Brown's Daily Word 5-11-09

Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day, a gift from the Lord. Praise the Lord for the spring season that the Lord of all seasons gives us. The Southern Tier of NEW YORK is full of various flowering trees and bushes, which are in full bloom. We are blessed at the church and parsonage grounds with several flowering trees and bushes as well. There two crab apple trees in front of the parsonage, one of which was planted in 1968 by Howard and Dotty Woodward, which grown to be like a banyan tree with luxuriant flowers. The other crab apple tree, planted in 2006 by Ed Hower, is also in full bloom. We are also blessed with flowering cherry trees and also several lavender and white lilac bushes, which are in full bloom. I say to my family, "We have our own Lilacs festival".
Praise the Lord fragrance of Spring. Sunita and Andy came home for the weekend to celebrate Mothers' Day. Laureen was off for the weekend, so she joined us as well. Last evening, Micah took her Mom and Dad to a Bluegrass concert in the greater Boston area for Mothers' Day.
We had a service of death and resurrection for Warren Ayer, Sr. last Wednesday. Warren and his wife Lois were married for 52 years. Lois became sick with cancer on their 27th wedding anniversary. Warren stood by his wife as a devoted and very caring care giver for 27 years. He demonstrated a life of great love, devotion, and self-forgetfulness as gave himself up for his wife, even as Christ loved the church gave Himself up for her. Lois had gone to be with Jesus in 2002. We praise the Lord for the sure and certain hope we have in Jesus, the Risen One. We can do life well in and through Christ alone.
In the midst of decadence and decay we uphold the abundant, eternal, and everlasting life that Christ offers to those trust in Him. I also conducted a wedding for our young friends Amanda and Casey on Saturday. It was great time of celebration and joy.
We had a great time of worship yesterday, Mothers' Day. Two of our devoted and dedicated mothers brought the messages during morning worship. Deborah Eckhardt preached at the 8.30 AM Worship and Alice Naik preached at the 11.00 Worship. It was great blessing. I preached at Wesley at 9.30 AM. I used Proverbs 31 as he text for my message.
Proverbs 20 says in verse 6, "Who can find a trustworthy man?" I just want to put that in because I don't want you to think that this thing is out of balance. It's just as hard to find a trustworthy man at the level of God's standard of character. Proverbs 31:10 reads, " Who can find a virtuous woman"? Typically, men seek a wife for all the wrong reasons, including looks, accomplishment, style, success, money, education ... all the wrong reasons. They should seek a woman for virtue, strength of character, spiritual excellence, internal godliness; those are the right reasons. This kind of woman is a force to be reckoned with. She makes a difference. She leaves a mark. Verse 10 says her worth is far above jewels. Some would translate that word rubies, some would translate it pearls, and the Septuagint translates it precious stones. In other words, she is more valuable than all earthly things which are valuable. She is a rare fortune, a rare find, a woman of force.
According to verse 12, she does him good and not evil. She always does that which is best for him. She pursues his best interests. She strengthens him. She builds him up. She encourages him. She does him good not evil. Then it adds most interestingly this note, "all the days of her life". Isn't that interesting? In other words, her love for him is based upon such high spiritual principles that it doesn't fluctuate with the circumstances of life. When you get married, you no doubt have affirmed the vow that you will live together in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, in plenty and in want. That is a vow that this woman kept in good times, bad times, weak times, strong times, sick times, well times, happy times, sad times, plentiful times, empty times, all times. She always did him good. Like Sarah, in 1 Peter 3:6, she serves him. She reveals her virtue by her consistent service on his behalf. Her love is so deep it has a purity, a power, and a devotion that never change.
This is the essence of what Paul said when writing to Titus, Titus 2:4 when he said, "Wives, love your husbands. Do them good all your life, manage properly that which is in your care so that they have no need of gain." The sphere of the woman's duty is the home. She is the ruler of the house. The breadth of the role of homemaker is amazing. To be able to be an economist, a steward of funds and resources, to be able to analyze all the products available, to be strong enough and well-planned enough to make the right moves at the right time to acquire the right things, to be fully a wife to your husband and a tender and loving mother to all of your children, to apportion all the responsibilities to everybody who was a part of the labor force, that takes some woman.
Verse 16 takes us even further into the enterprising woman. She considers a field and buys it, from her earnings she plants a vineyard. There's a field, perhaps adjacent to the property that the family owns. She feels it's at a right price and would be beneficial to the family. She buys it. There's a certain amount of independence in that. It doesn't say her husband bought it; she bought it. She made the decision that it was wise. She pursued that option. Wise steward, careful money manager, good analyst ... This is some woman.
She makes wise investments to assist her husband. She labors in the home to help. She takes the money that she has earned on her own making those things and invests that in a long- term investment for the benefit of her family and her children and her grandchildren. She buys land and plants a vineyard. She is a wise woman.
Verse 17 says she girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong. The first statement, she girds herself with strength, expresses the energy or the force of this woman of force. It could be translated strength is wrapped around her, she's a strong woman, strongly disciplined, strong in terms of commitment to the family, strong in love to her husband. Even her arms are strong, but not because she goes to the gym. Her arms are strong because of the effort exerted in the daily tasks. Her strength is a result of effort. Her strength is a result of becoming a blessing to her family. She is totally selfless. This is what comes pouring through this passage, her humility, her selflessness, her love, the joy and delight of everything she does because she's lost in the love of her household.
In verse 18 it is said that she senses that her gain is good. In other words, as the Septuagint says she makes a good profit. She sees that it's good for the family. She sees that it's beneficial. It has welfare provision for them; it's for their well being, and so that motivates her. This woman who is motivated by benefiting others is the woman of God's design. She is not motivated by self- fulfillment, self-esteem, self-glory, self-adulation. She is totally motivated by seeing others benefited. That's the godly woman. She is spurred on, not by ego, but by the fact that she sees what she does bringing good to others. As a result, verse 18 says, her lamp does not go out at night. She is so fulfilled in the benefit that's coming to others that it spurs her to work harder and harder and harder.
This is an excellent woman. The measure of devotion and love that she has toward her family is also manifested toward those outside her family. She demonstrates not only a special devotion to her home but compassion on all those who don't have the privilege of being in her home or a home like her home ... the poor and the unfortunate. When verse 20 says she extends her hand to the poor, we might assume that it means she touches them, she's personally and intimately involved. She'll not just touch those who come close but she reaches out to those who stay away with the idea of feeding them and clothing them and enriching their life through her resources.
Strength and dignity are her clothing. She is garmented by strength and dignity. She smiles at the future. Strength has to do with spiritual character. Dignity has to do with class and quality. She is a woman of great character, and she is both strong and dignified. She has a grace about her. She has a confidence about her. The teacher in the home is the woman who has gained the right to be heard and believed because strength and dignity are her clothing.
Scripture says, "And she smiles at the future." She has no fear. Because she knows in whom she trusts, she's deeply spiritual. All things are in God's hands. She has prepared elegantly for everything. It will be well in the future for her because she's right with God. It will be well in the future for her household because all things are in order. It will be well in the future for her children because they are properly brought along in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It will be well in the future for her husband for she has made provision in his case for him to be the best that he can be. It will be well in the eternity to come for all of them because of her life. She has made a spiritual impact.
She opens her mouth in wisdom. She guides her family daily in wisdom. Verse 26, "The wisdom of God comes out of her mouth and the law of kindness is on her tongue." The attitude in which she teaches all of this is a dominant attitude of loving kindness. She employs gracious speech, kind speech, tender speech, pleasing speech, compassionate speech, ministering grace to the hearers, as Paul said, edifying, building up. That which comes out of her mouth is the wisdom of God in tender and compassionate gracious kind words. What a teacher! She is the greatest kind of teacher because the character of life makes her so believable, because the wisdom of God is true and because the attitude is compassionate and gracious. Because of all of this, "Her children rise up and...what?...bless her." They reverence her. They honor her. They hold her in high esteem.
This woman would raise her children and when her children were old enough to be on their own, they would spend the rest of their life blessing the woman who gave her life to them. That's God's design. God has designed our life in passages and when we invest our life in those children God gives us, we will find the backside of our life will be the greatest sweetest time of blessing as they repay to us the blessing given. That's God's design.
As the children become older, they have their own children, and they seek to raise their children as they were raised. Therefore their mother is constantly before their eyes with her tender guidance, wise counsel, loving discipline, holy example, hard work, and unselfish giving. They never cease to fill the memories of her children who try to pass them on to their children.
There is another dividend for her motherhood. Verse 28 says her husband also praises her "in the gate". That is, he tells the other men of the virtues of his wife. He says, "Many daughters have done nobly but you excel them all."
Verse 30 continues, "Charm is deceitful." Do you know what charm means in the Hebrew? It is bodily form. Some women spend all their time on their bodily form. That is deceitful because that's not the real you. Beauty is of no real value; it's vain, it's useless, it's empty. Form, deceitful. You think you're getting something you're not. Beauty has no real value. These are the things our world looks for. No wonder there relationships are empty and filled with deceit. But here's the woman you want, a woman who fears the Lord. She shall be praised. Give her the product of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates.
What woman is this? She loves God. She's a true worshiper. She fears the Lord. This is the woman of character. Only God can produce her. Matthew Henry said, "Proverbs 31 is the mirror against which every Christian woman must stand and face herself." This is God's design. And only God can produce this woman, but this is the woman God wants. This is the woman who will be praised by her children and her husband.
I praise Jesus for the witness and testimony of my mom and my wife.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPeVIuRjUi4