Good morning,
The Lord blessed our Wednesday evening gathering last night. The food is always delicious. The fellowship is always sweet. Our daughter Sunita landed safely back in Washington, DC safely despite the heavy snowfall in our nation's capitol. Praise the Lord. Boston is getting another heavy snowfall. Our grand- children who live there love snow so they are having a great time snowshoeing, sledding, making snow angels, and enjoying other snow activities.
A few years ago I met Elizabeth Elliot, the widow of the late Jim Elliot, in person. Whenever I read her book, "Through Gates of Splendor", I am moved to tears. There are many who recognize the names of Nate Saint … Roger Youderian … Ed McCully … Peter Fleming … Jim Elliot. In 1955 these five young men (all under the age of 35) gathered in Ecuador with a vision of reaching a tribe of Indians called the Aucas (the word means “savage,” a name given to them by other tribes) who lived deep in the rain forest. No one had ever presented the gospel to them. These five missionaries, all highly trained and deeply devoted to God, began praying about ways to make contact. In September they began flying over an Auca village, lowering a pot containing gifts for the Indians. Eventually the Aucas took the gifts and replaced them with simple gifts of their own.
In January 1956, the five men decided the time had come to make contact in person. After much prayer they established a base camp on a sandy beach of the Curaray River. On January 8, 1956—at about 3:30 PM, they were speared to death by the Indians who mistakenly thought they had come to hurt them. The news shocked the world. Many people wondered how young men with so much promise could waste their lives that way. When the journals of Jim Elliot were published several years later, they were found to contain this sentence, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
The Apostle Paul would agree. Once you decide that your life won’t last forever, you are free to invest it in a cause greater than yourself. You give up what you can’t keep so that in the end you gain what you can never lose. This is what Paul meant when he said, “Whether by life or death.” Paul confessed, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Here is Paul’s personal mission statement. If we fully understand this then we will understand how Paul could “turn the world upside down” wherever he went.
When James Montgomery Boice came to this verse in his exposition of Philippians, he commented that it is really a definition of what a Christian is. A Christian understands that Christ is his life—and that dying is gain.
What does the phrase “to live is Christ” really mean? F. B. Meyer said that Christ is “the essence of our life … the model of our life … the aim of our life … the solace of our life … the reward of our life.” In other words we live in Christ, for Christ, by Christ, through Christ, and from Christ. He is the beginning, the middle and the end of life. He is truly the Alpha and Omega, the A and Z, and every letter in between.
May Jesus be praised.
Brown
Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church. Endicott
53 McKinley Avenue, Endicott.
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott
Saturday January 29.2011 6 PM Gathering: Coffee.
6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music by Laureen Naik, Gary and Gena McMyne
Speaker:
Rev. Brown Naik,
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