Brown's Daily Word 2-27-09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this last Friday of February. The Lord gave us a very Spring- like day yesterday. It was very bright with abundant sunshine. Laureen, Jessica and I walked vigorously in one of the local parks. Praise the Lord for the way He prepares before us a banqueting table of grace and mercy in the presence trials and tribulations. He gives us our daily bread. Our cups are full to the brim with His love and grace.
We are planning for a great fellowship meal tomorrow. It will be held at the First United Methodist Church, Endicott. We will have two seatings. The first seating will be at 5 p.m. followed by the second seating at 6 p.m. The main menu will be Chicken cordon blue, along with home made pies and rolls. We are anticipating a great time of blessing and fellowship. There will be a special music ministry brought by some of the students from the Binghamton University.
I get thrilled and inspired by the stories and the testimonies of the servants and the soldiers of Jesus. Missionary David Brainerd was a soldier of Christ who knew God’s love and then passed the Lord’s love on to the American Indians in New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. By almost every standard known to modern missionary boards, David Brainerd would have been rejected as a missionary candidate. He was tubercular, and from his youth was frail and sickly. He never finished college, and was expelled from Yale for criticizing a professor and for his interest and attendance in meetings of the “New Lights,” a religious organization. Brainerd had only a few converts, but became widely known because of writings about him. His personal diary inspired William Carey, Henry Martyn, Robert McCheyne and Jim Elliot. (School of Tomorrow; Wikipedia Encyclopedia) God is still using his writings today to inspire and convict the Christians world-wide on matters of true Christian service. (Missionary Biographies, World Missions)
Brainerd’s first journey to the Forks of the Delaware to reach the ferocious Delaware tribe resulted in a miracle of God that preserved his life and revered him among the Indians as a “Prophet of God.” Encamped at the outskirts of the Indian settlement, Brainerd planned to enter the Indian community the next morning to preach to the Gospel of Christ. Unknown to him, his every move was being watched by warriors who had been sent out to kill him. F.W. Boreham recorded the incident, “But when the braves drew closer to Brainerd’s tent, they saw the paleface on his knees. And as he prayed, suddenly a rattlesnake slipped to his side, lifted up its head to strike, flicked its forked tongue almost in his face, and then without apparent reason, glided swiftly away into the brushwood. ‘The Great Spirit is with the Paleface!’ the Indians said; and thus they accorded him a prophet’s welcome.” David Brainerd, like King David, was a faithful servant of the Lord and that incident in Brainerd’s ministry illustrates more than Divine intervention of God in his life. It also shows the truth that God shows His love to those who will love Him enough to trust Him with their entire lives regardless of the circumstances they face and the enemies who stand against him. David Brainerd had been humiliated by being thrown out of college, and he constantly battled bitterness and disappointment from his expulsion from Yale. However, in June of 1742 he began several days of fasting, prayer and seeking God and found himself totally focused on what the Lord called him to do even when people and circumstances were against him. (Missionary Biographies, World Missions) Like David, Missionary David Brainerd, in desperate times found strength in his Lord. It all began with being able to say, “I love you, O LORD, my strength. (Psalms 18: 1) Holy Spirit-illuminated Christians are able to say to the Lord, “I love you” because they understand God’s love for them. “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Thank you Jesus.
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYfBZnMve_E