Praise the Lord this New day.
This is one of the special days. Praise the Lord for the fresh,
brand new day the Lord has lavished us with one more time. Praise the
Lord for His constant care and loving kindness and tender mercies.
He redeems our lives from the pit and crowns our lives. We are renewed,
restored, and replenished with amazing power. He gathers us into His
fold as the gentle and winsome shepherd.
"Fair are the meadows, fairer
still the woodlands, Robed in the blooming garb of Spring. Jesus is
fairer, Jesus is purer, Who makes the woeful heart to sing."
"But what to those who
find? Ah, this
Nor tongue nor pen can show;
The love of Jesus, what it is,
None but His loved ones know.
Nor tongue nor pen can show;
The love of Jesus, what it is,
None but His loved ones know.
Jesus, our only
joy be Thou,
As Thou our prize will be;
Jesus be Thou our glory now,
And through eternity."
As Thou our prize will be;
Jesus be Thou our glory now,
And through eternity."
I
praise the Lord for His power to transform the world. Praise the Lord for
the Power of the Gospel that transforms human lives and brings forth new
birth. When Jesus takes over our lives something wonderful takes place.
He performs works of grace from within and without. Blessed be is His
name. Jesus is constant in a world of change. His love never
fails and never gives up on us. It goes on and on, and endures
and lasts forever. The historian Matthew Arnold put it this way, "On that sad
pagan world, disgust and secret loathing fell. Deep weariness and sated
lust made human life a hell."
The
Apostle Paul said, "they were without God and they were without hope" (Ephesians 2:12). If there
was one city in Greece that typified the hopeless condition of a people, it was
the city of Corinth, a great throbbing, commercial center surrounded by two
great seas. Ships came to it from all parts of the world. At the center
of this city there was a temple to the goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of
fertility and sexual love. We are told at one time in Aphrodite's history
she had between 5,000 and 10,000 temple prostitutes to do her bidding.
You can be sure that with women doing this personal work, those sailors
became easy converts to that religion. Moral people despised
Corinth. A "Corinthian" was understood as someone totally
debauched. Corinth was full of thieves, robbers, idolaters, and the
sexually perverted. It was moral darkness without hope.
Then
one day a little Jewish man from Tarsus showed up in the marketplace of
Corinth. By his own admission, he felt very weak. He said he was
afraid to speak into that darkness this word of hope, but he did it anyway.
I'm sure that at first the Corinthians who heard him walked away mocking
him, but then some came to listen, perhaps to laugh at him, and they stayed,
because the message this little Jewish man preached—the message of Jesus Christ
and him crucified—somehow grabbed hold of them. These people cast
themselves with a reckless abandon upon God's truth and grace, and they were
changed. These folks had been inwardly filthy and now, because of Paul's
gospel by God's Spirit, they were clean. These folks had been unholy, but now
they were set apart to God. They were wicked, and because of the gospel
Paul preached, the Judge of all the universe had declared that they were righteous.
They were changed.
The
gospel comes to men, to women, and to children. It came to the people in
Corinth in the ancient world, and it comes to people today. When
people come to embrace the gospel, the person, the work of Jesus Christ, they
are changed. The filthy are cleansed. The unholy are set apart to
God. The wicked are declared righteous. Whenever we see a
woman or a man, no matter who they are, we should never dismiss them as
hopeless. If you are someone who takes the gospel of Jesus Christ
seriously, to say that someone is hopeless is to slam the door in the face of
God. This love of which Paul speaks always hopes because it's based in
the person of Jesus Christ.
Praise the Lord for America, the beautiful. This ia a special day
in our Nation. Praise the Lord that the Church of Jesus Christ
our Lord has played a vital and integral part in shaping and molding the tenure
and contour of our great nation. The rudimentary roots and foundations of our
nation are rooted in Biblical principles and Christian convictions.
Praise the Lord for those who have gone before us, the countless witnesses who
have left a legacy of Christian witness, sacrifice and service.
Jesus, the Lord of the Church, has used His Church as the salt if the earth and
as the light of the world.
Yesterday
we watched the live telecast of the Presidential Inauguration
Concert that was held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in
our Nation's Capital. It was awe inspiring and patriotic. The premises
of the Washington Mall and its surroundings, with the gathering of so many
people and participants, were brilliant and beautiful. I was blessed with
the songs, the patriotic hymns, all the instrumentalists, the drummer, and the
Piano guys. Praise the Lord for the wisdom and guidance the Lord gave to
the framers of the Constitution, who made a provision for a peaceful transfer
and transition of power.
"Almighty
God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly beseech
thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad
to do thy will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound
learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and
confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our
liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out
of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to
whom in thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be
justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to thy law, we may show
forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of
prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble,
suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen." Book of Worship. Methodist Church.
In Christ the
King of all Nations.
Brown
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