October 22, 2024
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)
In the last chapter of the letter to the Church at Philippi Paul gives them, and us, a prescription for peace. The peace of God is a state of personal peace in which God can keep us if we meet certain conditions. (Isaiah 26:3)
As I seek to maintain the peace of God, I get the most mileage out of the prescription listed above. I have discovered that when I begin to thank God for all the good things in my life it is as if a switch is thrown, and I find my mind automatically moving from the negative to the positive.
To use a metaphor, if I were to place all the bad stuff in my life on the left side of a scale – like a scale of justice – and all the good stuff on the right side of that scale, the right side will far outweigh the left side. That’s what happens when I implement what I call, “The Therapy of Thanksgiving.”
An old hymn writer put it this way: “When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed. When you are discouraged thinking all is lost. Count your many blessings, name them one by one. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” (Johnson Oatman, Jr.; 1856-1926)
That’s why Paul’s prescription is that when we pray, in everything (not for everything), we should pray thankful prayers. He promises that when we do, the peace of God will stand guard over our hearts and minds.
Dick Woodward, 22 October 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 18, 2024
“Exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for…the life that now is and of that which is to come.” (1 Timothy 4:7-8)
As a young man Timothy was probably interested in physical fitness. If he lived in our culture, he would be the type to join a gym and work out regularly. Paul agreed with Timothy that physical fitness is profitable. But, he declared that godly fitness is more profitable. Paul reasoned that physical fitness improves the quality of our lives here and now, but godly fitness improves the quality of our eternal life.
How real and practical is our faith in the life to come? I am intrigued with this question: what is godly exercise? The word “godly” means “like God.” What is God- like? We are told in the Scriptures that God is Spirit. (John 4:24) To exercise ourselves toward godliness therefore means to submit to disciplines in the spiritual dimension that grow us spiritually.
We also read in the Scripture that God is love. To exercise toward godliness means to commit ourselves to a study of the love that is God. At the heart of the love chapter (1 Corinthians 13) Paul passes the love of God through the prism of the Holy Spirit and it comes out on the other side a cluster of 15 virtues. Pursue intentionally what the 15 virtues are and what they look like when you apply them in all your relationships.
God is light. Exercise yourself in this dimension of God-likeness by filling your mind and heart and life with the truth (light) you find in God’s Word. Walking in that light will help you in this life and in the life to come.
Do you have a routine for spiritual fitness?
Dick Woodward, 18 October 2013
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 15, 2024
“… Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress…” (Psalm 4:1)
Just about every emotional challenge we experience today was faced by the psalmist many years ago. If we observe what he did when he struggled and receive from God the grace to respond as the hymn writer responded, we can often overcome our emotional challenges.
In Psalm 4 the psalmist faces the emotional challenge of distress. If you drop the first two letters, the word becomes stress. We all have stress. If we do not have stress we atrophy. I have not put stress on my legs for 30 years. Consequently, my legs are the size of your arms. “If you don’t use it, you lose it” is the way physical therapists describe atrophy.
Our loving Father God knows that what is true for our bodies is also true in our spiritual lives. God is fiercely committed to the proposition that we are going to grow spiritually. If we have no spiritual stress, we will experience spiritual atrophy. God therefore will not only permit, but direct into our lives stress that will grow us as God gives us the grace to cope with that stress.
Many of us trust God for the good things that comfort and sustain us. But do we have the faith and the knowledge of God to seek God in the challenges that make the difference for us between spiritual growth and atrophy?
The Greek compound word hupomone, translated as “perseverance” in our English Bibles, literally means “to abide under.” To apply hupomone, we should ask God for the grace to abide under stress, grow spiritually, and not atrophy.
Dick Woodward, 15 October 2013
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 11, 2024
“…whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance… If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting.” (James 1:2-6)
Encountering trials in our lives will often bring us to the place where we don’t know what to do. We realize we need more wisdom than we have. When we lack wisdom we must look to God for it. In the Old Testament when the people of God fought against overwhelming numbers, their frantic prayer of faith was: “Nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You!” (2 Chronicles 20:12)
The process of working through our trials will teach us the test of faith, which leads to the trust of faith and brings us to the triumph of faith. I have been in a wheelchair since 1984 and a bedfast quadriplegic since the mid 1990s. I have thought much about the suffering of disciples.
In the Bible we are warned God does not think as we think, nor does God do as we do. (Isaiah 55) If the desire of my heart is to know God’s will and to live my life in alignment with the ways of God, doesn’t it logically follow that I may not expect to always understand the way I am going?
If God gave answers to our why questions, the very essence of faith would be eliminated. God is pleased when we come in our crucibles of suffering and cry, “If you heal me, that’s all right. But, if You don’t heal me, that’s all right too, because YOU are all right!”
Dick Woodward, Marketplace Disciples
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 8, 2024
“… Being confident of this very thing that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ…for it is God at work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure.” (Philippians 1:6; 2:13)
When he wrote these words the Apostle Paul was in prison chained between two Roman soldiers. He was not able to shepherd the believers he loved. Is he stressed out because he fears that they will fall away from their faith? No, he has confidence that they will continue in their faith until the day of Christ.
The source of Paul’s confidence is found in two realities: he knows that the risen Christ has begun the miracle of regeneration in them, and he is completely convinced that Jesus Christ will continue the miracle work of salvation He begins. Paul’s confidence is not in the fact that he has led these people to Christ. His confidence is in Christ!
Paul adds that his confidence is in God Who is at work in them giving them the will and the power to do that which pleases God.
Where is your confidence that you will continue what Christ has begun in your life? Where is your confidence that those you love will continue what Christ has begun in their lives? Is your hope in them? Is your hope in your ability to shepherd and mentor them?
Or is your hope in Christ Who began that miracle and in God Who gives us the will and the power to do what pleases Him?
Dick Woodward, 09 October 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 4, 2024
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
I am indebted to E. Stanley Jones, a missionary who served in India for 50 years, for his superb daily devotional, In Christ, that showed me the importance of this phrase in the New Testament. I highly recommend his book which highlights the use of “in Christ” by New Testament writers.
According to Dr. Jones, when we think about being “in Christ” we should realize that Paul was not talking about being in religion. Few people have been more into religion than Paul before he met Jesus. Paul was so religious he fervently persecuted followers of Jesus, sure that he was pleasing God by trying to snuff them out.
It is possible to be in religion, but not be in Christ. It is possible to be in church, and not be in Christ. We can be in doctrine, or theology, and not be in Christ. We can be in the ministry and not be in Christ. We can be committed to Christ, and believe a lot of things about Christ, and still not be in Christ.
To be in Christ locates us in a Person, right now.
Unless we are ‘in Christ’ it’s like we have a powerful engine in our automobile but we cannot find the ignition key that turns the engine on. Being ‘in Christ’ is the ignition key, opening us up to experience “all spiritual blessings in Heavenly places.” (Ephesians 1:3)
Paul essentially writes: I live because Christ lives in me and I live in Christ. Just as you sometimes cannot find the keys to your automobile, have you misplaced this critical spiritual key – are you living in Christ?
Dick Woodward, 09 October 2013
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 1, 2024
“…All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16)
I find it intriguing to know that in little genes that cannot be seen with the naked eye the genetic heritage of a human being is determined: how high our heads will be from the sidewalk, the color of our eyes, our hair, the capacity of our intellectual gifts, our athleticism and even mannerisms are all wrapped up in microscopic genes.
In this inspired Psalm, David – a great warrior, king, man after the heart of God and hymn writer – tells us that before we existed as genes God determined the days we would live on this earth. The Living Bible Paraphrase reads that before we existed God had an agenda for every day we are to live on this earth.
One day my wife and I woke up and prayed together that if our agenda for that day did not agree with God’s agenda, we were willing to be preempted. Later that day while having lunch with our pastor son, I realized I was having a heart attack. As the 911 people rolled me out the door I said to my wife, “Looks like we’re being preempted big time!”
At the hospital they were able to turn things around before it became a full blown heart attack. However, that experience gave my wife and me a perspective we will never forget. There is God’s agenda and there is our agenda for every day we live.
How should that truth impact the way we plan our agendas each day?
Are we willing to be preempted by God’s agenda every day?
Dick Woodward, 01 October 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 27, 2024
“My Word… will achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
In this marvelous chapter taken from the book of the prophet Isaiah, he tells us why he preached the Word of God. Earlier in this chapter Isaiah proclaimed that there is as much difference between the way we think and act, and how God thinks and acts, as the heavens are high above the earth. He tells us he preached the Word of God because God’s Word can bring about an alignment between the way God thinks and acts and the way we think and act.
There is a strong emphasis in the Scripture on the importance of our will being in alignment with the will of God. Jesus made one of His greatest prayers when He sweat great drops of blood and prayed, “Not My will but Your will be done.” He taught His disciples to pray, “Your will be done on earth (and in their earthen vessels) as it is in Heaven.”
The Word of God describes the struggle between God and men like Moses, Job, Jonah, and many others who finally submit their wills to the will of God. And then the will of God is done in and through them on earth as it is in heaven. When God declares through Isaiah that His Word will not return to Him without accomplishing the purpose for which He sent it, I am convinced that this is one of the purposes God had in mind.
When you read and hear the Word of God proclaimed, will you let God accomplish this purpose for the Word of God? Will you let the Word of God bring about an alignment between your will and God’s will’?
Dick Woodward, 28 September 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 24, 2024
“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)
In all the communication that flows between a husband and wife (and in close relationships we have with others), there are ten critical words that often must be spoken. These ten words have saved marriages and the lack of them has dissolved marriages.
The ten words are: “I was wrong. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?”
These words need this ten-word response: “You were wrong. I was hurt. But I forgive you.”
Some people will never say the words: “I was wrong.” They will never say: “I am sorry.” And they certainly would never ask for forgiveness. They would rather live alone for the rest of their lives than say these ten critical words. It may be their pride that prevents them, or perhaps they are driven by the myth of their own perfection. But these words can make the difference between marriage and living alone.
It is hard to imagine an unforgiving authentic disciple of Jesus Christ when He instructs us in the Disciple’s Prayer to forgive as we have been forgiven – or we invalidate our own forgiveness. (Matthew 6: 8-15) According to the translation from which I have quoted, the prayer actually asks our Lord to forgive us as we have already forgiven those who have sinned against us.
“Forgive, as we have been forgiven…”
Dick Woodward, 25 September 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 20, 2024
“…Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)
At the starting gate of their relationship with Jesus, two sets of brothers who were professional fishermen entered into a covenant with Him that came in two parts. Jesus challenged them: “You follow Me – that’s your part. I will make you – that’s My part. You follow Me – that’s your business. I will make you– that’s My business.”
When I was 18 years old my brother-in-law, Pastor John Dunlap, shared the Gospel with me. When I told him I couldn’t do what an authentic disciple of Jesus was required to do, he told me I didn’t have to do it by myself. Pastor John told me about this covenant Jesus established with Peter, Andrew, James and John. When I made the commitment to follow Jesus I entered into that same covenant.
Next month I will be 80 years old, and I have proven that if we follow Jesus, He will make us. In other words, if we keep our part of that covenant, we can trust Jesus to keep His part.
I strongly encourage you to consider entering into that covenant with Jesus. You don’t have to do all the things involved in following Him. Fact is you can’t follow Jesus in your own strength and resources. Your part is to make the commitment to follow Him and then trust Jesus to do His part. He won’t do your part, and you can’t do His part. But if you follow Jesus, He will make you into who He is calling you to be.
And if someone could show you what you will be doing in 20+ years you won’t believe it!
Dick Woodward, 21 September 2010
Editor’s Note: This week the blog posting elf is remembering her Uncle John who led her Papa to faith so many years ago when (in Papa’s words) his younger self was a zero with the circle rubbed out. Uncle John, however, had faith in what Jesus could do in & through Papa! And my Aunt Lolly had that same faith, too!
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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