Brown's Daily Word 3/7/16

Thanks be to Jesus our Lord for this new day.  It is going to be  warm and brilliant.  The weather service is forecasting that Spring is making an early debut.  We are excited.  The Lord blessed us in His House yesterday.  It was great to be back in our home church after being away for so long.  There was a fellowship reception following the worship service.  It was a very sunny evening.  Alice and I took a  long walk on the streets of "our town".  This morning I am listening to the "Best of Bach".

    I have heard from so many of from all over.  Thank you for kind and prayer filled thoughts and comments.  I even heard from one of my former colleagues who lives in the Philippines. The last time I saw him was in May1977. 

    Please join me in praying for those in our circles need the Healing Touch of our Lord and Savior today.  Please pray for

• Linda, our dear friend and sweet servant of Jesus, who is recovering from recent surgery.
• Roger.. dear friend a sweet singer of Jesus.
• Jane a fellow servant of Christ , going for neurosurgery .

    One of the readings for Sunday was taken from Luke 15.  The parable recorded in Luke 15:11-32 is one of the most familiar and well-loved of all of Christ’s parables.   Barclay called it “the greatest short story in the world”.  It is often called the parable of the lost son, or more commonly, the parable of the Prodigal Son, but I would like to suggest  that this parable would be better titled: “The Parable of the Loving Father” because that is the emphasis.

    The point of the parable of the Prodigal Son is not the depth of the lostness of the son, but the depth of the love of the father.  In fact, the depth of the lostness of the son is shown only to highlight the depth of the love of the father!  This is the  major  theme throughout the Bible from Genesis 3:8 where God sought Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Revelation 22:17 where “the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!'”.  Everywhere in between we see God calling for and seeking sinners! Jesus described his own mission by saying, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

    Most of us are familiar with the story, "The Wizard of Oz".  In "The Wizard of Oz", Dorothy spent the first part of the story trying to find a way to get away from home, which she found wearisome, tiring, boring, and cruel.  After she winds up in Oz, she spends the rest of the story trying to find a way back home to Kansas.  Finally, she learns the truth that she had always had the ability to go home anytime she wanted to.  All she had to do was click the heals of her ruby slippers together three times and say, “There’s no place like home.”  When she did this, she went home!  She had to come to the place where she understood that home was better than she ever thought or imagined. 

    In the parable, Jesus told the story of a young man who couldn’t wait to get away from home.  The young son very selfishly demanded that he receive his inheritance from his father, which he took and headed out to a far country.  He proceeded to "live it up", free from the restraints of his father and his rules.  What he found in the far country was not what he expected to find.  While he found good times and new friends, his money ran out.  When the money was gone, the good times and good friends ran out too.  He found himself living with a pig farmer in the far country, working day by day feeding the pigs.  He was broke, lonely, and no one cared about him!  When he finally reached bottom, he came to his senses and remembered how good things had been at home after all.  He remembered that there is no place like home, so he returned home with a plan to be a servant in his father’s house.  When he arrived back home he found more there than he ever bargained for, and in the end he really did realize that there is no place like home!    

    

    When sinners come home, they also receive a robe - a robe of righteousness -  from the heavenly Father, (Isaiah 61:10; Revelation 7:9-14).  This righteousness is not the righteousness of good works or of human goodness, but the very righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to those who receive Him by faith, Phil. 3:9! When we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, all the pain and the stain of our past is forever washed away!  After the robe came the ring, a symbol of son- ship and authority.  The one with the ring could speak for the Father, and was granted full access to all that belonged to the father!  The one with the father’s ring was in a position of great privilege.  When we come to the Father, He opens the storehouses of His grace and gives us everything He has.  What a privilege belongs to those who go home to the Father!  

    The father called for shoes to be brought for the feet of his son.  Only the slaves went barefoot, sons wore shoes!  This boy returned home desiring to be merely a hired servant, but the father was determined to recognize his position as a son. In the boy’s eyes, he didn’t even deserve to be a slave or even a hired servant, but the father looked at him and said, “This is my son!”  The father alone determines the position and worth of his children!  The end of this parable is left open.  Did the elder brother ever come into the feast?  Did he ever reconcile with his younger brother?  We do not know because those things are in the future.  Jesus left the parable open-ended so that the Pharisees and the scribes could write the final paragraph for themselves. 

     Today, we  get to write the final paragraph to our own story.  How it ends is determined by what we do with the call of the Lord in our hearts.  Though we may find ourselves in the pig pen of life we can say goodbye to the pigs and come home to the Father.  He will receive us and He will restore us to a place of blessing and rejoicing.  Maybe we are like the elder brother.  We are in the Father’s house, but we  aren’t having a festive time!  Maybe it’s time to come on down to the feast. Whichever brother we are, there is always the opportunity and the need for us  to come to the Father.   Regardless of where we are today, there’s no place like home! If we  are in the far country, we  need to come home.  The door is open, the table is spread and the Father is waiting for all who will come!

 In Christ our Lord,

    Brown

https://youtu.be/eQuJhyTI0Tk

Brown's Daily Word 3/5/16

    Praise the Lord for this First Saturday of March.  I had my last doctor's appointment (for now) yesterday in Boston.  The doctor was very pleased with my progress.  We praise the Lord.  We left Boston yesterday afternoon and drove back to New York where we arrived safe and sound around 9:00 PM.  The Lord blessed my wife with an extra measure of favor and grace.  She drove well all the way home. 

    It is a sunny day here in central New York.  I talked to one of the many Maple Syrup producers here in our area.  He said that they have produced over 450 gallons of Maple syrup.  There is one more week of High Production season.  Alice and I are planning to attend the local High School's annual play tonight.  Tomorrow we will gather for Sunday School at 10 AM and for worship at 11:00, followed by a mega-Coffee, cookies, and pastries reception.  It is going to a very sweet and blessed day.  Plan to attend the worship of the Lord wherever you might be.

    As I am back home after almost 6 weeks away from home I am reflecting on the reality of the Good News of Christ.  In the Psalm 30:6 we get a glimpse of the gospel, a glimpse of the good news for those who weep.  “Weeping may spend the night,” the psalmist writes, “but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:6).  Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

    Many of us  have spent many a night gently weeping, perhaps when there’s no one around.  Some of us project the image that we always hold it together and are above weeping.  For some of us, perhaps, the metaphorical night of weeping has lasted much more than a night, and has been anything but metaphorical.

    Scripture tells us that God in Jesus Christ arose from his throne in heaven, and walked across the circle of eternity to embrace and hold a weeping world.  In fact, Jesus Christ, the last person people expected to weep, wept for Lazarus individually, wept for Jerusalem corporately, and in his Passion, wept for us  personally.  In his death on the cross Jesus unfolded his love for us and died to atone for all the ways we  have been diverted, perverted, and inverted. 

    Very often we think that we are "suffering in silence", believing ourselves to be completely and utterly alone.  In these times, according to Scripture, we have Someone to put our tears in his bottle (Psalm 56:8).  When life leaves us sitting on the ground, unable to move, Jesus does not walk right by us without seeing us.  Rather, Jesus walks up to us and stretches out his hands to help—and often those hands are the hands of other people.

    Victor Hugo's Les Miserables,  resonates with the gospel as it portrays what it looks like for weeping to spend the night but joy to come in the morning.  In the closing scene the main character, Jean Valjean, dies and meets in heaven the others who have also died, their night of weeping over and their morning joy begun, and he joins the  in the final chorus:

Do you hear the people sing?
Lost in the valley of the night
It is the music of a people who are climbing to the light
For the wretched of the earth there is a flame that never dies
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise
They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord
They will walk behind the ploughshare, they will put away the sword…
Do you hear the people sing? Say do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes!

    The good news of the gospel is that the unconditional love of Jesus Christ ensures that tomorrow will indeed come for us, that our night of weeping will end and everlasting joy will come in the morning—and what a morning that will be!

In Christ,

 Brown

https://youtu.be/4cDFH5ysLoQ

Brown's Daily Word 3/3/16

Praise the Lord for this new day. Praise the Lord for this new month. Praise the Lord for His unfailing love and unending mercies that are new every morning. Thank you for praying for me and my family over these many days. You have been praying faithfully and fervently. Thank you for your cards, emails, and facebook posts, and for praying for me in your local churches. The Lord has kept me in the hollow of His hand. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness. Yesterday I walked almost 2 miles, and along the way I saw many crocuses in full bloom, along with some of the spring birds, squirrels, and Canadian geese doing their “happy dance”. They are all harbingers of spring.

I am done with my treatments. The last treatment was on the 29th of February. It was Glenn W’’s actual birthday (on Leap Day). I was reading that a woman who was expecting and due on the 29th of this February. She took the birthing matters in her own hands so that her baby would not be born on Leap Day. Any day is good day to be alive and well to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Alice and I saw the surgeon and his team yesterday. They declared that my surgery was very successful. I am allowed to resume my normal life again. I am permitted to travel and drive and resume all my life’s tasks.

We have spent some time with our grandchildren here in Boston on Tuesday. It was a sunny and brilliant day. We saw two robins in our grandchildren’s school playground. The daffodils are about to burst in full bloom. Our grandson said, "Grandpa, I like Church. I love the Bible stories. They are magical, supernatural, and they are like fairy tales but they all TRUE. Our youngest granddaughter asked her grandmom, “What color are Auntie Sunita’s eyes?” When Grandmom responded that they are brown she said, “I love Auntie Sunita the best.” (Then the conversation was extended to include her other brown-eyed aunties, whom she also declared to love “the best”). Our oldest granddaughter said during our evening walk that day, "Grandpa, I want to be a doctor or a teacher or a musician, and I want to open a special Cafe where I can serve very Special Coffee.”

On Sunday evening I was watching some preachers on TV, one of whom was speaking about “generational blessings”. Often we hear about “generational curses”, but in Christ “generational curses” have been removed. He took our curse upon Himself upon the Cross. It is written in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Praise the Lord for His blessings, which transcend the generations who are in Christ. My wife’s great-great-great(?) grandmother prayed that succeeding generations of Maynard’s would know the Lord and His great blessings.

We have spent over a month here beautiful Boston with only a small 5 day break back in NY. We have met some wonderful people. Many are fellow sojourners in Christ and even in suffering. The Lord has provided us with some very competent and compassionate medical staff. We have met some wonderful people where we are staying. Alice and I have cooked Authentic Indian Dishes and for the residents and staff. Alice has baked some her signature pastries and breads. The Lord has granted us His sweet favor before the people everywhere we have been during these past weeks. We have been asked to lead an evening prayer meeting. This has been a great blessing. The Students from various Colleges and Universities who participate in Relay for Life have prepared meals for the Guests here. The Catering Staff from the Four Seasons Hotel prepared a sumptuous dinner for the Guests here, too, as well as a local prep school. The Lord has been providing His daily bread with so much generosity and kindness.

We are planning to be back in Marathon this Friday, March 4 or Saturday, the 5th. I am planning to preach this coming Sunday. The church family in Marathon has continued the ministry of Preaching, Teaching, and visiting faithfully and joyfully. We praise the Lord for each of them.

For about 130 years, people from the United States and around the world have traveled to a broad plateau in the Rocky Mountains in the northwest corner of Wyoming to the world's oldest and largest national park to see its unparalleled array of geysers and hot springs. During the winter of 1807, John Colter was the first to see the wonders of what has become known as Yellowstone Park. The area was nicknamed "Colter's Hell" because no one back in St. Louis would believe him. It wasn't until Thomas Moran painted Yellowstone Park and William Jackson photographed it in 1871 that the country realized that this national treasure actually existed. Then on March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed an act of Congress making Yellowstone the first national park.
Perhaps the most well known feature of Yellowstone National Park is the geyser that is called "Old Faithful." Old Faithful is not the largest or most regulated geyser in the park, but it has become a popular destination because it erupts more frequently than any of the other big geysers, roughly every 76 minutes, with as much as 8,400 gallons of boiling water which shoots some 150 feet skyward. These eruptions can last anywhere from 90 seconds to 5 minutes.

The name “Old Faithful” brings to mind our Lord, Who is always faithful. In Revelation 19:11, 16 it is written, “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.” . . . “On His robe and on His thigh He has a name inscribed: King of kings and Lord of lords.” Revelation 1:5, “and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and ruler of kings on earth.”

Brown

 

Israel Houghton - Great is Thy faithfulness [with lyrics]