Praise the Lord for another beautiful day. It is going to be a brilliant day. The weekend leading to Memorial Day promises to be brilliant and glorious. The Lord blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday evening. It was full of holy laughter, depth sharing and sweet fellowship. Praise the Lord for His promises, that there is fullness of joy in His presence and in His house. We had so much rain the other day that it looks like rain forest all around us, lush, green, and lively.
One of Satan’s most insidious lies is that the Christian life is void of joy, indicating that pursuing sin brings real satisfaction. Puritan Thomas Gataker wrote that "it is the purpose of Satan to persuade us that ‘in the kingdom of God there is nothing but sighing and groaning and fasting and prayer,’ whereas the truth is that ‘in his house there is marrying and giving in marriage, … feasting and rejoicing’”. “William Tyndale described the Christian gospel as ‘good, merry, glad and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad, and maketh him sing, and dance, and leap for joy’” .
We do not, however, need the citations of the Puritans to refute Satan’s lies. The Bible itself repeatedly proclaims the soul-satisfying joy of knowing God. David exulted
(Ps. 16:11), “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” Psalm 34:8: “O taste and see that the Lord is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”
Psalm 36:7-8: “How precious is Your loving kindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.”
Psalm 63:3-5: “Because Your loving kindness is better than life, my lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.”
These verses do not sound like the wounded cries of a deprived soul who was enduring a life devoid of pleasure! Over and over the Psalms tell us how blessed we are if we follow the Lord.
Psalm 84 is another example as it begins by exclaiming, “How lovely are Your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts!” Then, three times the psalmist exclaimed, “How blessed!” In verse 4, “How blessed are those who dwell in Your house! They are ever praising You.” Verse 5: “How blessed is the man whose strength is in You….” And, verse 12, “O Lord of hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in You!”
These repeated exclamations teach us that the pleasures that God gives to satisfy our souls should fuel our desire to be in His presence. God motivates us to seek Him with the pleasures and satisfaction of being in His presence. Further, those pleasures are not all delayed until we arrive in heaven. Many begin now.
As Jesus proclaimed with reference to His sheep (John 10:10b), “I came that they may have life; and have it more abundantly.”
In Christ,
Brown
https://youtu.be/jdE03zRJtxw
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Brown's Daily Word 5/20/15
Praise the Lord for this Wednesday. It was hot and humid yesterday, but the
Lord has turned on the Air Conditioning around this region. It is very
comforable and cool today. We will gather for our Wednesday gathering for
fellowship and study at 6:00 PM, followed by Choir Practice at 7:30 PM. It is
beautiful and brilliant around here. Praise the Lord He ushered in summer
season in the midst of Spring.
One of my favorite passages of
the Scripture is found in Romans 5. Christ arrived right on time to make this happen. He did
not, and does not, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this
sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get
ourselves ready. Further, even if we had not been so weak, we would not have
known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth
dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to
selfless sacrifice. God, however, put his love on the line for us by offering
his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. Romans 5:8The Message
(MSG)
I believe that the Good News of Jesus Christ is always
directed to those are in need, to those who are hurting: the sick, the hungry, the poor, the weak,
those whose lives are all messed up or screwed up. Phillips Brooks, in his Lectures on Preaching, 1877,
wrote a line that I really like: "The
preacher's/ the person’s instinct is to feel instantly, how Christ and human
need belong together." Christ and human
need belong together. Christ connects to
the need of the person we are talking to. In
the world of suffering Christ and human need belong together. To come alongside those who are lost, those
who suffer, those who are under the bondage of the enemy is to know what it
means to connect the love of Christ to their human need. In so doing we become, in the words of Henri Nouwen,
"wounded healers".
The first disciples always related Christ to the
human need of their friends around them:
blindness, leprosy, death, whatever it was. So it is with us two thousand years later, as
we always relate Christ to the deepest needs of the person we encounter in daily
life situations. When we seek the Lord
to bless others He gives His heart and His mind. He does not give us a mind
for cynicism, and criticism., People
are in their life situation and there is nothing that can be done. Only Christ the power to transcend the situation.
He has the power to redeem our situations. He does not call us to
offer condemnation, but we are called to
offer Christ. Christ Comes as the Wonderful Counselor to those life
situations. He brings about wellness and healing and He restores and makes all
things new.
In Christ,
Brown.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Brown's Daily Word 5/18/15
It has been like a mid-summer day, hot and humid. The temperature was reading
in the high 80s Now it is thundering and raining. The Lord is sending the
natural coolant. The trees are looking a luscious green. My wife said that she
has only 17 instructional days left in this school year. In some parts of the
nation high schools seniors have already graduated and most college students
will be graduating or have graduated this month. It is all celebration and
thanksgiving.
I have been reading the bracing declaration of our Risen Lord. "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me'”. We live in a world that worships money and power. The disciples, however, were propelled by the Holy Spirit to move out and go into the world. Those who went south would soon encounter the mighty pyramids of ancient Egypt. They would see the Sphinx rising from the hot sands. In Alexandria they would encounter the greatest library of the ancient world. Those who went north would come to Antioch, another seat of learning. Eventually a man named Paul would arrive in Athens, the cultural seat of the ancient world. There, in the land of Socrates and Aristotle, surrounded by altars, marble statuary, and underneath the shadow of the mighty Acropolis, he would proclaim the Good News of Jesus and call men to repentance. Eventually the early Christians would come to Rome, with its magnificent Colosseum and the vast, staggering grandeur of the Roman Empire. Who would dare to preach Christ there? In time some would take the gospel east to India and on to China, lands filled with teeming masses of people who were living unaware that Jesus had come to the earth.
In our minds, we might wonder how the Christian message could have survived? It survived all the assaults against it because all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus Christ. When the disciples entered Alexandria, they need have no fear because there was no power in Alexandria greater than the power of Jesus Christ. They could appreciate the glories of Athens but they need not be intimidated because there was no glory in Athens greater than the glory of Jesus Christ. In Rome, the seat of imperial power could not compare to the power resident in the One who sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty.
Think about the rich and powerful people of this world - who are they compared to the Lord Jesus Christ? They are nothing at all!
Jesus gave a great mandate, called the Great Commission:
I have been reading the bracing declaration of our Risen Lord. "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me'”. We live in a world that worships money and power. The disciples, however, were propelled by the Holy Spirit to move out and go into the world. Those who went south would soon encounter the mighty pyramids of ancient Egypt. They would see the Sphinx rising from the hot sands. In Alexandria they would encounter the greatest library of the ancient world. Those who went north would come to Antioch, another seat of learning. Eventually a man named Paul would arrive in Athens, the cultural seat of the ancient world. There, in the land of Socrates and Aristotle, surrounded by altars, marble statuary, and underneath the shadow of the mighty Acropolis, he would proclaim the Good News of Jesus and call men to repentance. Eventually the early Christians would come to Rome, with its magnificent Colosseum and the vast, staggering grandeur of the Roman Empire. Who would dare to preach Christ there? In time some would take the gospel east to India and on to China, lands filled with teeming masses of people who were living unaware that Jesus had come to the earth.
In our minds, we might wonder how the Christian message could have survived? It survived all the assaults against it because all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus Christ. When the disciples entered Alexandria, they need have no fear because there was no power in Alexandria greater than the power of Jesus Christ. They could appreciate the glories of Athens but they need not be intimidated because there was no glory in Athens greater than the glory of Jesus Christ. In Rome, the seat of imperial power could not compare to the power resident in the One who sits at the right hand of the Father Almighty.
We have nothing to fear because the power of Jesus far surpasses the power of the rulers of this world. We have nothing to fear as we go into the world because the power of Jesus far surpasses the power and authority of the rulers of this world.
Think about the rich and powerful people of this world - who are they compared to the Lord Jesus Christ? They are nothing at all!
Jesus gave a great mandate, called the Great Commission:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you”. We go in the name of the name that is above all names, who has power and authority in Heaven and on earth.
In Christ,
Brown
https://youtu.be/Y8R9ZPT2T-I
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