Brown's Daily Word 6-21-07

Good Morning.
Our Lord specializes in extreme makeovers of our lives. He loves us more than any thing. He finds where we are in our follies, sin, rebellion, and restlessness. He finds us in our wanderings in far away countries and confronts us with His truth and grace. He comes to us in all the seasons of our lives with His life-changing and life-transforming power and love. He finds us in our world which has been turned topsy-turvy and He turns our lives right side up that we might follow Him and serve Him all the days of our lives. He comes along side us in our lives and meets us in the journeys we take. He diffuses our darkness and sheds His glorious light.
Saul was a very religious man. He was focused and passionate, but his focus and passion were contrary to the will of Jesus for His life. One day, very possibly on a hot summer day, Jesus showed up and interrupted Saul’s plans. God shot a laser beam of light out of the throne room of Heaven and knocked Paul to the ground. Suddenly, all of the education, plans, hatred, and condemnation that had been controlling Saul were erased in one quick flash and Saul became the accused and condemned. The Hound of Heaven had hunted down the hunter and felled his prey. Before this time, Saul had not really heard the voice of the Lord Jesus, the Light of the world; he had listened only to the voice of religion and of the world. But now he heard a different voice – a voice with power and authority that shook him to the core of his soul.
This same voice had spoken the world into existence.
This same voice had called to Adam in the Garden.
This same voice had spoken judgment upon Satan, the serpent and all of creation as a result of sin.
This same voice had spoken to Moses on Mt. Sinai and given the Law.
This same voice had spoken to Lazarus and raised him from the dead
This same voice had raised the Window’s son at Nain.
This same voice had cried out, “it is finished” as he paid the price of redemption on the cross
This same voice cries out to us today – follow me, and I will make you fishers of men
This same voice speaks to each of us – this is my will for your life, now do it
This same voice will someday say to us “Well done my good and faithful servant”
I want to hear his voice. I want to be a sheep of his fold. I want to know his voice.
When that voice came from Heaven, Saul knew this was no ordinary voice, but he did not know the Lord and did not recognize him. But Jesus had come to make a change in Saul’s life, so He revealed his identity to Saul. "I AM JESUS – the one you are really fighting against, the one you are really condemning, the one you are really persecuting – I AM JESUS CHRIST, THE KING OF KING AND LORD OF LORDS, CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE – I AM THAT I AM!"
Now those around him didn’t hear what Saul heard. They were not ready to hear. Jesus comes to each man in his own time and in the way that He knows will reach him. People who have not heard the voice cannot understand and cannot know what we are all about. They only know that we are different, that something has interrupted our lives and changed us.
Saul was confronted with the Light from Heaven, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness or shadow of turning. When we are confronted with the Light of Jesus by hearing His Word, the eyes of our spirits are opened and the light of love flows in. We cannot help but be changed. We can then choose to change and follow the Light or we can choose to close our eyes and walk into the depths of darkness.
Saul did not stand up and look into that light and say, “Look at me, I’m Saul, Look at who I am”. All that Saul was, all that he knew, all that he had planned suddenly meant nothing. Without Jesus we are nothing, and we can do nothing outside of His power within us. We can accomplish nothing for the kingdom of God without Jesus. Jesus said, “Its hard for you to kick against the prick”!
Just as you take a stick with a sharp point and drive cattle into the pen or the barn, the HOLY GHOST and the Word of God act as a sharp goad to constantly push us toward the Cross of Christ. We can kick against it, fight against it, try to forget about it, but the goading continues. It isn’t God will that anyone should perish, so He is constantly trying to reach us and turn us back
Saul was instantly and eternally changed in the flash of light. Where he was threatening, now he was trembling. Where he was in control, now he was under God’s control. Where he could see his future under his own control, now he was blind to the world around him and blind to the future that law before him.
For three days Saul was blind – that gave him time to focus on the things that God wanted him to do. It gave him time to think about his life, to repent, and to learn to depend on God’s voice and leading in his life. Sometimes God must lead us into a blind corner and take away our ability to do anything before we will stop long enough and listen close enough to hear His voice.
SAUL WAS INSTANTLY CHANGED FROM PERSECUTOR TO PROCLAIMER!
The fire-breathing dragon from Jerusalem, bent on destruction of Jesus’ disciples had now began to breath the fire of the gospel from his lips.
In Him,
Brown





We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is "of him". If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion; if purity, in his conception; if gentleness, it appears in his birth. For by his birth he was made like us in all respects that he might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion; if acquittal, in his condemnation; if remission of the curse, in his cross; if satisfaction, in his sacrifice; if purification, in his blood; if reconciliation, in his descent into hell; if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb; if newness of life, in his resurrection; if immortality, in the same; if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom; if untroubled expectation of judgment, in the power given to him to judge. In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.
... John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion


The Genesis Quiz

You studied the first book of the Bible when you were a child, but how much of it do you really remember? Take this quiz and find out.





Answers from Genesis:

Q1. Which of the following would not have been created on the sixth day?
1. Goldfish***
2. Zebras
3. Human Beings
4. Coyotes


Q2. What mountain did Noah’s ark come to rest upon?
1. Sinai
2. Nebo
3. Scopus
4. Ararat***


Q3. What creature guards Eden after Adam and Eve are expelled?
1. Seraph***
2. Unicorn
3. Cherub
4. Satan


Q4. What was Abraham’s original name?
1. Abimelech
2. Noah
3. Abram***
4. Abba


Q5. Which of the following is NOT a son of Jacob?
1. Naftali
2. Hezekiah***
3. Issachar
4. Simeon


Raining in the Woods
Two young guys were at a party in the woods when all of a sudden there was a downpour of thunder and rain. The two ran for about 10 minutes in the pouring rain, finally reaching their car just as the rain let up. They jumped in the car, started it up and headed down the road laughing.

All of a sudden an old man's face appeared in the passenger window and tapped lightly on the window!

The passenger screamed out, "Eeeeekkk! Look at my window!!! There's an old guy's face there!"

(Was this a ghost?)

The old man kept knocking, so the driver said, "Well open the window a little and ask him what he wants!"

So the passenger rolled his window down part way and said, scared out of his wits, "What do you want?"

The old man softly replied, "You have any tobacco?"

The passenger, terrified, looked at the driver and said, "He wants tobacco!"

"Well, offer him a cigarette! HURRY!!" the driver replies.

So the passenger fumbles around with the pack and hands the old man a cigarette, rolling up the window in terror and yells, "Step on it!!!"

Now going about 80 miles an hour, they calm down and they start laughing again.

The passenger says, "What did you think of that?"

The driver says, "I don't know. How could that be? I am going pretty fast!"

All of a sudden, AGAIN there is a knock on the window and the old man is looking in the window.

"Aaaaaaaaaaargh! There he is again!", the passenger yells.

"Well, see what he wants now!" yells back the driver.

The passenger rolls down the window a little ways and shakily says "Yes?"

"Do you have a light?" the old man quietly asks.

The passenger throws a lighter out the window at him, rolls up the window and again yells, "STEP ON IT!"

They are now going about 100 miles an hour, trying to forget what they had just seen and heard. Suddenly, again there is more knocking!

"HE'S BACK!" He rolls down the window and screams out, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" in stark fear.

The old man gently replies, "You want some help getting out of the mud?"