Brown's Daily Word 2-25-14

   Praise the Lord for music that honors the Lord and blesses our hearts.  Our grandchildren love music.  The oldest, Micah, loves country western and  bluegrass.  Simeon loves hymns like, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing".  Little Ada likes "Na, na  na , na.. Every move I make .. every breath I take I take in you, Jesus", as well as many hymns and choruses.  My wife loves to sing hymns and worship songs  both old and new.  I love all kinds of music from classical to modern to. . .  Praise the Lord for some of the great composers and musicians whose hearts were redeemed by the Savior.

 

    At the bottom of many of his musical manuscripts, the great organist and composer Johann Sebastian Bach often wrote the letters "INDNJC."  Those letters stood for "In Nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi" -- in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  These letters did not appear on Bach's manuscripts by accident or without purpose.  Johann Sebastian Bach put those letters there for a reason. Considered a genius in the field of music, Bach recognized the one true Genius. Known for his extraordinary talent, Bach realized the source of all human talent. Praised for his musical gifts, Bach was aware of the primary giver of all gifts.  He affirmed with the New Testament writer James that "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above."  For these reasons, at the bottom of his manuscripts he wrote INDNJC.

 

    Most of us will never compose a musical manuscript, let alone one of the caliber of a Bach composition.  Yet, each day of our lives, we do compose "living" manuscripts of sorts.  Each day we have opportunities to use God-given time, talents, skills, and gifts as we write the notes which collectively compose the songs that others "hear" when they listen to our lives.  Each day that we live, we are effectively making music with our lives -- composing and performing the measures, verses, and stanzas which combine to form a "living symphony" of who we are and what we are about.

    Colossians 3:12-17 is one of several scriptural passages which reminds us of the importance of praising God through music.  I especially like verse 16 which declares: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly -- and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God."  Here is biblical evidence that from the very early days the church was a singing church, singing hymns and songs of praise and thanksgiving to God with their voices.  Thanking God with their singing and voices was not the only way members of the early church were instructed to worship and praise God, but they were also taught to worship and praise God with the entirety of their lives.  The next verse (Colossians 3:17) proclaims: "And whatever you do -- in word or deed -- do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus -- giving thanks to God the Father through Him."

    Whatever you do, wherever you are, remember that you are composing a "life manuscript," a living symphony of sorts.  Remember that as we  compose each note and play or sing each verse our Lord  calls upon us to do it INDNJC.  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are to make music with our lives.  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are to live and give thanks.  All of us are called upon by God to make the kind of music with our lives that will make a difference in our world.

In Jesus our Lord.

  Brown 

http://youtu.be/S6OgZCCoXWc

Brown's Daily Word 2-24-14

     The Lord blessed us with an awesome and wonderful week.  We had our three grandchildren: Micah 8, Simeon 6, and little Ada 3, for almost a week. It was wild and crazy and full of pure blessings.  Micah is a beautiful young girl who has a great heart of a  servant.  On Friday morning, she prepared the pancake breakfast for all the family all by herself.  Simeon is all active and an outdoor person, who spent much tome snowboarding and sledding with our nieces and nephews.  Ada was her grandma's girl, talking and singing and playing in the snow.  They love Jesus and love sing praises of and to Him.  On our way back to Boston we stopped at the Pilot Gas Station near Albany.  The three grand children ran into the store singing both loudly and eloquently, "I am C, I am Ch....  I said Lord thank you. According to your Word it is out of the mouth of babes".  After arriving in Boston we discovered that Simeon's jacket was missing, so on the way back home we stopped at the same Dunkin Donuts and Subway restaurant, just to check the lost and found desk about Simeons brand new jacket.  Alice walked into the Dunkin Donut shop and in seconds she found Simeon's jacket on the table, in tact.  Praise the Lord for America the Beautiful. 

    The Lord blessed us with a wonderful day in His house yesterday.  The Lord gave us a spring-like weather, with promises of the warmer seasons ahead.  I am ready for Spring and  summer.  I am thinking of lakes and rivers, oceans and seas.  

    I have been privileged to visit the Holy Land several times.  Every time I have been there I have visited the Sea of Galilee where our Lord Jesus spent much of His time in ministry.  I also have made a point to visit the Dead Sea.  The Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea for a reason: it's dead.  It is the saltiest body of water on the planet, nine times saltier than the ocean.  It is so salty that no fish can live in it.  It is so salty that sailboats don't sail on it—and this is a big body of water, 10 miles by 50 miles.  If you look out over the water, you'll never see a skier.  The only people who like the saltiness of the Dead Sea are the  tourists to Israel, because they can bob in the Dead Sea.  It's impossible to sink in water that is that salty, so tour buses drive there, people don swimsuits, and they go bobbing.

    I have bobbed  in the Dead Sea.  It's a lot of fun until you try to rinse off the salt.  The Dead Sea is located in the lowest part of the earth.  Interestingly, there is fresh water flowing into the Dead Sea continuously.  The Jordan River and several other streams feed into the Dead Sea, but the Dead Sea has no outlet.  Because it has no outlet, the fresh water comes in and sits there idly, and the hot desert sun evaporates it all.

    There is a danger for all of us in becoming  Dead Sea persons.  A Dead Sea person is the one who on a regular basis receives fresh blessings, fresh resources, fresh provisions from the Lord from whom all good and perfect gifts come, but has no outlet.  It is written: "But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness, and in your love for us — see that you also excel in this grace of giving.  I'm not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.  For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich".  2 Corinthians 8:7 ff.

    Paul wanted the Corinthians to excel at something.  He was saying: You Corinthians are good at a lot of things but, unfortunately, giving isn't one of them, so I want to challenge you to put as much effort into excelling at generosity as you put into excelling at everything else.

    Sunita travels around the globe with her work.  She shares with me the evil of human trafficking today.  There was recently a big event held in Atlanta.  Forty thousand young people, mostly college students and Christ-followers, gathered for this big crusade to stop sex trafficking in our world today. They are excited about justice and caring for people who have become virtual slaves.  There are more slaves in the world today than in any previous time in history so these young people wanted to do something about it.  The CNN report was highly complimentary as they showed young people lifting their hands in worship.  They had these knockdown, drag-out worship times.  They listened to speakers who addressed the topic of trafficking.  Then they gave generously, selflessly, and sacrificially. . . and I thought to myself, Compared to their secular friends who never give anything to anybody but themselves, this is pretty cool.

    There's no greater joy than giving.

In Christ,

Brown

http://youtu.be/6_KXsMCJgBQ

Brown's Daily Word 2-20-14

  Praise the Lord for this day.  It is brilliant and almost balmy here in New York.  Thank you, Jesus.  The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday gathering.  The fellowship was sweet; the study of the Word was a great blessing.  I read some time ago that the average person has 10,000 separate thoughts each day. That works out to be 3.5 million thoughts a year.  At this rate, if you live to be 75, you will have over 26 million different thoughts in your lifetime.

    Already most of us  have had well over 5,000 separate thoughts since we  got out of bed this morning.  We  probably have another 5,000 before you sleep tonight.  Then you will start all over again tomorrow.  Every one of those 10,000 thoughts represents a choice we  make, a decision to think about this, and not about that.  Suppose someone gave you $10,000 this morning and said, “Spend it any way you like as long as you spend it all before you go to bed tonight.”  You would be careful how you spent it, maybe even down and take inventory of what you could do with that much money. 

    How sad that we devote so much time to how we spend our money and so little time to how we spend our thoughts.  How sad that one seems so important and the other so trivial.  Our thoughts represent ourselves, our personalities.  Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Beware of what you set your mind on because that you surely will become.”  Norman Vincent Peale said, “Change your thoughts and you change the world.”  Henry Ford gave that truth a different spin when he declared, “Thinking is the hardest work in the world, which is probably why so few people engage in it.”  Then I ran across this perceptive comment, “Two thoughts cannot occupy the mind at the same time, so the choice is ours whether or not our thoughts will be constructive or destructive.”

    Change your thoughts and you will change the world.   "The choice is ours.” God gave us 10,000 thoughts today, but it’s up to us what we do with them.  2 Corinthians 10:5 says that we should “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”     

 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Philippians 4:8

 

In Jesus,
Brown
http://youtu.be/62J434N0w1c