Good day,
Praise the Lord for this beautiful summer day. Praise the Lord for the way He displays His beauty around the world, and for the way that He demonstrates His power throughout the earth. In the midst of confusion, chaos, and crises, our Lord still reigns.
Let us continue to pray for the persecuted church around the world. Pray for the Church in Pakistan, where Christians were burned to death by militant Moslems last weekend. Often our fellow Christians are both helpless and defenseless, but we seek our anchor in Christ. Praise the Lord for those who still dare to die for the sake of the Gospel, and for those who exemplify the truth, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" (Jim Elliot). We will not let the world defeat us, for the Lord God is "our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days, pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise" ("O Worship the King"). In the midst of intense persecution the Church continues to minister to people, in Pakistan, in the Sudan, in China, in India, and around the world.
Sunita is flying to Bangladesh next week Monday to see some of the work of World Vision and American AID there. On her return she hopes to stop off in Bhubaneswar, India to visit my mom, my brother Patel, Lisa, and Kenny for a couple of days.
Our Lord is the hope of the hopeless. He is the Christ for the confused. He is the Way for the Lost. He is the Truth for the deceived and Life for the dying.
Dr. Jerome Frank at Johns Hopkins talks about our "assumptive world." What he means is that all of us make assumptions about life about God, about ourselves, about others, about the way things are. He argues that when our assumptions are true to reality, we live relatively happy, well-adjusted lives. But when our assumptions are distant from reality, we become confused and angry and disillusioned” (Haddon Robinson, "How Does God Keep His Promises?," Nothing is more destructive than hoping in failed promises.
Our world is full of promises of things to meaning and purpose and value to our lives. Some promise that you don’t have to feel what you’re feeling and that everything is going to be all right. Many promise that tomorrow is going to be a better day. We tend to live our lives by these promises. We live in a tough world, a fallen world that still rebels against the ways of the Lord. There are many people who are going through trials and the harsh realties of this life. In spite of promises about how they could make a lot of money and have a better life, the promises were false, leading them deeper and deeper into debt and despair. It is hard to watch. The great D.L. Moody said, “God never made a promise that was too good to be true”. In Christ Jesus we are called to stand on His promises. Our Lord God is a God of beautiful and magnanimous promises. Jeremiah 33 was written by the prophet when things looked very bad for his people. About 600 years before Jesus, the people of Israel were about to be taken away from their Promised Land because for generations they had been not relying on the promise-giver, but on any other sort of promise. Everything that had given them meaning and identity would be destroyed. And right then, Jeremiah, said that one would rise up – a Messiah – another David, to restore Jerusalem to justice and righteousness. It was said that He, himself, would be our righteousness.
Our situations may make life confusing. Each of us is in a different place, and it is hard to lump us all together in regards to how well or how poorly we have done in choosing the promises we follow. But all of us, in the deepest needs in our lives, and, finally, in everything, have only one final source of promises that will be wholly, completely, true, reliable, forgiving, freeing, meaningful, real, and everything that we need. Jesus has come. He has conquered sin, Satan, and the grave. He makes all things beautiful in His time. That is the greatest promise, and the one worth holding onto and celebrating above all others. “Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit. He was doing well in the ways of the world. He wrote, "A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live." Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him. "Zinger, we’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living." “Zinger” recovered from chemotherapy and returned to the PGA tour. He’s done pretty well. But that bout with cancer changed him. He wrote, "I’ve made a lot of money since I’ve been on the tour, and I’ve won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I feel like I’ve found the answer to the six-foot hole" (Robert Russell, Resurrection Promises)
Praise the Lord "For all the promises of God in him are yes, and in him Amen, to the glory of God by us." (2 Coriathians 1:20)
Praise the Lord for our friend Roger DuBois, who recently completed a cross-country bicycle ride from coast to coast. He is a young 60-something. He is praising the Lord for giving him grace, strength, and triumph. He is a descendent of the French Huguenots, and avid Steelers fan, and a lover of Jesus (best of all).
I'll be off and on with my computer throughout the month of August, so I won't be posting devotions every day. Thank you for praying for me faithfully and fervently, and for your grace notes.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC617kE1maU
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