Brown's Daily Word 1/21/16

    Praise the Lord for the way He transforms the winter topography and landscape into a wonderful winter wonderland.  I talked with one of our daughters who lives in Washington, DC, who shared with me that they are expecting over two feet of snow, one of the record breaking snowfalls.  We get to see usually during this time of January a spectacular display of winter splendor.  I recall the first time my mom traveled to the US was on 20th of January 1985.  It was one of coldest days.  The wind chill factor was -40 degrees.  I, along with a dear friend of ours, were driving down to JFK airport to pick up my mom.  I was driving our VW Diesel Rabbit.  It was so cold that the diesel gelled up stopping the engine.  We came to a sudden and screeching halt near a truck stop.  We could not go anywhere.  Many vehicles were stranded along the highway.  These were the days before cell phones, e.mails, or texting.  We kept on praying.  The young man she was traveling with was led by the Lord, and somehow they got tickets to fly to the Binghamton  Airport.  My mom was wearing sandal and no winter jacket coming from India.  It was an extreme exposure for her to the winter weather of NY.  

    Every year we get touch of extreme winter weather beginning the 20th of January.  One of the blessings of this day, however, is that we are getting nearer to Spring.  I saw a large flock of geese yesterday.  They  were brave and flying with a sense of gallantry.   I saw  a massive gathering of Canadian geese grazing at the Campus of Binghamton University.  My heart was comforted to realize that we are slipping and sliding towards sweet Spring. 

    Alice and I will be driving to Boston today.  Thank you for praying.

    I would like to share the heart warming story of a man named Michael Brady.  Brady was a stuntman for Universal Studios who specialized in skydiving.  Michael was in Benson, Arizona, preparing to parachute atop a moving train.  Climbing up the ladder on the side of the train to check some rigging, Michael accidentally fell, hitting his head and dying instantly.  Michael's body was taken to the University Medical Center in Tucson.  His heart was placed inside the body of another man, Bill Wohl, who had been kept alive for the previous 159 days by a temporary artificial heart.  Six months and one day after getting a new heart, Bill Wohl received a letter from Michael Brady's family with a picture of Michael enclosed.  Bill was surprised to find that he had the heart of a 36-year-old Hollywood stuntman.

    "I looked at this picture," Bill said, "at this incredibly good-looking, super-fit, super athletic guy, and I thought, 'Are you kidding me?  That's whose heart I've got?'"  Before his heart transplant, Bill Wohl had been a Type-A, overweight, money-obsessed businessman pursuing a jet-setter lifestyle.  Today, he works part-time, spending most of his new-found energy winning speed and performance medals in swimming, cycling and track.

    Recently interviewed by a reporter in his Scottsdale condo, Bill Wohl leaned forward in his chair, glanced up at the bronze, silver, and gold medals he has won, lowered his voice, and said, "Every day, all day, I thank God for Michael Brady. When I ride, when I work out…the biggest thing is to honor him."
A new heart changed him.

    When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, His heart is in us.  When His heart beats in us the biggest thing in our lives will be to honor Him, and we will have a great passion for His Gospel and His Kingdom.

    In Matthew 28, we find the Lord Jesus and His disciples on a mountain in Galilee. Throughout Scripture, mountains were places where God revealed Himself to men and women.  In Matthew's Gospel, we learn that Jesus conquered the devil's third temptation in a mountain setting; that Jesus preached the greatest sermon ever preached from a mountain; that the Lord lingered in prayer by Himself on a mountain; that He revealed His glory to Peter, James and John on a mountain; that He unfolded the endtimes to His disciples on a mountain.  It's no surprise, then, that the Lord Jesus issued the Great Commission from a mountain.  We don't know the name of this mountain, but it might be appropriate to call it Heartbeat Mountain, because the Lord revealed His heart so clearly there.  "And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'  Amen" (Matt. 28:18-20). "all authority";  "all nations";  "all things";  "always. "WOW!

In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/F0M0NALW7EM

Brown's Daily Word 1/19/16

Praise the Lord for this snowy day.  People who love snow and all the winter sports love this day.  My wife loves this kind of day.  It has snowed, and the sun is shining on fresh snow, all dazzling and sparkling.  A warming trend is on the way. 

    I listened to classical music this morning.  My soul was full.

    Hellen  Keller wrote: "No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new heaven to the human spirit."

    From the wonderfully encouraging book of Philippians, especially chapter 1, verses 3-14, let us look at how our Lord is at work in the world. The Philippian church had given Paul a gift for the other churches, and Paul returned their gift with this letter, in which are remarkable gifts of truth that can change lives.

Paul thanked God upon every remembrance of them.  Their ministry had produced some great things in the past; they had helped other churches and had been a blessing to the body of Christ.  Paul thanked God for them and for the fellowship they enjoyed in the past.

    Remembering is a sacred act in the Bible, one commended by God.  The Passover was an observance in which Israel was to remember how God had liberated them from an oppressive life of bondage and into freedom.   The Lord's Supper is a commandment to remember that Christ is our Passover for us, that in His body and blood we have our freedom and are on the way to our promised land. The Book of Psalms is filled with the command to remember.  David, in Psalm 77:1, honored what God had done in the past: "I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old."

    Failure to remember what God has done is sinful: "Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders; they did not remember the multitude of Your mercies, but rebelled by the sea—the Red Sea" (Ps. 106:7).  When we bring to remembrance about the mighty deeds of our Lord in the world and in our own lives we are encouraged and blessed.  When we recount all His blessings and promises in our lives we are encouraged and are provoked to press on and keep on running the race. 

    There was a young man whom we shall call Toby.  Toby had Down syndrome, but Toby also had a dream.  Toby wanted to be in the Special Olympics and try to run a 50-yard dash.  Toby was nearly 30 years of age, very overweight and had asthma, but he had a dream, and he knew that he could accomplish it.  So it was that these special needs people lined up on that sunny day at a football field, the gun sounded, and off they went!  Though you probably would not have recruited any of them for a track team, it became evident that they were giving it their all.  Toby was so heavy that he had problems breathing, causing him to fall far behind, and finally he just fell.  There, face to the grass, his tears now mixing with the sod, his big body heaved with disappointment.

    Then, out of the corner of everyone's eyes came his dad.  You see, Toby's daddy had a dream that was greater than his son's dream.  He wanted that race for Toby more than Toby wanted that race for himself.  He only wanted him to finish, not to compete or necessarily to win, but he wanted his boy to have a victory.  He was more sure even than Toby that it would happen.  For this reason he ran out, picked up that big boy and started running with him thrown over his shoulder.  He started hollering to his boy, "You are going to make it Toby!  You will make it all the way, son!"  Toby got into it, as well, and started hoping and hollering!  "Yeah, Dad!  We gonna make it!"

    We are like Toby.  We will be victorious not because of who we are but whose we are.  We belong to a loving and mighty Savior who is unwilling that any should be lost.  He will see victory.  He will see that we are kept, that we will be brought to a place of rejoicing by the Lord Himself.  He is strongest in our weakness.  Of that, we are more than confident and  and sure.  His sovereign grace and His unstoppable kingdom leave us no other option but to believe.

In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/B1nyzGR3tUE

Psalm 4:8

Brown's Daily Word 1/18/16

The Lord blessed us with a beautiful weekend.  Our granddaughter Ada in Boston celebrated her 5th birthday.  She kept her family busy.  The Lord blessed us with a joyful day in His House yesterday.  He blessed with a great season of laughter and joy in worship and celebration.  There were moments of impromptu sharing and celebrations.

    I officiated in a  wedding of a beautiful young couple this past Saturday.  I had known the bride since her very early days.  She comes from a beautiful and winsome Christian family.  Her grandpa is a retired united Methodist minister.  One of her aunts is a judge.  One of the bridesmaids is a beautiful Indian daughter of a Christian family from Kerala, India.  The organist was a very gifted and talented Christian artist born in Taiwan.  The wedding was held in one of our most beautiful United Methodist churches.  The church is a gothic Cathedral-style building.  When the young organist played the Pipe organ the music reverberated throughout the whole building.  She played some of the powerful hymns of the church along with  the classical wedding march and the recessional pieces.  One of the special places this church has for me is that our three daughters were married there.   This was  a great occasion for the celebration and declaration of Christian marriage between a man and a  woman, ordained by the Lord which the Lord blesses as He blessed the marriage at Cana of Galilee  where He performed His first miracle according to the Gospel according to John.

    It was Helen Keller who said, “Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing at all.”  Those words would ring true no matter who said them, but coming from someone who lived a life like Helen Keller, they merit special consideration.  Blind, deaf and unable to speak from a very early age, she somehow found a way out of the darkness and into the world around her.  Her story is one of the great miracles of the twentieth century.  Millions of people have drawn inspiration from her example.  


    Let us carefully consider her words : “Life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing at all.”  When we bring this observation over into the spiritual realm it looks something like this: The life of faith is inherently a life of risk.  Let us  go  back to the Bible and take a look at the men and women who did great things for God.  Almost without exception, they were risk-takers who weren’t afraid to lay it all on the line for Jesus our Lord.

.  Consider these examples . . .

    Noah built an ark in a land where it did not significantly rain.
    Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, the only home he knew, to go to the Promised Land.
    Moses returned to Egypt - the land from which he was a fugitive, to lead the people of God out of Egypt.
    Joshua marched around the walls of Jericho, following God's commands, in order to knock them down.
    David, a youth, defeated Goliath, a seasoned soldier who was 9 1/2 feet tall.
    Elijah, a "wanted" man, faced down the prophets of Baal.
    Esther, a very beautiful young woman who had risen to be queen, risked everything to save her people.
    Daniel, a young captive, refused to defile himself with the king’s food.
    Nehemiah led the Jews to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

    When we read the Bible, again and again we discover that the men and women who accomplished great things for God weren’t content to accept the status quo. They thought that more could be done if only someone would lead the way.  And when no one else stepped forward, they themselves volunteered.  Christ calls us to find out what he is doing in the world, and then to fling ourselves wholeheartedly into his cause.

    I want to live until the very last moment, fully invested for Christ and His Kingdom, doing everything I can to advance his cause in the world, taking risks on the basis of Kingdom principles.  Staying in the boat may be comfortable and safe, but that’s not what the life of faith is all about.

In Christ.

 Brown

https://youtu.be/HcnfT4arZtI