Brown's Daily Word 11-6-13

Praise the Lord for this new day.  We will gather for our Wednesday evening fellowship and  study at 6 PM.  We will be looking at Hebrews chapter 9.  The concert  by Steven Curtis Chapman, Laura Storie, and Jason Gray, and the group was a blessing last night.  It was great blessing to see so many friends from around the area whom I had not seen lately.  It was kind of a family gathering.  One of the singers was young woman from Georgia.  She is the one who composed one of my favorite songs, "He Is Mighty to Save".  She sang with great enthusiasm and zeal.  She shared that her young husband has had a brain tumor, for which he  had surgery, and is recovering.  In the midst of trials and tragedy we can declare our Lord is mighty to save.  Another young artist, born in Minnesota, sang and praised the Lord.  He has a severe stuttering problem when he speaks, but when  he sang there was no stuttering.  He shared, "And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."  II Corinthians 12. 

    Indeed, our Lord and Savior is mighty to save to the uttermost.  He saves the least, the last, and the lost . . . the rich and the poor . . . the greedy and the covetous . . . the haughty and the poor in spirit.  There is a powerful statement made in the book of Hebrews, "He is able."  In fact, He is more than able.  Though we may find ourselves entangled by the clutches and powers of darkness and sin, even if we find ourselves in the depths of despair and in the dread of the tomb, our Lord is able.  All glory and honor belong to Him.  

    In Victor Hugo's fascinating novel The Toilers of the Sea there's an evil character named Claubert who wants to rob a shipload of passengers who are far out at sea. With this in mind, he intentionally runs the ship aground on a sandbar and then, pretending to be a hero, convinces all the people to disembark into life rafts while he stays behind to try to save the ship.  After everyone has left the ship, he goes into the stateroom, breaks into the safe and steals all the money, gold, and jewels which had been stored there for safe-keeping.  He puts everything into a large pack which fits over his shoulders and then jumps overboard, planning to swim to a nearby island where ships come by regularly, thinking that he'll eventually be rescued.  After he jumps into the ocean and hits the bottom, he pushes off towards the surface, only to be grabbed around the ankle by an icy tentacle.  It's the tentacle of an octopus and as he shakes free from one, another grabs him around the shoulder and then another around the waist and before he realizes it, he's being dragged to the bottom where he drowns.

 

    That's exactly what sin does to us.  It grabs us and binds us and drags us down and if it's not dealt with, it can destroy us.  Only Jesus can set us free from the powerful tentacles of sin!  He is mighty to save.

  In Jesus our Lord,

                Brown

http://youtu.be/-08YZF87OBQ