Brown's Daily Word 8-26-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord, for this is Friday. Sunday is coming. Here in the United States we are getting ready for the storm "Irene". We are trusting and praying for protection and shelter from the storm. Christ alone is our refuge and shelter. In Hebrews 10, the early Christians are encouraged to embrace a life of faith - to accept Christ as their Savior, to believe with all of their heart. They are encouraged to hold fast to the hope of promise in Christ for salvation, and to do so by encouraging one another in ministry to one another and to the world by continuing to gather together.
We need to be encouraged to believe in Christ, to hang on to hope when difficult days come, and to remember to gather together to encourage one another. The Hebrews Christians were becoming discouraged and complacent. Some of them who had been faithful in their attendance at first had stopped gathering together. When anything else in our society has a pull on our time and attention away from worship, whatever it is often gets first priority and our attendance at church goes by the wayside.
“Don’t give up,” the writer of Hebrews tells us. Don’t neglect to gather together and encourage one another all the more, as the Day of our Lord approaches.”
On December 11, 1934, a man by the name of Bill Wilson found himself on the steps of Charles B. Townes Hospital in New York City. He went there to dry out - he was drunk. He had been there before. This time he met there his old friend, Dr. Silkworth, who had an interesting idea. He believed that Alcoholics had an obsession to drink and an allergy to it at the same time. The inevitable result of continual exposure to the allergen is death. That was the direction he saw Bill Wilson taking. He was killing himself by his drinking.
It happened that at this same point in his life, Bill came in contact with a school friend of his by the name of Ebby, who was also an alcoholic. Ebby had become active in a Christian spiritual group called Oxford Groups. Oxford Groups believed in absolute honesty, absolute purity, and absolute love. In other words, they cultivated holy habits in their lives.
Both Ebby and Bill saw the attractiveness of these groups. They wanted to have different lives. They wanted to be different people. With the principals of the Oxford Groups they brought together one more element both of these men shared that eventually empowered these men to turn their lives around. Two individuals with the same disease were able to come together and receive from one another the inoculation they needed to combat their allergen through spiritual time together. The principals from the Oxford Groups were incorporated and expounded upon to become the 12 step program and the new group that would eventually form would come to be known as Alcoholics Anonymous. It began as two sick people coming together regularly to hold one another up and to hold one another accountable. It is the injection they needed to combat the allergy they lived with. AA has changed the lives of millions of people all over the world.
Seventeenth century theologian Martin Luther puts its this way, “The church does not provide salvation; God does. But the 'saved' one can’t fulfill what it means to be a Christian apart from the church.” Christians are saved by grace. We are forgiven sinners. Christians are called sinners anonymous, forgiven, redeemed, restored, who gather together as the Body of Christ, for worship, for praise , for prayer and to ascribe majesty and honor and praise to Jesus. When the sinners and saints anonymous gather for worship of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords Satan trembles.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/QoYdQa6Cprc

Saturday Evening Worship Service
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenue
Endicott, NY
Sponsored by: Union Center United Methodist Church
Time: 6:00 PM gathering for Coffee Fellowship
6:30 Worship Service
Date: Saturday, September 10,2011
Speaker: Rev. Earle Cowden
Special Music by various praise teams

Come! Share! Rejoice!