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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hello, thank you for listening to your Daily

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Speaker 1: Bible Verse, the podcast that examines one verse each day

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Speaker 1: to learn more about God and his will for us.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Carol McCracken, and after a short we're

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Speaker 1: from our sponsor. We'll continue with our admin series experiencing

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Speaker 1: Christ this Christmas with the discussion on Luke one seventy eight.

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Speaker 1: Today's Bible Verse is Luke one seventy eight because of

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Speaker 1: this tender mercy of our God by which the rising

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Speaker 1: sun will come to us from heaven. The other night,

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Speaker 1: I tossed and turned in my bed, feeling so misunderstood.

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Speaker 1: You know those nights when your mind builds out an

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Speaker 1: entire near of layering assumptions upon assumptions, until you've emotionally

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Speaker 1: worked yourself into a place that isn't even reality anymore.

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Speaker 1: I kept replying a situation, letting it grow bigger in

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Speaker 1: my head. The more I lay there in the dark,

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Speaker 1: the heavier it felt. Finally threw the cover's back. It

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Speaker 1: was silly to stand the dark, tangled up in the

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Speaker 1: thoughts that only thrive when everything around you is so

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Speaker 1: dim and quiet. I got up, turned on the light,

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Speaker 1: made some coffee, and sat down with my Bible and

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Speaker 1: a journal. I started pouring everything out, praying, scribbling, naming

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Speaker 1: the feelings I had stuffed into the corners of my

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Speaker 1: own mind. And before I realized it, the sky outside

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Speaker 1: had begun to lighten. I hadn't even noticed the sunrise

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Speaker 1: creeping in, but suddenly the whole room felt different. It's

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Speaker 1: amazing what a little light can do, how quickly it

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Speaker 1: can shift our mood, our mindset, and the stories we

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Speaker 1: tell ourselves. That gentle unhurried Dawn broke through the tension

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Speaker 1: I had created, reminding me that clarity often comes when

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Speaker 1: even the smallest light enters the room, and that's exactly

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Speaker 1: what Luke one describes the dawning of God's light after

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Speaker 1: a long stretch of spiritual darkness. The story in this

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Speaker 1: passage happens just after the birth of John the Baptist.

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Speaker 1: His father Zechariah, who had been struck silent for nine

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Speaker 1: long months, finally has had his voice restored, and it's

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Speaker 1: important to remember why he lost his ability to speak.

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Speaker 1: Earlier in Luke chapter one, when the angel Gabrielle announced

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Speaker 1: that he and Elizabeth would have a child in their

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Speaker 1: old age, Zechariah couldn't accept it. His doubt wasn't mild.

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Speaker 1: It resisted God's promise, So Gabriel told him he would

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Speaker 1: be unable to speak until the child was born. Those

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Speaker 1: nine months could have been deeply frustrating. Zechariah was a priest.

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Speaker 1: His whole calling involved speaking blessings over people, proclaiming scripture,

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Speaker 1: praying aloud, and declaring God's truth. Suddenly he couldn't do

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Speaker 1: any of it. He walked through the entire pregnancy, unable

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Speaker 1: to verbally communicate with his wife, witnessing God's promise unfold

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Speaker 1: in real time but in silence, and he knew his

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Speaker 1: unbelief and caused it. In human terms, those months could

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Speaker 1: have felt wasted, liking sidelined himself, missed his moment to

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Speaker 1: serve God well. But when his voice returns, the first

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Speaker 1: sound is not frustration, not regret, not self reproach. His

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Speaker 1: mouth opens and praise pours out. Prophecy flows with clarity

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Speaker 1: and confidence. Nestled in this prophetic song is the verse

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Speaker 1: we're focusing on today, Luke one seventy eight. Because of

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Speaker 1: the tender mercy of our God by which the rising

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Speaker 1: sun will come to us from heaven. The single verse

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Speaker 1: carries the heartbeat of adment. The phrase tender mercy is

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Speaker 1: incredibly rich. The Greek word behind tender means deep, that

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Speaker 1: level compassion love felt so intensely it moves you. And

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Speaker 1: mercy elios is not passive sympathy. It's mercy that acts, rescues,

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Speaker 1: intervenes together. Zachariah Pill claims a God whose compassion isn't theoretical.

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Speaker 1: It moves towards us, It steps into our darkness. It

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Speaker 1: breaks in like a sunrise, and that's exactly how he continues,

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Speaker 1: by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven.

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Speaker 1: The rising sun recalls Malachi's prophecy of the messiahs the

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Speaker 1: sun as to you inn of righteousness, rising with healing

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Speaker 1: in his wings. For Israel, who had lived under Roman

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Speaker 1: rule without prophetic revelation for hundreds of years, LFE felt

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Speaker 1: like one long spiritual night. And suddenly, Zachariah says, the

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Speaker 1: morning's coming. This is the heart of event. God's bringing

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Speaker 1: light into places. We've been lying the way in the dark,

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Speaker 1: building stories in our heads, feeling stuck, discouraged or forgotten.

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Speaker 1: And here's the beautiful irony. The sunrise didn't care whether

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Speaker 1: we notice it it comes anyway. God's mercy moves even

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Speaker 1: when our minds are twisted in the dark. His compassion

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Speaker 1: dawns even when our thoughts feel clouded or fearful. That morning,

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Speaker 1: when I sat with my coffee and devotions, the light

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Speaker 1: crept in, slowly and quietly. I didn't summon it, I

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Speaker 1: didn't control it. I didn't even see it happening. It

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Speaker 1: simply came. And when it did, everything look different. And

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Speaker 1: this is what Christ does. Admit teaches us that Jesus

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Speaker 1: doesn't wait for us to get it together before he arrives.

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Speaker 1: The verse says the rising sun will come to us.

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Speaker 1: It's God's initiative, his movement, his mercy. We all have

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Speaker 1: areas that feel shadowed and dim places a confusion, weariness, discouragement, fear,

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Speaker 1: relf elational strain, grief, or maybe even spiritual dryness. And

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Speaker 1: during the holidays, those shadows can feel Sharper doesn't ask

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Speaker 1: us to pretend they're not there. Instead, it invites us

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Speaker 1: to notice the light that's already breaking into them. Jesus

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Speaker 1: comes not to scold our darkness, but to illuminate it.

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Speaker 1: The tender mercy of God is not harsh or hurried

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Speaker 1: It's gentle and steady, like dawn movement across the horizon,

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Speaker 1: revealing what we couldn't see in the dark. Zachariah's prophecy

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Speaker 1: reminds us that Jesus is not just the reason for

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Speaker 1: the season. He's the sun rise for every shadowed place

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Speaker 1: in our lives. Experiencing Christ this Christmas means experiencing his

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Speaker 1: tender mercy right where we feel least steady, are in

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Speaker 1: most need of light. The same God whose compassion broke

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Speaker 1: centuries of silence still breaks into our days with fresh light.

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Speaker 1: The God who sent his sun and to Bethlehem's darkness

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Speaker 1: is the same God who steps into ours with quiet,

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Speaker 1: rescuing love. The sunrise has already come, and in christ

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Speaker 1: it's still dawning. Will you pray with me? Dear Lord

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Speaker 1: in heaven, you came for us. You came for us

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Speaker 1: when we didn't deserve it, because you loved us so much.

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Speaker 1: Scripture tells us that God is light, and you prove

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Speaker 1: it in human terms in which we can understand. And

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Speaker 1: you come even when we're not ready, even when we're

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Speaker 1: at our worst, and you creep in unnoticed sometimes because

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Speaker 1: we're not looking. Dear Lord, help us to be more

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Speaker 1: attentive to you this Advent season, sharing the light on

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Speaker 1: what we need to see. Because you are the light,

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Speaker 1: you illuminate the things that we need to see. And Lord,

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Speaker 1: help us to remember your great love for us and

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Speaker 1: what you did as we get ready to celebrate Christmas Day.

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Speaker 1: To celebrate when you came into our world and human

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Speaker 1: form and your precious name, we pray Amen,