Brown's Daily Word 1-21-10

Good morning,
Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.” I know many people who say they have never experienced a miracle, but the truth is that we all experience miracles all day every day. Right now we have no sensation of motion, but we are sitting on a planet that is spinning around its axis at approximately 1,000 mph. In fact, Planet Earth will make one full rotation in the next twenty-four hours.
Praise the Lord for the miracles He performs every day all the way. Last Sunday's Gospel reading was taken from John 2. Jesus, our Lord, performed His first miracle, turning water in to wine. John recorded only seven miracles in his Gospel, and these miracles are called " Signs" in the Gospel according to John. Before the Resurrection the Lord performed Seven miracles which were recorded in John. John wrote, "But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life,in His Name".
Thomas Carlyle said imagine a man who had lived in a cave his entire life stepping outside for the first time to watch the sunrise. Carlyle indicated that he would watch “with rapt astonishment the sight we daily witness with indifference.” That’s so true isn't it? We take the daily miracles for granted.
G. K. Chesterton said, “Grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. Is it possible God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon? The repetition in nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.”
Scripture hints at the sense of awe and wonder that should be intrinsic in the daily operation of the universe. Psalm 29, (The Message) says, “Bravo, God, Bravo. All the angels shout encore!” It’s as if the angels are so enthralled with what God does day in and day out that they ask Him to do it over and over again!
Part of spiritual growth is learning to recognize and appreciate the miracles that surround us.
My heart will pump about 100,800 times today without skipping a beat. I will inhale and exhale about 23,000 times. A hundred things are happening in my body right now that I pay no attention to. That is absolutely astounding, but of all the miracles that happen all the time I think the mind is the magnum opus. It is difficult for us to even conceive of how complicated even the simplest of mental functions is. Most of us take sight for granted, but that is because we have no idea how it works.
When was the last time we stopped to thank God that you can perceive about ten million different colors? We probably owe God a thank you for each color. Have we ever contemplated how incredible it is that we can read fine print and see stars that are billions of miles away? Have we ever thanked God for depth perception or peripheral vision? Are we thankful for motion vision? We take it for granted, but people who suffer from motion blindness cannot cross the street because they can't judge the speed of cars. They have difficultly pouring coffee into a cup because the moving liquid appears to be solid. Without a properly functioning motion-perception pathway we would have a tough time walking, much less dancing, catching a Frisbee, or hitting a fastball traveling 95 mph.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
Loving God with half a mind just doesn't cut it. Being half-minded is no better than being half-hearted. Loving God with all our mind involves every facet of our mind. Many of us honestly believe the spiritual battle is won or lost in the mind. In our lives, many of our problems are the byproduct of stinking thinking, that is, poor management of our minds. The battle against pride or lust or anger isn't won in the behavioral realm, but in the cognitive realm.
It is amazing how many verses of Scripture talk about the importance of the mind. "Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." "Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ." "Study to show yourself approved." "If anything is good or right or pure of just think about such things."
"Fix your mind on things above." "Let this mind be in your which was also in Christ Jesus."

The battle is won or lost in the mind. The end goal is the mind of Christ. In the words Fanny Crosby:
"Oh, the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God
I commune as friend with friend!"
In Christ,
Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi0yLRX4d2M

Brown's Daily Word 1-20-10

Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. We will gather for our Mid-week service today at 6 PM with a "Happy Meal" followed by Bible study at 6:30 PM and Choir practice at 7:30 PM. We have begun studying the Book of Matthew. "The Grass Withers the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord endures for ever."
I got an e-mail from Sunita. She and Andy are having a very blessed time in Israel. She said it is very green, though quite unexpectedly cold, in the Northern part of Israel. One of my recent trips was in the month of February, and it was raining in Israel. The Almond trees were in full bloom. It was brilliant.
Dr. J. B. Phillips, a British scholar and clergyman, wrote a book many years ago titled, "Your God Is Too Small". Often we fail to fathom the greatness of our God--- His Majesty and His Splendor. Often, in the corrupt, confused, and bankrupt culture of day, we fail to see the beauty and the splendor of our God, revealed in the Person of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He rules and over rules. He exalts the humble. He humbles the exalted. He brings down the proud and the arrogant. He crowns the humble and the meek. He is upon the Throne..
At the end of Prince Caspian, one of the books in The Chronicles of Narnia, there is a great dialogue between Lucy and Aslan, the Lion who is the Christ-figure in the book. They haven’t seen each other in over a year and Lucy says, “Aslan, you’re bigger.” Aslan responds, “That is because you are older, little one.” She says, “Not because you are?” Aslan replies, “I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.” So it is with our relationship with God; the more we grow the bigger He gets.
In Psalm 34:3, David said, “O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name forever.” The word magnify means “to enlarge.” We have a copier in our church office that allows us to reduce or enlarge images. If we ignore the Lord God, he gets reduced in size in our life's spheres. He gets smaller and smaller until all that’s left is a thumbnail image. But when we read Scripture, it is like hitting the enlarge button on the copier. The image of God gets bigger and more real to us. The same thing happens when we pray. Our problems get smaller and God gets bigger. When we worship God, the Lord is magnified in our lives. I think the same thing happens when we serve the Lord with obedience and joy, using our spiritual gifts. He gets bigger and bigger!
How big is your God? Is he bigger than your biggest problem? Is He bigger than your worst failure? Is he bigger than your greatest fear? Is your God bigger than a 500 pound lion?
G.K. Chesterton said, “How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.”
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-zJHgaoVa4

Brown's Daily Word 1-19-10

Good morning,
Dr. Scott Peck is the author of the best-selling book called "The Road Less Traveled." As a psychiatrist, Dr. Peck spent a great deal of time working with patients in a large psychiatric hospital. He stated that he discovered in his practice an almost universal apathy: lack of interest; no desire to ask questions; no desire to seek the new and to grow; "no taste for mystery" as he put it. He discovered also that if he could cultivate in the patient a willingness to want to search and to grow, then there is some hope. If not, he sees little hope.
Apparently, there must be a desire to grow in some form in order to make progress in life. This is especially true in the spiritual realm. We need to grow up in Christ, but if the desire is not present, nothing may be done about it. II Corinthians 10:15-16 states, "Our hope is that, as your faith continues to grow, our area of activity among you will greatly expand, so that we can preach the gospel in the regions beyond you."
Ephesians 4:15, "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ."
Colossians 1:10, "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God."
Many of us today have lost that sense of excitement and expectation. The wedding at Cana was crowded, but only a few were aware that Jesus had worked a miracle in their midst. Most were not paying attention, except to realize that the wine was flowing again. They were not watching, and so they missed an event that people have talked about for two thousand years. Bethlehem was so full of people that Mary and Joseph couldn’t even find a room to spend the night, but there is no indication that more than a handful paid any notice to the new life that changed all of history, bright stars and shepherd’s stories notwithstanding.
A British journalist once said that there three kinds of people on earth. First are those who make things happen. Second are those who see things happen. Finally, there are those do not know what happened. Let us be among the aware, who pay attention to all that the Lord is doing around us. May we all be propelled by the Holy Spirit to live with Holy Expectation today. May we see "The Signs of Jesus" in our going out and in our coming in.
Anticipating the best , because of Christ our Lord,
Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8HgAVenbUU