Brown's Daily Word 9-1-10

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this Wednesday, the first day of September. Three years ago today it was a gorgeous late summer day as we were getting ready for Sunita and Andy's wedding. It seems like yesterday. It is going to be another hot day here in New York, but it is starting to smell "ripe". Though it is still hot, we can sense Autumn in the air. We can see the some of the colors in the trees are slowly developing, and preparing to pop out. We picked up some New York apples and Pennsylvania peaches the other day. Praise the Lord for summer fruits. Alice is busy making sweet pickles from a bushel of cucumbers (31 quarts). She also canned 1 1/2 bushels of tomatoes, froze a bushel of corn and froze 2 bushels of green beans. Praise the Lord for the fresh vegetables! Praise the Lord for all His rich provisions.
Last weekend Janice, Jeremy, Micah, and Simeon went camping along a stream in New Hampshire. They backpacked 3 miles in from their car to their campsite along the stream. Jeremy carefully tied their gorp, animal crackers, and other food supplies in a "bear sack", that is he put it 11 feet above the ground. Other campers, a little farther from the stream, put up their sacks as well, but many were much closer to the ground and not carefully wrapped. In the morning Janice and Jeremy discovered that a bear had attacked their food supplies - and left all the others alone. Micah commented that it may have been better if they had taken the food into the tent. . . how wrong she was! Praise the Lord for their safety! They "borrowed" some food from other campers and made the trek back to the car that morning.
St. Augustine once said, ”Jesus Christ is not valued at all until he is valued above All”. In other words Jesus must be at the center of our lives. The one thing that we keep going back to as those belong to Jesus, is praising God. Louis Albert Banks tells of an elderly Christian man, a fine singer, who learned that he had cancer of the tongue and that he needed surgery. In the hospital after everything was ready for the operation, the man said to the Dr. Are you sure I will never sing again? The Surgeon found it hard to answer his question. He simply shook his head no. The patient then asked if he could sit up for a moment. "I’ve had many good times singing the Praises of God", he said. "And now you tell me I will never sing again. I have one song that will be my last. It will be of gratitude and praise to God." There in the Dr.’s presence the man sang softly the words of Isaac watt’s hymn,

I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

Why should I make a man my trust?
Princes must die and turn to dust;
Vain is the help of flesh and blood:
Their breath departs, their pomp, and power,
And thoughts, all vanish in an hour,
Nor can they make their promise good.

Happy the man whose hopes rely
On Israel’s God: He made the sky,
And earth, and seas, with all their train:
His truth for ever stands secure;
He saves th’oppressed, He feeds the poor,
And none shall find His promise vain.

The Lord has eyes to give the blind;
The Lord supports the sinking mind;
He sends the labr’ing conscience peace;
He helps the stranger in distress,
The widow, and the fatherless,
And grants the pris’ner sweet release.

He loves His saints, He knows them well,
But turns the wicked down to hell;
Thy God, O Zion! ever reigns:
Let every tongue, let every age,
In this exalted work engage;
Praise Him in everlasting strains.

I’ll praise Him while He lends me breath,
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
My days of praise shall ne’er be past,
While life, and thought, and being last,
Or immortality endures.

John Wesley gave out this hymn just be fore preaching for the last time in City Road Chapel, Tuesday evening, Februa ry 22, 1791. The following Monday after noon, though very ill, he amazed the friends at his bedside by sing­ing the hymn throughout in a strong voice. The next night, his biographer, Tyler Mann, tells us, he tried scores of times to repeat the hymn, but could only say “I’ll praise—I’ll praise—.” And with praise for his Maker on his lips and in his heart he passed to that life where “immortality endures.”

In Jesus our Lord,

Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5m48vG2q2E