4SpiritualSecrets

“Thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is our Father and the source of all mercy and comfort. For He gives us comfort in our trials…” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, J. B. Phillips)

Suffering can drive us to God in such a way we make this discovery: God is there and God can comfort us. When you undergo a life-threatening surgery and you, completely alone, are being placed under the bright lights, remember that God is the ultimate source of the greatest comfort you can experience in this lifetime.

As a pastor I have frequently heard people say that God met them in a supernatural and intimate way while they were going through a medical crisis.Two weeks ago a man for whom I’ve been praying for twenty years wrote from another part of the country to say he has come to faith. God gave him that absolute assurance while he was undergoing a critical life-threatening surgery.

Many of us have known people we loved who are depressed and oppressed.They are nearly always alone and their pain is so intensely private they do not want the caring people in their lives to be with them. Others believe their suffering is so personal they must place themselves in a self-imposed solitary confinement. If that happens to you, I challenge you to make this discovery: God is there, and God can comfort you!

Father of all mercy and comfort, make me know personally that You are the source of all comfort. Comfort me in my pain, and when I feel alone and depressed, may I discover that You are there, You are real, and You can comfort me. I pray in the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Dick Woodward, from 30 Reasons Why God’s People Suffer

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)

The Word of God exhorts us to pray when we are in crisis situations. Psalm 46:1 has an alternate reading in the New Standard version, “God is our refuge and strength, abundantly available for help in tight places.”

The Apostle Paul also challenges us to pray: “tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer…” (Philippians 4:6) God delivered Paul from many tight places. We should therefore always pray in a crisis: “When it’s hardest to pray, pray the hardest!” However, from personal experience Paul knew that God doesn’t always take our problems away. Paul had a physical condition he described as a “thorn in the flesh.” Three times he asked God to take it away.

Paul saw many people miraculously healed as he ministered the healing power of the Holy Spirit to them. Yet, when he asked God to solve his own health problem, three times God said, “No. No. No.” But God also responded, “My grace is sufficient for you and that is all you need. My strength looks good on weak people.” (2 Corinthians 12)

Paul’s weakness drove him to discover the strength of God. When he did, he not only accepted his condition but eventually thanked God in it so God’s power might be showcased in him.

As Paul accepted the will of God regarding his thorn, he learned that: “The will of God will never lead us where the grace of God cannot keep us.“

Paul exhorts us from his personal experience that prayer may deliver us from our problems, or prayer may give us the grace to cope with them. But, in any case, pray. Always pray about everything!

 Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Peace

“…  I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” (John 9:39)

 Jesus made the claim that He was the light of the world. He also commissioned His followers with the exhortation that we are the light of the world. From the statement quoted above we learn that the light of which our Lord was speaking is a very strange quality of light. It makes it possible for those who are blind to see and it reveals the blindness of those who think they see.

 When I was a child I lived near coal mines. One day there was a terrible explosion in a coal mine and 20 miners were trapped and isolated for three days in a small pocket of that mine. When they were rescued there was great jubilation and celebration among the rescued miners and those who had broken through to them. The celebration grew quiet when one of the rescued miners asked the question “Why didn’t you guys bring any lights?” The rescuers had actually brought many lights. The miner who asked the question had been blinded by the flash when the explosion happened. He had been blind for three days but in the pitch black darkness of the mine he didn’t know he was blind until the light came.

The light that Jesus is – and the light He told us that we are – has that purpose and function. It reveals the spiritual blindness of those who think they see and it gives sight to those who know they are spiritually blind. Jesus did not give us that light. He told us we are that light. 

Are you willing to let the light of Jesus shine through you?

Dick Woodward, 18 May 2010

“And He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” (Genesis 32:28)

When we read in the Bible about great people of God we find they all seem to have deep experiences with God. The details of their experiences vary greatly but the results are similar.

Jacob wrestled all night with an angel. The angel forced Jacob to look up and wrestle his way to God. Then the angel forced Jacob to look in and confess that he was a rascal who lived up to his name. 

The name “Jacob” meant “Grabber.” Jacob was a mover, shaker, doer kind of man who was always running and would not stand still long enough for God to place a blessing upon him.

God could not get Jacob to wait on his Lord. God had to cripple him so God might crown him with God’s blessing. We might call it: “The cripple crown blessing of God.”  When a person is crippled what else can he or she do but wait?

When God won the wrestling match God pronounced a blessing upon Jacob – the one quoted above. By changing his name to “Israel” God declared that Jacob was a fighter. He had fought his way to God and confessed to what he saw when he looked in. Jacob was then ready to look around and deal with his relationships with people.

Are you a spiritual fighter? Have you fought your way to look up to God?  Have you won the battle when you look in? Are you winning the battle when you look around and work out all your relationships?

Dick Woodward, 13 May 2013

“Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.”  (Matthew 14:19)

Just before Jesus fed five thousand hungry families, He challenged the apostles with an impossible mission. When the apostles urged Him to send that hungry multitude away, Jesus said to the apostles, “You feed them!  How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”

The apostles must have been overwhelmed by that challenge. How were they going to find enough food in that deserted place to feed that big crowd of people?

The only food the apostles could find was a basket of five biscuits and two little sardines. They placed that food in the hands of the Lord saying, “All we have is this food a small boy brought with him, but what is this among so many hungry people?” The Lord blessed what the apostles gave Him and then passed that little boy’s lunch through the hands of the apostles to the mouths of more than five thousand people.

That day the apostles learned that whatever we have is adequate when we place our inadequacy in the Lord’s hands.

Through the miracles we are experiencing in ministry, we are learning that our Lord likes to assign us a mission impossible. Then, when the impossibility of our mission makes us turn to Him and say, “This is all we have,” He takes it in His hands, blesses it, and then feeds millions with the Living Bread from heaven.

Dick Woodward (ICM Networking, 2000)

“Surely goodness, mercy, and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6)

What is the basis of David’s unquenchable faith? What gives him the assurance that all the blessings he has described in Psalm 23 will be experienced “all the days of his life” and “forever?”

The word Selah, found frequently in the Psalms of David, can be interpreted: “Pause and calmly think about that.” If we pause and calmly think about it, we realize that all through Psalm 23 David presents the Good Shepherd as the great Initiator of their relationship.

It is the Shepherd Who gets David’s attention then makes him lie down and say, “baa,” confessing that he is a sheep and the Lord is his Shepherd. It is the Shepherd Who makes David lie down by green pastures and leads him beside still waters. It is the Shepherd Who uses His staff when David strays from Him, and drives him into paths of righteousness that restore his soul.

As David walks through the valley of the shadow of death, his confidence is not in his own extraordinary ability as a warrior. His confidence is clearly in the Good Shepherd. As David walks through this scary valley, he looks to God for protection and provision. He knows God will personally anoint him with oil and keep that cup running over within him.

The source of David’s confident faith is also expressed in this hymn, “I Sought the Lord,” by George McDonald.

“I find, I walk, I love, but Oh the whole of love

            Is but my answer, Lord to Thee.

            For You were long beforehand with my soul.

            Always, you have loved me.”

Dick Woodward, Psalm 23 Sheep Talk