April 8, 2013
“And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” (1Timothy 6:8)
The Apostle Paul makes several observations about contentment as he writes to his son in the faith Timothy. He tells this young pastor that some believe godliness should lead to gain. We still have people in the church who believe that way. Those who preach what is known as the prosperity theology proclaim that if you are godly you should also be healthy and wealthy. Paul considers that a heresy and proclaims that godliness with contentment is great gain.
Paul also writes that some believe great gain will lead to great contentment. He warns that those who will to be rich can fall into temptations and harmful lusts that can lead to their spiritual destruction. He then observes that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Observe that he does not write that money itself is that root of evil.
It is not sinful or wrong to be wealthy. Believers can experience the blessing of God on them in the form of great wealth because they are faithful stewards and God can trust them with money. But Timothy is to flee a love of money and a will to be rich in pursuit of contentment and pursue the godliness that will bring contentment here and blessing hereafter.
What did it take to bring contentment to Paul? Paul drew the line at food and clothing. He did not even include shelter. (Perhaps that was because he spent so much time in prison.)
What does it take to bring you contentment? Are your ambitions and expectations Biblical expectations and ambitions?
We could paraphrase what Paul wrote here and in what may be his prescription for contentment: “He who lives content with little possesses everything!”
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Posted by Dick Woodward
April 2, 2013
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
This past weekend many heard the Good News that Jesus died and rose again for our sins that we might live forever in resurrection power with Him. Have you ever heard of the Gospel in reverse? The verse I quoted above sounds like a funeral dirge because it begins with Paul’s announcement that he is crucified with Christ.
But, actually in this verse Paul exclaims three times that he lives! He lives by faith in the Son of God. He lives because Christ lives in him, and he lives because he is crucified with Christ. To summarize and paraphrase, in this verse Paul is declaring the Good News that Christ died so he might live and now it’s his turn. Paul must die so Christ might live His life through Paul.
When our holidays roll around we hear that it should be Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter every day of the year. If you want to have a perpetual Easter, realize that what was true of the Apostle Paul can be true for you and me.
Jesus consistently challenged His followers to take up their cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9: 23). In addition to the literal meaning this could have had in that culture, by application to take up your cross daily means to “crucify” all the personal hopes, ambitions and plans you had for your life asking Him to have His will for your life.
Christ died that you might live. Now it’s your turn.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: apostle paul, Easter, faith, following Jesus, Galatians 2:20, Jesus Christ, religion, the Cross of Christ, The Gospel | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 29, 2013
“If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.” (1 Corinthians 15:19 NKJV)
A mother of small twin daughters realized her bone marrow transplants were not going to work. In beautiful handwriting she wrote out The Living Bible Paraphrase of three chapters written by Paul about resurrection. When she gave them to me she asked me to explain them at her memorial service simply so her daughters would understand them.
The first was the great resurrection chapter of the Bible, the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. The other two were the fourth and fifth chapters of Second Corinthians. I call these last two chapters: “Applied Resurrection.”
The first application of the resurrection of Christ is that just as Jesus was buried and raised from the dead, we are buried in the hope of our own resurrection. If that is not going to happen we should be pitied because we suffered for Christ in this life.
If you want to have a personal Easter I challenge you to read these three chapters slowly and devotionally in a good translation or paraphrase you can understand like The Living Bible Paraphrase or The Message.
C.S. Lewis told us the clergy are people who have been set aside to remind us that we are creatures who are going to live forever. They are also to teach us that life is a school in which we are to learn eternal values.
Applied Resurrection teaches us that though our outward man is perishing, it is possible for our inward man to be renewed every day while we’re learning to appreciate the difference between the visible and the invisible, the temporal and eternal values.
May your Easter be a time of reflection on eternal resurrection values.
4 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: 2 Corinthians 4 & 5, C.S. Lewis, Christian faith, Easter, eternal values, faith, Faith in action, I Corinthians 15, Jesus Christ, the Resurrection of Christ, theology | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 26, 2013
“God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, the Message)
So what is the biggest weekend in the Church year all about? What does it mean to you and me personally? The Apostle Paul put it in a nutshell. What it amounts to is the best deal ever offered.
Because of what happened on Good Friday God has offered to put all of our wrong on Jesus and in exchange put all that is right with Jesus on you and me. That’s the best offer we ever had. All we have to do to close on the offer is believe it!
In 1949 while I was doing social work in Pittsburgh, late one night a man asked if he could speak with me. As we talked in the darkness outside a closed recreation center he told me he was wounded in the great Battle of the Bulge toward the end of World War II. While still under fire he saw a chaplain crawling from one wounded man to another. This chaplain apparently had something very important he said to those men. He hoped the chaplain would make it to him but after taking several hits the chaplain didn’t move anymore.
He said he had been wondering for several years what it was the chaplain had to say to those men. He said after watching me for a couple of month he told his wife he believed I could tell him what that chaplain was telling those wounded men. I told him about the greatest deal ever offered.
This Easter do you have a message for dying people? Do you have a message for people who are going to live?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 24, 2013
“I would have despaired, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13)
The Apostle Paul concludes his great love chapter by profiling three eternal values: faith, hope and love. We know that love is an eternal value because God is love. We can also understand why faith is one of the three eternal values because faith brings us to God. But why is hope one of the three great eternal values?
God plants hope, or the conviction that something good exists in this world, in the heart of every human being. When you get into the lives of many people and understand their battles and challenges you cannot help but wonder how they could believe there is something good in this life.
When I was in college my dormitory was located at the end of Hope Street in Los Angeles adjacent to the Los Angeles Public Library. The same day I learned in a course that more than 25,000 people committed suicide in 1952 because they lost hope, a man committed suicide by jumping from the top of my dormitory.
The newspaper reporter who recorded the story was more eloquent than he knew when he wrote: “An unidentified man jumped to his death today from a tall building at the end of Hope Street.”
David knew that he would despair if he ever lost that conviction God put in his heart the Bible labels hope. Hope is an eternal value because it is meant to lead us to faith, and faith is to lead us to God.
Let your hope bring you to faith and your faith to God. And remember that people around you are despairing without that hope you have.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: christianity, eternal values, faith, Hope in God, Jesus, losing hope, Love of God, Psalm 27, sharing hope | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 21, 2013
“Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days, that he may see the good?” (Psalm 34: 12)
When David was a fugitive from King Saul many other fugitives joined him hiding out in caves. About 400 who were in debt, in distress and discontent joined David (1 Samuel 22:2). Psalm 34 gives us little summaries of sermons David preached to those fugitives and failures that turned them into the mighty men of David.
He began by challenging them with questions like: “How many of you want to live? How long do you want to live? Do you want to live so you may see the good?” When we are asked how long we want to live we almost never give a precise answer like a specific number of years, months, weeks and days. We just answer, “Many!”
In that culture “seeing the good” was an expression that meant a person was convinced there was something good in this life and they were going to find it. David preached that the Lord was the good thing they were seeking.
After telling them about the most humiliating and frightening experience of his life, his great battle cry to them was: “Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together!” (v. 3)
David identified with the weakness of these failures. He then preached that the greater their weakness the more they exalted the name of the God they served when He used them. Finding the strength of God in their weakness made them the mighty men God used in mighty ways.
Have you learned how to find God’s strength in your weakness? Have you discovered how the greater your weaknesses – the more you can magnify the Lord?
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: faith, finding God's strength, King David, magnifying the Lord, Psalm 34, religion, Seeking God, theology, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 16, 2013
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)
The great Shepherd psalm of David is the most familiar chapter in the Bible. It is loved by Jews, Catholics and all the shades and grades of Protestants. Psalm 23 is the greatest description ever written of what the relationship between God and man can be.
After declaring that his God makes him lie down in green pastures and leads him beside still waters David also declares there to be times when he finds himself in a valley that is so dark it is like the shadow of death. However, he is comforted by the staff of his Shepherd. He is referencing the confidence he has in the ability of his Shepherd to lead him through that valley, not just to that valley.
He is also comforted by the rod of his Shepherd. The rod of a shepherd was a defensive weapon used to keep predators away from the sheep. David is saying here that he has great confidence in the ability of his Shepherd to protect him from anything he might encounter in that valley.
The bottom line is that David knows his Shepherd God can not only lead him to a valley but through that valley.
Are you in a valley right now? If you are, realize your Shepherd God wants to lead you through that valley. Trust His perfect ability to lead and protect you all the way through your valley.
Faith nearly always involves choices. The choice is yours. So, which is it going to be? Is it going to be “To it, or through it?”
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: faith, faith & suffering, King David, Psalm 23, religion, Shepherd Psalm, spirituality, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 12, 2013
“What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19: 9)
I find great meaning in the questions God asks people in the Bible. On our journeys of faith our loving God sometimes needs to ask us this question He asked Elijah. Where we place the emphasis in a statement can sometimes completely change its meaning. For example, we can say, “A woman, without her, man is lost!” Or we can say, “A woman without her man is lost! Using the very same words we can communicate two very different meanings.
God’s question to Elijah might have been “What are you doing here Elijah?” Or the question could simply have been “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
A very godly saint was named Bernard. A dog was named after him and so we usually think of a dog when we hear his name. He wrote this question on the inside of the door that led from his tiny cell out into the world: “What are you doing here, Bernard?”
It would be a good idea for us to have that thought engraved on the inside of our door so that every time we leave our home we would be confronted with our vision statement. It would be a good question to have engraved where we would see it as we leave our churches every time we worship or are inspired by great preaching and teaching.
It would also be a good question to ask and answer as we enter our places of business. Our workplace is where God has strategically placed us to be and have an impact for Christ in this world. We should, therefore, begin every day there with this question:
“What are you doing here?”
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Bernard of Clairvaux, Christian faith, Elijah, faith, God's purpose, I Kings 19:9, purpose driven faith, spirituality, vision statement | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 8, 2013
“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress…” (Psalm 4:1 KJV).
While I was learning that God is there, real and personal I met with one of my mentors after I experienced the divine presence of God in a mighty way. I told Paris Reidhead, “My cup is just running over, Paris!” His response to me was: “How big is your cup, Dick? It doesn’t take much to run over a thimble. Why don’t you ask God to turn your thimble into a cup, your cup into a bucket, and your bucket into a truckload?”
I did pray that prayer, fervently. At that time I did not know that according to the verse above God’s vehicle for that kind of growth is distress. If you want to know what distress is just drop the first two letters: God uses stress to grow us spiritually just as putting stress on our muscles grows us physically.
Over the next few years I found myself going through deep waters and fiery trials. When we had three toddlers and two in diapers my wife was hospitalized four times in one year in a hospital 100 miles away from our home. While I was the pastor of a church and the mother and father of our children the Lord enlarged me, big time!
Years later I lost my health and became a bed fast quadriplegic. That is when I really learned my “4 Spiritual Secrets” which have enabled me to minister beyond anything I could have imagined. Those secrets are written on this webpage.
When you want to grow spiritually I dare you to ask God to turn your thimble into a cup, your cup into a bucket and your bucket into a truckload.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: faith, faith in adversity, fiery trials, Paris Reidhead, prayer, presence of god, Psalm 4:1, spiritual growth, Spiritual secrets, spirituality, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 5, 2013
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11: 6)
The truth is when I first came to faith and to the ministry I was struggling to know God. Providentially I had several spiritual heavyweights who mentored me to God. They shook things down for me into three basic and absolute propositions that made sense to me then and still do today.
Their first proposition was that God is there. I have not struggled with that proposition. I began by reflecting on the many, many ways God responds to the very many prayers I pray to Him there.
Their second proposition was that God is real. I found that when I related myself to God He responded by relating Himself to me. That inspired me to believe that He was not only there, He was very real when I related to Him and made personal contact with His divine presence.
When I found myself sharing with God the intimate dimensions of my personal, private and even secret life He responded to those prayers. I realized that I had come to believe in a personal God. That was the third proposition of my mentors: God is personal.
They wanted me to believe in and come to know a God who knew the numbers of hairs on my head. By the grace and providence of God I have come to know that personal God. I can believe Him when He tells me He has a plan for my life which when followed will make me a unique person distinct from every other living person.
Will you believe in the God who is there, real and personal?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Divine Presence, faith, following God, hebrews 11, Hebrews 11:6, Jesus Christ, knowing god, loving God, religion, spirituality | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
4SpiritualSecrets 