Brown's Daily Word 2/16/18

Praise, honor, and all glory belong to Jesus.  He is the King of Glory and the Man of Sorrows who is acquainted with our grief.  Praise the Lord for the mild beautiful weather in February.  Yesterday I was talking to our daughter Laureen who lives in South Carolina.  She was sharing that the temperature yesterday reached into the mid-seventies.  According our daughter Sunita the temperature in Washington reached into the seventies.  The cherry blossoms must be ready to burst.  Praise the Lord for the way He decorates His wonderful world in the blooming garb of spring. 

 

I was watching a program from Israel yesterday, which was showing the spectacular and brilliant spring in the Holy Land.  The Almond trees are in full bloom.  Spring has overwhelmed even the desert, causing a magnificent  bloom of variegated flowers and shrubs.  Jesus is the author all beauty.

 

Alice and I walked yesterday in the late afternoon.  We can see the grass and the tees are getting ready for spring foliage.  Our neighbors and friends have been busy with the collection of maple sap to make the best syrup. 

 

We left Boston this past Tuesday.  We had some car problems on Monday afternoon.  The Lord provided for our need abundantly.  We drove back to New York Tuesday afternoon as scheduled. It was a nonstop trip except for stopping for gas near Albany.  The snow had fully melted in Massachusetts.  The Mass Pike was dry and smooth.  We felt like the Lord was going before us as the pillar of cloud.  As we were nearing Binghamton we drove toward an amazing sunset. It was a very prolonged sunset.  Maybe it was the Pillar of fire with which the Lord blesses us all in the journeys we take on earth.  We saw along the highway that there were herds of deer grazing and frolicking carefree and unafraid.  We also came across large flocks of Canadian geese hovering over the landscape, surveying it all with watchful eyes. 

 

I get notes and comments from time to time from you all.  I praise the Lord for each one of you.  I received a letter from a man whom I had last seen in September, 1991.  I had officiated in his wedding, an outdoor event. The setting was brilliant and the bride and groom looked splendid.  He wrote me to ask about the written materials that I used during their Pre-marital counseling.  The study and our meetings made deep and lasting impressions on his life.  He and his wife are the parents of two children, a boy and a girl. The son is getting serious about getting married.  The father, who is the president of a company, wanted to offer the written materials to him.  The best part of the interaction is that he and his family are deeply involved in their local church.  Their entire family is planning to go on a short term mission trip to Africa.  Praise the Lord for the untold millions who are involved in the mission of our Lord Jesus Christ around the corner and around the world.  In the words of John Ellerton of Cambrdge,

“We thank Thee that Thy Church unsleeping,
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.

 

“As o'er each continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.”

 

 

In a world that is confronted with senseless violence and bloodshed, the church must be engaged to preach the Good News to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of our Lord.

As we journey with Jesus to Jerusalem during this Lenten season let us reflect on our sin that made it necessary for Christ to go to the Cross.  In his marvelous book, “The Screwtape Letters”, C.S. Lewis wrote, "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils.  One is to disbelieve in their existence.  The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.  [The devils] themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician," a secularist or a fanatic, "with the same delight."  The Bible clearly declares the reality of sin that caused Jesus to be born and demanded that He die for our sins.  This is clearly and pre-eminently a matter of the heart, that springs from within.  Jeremiah 17:9 states, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

In Ephesians 6, the apostle Paul said that our most significant struggle in life "is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers ... authorities ... [and] cosmic powers of this present darkness" (Eph. 6:12).  A similar theme recurs 10 other times in the Epistles and Revelation ends the Scriptures with the declaration that the conclusion of history will involve a final confrontation between God and Satan.   

 

Oxford professor Austin Farrer once said, "When we speak of evil we are speaking of the same spirit of perversity alive in every sin—a spirit that could look the glory and blessings of God full in the face, and still say 'To [blank] with you; I'll go my own way!'"

 

There is a story of a little girl who was berated by her mom for pushing her brother to the ground and then spitting on him.  "The devil made you do that, girl," her mama said.  "I'm not so sure, Mom," the little girl replied, "The devil might have made me push him down, but I thought of spitting on him all by myself!"

 

There is clear empirical evidence that there exist bacteria and viruses that, though invisible to the naked eye, can nonetheless interact with the chemistry of the human body and mind with terribly adverse affects.  It seems willfully ignorant to dismiss the possibility that there may exist other even more insidious entities—spiritual parasites— that we do not yet have the instrumentation to validate scientifically.   We can take God's Word at face value when it says that a supernatural evil exists.   Evil wants to leave our life looking like that of the Gerasene man known as Legion whom Jesus met one day by the shores of Galilee.  He was a person without love, cut off from meaningful connection with others.  Having lost the capacity to think clearly

evil wants to leave us lonely, restless, miserable, and despairing.  Evil's ultimate aim is to destroy humanity altogether, to so obliterate the image of God in us that we become like many pigs plunging over the edge of the abyss (v.13b). 

 

Evil is very real, say the Scriptures. Like Keyser Söze, this Adversary is remarkably intelligent and cunning.  He is out to destroy the image of God in us, but there is a final truth the Bible seeks to impress on us and which it is our mission to go tell to the world.   Evil can't stand before Christ.  The apostle John put it this way, "The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4).  "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy," says Jesus.  Let us turn our eyes upon Jesus  the King, the one who as that great spiritual knight, Saint Paul, reminds us is "far above all rule and authority, power and dominion" (Eph. 1:21).  Turn to him who commands the power of heaven to help us win that territory back and support others in this battle, as we come before God in prayer.

Brown

 

 

 https://youtu.be/E3ExMwj9Efw

Brown

Brown's Daily Word 1/30/18

Thy bountiful care
What tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air,
It shines in the light;
It streams from the hills,
It descends to the plain,
And sweetly distils
In the dew and the rain.

Frail children of dust,
And feeble as frail,
In thee do we trust,
Nor find thee to fail;
Thy mercies how tender!
How firm to the end!
Our Maker, Defender,
Redeemer, and Friend.

 

Praise the Lord for His magnanimous love and limitless grace.  The Lord blessed our recent stay in Boston.  The Lord is faithful.  We are so grateful for all His total provision during our stay.  During our stay at Hope Lodge our paths crossed those of people of diverse backgrounds and needs.  We met one young woman, a professional nurse, who was there for medical care.  Born in Kazakhstan, she is a committed Christian, and her aunt who lives in Moscow was there as her care giver. Another couple we spent some time with was from Potsdam, NY. They shared that the husband got his degree from Clarkson University and she earned her degree from Potsdam State University.  They are married and are blessed with children, grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.  They shared that they grew up in the church as youth and stayed involved in local churches.  It was great joy to hear from them that they were part of  a small group of five married couples who met for fellowship and prayer, usually going out for dinner once every month, for 40 years.  That is devotion and commitment.  Another man we spent some time with was from the Poconos area in Pennsylvania.  He shared that he is blessed with a beautiful family.  He and his wife have three children and two grandchildren.  Two of his children are involved in full time Christian ministry.  One son works for Vanguard Investments (where our son-in- law Tom works).  We also came across a mother and daughter, and I assumed that the mother was in for medical care.  After talking with them we came to know that the daughter is there for medical care and the mother is there as the care giver.  The daughter works at the State University of New York at Potsdam.  

 

Every person we meet along life’s highway is loved by the Lord. Every person we encounter in this life has deep needs and the deepest longings which only Jesus our Lord does satisfy.  During our stay at the Hope lodge Alice prepared homemade pizza and pastries and served the guests.  I made some chicken curry and rice which I served to the staff and some of the guests.  We spent some very blessed and sweet time with our grandchildren.  Alice spent some time cooking and baking with them.  We also spent some time with them and their parents going out for special meals at their favorite restaurants.  Our drive home back to New York was beautiful.  The weather was grand, the skies were blue, and the sun shone brightly.  The drive on the Mass Pike, crossing the Berkshires and the western Mass is always exhilarating refreshing.  The vehicle we drive crossing the Northeast is a 2000 Ford.  As we were entering NY we saw flocks of Canadian geese blanketing the fields and open grounds.  They were countless.  It was a late afternoon scene and they were lost in awe and wonder with holy Honks offering evening praise to Jesus.  As we drove along Interstate 88 I saw two eagles sitting by the road side unafraid.   The Lord blessed us in His house yesterday with His presence and grace. Our people at the Marathon Methodist Church are beautiful and gracious, and very generous.  They make our ministry here celebrative, affirming, and uplifting.  It is indeed a wonderful joy serving the Lord along with those who love and serve Him with zeal and devotion.  We are gearing up for a Super Bowl party with the youth on Sunday the 4th of February starting at 5:30 PM.  The church is getting ready to host a Sweetheart Banquet on Saturday the17th of February at 6:00 PM.  The menu will include some sumptuous entrées and decadent desserts followed by songs and hymns.

Praise the Lord that He is the Lord of the here and now; furthermore, He is the Lord of the Eternal City, the New Jerusalem.  Praise the Lord for all His promises which are yes in Christ Jesus.  We can count on His promises, for He is faithful trustworthy in every way and all the way.  As we live on earth now we live with confidence and courage.  We are called and propelled to live as stewards of the Kingdom, looking forward and beyond for the unfolding of His kingdom in full splendor and glory.  According to His promises the best is yet to be.  

”But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” I Corinthians 2:9

 

Imagine that someone very wealthy, with incredible power and influence, calls you up and asks you to take care of their entire estate for the whole summer: to mow the lawn, trim the hedges, clean the pool, and sacrifice your entire summer to help them.  They tell you it would please them and it would be really worth it to you—that at the end of the summer you'd be paid $1,000 an hour and the entire estate would be transferred over into your name.  What would that mean?  It wouldn't remove the sacrifice, but it would instill motivation and hope in the midst of the sacrifice.  But what if you had a bunch of friends who were always trying to convince you that the whole thing was a sham, that the owner was actually broke and there was no way he could give you any money, and that he didn't even own the house and it wasn't his to give?  They keep telling you that they are certain of this and that you will receive nothing in the end.  If this is true then you will wind up wasting your entire summer.  Eventually the pressure of that thinking is going to affect your behavior.  It will cause you to cut corners, to skip days, and maybe to give up on the whole thing altogether.   This entire scenario is a metaphor for those of us who give all for the Kingdom of God.

 

The Lord illustrated this in one of His parables.  Paraphrasing the words of St Paul, "Don't be deceived.  It's not a sham.  I saw Jesus alive!  The owner exists; he owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps. 50:10), and he's promised you that every sacrifice in his name will be rewarded 100-fold in the future."  For Paul, the reason to invest in the future is because there is a future.  His future bodily resurrection freed him from materialism and consumerism and focusing on the here and now.  All the sacrifices were worth it because the Lord does care what we do, and the rewards in that day are going to be so amazing that it is going to be worth it all.  That's why, at the end of the chapter, he says, "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" (v. 58).  What you do in this life really matters—it carries over into the next!

 

We are invited to "Look” — to wake up.  Remember what Jesus has done.  He paid for all our sins.  He came, He saw, and He conquered sin and death.  He is alive forevermore.  When we experience His ineffable love we realize we don't have to run from our past.  We can run to Him with our past, and when we trust in him, he not only will pardon us, but he will empower us.  A new power will come into our lives for change and transformation.  What a way to live!  What a way to serve!  Life is worth living.

 

https://youtu.be/LwGvfdtI2c0

Brown

Brown's Daily Word 1/22/18

"Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame,
Nor can the mem’ry find
A sweeter sound than Thy blest name,
O Savior of mankind!
O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
To those who fall, how kind Thou art!
How good to those who seek!
All those who find Thee find a bliss
Nor tongue nor pen can show;
The love of Jesus, what it is,
None but His loved ones know.

"Praise the Lord, for He is the Savior of mankind. He is kind to those who fail and fall. He is good and very good and gracious beyond belief to those who seek Him. The Good news is that He is seeking us before we seek Him. He blesses us with beautiful days and blessed moments. We spent a few days in Washington, DC with Sunita and her children. Andy, along with some of his friends and neighbors and members of the church where Sunita and Andy worship went on a short term mission trip to Bolivia, South America. Alice and I had a blast with of our grandchildren in Washington, DC. The weather was sunny and warm. We were able to walk, play, read, and sing. We were also able to visit and pray with some of the friends and neighbors of Sunita. We drove back to New York this past Saturday. The weather was sunny and stunning. We saw horses grazing on horse farms in Maryland. We saw Geese flying, circling around. The temperatures has now reached into mid-sixties in Washington, DC. Most of the time that we were there it topped out in the forties. We spoke to Laureen who lives in in sunny South Carolina. She was blessed with a great week of ministry studies and worship. She shared that the temperature reached in the high sixties. Spring is not far away. The Lord blessed us in His house yesterday. It was celebrative and worshipful.
We are driving to Boston today for my doctor's visit this week. Thank you for praying. The best part of going to Boston is to spend time with our grandchildren there. Our youngest grandchild in Boston celebrated her seventh birthday this month. She went rock climbing on her birthday. She has asked us to take her to an Indian Restaurant to further celebrate her birthday. We are excited. The party is on.
Praise the Lord for the gift of memory. It is written" I thank my God at every remembrance of you".
If we have no memory, we are adrift because memory anchors us to the past, interprets the present, and charts a course for the future.
Some time ago I read about Jimmie, who had the rare neurological disorder called Korsakoff syndrome, affecting the memory. His story is told in the book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" . by Dr. Oliver Sacks, who met him in 1975. Jimmie walked into the doctor's office with a cheery "Hiya, Doc! Nice morning! Do I take this chair here?" He was cooperative and answered all the questions as Dr. Sacks checked his memory. He remembered his childhood home, friends, school, and the Navy, which he had joined in 1943. He was stationed on a sub and could still remember Morse code. He recalled vividly his service in the Navy through the end of the war in 1945, but that's where the memories stopped. Completely stopped.
Jimmie couldn't remember anything from 1945 to the present (1975)—30 years. He thought that Truman was president, the periodic table stopped with uranium, and no one had been to the moon. He had no recollection of anything that happened more than a few minutes in the past. He thought he was 19 years old, not his actual age of 49 years. Dr. Sacks showed him a mirror, and Jimmie gazed at the middle-aged man with bushy gray hair. He was shocked! In Dr. Sacks' words: "He suddenly turned ashen and gripped the sides of the chair. 'What's going on? What's happened to me? Is this a nightmare? Am I crazy?'"
Sacks calmed him by taking him to a window to watch a ballgame in a park below, and he removed the bewitching mirror. Sacks left him alone for two minutes and then returned. Jimmie was still at the window gazing at the kids in the park. He wheeled around. "Hiya, Doc! Nice morning. You want to talk to me—do I take this chair here?"
"Haven't we met before, Mr. G.?"
"No, I can't say we have."
Over the next nine years, as a patient, Jimmie and Dr. Sacks were introduced and reintroduced. He stayed in the convalescent home where Sacks worked but never learned his way around the halls. He was good at rapid games of checkers and tic-tac-toe, but got lost at chess because the moves were too slow. Sacks said, "I had never encountered, even imagined, such a power of amnesia, the possibility of a pit into which everything, every experience, every event would fathomlessly drop." The staff at the home spoke of him as a "lost soul."
Without memory, we are lost souls. In the Bible, memory includes the mind, but it also includes emotion and the will. Consider the exhortations about the Sabbath in Exodus 20:8: "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy." I love the words from one of the beloved hymns, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love." It is written," Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them"
The Bible warns us, "Be careful; do not forget." In contrast to our drifting and forgetting, God remembers us. His eye is on us, his face is toward his, his ear inclines to us, and his hand is on us. It is written that our Lord "puts our tears into his bottle." He remembers. For this reason we sing, "He knows my name; he knows my every thought, he sees each tear that falls and hears me when I call". He has remembered us through Jesus, therefore we walk in hope and joy. Christians walk with a kind of buoyancy, an optimism grounded in the character and promise of God.
Our bodies decay, but we remember that God has remembered us in Jesus Christ—he was raised and we shall rise. We walk in hope. When Satan haunts us with past sins and failures, we remember that God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ. We are secure in Christ, so we walk in hope and joy. Of course, this doesn't mean that we have no trials. This doesn't mean that tears never roll down our cheeks. It means that if God is for us, who can be against us? It means that nothing can separate us from the love of God. It means that he will never leave us or forsake us. In Christ, we find strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
C. S. Lewis wrote in "Mere Christianity", One must train the habit of Faith [by making] sure that … some of its main doctrines shall be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and church-going are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed.
On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus instituted a covenant. In some ways, it was a continuation of the old covenant, but in some ways it was new. The new covenant would no longer require the sacrifice of a lamb. Jesus became the Lamb of God. He started that covenant with a meal. It was his last supper, and we continue the same meal to this day. He told us that as often as we eat and drink to remember him. When the bread is broken, remember that his body was broken so we could be made whole. When the wine is poured out, remember that his blood was poured out for the remission of our sins.
This returns us to Jimmie, who spent his days wandering the halls of Dr. Sacks's clinic, drifting. The staff spoke of him as a "lost soul." One day the doctor happened to observe Jimmie in chapel, receiving Holy Communion. He was, for a time, transformed. In the words of Dr. Sacks:
Fully, intensely, quietly, in the quietude of absolute concentration and attention, he entered and partook of the Holy Communion. He was wholly held … There was no Korsakoff's then … for he was no longer at the mercy of … meaningless sequences and memory traces—but was absorbed in an act of his whole being.
This is biblical memory. It connects us to the past, shows us where we are in the present, and charts a course for the future.
In Christ,
Brown
https://youtu.be/hXsiWoyjw60