Brown's Daily Word 2-23-12

Good morning,

Praise the Lord, for it is Friday and Sunday is coming. May we all be blessed with a full weekend of rest, renewal, worship, and witness. May the Holy Spirit provoke us to share the Good News of Jesus our Lord in word and deed with others that they might be drawn to Jesus, the author of life. Let us make room and time to worship the Living Lord with great Joy and great zeal.

In his book, “Loving God,” Charles Colson tells about a Russian Jewish doctor by the name of Boris Nicholayevich Kornfeld, a Russian Jewish doctor who was sentenced to a most inhuman Russian prison for a minor political crime in the 1950's. Because he was a physician he did receive some privileges in the prison in return for treating other prisoners. Still he suffered much abuse. His treatment would have in fact been unbearable except that he developed a friendship with another prisoner who, through the quality of his witness, brought Kornfeld to a commitment to Christ.
After he committed his life to Christ, Kornfeld felt a great inner freedom. He had a patient, a cancer patient, who was awaiting surgery. Kornfeld shared with him what Christ had done in his own life. Kornfeld was so enthusiastic about this change in his own life, that he caught the patient’s attention in spite of brief lapses brought on by the medicine. Late into the night, the doctor stayed with his patient, sharing with him the unsearchable riches of Christ. Later that night someone slipped into the doctor’s quarters and brutally beat him to death. From a human standpoint that should be the end of the story, but, it is not.
The patient recovered from his surgery, but he was a changed man. Because of Kornfeld’s testimony, he became a Christian--and what a Christian he became! His name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who not only won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1970 but, even more importantly, became one of the world’s most influential voices for Christ. Kornfeld and Solzhenitsyn both learned that the claims of Christ were always meant to make radical changes in the lives of those around us; changes as radical as the claims themselves found in John chapter five.
In John chapter 5 Jesus has healed the lame man on the Sabbath (5:8-9) and the religious leaders are incensed, declaring that the Sabbath has been violated. In His bold action Jesus was essentially stating that He is equal with God.

Jesus claims power to give life. (John 5:21, 24-26) In verse twenty-four of our text, Jesus said that the person who believes “has eternal life.” 1 John 5:13, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life…”

Praise the Lord, for He is the Author of Life Eternal. He is the giver of Life Eternal and Everlasting. Praise the Lord for the way He has promised the Eternal City for those who love Him and have put their trust in Him in this life on earth now.

C. S. Lewis wrote the great series of books entitled “The Chronicles of Narnia,” and in the last book in the series, “The Last Battle”, he creatively describes to us what our hope is and what eternity will be like. At the end of Lewis’ book “The Last Battle”, Aslan, the Lion (who is the character of Jesus) tells Peter, Edmund, and Lucy there has been a railroad accident and they are dead. “And as he [Aslan] spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” [C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle]
By the authority of his voice of Jesus will call believers forth into a new life; a life of which our existence on earth was merely the first chapter.

In Christ,

Brown

Friday March 23, 2012

Television Outreach

Time Warner Cable Channel 4

Time 7:00 PM

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 PM Worship Service

Date: Saturday, March 24, 2012

Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik,

Special Music by Laureen Naik

Friday March 23, 2012

Television Outreach

Time Warner Cable Channel 4

Time 7:00 PM

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 PM Worship Service

Date: Saturday, March 24, 2012

Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik,

Special Music by Laureen Naik

Brown's Daily Word 3-22-12

Good morning,

Praise the Lord for another glorious day in His Kingdom. It will be another summer like day today. Thank you Jesus.

For our Wednesday Bible study last night we looked at John chapter 5. Jesus always places Himself in the midst of hurting people. John 5:1-4: After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.
When you go to Jerusalem, even today you will get to the pool just after you have passed the beautiful St. Anne's Church. The pool of Bethesda was located in the northwest side of Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate. Apparently, this pool was spring fed and at certain times air bubbles trapped in the sub-terrainian water system would come up through the pool causing the water to stir. It was thought at the time that the stirring of the water was caused by an angel and the first person in the pool after the stirring would be healed of any infirmity. This belief brought multitudes of hurting and desperate people who hoped for anything to bring them help. This had to be one of the most depressing parts of town. We can imagine multitudes of lame, blind, and grossly disfigured people in one place, each pushing as close as they dared to the edge of the pool so that they would not miss out. Certainly, most of the religious leaders stayed away from this place in fear of touching a person with an infirmity, not to speak of avoiding such a dreadful place. We can imagine a place where there are multitudes of lame, blind, and badly disfigured people gathered together. This is exactly where Jesus chose to go, as He had a heart for hurting people.

I read the following story sometime ago. Early on the morning of February 22, 1901, the great passenger steamship, City of Rio de Janeiro approached San Francisco in a dense fog and behind schedule. Though sailing totally blind, the captain and pilot risked entering the harbor, and at 5:18 am, the ship ran aground. Arthur O’Neill said the impact was “like an earthquake intensified many times.” Most of the passengers were Chinese or Japanese immigrants seeking America. The language barrier prevented lifeboats from being deployed correctly and boarded. 131 people died.
One survivor was a young American journalist. In the wreck, both of his legs were broken, and he lost consciousness (either from shock or blood loss or both). Somehow he fell into the water, where he regained his senses, but all he could do was float. Several hours later, rescuers found him nearly drowned and completely helpless, and pulled him to safety.
Harry Ironside, the famous pastor of the Moody Bible Church in Chicago happened to be on the beach that morning. He later heard the story of the rescued journalist and observed that his story was similar to the healing of the man at Bethesda. Both legs of the young journalist were broken; he was nearly drowned; and he could do nothing to help himself. So it was at the pool. The “multitude of invalids” were helpless; they could not see; they were weak and withered. It was a pitiful collection of broken humanity.
Jesus desires to help those who cannot help themselves (John 5:5-9)
"Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your bed and walk." And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. And that day was the Sabbath."
There is an old saying that has floated around for years that goes something like this, "God helps those who helps themselves." This saying is so well-known that many probably think it is right out of Scripture, though nothing could be farther from the truth. Certainly our Lord has called us all to lives of responsibility; in areas in which He has equipped us to help ourselves we are to do just that. However, each of us will at times in our lives find ourselves in situations that are beyond our own help. This is where Jesus plays such an important role in humanity. He has come to help those who cannot help themselves. This is the very reason that He stepped out of heaven. If we could help ourselves in every matter then we would have no need of Jesus.
In the Gospel of John we find a man in a desperate situation who was unable to help himself. He had been lame for 38 years. He had no one to help him to the pool. He even believed in a false teaching. He seemed without hope. Yet, Jesus came to bring hope to the hopeless. This is the heart of Jesus.
Jesus places few restrictions on those whom He ministers. "When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?'" (We might think, "What kind of a question is that? Of course he wants that or he would not be at the pool.")
Many times hurting people find themselves having to qualify in order to receive another’s assistance. In the guise of being “good stewards” we sometimes place many restrictions on those whom we will and will not help. It is quite interesting that the only question that Jesus asked this man was, “Do you want to be made well?” He did not ask the man about whether he had faith enough to be healed. He did not ask the man whether he believed that Jesus was the Son of God. He did not question the man what he would do with his healing if he would be made well. As a matter of fact this man after he was healed turned Jesus in to those who wanted to destroy Him.
Jesus uses opportunities of ministering to physical needs to earn the opportunity to minister to spiritual needs (5:14) "Afterward Jesus found him in the temple, and said to him, 'See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.'" Jesus our Lord at times chose to teach through His actions the importance of ministering first to the “felt” needs of the individual. It has been said, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” We must earn the opportunity to address a person’s spiritual needs by first ministering to their physical needs and we must remember that our motive of concern for the person must always be pure. Then, and only then will their spiritual ears be opened to what we have to say.

In Christ,

Brown

http://youtu.be/sraX_RQJv6g

Friday March 23, 2012

Television Outreach

Time Warner Cable Channel 4

Time 7:00 PM

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 PM Worship Service

Date: Saturday, March 24, 2012

Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik,

Special Music by Laureen Naik

Brown's Daily Word 3-21-12

Good morning,

Praise to be Jesus our Lord, the author of Life and Resurrection. Praise the Lord for this day so that we can do life afresh and anew as we trust the Lord for His fresh Grace. Praise the Lord that we can do life under His authority and promises.

We will meet for our mid-week gathering at 6:30 PM with a very special meal. We will be studying from the Book of John. It will be a summer-like day today. Thank you Jesus.

John 11 contains the well-known story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. We also find here the last of the seven miracles (or “signs” as John calls them) which structure this book.

One ill effect of an evil heart is to naturally assume that my will should be the axis around which the universe turns. This perspective often reveals itself by how much the affairs of life control our feelings. When events please us, we believe God is good and his love safe and solid. When circumstances go awry, we wonder that God’s love is so fickle and frail. Such attitudes betray a most basic form of idolatry. We look at life’s problems and assume they reveal the nature and character of God.

William Cowper struggled with depression much of his life. This led him to meditate frequently on God’s love and goodness in the midst of pain and suffering (he called this God’s frowning providence). One fruit of his anguish was the hymn, "God Moves in a Mysterious Way". He wrote, “Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread, are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace; behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding ev’ry hour; the bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flow’r.”
Today, we may perceive a frowning providence, but tomorrow a smiling face. Psalm 30:5b: “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” God’s unfolding flower of providence will one day reveal blessings unimaginably sweet for his people.
As I grow older I am more and more convinced that our attitude towards our troubles drastically affects the outcome. We find it easy to nurse poor attitudes until they infiltrate every pore of our lives. Rather than trust God and count trials as opportunities to grow in grace and faith, our attitudes drive us to self-pity, self-absorption, self-trust, fear, and defensiveness.
The Bible clearly teaches that God delights to glorify himself. That truth is the only rock that holds firm when storms of suffering slam against us. This truth comes to light in John 11, in the person of Jesus Christ. Pain, suffering, and the death of dear friends, the miseries of a fallen world, combine to cast doubt on God’s love. Jesus steps into our world to show us both the power and the purposes of God and to deliver us from errors and attitudes which threaten hope and joy. John 11:3: So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” John 11:5: "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." John 11:36: "So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him!'”
After singing, “Oh, How I Love Jesus,” Philip Bliss commented, “Those words are true. Yet I feel guilty for having sung so much about my poor love for Christ and so little about his endless love for me.” So he wrote a hymn with these words: “I am so glad that our father in heaven/Tells of his love in the book he has given;/Wonderful things in the Bible I see/This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me.”
We must be reminded of God’s love because of circumstances which argue against that love. Notice how Mary and Martha describe the need to Jesus need: “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” When Jesus lets friends die, you may doubt his love. So, John reminds us: Jesus loved Martha, he loved Mary, he loved Lazarus. I When we are Him, and have been born-again of his Spirit, then we are loved eternally... Yes, I love Jesus, but my soul needs a greater anchor, a more glorious truth: Jesus loves me. God’s love must not be defined by our health, comfort, or safety. God loved Lazarus but it is still true that Lazarus got sick and died. God loved Martha and Mary, but Martha and Mary wept and mourned. God loved his disciples, though He led them to the place of stoning.

Throughout church history Christians have mistakenly assumed that God’s love is best experienced in health, wealth, and prosperity. John Newton, known for writing, "Amazing Grace", also wrote a poem to capture the difficulty of God’s love:

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

“Lord, why is this,” I trembling cried,
“Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?”
“’Tis in this way,” the Lord replied,
“I answer prayer for grace and faith.
“These inward trials I employ,
“From self, and pride, to set thee free;
“And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
“That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”


Martha and Mary discovered this truth; so did Lazarus and the disciples. We too must travel through the difficulty of God’s love before we know its joy.

In Christ the giver of New And Eternal Life.

Brown

http://youtu.be/MmJEuMlG4-4

Friday March 23, 2012

Television Outreach

Time Warner Cable Channel 4

Time 7:00 PM

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 PM Worship Service

Date: Saturday, March 24, 2012

Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik,

Special Music by Laureen Naik

Brown's Daily Word 3-19-12

Good morning,

Praise be Jesus our Lord and Savior, who is the Lord of the Sabbath. He blessed us with a soul full weekend. He blessed us with a beautiful Saturday Evening worship at the First UMC, Endicott. Our friend Pastor Bill Puckey brought the message for the evening in music and Word. He spoke on "Following Christ, denying self, and taking up the Cross."

Sunday was a summer-like day. It reached the record breaking temperature, 76 degrees. People were gathering for ice cream, outdoors. Our youth served a barbequed chicken dinner after the second service. We gathered for an Evening of meal and a hymn sing at Wesley UMC. One of the hymns that was sung was "Amazing Grace".

Laureen spent part of the weekend at home with her 6 cousins. It was a treat. Alice and I walked for almost 4 miles late last Evening. I was wearing shorts and a short sleeved shirt. It was a glorious star-studded evening. Praise the Lord the way He displays His majesty and glory by day and by night.

One of the readings for yesterday was taken from Ephesians 2, which addresses being "Saved by grace". St. Augustine once wrapped a powerful thought in vivid imagery when he said, “God always pours His grace into empty hands.” No one's hands could have been emptier than John Newton’s, the one who composed the hymn, "Amazing Grace".
Newton's father commanded a merchant ship and was always at sea. His mother raised him as best she could, teaching him the Scriptures and sacred songs. Sadly, his mother died just before his seventeenth birthday, so John naturally followed in his father's footsteps. By the time he was seventeen, John Newton’s world was the open sea. The world of the Spirit, as lovingly taught by his mother, had vanished over the horizon and was lost as sea—much like Newton’s own soul.
In his own words, John’s “delight and habitual practice was wickedness,” and he “neither feared God nor regarded men.” In short, he was “a slave to doing wickedness and delighted in sinfulness.” Then, in March, 1748, somewhere in the middle of the North Atlantic, grace arrived. The hand of God rescued a shipwrecked soul. A violent storm had engulfed the small slave ship. All hands were awake. Voices were shouting with urgency. Water was beginning to flood the hold. Newton wondered if this was how it was all going to end—entombed on the ocean floor. Then something remarkable happened — John Newton began praying. Later, he would surrender his life to Jesus and eventually become a pastor. He preached the Gospel until the venerable age of eighty-one.
Someone once said that grace is a five letter word often spelled J-E-S-U-S. If Newton’s hymn is the melody that embodies the concept of grace, then Jesus is without a doubt the Man who embodies it. Jesus was and is the once-for-all, perfect human image of grace, love and truth. The Bible says that Christ “became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.... For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:14-17 NIV).

Jesus constantly demonstrated grace to the people around him. He showed grace to a thirsty woman at the Samaritan well. He lavished grace upon a woman at the Temple courtyard who had been caught in adultery. He showered grace upon Peter, who had abandoned him in his hour of need. Only when you come face to face with the darkness within your soul, does God’s grace become truly amazing. The compassionate purpose of grace is to save all wretches, including us. Paul stated clearly and concisely, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8 ESV).
Several years ago, a very peculiar sight could be seen at a large downtown church in England. On the first Sunday of the New Year, an ex-convict knelt to receive communion beside the judge who had sentenced him to seven years in prison. After being sentenced, the young convict was lead to Christ through the church’s prison ministry. After his release he became an active member of the church. After church, the judge was walking home with the pastor and said to him, “What a miracle of grace.”
“You mean the former thief who knelt beside you today?” the pastor asked.
“No. I was thinking of myself,” the judge said. “That young man had nothing but a history of crime behind him, and when he saw Jesus as his Savior he knew there was salvation and hope and joy for him. And he knew how much he needed that help. But look at me. I was taught from earliest infancy to live as a gentleman; that my word was to be my bond; that I was to say my prayers, go to church, take communion and so on. I went to Oxford, earned my degrees, was called to the bar and eventually became a judge. Pastor, nothing but the grace of God could have caused me to admit that I was a sinner in need of a Savior.”
The Bible confirms this judge's observation, “For all have sinned and are not good enough for God’s glory, and all need to be made right with God by his grace, which is a free gift” (Romans 3:23 NCV). The story of that young convict points us to the changing power of grace.
It’s no wonder that "Amazing Grace" has been more enduring and inspiring than any other hymn. At the heart of Newton’s hymn is the heart of the gospel, God’s amazing grace. It tells us of the captivating presence of grace, the compassionate purpose of grace, and the changing power of grace. God’s grace is available to each of us every day all the way, with no exceptions. No matter who we are, where we come from, or what we have done, God’s grace is still amazing!

In Christ,

Brown

http://youtu.be/HsCp5LG_zNE

Friday March 23, 2012

Television Outreach

Time Warner Cable Channel 4

Time 7:00 PM

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 PM Worship Service

Date: Saturday, March 24, 2012

Speaker: Rev. Brown Naik,

Special Music by Laureen Naik