listeners and now we have a lot more. And so if you were not here from the very beginning, which most of you were not, then feel free to start the event over it in January and it will be available wherever you are following along, whether it's on Spotify, Amazon music, YouTube, YouTube music.
00:03:04
Speaker
You can find it on Pandora. You can find it on iHeartRadio.com. You can find this on Podbean. You can find it wherever you like to listen to your podcasts.
00:03:16
Speaker
And Spotify also has it on video. And then I do also have it on my site at in the family way coaching.com. And it's right there below that link to download the calendar. If you go to read the Bible in one year up at the top left hand side, then you will find that there is a dropdown menu where you can choose the month and whether you prefer to listen or watch.
00:03:41
Speaker
And I look forward to you joining me next year. It won't be live since we are recording or, you know won't be current in a sense, but it's the same reading out of the day by day kids Bible written by Karen Henley.
00:03:54
Speaker
And so I would like to encourage anybody who is newer to the event to pick it up in January. You've already started, so you might as well go back to January and hear from the beginning.
00:04:05
Speaker
I share a lot of stuff about what goes on at work and like that as my daily applications, because I like to show how God is using the day's readings in my life so that everybody can see that I'm just a real person and we can see how to work out what God is teaching us every day.
00:04:26
Speaker
and I always find that God's word is so applicable and that I am able to ah apply it to what is going on in my life right then So ah you when you hear about those events that are going on at work, they've already passed. ah But God has resolved all of the difficulties that I was having with different people throughout the year that I was speaking about. But they give me opportunities to work through my faith.
00:04:52
Speaker
And I love those opportunities. I don't love them always in the exact moment, but I do recognize them oftentimes as being opportunities to practice what we are learning. And they' I'm just so thankful to God for growing us this year in his word.
00:05:13
Speaker
Well, let's go ahead and get going.
Winning Over Bad Spirits
00:05:15
Speaker
We are going to be reading in the book of 1 John, and we are going to complete 1 John by reading chapters 4 and 5 today. And today we are going to be reading about the fact that because God is in us, we win over bad spirits.
00:05:33
Speaker
We win over the world. we win over sin. over Satan. we win over satan And we win over death because Jesus is in us and he is greater than Satan who is in the world.
00:05:52
Speaker
Greater is Jesus, the one who is in us, than the one who is in the world. So we need to remember these things because these are encouraging to us. They help us to not be discouraged and to be or to be afraid.
00:06:09
Speaker
John tells us today that if we are afraid, then it's because love is not, but ah we are not full of love yet. And so we need to be sure that we are um full of love so that we will not be afraid because fear is pushed away by love.
00:06:30
Speaker
Love just pushes that fear right away. And then we're going to be looking also at the connection that to today's reading has with John chapter 10. Coincidentally, same author, John wrote the book of John and 1 John, which are letters that he wrote.
00:06:47
Speaker
And then first in John's first book, In the Gospels, in chapter 10, we are going to read a little bit about how ah Jesus was telling the Pharisees that God has given us into his hand and Satan in it or nobody can snatch us out of his hand.
00:07:11
Speaker
We are safe. So we don't need to be afraid. And we have won over the world. Because God and Jesus are in us. And we are in, they are in us and we are in them.
00:07:24
Speaker
We are one in spirit. So that's a lot to take in before we get going with our reading, but I want to always make sure that we have some understanding so that when we read it, it will make perfect sense to us.
00:07:38
Speaker
Really helps to give us a little bit of a priming of the pump there as we open up our spiritual eyes and open up our spiritual ears and we open up our heart to hear and understand and know God's word.
00:07:52
Speaker
So here we go in John chapter four. and there goes my light.
00:07:59
Speaker
Don't believe every spirit. Test the spirits. See if God sent them. Many fake prophets in the world have lied. And here is how you can tell if it is God's spirit.
00:08:15
Speaker
God's spirit says that Jesus came into the world as a man. Other spirits don't say that. So they are not from God.
00:08:27
Speaker
John is talking about false prophets here as well, false teachers. You are from God, so you have won over bad spirits in the world.
00:08:40
Speaker
Jesus is in you, and he is great. He is greater than Satan, the sinful one in the world. Bad spirits that lie are from the world.
00:08:54
Speaker
So they say things the way the world sees it. The world listens to what they say. But we, we are from God.
00:09:05
Speaker
And people who know God listen to us. People who are not from God don't listen to us. And this is why we are going to be looking at John chapter 10, because this is when Jesus tells us that he is the good shepherd. And as the good shepherd, he ah knows his sheep and his sheep.
00:09:28
Speaker
That is us. We know his voice and that we follow him. so we need to be sure that the voice that we are following is not of somebody who is not our shepherd.
00:09:42
Speaker
People who are not from God don't listen to us because they are not in God's flock. They are not part of Jesus' flock of sheep. So they don't listen.
00:09:53
Speaker
They belong to the world. They are listening to the world's shepherd, Satan. That's not in the Bible. That's me explaining.
Love and Faith in Jesus
00:10:01
Speaker
I just want to be clear about that.
00:10:04
Speaker
Let's love each other. Love comes from god People who love have been born into God's family. They know God.
00:10:17
Speaker
People who don't love don't know God. And that's because God is love.
00:10:29
Speaker
Here is how God showed us his love. Remember, we talked about the fact that it's not enough just to say that we love. We need to show it. And guess what?
00:10:40
Speaker
God showed us how much he loves us. And he did this by sending his only son to the world. He did it so that we could live.
00:10:53
Speaker
Remember, I said earlier, we won. We won over death. We did that because cheese scent Jesus came to give us eternal life.
00:11:06
Speaker
That, John tells us, is love. And it's not that we loved God. It's that God loved us.
00:11:18
Speaker
So he sent his son as a gift. And he sent Jesus to die for our sins. God loved us that much.
00:11:29
Speaker
so we should also love each other.
00:11:34
Speaker
Nobody has seen God, but he lives in us if we love each other. And that's how God can show his full love in us. We know that we belong to God and he lives in us.
00:11:49
Speaker
And we know it because God gave us his spirit. We saw how God sent Jesus to save the world. And so we tell about it.
00:12:01
Speaker
We know how much God loves us. We count on his love. If you love, then you don't have to be afraid. Love pushes fear away.
00:12:15
Speaker
Fear comes from thinking God will make us get into trouble for our sin. So the person who is afraid is not full of love yet.
00:12:27
Speaker
God loved us first, so we love others. People might say that they love God, but what if they hate somebody?
00:12:38
Speaker
Well, then they are lying. They do not love someone they can see, so how can they love God when they cannot see Him? We have this rule from God.
00:12:53
Speaker
If we love God, then we have to love His people too. You hear that, Kimberly? I have to love you.
00:13:05
Speaker
People who love the father love his child too. And that's how we know we love God's children. We love God. And so we do what he says.
00:13:18
Speaker
Here's how we love God. We obey him. What he tells us to do is not too hard for us. That's because people born into God's family are strong.
00:13:32
Speaker
They are so strong that they win over the world. Faith makes us win over the world. Who wins over the world?
00:13:44
Speaker
It's the people who believe that Jesus is God's son.
00:13:50
Speaker
God gives us life forever. This life comes from his son. and if you have Jesus, then you have life.
00:14:02
Speaker
And if you do not have Jesus, then you do not have life.
00:14:08
Speaker
I am writing so people who believe in Jesus will know they have life for forever.
00:14:17
Speaker
I love that we have won over death, don't you? That is so comforting. If we ask for what God wants for us, he hears us.
00:14:28
Speaker
And so we know that he gives us what we ask for. We know that people born into God's family do not keep sinning. Jesus keeps them safe.
00:14:41
Speaker
Satan cannot hurt them, even though Satan controls the whole world. We know that we are God's children, and we know that God's son Jesus has come.
00:14:54
Speaker
We belong to him. Jesus is the way to the true God. He is the way to live forever.
00:15:06
Speaker
You are like dear children to me, so stay away from idols, John writes. And that is the end of our reading in John chapter 1 John, chapters 4 and 5.
00:15:23
Speaker
So let's look at John's first book in the gospel, chapter 10, because he is writing similarly to what he's teaching, what Jesus taught when he recorded that in his chapter 10.
00:15:38
Speaker
ten This is when Jesus talks about the fact that the faithful hear the shepherd's voice.
00:15:49
Speaker
Well, I had it highlighted. I don't know where my highlighting went.
00:15:56
Speaker
Well, it's a little bit long. I'm going to go ahead and read most of that.
00:16:02
Speaker
I cannot remember, because I've had trouble with my internet, if I mentioned already in this particular recording that Jesus observed Hanukkah.
00:16:13
Speaker
And we read about the fact that he did in John chapter 10. I love that. I know that I mentioned that on the day before we started Hanukkah on Saturday.
00:16:25
Speaker
I mentioned it. But i just i think it's amazing how now this reading is connected to our daily reading for today, December 18th, which takes place during Hanukkah.
00:16:39
Speaker
And so we are once again brought back to the fact that it it it deals with Jesus during Hanukkah time.
Jesus as the Good Shepherd
00:16:47
Speaker
I love that.
00:16:50
Speaker
So starting in verse 22 of John chapter 10, John says, Then came Hanukkah. It was winter in Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking in the temple around Solomon's colonnade.
00:17:06
Speaker
Then the Judean leader surrounded him, saying, How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us outright.
00:17:17
Speaker
Jesus answered them, I told you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father's name testify concerning me.
00:17:28
Speaker
But you do not believe because you are not my sheep. Jesus is telling them that they are of the world, not his sheep.
00:17:43
Speaker
My sheep hear my voice. I know them. And they follow me. Yesterday we read, John told us, about how we are chosen.
00:17:55
Speaker
God chose us. God chose you. So we belong to him, not out of chance or in not out of default, because we were born into it, as it was with the with the Jewish people, where they were born into being Jewish. But now Jesus has chosen us.
00:18:17
Speaker
My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life. They will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
00:18:33
Speaker
My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father are one.
00:18:50
Speaker
So Jesus tells us that he is the good shepherd. So we need to be sure that we are following only his voice. And because he is one with the father,
00:19:01
Speaker
we are also one in him and one with God. And so if God and Jesus are one, we are also now one with them because God has given us his spirit.
00:19:15
Speaker
And so now Jesus is in us with God's spirit. And so we have won over Satan because Jesus is greater than Satan and no one can snatch us out of his hand.
00:19:28
Speaker
So we don't ever need to be afraid of anything, not just of Satan, but of the world, of sin, of of spirits. We don't need to be afraid because greater is he who is in us than those things, he who is in the world.
00:19:48
Speaker
That's awesome. And John tells us to today that it is our faith that makes us strong. We are so strong that we win over the world. So the world is made up of things that are of the sinful nature.
00:20:03
Speaker
And that's what he's talking about. In our big Bible, John talks about the fact, ah he goes into more detail about the fact that those who are of God do not sin.
00:20:15
Speaker
Now, we have all sinned, but what John is referring to is the fact of deliberate sinful a behavior. And that is a reference back to, i'm going to show us here.
00:20:33
Speaker
John is referring to Numbers, the book of Numbers, chapter 15, verse 30. where we read that the person who sins defiantly, whether a native or an outsider, reviles the Lord, and that person is to be cut off from his people.
00:20:53
Speaker
It means that he hates the Lord if he is deliberately defiantly sinning, meaning that they know what is wrong, but they are doing it anyways. So what John is explaining to us here is that when we love God and we have Jesus in us, we do not go about just defiantly sinning and doing what we know good and well to be wrong without any care about that.
00:21:21
Speaker
that does not ah correlate with with being one with God. That doesn't connect. So we need to be sure that we are not sinning defiantly.
00:21:33
Speaker
But instead, when we do sin, God is faithful too forgive us of our sins. So I wanted to be sure I was clear on that since when if you are hungry for more and you go to head up the big Bible, it might seem a little confusing. So I want to make sure we are having understanding there for that.
00:21:50
Speaker
Well, I hope that you are encouraged today to know that if God is for us, who can be against us? We can always be confident in the fact that we are able to overcome the world. We may have bad sinful habits, but we don't have to be a slave to them.
00:22:15
Speaker
Jesus tells us that if the Son has set us free, then we are free indeed. We have won over sin, so we do not have to keep sinning and repeating the same sinful behaviors that we have done.
00:22:31
Speaker
We can choose to do what is right. And we can choose to love other people. And in fact, we need to love others. We've spent a lot of time talking about love.
00:22:43
Speaker
And that's because it is very important to God. Because he is love. And Jesus told us that he leaves us with a new commandment. If we love others, that is how people will know that we are followers of him.
00:22:58
Speaker
So ah it may seem like we're just beating that to death with love one another, love one another, love each other, love people, even the people that are not believers. But it can't be overstated because God is love. And that is how we show our love for God is because like John told us to today, that God showed us his love for us.
00:23:22
Speaker
He didn't just say it. God did it. And Jesus did it. And Jesus tells us earlier in that reading of John 10 that he lays down his life for us.
00:23:36
Speaker
He laid it down willingly in order to save us so that we could have eternal life. Because God doesn't want anybody to die and to be separated from him.
00:23:47
Speaker
He wants everybody to come to it knowledge in him and choose to be saved. So we need to do our part and love people and encourage them to come to God because God loves them just as much as he loves you.
00:24:05
Speaker
God doesn't show favorites. He doesn't have any favorites. That may be disappointing to some of us who would like to be God's favorite, but we cannot be God's favorite.
Universal Love and True Faith
00:24:15
Speaker
God shows no partiality.
00:24:19
Speaker
He is fair across the board. Well, thank you for joining me today. i hope that you have enjoyed our reading today in 1 John. Tomorrow we will complete 2 John, actually, and as well as 3 John. Tomorrow we will complete both letters, the 2 and 3 letter that John wrote on December 19th. And then starting on December 20th and until the rest of the year, until December 31st, we will be reading in the book of Revelation.
00:24:54
Speaker
So we are almost done with our long marathon of reading the Bible this year, 365 days. You can do it.
00:25:07
Speaker
I hope that you will come back and complete the year and then whatever you have missed, I hope that you will start again at January 1st so that you can understand the whole big picture of God's Bible for us.
00:25:20
Speaker
This is a great version of the Bible, the Day by Day Kids Bible, written by Karen Henley. This is a chronological Bible. So it tells us God's big story in timeline order.
00:25:32
Speaker
And it doesn't give us every single detail. It does, however, give us the most of it. And it does give us all of the events that happened. So what it leaves out are things like um the... the laws and the rules for um the priests serving and for the sacrifices and the offerings that were were required. It leaves that kind of stuff out as well as a lot of the genealogies. And it does not have every single psalm. It has a good deal of the psalms, but not every single psalm.
00:26:09
Speaker
And even the Psalms are very well put together the way Karen Henley has done them. um They are when possible grouped into chronological order as well as um topic.
00:26:22
Speaker
So when we read the Psalms, they are grouped together into what type of Psalm they were. So it is an excellent version for understanding the big picture. We can get lost in the forest because of all the trees.
00:26:38
Speaker
And so reading this big picture Bible this year has given us an overview so that we can understand how everything connects together in the Bible and how everything works when as we learn everything from Genesis all the way through to Revelation.
00:26:57
Speaker
We can see Jesus' teaching. We can see how it connects to God's original teachings. And it will give us deep understanding. If you pick it up in January, you will not be disappointed throughout the year. and Then you will have a great understanding of of the whole Big Bible.
00:27:16
Speaker
And I always encourage you to read your Big Bible if you are hungry for more of the details that are covered in our Day like day by Day Kids Bible. Sometimes, like today, we will include other readings, and we do that all throughout the year.
00:27:32
Speaker
So thank you for joining me today. i hope that you feel that God has lit your light today. And if that is the case, I would like to encourage you to click your light button. Kimberly, if you you do not know this, but we like to click our light button at the end of watching or listening. That light button looks like a thumbs up.
00:27:53
Speaker
It looks like a heart. It looks like a share or a subscribe or a follow, depending upon where you are listening or watching. And that is our light button because it helps influence the, um,
00:28:09
Speaker
The computers that ah send this out for viewing. I can't think of the word right now. It escapes me. It influences the metrics so that more people will be shown ah these daily readings so that we can help spread the word about reading God's word.
00:28:28
Speaker
And you have already done your part by hitting the subscribe button, Kimberly. So thank you for that. But if you can also click that thumbs up, then that would be another light button. And then it will help us get the word out, spread the word about reading God's word.
Be the Light of the World
00:28:45
Speaker
Just as our Hanukkah menorah reminds us that in a world of darkness, we need to be the light in the world. So too does Jesus tell us that we are the light of the world, that we are meant to bring people to God.
00:29:01
Speaker
And we, they do that by seeing our light and he is shining through us. So I'm so thankful for all of you out there shining your light and helping us spread the word about reading God's word.
00:29:14
Speaker
I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day, whatever day you get around to watching or listening to today's daily reading. And I will see you again next time.