Brown's Daily Word 2-12-14

Praise the Lord for this Wednesday.  We will meert for our midweek gathering at 6 PM with a very special meal followed by Bible Study at 6:30 PM and then by Choir practice at 7:30 PM.  One of my daughters reminded me yesterday that  Spring is not far away.  She also shared with me that one of her close friends, who is a  real estate agent, sold  her first home yesterday.  We rejoice and praise the Lord.  

    Sunita  flew to Bosnia last night with her work.  She will be meeting some of her colleagues from  Cyprus.  Sunita is crazy about serving Christ.  She inspires me to press on.  One of our  friends just returned back from a short term mission in India.  She came blessed and changed.  I had a lunch with one of my colleagues yesterday.  I prepared an Indian dish.  He loved chicken curry.  I said the hotter the better.  In my book those who love hot curry are a breed apart.  He shared about ministry of compassion and ministry dealing with justice issues.  

    Praise the Lord that the the ministry of Jesus deals with life in high places and in low places.  To the watching world that has gone insane and is spinning out of control, the ministry of Jesus does appear foolish.  We read in 1 Corinthians 1, “The word of the cross is foolishness to those whose lives are falling apart, but to those who are being saved, the cross is the very power of God.”  Other statements echo the same refrain: “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  Has God not destroyed the wisdom of the wise?”  “God chose what is foolish in this world to shame the wise.  God chose what is weak in this world to shame the strong.  God chose what is low and despised to accomplish his will.”  To sum up this theme, we are called to be fools for Christ.

    Throughout the New Testament, we discover this divine madness about God.  One of my pastor colleague says, "We discover that God acts like a clown, that the Lord of the Universe acts like a fool.  Unreasonable.  Not responsible.  Not sensible.  Not practical but downright foolish. "

    Our Lord declared “If someone hits you on one cheek, offer the other cheek for them to hit.”  Dumb.  Or, “If someone takes your coat, give them all your clothing as well.”  Not smart.  Or, “If someone asks you to do a favor and go a mile for them, go the second mile for that person.”  Ridiculous.  Or, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  This divine madness of God gets into his followers and his followers start to act like clowns.  In fact, to the world followers of Christ act crazy; they are wild and mad for Jesus.  There is a power to this way of living and loving. 

    I read about Ray and Lillian, committed Christians who have raised 26 foster children.  They must have been out of their mind to raise 26 foster kids.  I also read about another childless couple that  raised 84 foster children.  They must have been nuts to do that.  We see that there is this divine madness in God, in Jesus, and in the people of Jesus who do these foolish things.  There is power to their living and power to their loving.

Here come the clowns!  Here come the clowns! Are we  part of them? Are we part of their parade? Let us join the parade.

In Christ,

  Brown

http://youtu.be/6_KXsMCJgBQ

Brown's Daily Word 2-11-14

    Praise the Lord for this new day.  It is going to be brilliant and sunny.  The gripping power of snowy and Icy winter is slowly caving in to the dawning of sweet spring.  It is spring time in Orissa, India, where they are experiencing summer like days, warm and very warm, and the mango trees are in full bloom.  My new found friend Carol, who lives in Florida, has a luxuriant mango tree in her yard.  This mango tree is in bloom now.  Praise the Lord for flowering trees and fruit trees. 

 

    I read a very heart warming story about William and the life of a local church.  William had recently moved into town. Sadly, William's elderly mother had died the very day his family moved into the community.  William, knowing his mother loved sacred music, began coming to a church composed of people from 40 different nations, people who embodied diversity.  Initially, he sat near the front of the congregation, not far from Miss Ida, who sat straight-backed and still near the front of the congregation, lips pursed, hands folded neatly in her lap.  William was clicking his recorder on and off, rewinding, fast-forwarding, sometimes mumbling, and all the while rocking back and forth, back and forth.  After a few Sundays, someone told William he was making too much noise.  If he insisted on bringing the recorder and pushing the buttons, he would need to sit in the lobby and listen to the service via the speakers.  That is what William did…for three Sundays.

    On the fourth Sunday, Miss Ida arrived uncharacteristically late and asked William why he was sitting in the lobby instead of the sanctuary.  William said, "The people in there said I was making too much noise.  I have to sit out here."  In a quiet act of compassionate dissent, she sat with him.  He rocked, and she was still. The next Sunday, five others joined them.  On the following Sunday, 30 people sat in the lobby.

    Today, William sits with the choir.  He is the "assistant sound man."  Every Sunday, he records the service, clicking his buttons, mumbling and rocking.  After each service, William walks several miles to the cemetery and leaves the cassette on his mother's grave with these simple words, "Here's church, Mama."  William understood communion.  His ministry was to help others understand.

    Miss Ida proved to be a person who was listening, watching, and waiting.  She responded to God's call, able to offer new life to a very barren situation.  An act of faith that shone God's light, His Presence…burst forth in new life for William and this congregation!  Miss Ida responded in obedience, which made all the difference.

    How might God be speaking to us today, calling us to faithful obedience?  What new thing is Jesus doing that might make our ears tingle?  The Lord has come and is standing, calling each of us by name.  Let us respond by saying, "Speak, Lord, for Your servants are listening!"

In Christ,

  Brown

http://youtu.be/9B9HsLCgcq4

Brown's Daily Word 2-10-14

The Lord blessed us with a " WOW" weekend.  The banquet that was held Saturday was brilliant.  The food was superb.  Our young chef Dan and his entire family prepared the menu, cooked the food, and served with so much love.  It was a treat.  The fellowship was sweet.  The banquet room was full and every chair was taken. There was ample food and more.  The testimony and music time was inspiring and touching.  Wherever Christ is there is celebration. There is joy indeed.  

    The Lord blessed us yesterday during morning worship.  Being Boy Scout Sunday yesterday Chris, one of the leaders and a professor at Davis College, preached.  We were all challenged and blessed. 

    C.S. Lewis faced the death of his beloved mom at the age of nine.  He struggled with his faith in the loving Lord and almighty God.  Years later, when as an Oxford professor he began to rationally think through the possibility of Christian belief, Lewis finally understood what was going on in his mother’s painful illness.  He came to see that this world is a battlefield between the kingdom of God and the powers of evil, and that Christianity was true precisely because it took this conflict seriously.

     Lewis’ mother died not because God didn’t grant a child’s wish, but because the evil one had twisted God’s good world in such a way that even the very cells of her body no longer worked as they should.  Though healing did not come in that instant of boyish spiritual lisping, the prayers did not go unheard, and his mother was not lost forever or forgotten.

     Our Lord Jesus told several parables which are recorded in Mathew 13.  Jesus’ stories in this chapter remind us that we are on the winning side in the battles of life.  When Jesus told the Parables of the Seed and the Yeast (Matthew 13:31-35), He presented a picture of the kingdom of heaven that grows and dominates until it is the primary factor shaping the world.  The tiny mustard seed morphs into a tree that provides a home for the birds, and the bit of yeast transforms the entire loaf until it is utterly and completely changed.  It is important to note that these things happen rather automatically, with the change taking place from within the seed, and from within the grain of yeast.

    In other words, the kingdom of heaven has the winning power within itself, and invites us along on the journey.  We do not create the kingdom, but the kingdom creates us.  Even though it appears to be insignificant at the start, the essence of greatness and the confidence of success lies within.  Scripture is filled with testimonies to this.  One in particular from the Old Testament is the scene in Jeremiah 32 where the prophet buys a field.  Normally this would seem like an ordinary transaction, but Jeremiah and the salesperson were both holed up inside the walls of Jerusalem, while battering rams of Babylon’s armies were pounding the gates and walls to rubble.  What is more, in the prolonged siege of Jerusalem, the invading armies killed and burned every living thing for miles, and made waste of whatever farmland there might have been in the region.  Added to that is the sure promise of God, spoken through Jeremiah himself, that this time Babylon would be successful and the city, along with the Temple, would be destroyed.

    If there was ever a bad time to invest in real estate, this was it.  The land itself was worthless, the currency inflated, the threat of destruction obvious and the future about as grim as any could be.  Yet Jeremiah bought the field because he knew the power of the seed of the kingdom of God.  He knew that God would have his way, even beyond the threat of Babylon.  He knew that in spite of the waywardness of the people, God’s kingdom would rise again and thrust itself to the heavens until even the Babylonian vulture would nest in its branches.

    When we read the account as Jesus told us about the kingdom of heaven, we recover our sense of values and outcomes.  We see past the current hopeless, all-encompassing mess of daily events.  We carry the passport of heaven.  We live as those who are under orders to be, to do, and to make a difference.  Best of all, we know Who writes the last chapter.

In Christ,

  Brown

http://youtu.be/eLqTZ07ja7g