Brown's Daily Word 8/21/14

    The Lord has blessed us to live in a world of beauty and bounty, filled with His love and grace.  He blesses us with magnificent seasons.  In Ephesians 1 we read how the Lord has blessed us in Jesus Christ our Lord.  In the midst of beauty and blessings we witness and experience tragedy and trials, and even tribulations.  We are stunned by the beheading of a US journalist by the most brutal, barbaric, demonic, and confused Muslim terrorists in Iraq.  Many innocent and defenseless Christians are terrorized and persecuted, and even crucified, by heartless Muslims in the Middle East.  We do not comprehend and do not understand  the trials and tribulations that are maddening and demonic.  Our Lord has promised that, "in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good courage, I have overcome the world".   The Lord allows the sufferings and trials in our lives, not to punish us but to draw us unto Him, that we might have a deeper fellowship with Him. 

    Most of us are familiar, in concept at least, with something called a safe deposit box.  It is a box in which we store certain items that we deem to be so important or valuable that we want to put them somewhere special for safe keeping.  Some may use a safe deposit box to store insurance policies, financial records, birth certificates, passports, and other documents and possessions that are of particular importance to you.  Some go the extra mile for safety and security and  rent a safe deposit box at a bank where they believe their valuables will be even more securely protected against theft, fire, or loss. 

    With this concept in mind, it is interesting to discover that  Our Lord and Redeemer does not use that same principle when it comes to the most precious and irreplaceable possession that you or I will ever possess, which is our life and salvation.  The apostle Paul says that God gives us  treasures  and then he says that we have to house those valuables in "earthen vessels," not a steel-reinforced safe deposit box.  Not a fireproof box that can resist the attacks of this world, but an earthen vessel.

    This image of an earthen vessel refers to the clay and mud pots, and bowls and jars that were used by people in ancient times.  Paul draws an analogy between the common earthen vessels of his day and our physical body.  We are not as strong as we think we are, and we are not as invincible as we wish we were.  These bodies in which we live every day are nothing more that earthen vessels that can be chipped, or broken or shattered and destroyed.  Paul tells us that God enriches our lives with wonderful things, both physical and spiritual, but then God houses them inside of our physical bodies that are prone to pain, sickness and even death.  God places precious things in earthen vessels.

    We are reminded in 2 Corinthians 4:7-11.  that "we are hard pressed on every side but not crushed.  We are perplexed but not driven to despair.  We are persecuted but not abandoned.  We are struck down but not destroyed" (NIV). 

    The grace of God is sufficient to carry us through whatever this world may through our way.we are not in this struggle by ourselves.  There is someone on our side who knows all about our pains and our problems.  His eyes knew the presence of tears.  His heart knew the weight of grief.  His flesh knew the ravages of pain and suffering.  His body even knew the confinement of the grave.  Yet, by the power of God, He was victorious and triumphant over all of that, and by that same power we can and will be victorious as well.

 In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/CvHMjILrSJ0

Brown's Daily Word 8/19/14

    Praise the Lord for He is good and His love never ends.  He blessed us with a full weekend.  Last Friday our daughter Laureen moved to Washington, DC.  My wife Alice and nephew Bernard joined Sunita, Andy, and Laureen in forming a moving caravan of a U-Haul together with 3 other vehicles, driving to our Nations's capitol.  The Lord gave them traveling mercy all the way.  They arrived safe and sound and got Laureen situated in her apartment on Saturday.  While they were there Bernard and Andy rented two tourist bicycles and toured the Monuments in the night. Bernard  said it was exhilarating.  They all worshipped at St. Brendan's in the City on Sunday. 

    We had an evening of family, food, and fellowship at Wesley onSaturday evening.  It was a blast.  The Lord blessed Sunday in His house.  I preached on "Living with Confidence in Turbulent Times", based on  Daniel 4.  We had a Russian Group visiting on Sunday morning, who ministered to us in music.  It was a great blessing.  

    On Saturday I attended a 50th wedding anniversary reception that was held in an exotic Golf Course setting.  I saw many  whom I had not seen over the last several years.  It was a time of great celebration.  I was also invited to attend a luncheon reception for a messianic Jewish leader from Jerusalem yesterday in the city of Binghamton.  It was a great blessing to know how the Lord is at work still in Israel. 

    It is reported that the Corn Harvest in the USA will be the largest ever.  The gardens and farms around here are bursting with crops.  A friend dropped a bushel of fresh beans yesterday at the house.  In the early morning yesterday a carefree fawn was grazing by the house unwearied and unhurried.  Whenever I drive past the bursting and luxuriant farms I get a great kick out of it because the Lord remembers us, as He brings forth the abundant crops.  There are long passages in the Old Testament about offerings the jubilant times of harvest.  The people of the Lord brought and offered "first fruits" as joyful offerings to the Lord.  The passages on the offerings in the Old Testament are incredibly detailed, elaborate, and complex—not at all simple or straightforward.  In that culture food was money, so a voluntary peace offering, for instance, might be enough to feed an entire village.

    So much joy was attached to it that part of the offering that it was called the wave offering.  The people would literally wave it, just pick it up and wave it before God.  It was a way of saying, "I have been blessed.  This isn't really mine.  God, this is a tool for your work."

    The Sabbath was a big part of Israel's life.  Every seventh day the people would voluntarily give up a portion of the income they could have made by resting and trusting God.  Every seventh year was to be a Sabbath year.  They would rest the land.  Whatever food had been produced got shared.  They would free all slaves. Not just that—this is unprecedented in the ancient world—they would give their freed slaves money so they could make a living.  They would also forgive all debts.

    Then, after seven Sabbath years, after 49 years, every 50th year was to be a year of Jubilee.  Not only would they free slaves and forgive debts, but it was also true that all the land would go back to its original owners.  The year of Jubilee was a year of unbelievable generosity.  In fact, when Jesus began his ministry (this is in Luke 4), he said he had come to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of Jubilee, the year of generosity.  Jesus said, "Now in my coming, the Jubilee year, the best gift of all time has been given because the biggest giver in the universe is God.  God has given us all we have.  He has given us Jesus, the best he has, to die for our sin and to redeem us."

    May Jesus make us passionate lovers , cheerful givers, joyful worshippers and faithful witnesses.

In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/n7lvyd1JdQU

Brown's Daily Word 8/15/14

   Jesus is Lord.  When it pours He reigns.  Our daughter Laureen and her moving caravan (the U-Haul all packed and ready for traveling to Washington, DC.  Andy, Sunita, Gabe, my wife Alice, and our nephew Bernard are traveling in four separate vehicles.  Pray for their safe travel to Washington, DC, which has been designated by Fortune Magazine as the "Coolest City in America".  It is a great privilege and blessing to live, work, and worship in Washington, DC, our Nations capitol. 

    On August 15 India, the largest Democracy in the world, is celebrating its 68th Indpendence Day.  I was born after the Independence of India.  One of my classmates and friends was born on August 15,1947.  "Proclaim Liberty throughout the land."  Leviticus 25:10 

    Those of you who live in the area join us this evening at 7 PM on Time Warner  channel 4 for our weekly Television Outreach.  We will gather tomorrow, Saturday , August 16, 2014 at Wesley UMC for dinner and fellowship.  The dinner will start at 5:30 PM.  We will meet for Worship on Sunday at 9 AM at Wesley UMC and at 10:15 at Union Center UMC.  I will be preaching from Daniel chapter 4, "He's got the whole world in His hands".  Join us for worship and witness. 

    I love Great Britain, the birthplace John Wesley, David Livingstone, and William Carey.  I love British poets and writers.  Samuel Johnson,  who was born September 18, 1709, wasoften referred to as Dr. Johnson.  Johnson was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, and biographer.  Dr. Samuel Johnson said, "man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed".

    This is a universal enigma.  Jesus is the answer to this predicament.  We say, "Come to Jesus and live".  The Entertainment world is stunned at the sudden death of Robin Williams.  Robin William was very rich and very famous and he died a very terrible death.  There is pain and suffering around the corner and around the globe.  We are invited to come to Jesus and live.  We need a firm foundation in a chaotic and troubling times of the world.  We need Jesus.  Without Christ the world is chaos.  Jesus is the Christ in every crisis.  In the Book of Habakkuk, we find faith tested and faith triumphed.

    Sunita and I had some deep conversation last night.  She reminded me, "Daddy,  Jesus  always leads in triumph.  "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere."  2 Corinthians 2:14

    Often in the midst of human suffering, lawlessness, and violence we echo with Habakkuk,

“Why do you make me look at injustice?  Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.  The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted” (1. 3-4).

The Lord gives an answer:

“Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told” (v. 5).

    Perhaps you are familiar with the story of Meriam Ibrahim, the 27-year-old medical doctor in Sudan who was arrested, tried and convicted of apostasy and adultery.  Her crime was that of supposedly converting from Islam when in fact she had been raised as a Christian.  She wasn’t an “apostate” because you can’t leave a religion you never joined in the first place.  They accused her of adultery because she had a child with her husband, a Christian from Sudan who emigrated to the United States.  That is, the “adultery” was really a charge of having sex with her own husband because they didn’t recognize her marriage to a Christian.  Sentenced to death by hanging for apostasy and sentenced also to 100 lashes for adultery, she was given a chance on the stand to recant her Christian faith.  Time and again the prosecutor badgered her to renounce Jesus.  She refused each time.

Finally she said, “I am a Christian and I will remain a Christian.”

    “I am a Christian and I will remain a Christian”

    As a result of her faithful witness, she was not only kept in jail but put in shackles.  The authorities would not even unchain her when she gave birth in prison.  Through it all, she steadfastly refused to renounce the name of Christ. After millions of people protested, she was recently allowed to leave Sudan with her husband and two children and has now entered the United States.

(For coverage of this story, see Meriam Ibrahim Arrives in U.S. and Meriam's Story Only the Tip of the Iceberg.)

 

    Very often in the Bible, things had to get worse before they could get better.  We see only a part of the picture.  In the words of Dr Ray Prichard, "When it comes to understanding what God is doing in the world, we are like ants on a Rembrandt. We crawl across the dark brown and think all of life is dark brown.  Then we hit green and think, ’”Oh, this is better.  Now all is green.”  But soon comes the dark blue and then a splash of yellow, a streak of red, and then another patch of brown. On we journey, from one color to another, never realizing that God is actually painting a masterpiece in our lives using all the colors of the palette.  One day we will discover that every color had its place, had a reason, nothing was wasted or out of place.  Just as there is a time and a season for everything, there is also a color for every stage of life’s journey. When the painting is finished, we will discover that we were part of his masterpiece from the very beginning. "

    God isn’t limited to what we think He ought to do.

 ^"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9)

  In Christ.

   Brown

http://youtu.be/eLqTZ07ja7g