Brown's Daily Word 8-16-13

    Praise the Lord for this Friday.  He blessed us with an awesome week of Vacation Bible School.  The week has been bright and sunny and not too hot.  It was almost  perfect weather for the week of VBS.  Praise the Lord for all the children who came for the VBS.  Praise the Lord for the wonderful and dedicated VBS staff.  It is a great joy loving the Lord and serving Him.  I was talking with our daughter Sunita,  this morning.  She reminded me, "Daddy, we serve Jesus when we serve and love children".  It was a great blessing to the children to learn about Jesus who makes them strong.  It was great to see the unadulterated joy in their hearts and countenances as they sang, as they danced, and as they made a joyful noise to Jesus, the Shepherd of all His little lambs around the corner and around the globe.  Once again I praise the Lord for all those servants of Jesus who invest their time, talents, and treasures in the lives of children.     It is recorded in Mathew 19: 13-15: "Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them.  But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.  Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  When He had placed his hands on them, He went on from there.    These are some of the simplest words Jesus ever spoke.  Only hard hearts would not be moved by them.  Parents were bringing their children to Jesus. The disciples, however, were reluctant  to let the children come near.  How typical this is, how very modern!  We get so task-oriented and so busy saving the world that we don’t want the children to bother the Savior.  Our Lord is indignant at those who would keep children away from Him.  It is Christ-like to love children, to care for them, to welcome them, and to embrace them.  It is like Jesus to become indignant at those who would mistreat them.

    Jesus is the little child’s best friend.  Wherever the gospel goes . . . it honors families . . . it ennobles motherhood . . . it protects and preserves the place of children.  Where Christ is known, trusted, and followed infancy is sacred and children are safe.

    I am captivated by my grandchildren.  Or perhaps I should say, “They have captured my heart,” and they did it without even trying.  I will do whatever I can to help them. They don’t have to ask me.  So I think about my daughters and now about my grandchildren.  They are never far from my mind, and no one has to remind me to think about them.  Even as I write these words, there is something inside that I feel, a kind of love, concern, fear, and joy all mixed up together.  But if I, a very imperfect father and grandfather, feel that way about my children and grandchildren, how much more does God love them.  If my children are precious to me, if my grandchildren mean so much to me, do they mean any less to God?  They are far more precious, for he sends his angels to watch them while they sleep.  Sometimes when I’m busy, I don’t think about them.  But the Lord never forgets.

    Our God sees and knows all the little children of the world.  Every time we move with love and compassion on behalf of the children, born and unborn, we are doing that which is dear to the heart of God.  The Lord Jesus is on the side of those who love little children. And we are on his side when we stand up for them.  Our children can teach us so much.

    Dr. Thomas Elkins writes poignantly from his own personal experience:

“We look at our own child, Ginny, who has Down syndrome, and see our own limitedness. She shows us love even when we, at first, were not totally accepting of her. These kids love us until we begin to love them back. And by loving them, we learn a whole new definition of love-something very akin to grace.”

    Our children teach us that you don’t have to be perfect to be loved.  Love is deeper than that.  You don’t have to have a spotless record.  You can be the world’s biggest failure, and still you are loved.  That’s grace!

  In Christ our Lord,

   Brown

http://youtu.be/KihQ0rJJXAI

Brown's Daily Word 8-14-13

    Praise the Lord for a sweet and sometimes sizzling summer season.  The summer season is not for sleeping and slumbering.  We have the whole winter for that.  Summer is for sowing seeds in the Kingdom.  It is the season for laboring together in the Kingdom of Christ our Lord.  I praise the Lord for Christian summer camps around the corner and around the globe.  Praise the Lord for those who with joyful abandon serve Christ and His people around the corner and around the globe.  Praise the Lord for all those who are involved passionately in the ministry of The Vacation Bible Schools.  I praise the Lord for each and every one who are blessed with Joy in our VBS ministry of this week in our church..  Praise the Lord for the VBS ministries around the corner and around the globe.  Please take time to pray for these summer missionaries in the local churches.  Praise the Lord for short term summer missionaries serving in diverse and exciting places and, at times, in very difficult places.  There is joy and fellowship in serving others.

    In the letter to the Philippians in the first verse of the first chapter,  the apostle Paul gave a familiar introduction, "Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons. Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ."  The passage reveals that the apostle Paul did not do ministry alone. He ministered with others.  In this case, as in many other cases, he served alongside his young apprentice, Timothy.

    One of the great joys of living is giving away to another that which we have received.  We are called to  do  ministry together.  That is the life of fellowship of joyful people in the church; that we are not isolated but in communion with a common mission in the common goal.  This fellowship is part of our identity as believers.

    Paul identified himself with Timothy as a servant.  The Greek word is doulos.  It is the word for slaves, or bond slaves, the lowest of the lowest of the household order of slaves.  It is a ruling motif for the pattern of service in the church. Christians are called to serve as slaves, never exalting themselves or their personal positions, but using their positions to lift up others.  Paul and Timothy were servants of Jesus our Lord and as such they were servants to the Philippian church.  That means that everything that came after is for their good and in order to promote and advance their well-being in Christ and in the world.

    There is a joy in the fellowship in our ministry within the church.  How important is the fellowship of other believers to us?  Could it be that there is a lack of joy because there is a lack of fellowship?  God invites us to the first and the greatest fellowship of all, fellowship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ.  We can enjoy that fellowship, and in that fellowship we can receive that joy by receiving Him as our Lord and Savior.  It is a joy that will never go away.  Then we can joyfully declare, "Lord, I am Your bondservant."  Then we will know the joy of fellowship with others and the joy of fellowship with Jesus.

http://youtu.be/mEXmmIji6fY

In Christ,

 Brown

Brown's Daily Word 8-13-13

It has been a beautiful week.  Janice, Jeremy, Micah, Simeon, and Ada went camping over the weekend in a very rustic campground in Northwestern Massachusetts.  They all returned back to Boston yesterday.  Sunita and Andy drove up to New York from Washington, DC yesterday, arriving late last evening.  One of young Christian leaders from Orissa, India is visiting us thus week.  Our VBS is in full swing. 
    The children with their spontaneity, creativity, and zeal bring out the child in us.  Praise the Lord for every one who labors with so much love to bless the children, the little lambs of Jesus. One of the songs the children were singing yesterday "  "Soon and very soon we are going to see the King".  The song talks about heaven. 

    I am thinking of some of the men I have known who loved Jesus and have served Him well with great devotion and dedication.  One of them is Oscar.  I met Oscar in 1990.  He was a great encourager to me.  He built some very custom made book cases for my study at the parsonage and the office at the church.  Oscar went home to be with Jesus few weeks ago, at 93 years of age.  Another saint of Jesus is George.  Together with his wife of 67 years George lives in Vermont.  George is one of the men who has been a source of encouragement for me.  Now George has been put in Hospice care.  His dear and beloved family has taken him home for the hospice care.  Another man of Jesus who has been a son of encouragement for me is Glenn, who lives in Pennsylvania with his wife.  Glenn has been very ill lately, requiring intensive hospitalization.  

    In our weekly Television outreach I invariably mention heaven.  We go there in and through Jesus alone.  I do know that there will be someone who is watching that program that night who may not be on this side of eternity a week from that night.  The book pf Revelation pictures heaven as a huge bustling city.  I suspect that John's vision in the Book of Revelation is really like a blind man describing a rainbow, or like two farmers who have spent their entire lives on the prairie's  trying to talk about a mountain vista or the vast glaciers of Alaska.  Heaven will be beyond our wildest imaginations! 

    An unknown author wrote, "As a boy, I thought of heaven as a city with domes, spires, and beautiful streets, inhabited by angels.  By and by my little brother died, and I thought of heaven much as before, but with one inhabitant that I knew.  Then another died, and then some of my acquaintances, so in time I began to think of heaven as containing several people that I knew.  But it was not until one of my own little children died that I began to think I had treasure in heaven myself. Afterward another went, and yet another.  By that time I had so many acquaintances and children in heaven that I no more thought of it as a city merely with streets of gold but as a place full of friends.  Now there are so many loved ones there I sometimes think I know more people in heaven than I do on earth." Boring?  I don't think so!

    There is at least one other thing will keep heaven from becoming boring.  Aside from the people, the places, or the vast array of things to do, Jesus  will be there! For those who know him here and love him now, being with him could never be a waste of time or anything less than the most exciting, exhilarating experience imaginable!  Jesus's  presence makes heaven, heaven!

    People who haven't yet gotten acquainted with Jesus can't possibly imagine how fascinating, creative, and exciting He can be.  His love is without limits.  His imagination goes beyond anything that has yet crossed our minds.  To know Him is to love Him.  To love him is to want to know him more and spend forever discovering the vast richness of his blessings.  This is what following Jesus is all about — beginning the never-ending adventure of discovering Jesus.  All that and heaven too!

 In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/EQcTn_oEuxU