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Friday, October 12, 2012

Brown's Daily Word 10-12-12


Praise the Lord for this Friday. Our prayer conference begins today (see the information at the bottom). Those of you live in the area please join us. It will be a time of great blessing,and rejoicing. Sunita and Andy, along with our friend Kelly Johnson from Memphis,TN, came yesterday afternoon. We rejoice in the Lord for His gifts and blessings.

Jesus our Lord told a parable as it is recorded in Luke 18. He said, “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the son of man comes will he find faith on the earth?”
The story begins with a widow who had an adversary who was trying to take advantage of her. It’s likely that someone was trying to cheat her out of money or land her husband left her. This was prevalent in Bible times, because women had few legal rights. In the wonderful Old Testament story of Ruth, she and Naomi returned to Bethlehem as widows. They had no legal right to claim the land had belonged to their husbands. Fortunately Boaz married Ruth and he became her kinsman/redeemer.
In Jesus’ parable this widow not only had the hurdle of being a female, but she faced a terrible judge. He didn’t have any fear of God, nor did he care what other people thought about him. Our widow had no money to bribe this wicked judge, so her only recourse was to come before him repeatedly crying, “Grant me justice against my adversary! Grant me justice against my adversary!” He dismissed her claim, but she kept coming back, constantly begging him for justice. In the parable, the widow did not sit at home wringing her hands about her problem. Instead of worrying, she got up and approached the only person who could help her–the judge.

William Ward wrote this about worry, “Worry is faith in the negative, trust in the unpleasant, assurance of disaster, and belief in defeat... Worry is a magnet that attracts negative circumstances... Worry is wasting today’s time to clutter up tomorrow’s opportunities with yesterday’s troubles.”

It is written in Philippians 4:6-7. “Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worry into prayers. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.” (The Message)


In Christ,

Brown





Annual Praise and Prayer Conference
Friday- Sunday October 12-14, 2012
  • Opening worship: Friday 7 PM at Union Center United Methodist Church, 128 Maple Drive, Endicott
  • Saturday 10 am - 1 PM We will gather in the sanctuary of the Union Center United Methodist Church for a concert of prayer.
  • Prayer teams will be available to pray. We will anointing with oil and will pray for emotional, physical, and spiritual healing. We will be praying for deliverance and restoration.
  • 6 PM First United Methodist Church, 53 McKinley Ave., Endicott. We will gather for a NEW YORK PIZZA Party
  • 6:30 PM praise and worship. There will be time for prayer. There will be anointing with oil. We will be praying for miracles of healing, deliverance, salvation, restoration. We will also be serving Communion at the Altar.
  • Sunday, October 14, 2012, Morning worship will be at 9:30 AM at Wesley United Methodist Church, 1000 Day Hollow Road
  • 8:30 and 11:00 Worship services will be held at the Union Center United Methodist Church; 9:50 - Sunday School Hour
  • 12:30 PM Prayer Banquet with international foods
Leaders for the prayer conference are:
Kelly Johnson from Memphis, TN, Andy and Sunita Groth, Rob Krech, Meredith Watson, and Amanda (all from Washington, DC).
The leaders and members of the Binghamton House of prayer will be joining for this conference Event. Laureen Naik will be leading in worship music. Come expecting a miracle.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Brown's Daily Word 10-11-12

The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday Gathering. The food was delicious, the fellowship was sweet, and the study was thought-provoking and challenging. Sunita, Andy, Kelly Johnson, and other friends ae coming today to participate in our prayer conference. Several of you have sent prayer needs; we will be lifting up those needs before the Lord during the concert of prayer. You can still send the prayer requests and the prayer teams will be joining you in prayer. Our Lord answers prayer. He is able and available 24/7.
We have someone new in our church family. This woman has come out of brokenness, loneliness, and desperation. The Lord has brought her out of her bondage, sorrow, and sin. She is born again in Him. She has been saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. She desires to serve Him with great joy, out of great gratitude.

In Mark we read about a woman who came to Jesus incognito out of deep pain, loneliness, and shame. As He was often, Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd of people. A large crowd of people continued to press in on Jesus, surrounding him closely as he began to try to make his way to Jairus’ house. In the crowd was a woman who driven by desperation. For 12 years she had a condition that got steadily worse. She has spent all of her money on doctors, searching for a cure, but it did not help at all. Instead, she’s grew worse. In fact, her desperation drove her to extreme faith. All of her hope, her very survival rested on one thing - the power of Jesus to heal her.
The amount of faith this woman demonstrated is amazing to me. She knew without a doubt that the power of Jesus was so great that all she needed to do was touch the edge of his robe. Such a belief drove her, moved her in closer, determined her course and would not let her veer from the path. Immediately, when she touched his clothing, Jesus realized what she had done. He looked around for the individual responsible. The disciples could not understand how, surrounded by masses of people, each of them crowding in on him, he could know someone intentionally touched him. He knew the desperation and the great faith of this woman.
The woman, nameless to us, was shaking with fear. She thought she could be healed by touching him and none would be the wiser but it didn’t work that way. It could be percieved that she took from Jesus this gift of healing without asking for it, without Jesus wanting to bestow it upon her. It could be looked upon as an act of stealing, in a way, from Jesus. She found herself having to confess her desperation to Jesus, and how she thought she could be healed without anyone knowing, particularly Jesus.
Jesus set her straight letting her know that it was her faith, her belief in him and his ability, that made her well. Believing in Jesus’ ability to transform her life had made her whole. Her incredible faith made her well.
Though we don’t know her name, Jesus has called her ‘daughter.’ I find that interesting. I don’t know that Jesus placed himself in such a paternal role with anyone else. Most often we all are referred to as his adopted brothers and sisters in his name, but he calls this woman daughter.

First of all, desperation is often a driving force that leads us to seek grace in Christ. In some way, at one time or another, our lives have been shattered and we have had to start over. Jesus the Risen Lord during such times is always there, available to us. The healing power of Jesus is always available to put our lives back together. When desperation comes, whatever its source, we must turn our eyes upon Jesus. When our life takes a turn in that direction, we often find ourselves like this woman, trying everything to fix our problems. We try resolve after resolve. We make promise after promise. We coax, we cajole, we bargain with God. We try every fix we can think of until we are depleted, empty, lifeless, and hopeless. To learn from this experience is to bypass all that, plunging into the healing power of Jesus. We are called to have that incredible faith driven by Christ, driven by love, driven by a personal relationship, not driven by desperation. Still, we will find our faith at its greatest clarity often during the desperate moments of our life.

There is another side to our faith, seeking Christ. . Touching Jesus isn’t just a check list item. It was her faith that made her well, not Jesus’ garment. It was a person to person encounter, not just a checklist of Christian things to do. Transformation happens only when we open ourselves up to that person to person exchange with Jesus.
There is a story about John Wesley, shortly after his return from Georgia in the American Colonies. The Americas had been nothing like what he expected. He returned from there feeling like his ministry had been an utter failure. On top of that, there was a terrible storm at sea on the trip back to England, and John Wesley had feared for his life. On the same ship, were a group of Christians who had a sense of calm John Wesley didn’t have. They had assurance that their fate rested in God’s hands whether they lived or died.
Upon his return to London, Wesley discussed his concerns with a German minister named Peter Bohler. He could see the lack of faith on Wesley’s part. Wesley, an ordained minister, had knowledge of salvation, but no assurance of his own. He knew all about Jesus, but didn’t know Jesus in his heart. Peter Bohler gave Wesley this memorable advice: “Preach faith until you have it, and then because you have it, you will preach faith.”
It is written, “Everything is possible for the person who has faith.”
I challenge each of us to follow Peter Bohler’s prescription: to believe even when we want to doubt, to believe Jesus can perform miracles in our lives, even when logic and reason wants to tell us otherwise. I challenge us to hope and believe even in the impossible. It can happen through Christ Jesus.

In Christ,

Brown




Annual Praise and Prayer Conference
Friday- Sunday October 12-14, 2012
  • Opening worship: Friday 7 PM at Union Center United Methodist Church, 128 Maple Drive, Endicott
  • Saturday 10 am - 1 PM We will gather in the sanctuary of the Union Center United Methodist Church for a concert of prayer.
  • Prayer teams will be available to pray. We will anointing with oil and will pray for emotional, physical, and spiritual healing. We will be praying for deliverance and restoration.
  • 6 PM First United Methodist Church, 53 McKinley Ave., Endicott. We will gather for a NEW YORK PIZZA Party
  • 6:30 PM praise and worship. There will be time for prayer. There will be anointing with oil. We will be praying for miracles of healing, deliverance, salvation, restoration. We will also be serving Communion at the Altar.
  • Sunday, October 14, 2012, Morning worship will be at 9:30 AM at Wesley United Methodist Church, 1000 Day Hollow Road
  • 8:30 and 11:00 Worship services will be held at the Union Center United Methodist Church; 9:50 - Sunday School Hour
  • 12:30 PM Prayer Banquet with international foods
Leaders for the prayer conference are:
Kelly Johnson from Memphis, TN, Andy and Sunita Groth, Rob Krech, Meredith Watson, and Amanda (all from Washington, DC).
The leaders and members of the Binghamton House of prayer will be joining for this conference Event. Laureen Naik will be leading in worship music. Come expecting a miracle.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Brown's Daily Word 10-10-12

Praise be to be Jesus our Lord for the gift of this new day. We will gather for our mid-week study and fellowship with a very special meal this evening at 6 PM. We will meet for study and sharing at 6:30 PM.

We are getting ready for the prayer conference that starts this Friday Evening. Those of you live in the area please join us. It will be great time for worship, fellowship, and prayer. Satan trembles when the people of the Lord pray fervently and earnestly. We have some received prayer requests. You can send your prayer needs and we will be praying for these needs during the prayer conference.

Rick Warren notes that three things happen when we spend time in prayer with the Lord. First of all, prayer changes us. Something happens when we open ourselves up and invite the Risen Lord to make us into the persons He wants us to be. When we are open to God working in our lives, and are truly able to pray such a prayer of invitation, we find ourselves doing things differently. We will find ourselves becoming different people from who we were in our past.
Secondly, prayer impacts people and events. Rick Warren notes a study conducted in the 80’s when a group of heart patients were prayed for by others.
Warren notes that Dr. Randolph Byrd, cardiologist and faculty member of the University of California Medical School, did a study of 400 heart-attack patients. They were divided into two groups. Both groups were given state-of-the-art medical treatment, but one group was prayed for and the other was not. No one - nurses, doctors, or patients - knew which group was being prayed for. At the end of the study, the patients who were prayed for showed marked improvement in several areas. They were less likely to develop congestive heart failure or to require antibiotics or breathing tubes. Fewer developed pneumonia or experienced cardiac arrest than in the group that was not prayed for.
It is true that God listens when we pray. We may not always get the answer we are looking for, and I believe because of our fast paced society it seems that God sometimes takes a long time to respond to our prayers, but God does listen. Our Lord explained it this way:
LUKE 11:11-13 "Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?
If you then, as bad as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
The third thing Rick Warren says happens when we pray is that prayer helps us to remain spiritually strong in times of difficulty - to do battle, Warren says, against spiritual enemies.
Ronald Stanley talks about prayer in his life this way: "For many years the praying I did was out of obedience. I prayed because I was told I was supposed to pray. I remember as a child, for example, when I was going off to bed, my father would tell me: 'Don’t forget to say your prayers.' It was as if there were a commandment that said: 'Thou shalt pray'. My teenage years were the exception. I was struggling to cope with my parents’ divorce and, then, with a very difficult stepfather. My praying became more frequent and more fervent. I needed to pray to hold my life together. But, as an adult, my praying reverted back to the routine. I prayed because I was supposed to. There was little of me in my prayers. I was generally content to mouth other people’s words.
"My forties were again, like my teenage years, a turbulent time for me. I came face to face, like never before, with my own brokenness, neediness. Not unlike my adolescent years, I was faced with a choice—to wallow in self-pity, or to dig deeper and find a strength greater than my own. It was then that I had to rediscover prayer, or die. I learned to pray again, because I needed to pray."
Our invitation is to grow in our prayer life, to grow in our communion with the Living Lord.


In Christ,Brown



Annual Praise and Prayer Conference
Friday- Sunday October 12-14, 2012
  • Opening worship: Friday 7 PM at Union Center United Methodist Church, 128 Maple Drive, Endicott
  • Saturday 10 am - 1 PM We will gather in the sanctuary of the Union Center United Methodist Church for a concert of prayer.
  • Prayer teams will be available to pray. We will anointing with oil and will pray for emotional, physical, and spiritual healing. We will be praying for deliverance and restoration.
  • 6 PM First United Methodist Church, 53 McKinley Ave., Endicott. We will gather for a NEW YORK PIZZA Party
  • 6:30 PM praise and worship. There will be time for prayer. There will be anointing with oil. We will be praying for miracles of healing, deliverance, salvation, restoration. We will also be serving Communion at the Altar.
  • Sunday, October 14, 2012, Morning worship will be at 9:30 AM at Wesley United Methodist Church, 1000 Day Hollow Road
  • 8:30 and 11:00 Worship services will be held at the Union Center United Methodist Church; 9:50 - Sunday School Hour
  • 12:30 PM Prayer Banquet with international foods
Leaders for the prayer conference are:
Kelly Johnson from Memphis, TN, Andy and Sunita Groth, Rob Krech, Meredith Watson, and Amanda (all from Washington, DC).
The leaders and members of the Binghamton House of prayer will be joining for this conference Event. Laureen Naik will be leading in worship music. Come expecting a miracle.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Brown's Daily Word 10-9-12


Praise the Lord for this new day. The Lord blessed us with a full weekend of celebrations, worship, and fellowship. Alice spent the weekend in Philadelphia with Jessica and Tom. Micah, Simeon, and Ada are spending the week in Cape Cod with their parents, who are on vacation. The Lord blessed our gathering last Saturday Evening at the Wesley UMC. The food was plenteous and sumptuous. The fellowship was sweet, and the hymn sing and sharing from the word of God were both beautiful. The Sunday morning breakfast meeting was a great blessing. The Lord also blessed us during our morning worship services.

I attended a reception for our new bishop, Bishop Webb Sunday evening at Chenango Bridge. We are excited about our new bishop. Bishop Webb loves the Lord and loves His church. He is committed to the mission of the church to make disciples for Jesus Christ. Bishop Webb and his wife are married for 21 years and are blessed with two sons. The older son attends Grove City College, from where three of our daughters graduated.

Alice and I drove to Smyrna, NY yesterday to attend the funeral service for our cousin, Peter Maynard. The service was held at the Smyrna Baptist Church, where Alice and I were married in August 23,1975. During the funeral service which was a celebration of Peter's life, several people spoke, both young and old, testifying that Peter was great blessing to them. Peter shared his life selflessly and with great generosity with others.

We are getting ready for our prayer conference that begins this Friday evening. We will be spending much time in praise and prayer. There is a great power in praise and prayer. In the Old Testament and in the New Testament there was much evidence of God's power when His people fervently prayed. God's power is still manifested through the prayers of His people today. There are records in the OT that cause me to lift up God' power and in humility thank Him for letting me see it. One of the great stories is that of Elijah on Mt. Carmel. Elijah was a great prophet. When he saw his people in sin he called upon them to leave their idols and turn to God. He was not afraid to say to the king and his wife, "You are wrong." Ahab and Jezebel did more to erode the spiritual desire for God than anyone before them. They were wicked and Elijah's love for his people and his country called for drastic measures. He prayed to God that God would discipline the land of Israel in order to turn the hearts of the people back to Him. He prayed that it would not rain upon the land.
Imagine the chaos America would be if we as nation went without rain for three and ½ years. Imagine the pain your family would face. At the end of that time Elijah met King Ahab, the prophets of Baal, and the people of Israel gathered on Mt. Carmel and there let God show himself through power as fire came down and consumed all that was on an alter.

In James 5:16-18, it is written, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops."
That same power can work in the lives of Christians today because the power never was man's to begin with. It has been and always will be the power of God. Today, we want to hear the call of God for us to become a people of prayer and see the result of righteous people praying in faith.
In the Book of James we are called to turn to prayer in the times of our trouble and sickness and lean upon people of faith to help us come before the throne of grace and find healing in our Lord.


In Christ,

Brown





Annual Praise and Prayer Conference
Friday- Sunday October 12-14, 2012
  • Opening worship: Friday 7 PM at Union Center United Methodist Church, 128 Maple Drive, Endicott
  • Saturday 10 am - 1 PM We will gather in the sanctuary of the Union Center United Methodist Church for a concert of prayer.
  • Prayer teams will be available to pray. We will anointing with oil and will pray for emotional, physical, and spiritual healing. We will be praying for deliverance and restoration.
  • 6 PM First United Methodist Church, 53 McKinley Ave., Endicott. We will gather for a NEW YORK PIZZA Party
  • 6:30 PM praise and worship. There will be time for prayer. There will be anointing with oil. We will be praying for miracles of healing, deliverance, salvation, restoration. We will also be serving Communion at the Altar.
  • Sunday, October 14, 2012, Morning worship will be at 9:30 AM at Wesley United Methodist Church, 1000 Day Hollow Road
  • 8:30 and 11:00 Worship services will be held at the Union Center United Methodist Church; 9:50 - Sunday School Hour
  • 12:30 PM Prayer Banquet with international foods
Leaders for the prayer conference are:
Kelly Johnson from Memphis, TN, Andy and Sunita Groth, Rob Krech, Meredith Watson, and Amanda (all from Washington, DC).
The leaders and members of the Binghamton House of prayer will be joining for this conference Event. Laureen Naik will be leading in worship music. Come expecting a miracle.