Brown's Daily Word 9/11/14

It was 13 years ago that America the beautiful was attacked.  The attack was barbaric and brutal.  Each one of us can remember the exact place where we were and what was happening on that brilliant September 11, 2001 morning.  I had just finished praying with someone over the phone that morning.  I was about to leave the house that morning I turned on television to check the weather channel and I saw the first plane fly into the first tower.  Praise the Lord that He has restored and is restoring His people.  New towers are being built.  The place that was turned into a mass graveyard, with hills of ash and debris, are the places where we see the signs of full restoration.  As I pause and reflect on the day I can identify much that can be learned from 9/11 – heroic sacrifice, unity revived, love expressed.  Not only do we see volunteers and random heroes from the street show up to do what they can to help, but we also see businessmen and women turn into Emergency Exit Guides, directing people out of the towers down the stairs calmly and coolly, saving lives, while they stay inside to help the last people get out.  We see our police force, our fire fighters, our military leaders, and our fighter jet pilots putting their lives on the line.  These heroes dared to go in when everyone else was going out.

    To many of us, heroic sacrifice seems absurd.  It’s out of the question – why would you do that?  Still, such sacrifice is what the Apostle Paul spoke about.  He said, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.”  Paul's words indicated that, “this is rare; it’s certainly possible that for a good person, for a fellow American, someone might dare to die, but it is rare.”  On 9/11 such rare people dared to die for others – others they didn’t even know.  The only thing many of those officers and firefighters knew was that they weren’t coming out alive.  They knew someone might need them.
    We also see unity expressed in their actions, we see love in action, and we give thanks to God for them.  God established government for just such a purpose: not just law enforcement, but public safety.  The gift of people who are trained and willing to sacrifice themselves for you is a rare and precious gift from God.  With that in mind, Paul brought up a comparison between such a rare sacrifice for you and the sacrifice Jesus made, which is more important, because it serves as the real basis for our hope.  He said, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
    Jesus didn’t dare to die for a righteous or good person.  Jesus didn’t die for those who didn’t know either.  What made and makes Jesus unique is that he died for all people in the world, though He knew we were still sinners.  In the face of tragedy we are invited to look for our strength (Psalm 46-11).  In this psalm David encourages believers in times of trouble.  Psalm 46 is famous as the inspiration of Martin Luther’s great Hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.”  When David said, “God is our refuge” what he meant was that our sense of security is not derived from our nations defenses but that it rests in our faith in God.  God and God alone is our refuge in times such as these.  As believers we need to remember that our feeling of security goes beyond the measures of homeland defense, metal detectors, security checks, military power, political alliances, or the strength of our economy.  Our faith must rest solidly on a relationship with a living God.  Security is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of confidence and courage in the midst of trouble. 
    David's words in the psalm remind us that God is not only or refuge but our “strength.”  Strength is the ability to rise above tragedy even with tears in our eyes and go forward.  God is not just some far off source from whom we can seek advice but this psalm tells us that he is “a very present help.”
    David ended this great psalm by reminding us in verse ten that it is when we are overwhelmed that we need to allow God to move. “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!  The LORD of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our refuge.”
 In Christ,
  Brown
http://youtu.be/AhlnProP8o0

"Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children." -President George W. Bush, November 11, 2001

“One of the worst days in America’s history saw some of the bravest acts in Americans’ history. We'll always honor the heroes of 9/11. And here at this hallowed place, we pledge that we will never forget their sacrifice.”
—President George W. Bush at the Pentagon in 2008

Brown's Daily Word 9/10/14

   Praise the Lord for this new day.  We will gather at 6 PM for our Mid-week services of fellowship and study.  We will gather for a meal at 6 PM and for Bible Study at 6:30 PM.  We will be starting a study on the minor prophets.  As many of you know, my mom died on the 1st of September.  A service of mourning and celebration was held  on Wednesday (earlier today - India time).  It is almost over by now.  The service will start around 11 AM and conclude around 7 PM.  People will come as they come for a wedding celebration.  They will share a special meal.  The family was preparing for over 2000 people.  My mom was loved by so many because she loved Jesus first and loved so many.  Her life was an amazing life of witness and service. 

    Jesus turns our mourning into dancing.  We read in the Gospel of John that Jesus attended a wedding celebration in Cana of Galilee and performed His first miracle there.  He also went to a funeral service in Bethany where He performed a great miracle.  I believe that, in a deeper sense, in a fallen world, God's business is joy.  Ultimately, He is in the wedding business.  It is not just the grace business, not just the joy business.  Jesus is in the wedding business.  I am participating in a Jewish wedding in a few days.  I know our Lord Jesus always  provides very fine wine.  He makes our drab and boring lives colorful.  He ferments our lives that are often boring and tasteless.

    In Isaiah 25 the prophet was talking about a great hardship coming upon the people of God due to their rebellion against Him.  But then he said, "God will rescue you. There will be a Messiah. What will mark him?"  Isaiah 25:6, "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine.  Of rich food full of marrow and of aged wine well refined."  What was the kind of wine that Jesus made at the feast?  The very best.

    But that's not all that Isaiah said.  He didn't just talk about one who would come and provide wine.  Verse seven of Isaiah 25: "And he will swallow up this mountain, the covering that is cast over all peoples."  He's not just coming to bring a rich feast with a lot of good wine; he is coming to remove the covering—that's the death shroud—that is upon the people.  He is going to swallow up death for all people.  But when John described Cana he  was not talking about Jesus taking away death.  John 4:46: "So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee."  He went back there again.  "He came again to Cana in Galilee where he had made the water wine. At Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill."  Verse 50, "Jesus said to this official, 'Go, your son will live.'"  The official went back to his own town, met his servants as they were coming to get him, and the servants said: "Your son has been healed."  The official asked when this happened.  They gave the hour and it was exactly the hour that Jesus told him that his son would be healed.  He was given life again.

    That's not all that Isaiah spoke about.  He did not merely say that this one who comes will give much good wine and life.  The Book of Isaiah says He will give life to all people.  The official was a Roman centurion, showing that the gospel was extended to all peoples.  But that's not all that Isaiah says. "He will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from their faces."

    The greatest wedding story and the Love story comes to a great culmination in the book of Revelation, in which it is written at the great consummation as all the peoples who have trusted in Jesus come together, there will be a great what kind of feast before the Lamb.  At the great wedding feast what will happen?  The people of God, the new Jerusalem, will come down from heaven adorned as a bride and at that point God will wipe away "All tears from their eyes."

 In Jesus our great Comforter,

  Brown

http://youtu.be/iPeVIuRjUi4

Brown's Daily Word 9-9-14

     The Lord blessed us with awesome an summer-like day yesterday.  The Lord decorated the evening by displaying the majestic harvest moon.  Alice and I walked under the brilliance and beauty of the Harvest moon.  The hills were laughing and the trees were praising the Lord in silence.  A friend posted the photographs of turkeys grazing with the chickens.  The trees are about burst forth into brilliant colors.  We all can say, "what a wonderful world" and we all can sing, "How great Thou art". 

    One of the my favorite Psalms, Psalm 139, portrays the Lord God who watches over us with much love and care.  Our Lord God knows us better than we know ourselves.  He is aware of every action and anticipates our innermost thoughts. Verse 1 begins: "O Lord, you have searched me and you know me."  The knowledge God has of us is not only expansive, it is also deeply personal. David described God as seeing us from afar, but that doesn't mean that he thinks that God is far off.  This God who knows us knows us from the inside.  David used the language of "perception" and "discernment" to characterize God's knowledge of him.  "You perceive my thoughts," he said.  "You discern my going out and my my coming in, my rising up and my lying down.  You are familiar with my ways."  This thought moved David to praise in verses 17-18: "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.  When I awake, I am still with you."

    John Calvin began the "Institutes of the Christian Religion" with the assertion that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves are related. "Nearly all the wisdom we possess," Calvin wrote, "that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves."  Calvin went on to say that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating God to scrutinize himself.  But, Calvin pointed out, what we learn about ourselves is not entirely comfortable because when we consider ourselves in the light of God, we see both "what we were like when we were first created and what our condition became after the fall of Adam."

    King David, the writer of Psalm 139, paused and pondered the majesty of God.  He pondered the vastness of God's wisdom, power, and grace.  King David  aligned himself with God's purposes, and he asked God to search him.  He aligned himself with God's purposes by differentiating himself from the wicked.  Verse 19-22 read: "If only you would slay the wicked, O God!  Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!  They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.  Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you?  I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies."  We are embarrassed by his sentiment—David's words sound harsh to us—but that is only because we have lost our moral compass.

    The Psalmist's uncomfortable words are a reminder that there really is such a thing as evil and that it is right to denounce evil, but those who denounce evil in others must be prepared to confront a more subtle enemy: they must be prepared to face the evil in themselves. That's why the Psalmist concluded with a prayer for himself in verses 23-24: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

    In a Christianity Today article entitled, "Looking for Monsters," Kay Warren writes that the first time she visited Rwanda, she went expecting it to be easy to spot the monsters who had perpetrated that country's terrible genocide in 1994. "What I found left me puzzled, and ultimately terrified," she writes."Instead of finding leering, menacing creatures, I met men and women who looked and behaved a lot like me.  They took care of their families, went to work, chatted with their neighbors, laughed, cried, prayed, and worshiped.  Where were the monsters?  Where were the evildoers capable of heinous acts?  Slowly, with a deepening sense of dread, I realized the truth.  There were no monsters in Rwanda, just people like you and me."

    The good news is that the God who is your creator is also your redeemer.  This God who knows you inside and out, the God who sees you coming and going, the God who is the architect of your soul, is also the architect of your salvation.  He is the God who became flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ.  He is the one who shed his blood.  Your creator is also your redeemer—Jesus Christ: the only one who saves us from our sin.

In Christ,

 Brown

http://youtu.be/ln0r7MJXw-w