Brown's Daily Word 5/25/11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this day. It will be one of the ten best days of this month (at least). We will gather for Mid-Week fellowship and study this evening at 6 PM, using the six week study and discussion series by Dr Tim Keller entitled,"The Prodigal God -- Finding your place at the Table".
Our Lord God is extravagant in His grace, in His love, and in His Salvation towards us. Those who do not know, trust, and serve this amazing Lord, revealed in the Person and works of Jesus Christ, miss out on the abundant, Eternal, life He offers. Those who refuse to trust in Him and serve Him, indulge in themselves. Greed and gluttony become their god.
In June of 2005, Dennis Kozlowski, the former executive of Tyco, walked out of a Manhattan courtroom through a swarm of photographers. He had just been convicted on multiple counts of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from Tyco. Kozlowski’s lifestyle included unbelievable excesses, including a $2.2 million dollar birthday party for his wife, Karen. Kozlowski had been raised in a poor section of Newark, New Jersey, but after working his way through college, he went to work for Tyco. He eventually became CEO and doubled the company’s business. Kozlowski lived in extravagance and self-indulgence — much of it at the company’s expense. Eventually, however, trouble came. The New York State Banking Department tracked a series of unusual bank transfers. New York’s district attorney investigated and it led to Kozlowski’s indictment on charges of corporate corruption. His indulgence literally led to bondage.
What made Kozlowski do this? What makes many people behave the same way, though often on a smaller scale? What makes me want to please and indulge myself? It is the lack of an eternal perspective. It is looking at this world as though this is all there is. It is the lack of a relationship with Jesus the Living Lord, that makes us set up ourselves as gods. When you don’t live for Jesus the Christ, you only live for yourself. When you don’t obey the Lord you obey your own desires, which eventually enslaves you.
Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. [And here is the key!] But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:25-33).
Paul, the apostle, encouraged us to have an eye on eternity when he wrote: “What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who. . . buy something, [should live] as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:29-31).

In Christ,
Brown

http://youtu.be/xkw3a4raWfg


Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenu
Endicott
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott

Saturday, May 28, 2011

6 PM Coffee Fellowship( First UMC Enicott, )

6:30 PM Worship Service Worship Music: Ruth Gent and worship Team.
Speaker: Rev Earle Cowden