Brown's Daily Word 11-20-12

Dear Friends,

Joy to the world; the Lord is come. Let Earth receive her King. Praise the Lord for the wonderful season when we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior. It is a wonderful season of giving and receiving. It is also a wonderful season of proclamation that our Lord and Savior has come and that He will come again in victory and majesty.

This is our annual appeal to you, our friends and family, to join us in blessing pastors and evangelists in G. Udayagiri, Phulbani, Orissa, India. As you recall, this area was the target of intense persecution of the church by the radical Hindu extremists in August, 2008. The Christians there suffered a great loss of life and property. In spite of great persecution and bloodshed the Church in the area has grown 20% since the persecutions began. In 2013 the Church in this area will celebrate 100 years since the first Hindu converts were baptized on Easter Sunday. The church is growing. The Good News is being proclaimed. We would like to bless some of the pastors and evangelists during this wonderful Christmas season. We would like send $50 each to 30 pastors and evangelists. We also desire to bless 30 young girls who are residing at the Dugudi Children's home. I am attaching their pictures with this note. We would like to send $25 for each of the girls. That money will be used to buy them a special Christmas gift including a set of new clothing.

This is an invitation to you join us prayerfully and joyfully to bless the pastors and the children. You can sponsor one pastor or one child or both, or give in any way that you can, according to the blessings the Lord has bestowed on you. It will be a tremendous blessing to them. Perhaps your church can sponsor a couple of pastors or your family can sponsor a child. They will be blessed and so will you.

Please you make checks payable to:

Union Center United Methodist Church.

Memo: Orissa Christmas Project.

Mail your gift to:

Union Center United Methodist Church, 128 Maple Drive, Endicott, NY 13760

Joy to the world; the Lord is come.

In His Joy,

Brown

Brown's Daily Word 11-19-12

Praise the Lord for this week of Thanksgiving. I trust you all had a blessed and full weekend of living, worshipping, serving, and resting. The Lord blessed us with an abundant weekend. Our people distributed Thanksgiving baskets to several families in our area along with homemade desserts. We also prepared and served a meal Saturday noon at the First United Methodist Church, Endicott. Another team prepared and served a full Thanksgiving banquet in the Evening at the First United Methodist Church, Endicott. We gathered there for Saturday Evening worship and praise at 6:30 PM, where our dear brothers and fellow servants of Jesus, Aric Phinney and Yancey Moore, provided piano and organ music for worship. Joseph Benjamin offered a special music. Dr. Dino Pedrone, president of Davis College, brought the message. It was anointed and full of great blessing and grace from the Lord. Another team from our church joined other area churches in collecting Christmas She Boxes to be sent around the world to bless the children in the Name of Jesus our Lord. We gathered for worship at Wesley and at Union Center on Sunday morning, and I preached from Psalm 103.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s (Psalm 103:1-5).

In his runaway bestseller The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard recommends that leaders develop the practice of the “one-minute praising” in which they “catch them (their employees) doing something right.” We’re all used to bosses who catch us doing something wrong. How rare it is to be praised when we have done something well. Blanchard’s idea is to “catch them doing something right” and then give them a one-minute praising right on the spot. "Don’t wait", he says, "because waiting takes away the impact. Tell them right then, right there, how much you appreciate the good job they are doing."

This actually is more difficult that it appears. Most of us are better at criticism than at praise. We are much better that “one-minute blaming” than “one-minute praising.” Many of us would do well to put this into practice this week.

Psalm 103 is a prayer by David in which he talks to his own soul and reminds himself to “bless the Lord” and “forget not all his benefits.” He begins by calling us to wholehearted, intentional praise of God. We can outline Psalm 103 this way:

Personal (vv. 1-5) – David reviews the mercy of God to him.
National (vv. 6-18) – David reviews the mercy of God to Israel.
Universal (vv. 19-22) –David calls all created beings to praise the Lord.

We need a good dose of Psalm 103 to wash out that complaining spirit and replace it with a heart of gratitude to the Lord. We must think before we can thank. We must ponder before we can praise. We must remember before we can rejoice. Here are five blessed benefits of the Lord that we must not forget.

1. Pardon - “Who forgives all your iniquity.”

2. Healing - “Who heals all your diseases.”

3. Deliverance - “Who redeems your life from the pit.”

4. Coronation - “Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy.” The older translations say that he crowns us with “lovingkindness.”

5. Satisfaction - ”Who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Eugene Peterson captures this nicely in The Message: “He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.”

This magnificent succession of benefits forms a perfect summary of Thanksgiving for anyone who wants to wake up his soul and praise the Lord.


In his sermon on Psalm 103, Clovis Chappell says that on the west coast of England there is the grave of a man who was much loved by all who knew him. When he died, these words were inscribed on his headstone. “Here lies a man who was satisfied with Jesus.” Chappell then adds this benediction: “If that can be said of us, we have sufficient to make all of time and eternity one great thanksgiving day.”

In Christ,

Brown

http://youtu.be/x3dXCL34aEA