Brown's Daily Word 2-26-09

Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day and for the season of Lent in the life of the Church of Jesus Christ our Lord. Praise the Lord that He became a Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He loved both sinners and saints. He reached out to the rich and poor, the wise and the foolish, the high and the low. He is the Man of all seasons and the Man in every season. He ate with the rich and with the poor. He ministered to the outcast.
One day the Pharisees saw Jesus eating with some outcasts. They asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” (Matthew 9:11). On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13). Instead of being angry with sinners, he longs for them to come to Him. Jesus’ desire is for all of us to come to Him. The Bible says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He said about the sinners in Jerusalem: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37). Jesus went to people of all back grounds and situations, and saw them as part of God's harvest. Because of his kind of caring and openness, they responded. We never know who will respond to the love of God and Good News of Jesus Christ, and it is not our job to figure it out. Instead, we are to keep reaching out to others and sharing the Good News. Mark Early tells the story of Gracia Burnham’s ordeal. She and her husband Martin were missionaries in the Philippines. They were on a much-needed, brief vacation near where they were serving, in order to celebrate their wedding anniversary, when they were abducted by Abu Sayyaf rebels. Many of these rebels were mere children who had been taken from their homes and forced into guerilla warfare. Early wrote, “For 377 days, Gracia Burnham, an American missionary, was held captive by Abu Sayyaf, a Filipino group associated with Al Qaeda. During that time, she experienced horrors we cannot even imagine. She also gained an insight to one of the world’s most pressing issues - the use of child soldiers. After being kidnapped, Gracia and her husband Martin were starved and force-marched through the jungle. Along the way they saw other hostages beheaded and raped. Finally, she saw her husband Martin die after a botched rescue attempt. One of Burnham’s principal tormentors was a 14-year-old Abu Sayyaf soldier named Ahmed. Burnham admits to loathing him for ‘hoarding food when she had none, throwing stones at her while she bathed — fully clothed — in the river, and pushing her along the trail saying ‘faster, faster.’ And yet Burnham prayed for a way to love Ahmed. She got her chance after he was wounded in a firefight and soiled himself. When she saw that he was embarrassed, she thought of her own son and felt love for Ahmed. She washed Ahmed’s clothes in the river before he was taken into the jungle on a stretcher, bound, gagged and ‘stark raving mad.’ To this day, she has no idea what happened to him.” I wonder if we are willing to go that far to reach out in love to those that many see as hopeless? The Bible says, “The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion” (Numbers 14:18).
In His Mercy,
Brownhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpodVp6LH8s