Brown's Daily Word 12-27-07

Good Morning.
Merry Christmas. Jesus is born. He is the King of angels, and the Lord of all. The world is now learning of the assassination of the former prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto. We have also received the news of senseless and barbaric violence against Christians in the State of Orissa, India on Christmas Eve and on Christmas day. The report cites that 12 churches were set on fire. One man was killed. The area of the Phulbani district was completely in uproar. Militant Hindus carrying weapons marched, terrorizing Christians and churches. The Government of Orissa, which is pro-Hindu, is very slow in responding to protect the Christians. I have included some of the news releases in this mail so that you can pray for the situation. May the Lord of Christmas bring about His peace in the hearts of those who love Him and worship Him. May He open the eyes of the blind that they may see His grace and love. In the Gospel according to John we read the astounding declaration that, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH.” John 1:14. John 1:16, “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” What we need more than anything is grace, God’s grace.
I read about another great example of grace and God’s grace in action.
Every Sunday for the past 9 years members of the Landisville (Pa) Mennonite Church have prayed for a son of their congregation. Every month they send him a small sum of money, and every month some of them visit him. Prayer, money, and visits. These sound fairly typical for a caregiving church. BUT THIS SITUATION IS NOT TYPICAL AT ALL. Far from it. Nine years ago, after a meal with relatives on a calm Sunday afternoon, 14-year-old Keith Weaver killed his parents and his sister. The horror of the crime and the loss of lives rocked the Weavers’ family, the church, and the community to the core.
In the midst of their grief and disillusionment, however, members of the Landisville Mennonite Church got busy. They helped clean the house where the murders occurred, established a legal support committee to care for Keith’s needs so that the surviving brother and sister wouldn’t have to, and founded a “seventy times seven” fund to collect money for his expenses. They studied grief, forgiveness, and victimization in Sunday School and sermons, calling on the expertise of area chaplains and counselors. A year after the tragedy, they held a memorial service to lament the loss of their loved ones and TO RECOMMIT THEMSELVES TO THE JOURNEY OF FORGIVENESS.
Landisville Pastor Sam Thomas said, “Forgiveness is an act of God’s grace. You don’t forgive and forget. You forgive again and again and again.” When I read this story about their forgiveness toward that young 14-year-old murderer I was humbled. Deeply humbled. Strongly humbled to think that they would do such a gracious thing. And praise to the Lord for His mighty grace at work in their lives!
What we need is more grace! More grace from God and more grace working through us to bless the lives of others! When people are touched by the grace of God they become gracious people. They become an actual extension of the grace of God. They do things they would not otherwise do.
Here is God’s grace in action.
- To the woman caught in adultery, Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
- For the crowd who crucified him, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
- To the thief crucified alongside, Jesus said, “Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise.”

That’s grace in action. And it’s exactly what we all need. Titus 3:4-5, “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us - not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy.”
II Timothy 1:9, Paul speaks of God “who has saved us and called us to a holy life - not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus.” God’s greatest demonstration of grace is seen in Jesus Christ! WITHOUT JESUS THERE IS NO GRACE! Jesus is the very personification of God’s grace! And His death on the cross was the “greatest show on earth” of God’s grace!
John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.”
Acts 4:12, Peter, speaking of Jesus, said, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
People can argue with God and Scripture all they want. God’s Word stands true and will stand the test of time and eternity. Heaven and earth will pass away, but not the Word of God! And people can call us bigots, biased, narrow-minded or whatever, but we still believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God and only true Savior of the world!
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.”
“Not by works, so that no one can boast.” Our salvation is not based on how much we do for God and Christ, nor on how much good we do for others in life.
If our salvation was based on our good works, some people would never stop bragging. No one can get into heaven without the grace of God as demonstrated in Jesus Christ! Jesus is the road, the pathway, the door. We are saved by His work, not ours.
Romans 4:7-8, “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”
Why is it that the Lord will never count our sins against us at death nor the judgment? IT’S BECAUSE OF JESUS! And it’s because we’ve put our trust and our hope in Him and Him alone! Our sins are covered by His blood! He bore our sins in His body on the tree! He became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God! God’s grace sustains us in this way and we need to learn to walk with our heads held high! And there should some leap in our walk and our talk! We should live a joyous life because we know where we’re headed. AND IT’S ALL BECAUSE OF JESUS!
God’s grace sustains us in another way. Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” II Cor. 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Titus 2:11-12 “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say ‘No,’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.”
In a corner of the churchyard of Olney Parish Church there is a large tombstone on which the inscription reads: “John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ preserved, restored and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”
Our friends gave us the movie, Amazing Grace " for Christmas. We are watching it. It is powerful and very moving. John Newton was the son of a sea captain engaged in Mediterranean trade. His mother died when he was 6, and after several years at school, he joined his father’s ship at the age of 11. Immorality, debauchery and failure followed. Rejected by his father and finally jailed and degraded, he later served on slave ships where he incurred the hatred of his employer’s black wife.
He was eventually brought to his senses by reading THE IMITATION OF CHRIST by Thomas a Kempis, the great German preacher of the 13 and 1400’s. He became converted to Christ. At the age of 39 he became a minister of the gospel and was the Pastor of the Olney Church for 15 years. He wrote many hymns and the most familiar being:

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now I see.

The grace of God can save us but only if we respond to it. The grace of God can sustain us but only if we trust it. The grace of God can sanctify us but only if we surrender to it.
In Jesus,
Brown



Christian body blames govt for attacks
Urges PM for police protection to Christians

Bhubaneswar, December 26
The Orissa unit of the All-India Christian Council today held the state government responsible for the attacks on churches and Christian organisations in Kandhamal district saying the action initiated by the administration was “inadequate”

“The government does not appear to have taken the matter seriously and the slackness on the part of the administration is evident,” organisation’s state unit president, Rev Pran Ranjan Parichha said.

Parichha alleged that Hindu fundamentalist groups had fomented all trouble.

Denouncing and deploring the attacks on particular community in Orissa, church leaders here today urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to prevent the massacre of the community and desecration of churches in the state.

In a memorandum on behalf of the All-India Catholic Union, the All-India Christian Council and the United Christian Action submitted to the Prime Minister, National Integration Council member John Dayal said the atrocities against the community in the state on December 24 and 25 were fast exploding into the kind of violence seen in the Dangs district of Gujarat during the Christmas of 1998.

Calling the escalating violence and the targeting of Church leaders a well planned conspiracy, he alleged that the main aggression was from the Kui Janakalyan Samiti with its entire attention on driving away the community from the region.

Dr Dayal appealed to the Union government to impress upon the Orissa government to ensure ample police protection to the community, its personnel and the institutions in the state. — PTI, UNI




Cong, Left flay attacks on Christians

New Delhi, December 26
The Congress today condemned attacks on Christians in Orissa and demanded the state government take immediate steps to stop the violence.

“The unfortunate incidents in Orissa are not good for the country, for any civilised society. The Congress demands from the Orissa government that it should take steps as soon as possible to stop the condemnable incidents,” AICC spokesman Shakeel Ahmed told reporters.

Asked if the Congress was for an intervention by the National Commission for Minorities in the matter, he said the state government should get some time to normalise the situation.

“If the situation does not normalise, then bodies like the Minorities Commission can be approached,” he said.

“The state government’s report is awaited. Sangh organisations are being named. The BJP is the ruling party’s (BJD) alliance partner and hence fingers can be pointed at the government. So the matter should be looked at carefully,” Ahmed said.

Meanwhile, the CPI and CPM also condemned the “organised attacks” against Christians and asked the state government to take immediate steps to protect the minority community through deployment of adequate security forces and arresting the culprits.

Maintaining that the attacks by VHP and RSS mobs took place on Christmas and the day before, the CPM Politburo said Kandhamal district has been, “for years, the target of communal activities against the Christian community”.

It said the state government and district administration had “failed” to take adequate measures to protect the minority community. — PTI



Attack on churches
Attempt to terrorise a whole community

WHILE the people the world over were celebrating Christmas on December 25, the Christians in Orissa’s Kandhamal district were at the receiving end with alleged activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad destroying church after church. In the mindless violence unleashed on the community, one person was killed and several were injured. The attack was ostensibly to retaliate against the alleged manhandling of a VHP leader. That the VHP chose to convert some Christians to Hinduism on that day bears out that the whole purpose was to foment trouble. Orissa is one state where the so-called Freedom of Religion law is in force which makes it obligatory for the organisers of such conversion ceremonies to follow certain procedures. That the VHP has been paying scant regard for such a law on the specious plea that what it organises is not conversion but “home-coming”.

Despite all the potential for mischief, the district authorities failed to take any preemptive action. What’s more, they could not even protect the house of a minister from the communally surcharged lot. It is not the first time that Orissa has witnessed religious tension. The burning of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons was preceded by several incidents of attack on the minorities in the name of protest against cow slaughter and religious conversion. It is the kid-glove treatment those behind such violent campaigns received that emboldened them to burn the missionary who was tending to the leprosy patients in one of the most backward areas of Orissa. There are feudal and pseudo-political forces that do not want the poor to get educated and know their legal and democratic rights for fear it would upset the caste-based social system.

The Orissa government is duty-bound to take stringent action against all those who desecrated the churches. It should also go after those who “attacked” the VHP leader and bring them to book. No excuse is good enough to terrorise a whole community. In fact, any leniency shown will be construed as a failure of the state to protect not just the life and property of the people but also their right to preach and practise their religious beliefs. What the Orissa government does in Kandhamal district will show how committed it is to uphold the rule of law and the religious rights of the people.

Christmas
By Steve Herman
New Delhi
26 December 2007

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Curfews have been imposed in four districts in the Indian state of Orissa after rioters attacked churches, police stations and homes. VOA's Steve Herman reports from New Delhi that the violence started with a fight over Christmas decorations.


Indian police officers stand guard in front of church in Darigibadi, Phulbani district of Orissa, 26 Dec 2007
Officials in Orissa say hundreds of armed security personnel have been sent to the tribal-dominated Kandhamal district, following a rampage that saw the torching of about 12 churches, attacks on police and offices of charitable organizations. At least one person was killed in the violence.

Authorities say a prominent conservative Hindu figure, 80-year-old Swami Laxmananda Saraswati, was attacked on his way to a town where gunfire had broken out over the installation of public Christmas decorations. Hindu mobs took to the streets to protest the assault on the official of the VHP, the acronym for the World Hindu Council. The VHP is active in the area trying to convert Christians to Hinduism.

Media reports say a member of the Kui tribe was hit by a rock and killed when he was caught between clashing Hindus and Christians. About 25 other people have been injured in the escalating violence since Monday.

Vijay Kumar Nayak, who heads the Ashakiran organization, a volunteer group dedicated to conflict resolution in the troubled district, blames authorities for not doing enough to prevent violence.

"I feel really sorry about our government and our police department who cannot control the difficulties and problems. They don't take precautions," said Nayak. "When everything is finished, the destruction is done, houses have burned, churches have burned, Christians are killed, they implement the rules and all that."

On Wednesday, the national Hindu newspaper described the area as a "virtual war zone," which is now under indefinite curfew.