The Lord blessed us with a wonderful day in His house yesterday. The Lord gave us a spring-like weather, with promises of the warmer seasons ahead. I am ready for Spring and summer. I am thinking of lakes and rivers, oceans and seas.
I have been privileged to visit the
Holy Land several times. Every time I have been there I have visited the Sea of
Galilee where our Lord Jesus spent much of His time in ministry. I also have
made a point to visit the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea for a
reason: it's dead. It is the saltiest body of water on the planet, nine times
saltier than the ocean. It is so salty that no fish can live in it. It is so
salty that sailboats don't sail on it—and this is a big body of water, 10 miles
by 50 miles. If you look out over the water, you'll never see a skier. The
only people who like the saltiness of the Dead Sea are the tourists to Israel,
because they can bob in the Dead Sea. It's impossible to sink in water that is
that salty, so tour buses drive there, people don swimsuits, and they go
bobbing.
I have bobbed in the Dead Sea.
It's a lot of fun until you try to rinse off the salt. The Dead Sea is located
in the lowest part of the earth. Interestingly, there is fresh water flowing into the Dead Sea
continuously. The Jordan River and several other streams feed into the Dead
Sea, but the Dead Sea has no outlet. Because it has no outlet, the fresh water
comes in and sits there idly, and the hot desert sun evaporates it
all.
There is a
danger for all of us in becoming Dead Sea persons. A Dead Sea person is the
one who on a regular basis receives fresh blessings, fresh resources, fresh
provisions from the Lord from whom all good and perfect gifts come, but has no
outlet. It is written: "But just
as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete
earnestness, and in your love for us — see that you also excel in this grace of
giving. I'm not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love
by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor,
so that you through his poverty might become rich". 2 Corinthians 8:7
ff.
Paul wanted the Corinthians to
excel at something. He was saying: You Corinthians are good at a lot of things
but, unfortunately, giving isn't one of them, so I want to challenge you to put
as much effort into excelling at generosity as you put into excelling at
everything else.
Sunita travels around the
globe with her work. She shares with me the evil of human trafficking today.
There was recently a big event held in Atlanta. Forty thousand young people,
mostly college students and Christ-followers, gathered for this big crusade to
stop sex trafficking in our world today. They are excited about justice and
caring for people who have become virtual slaves. There are more slaves in the
world today than in any previous time in history so these young people wanted to
do something about it. The CNN report was highly complimentary as they showed
young people lifting their hands in worship. They had these knockdown, drag-out
worship times. They listened to speakers who addressed the topic of
trafficking. Then they gave generously, selflessly, and sacrificially. . . and
I thought to myself, Compared to their secular friends who never
give anything to anybody but themselves, this is pretty
cool.
There's no greater joy than
giving.
In Christ,
Brown
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