Brown's Daily Word 7-20-09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day. It is the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon by Neil Armstrong and his team. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the news of the moon landing came on the radio. (There was no television in the State of Orissa at that time, so all news came via radio or newspaper). I was on a bus, going home from my senior year of college. That night I visited a woman, blind and in her 80's, and told her that Americans had landed on the moon. She was stunned because many Hindus worship the moon as a god.
"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork." (Psalm 19:1)
The Lord blessed us with a glorious weekend. The Heaven Now Marriage Seminar that was held last Saturday was a huge blessing. The presentation by Rick Larson was anointed, refreshing, and renewing. We are really blessed. The Lord continued to bless us as we gathered in His house yesterday for worship and fellowship. Rick Larson preached yesterday, continuing his theme, "Christian Marriage, the Lord's Very Best Gift to Man and Woman". Rick Larson used Ephesians 5 as the foundation model for Christian marriage.
In the culture and the world we live in, we are seduced by the temporal. We need to move from the temporal and focus on the eternal. When we give in to the temporal, we fall into traps of self-indulgence, self centeredness, and selfishness. Somebody once said, "God made people to be loved and He made things to be used, but in our sinful state we love things and use people to get the things that we love".
Without Christ ruling in our lives we are prone to become self-indulgent. We have nothing else to live for. Life is simply a matter of pleasing and satisfying ourselves. So, we indulge, pamper, and please ourselves. If other people fit into that plan it is fine, but if they do not we shut them out of the circle of our lives. The result is that our lives become smaller and smaller until we are the only ones left in the circle.
Many of us remember the story of Dennis Kozlowski. In June of 2005, Dennis Kozlowski the former executive of Tyco walked out of a Manhattan courtroom through a swarm of photographers. He had just been convicted on multiple counts of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from Tyco. Kozlowski’s lifestyle included unbelievable excesses. There was the $2.2 million dollar birthday party for his wife, Karen, complete with dancing nymphs and an ice statue of Michelangelo’s David pouring out vodka. Kozlowski was raised in a poor section of Newark, New Jersey, but after working his way through college, he went to work for Tyco. He eventually became CEO and doubled the company’s business. Kozlowski lived in extravagance and self-indulgence — much of it at the company’s expense. He had homes in New York, Nantucket, and Colorado. He bought a $30 million racing yacht, and installed his mistresses in Tyco-owned apartments. But, eventually, trouble came. The New York State Banking Commission tracked a series of unusual bank transfers. New York’s district attorney investigated and it led to Kozlowski’s indictment on charges of corporate corruption. His indulgence literally led to bondage.
What made Kozlowski do it? What makes many people do the same thing, though perhaps on a smaller scale? What would make me want to please and indulge myself? It is the lack of an eternal perspective. It is looking at this world as though this is all there is. It is the lack of a relationship with Jesus, that makes us set up ourselves as God. If we don’t live for Jesus, we only live for ourselves. If we don’t obey the Lord, we obey our own desires — and those desires eventually enslave us. Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. [And here is the key!] But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:25-33).
Paul, the apostle, encouraged us to have an eye on eternity when he wrote: “What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who. . . buy something, [should live] as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:29-31).
In Christ,
Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAerTz_c8nc