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HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAILY TEXT!!!

February 17, 2018

Isaiah 40:8

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

CONSIDER THIS

On February 17, 2014, I began to write for the Daily Text. I’m not sure why it began on this day. I had no idea where it would lead. 1,460 days later and we are still going. After subtracting a few months off and Timothy Tennent’s heroic help with the Sunday Psalm series it comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,152 Daily Text entries. Factoring in the average word count of an entry brings us to just shy of one million words.

What began with  half a dozen readers, including my parents, now exceeds 10,000 souls; the majority of whom open the email every day. We have covered Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts, 1 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 John, James, Psalms, Proverbs, Ezekiel 37 and 47, two Advent series and now into Ephesians. Somewhere along the way we start podcasting the entries. Later we built a year-long 40 day fasting challenge. A very active Facebook community sprang up, quickly growing upwards of 2,000 members. And we’ve launched a series of print books built on the various Daily Text series.

“How does it work,” people often ask me, “How far ahead do you stay?” The answer is I don’t. I write one day at a time; hopefully before midnight on the day it goes live. Like you, I am still learning to trust God, day by day, verse by verse, word by word. I am as challenged to live out what I write as anyone who reads it.

On the occasion of entering this fifth year I want to make three expressions of gratitude. I want to thank God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the inestimable gift of the Bible; the source and substance of this work. I want to thank the Farm Team at Seedbed, especially Micah and Andrew, who have been up many late nights inserting the quote slide and many early mornings trying to figure out why the email didn’t send or what happened to the recording this time. Finally, I want to thank you, the readers, sharers, and supporters of this work. So many of you have held me up with your prayers and notes of encouragement and stories of God’s working in your midst. Keep them coming.

Here are a few ways to celebrate this milestone with me:

  1. Write a short endorsement of the Daily Text we could share with others to encourage their participation. Be sure to include your name and perhaps your city and state. You can do that here.
  2. Support the mission by purchasing the Daily Text print resources (Colossians, 1 John, Psalms, Ezekiel 37/47). Every week we learn about a new church using them as discipleship resources for Sunday School classes and small groups. Use Code DTBD for 20% off.(And because these are royalty free resources, all the proceeds go right back into Seedbed.)
  3. Consider making a financial gift to help advance this mission to sow for a great awakening. It will be tax deductible and mysteriously multiplied like so many fishes and loaves across our work.
  4. Share the Daily Text with family and friends. Get the word out through your Facebook page. Share it with your church. Email your pastor an encouragement to check it out and cc me (jd.walt@seedbed.com). I’ll encourage him or her, too. ;0)

THE PRAYER

Abba Father, we thank you for your Word and for your Spirit who inspired its writing and its reading and its hearing and its doing. Thank you for your Son, who is the Word made Flesh, who is Savior and Lord and Life to us. And thank you for the gift of each other, whom you have chosen and called to be your people in the world. Thank you for the gift of these four years with the Daily Text. Bless us together now as we enter the fifth. We pray in Jesus name, amen.

Subscribe to receive the Daily Text email.

Join the Daily Text Facebook group here.

Join the Daily Text Fasting Challenge here. Whenever you sign up, it will begin the following Tuesday.

J.D. Walt, is a Bond Slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. jd.walt@seedbed.com.

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WHAT IS THIS? Wake-Up Call is a daily encouragement to shake off the slumber of our busy lives and turn our eyes toward Jesus. Each morning our community gathers around a Scripture, a reflection, a prayer, and a few short questions, inviting us to reorient our lives around the love of Jesus that transforms our hearts, homes, churches, and cities.

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