Brown's Daily Word 8/27/07

Good Morning.
I trust that you had a beautiful weekend of rest and worship. Praise the Lord for the days of our lives on earth. As we make our journey here on earth we realize that we are limited in many ways. Our days are limited. Our resources are limited. Our health is limited. Our gifts and our talents are limited. The Good News is that our Lord is boundless and measureless in every way. Jesus said, “Everything is possible to him who believes.” The Lord provides the faith factor. In it we find our new dimension in living.

On August 6, 1945, at precisely 8:15 AM, a uranium bomb exploded over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Within seconds, the entire city lay in ruins. Seventy thousand people were dead and another seventy thousand seriously injured. Jesus said that His disciples would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:8). They would be "clothed with power from high," He promised (Luke 24:49). Paul echoed the same thought when he prayed that his readers might know and experience the mighty resurrection power of Jesus in their lives (Eph. 1:18-20). For Paul the message of the Gospel itself contained power, the very power of God (Rom. 1:16). The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of power! He IS quite capable of doing "immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us" (Eph. 3:20). Yet perhaps the most amazing thing of all is His ability to demonstrate quiet power in ways often unnoticed by man. One such amazing aspect of the Spirit’s work is His ability to give power in suffering. Several years ago, the well-known German pastor and theologian Helmut Thielicke was asked during a visit to America what he considered the greatest problem in the US. He surprised many with his unexpected reply. "The biggest problem," he said, "is an inadequate view of suffering." He went on to explain that, in his view, the American dream of perpetual progress had led many to believe that any and all problems could be solved with a minimum of effort or discomfort. Unfortunately, he insisted, this is simply not the case. There are, and always will be, certain burdens in life that cannot be eliminated. In Thielicke’s words, "These burdens obviously pitch the American into such helpless embarrassment that he either capitulates, to them or represses them or glosses them. Unfortunately, the German pastor’s words have as much relevance for many Christian’s view of life as for society at large. In the popular mind of our age, it is assumed by many that power always leads to pleasure. Adversity and suffering are certain signs of weakness. Given this attitude, the Holy Spirit’s power is measured by his ability to make life easy for the believer. Health, wealth and success are the true signs of the Spirit’s blessings. Adversity and suffering, on the other hand are the companions of spiritual weakness. For many the Holy Spirit is powerful enough to enable a believer to escape adversity, but not strong enough to sustain him in it. Such an attitude is far removed from the teachings of the Gospel. Nowhere does Jesus promise His followers an easy life. Quite to the contrary, Jesus insisted that the path of discipleship is straight and narrow and the way hard (Matt- 7:13-14). Rather than rejecting adversity as a sign of spiritual weakness, the early Christians rejoiced that they were counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name" (Acts 5:41). Paul even taught that suffering was an expected part of the Spirit-led life (Romans 8:14-27). Dr. Paul Brand, world-renowned leprosy specialist, provides some enlightening background for this spiritual truth from his experiences with the lepers of India. Dr. Brand tells how he discovered that contrary to once popular medical opinion leprosy does not directly cause the deterioration of the flesh of its victims. The disease simply deadens the nerves of the body’s extremities. Eventually the leper looses all feeling in his fingers and toes. The afflicted person can burn his hand and never feel the pain. Infection and even gangrene can eat away at his flesh with out ever creating the slightest discomfort. In fact, in certain villages in Africa and Asia the town leper is given a unique job because of his inability to feel pain. Such insensitivity soon destroys the leper’s flesh. After years of working with lepers, Dr. Brand learned to rejoice in the sensation of cutting a finger, turning an ankle, or stepping into a too-hot bath. Pain itself, the hurt of pain, is a gift. "Thank God for pain!" writes Dr. Brand.
This is precisely the attitude of scripture toward adversity of every sort. Such a view, however, is not simply a Stoic acceptance of fate: "we might as well live with it. There is nothing we can do about it anyway.’’ Not at all! The Bible insists that adversity is not simply something to be endured. It is a tool of God used to teach us much needed lessons (Romans 5:3-5; James 1:2-4). Adversity is like a cloud. It may block the sunlight for a time, but it also brings the rain. Both sunlight and rain are needed for growth. As C. S. Lewis phrased it, "God whispers in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain." Phillip Brooks must have understood this spiritual truth when he wrote, "Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle but you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself at the richness of life which has come by the grace of God." The Holy Spirit can and does bring power to God’s people. But because He is the Lord of the valleys as well as the God of the mountain tops, His power often brings the quiet strength needed to endure adversity and not simply the power to escape it. A second unexpected power of the Spirit is the power to love. Again, in-the eyes of the world, loving and forgiving are measures of weakness not strength. When abused or attacked the strong reply in kind. Vengeance, not forgiveness, is the law of life. Only the coward or the man too weak to fight fails to retaliate. He commanded them to love their enemies, not just those who were kind to them. Going the second mile, turning the other cheek, and forgiving without limit were to be the true signs of spiritual power for Jesus’ men and women. The Lord knew, as His modern disciples must learn, that real power never needs to hate or destroy. Only a man unsure of his strength needs to prove it. A truly strong man can look hate square in the eye and say, "In Jesus’ name I love! I forgive!" The Spirit also provides the power to serve. As with suffering and loving, service is not often a mark of power in a fallen world. In fact in our world a man is esteemed if he no longer is forced to dirty himself with the menial tasks of life. A powerful man is to be served not serve. Ruling, controlling, manipulating the lives of others--these are the marks of power. Jesus taught His disciples this same lesson again and again. Only a week before the Upper Room Jesus cut short an argument over His disciples positions in His Kingdom with a startling truth, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt, 20:25-28). Paul encouraged this same attitude when he wrote, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus “ (Phil. 2:3-5). The inability to accept such a concept of Christian servant-hood was the very problem that created the disastrous confusion over the work of the Holy Spirit at Corinth (1 Corinthians 12-14). Apparently many in the Corinthian church had decided that whatever power or abilities the Spirit had given them were for their own personal benefits. Paul insisted otherwise. Every gift of the Spirit is for the "common good," taught the apostle (1 Cor. 12:7). No individual member of the body dares look upon himself as the master of the church. Each is a servant of the rest. To use a gift of the Spirit for any other purpose than loving service for others is to destroy their very value to the body (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Who are the most spiritually powerful Christians today? The eloquent evangelist? The famous faith healer? The brilliant scholar? The wealthy benefactor? Perhaps, but not necessarily. The most powerful Christian may well be the lowly widow with the cup of cold water. In the kingdom, power is measured, not by prestige, or position, or wealth, but by selfless service! Suffering, loving, serving---that’s not power! Miracles, raising the dead, healing the sick--that’s power! In fact, that’s the only kind of power that will cause our world to sit up and take notice. That is the power of the Spirit that we need today! The power to love and serve and suffer is not likely to impress our kind of world very much. But that shouldn’t surprise us. The world has seldom understood or readily appreciated the ways of God. As Paul stated long ago, “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world--and the things that are not --to nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before him” (1 Cor. 1:18, 27-29). God still bestows power on His people, just as He always has!

In Christ,
Brown

Encounter With Jesus at a Restaurant
An Irishman in a wheelchair entered a restaurant one afternoon and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. The Irishman looked across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus sitting over there?" The waitress nodded "yes," so the Irishman told her to give Jesus a cup of coffee on him.

The next patron to come in was an Englishman with a hunched back. He shuffled over to a booth, painfully sat down, and asked the waitress for a cup of hot tea. He also glanced across the restaurant and asked, "Is that Jesus over there?" The waitress nodded, so the Englishman said to give Jesus a cup o hot tea, "my treat."

The third patron to come into the restaurant was a Redneck on crutches. He hobbled over to a booth, sat down and hollered, "Hey thar ;sweet thang. How's about gettin' me a cold glass a Coke!" He, too, across the restaurant and asked, "Is that God's boy over thar?" The waitress once more allowed as how it certainly was, so the Redneck said to give Jesus a cold glass of Coke, "on
my bill."

As Jesus got up to leave, he passed by the Irishman, touched him and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Irishman felt the strength come back into his legs, got up, and danced a jig out the door.

Jesus also passed by the Englishman, touched him and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Englishman felt his back straightening up, and he raised his hands, praised the Lord and did a series of backflips out the door.

Then Jesus walked towards the Redneck. The Redneck dropped his crutches, jumped up and yelled, "Don't touch me...I'm drawin' disability!"