Brown's Daily Word 3/11/16

Praise the Lord for this holy Season of Lent.  The Church around the world and around the corner is preparing for Palm Sunday and the Victorious Resurrection Sunday.  May Jesus, the Lord of the Church, continue to pour upon all of  us His great power and grace to live with a great sense of victory and hope.  I spent some time yesterday visiting with dear friends, reminiscing about our Lord's faithfulness and mercy.  I stopped by to see the Release time children and the staff yesterday.  Praise the Lord for the way the Church is ministering in the Name of Jesus around the corner and around the world. 

    Our daughters who live in Washington went to watch the Duke Basketball play on Wednesday at the ACC Tournament. The tournament is being held in Washington, DC this year.  Watching the game in person was a fulfillment of a lifelong dream for both of them.  Sunita and Laureen went, along with Asha, and Sunita admits that she shamelessly used her baby's cuteness to help her get to meet a couple of people who included Coach K's wife and David Robinson (former NBA player.  All our daughters have been Duke University basketball fans from their teen years.  Praise the Lord for the simple and sweet gifts the Lord lavishes us with.

    During this season of Lent I am reflecting on the Cross on which the Prince of Glory died.  Colossians 2:15 declares that “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”  To “disarm” someone means to take from them the means by which they might hurt you.  For example a man with a gun is not disarmed until the gun is taken away from him.  As long as he has the gun (and sufficient ammunition), there is potential for big trouble.  When Jesus died on the cross, he took the weapons out of the hands of the demons, and he publicly humiliated them.  Picture the Roman legions returning from a successful war.  As they enter the city, vast throngs of woman and children line the streets.  On and on they march, a seemingly endless parade.  Then come the victorious generals, each one accompanied by singers, dancers, and musicians.  Finally at the end of the procession you spot a long line of weary, dirty, emaciated men.  Their hands are tied, they shuffle one after another.  They are the defeated soldiers, now brought back to be displayed as proof of Rome’s invincible power.


    When Jesus died, something stupendous happened in the spiritual realm. Although it was invisible to the naked eye, it was seen by all the angels and the Old Testament saints.  They watched as Jesus entered the infernal regions and disarmed the “bad guys” - the powers of darkness - one by one.  Then he marched them in full view of his Heavenly Father so that every created being would know that he had won the victory.

    In other words, although demons have great power, they have been disarmed and cannot harm us unless we “re-arm” them by our sinful compromise.  Though they attack us, if we will use the “shield of faith” provided for us, every fiery dart will be quenched.  Some Christians live in unnecessary fear of the demonic realm because they have never understood the victory Christ won for them.  On the other hand some believers suffer oppression because they nurse wrong attitudes and dabble with evil.  That’s like giving the devil a loaded gun and saying, “Why don’t you go ahead and shoot me?”  He will always be glad to oblige.

    It is written that as a result of the cross Satan’s doom is now guaranteed.  In John 12:31 Jesus declares that “now the prince of this world will be driven out.”  In John 16:11 he adds that the “prince of this world now stands condemned.”  We learn of Satan’s final end in Revelation 20:10, “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur.”  There he will be tormented “day and night for ever and ever.”  Lo!  His Doom is Sure

    At the cross Satan was disarmed, disgraced and defeated.  The words of Martin Luther tell us what this means:

    And though this world with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
    We will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us.
    The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
    His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure;
    One little word shall fell him.

    What is that “one little word” that brings the devil down?  It is the name Jesus. He fought the fight, he stood his ground, and on the cross he utterly defeated Satan, and proved it by rising from the dead.

In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/_9oIJUK8QLA

Brown's Daily Word 3/9/16

 Praise the Lord for this brand new day.  It is going to be like summer-like day.  I frequently get up by 5:00 AM.  The parsonage is located on Main Street so the big trucks and heavy duty vehicles start roaring  by at about 4:30 AM.   Then the birds start singing.  I have never used an alarm clock.  I just get up with the singing and serenading birds.  Yesterday I drove (more than just to church or the post office) for the first time after my surgery.  I stopped to see some of the fruit trees I  planted.  They are about to burst with blossoms for the year 2016.  The tulips are also about to burst forth with vibrant colors.  Our Lord makes all things beautiful and glorious in His time.

    Sunita and Laureen, who live in Washington, DC, our Nation's capital, conveyed that it was a sunny day in the city.  Our oldest daughter, Janice, spent a couple days in Washington, DC.  She had a marvelous time. She posted a photo of a flowering tree in full bloom (redbud, perhaps).  Alice and I walked along the streets of town in the evening, just inhaling the fresh air and gazing at the open skies, vast meadows, and beautiful hills.

    We have been lavished with so much love and grace during these past few weeks.  So many have blanketed us with your fervent prayers before Jesus our Lord.  I visited my doctor yesterday for my regular check up.  She prayed  for me and thanked the Lord the healing He has given.  Some church members brought to us local honey, home made cheese cakes, and eggs from the local farms.  Some of our dear friends gave a substantial and sacrificial monetary gift to defray our costs while we were in Boston.  Some of Alice colleagues sent her home so much exotic foods on the first and second days she was back at School.  It is great to be loved.

 

    In 1896 a Kansas newspaperman named Charles Sheldon wrote a novel called In His Steps based on an unusual premise: What would it be like if in every situation we asked, “What would Jesus do?”  He described a year in the life of an American city where everyone in the city—doctors, lawyers, merchants, salespeople, teachers, students, clergy, and newspaper editors—made that question the basis for all their decisions.  It became an instant bestseller.  Though largely forgotten today, it led directly—many years and many steps later—to the WWJD bracelets that many people wear.

    According to Peter following Jesus means that sometimes we will suffer even when we have done nothing wrong.  The greatest honor for any Christian is to be like Jesus.  When we suffer unjustly, we share in a tiny portion of what happened to him.  Though he did no wrong, he was betrayed, tried, denied and crucified. Though he never sinned, he was hated by the power brokers who plotted to kill him.

    Peter pointed to Jesus and said, “He did not retaliate.”  When we are insulted, our natural inclination is to return an insult for an insult, but Jesus chose a better way.  As the old spiritual puts it, “He never said a mumblin’ word.”  Out of the worst evil, God brought forth the greatest good.  Only God could have done it.  “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  Note the little word “still.”  We were “still” sinners when Christ died for us. He died for us while we were still lost in our sin and far away from God. T hat’s the truth about all of us.  Christ died for sinners because it is only sinners that can (and need to) be saved.

    Some body aptly coined the phrase: The door to heaven is marked, “For Sinners Only.”  If you are a sinner, you can come in.  No one else need apply.  Christ died so that sinners like you and me could be saved.  Here is God’s call to us today: “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’” (Isaiah 1:18).  Here is God’s promise to those who come by faith: “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

 In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/dBQqda_YDxw

Brown's Daily Word 3/8/16

  Praise the Lord for this wonderful season of Lent.  The Lord blessed us with a very winsome day yesterday.  I watched the retirement speech by Peyton Manning, one of the great athletes of our time.  It was both moving and inspiring.  I was provoked to run the race well and fight the good fight indeed.  In the evening Alice and I walked in the open fields and streets of "Our Town"  The Canadian geese are back, numbering in the hundreds.  The Lord is orchestrating them to sing His praises and making melodious sonnets.  Our hearts were gladdened.  I spoke to a dear friend who lives in the West Coast.  He faced a great tragedy on the 18th of July 1991.  The Lord gave him a  second chance.  He lives there, serving the Lord and glorifying Him.  He is battling some precarious health problems.  He shared with me that the Lord has given him a wonderful peace through it all.  Praise the Lord.

    Some of our  daughters formally observe Lent and some do not.  I remind them that Lenten season is a journey with Jesus to Jerusalem .. to the Cross, to the grave and to the event of Resurrection.  Eugene Peterson uses in his rendering of the gospel, The Message: "Time's up!  God's kingdom is here.  Change your life and believe the Message."  What simple and glorious words to speak!

    This is our journey, a humble, modest, glorious journey.  While in Boston we met some very wonderful servants of Jesus who are going through some very serious health concerns.  Despite their trials, the Lord has infused them with great sense of triumph and victory.

    I recently read the story of a man by the name of Russ.  Russ is 87, and he's living with lymphoma.  Lymphoma has enlarged his tonsils and shown up on CT scans as spots that march from his throat down into his abdomen.  Lymphoma has also "enlarged his heart" (in the best way) and shows up as delight in each day, even the days in the week after chemo.  His enlarged heart shows up as love-filled looks into the faces of the people who fill his life, people who cuddle up next to him to warm him when he shakes with a chill that no one else feels.  Russ's enlarged heart, so to speak, shows up as public prayers of noisy gratitude to his Lord, Jesus, and as prayers of quiet humility in bed at night as he holds his wife's hand and prays aloud on behalf of both of them.

    Russ's journey is a humble one, and a remarkable, even glorious one.  Those who surround him are learning so much from him as he follows Jesus from baptism to death, tempted along the way to despair, and shouting about God's reign as he goes along.  No story describes Russ' pilgrimage better than one that happened in the bitter, metallic-tasting week following another chemotherapy session.

    Russ is a big man, 6'1," 200 pounds, muscled by World War II and a life of hard work, but weakened by chemotherapy, and so he struggled one evening to get out of his recliner.  Instead, he slipped ever so gradually and ever so uncontrollably to the floor.  Lee, his wife of 63 years, watched helplessly.  Her 85-year-old arthritic knees wouldn't let her do anything else but watch as he slid down gently to the floor.  Russ lay there on the floor of their den.  He couldn't get up.  He couldn't even do what Lee urged, roll over to get up on your knees, and back up into your chair.  He couldn't move.

    "The strangest feeling," he said later. "The strangest feeling not to be able to move!"  What did he do then?  Cry out in frustration?  Sink into despair?  Hunker down in humiliation, weeping, "This is what I've come to?"  No.  Although he may have been tempted to do all of those things, what Russ did was laugh.  He laughed wonderful, tender, silly laughs.  He laughed as he lay on the floor.  He laughed at his helplessness, and then, so did Lee.

    The neighbors laughed, too, the ones who just happened to telephone to see how he was, and who were summoned to help.  They all laughed as they worked to get Russ up off the floor, and laughed the hardest when a sort-of vertical Russ fell back into the chair, but squarely onto the lap of the man helping him.

    From his hospital bed the next few days Russ talked with others about that night.  He laughed again as he spoke about how he couldn't even move, he was so weak.  And he spoke poignantly about how it felt to be so helpless.  Then he told everyone who would listen about his deep sense of gratitude for his life and about his profound sense of peace about dying.  "Lord, Lord, Lord, thank you for this wonderful day," Russ prays day after day.  "I feel terrible," he'll tell me, "but I've had a good week."  We realize that we can  learn  about how each of our journeys can be enriched by Russ' example of Christian humility and Christian joy, this journey following Jesus, repenting and believing the good news about the nearness of God's reign.

    May Jesus, the Risen Lord, grant us  us strength for the journey, so that we may laugh with delight on Easter morning.

In Christ,

Brown

https://youtu.be/W5LriRAk5to

Brown's Daily Word 3/7/16

Thanks be to Jesus our Lord for this new day.  It is going to be  warm and brilliant.  The weather service is forecasting that Spring is making an early debut.  We are excited.  The Lord blessed us in His House yesterday.  It was great to be back in our home church after being away for so long.  There was a fellowship reception following the worship service.  It was a very sunny evening.  Alice and I took a  long walk on the streets of "our town".  This morning I am listening to the "Best of Bach".

    I have heard from so many of from all over.  Thank you for kind and prayer filled thoughts and comments.  I even heard from one of my former colleagues who lives in the Philippines. The last time I saw him was in May1977. 

    Please join me in praying for those in our circles need the Healing Touch of our Lord and Savior today.  Please pray for

• Linda, our dear friend and sweet servant of Jesus, who is recovering from recent surgery.
• Roger.. dear friend a sweet singer of Jesus.
• Jane a fellow servant of Christ , going for neurosurgery .

    One of the readings for Sunday was taken from Luke 15.  The parable recorded in Luke 15:11-32 is one of the most familiar and well-loved of all of Christ’s parables.   Barclay called it “the greatest short story in the world”.  It is often called the parable of the lost son, or more commonly, the parable of the Prodigal Son, but I would like to suggest  that this parable would be better titled: “The Parable of the Loving Father” because that is the emphasis.

    The point of the parable of the Prodigal Son is not the depth of the lostness of the son, but the depth of the love of the father.  In fact, the depth of the lostness of the son is shown only to highlight the depth of the love of the father!  This is the  major  theme throughout the Bible from Genesis 3:8 where God sought Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Revelation 22:17 where “the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!'”.  Everywhere in between we see God calling for and seeking sinners! Jesus described his own mission by saying, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

    Most of us are familiar with the story, "The Wizard of Oz".  In "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy spent the first part of the story trying to find a way to get away from home, which she found wearisome, tiring, boring, and cruel.  After she winds up in Oz, she spends the rest of the story trying to find a way back home to Kansas.  Finally, she learns the truth that she had always had the ability to go home anytime she wanted to.  All she had to do was click the heals of her ruby slippers together three times and say, “There’s no place like home.”  When she did this, she went home!  She had to come to the place where she understood that home was better than she ever thought or imagined. 

    In the parable, Jesus told the story of a young man who couldn’t wait to get away from home.  The young son very selfishly demanded that he receive his inheritance from his father, which he took and headed out to a far country.  He proceeded to "live it up", free from the restraints of his father and his rules.  What he found in the far country was not what he expected to find.  While he found good times and new friends, his money ran out.  When the money was gone, the good times and good friends ran out too.  He found himself living with a pig farmer in the far country, working day by day feeding the pigs.  He was broke, lonely, and no one cared about him!  When he finally reached bottom, he came to his senses and remembered how good things had been at home after all.  He remembered that there is no place like home, so he returned home with a plan to be a servant in his father’s house.  When he arrived back home he found more there than he ever bargained for, and in the end he really did realize that there is no place like home!    

    

    When sinners come home, they also receive a robe - a robe of righteousness -  from the heavenly Father, (Isaiah 61:10; Revelation 7:9-14).  This righteousness is not the righteousness of good works or of human goodness, but the very righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to those who receive Him by faith, Phil. 3:9! When we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, all the pain and the stain of our past is forever washed away!  After the robe came the ring, a symbol of son- ship and authority.  The one with the ring could speak for the Father, and was granted full access to all that belonged to the father!  The one with the father’s ring was in a position of great privilege.  When we come to the Father, He opens the storehouses of His grace and gives us everything He has.  What a privilege belongs to those who go home to the Father!  

    The father called for shoes to be brought for the feet of his son.  Only the slaves went barefoot, sons wore shoes!  This boy returned home desiring to be merely a hired servant, but the father was determined to recognize his position as a son. In the boy’s eyes, he didn’t even deserve to be a slave or even a hired servant, but the father looked at him and said, “This is my son!”  The father alone determines the position and worth of his children!  The end of this parable is left open.  Did the elder brother ever come into the feast?  Did he ever reconcile with his younger brother?  We do not know because those things are in the future.  Jesus left the parable open-ended so that the Pharisees and the scribes could write the final paragraph for themselves. 

     Today, we  get to write the final paragraph to our own story.  How it ends is determined by what we do with the call of the Lord in our hearts.  Though we may find ourselves in the pig pen of life we can say goodbye to the pigs and come home to the Father.  He will receive us and He will restore us to a place of blessing and rejoicing.  Maybe we are like the elder brother.  We are in the Father’s house, but we  aren’t having a festive time!  Maybe it’s time to come on down to the feast. Whichever brother we are, there is always the opportunity and the need for us  to come to the Father.   Regardless of where we are today, there’s no place like home! If we  are in the far country, we  need to come home.  The door is open, the table is spread and the Father is waiting for all who will come!

 In Christ our Lord,

    Brown

https://youtu.be/eQuJhyTI0Tk