Praise the Lord
for this Friday. We are just a week away from Good
Friday. Praise the Lord for this Holy Season. We are getting
ready for Palm Sunday worship and celebration. We will gather for Sunday
School at 10:00 AM. Worship will begin at 11:00. This is our First
Palm Sunday celebration at Marathon. We are excited. There will be
a mega-Palm Sunday and Pre-Easter Banquet following the morning worship.
The banquet will be held in the church fellowship hall. The menu will
consist of Italian, Indian, and Mexican Cuisines, along with a plethora of
desserts. My wife has been following the NCAA March Madness (College
Basketball). She yells out when the teams that she is cheering
on are winning. Some of our daughters, though living away, are
following their mother's lead as they cheer for many of the same
teams. We had our nieces and nephews come up for dinner. When they come
here we get "Free Tech Support".
Once
again plan to be in the Lord's House this coming Sunday as we join Him on His
Triumphant Entry to Jerusalem on the First Palm Sunday.
I
recently came across a story as it was told by “Dear Abby” in a response to
someone’s question.
A young man from a wealthy family was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. "Bill’ and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation, they found the perfect car.
On the eve of his graduation, his father handed him a gift wrapped Bible. Bill was so angry that he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house.
He and his father never saw each other again. It was the news of his father’s death that brought Bill home again.
As he sat one night going through his father’s possessions that he was to inherit, he come across the Bible his father had given him. He brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier’s check, dated the day of his graduation - in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together.
A young man from a wealthy family was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. "Bill’ and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation, they found the perfect car.
On the eve of his graduation, his father handed him a gift wrapped Bible. Bill was so angry that he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house.
He and his father never saw each other again. It was the news of his father’s death that brought Bill home again.
As he sat one night going through his father’s possessions that he was to inherit, he come across the Bible his father had given him. He brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier’s check, dated the day of his graduation - in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together.
As
I thought about this story, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people in this
world have done the same thing to God - literally tossed aside a wonderful
promise, because they didn’t understand it, or they didn’t believe that it was
possible. In our world, we are taught that; “if it sounds to good to be
true, it probably is.” So many of us have been taken in by “empty
promises,” that we are leery of anything or anyone that tells us we can have
something for nothing.
THE WORLD SIMPLY DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!
THE WORLD SIMPLY DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY!
God,
however, never made a promise that He cannot fulfill. The truth of
the matter is, the world is full of empty promises, but God's promises are
true. We watch TV, and the advertisements tell us that we can be happy,
rich, or famous, if only we purchase a certain product. It doesn’t take
long before we have been fooled enough to know that the world’s promises are
empty. God is different. Instead of promises full of emptiness, on
Easter he gave us emptiness that is full of promise.
Let us think about the promises of Easter. There are three, each of which is marked by something empty. The marls of these promises are an empty cross, and empty tomb, and empty burial clothes. It is the very fact that each of these is empty that assures us that God’s promises are real. Jesus could not be contained by the cross, the tomb, or even his burial clothes, and so we can be sure of the fullness of God’s promises in our lives.
In Christ,
Brown
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