Three Lock Box

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:12-13

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Colossians 3:23-24

If there could be just three passages that sum up what our approach to life should be, I think that these three would be a good choice.  In just a few simple sentences, we see laid out for us these seemingly simple principles that no government on earth has ever improved upon.  No system of philosophy, code of conduct or set of regulations ever devised is likely to produce better results than this behavior model set out for us in the Bible.

Serve others.  Be content with what you have.  Work hard at whatever you do.  These statements would not be out of place in a modern self-help book.  It is curious to me that many supposedly secular ideas about morality seem to be based on biblical principles.  This similarity in the moral code between otherwise unrelated worldviews seems to indicate that there is such a thing as objective morality.  In other words, there are certain moral standards that are true for everyone, everywhere.

Abstract concepts such as morality, logic and reason do not have physical reality.  In order for abstract concepts to exist, there must also exist intelligent beings, capable of abstract thought.  To imagine it another way, think of your reflection.  If there were no mirrors or other reflective surfaces, could your reflection actually exist?  In the same manner, the thoughts in our minds could not exist if we did not have minds to think thoughts in.

If anyone is willing to concede that abstract concepts actually do exist, and very few people would claim that they do not, then the door in their thinking is open to the existence of immaterial things.  From there, the idea of a creator, existing outside of the universe is not such an impossibility.

We Belong

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.  Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.  They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.”
John 15:18-21

Just about a year ago, I wrote of how God can use people the world sees as useless to accomplish His purpose.  “The world doesn't want you”, was the central point of my discourse.

This passage goes a bit further.  Here, we see that the world does not just have a passive disdain towards the followers of Christ; there is an active hatred towards them.

This makes me immediately uncomfortable.  According to these words, straight from the mouth of Jesus, captured in an intimate moment as he was speaking to His closest followers, we should expect to be treated just as badly as Jesus was.  I'm pretty sure you've heard... Jesus was executed, brutally.  These words proved prophetic for the disciples as well, considering that all but one of them were eventually killed for their faith.  When have I faced anything worse than embarrassment or inconvenience for my faith?  If there isn't some evidence of the hatred the world should bear for you in your life, it may be wise for you to sit down and take a serious look at your relationship with God.  As usual, I am writing this as much for myself as for anyone else.  Based on this standard, my relationship with God is severely lacking.

“His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.  The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”
Acts 5:40-41

This is how the apostles responded after being flogged and ordered not to speak in the name of Jesus.  They rejoiced because of their suffering.  I don't know about you, but I hate suffering.  I hate being uncomfortable or in pain for any reason.  How incredible would be to be so caught up in your relationship with God that the suffering in this life means nothing to you?

If you truly want this kind of relationship with God, you can have it.  There is no turning back once you start down this road, however.  After everything that God has done for us, and in light of His incredible sacrifice on our behalf, we truly owe Him nothing less.  The world may not want you; the world may even hate you, but we belong to God.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot...

2012 was quite a year, huh?  For me, it was the year that my God was the central focus of my life.  My life has had it's ups and downs, with both challenges and joys nearly every day.  My family was my other priority and where I spent the vast majority of my time and energy.  Finally, each one of you, my extended family and friends who have been reading the words I have written this year on facebook, in my books or on my blog; I have attempted to give you a glimpse into my mind.  I pray that I have made you think, laugh, cry or maybe even consider your place in relation to God.  As we look forward to the year to come, I pray that we do so in hope, ready to accept the sunny days and weather the dark, stormy clouds that we are certain to face.  In this world, we will have trouble, but there is one who has overcome the world.  Now to you, 2012; I bid you farewell.

In His Love and Peace;

Kenny R Brown

Sounds of Silence

I know that there is nothing I can possibly say that will adequately describe the horror that took place in Newton, Connecticut yesterday.  Please be in prayer for the families of the innocent victims as well as the survivors.

Charlotte Bacon, Age 6
Daniel Barden, Age 7
Rachel Davino, Age 29
Olivia Engel, Age 6
Josephine Gay, Age 7
Ana M Marquez-Greene, Age 6
Dylan Hockley, Age 6
Dawn Hocksprung, Age 47
Madeleine F Hsu, Age 6
Catherine V Hubbard, Age 6
Chase Kowalski, Age 7
Jesse Lewis, Age 6
James Mattioli, Age 6
Grace McDonnell, Age 7
Anne Marie Murphy, Age 52
Emilie Parker, Age 6
Jack Pinto, Age 6
Noah Pozner, Age 6
Caroline Previdi, Age 6
Jessica Rekos, Age 6
Avielle Richman, Age 6
Lauren Russeau, Age 30
Mary Sherlach, Age 56
Victoria Soto, Age 27
Benjamin Wheeler, Age 6
Allison N Wyatt, Age 6

Take on Me

I praise you Lord for your mighty strength, for your prowess in battle on my behalf.  Just the thought of Your glorious presence is enough to cause my heart to tremble.

My enemies are arrayed against me; I am powerless to defend myself.  I am forced to watch, helpless as the enemy of all that is good sets out his heinous siege works against my home and my family.  Certainly we will be consumed if You do not come quickly to our aid.  As swift as lightning crosses the sky, You are upon Your enemy.  Your sword flashes again and again as Your enemies are stricken down.  The carnage is too terrible for me to behold; I do my best to shield my son and my wife from the scene.  Suddenly, as quickly as it began, combat is ended.  Your mighty strength in battle is instantaneously matched by your tender mercy, as you take me and my family into Your arms.  I celebrate your victory with joy.

It is only then that I see Your son.  I cry out in horror as as Your enemies gather around Him.  The demons approach, cautiously, fearfully; Your son is silent before them.  Then, they attack.  They strike Him again and again.  The way is cleared for a large, reptilian creature, armed with a cruel whip, strewn with jagged bits of metal.  I cry out again, begging You to rescue Your son.  You just hold us tighter.  Your son is mocked, beaten and whipped horribly.  Increasing the cruelty still further, the torture is stopped before the point of death.  Now they are leading Him; they are forcing Him to walk, carrying the instrument of his impending execution.  The demons celebrate with glee as Your son is lashed and then nailed to a cross.  As He dies, I see a tear in Your eye.

“Why didn't You save Him?”  I scream, unable to comprehend what I've just seen; “how could You let Him die?”

You respond with a single word, “Behold.”

In the midst of their celebration, the demons pause; what was that sound?  Shuddering, they turn to look at Jesus.  He was dead, of that there was no doubt.  Equally certain and beyond belief, He is now alive.  With a voice like thunder, He shouts.  As He brandishes a sword, the demons shriek and flee for their lives.  For a time, they are allowed to escape.

“Someday,” You say, “my Son will finish this fight”.

I praise you Lord for your mighty strength, for your prowess in battle on my behalf.

Kyrie Eleison

“This, then, is how you should pray:

‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’”
Matthew 6:9-13

If you call yourself by the name ‘Christian’, this passage should be burned into your brain.  As our primary method of communication with God, the importance of prayer can hardly be overstated.  In these few brief sentences, Jesus Himself lays out for us the pattern that His prayer did, and our prayer should, follow.

This prayer is not a formula; it is not a recipe.  This prayer is not a key that will unlock the power of God and cause Him to perform miracles.  These sort of ideas abound in our society.  The thought that we can control God, forcing Him to act on our terms is quite appealing to our ego.  In our modern world, we are unaccustomed to waiting for anything.  We want fast food; we expect on-demand entertainment from our TV's.  Many of us carry so-called ‘smart’ phones, ensuring that we continually have ready access to whatever information we consider essential wherever we may be.

In spite of, or perhaps because of our always connected nature, I would posit that, in general, our personal relationships have never been more shallow.  Social media allows us to easily maintain a collection of dozens or hundreds of friends, while at the same time making it difficult to develop the in-depth communication and history of shared experience that we need to have true fellowship.

In spite of what you may have read or heard, God doesn't have a Facebook profile; God does not want you to ‘Like’ His status.   What God desires is to have a deep relationship with you.  He wants you to seek Him, and to find Him.  He wants you to be free from sin to live a life according to His plan; leading you finally to His presence.  (See Psalms 105:3-4, Isaiah 55:6-7, John 4:23-24, John 17:20-26, etc...)

As I stated earlier, prayer is our primary method of communication with God, at least ideally.  With this in mind, we would do well to take an in-depth look at the pattern of prayer that Jesus himself laid out for us.  Let's go line by line.

Our Father in heaven

The first thing that Jesus does is to recognize his relationship with God.  While He was literally God's son, we too are God's children according to 1 John 3:2.  Sadly, we were not all blessed with perfect fathers.  Some of us have had fathers who were absent or distant.  Some of us had fathers who expected far too much of us.  An unfortunately large number of us have had fathers who were actively abusive.  A much smaller group of us grew up with fathers who followed God's example and raised their children with love and grace coupled with appropriate discipline, to the best of their ability.  I am quite blessed to count myself in this final group.

As our heavenly father, God cares for us, His children by providing for our immediate needs for love, forgiveness and acceptance, while disciplining us to mold us into the most ideal version of ourselves.  Because He is our father “in heaven”, He is unconstrained by the barriers of time, distance and lack of knowledge.  We can trust that He will always act in the way that is best for us.

Hallowed be your name

Hallowed is simply another word for holy.  In this statement, we recognize that God is righteous and just; He is, in a word, holy.  We do not need to state this fact for His benefit, but rather for ours.  When we understand this fact, we become less concerned with the affairs of this world and more concerned with how we can please Him.  This leads directly to the next point.

Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Heaven is God's dwelling place.  It is the place where everything takes place just as God chooses.  For the moment, God allows events on the Earth to be chiefly influenced by other powers.  Certainly, everything that occurs will, in time, fit into His greater plan for good; in this section of the prayer, we are, in so many words expressing a desire for God's plan for good to come to fruition.

Give us today our daily bread

There are seven main points to this prayer; only now at number four does Jesus suggest that we actually ask God for anything.  All too often when we pray, we bring to God and enormous list of requests.  We have our own agenda; we think we know what God needs to do, and come to Him expecting that He will act as we want Him to.  This is certainly not a new phenomenon; if you read chapter 16 of Genesis, you can see Abraham and Sarah trying to direct God in just this way.  Rather than bringing an enormous list of requests and needs that God already knows about, we should simply ask Him to meet our immediate needs, while recognizing that all we have comes from God in the first place.

Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

This is a potentially dangerous area of this prayer.  If we act in a non-forgiving, judgmental manner toward others, should we really expect God to treat us better?  Some may read this warning and think that we can control God with our attitudes; I do not believe that this is the case.  In order for forgiveness to occur, two things are required.  The offended party must be willing to offer forgiveness, and the guilty party must be willing to accept forgiveness.  By acting in a forgiving manner toward others, we train ourselves to accept the forgiveness that God offers us.

Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.

Before I began my discussion on this final section, I feel I must make something clear.  When you are tempted to sin, it is not God who is tempting you.

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.
James 1:13-14

God certainly does not tempt us, but, as we make our way through our fallen world, satan is certain to bring temptation our way.  For reasons that I doubt any human can truly understand, God allows this temptation to occur, within limits.  He has however, promised us that He will always provide a way out so that we can withstand temptation and not give in to it. (See 1 Corinthians 10:13)

Just as with praying for the advent of God's kingdom on earth, we can be confident that God will, when all is said and done, “deliver us from the evil one” in a triumphant, glorious manner that we cannot currently comprehend.  If we truly think of God as our heavenly father though, we will realize that God loves for us to come to Him and ask for the good things that He already has waiting for us.  Anyone who has been a parent for very long has felt the unique joy of hearing your child ask you for something that you have for them.

Now we have examined the model that Jesus gave us for prayer, we would do well to emulate it.  If you are in prayer, I would love to pray for you or with you.  Feel free to mention it in the comments section.

Breakfast in America

I've been avoiding writing about this topic for long time.  The purpose of this blog is not to be political or offensive but rather to inspire people to seek to follow God's word, the Bible, in their daily lives.  With that being said, there is a particular issue about which I feel very strongly; this issue is abortion.  In 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the CDC reported that over 800,000 “legal induced abortions” were conducted in the United States.

One of the two major political parties in our country, the Democratic Party has chosen to make abortion a key part of their party platform, stating that they “strongly and unequivocally” support the right of a woman to seek an abortion.  Furthermore, they state that they “oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that ‘right’”.

Oddly enough, the Republican party platform mentions abortion nearly 5 times more often than its Democratic counterpart does.  Unfortunately, they too fall short of officially opposing abortion although they do “oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion” and state that they “will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage”.

At the risk of offending someone, allow me to make a statement; Jesus was not a Democrat.  It is equally important to mention that Jesus was not a Republican either.

Imagine that politics are a baseball field.  For the sake of convenience, also imagine that the Democrats occupy left field and the Republicans are in right field.  Now imagine Jesus; He's not even on the field.  In fact, He's not even in the ballpark.  He's probably downtown, preaching to the lost people who need Him the most.

I shouldn't be telling anyone how to vote, and I don't want to.  It is the privilege and duty of American citizens to carefully and conscientiously consider all the issues and to vote as they feel they should.  However, when you make your decision, you will best serve your country if you have as much information as possible available to you.