Brown's Daily Word 11/5/14

 Praise the Lord for this wonderful day.  We will come together for our Wednesday Evening gathering for fellowship and study this evening at 6 PM followed by choir practice at 7:30 PM.  It is going to be a mild and marvelous day.   This is the morning after the midterm elections in the USA. 
    In The words of William Cowper:

    "God moves in a mysterious way
    His wonders to perform;
    He plants His footsteps in the sea
    And rides upon the storm. 

    Deep in unfathomable mines
    Of never failing skill
    He treasures up His bright designs
    And works His sov’reign will. 

    Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
    The clouds ye so much dread
    Are big with mercy and shall break
    In blessings on your head. 

    Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of lords.  He is upon His throne.  All is well.  He calls us to rise up and come to Him and follow Him.  I like the encounter of the blind man named Bartemaeus, when he met Jesus, when someone in the crowd said to Blind Bart, “Take heart.  Rise. He is calling you.”  We all need to hear those words.  Sometimes it is Jesus who says these words to me. Sometimes it is my wife, a good friend, or one of my children.  Whoever it is, this person is a messenger of God, who speaks the word of the Lord to me.  In this encounter with the blind man, it was an unknown messenger from God in the crowd.

    “Take heart.”  Those words ring in my ear.  They echo in my mind.  They resonate within the chambers of my heart.  Take heart.  There are many times when we lose our inner desire to get up, get out, and get things done.  At times we give up, or may at least be close to quitting.  Perhaps we are overloaded, over- confronted, over our heads with life.  In that moment, Jesus calls to you and to me, “Take heart.”  Those words become an infusion of energy to us.
    Jesus is saying those words to you today, “get up.”  He is calling us today to follow him.”  Jesus comes to heal our spiritual blindness.  Blind Bart was physically blind, but many of us are spiritually blind - blind to the things of God, to the power and goodness of God all around us every moment of every day.
In Jesus,
 Brown
http://youtu.be/v9bC9CRv9oU

Brown's Daily Word 11/4/14

Thanks be to Jesus for this day.  Today America goes to the polls for the midterm elections.  Those of us who live in this great blessed land, let us plan to cast out our ballots for Life and Liberty.  I spoke to Sunita, who is in Cypress with her family.  She shared with me that she spent most of a week in Lebanon with her work. She shared that Lebanon is beautiful country.  The total population of Lebanon is over 4 million.  Refugees from Syria totaling over 2 million have fled to Lebanon.  The Church is ministering to those people.  Many Christians around the globe live under tremendous political pressure and religions persecution.  Praise the Lord for all Christians around the corner and around the globe who live with great devotion to the Lord.  They live with great fervor and deep faith. 

    One of the worship songs we sing goes: “You are Lord of creation and Lord of my life,  Lord of the land and the sea; You were Lord of the heavens before there was time, and Lord of all Lords you will be.  We bow down ...”

    Some time ago I read the story of Dietrich Offeldt, who was born in the land of Martin Luther and Deitrich Bonhhoffer which occurred right after World War II and the separation of East and West Berlin.  It was that moment in history when the division of East and West was becoming painfully apparent.  All his friends counseled him:  “Dietrich, flee to West Berlin.  It will be better for you, better for your family, better for your freedom, a better place to be a Christian.  Don’t remain in East Berlin.  It is family suicide, spiritual suicide.”  But Dietrich was one of the many thousands who chose to remain and live as a Christian under communism.  In  essence he said in one of his letters: “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.  He is the ruler of my life, and he can dispose of my life in any way he chooses.  I have found that every Christian finds himself or herself in a particular circumstance, a particular time, a particular place in which they live out their discipleship.  My circumstance is communism;  my time is the Cold War; and my place is East Berlin.  I chose to be a disciple here.  To survive, I found that I needed to make two decisions:  first, to accept the task that God had placed before me; that is, to live as a Christian in a communist state.  The easy thing would have been to run away, to run someplace that was less difficult.  But an essential key to life is to accept the God-given task that God has placed right in front of you and not run away from it”.  ...  How about us? 

    Dietrich’s letter continued: “The second choice is to raise my flag and show my colors, to let those around me know for sure that I am a Christian, that Christ rules my life.”  Dietrich went on to tell about how some Christian parents in East Germany advised their children to be cautious in revealing that they were Christians and that such children became tense and not free but slaves to the fear of being found out.  Dietrich found it much easier to be up front, to show his colors, to let people know he was a Christian.  For example, one day his school principal confronted him, “Mr. Offeldt, communism teaches that there is no God, that God is a figment of our imagination.”  To which Dietrich replied,  “God is not the figment of my imagination.  God created my imagination and yours.”  His response was up front, colors flying high.  Dietrich knew that he couldn’t teach his beliefs in God at school, but he wanted his principal to know where he stood.  ... How about us? 

    “You are Lord of creation and Lord of my life; Lord of the land and the sea;
You were Lord of the heavens before there was time and Lord of all lords you will be.  We bow down...”

    This past Sunday was Christ the King Sunday.  On this special Sunday Church  remember that Christ is Lord over the whole creation, the entire universe and all the galaxies.  Christ is Lord over this little earth, this lovely planet on which there is life.  We remember that Christ rules over our lives ... during triumphs and tragedies, in all circumstances, all times, all places, and during the complex moral decisions that we face day by day.  Yes, Christ is... LORD!

 In Him,

  Brown

Brown's Daily Word 11/3/14

    Praise the Lord for this brand new month of November.  The Lord blessed us with a amazing weekend.  The Lord blessed our youth gathering Saturday evening.  Whenever we hang out with the youth we feel younger and the Lord makes us energetic.  The Lord blessed us yesterday in His House in our times of worship and celebration.   

    Tom and Jessica spent few days in Cypress with Sunita, Andy, and Gabe.  They had a wonderful time.  They are back in the States.  Today our oldest granddaughter turns 9 years old.  We praise the Lord for Micah.  Micah is blessed with a servant's heart.  She is winsome, beautiful, and sweet.   She loves Jesus and shares about Him with others. 

    Praise the Lord for our lives in Jesus.  Praise the Lord for His gifts of grace and mercy.  Praise the Lord that we get to worship Him, indeed we get to serve Him.  In Christ alone we are blessed and we are loved.  In Christ alone we are given significance.  There is beautiful mystery and wonder in the life that we have in Jesus our Lord.  We are reminded, "your life is hidden with Christ in God"  (Colossians 3:3).   Whenever we stand before the Lord we stand before His Mercy seat.   

    I am praying and planning to post brief messages on You Tube under the theme "Jesus transforms lives... Come to Jesus and live".  

    It is always refreshing and challenging to read about Jean Valjean.  Victor Hugo introduced us to this character in the classic Les Misérables.  Valjean enters the pages as a vagabond, a just-released prisoner in midlife, wearing threadbare trousers and a tattered jacket.  Nineteen years in a French prison have left him rough and fearless.  He's walked for four days in the Alpine chill of nineteenth-century southeastern France, only to find that no inn will take him, no tavern will feed him.  Finally he knocks on the door of a bishop's house.

    Monseigneur Myriel is seventy-five years old.  Like Valjean, he has lost much. The revolution took all the valuables from his family except some silverware, a soup ladle, and two candlesticks.  Valjean tells his story and expects the religious man to turn him away, but the bishop is kind.  He asks the visitor to sit near a fire. "You did not need to tell me who you were," he explains. "This is not my house—it is the house of Jesus Christ."  After some time the bishop takes the ex-convict to the table, where they dine on soup and bread, figs, and cheese with wine, using the bishop's fine silverware.

    He shows Valjean to a bedroom where, in spite of the comfort, the ex-prisoner can't sleep.  In spite of the kindness of the bishop, he can't resist the temptation. He stuffs the silverware into his knapsack.  The priest sleeps through the robbery, and Valjean runs into the night, though he doesn't get far.  The police catch him and march him back to the bishop's house.  Valjean knows what his capture means—prison for the rest of his life.  But then something wonderful happens. Before the officer can explain the crime, the bishop steps forward.  "Oh!  Here you are!  I'm so glad to see you.  I can't believe you forgot the candlesticks!  They are made of pure silver as well…Please take them with the forks and spoons I gave you."

    Valjean is stunned.  The bishop dismisses the police and then turns and says, "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good.  I have bought your soul from you.  I take it back from evil thoughts and deeds and the Spirit of Hell, and I give it to God."  Valjean has a choice: believe the priest or believe his past.  Jean Valjean believes the priest.  He becomes the mayor of a small town.  He builds a factory and gives jobs to the poor.  He takes pity on a dying mother and raises her daughter.

 

    The Grace of Jesus changed him.  Let it change us as well.  Let us not give any  heed to Satan's voice.  We  "have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1).   "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). 

 

  In Jesus,

    Brown

http://youtu.be/bxL6fRdnHkM