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
