Brown's Daily Word 5/19/16

     Praise the Lord for this week.  It has been a week of celebration and thanksgiving.  Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost Sunday, joining the Lord's people around the corner and around the globe praising the Lord for the gift of the Holy Spirit that He sent upon His first Disciples, and the Church was born.  Praise the Lord for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.  He has promised that, "upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it."  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

    The service of celebration last Sunday was followed by a big dinner reception with a sumptuous menu prepared by our people.  This past Monday my wife Alice was honored by the yearbook committee of the Class of 2016 as they dedicated this year's yearbook to her.  This was a recognition and acknowledgment that she is one a gifted and talented, and above all very caring, teacher.  The Year Book dedication service was held in a special gathering of the class 2016.  It was a total surprise for Alice.  She had no clue.  She was blown away.  Laureen, Sunita, Andy, Gabe, Addie, and Asha all came up from Washington, DC to join in the celebration. In my book my wife is a very gifted teacher  with divers gifts and variegated talents, with unwavering convictions and unshakable integrity.  One of the added blessings of this week was to have our grand children Gabe, Addie and Asha with us.  We all had a beautiful and blessed time.

    Yesterday our Church hosted our monthly Community wide dinner.  They served BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, baked beans, and applesauce, all topped off with decadent Ice cream brownie sundaes.  ( Summer has arrived !)  Thank you, Jesus.

    On the Day of Pentecost the Lord sent the Holy Spirit .  It descended on the disciples, who were in one accord.  The coming of the Holy Spirit was both audible and visible.  It galvanized  the disciples, who,in the eyes of the world, were ordinary and very common.  When the Holy Spirit fell upon each of the disciples,  they were galvanized, propelled, and catapulted  into the world with boldness, great conviction, power, and passion.  They moved into the world to turn the world upside down (and to turn hearts right-side up).  In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul wrote that we will all come to know the immeasurable greatness of God’s power that lives in us by faith.  I like the word, immeasurable - you can’t begin to measure it, because God’s power is so vast.  I like the word, greatness, because the word implies absolute giganticness.  I like the word, know, because we human beings cannot ordinarily really understand about the immeasurable greatness of God’s power that lives within us.  In the third chapter of Ephesians, Paul again talked about God’s great power that lies within us.  He described that we have the power to grasp the length and width, and height and depth of the love of God for us.  This power is the power to finally grasp or know or comprehend the vastness of God’s love for us.  We then are able to do far more than we ever think, imagine or ask from God.  I like that.  I like that God’s power inside of God does more with our lives than we can ever think, imagine or ask.

    God’s real power and presence comes to us in many different ways.  I love the quotation from C.S. Lewis about his knowing Christ first hand.  “When I was an undergraduate in Cambridge, if I were to say that Christ came to me, I should be using conventional words that would carry no precise meaning.  For Christ comes to men and women in different ways.  When I try to record the experience at that time, I use the imagery of the Vision of the Holy Grail.  It seemed to me like that.  There was, however, no sensible vision.  There was just the room, with its shabby furniture and the fire burning in the grate, and the red shaded lamp on the table.  But the room was filled by a presence that in a strange way was both about me and within me like a light or warmth. I was overwhelming possessed by someone who was not myself.  And yet, I felt more myself than ever before.  I was filled with intense happiness and almost unbearable joy as I had never known before or never known since.  And overall, there was a deep sense of peace and security and certainty.”  This was Pentecost for C.S. Lewis.  It was a first hand experience for C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest authors of this past century.

 Jesus is real.  He is present with us in and through the Person of the Holy Spirit.  Life is stronger than death.  A miracle occurs or a thousand miracles occur and we know - we know first hand of God’s goodness to us  in Jesus Christ.  We experience Him here and now with naturalness, conviction, authority, delightfulness, and humor.  He is part of  our story.  in fact, He is the  key to our story.  In Him we live, move, and have our being.

    In Jesus our Lord.

    Brown

 https://youtu.be/YCGu0dKu-48

Brown's Daily Word 5/20/16

   Praise the Lord for all the days with which He blesses us, that we might to live to know Him and enjoy Him for ever and ever.  Yesterday He blessed us with a spectacular day.  I spent some time in the Triple Cities.  It was sunny and and warm.  I was at The Sam's club for awhile doing some purchases.  I ran into one of the store associates, whom I have known for several years.  Almost every time I see him I ask about his work and his personal well being, and we usually share some humor.  I know most of his colleagues, including the department manager. Out of blue the man came out  to talk to me and said, "I want to be baptized".  I listened to his story.  He disclosed that a few months ago he was into watching  horror movies and then he watched some movies on hell.  The "Hound of Heaven, Jesus our Lord, has been pursuing him.  The man shared that the Holy Spirit has been convicting him of his sinfulness and wretchedness and also about the Amazing grace of Jesus and about His mercy.  He gave his life over to Jesus.  Something beautiful and wonderful was transacted the moment he believed in Jesus.  He further shared that the Lord has transformed his life.  The Lord has transformed his foul mouth  and given him a mouth to praise the Lord and share about Jesus with others.  He shared  how the Lord has given him a deep and abiding peace.  I agreed to baptize him.  We prayed together on the floor of the store, praising the Jesus for His wonderworking power.

    I drove by the downtown section of the City of Binghamton.  The whole city was flooded with University Students who were  celebrating their graduation.  Finals are over and graduation is this weekend.  All the roads were blocked.  All the restaurants and pubs were wide open to cater to the graduates and their friends who were in the mode of celebration and partying.

    Once again the world was awakened yesterday with the news of the Egyptian Air disaster.   We read and hear about the insane brutalities in the Middle East and around the world.  Many Christians are brutalized, persecuted, and killed around the world.  Many of us  remember the 21 Coptic Christians who were beheaded by ISIS on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in Libya.  They were marched out in orange jump suits, each one standing in front of a man dressed in black.  One by one their throats were slit, all of it captured on video and shared with the world by the terrorists.  Many of the men died with the name of Jesus on their lips.  No one recanted.  A few months ago Tom Doyle, author of Killing Christians: Living the Faith Where It’s Not Safe to Believe, visited the Christian villages south of Cairo where most of the men came from.  It was not easy to get there and not entirely safe to go there.  He met with the families of the men who had been beheaded.  That very day he was interviewed on the radio and asked what the families had said, he replied they spoke of their deep pride in their men.  They repeated the Scripture promises of heaven.  Then they said of the martyred men, “They were like lions.  Did you see how brave they were?  They walked without fear.”

    They were like lions!  They were like lions who follow the Lamb who is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.  The Christian life can be hard.  Sometimes it is very hard indeed.  Let us pray for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters around the world, especially Christians in the Middle East, that we might have strength to endure whatever comes our way.

    All of us have heard of the Puritans.  Let me mention a name you may not have heard - Christopher Love - who lived in the 1600's.  He was a Welsh Protestant preacher who converted to the Presbyterian faith.  Accused of treason, he was sentenced to die by beheading in 1651.  While he was awaiting execution, his wife Mary wrote to encourage him to stay strong in his faith.  Christopher and Mary had four children.  Two had died; two were living.  She was pregnant with their fifth child.  Here is part of her letter:

When the messenger of death comes to you, let him not seem dreadful to you, but look on him as a messenger that brings you tidings of eternal life.  When you go up the scaffold, think (as you said to me) that it is but your fiery chariot to carry you up to your Father's house.  And when you lay down your precious head to receive your Father's stroke, remember that you said to me: Though your head was severed from the body, yet in a moment your soul should be united to your Head, the Lord Jesus, in heaven.  And though it may seem something bitter, that by the hands of men we are parted a little sooner than otherwise we might have been, yet let us consider that it is the decree and will of our Father, and it will not be long ere we shall enjoy one another in heaven again.

Let us comfort one another with these sayings.  Be comforted, my dear heart.  It is but a little stroke and you shall be there where the weary shall be at rest and where the wicked shall cease from troubling.  Remember that you may eat your dinner with bitter herbs, yet you shall have a sweet supper with Christ that night.  My dear, by what I write unto you, I do not hereby undertake to teach you; for these comforts I have received from the Lord by you.  I will write no more, nor trouble you any further, but commit you into the arms of God with whom ere long you and I shall be.

Farewell, my dear.  I shall never see your face more till we both behold the face of the Lord Jesus at that great day.

    On the day of his death, Christopher Love wrote his final letter to his wife. I here reproduce the beginning and the end:

My most gracious Beloved,

I am now going from a prison to a palace: I have finished my work, and am now going to receive my wages.  I am going to heaven, where are two of my children, and leaving you on earth, where there are three of my babes.  These two above need not my care; but the three below need thine.  It comforts me to think, two of my children are in the bosom of Abraham, and three of them will be in the arms and care of such a tender and godly mother.  I know you are a woman of sorrowful spirit, yet be comforted, though your sorrows be great for your husband going out of the world, yet your pains shall be the less in bringing your child into the world; you shall be a joyful mother, though you be a sad widow; God hath many mercies in store for you; the prayer of a dying husband for you will not be lost.

"I go from a prison to a palace" . . .

Farewell dear love, and again I say farewell.  The Lord Jesus be with your spirit, the Maker of heaven and earth be a husband to you; and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ be a father to your children – so prays your dying, your most affectionate friend till death,

Christopher Love

The day of my glorification

From the Tower of London, August 22, 1651

    His first sentence says it all: “I go now from a prison to a palace.”  This is the true Christian position.  This is what it means to die in the Lord.  That sort of faith will never die because it rests on the eternal promises of God.

In Jesus our Peace.

Brown

https://youtu.be/XPPMSfCdUng