Brown's Daily Word 8-22-07

Praise the Lord for summer time. I love the long sunny days. When you go to Northern Europe, the land of the midnight sun, there is brilliant sunshine for 24 hours a day for part of the summer. It is similar to summer time in Alaska, where we experience prolonged sunshine. Outside the Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, Denmark’s Parliament building, there are three stone figures guarding the entrance. They represent the earache, the headache, and the stomach ache. We live in a very stressful or stress-filled society, and it affects all of us.
I am writing this daily devotional in the evening, knowing that somewhere it is morning. For instance, it is morning in India and in the Far East.
Ps. 121:1-2 "I lift up my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Our help comes from someone who can do it all, whose wisdom is not wanting. Our help is from someone whose power is not puny or pint-sized and whose love is not limited, provisional or conditional. He is God. He is our Creator and our Father.
Matthew 11:28 Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I still believe the words of Jesus. I still believe He can do what He claims; not only save us from our sins but also soothe our hearts and minds. He is God in the flesh. He can do anything. He does nothing but good for us.
Some of my favorite Psalms are Psalm 3 and 4, which deal with the subject of lack of sleep. People who are stressed out do not sleep well. Psalm 3 and 4 were written when David was exiled because his own son Absalom had stolen the kingdom. It’s hard to understand how a father and a son could be so opposed to one another. There was so much conflict between them that Absalom wanted to kill his father. That boggles my mind! Family strife can deteriorate badly. Evil can invade our hearts unless guarded by God!
Psalm 3 is a morning Psalm, while Psalm 4 is an evening Psalm. How could David sleep when he knew he was in danger? He knew that God was for him, and that knowledge was even greater than his fears. He knew that God would surround him, sustain him, and save him.
David wrote Psalm 4 as he was about to retire for the evening. He could not do much about the war around him, but he could do something about the war within him. Instead of lying in bed fretting, stewing and worrying, he committed himself and his situation to the Lord and received relief.
V. 1 "Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful and hear my prayer." Asking is still a good place to start with God in regard to any problem we face in life. If we don’t ask, how do we expect to receive?
Phil. 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Prayer can bring relief from the anxieties of life. God’s inner, calming peace can come through prayer. It’s the kind of peace that enabled Corrie Ten Boom to say after being in a German prison camp, "There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still."
Someone once said, "God is so BIG He can cover the whole world with his love and so small He can curl up inside your Heart." When God curls up inside through prayer, there is peace.
It has been said that when Robert Louis Stevenson was a boy he once said to his mother, "Momma, you can’t be good without praying." "How do you know, Robert?" she asked. "Because I’ve tried!" he answered.
Prayer does make a difference. God can change us through prayer. God can make us good and He can relieve us of our anxieties or inner turmoil. Of course, some people tend to think, "Why would God be interested in me? Look at everything that I’ve done in life...everything I’ve done wrong. He’s not interested in me."
Vs. 4-5 "In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Offer right sacrifices and trust in the Lord." In these verses David is obviously not talking to God. He is talking to people about their relationship to God, how to receive answers, and how to get help from God.
Charles H. Spurgeon was England’s best known preacher in the 1800’s. He often preached to audiences of 10,000 without a PA system. He said one time, "I would recommend you either believe God up to the hilt, or else not to believe at all. Believe this book of God, every letter of it, or else reject it. There is no logical standing place between the two. Be satisfied with nothing less than a faith that swims in the deeps of divine revelation. A faith that paddles about the edge of the water is poor faith at best..."
That’s the kind of belief or faith that David had and we too must have in order to receive from Him. David said "In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds..." Anger is a doorstop to God’s blessings and an open door to the devil.
Most of the time when we get angry about something, someone, or some situation where we feel that we have been wronged, we don’t keep our cool! We often seethe with anger and/or plot in our anger. It is a guaranteed thing that we will get angry in life, but what we do with that anger is what makes a difference. This is why David said, "In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds..."
David was better than most of us,or perhaps he was better at this time. He faced his anger and gave it to the Lord. Instead of lying in bed, thinking about it and letting it work on his heart, he prayed about it and gave it to the Lord. David believed God and trusted Him to take care of the matter. We must do the same.
We must believe that God can do what He says He can do. We must believe that He can calm our anger, soothe our hearts and take away our pain. We must believe God! We must trust Him!
Vs. 6-8 "Let the light of your face shine upon us, O Lord. You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." In the darkness of David’s turmoil he found light from the Lord. In his sorrow, he found joy in the Lord. He said, "You have filled my heart with greater joy than a big grain crop, new wine." For us, it might be greater joy than when we have a new car, a new house, and a big bank account! God can bring greater joy into our lives than any material thing can!
David expressed his pleasure over what God had done for him. David asked, he believed, and now he was receiving from God. He welcomed God’s goodness and blessing with open arms and a receptive heart.
Matthew 21:22, "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." We must believe and receive. He wants to bless us. He will bless us when we come to Him in faith, and we must learn to receive His blessings with willing hearts and open arms!
Thank you, Lord. We are not worthy, but you are worthy of our praise and thanks. But thank you for every good gift you have given. Thank you for moments of calm. Thank you for the relief from anxiety that you give. We bless you! We love you!
Sir George Adam Smith told how he and his guide were climbing the Weisshorn in the Swiss Alps. It was stormy and they were making their climb on the sheltered side of the peak. When they reached the summit, they were filled with the exhilaration. Sir George forgot about the fierce winds, leaped up and was nearly blown over the edge to the glacier below! The guide grabbed hold of him and exclaimed: "On your knees, sir. You are safe here only on your knees!"
Life is not easy. We all go through periods of stress and strain. The only safe place in this life is on our knees. The only safe place is in the arms of God.

Janice, Jeremy, Micah, and Simeon are coming in to spend the night with us. What a terrific surprise it was to have them call yesterday to say that they would spend a night here before going down to Pennsylvania. They will return on Monday to join in the festivities and the full household for the wedding.
Psalm 4:8
In Jesus, who gives rest,
Brown

The Bible. Funny?
Someone asked recently in a newspaper, "Are there any jokes in the Bible?" It is filled with humor – usually wry Jewish witticisms, hyperbole and idiom! "You can tame every animal on earth, but not the tongue," says James. "Yeah, yeah," says Micaiah to King Ahab, "You'll win the battle for sure." (I Kings 22). "I don't want to twist your arm, but hey, you owe me on this one," (Paul to Philemon). [Loose paraphrases]
Many of the Proverbs communicate timeless wisdom with a smile and a wink. God invented humor! So surely we would expect Jesus to use it. And He does, frequently. Many of the parables are intrinsically amusing cameos. They were surely not delivered as deadpan monologues, but in the style of the story-teller with voices and gestures to match (and much two-way banter) – and with very likely from time to time the involvement of children or other listeners as props. This method of communication was very near to street theater!


"Full recognition of Christ's humor has been surprisingly rare. In many of the standard efforts to write the Life of Christ there is no mention of humour at all and, when there is any, it is usually confined to a hint or two." [Elton Trueblood, The Humor of Christ]

"Jesus was always had snappy oneliners ready for the occasion, such as, 'Let the dead bury their dead,' and 'The poor you always have with you.' It's how you tell them! Try these prefaced with a heavy shrug and 'Oy Vay'." [Adrian Williams]

"Jesus has a particular eye for the ironical and paradoxical. He gave His disciples nicknames: Peter the Rock who was big on words, but a coward when it mattered; James and John, hotheads, were 'Sons of Thunder'. He told stories about judges who gave justice only after being pestered repeatedly, businessmen who amassed riches only to die the next day, and about priests too precious to help a man who had been beaten up. He talked about people who gave stones in the place of bread, and saw the speck in the eye of another but ignored the log in their own eye. He talked about the blind leading the blind. He called the holy men of his day whitewashed walls" [Rev Peter Weatherby]

"Many of His comments would have had the audience laughing incontrollably, while at the same time making a deep point. The pictures of 'blind Pharisees straining at a gnat but swallowing a camel' (Matt 23:24) is hilarious. Similarly it is reckoned that shpherds were the butt of Galilean society's jokes, and so the one about the shepherd leaving the 99 to search for just one, would have also raised a laugh." [George Newton]

"How often there was a twinkle in the eye of Jesus! His humor shines through his words. For instance, Jesus once pictured the religious legalists of his day. He said they were like a man who polished the outside of his drinking cup, but forgot to clean the inside. "You are like a person," said Jesus, "who picks a fly out of his drink and then swallows a camel" (Matthew 23:24). Jesus made his point by a humorous exaggeration. He used the same kind of humor when he said, "It is much harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle" (Mark 10:25). There must have been a twinkle in his eye when he talked about the fault-finder: "Why do you notice the little piece of sawdust that is in your brother's eye, but you don't notice the big piece of wood that is in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3.
The humor of Jesus show us the quickness of his mind and the playfulness of his outlook. Long before Mary Poppins, Jesus knew that a "spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." How much we need the humor of Jesus today! We get deadly serious about his words and miss the humor in them. Jesus talked about the necessity of communicating his message. He made this point by an absurd picture: "Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a washtub or beneath the bed? Don't you put it up on a table or on the mantel?" (Mark 4:21).

Jesus did not fit the pattern of what people expected a holy man to be like. Luke reported: "By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently" (Luke 15:1). The religion scholars were not pleased and growled, "He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends" (Luke 15:2). Jesus' cousin, John, had followers who fasted all the time. Jesus and his followers had a reputation for eating and drinking. Again, Jesus reached for a humorous image to portray his contemporaries. He said about them: "They're like spoiled children complaining to their parents, 'We wanted to skip rope and you were always too tired; we wanted to talk but you were always too busy.' John the Baptist came fasting and you called him crazy. The Son of Man (Jesus' favorite term for himself) came feasting and you called him a lush" (Luke 7:31-34). I believe that Jesus would approve this little prayer:

God, give me sympathy and common sense,
And help me home with courage high.
God, give me calm and confidence
And please – a twinkle in my eye."