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Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Brown's Daily Word 3/7/17


    Praise the Lord for He is worthy of all our praise.  The Lord has blessed us with beautiful week. Spring is in the air. The days are getting longer and warmer.  Alice and I walked for over one and a half miles yesterday. The walkers were out, young people were  busy playing on the basketball court.  The children were smiling and laughing.  We saw a few Canadian geese circling around town as the harbingers of Spring.  We saw daffodils, Tulips, and Crocuses about burst to forth with vibrant colors and smells.  We saw the snowbells in full bloom.  Our hearts were gladdened and stirred with gratitude to Jesus who makes happen the beautiful season for the good of His people all over the world.  



    I get to watch Aerial America on the Smithsonian Channel.  I am overwhelmed and deeply blessed as we watch magnificent natural wonders, valleys, prairies Mesas, canyons, rivers, lakes, and National parks all over America the Beautiful. It seems magical and mysterious and yet it is all true and real.  I get to watch Bizarre Foods with host Andrew Zimmern.  Praise the Lord for the diverse foods the Lord gives to His people.  It is all wonderful and I say, "What a wonderful world!"   Wonderful and glorious is the world that is yet to come. 



    We are able to talk to our grandchildren on Google Chat.  Last evening we had a beautiful chat with Sunita and her 3 beautiful little ones.  It is always a great treat. 



    We praise the Lord for you all.  During my active ministry I was part of the Board of Directors for the Mission Society that is headquartered in the Atlanta area in Georgia.  I got to meet and know some of the wonderful missionaries  who are serving all over the world.  Missionaries are a breed apart.  I hear and I read what the Lord is doing through missionaries and evangelists all around the globe.  It is exhilarating and exciting to see the work of Jesus that is on the move.  The Savior's work and his workers are relentless and undaunted. Praise the Lord for all those who give, those who send, and those who go.  It is an amazing enterprise with eternal returns.  This enterprise has been under same management for over two thousand years.  May Jesus increase His tribe.  May He bring forth great harvest.  It is an exciting time to be alive and be part of His eternal Purposes and Kingdom.

     During this holy season of Lent we are invited walk with Jesus in His passion and suffering as He marches to Jerusalem as the victor and conqueror.  The reading for last Sunday was  focused the temptation of our Lord in the wilderness. In Gospel according to Mark the account is brief and poignant, and encapsulates the mystery and wonder of it all.  It is written that the Lord, soon after His Baptism, is driven by the Spirit into wilderness, where He was for forty days, tempted by Satan.  He is with wild beasts and the angels ministered to Him.  The Good News is the that even when we are wandering in the wilderness, tested and tormented  by the adversary, Satan, and the place where we find ourselves becomes the habitation of dragons, the Good News is that He places His angels around us and amongst us and the ministers to us.  WOW!

    In and of ourselves we are no match for Satan, but the Lord is the strength of our lives, and He will come to our aid.  We believe 1 John 4:4: "the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."  Though Satan tried to manage the death of Jesus, Jesus did not die a victim, but a sacrifice.  He did not die forever as all other mortals had, but rather he rose again, seizing the very keys of death from the grip of the devil.

    Colossians 2:15 says, "And having disarmed the powers and authorities [meaning Satan and those he controlled], He [Jesus] made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."  In the book of Esther, Haman was not merely defeated but he was hanged on the gallows he had erected to disgrace and destroy Mordecai.  According to Revelation 20:10, Satan, who is now the prince of the power of the air, will be "thrown into the lake of burning sulfur … [to] be tormented day and night for ever and ever."  We celebrate because the ancient, vile enemy who once controlled our lives has been brought low by the might of our God.  "[Thanks be to God!  He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" (1 Cor. 15:57)

    Each of us know people whose lives are heavy under the oppression of death, torment, guilt and fear.  Our Christian privilege is to tell them that God has provided for their salvation.  We may not go galloping into people's lives shouting, "You're saved!  You're saved!"—but neither do we dare to pass silently without ever a whisper of the good news from us.


    John, in the book of Revelation, saw a vision of our future—"a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.  They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.  They cried out in a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb'" (Rev. 7:9-10).  God not only saves us, but he exalts us until we worship with the nations in his presence.  The promise of an amazing future in Jesus propels us to celebrate even now.  

    In the Book of Esther the word "God" does not occur not even once, yet the Lord is at work throughout the book.  The Lord defeats the schemes and wicked plans of the enemy.  People celebrate the victory of our Lord God that He bestows freely on His people.  Purim is this celebration of the victory of the Jewish people in this amazing book - a kind of Jewish Mardi Gras.  Eugene Peterson, in his book Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, writes, "The rabbis had a saying that although moderation is required throughout the year, on Purim it was permitted to drink wine 'until you didn't know the difference between blessed be Mordecai and cursed be Haman.'"

    We don't need to get drunk to celebrate, but we should know how to celebrate our salvation.  Ephesians 5:18-20 says, "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.  Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

    If the Jews celebrated so exuberantly, how much more should we?  If they feasted, how much more should we—If they were generous with gifts to one another and to the poor around them, how much more should we be joyfully generous?  After all, "you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9).

In Christ,

Brown

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