January 11th, 26: Genesis 27-28; Psalm 4 and Luke 11: Daily Bible in a Year:

Welcome to the Daily Radio Bible podcast! In today’s episode, dated January 11th, Hunter, your Bible Reading Coach and brother, guides us through a rich journey in Scripture, diving into Genesis chapters 27 and 28, Psalm 4, and Luke chapter 11. As always, Hunter invites us to keep things simple: spending time in God’s Word, letting it shape and transform us, with the ultimate goal of experiencing the love of Jesus.

This episode traces the dramatic story of Jacob and Esau, the struggle for blessing and birthright, and God’s faithfulness in Jacob’s life—even as he journeys away from home. We hear David’s cry for help in Psalm 4, and receive Jesus’ wisdom in Luke, including His teaching on prayer, the goodness of God as our Father, warnings against religious hypocrisy, and encouragement to seek God persistently.

Through heartfelt reflections, Hunter challenges the lies of separation and legalism, pointing us to a God who is close, present, and loving—not distant or angry. The episode closes with prayer, practical encouragement, and an invitation to deeper engagement with Scripture every day.

So, whether you’re new or a longtime listener, settle in and let today’s Scriptures and reflections draw you closer to Jesus—the One who offers unconditional love and the gift of Himself, the Holy Spirit. Let’s walk together, step by step, in this daily journey of faith!

TODAY’S DEVOTION:

He's angry. These teachers are a bunch of fakes. He's angry because these teachers of His Word ought to be offering people something real, something true. He's angry because they're a bunch of religious, self-righteous, self-serving hypocrites, and Jesus is none too happy about it. They're telling lies about God, and the main one is a lie of separation. God is separate, he's distant, and he's angry.

He's angry until you perform the right religious duties, until you wash your hands the right way, until you wash your cup in just the right way, until you give the right amount of everything that you own in just the right way. Even the herbs in your garden and a thousand other things like this were all used as a way of ensuring that you knew that God was separate from you, that he was angry with you.

And this message of separation served these guys well. They leveraged it for coercion and control, for power, prestige, and money. They used this lie to become important in the eyes of those with power. They liked to walk around with their flowing robes in the marketplaces. They liked when important people, powerful people, recognized them and honored them. All the while the people suffer.

Jesus looked at this and declared it hogwash. He called them hypocrites, snakes, vipers. In effect, Jesus says, you say that you speak for God, but you don't know God. If you knew God, you would know his justice, not yours, which is so rarely just. You would know his love—his love which declares that God is not separate. Rather, God is here. He is with us, and God is for all people.

He is wanting his people and his priests who use his name to tell the truth, to demonstrate the love and justice of God, to live in the reality of the God who is with us, the God who is their present king, because it's true and the world so desperately needs it.

If you read the Bible and you're left with a God who is separate, distant, petty, and angry, more concerned with how much turmeric you tithe than he is about you loving your neighbor and knowing that you are loved, then you've been sold a lie and you have completely missed the point of who he is.

Because the point of his word is to show us that God is for us, not against us. That God is good. That God is not petty, but abounding in grace and mercy. That God is present and he is full of love. This was the message of all the prophets. God. God is with you, people. Wake up. Wake up to the God who is with you.

He's angry that religion has become a way to crush people's spirits with unbearable religious demands rather than something that sets them free and makes them new.

Jesus begins this reading in Luke by telling us that God is something completely different than what the Pharisees are selling. Jesus says God's not like that. God is good. When you ask him for good things, he doesn't give you scorpions and snakes. He's a good father. Don't let circumstances and the seeming delay in God's response to your need dissuade you from the truth of his kindness.

Like the man who's knocking and seeking and asking for bread, God comes through.

So keep asking, keep knocking, keep seeking. God's not angry with you. Don't let others or the circumstances prevent you from knowing the kind of father that you really have. Your Father knows what it's like to give his children good gifts. Earthly fathers know what it's like to do that. How much more will our good Father give good gifts if we ask for them?

Jesus is angry at the evil in this world that keeps people from knowing and experiencing his loving kindness.

God's not angry with you. What's the gift the good Father is giving? He's giving himself. He's giving the Holy Spirit. How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? He is offering himself to be with us and in us.

Pray that God will renew your mind so that you will no longer see your Father as separate from you and angry with you, but rather as good and kind. He wants to give you everything.

May your soul, may my soul, may we know this well today.

That's my prayer. May it be so.