Brown's Daily Word 7/22/09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the gifts of friendship and hospitality. We had Rick Larson and his wife Linda over to the house on Sunday for dinner. It was a great time of fellowship and sharing. Over the years the Lord has blessed us with many servants of Jesus who have similarly joined us around the table for a time of fellowship.
We are looking forward for the Continentals Brass and Voices concert tomorrow at 7 PM at First United Methodist Church, in Endicott. It will be a great blessing - with a select group of singers and instrumentalists. Those of you live in the area do not miss this event. You will be blessed. We have hosted concerts by the Continentals since 1978. Our children have grown up loving Christian music and loving Jesus. Thank you, Jesus! We have hosted Continentals in our home all these years. Alice love to cook and bake huge, and pamper them. Laureen is going to host some Continentals this year, too. She is an awesome hostess, and she loves to host friends and family in her house. She also hosts a weekly Bible study in her house. Janice and Jeremy love to entertain friends and family in their house in Boston. Sunita and And are blessed with a very spacious home, where they also love to host. They have entertained many friends and colleagues from overseas, in their home in Washington, DC. Jessica also loves to entertain her friends in her home in Philadelphia.
The Bible declares that Christian hospitality is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Bible declares further that we may be entertaining angels unaware. We had a great honor and privilege of hosting Dr. Ravi Zacharias for dinner in the parsonage in Nichols several years ago. Ravi Zacharias recently wrote: “In the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde describes an exceptionally handsome young man so captivating that he drew the awestricken adulation of a great artist. The artist asked him to be the subject of a portrait for he had never seen a face so attractive and so pure. When the painting was completed, young Dorian became so enraptured by his own looks that he wistfully intoned how wonderful it would be if he could live any way he pleased but that no disfigurement of a lawless lifestyle would mar the picture of his own countenance. If only the portrait would grow old and he himself could remain unscathed by time and way of life. In Faustian style he was willing to trade his soul for that wish. One day, alone and pensive, Dorian went up to the attic and uncovered the portrait that he had kept hidden for so many years, only to be shocked by what he saw. Horror, hideousness, and blood marred the portrait. The charade came to an end when the artist himself saw the picture. It told the story. He pled with Dorian to come clean, saying, “Does it not say somewhere, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’?” But in a fit of rage to silence this voice of conscience, Dorian grabbed a knife and killed the artist. There was now only one thing left for him to do; he took the knife to remove the only visible reminder of his wicked life. But the moment he thrust the blade into the canvas, the portrait returned to its pristine beauty, while Dorian lay stabbed to death on the floor. The ravages that had marred the picture now so disfigured him that even his servants could no longer recognize him.” Ravi closed by saying, “We too, face Dorian Gray’s predicament. Sooner or later, a duplicitous life reveals the cost. The soul is not forever invisible. But there is one who can cleanse and restore us. The Scriptures give us extraordinary insight into this subject of our soul-struggle, and God deals with the heart of the issue one life at a time. Indeed, hear the words of the prophet Isaiah to which Oscar Wilde alluded: ‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the LORD. ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be like wool’ (1:18). So come, friend, willingly and obediently, and find God’s rejoinder to the marred portrait within. The greatest artist of all speaks even today.”
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyoVJfADlwo