Brown's Daily Word 2/6/15

Praise the Lord for this new day.  I woke up early, around 4 AM, and looked at the moon shining brilliantly upon the snow-capped fields.  It looked glorious.  A few years ago I spent two weeks of summer in Alaska, where, during that time of year, daylight lasts for 20 hours every day.  The temperature reached into the 90's while I was there.  The Alaska winters are long, but the locals told us they know how to celebrate in the winter months.  They are blessed with hot springs all around, so they celebrate well the simple gifts of the Lord. 

    Join us this evening for our weekly television outreach at 7:00 PM on Time Warner Cable channel 4.  We are getting ready for our February gathering and celebration tomorrow 5:30 PM.  The church Hall is being transformed into a banqueting Hall once again as our young Chef Dave Childs and the team are preparing a very special meal tomorrow.  I met with the  team yesterday. They are excited about serving the Lord, blessing His people.  Dr Dino Pedrone, the president of Davis College will be the guest speaker for this event. 

    We will gather for worship at 10:15 AM at Union Center and at 9:00 AM at Wesley UMC.  Sunday School will meet at 9:00 AM at Union Center.

    One of the readings for this  Sunday is taken from Isaiah 40, "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."  Some Biblical scholars  believe that Isaiah has destroyed the poetic structure as he spoke about flying then running and then walking.  You would think it would be the other way around, they say, but I know the Lord gave His word to Isaih the exact way the Lord had it in His mind and heart.  They who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength and, sometimes because of God's intervention, they will mount up with wings as eagles.  They will be carried above their circumstances and be able to dance among the clouds.  Other times there will be the interaction of God in which they will run and not be weary.  And other times they will be able to walk and not faint.

    We all  have gone through some of  the difficult experience in our lives.  We become overwhelmed. There are times when we wake up up in the morning and wonder if we can make it through the day.  We wake up in the morning and wonder if we can make it to noon.  At noon we  wonder if we can make it to evening.  We do not expect to fly.  We do not  expect to run.  We  just wonder if we can even walk.  Then, in the evening, when we get into bed, we thank God that we walked without fainting.

    God keeps his promises according to his purposes and according to our needs. Sometimes we mount with wings as eagles and soar among the clouds, and almost touch the stars at great events in life.  Other times we run and are not weary; we have the second wind of grace.  At other times, we walk one step at a time, and we don't faint.  But we  know this: God will not lie to us.  They who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.  Sometimes they mount up with wings as eagles.  Other times we run and are not weary, and at other times, at other times, we walk and we don't faint.  We can count on that.

In Christ,

Brown.

http://youtu.be/zC617kE1maU

Brown's Daily Word 2/5/15

Praise the Lord for this new day.  He blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday gathering of study and fellowship.  It was a mild day yesterday but it is getting wintry again.  When it is wintry and cold I like to read about Jesus by the Sea of Galilee... by the beach and boat.  

    In verse 22 of Luke 8, Jesus gets in the boat with His disciples.  A storm arises on the lake, but Jesus is sleeping in the bow. The water is white with foam, and the disciples are white with fear yet Jesus rebukes the wind and the turbulent winds become calm.  The disciples wonder, "Who is this man, that even the wind and the waves obey Him?"

    In verse 27, Jesus encounters a demon-possessed man, a man who lived among the tombs, a Satanic Superman, as it were, too strong to be chained and too powerful to be subdued.  Yet Jesus rebukes the demons and drives them into a herd of swine, and the disciples wonder, "Who is this man, that even the demons obey Him?"

    In verse 40, we read that the crowd was expecting Jesus.  Here you have a man whom nature obeyed and demons answered to.  Here you have a man who healed the sick and touched the lame.  Jesus calms the stormy sea and the crowds wonder, "Who is this man, who acts more like a God than a man?"

    About this time Jairus' daughter is dying, a girl of about 12, the daughter of a well-respected ruler of the synagogue.  Jairus, a man of power and influence, is the one on his hands and knees this time, begging Jesus to heal his little girl.
As Jesus makes his way through the crowd there appears a woman who has been suffering for 12 years.  Mark tells us that she had spent all her money trying to get well but only got worse.  All the pills and prescriptions and potions could not prevent her suffering.  She was a nobody—the crowds thought so, the disciples thought so, even she, herself, knew it to be true.  Suddenly Jesus declares,  "Someone touched me!"

    "But Lord," Simon Peter interrupts, "everybody's touching You!"  "No, Simon," Jesus said, "somebody touched me."  Jesus called a "nobody" a "somebody."
Jesus has a way of stopping for the nobodies.  Remember that He was on His way to raise Jairus' daughter from the dead, but Jesus stops for the nobody because He wants to show His disciples that He is sovereign over nature, He is sovereign over demons, He is sovereign over sickness, and He is sovereign over death.  That which seems like an interruption to us is really an opportunity for Jesus to display His greatness.

    The woman  suffering for 12 years  had a living  faith. "At last, here is a man who can heal me.  I know I am unclean, unrespected and unworthy; but if I can just snatch His sleeve I know I will be healed."  And suddenly, a nobody reaches out of nowhere and touches the hem of the garment of God.  Twelve long years of bleeding stopped in a heartbeat, and Jesus said, "Daughter, your faith has healed you, go in peace."  This is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus calls a woman "daughter," and she goes from being a nobody to being a somebody, to being a child of God.

    In his commentary on the Gospels, John Calvin posited that while this woman was walking toward Christ, Christ was pulling her to Himself.  There is a synergism at play in the  passage, and the God who pulls us to Himself joins us for the journey.  It is not our grasp on God that saves you; but, rather, it is God's grasp on us. 

    Karl Marx said that religion is just a crutch for the weak, but Jesus Christ is so much more than just our crutch; He is our very life support.  Without Him we would die; without Him we would perish; without Him we would be but grass for the mower.  He is a prophet, but He is more than a prophet — He is the very Word of God.  He is a priest, but He is more than a priest — He is the Lamb that was slain. He is a king, but He is more than a king — He is the King of all kings; and at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  He is Lord over nature, He is Lord over demons, He is Lord over sickness, and He is Lord over death.  He is the Alpha and the Omega.  He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end.  He sits in the engine room and the caboose, traveling before us and behind us on this journey of life.

    Jesus Christ exchanges His purity for our contamination. He takes our grime and gives us grace.  He takes our filth and gives us faith.  The God who justifies us in verse 44, will glorify us in verse 54.  The God who heals our disease in verse 44, will raise us from the dead in verse 54.  On that day, every tear will be wiped from every eye, and every sickness from every saint and we will hold not only the hem of the garment of God, but with hands outstretched we will be embraced by the everlasting arms of the Almighty.  

 In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/ePPOaX6HTPI

Brown's Daily Word 2/4/15

Praise the Lord for this Wednesday.  It will be a little milder here in New York today.  Praise the Lord for the highway departments that keep the way clear, plowing and salting the roads and make them safe and drivable.  I was driving yesterday and was fascinated by the snow walls by the road side.  I had spoken with our daughter Janice in Boston, who said some snow drifts are over five feet in Boston.  Last night was beautiful last night. The moon, my wife heard described as the Snow Moon, was splendid and sparkling.  Indeed, the heavens declare the glory of the Lord. 

    We will gather for our Wednesday Evening fellowship and study at 6 PM.  We are studying the Book of Amos.  The choir will practice at 7:30 PM.  The big event for this month for is the Agape Banquet that will be held this coming Saturday at 5:30 PM.  Our young Chef, David Childs, and his team are preparing a very special meal.  Dr. Dino Pedrone will be speaking.  Tomorrow is the last day for reservations.  Please call 607-748-6329 or email at  umcgospel@aol.com.

    My wife and I used to  watch the weekly television show called, "Extreme Makeover:Home Edition".  The December 20, 2004, issue of Time magazine had an article describing the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  It told the story of Alice Harris of South Central Los Angeles.  She still remembers the day the good people from ABC volunteered to demolish her house.  In 2003, a flood had left the community activist and her family, who had no insurance, living in one bedroom.  Worst of all, the waters had ruined a stash of Christmas toys Harris had collected for poor children.  Harris said, "I figured no one was going to come to Watts and help us.  No one had ever done that."  But Extreme Makeover: Home Edition found her.  Its bullhorn-wielding host, Ty Pennington, shipped Harris and her family off for a week's vacation in Carlsbad, California, while over one hundred workers and neighbors tore her home down to the foundation and built a new, bigger one.  They replaced the Christmas toys and donated appliances, mattresses, and landscaping to her flood-stricken neighbors.  They even threw in a basketball court for the neighborhood kids.  Now that's an extreme makeover.

    All of these extreme makeovers have something in common: an outsider comes in with a one-two-three program.  First, that outsider sees the possibilities you couldn't see.  Second, that outsider does what you couldn't do.  Third, that outsider pays for what you could not afford to pay.

    In a very real sense, extreme makeovers are our Lord's business.  Our Lord is  is in the extreme makeover business.  He's in the business of transforming your life and mine.  He sees the extreme need  in us  that we're not apt to see in ourselves. He also is able to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.  He is able to pay the price for whatever he does.  We cannot afford the price.  He paid it for us.  But his makeover is a little bit different in one area.  The reality show makeover is an external job.  God's is an internal job.  He makes each of us a new person from the inside out.

    The Bible is primarily a book of good news.  It's the story of God's extreme makeover on our  behalf.  The story starts in Genesis 1 and goes all the way through the end of Revelation.  The coming of Jesus makes this extreme makeover possible.  In "Listening to Your Life", Frederick Buechner writes:

"When the Child was born, the whole course of human history was changed. That is a truth that is as unassailable as any truth—art, music, literature, Western culture itself with all its institutions, and Western man's whole understanding of himself and his world. It is impossible to conceive how differently things would have turned out if that birth had not happened, whenever, wherever, however it did. And there is a truth beyond that for millions of people who have believed since. The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life, but a new way of living it. The truth of this incarnation should never cease to amaze us. The mystery of the Eternal cradled in a manger elicits awesome wonder and grateful praise."

 

In Christ,

   Brown

http://youtu.be/WxLA1NX9gxY

Brown's Daily Word 2/3/15

Praise the Lord for this new day.  It snowed around here yesterday.  Some of the giant evergreen trees looked like gigantic Christmas trees, covered with fresh and stainless snow.  Praise the Lord for the way He surrounds us with and showers upon us His simple gifts and gracious blessings.  We often do not fully appreciate the splendor and majesty in those simple gifts.

    When we  read from Ecclesiastes the writer of this Book is calling us to joy.  The center of that joy is the Lord.  The Life in and through Jesus is a gift and a blessing.  Though it is transitory here on earth, because of Jesus it is abundant and eternal.  Life in Jesus is an invitation to Joy, deep joy.  It is, further, an invitation to a commission to share with others that might know the One who is the The Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We are called to enjoy eating, drinking, and working In Ecclesiastes chapter 2.  It is because these gifts and blessings of grace come "from the hand of God" (2:24).  In chapter 3 it is because these blessings are "God's gift to man" (3:13).  The same is true in chapter 5, which also says that God keeps us "occupied with joy" in our hearts (5:20).  The writer may be frustrated with life in this fallen world, but he still acknowledges the gifts that come from the hand of God.

    We see this perhaps most clearly in Ecclesiastes 9, where the writer tells us to enjoy bread and wine because "God has already approved what you do" (9:7). This is not a blanket endorsement of everything that people do, as if God would ever approve of wickedness.  The Preacher is saying mainly that eating and drinking have the blessing of God so that we may enjoy them.  Life's enjoyments are not guilty pleasures, but godly pleasures—or at least they ought to be.  A merry heart has God's approval.  It is part of his gracious will for our lives.  

    The Preacher begins with the basic pleasures of eating and drinking: "Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart" (9:7).  The word "go" conveys a sense of urgency.  This statement is not descriptive, but imperative.  We are hereby commanded to eat our bread and drink our wine with joyful hearts.  It is not so much the eating and drinking that the Preacher is after, but the heartfelt joy. —we are charged to receive those pleasures with God-centered joy in the heart.

    The celebration continues in verse 8: "Let your garments be always white.  Let not oil be lacking on your head."  White garments were the "dress up clothes" of the ancient Near East.  Many festive occasions were adorned with robes of white. They were worn by war heroes on victory parade, by slaves on the day they gained their freedom, and by priests on the high holy days of Israel ( 2 Chronicles 5:12).  The last pleasure that the Preacher mentions is work, which is part of our portion in life: "Enjoy … your toil at which you toil under the sun" (9:9).  The phrase "under the sun" does not refer to backbreaking labor in the heat of the day, but to the regular calling of our earthly existence—whatever God has called us to do.  Whether we labor in law, or science, or education, or construction, or medicine, or ministry, or the arts (or in all of those areas through the high calling of home-making), God has given us good work to do.  As the Preacher has said before, this work is a gift from God, which we should enjoy as long as we can.

    He goes on in verse 10 to reinforce what he says about work by giving a strong command: "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might" (9:10).  Here the Bible tells us what to do, namely, whatever lies near at hand.  The point is not that we should work randomly, or do whatever we please.  Rather, in the course of God's providence, some things lie in the path of our duty—things that are pleasing to God.  The Preacher also tells us the way to do this work—not just what to do, but how to do it: with all our might.  As we have the opportunity, we should work with all our strength.  Yet how easy it is to while away the hours, not focusing on the things we know that God wants us to do, but idling away our time with lots of little distractions.  The Puritan William Perkins said: "We must take heed of two damnable sins …. The first is idleness, whereby the duties of our callings … are neglected or omitted.  The second is slothfulness, whereby they are performed slackly and carelessly."  Ecclesiastes 9:10 is the perfect remedy for both of these sins because it tells us both what to do and how to do it.  Do whatever you are called to do, and do it with all your strength.

    Derek Kidner says that God alone "is the source of all the gifts of earthly life: its bread and wine, festivity and work, marriage and love."  Every pleasure comes from the God of all pleasure, and therefore it should be received with thanksgiving and praise.  Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: "Earth's crammed with heaven,  And every common bush afire with God;  But only he who sees, takes off his shoes."  Do you see all the gifts that God has given to you, and then respond with holy praise?  

    For people who enjoy as many blessings as we do, the words "Thank you, Father," should never be far from our grateful lips.  This is especially true for everyone who knows the grace of God through the saving work of Jesus Christ—His death on the cross for our sins and His return from the grave with the free gift of eternal life.  We have even more to celebrate than the Preacher of Ecclesiastes because we know "the good news of great joy" that God announced through the coming of Christ ( Luke 2:10).  It is for this reason, most of all, that we are able to eat our bread with joy, and drink wine with a merry heart, and enjoy life with the people we love, and find enjoyment in the hard work of our daily calling.  It is all because we know the Savior.

    The pleasures in this passage are all pleasures that Jesus enjoyed during his earthly ministry.  One of the best ways for us to enjoy life with Jesus is by sharing in his pleasures.  All of the good things mentioned in Ecclesiastes 9 symbolize the gifts of his grace.  Jesus gives us our daily bread ( Luke 11:3).  He makes our hearts glad with the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper.  He has anointed our heads with the oil—the oil of the Holy Spirit.  He has invited us to the wedding supper of heaven, where he will be our worthy groom and we will be his beautiful bride ( Revelation 19:7, 9).  He has promised to give us spotless white to wear in his eternal kingdom, where we will join the celebration that never ends (see Revelation 7:9, 14).

In Christ,

http://youtu.be/VRwGmGWxPsI

Brown's Daily Word 2/2/15

The Lord blessed us with a beautiful weekend.  Our church family gathered to celebrate the 90th birthday Juna Tinkham Saturday afternoon.  So many people gathered to give thanks for Juna, for her faith and for her faithfulness.  Many gave testimonies how the Lord has used her to bless so many.  It was indeed a great day to celebrate the blessings of Jesus and His great faithfulness.  The Lord blessed us in His house yesterday.  In the evening we gathered for a Super Bowl party.  It was a great game.  Our grandchildren, who live in Boston, were rooting for the Patriots.  The Patriots won.  It was a great game.  It snowed almost a foot here last night into this morning.  All schools were cancelled.  All children love snow days. 

    This for friends overseas.  Today is the groundhog day in America.  The groundhog predicts the length of the winter.  If he sees his shadow it indicates that we will have six more weeks of winter.  Today it was reported that the groundhog saw its shadow.  It looks like we will have six more weeks of winter.  One of the captions I saw was a big German Shepherd that did not like the prediction by the Ground hog, the so the big, ferocious German Shepherd killed the groundhog.   Jesus promises that there is a season for everything.

    One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 91.  In  Psalm 91:4 it is written, "He will shelter you under his wings."  What a picture!  Growing up in the village back in Orissa we raised our own chickens.  We had hens and roosters.  Hens lay eggs and hatch them.  When the chicks are hatched the hen will bring them out in a parade and procession.  It was amazing to see the little chicks hopping around chirping, pecking, doing chick stuff.  All of a sudden, the chicks and the mother hen all become aware that there's a predator in the vicinity, possibly a fox or a haulk.  The mother hen lifts both wings simultaneously, and within just a few seconds all the baby chicks disappear under them.  They hide there.  They're sheltered there.  They regroup there.  They are okay under the wings for a time. Eventually they have to crawl out to face the real world, but for a time there's nothing quite like being sheltered under the mother's wings.

    This is very near the heart of God, bound up in the very character and essence of God, to provide a kind of hiding place for his children under his wings.  Just as God provided cities of refuge in the Old Testament, for those who were running from blood avengers, today God delights in spreading his protective wings and enfolding his frightened, weary, children under those wings.  Then, when the time is right, when strength has been renewed, when souls have been restored, He lifts his wings, and we venture back out into the world a little calmer, a little stronger, a little more secure.

    Psalm 9:9 spells it out clearly, when it says all who are oppressed may come to Him, and He is a refuge for them in their time of trouble.  Throughout the Psalms, there is an invitation by God Himself to come under His wings.  We need refuge.  Oppressed people do.  Troubled people do.  Weary people do.  Grieving people do. Worried people do.  Disappointed and people do.  Lonely people do.  

    Psalm 91:15 says, "When he calls upon me, then I will answer him.  When he calls upon me, I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him."  The  first practical step toward accessing God's refuge is to call out and admit that something or someone is chasing us down and wearing us out.  It's admitting we need to find a city of refuge, a hiding place.  We  have to say, " we  can't outrun this one.  My only hope is a city of refuge."

    These days, we  don't have to run to a city of refuge.  We can access the refuge of God any time, anywhere, but the first step is for us to move from independence to dependence on God.  We have to call out.  That final city of refuge is open and available to any that would choose to access it through Christ.  Jesus is saying, "Come on in."  This is at the heart of who God is, providing refuge for the lost and broken in this world and total, absolute refuge for all of us in the next.

In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/cH_LLGiE0f0