March 18, 2012
“Lord, how they have increased who trouble me! Many are they who rise up against me. Many are they who say of me, ‘There is no help for him in God.’” (Psalm 3: 1, 2)
As David writes the Third Psalm he is facing the greatest crisis of his life. His son has turned the entire nation against him and has driven him out of Jerusalem into the wilderness where he hid from King Saul when he was a young fugitive. His situation is so desperate that many people said that even God could not help him. But in this psalm David explains how he knows God will be there for him; he is not having a panic attack so he gives us a prescription for one.
Observe the way David uses three tenses as he lays out his prescription that kept him from panicking. He recalls that in the past there were many times when he cried out to God and the Lord heard him. When he lay down to sleep not knowing if the enemy would slit his throat while he was sleeping, he awoke alive because the Lord sustained him. He then declared that he will not be afraid of the thousands of people who wanted to see him dead. He then declares in the present tense that God is with him and His present blessing is upon him.
When you are in crisis think back to times in the past when God met you and brought you through a crisis. Then let those past answered prayers inspire you to trust God for the present and the future crises in your life.
Look back. With faith, look forward. Then look around at your present circumstances, not with panic but with faith and peace.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 14, 2012
“Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.” (Psalm 100: 4, 5)
In Hebrew culture names had great significance. When parents named a child the name they chose often expressed their desire for the life of their child. Sometimes the name was given to a child because certain events occurred surrounding the birth of the child. The significance of names is especially important when we consider the names of God in the Bible – they tell us much about God.
In this short psalm we are instructed to praise the name of God. We are to praise God because He is good. Rick Warren told us life is like a railroad track. The left rail represents this reality: there is always something negative in our life because God is more interested in our character than He is in our comfort. The right rail represents this reality: there is always something good in our life because God is good and He loves us.
In this very short psalm we are instructed to bless the name of God by focusing His goodness, His everlasting mercy, and His enduring truth. Mercy is His unconditional love and forgiveness. That word is found 366 times in the Bible because God knew we would need it every day and He even included a year like this leap year.
If we read the Bible looking for truth we will discover truth that endures to all generations. In the last verse of his shepherd psalm David informed us that the mercy of God pursued him like a hound of heaven. Will you fill and take this prescription for blessing the name of God?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 10, 2012
“… who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:4)
The Apostle Paul has just experienced life threatening persecution when he was stoned in Lystra. As he describes that experience for the Church in Corinth he gives them (and us) a perspective on suffering. He writes that there is a kind of suffering that drives us to God and there is a quality of comfort that can only be found in God when the level of our suffering drives us to Him.
According to Paul, an evangelist is “one beggar telling another beggar where the bread is.” A hurting heart that has discovered the comfort that can only be found in God is “one hurting heart telling another hurting heart where the Comfort is.”
As a pastor when I met grief stricken parents who had lost a child, since I had never suffered that loss I sent a couple to comfort them who had lost a child and found the comfort of God to help them. Any time your heart is hurting because God has permitted you to suffer, realize that you are being given a credential by God. As you find the comfort that is to be found in God you are now qualified to point any person with that same problem to the comfort you discovered when you had that hurt in your heart.
Although you will not answer all of the “why” questions until you know as you are known, are you willing to let this perspective bring some meaning and purpose to your suffering?
Or would you rather choose to waste your sorrows?
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: 2 corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 1:4, apostle paul, comfort in sorrow, compassion, faith, Faith in God, finding comfort in God, hurting hearts, Jesus Christ, perspective in suffering, Saint Paul, spirituality | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 6, 2012
“When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’” (John 5:6)
The Apostle John describes a pathetic scene that confronted those who approached the Temple as they entered the city of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day. There was by the Sheep Gate the Pool of Bethesda. A great multitude of weak and sick people lay in the porches surrounding that pool given the superstition that when the waters in that pool rippled the first one to get into the pool would be healed.
When Jesus came upon that pool He moved among these weak people until he found one man who had been there for 38 years. He was paralyzed and Jesus asked him the remarkable question quoted above. The man might have thought that question ridiculous since he had been faithfully lying beside the pool for 38 years.
We may well ask the question “Why did Jesus heal just this one man?” It may be that Jesus healed this man because he had given up on the Pool of Bethesda.
Today there are millions of people who are sitting beside “Pools of Bethesda” that cannot heal them. Like Solomon, some people try money, knowledge, painting the town red and not withholding from their eyes anything they see that they want. People try success, power, social status and everything but the spiritual for their healing.
Do you want to be made well inside your heart? Give up your “Pools of Bethesda” and ask the risen, living Christ to lead you to your healing. Get into His Word and become His disciple indeed.
Go beyond the sacred page and meet the Living Word and He will heal you.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 2, 2012
“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, ‘Who will show us any good?’” (Psalm 4:5)
David cannot sleep. He is uptight and anxious. From the context of the psalm we know he cannot sleep because he is under great stress. He decides to meditate within his own heart and be still. (He has a little “board meeting” with himself in the middle of the night). If he does the right thing, he believes he cannot survive. He is therefore thinking about doing the expedient thing. But since he is a man of great spiritual integrity he finds himself awake and uptight.
As a result of his meditation he resolves his dilemma. He makes the decision that he is going to make whatever sacrifices he has to make to do what is right and then trust the Lord for his survival. He knows there are many people who are looking for someone who will do what is right even though it costs them everything to do right.
Have you ever found yourself awake, uptight and stressed out in the middle of the night because you are in a crisis? If you do what you believe God wants you to do you don’t see how you can survive. But your spiritual integrity won’t let you sleep if you don’t do what you believe God wants you to do. David models here a prescription for resolving that kind of dilemma.
His prescription is simply to do right. Whatever it costs you, do right and trust God for the consequences. Many people will be blessed, God will be glorified, you will have great peace, and get some sleep.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Doing Right, faith, Faith in God, great peace, King David, peaceful sleep, Psalm 4, Righteousness, spiritual integrity, spirituality, the cost of doing right, trust god, trust in the lord, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
February 29, 2012
“God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them.” (Hebrews 6:10)
All of us have or we will experience not being appreciated. It’s challenging to labor long and hard helping people without a word or gesture of appreciation. The author above gives us a beautiful word that we can share with unappreciated servants of the Lord. That word is simply that we can know we are always appreciated.
Our Lord instructed us that we are to work our righteous acts in secret. We are to give in such a way that one hand does not know what the other hand is giving. We are to pray and fast in a closet or in private knowing that our Father in heaven sees and knows everything we pray and do (Matthew 6).
In the same spirit through Moses God said “Walk before Me!” (Genesis 17:1) It can bring spiritually profitable perspective into our daily walk if we will hold on to the perspective that everything we do is done before and as unto our God. The author quoted above is reminding us we are always appreciated when we look up and walk before our God.
When I was in my early twenties and beginning my ministry I met a lovely elderly couple who had spent 48 years in China. As I visited them in charity housing, in so far as I could tell they had been shown no appreciation whatsoever for their wonderful work in China. When I asked them how they could bear that their answer was: “You have to know Who you’re doing it for.”
Walk before God as you do your work – and when you need some appreciation.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 24, 2012
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ… The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” (Romans 1:7; 16:24)
The great Apostle Paul begins his letter to the believers in Rome with a marvelous greeting: “Grace to you.” He then closes his letter with the prayer that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with them.
Paul dictated all his letters but one to a stenographer. At the close of each of his letters he took the writing instrument from the scribe and in his own hand wrote these words: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Paul greets and leaves believers with a wish and a prayer for grace. This is because grace is the dynamic of God that saves us. We can define grace if we turn this five letter word into an acrostic and use each letter of the word to spell out:
“God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.”
But grace is not only the way God saves us. The grace of God is the dynamic we desperately need to live for Christ.
In the second verse of the fifth chapter of this same letter Paul writes that God has given us access, by faith, into the grace that makes it possible for us to stand for Christ and live a life that glorifies God.
Paul begins this letter and closes all his letters the way he does because he knows it is absolutely critical that we access the grace God has made available to us if we are to live our life for Him in this world.
Since grace is always our greatest need, consider meeting and leaving your fellow believers with a wish and a prayer for grace.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 22, 2012
“Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him…” (Psalm 100: 4)
Psalm 100 is the definitive worship psalm. This psalm tells us what worship is, what we should experience when we worship, how to worship, what we know, what should happen to us and what the results should be because we worshipped.
According to David worship is to come before God’s presence, and coming before the presence of God is like having an audience with a King. Our approach to the presence of God begins at the gates of thanksgiving. This means that in a corporate worship service, or in our private closet worship, we are to begin our approach to the presence of God by passing through the gates of thanksgiving.
As I attempt to maintain my spiritual equilibrium as a bed fast quadriplegic I get more spiritual mileage out of the therapy of thanksgiving than I do anything else. David has pointed me to the truth that when I begin thanking God I soon find myself in the courts of praise and coming into the presence of God with singing. In the presence of God I know that He is God, I am His sheep and I live in His pasture. Then I’m told again that I should keep on thanking Him.
As a result of this worship experience I am to know that God wants people in every land of this earth to know what it is to make joyful noises of worship in His presence. He also wants it to be known that His truth endures in all generations not only in past generations.
To that end He wants me to serve Him with gladness because I came into His presence with thanksgiving.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 17, 2012
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind…” (Jeremiah 17: 9-10)
In this passage of Scripture God gives us all a spiritual cardiogram. According to the prophet Jeremiah, our heart is not only desperately wicked, but above all things our heart is deceitful. We can pay a professional therapist thousands of dollars to help us understand our deceitful heart. But according to Jeremiah, the reality is our heart is so deceitful only God is qualified to understand it.
I once had the immature belief that if you showed me someone I could understand you would be showing me someone I could love. In my experience of more than sixty years as a pastor I have met people I understood pretty well but found it very difficult to love. I now have a more mature belief.
In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John we read that Jesus told the apostles to lift up their eyes before they looked upon the fields (people) of this world. He was teaching them that if we look at people through the lenses of the way God sees them we will never meet anyone we cannot love because God loves them all. He loves them so much He became a man and died for them.
Beginning with those who live under the same roof with you, and moving out from there, are you willing to lift up your eyes and get God’s perspective on the people who intersect your life before you look at them? That can revolutionize your relationships!
This is true because you will never see or meet anyone God does not love whom Christ cannot love through you.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: God's love for all, Gospel of John, Jeremiah 17, Jesus Christ, love of God and others, love of Jesus Christ, prophet jeremiah, revolutionized relationships, Spiritual cardiogram, Spiritual hearts | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
February 14, 2012
“So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” (Luke 10:36)
Jesus was the absolute master storyteller of parables – stories that illustrated His teachings (in Greek Para = “alongside of” and Ballo = “to throw.”) A lawyer asked Him the question: “Who is my neighbor?” In response Jesus told a parable about a man who was mugged and left half dead. When a priest saw him he passed by on the other side of the road and did not get involved. A Levite, or Temple assistant, who traveled that road did the same thing. Then a traveling Samaritan came down the road. When he saw the helpless man he gave him all the first aid he could, put the man on his animal and took him to an inn where he paid for his care. Jesus then asked the question quoted above.
This parable presents three philosophies of life. The mugger’s philosophy of life was: “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours will be mine as soon as I can take it.” The religious professionals in the story believed: “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours.” The philosophy of the Samaritan was: “What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is yours any time you need it.” That is obviously the philosophy of life Jesus was teaching by His parable answer to the lawyer’s question.
May I ask you to get real and ask yourself which of these three philosophies of life and neighbor are yours? Do you believe people are to be exploited for your personal gain? Do you not want to get involved? Or are the people who intersect your life an opportunity for service?
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Faith in God, Good Samaritan parable, Jesus Christ, Love of Jesus for real, Luke 10, parables, philosophies of life, Teachings of Jesus | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
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