Praise the Lord for
this wonderful season of dreams and miracles. The season is one of extravagant
generosity and caring, of gifts given and received, simple and
profound. Wherever the Good News of Jesus has been proclaimed and received the
landscape becomes transformed with brilliance and colors. We all become like
children dreaming and anticipating the best. Yesterday, Tuesday, was
designated as "Giving Tuesday", which is a growing global movement to encourage
generosity at the start of the Christmas season. It was reported that one of
the richest men announced yesterday that along with his wife they are giving
away 99 % of their wealth to bless others. We are all blessed that we get
to give and bless others. Praise the Lord for all those who love Jesus and His
Kingdom. Many of them are the most generous people, who give with great
generosity and with great sacrifice and invest in the kingdom which has eternal
returns.
I praise
the Lord for a young man whom the Lord provided to tape our weekly Television
outreach, which is seen on Fridays at 7:00 PM. I have known his parents for
the last 20 years. They are both medical professionals who have been blessed
with 6 boys. The boys love the Lord and are blessed with servant hearts. The
young man shared with me that along with studies he helps his grandpa and his
uncle. His grandpa is logger. The young man loves to work outdoors and in the
woods. His uncle is a "Licensed snake man" who has over 100 snakes including a
king cobra and rattle snakes. He also has some other exotic snakes. The young
man told me that they feed the snakes only once a week. He was describing to me
the daily habits of the snakes. Listening to him I was getting the
creeps.
Just make a note: The St. Petersburg Men's Ensemble,
straight from Russia, will be with us at the Marathon United Methodist Church.
They will present "All Night Vigil" (opus 37) by Sergei Rachmaninoff, as well as
some Russian Folk songs. The Concert will start at 7:00 PM, this Friday
December 4, 2015, preceded by dinner at 6:00 PM. All are welcome. It will be a
brilliant concert. BRILLIANT !
We will meet for our Wednesday fellowship and study this evening
at 6:00 PM.
The
news carried a story a few years ago of a faithful father, James Kim. “On
November 25, 2006 the Kims had begun a drive home to San Francisco, California,
after a Thanksgiving vacation in Oregon. They missed a turn and found
themselves stranded in snow and lost on one of Oregon’s treacherous mountain
roads — an area that is rarely plowed during the winter. At some point, James
Kim tried to back up the car to where there was less snow to block them. But
snow was falling so fast and furiously that he had to open his door to see,
authorities said. Over the next few days, the snow and rain fell unrelentingly,
Kati Kim told searchers. The family ran the car sporadically to keep warm as
temperatures dipped below freezing at night. After running out of gas, they set
a spare tire on fire and eventually burned all four tires for warmth. When the
weather let up briefly, they burned magazines and driftwood.” But after waiting
a week for rescue, James Kim got out of the safety of the car and began to walk
to get help for his family. His desire to save his family,
and his faithfulness to them, cost him his life.
'What would we do in the same situation?'”
Some body has said, “You can
survive 3 weeks without food; 3 days without water; 3 hours without shelter; 3
minutes without air, but not three seconds without hope.” We have hope because
of Christmas, and we not only survive, but we thrive, because we have a faithful
father who has sacrificed his life in order to save us and bring us out of the
mess we are in.
Our Lord God who incarnated in the Person of Jesus
Christ our Lord is on the move. Most of the world's religions believe that
history is cyclical, and that is keeps happening over and over. In this world
view there is not real purpose in life. One Eastern religion uses the symbol of
a snake or dragon eating its own tail. This show the endless cycle of life as
well as life's futility. For followers of that religion, caught in pessimism
and despair, life is a vicious cycle.
. It is
like C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where the White
Witch has frozen Narnia. Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy that it is now a place where it
is “Always winter, and never Christmas.” But Aslan (the lion representing
Christ) is on the move, and Narnia soon will turn to Spring. There are still
battles to be fought, but the White Witch will be vanquished and Narnia will
once again be a place of warmth and joy, and the true princes and princesses of
Narnia will be recognized for who they are. Just
because we cannot see it or understand it does not mean that God is not very
much on the move. He is excitedly and expediently working out his plan. The
writer of Ecclesiastes says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He
has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has
done from beginning to end. . . . I know that everything God does will endure
forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so
that men will revere him”. The Christian faith teaches that history is headed
somewhere. God is up to something. There is meaning and destiny to life, and
God is in charge of it. There is a loving God at the heart of the universe, and
we are the objects of his love. God is not sleeping on a cloud somewhere, he is
watching over us.
The Bible says, "For the eyes of the Lord
range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed
to him" (II Chronicles 16:9). The Gospels are filled with Jesus'
admonitions to be alert and watchful because God is on the move. He does not
act in the way that we predict or come when we expect. He comes at an hour that
is unanticipated. Jesus said, "It will be good for those servants whose master
finds them watching when he comes" (Luke 12:37). He says in the book of
Revelation, “Behold, I come like a thief!”
(Revelation
16:15). in
Christ,
Brown
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