What Does God Ask of Us?

March 22, 2024

“…And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

The prophet Micah asked an important question. In effect his question is: what are the divine requirements of God? What does God expect, require, demand, and command from me? Micah gives us three answers to this question.

His first answer is that we should do justly. In other words, we should be a conduit of justice. We should stand up against injustice anytime and anywhere we see injustice. Since we live in a world that is filled with injustice this could be dangerous. Jesus Christ did this and it got Him crucified.

Micah’s second answer is that we should love mercy. Mercy is unconditional love. This is the chief characteristic of the love of God. David believed that the mercy and unconditional love of God would pursue him all the days of his life.

Micah’s final answer to his question is that we are to walk humbly with our God. Humility has consistently been a characteristic of the great old souls we have known in this life. C.S. Lewis wrote that pride is the mother of all sins and we read in the Proverbs that God hates pride. We can see why God would hate pride because God hates sin.

Are you willing to be the person Micah profiled? There is a sense in which we cannot become a just, merciful and humble person through our own efforts. But these three answers give us a profile of the person God wants us to be. 

Are you willing to let God give you the grace to be that person?

Dick Woodward, 20 March 2011

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Don’t Panic!

March 19, 2024

“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 this third Psalm he is facing the greatest crisis of his life. His son, Absalom, has turned the entire nation against him and has driven him out of Jerusalem into the wilderness where David hid from King Saul when he was a young fugitive. His situation is so desperate many people said even God cannot help him. But in this psalm David explains how he knows God is there for him; he is not having a panic attack, so he gives us this prescription to prevent us from having 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 slept, he awoke alive because the Lord sustained him. He then declared in the future tense that he will not be afraid of the thousands of people who want 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 a 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.

Dick Woodward, 18 March 2012

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Access to Grace

March 15, 2024

“…rejoice in your sufferings knowing…” (Romans 5:3 NIV)

Rejoice in your sufferings, knowing what? In the fifth chapter of his letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul begins by writing that God has given us access, by faith, into grace that makes it possible for us to stand for Christ in this world and live a life that glorifies God.

Imagine how it must make God feel when He has given us access to all the grace we need to live for Christ in this world and we never access that grace. According to Paul, because God loves us He permits suffering to enter our lives that we cannot bear without drawing on this grace we can access by faith.

Paul writes that as we receive the grace to endure our suffering God produces mature Christ-like character in our lives such as perseverance. When you ask the question, “How does an orange get to be an orange?” The answer is “By hanging in there.” That is the essence of the meaning of this character trait of perseverance.

When some followers of Christ find themselves suffering, their immediate response is “Lord, deliver me from this, immediately!” He can and sometimes He does. But He often does not. When He does not it may be because it is His will to grow spiritual character in the life of His follower. When that is what God is doing Paul is telling us we should rejoice in our sufferings, access grace by faith, and then grow spiritually.

Dick Woodward, 19 March 2009

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Calamities & God’s Help

March 12, 2024

Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

These familiar words of consolation and exhortation are found in the context of a great calamity described by the psalmist. By application these words, and other words of consolation in this psalm, can be related to any calamity we experience as the people of God. The hymn writer declares this calamity to be total devastation. Amidst this devastation he exclaims, “God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in times of trouble.”

Since Hebrew is not as precise as Greek, the New American Standard Bible offers helpful alternate readings throughout this psalm. The alternate reading offered here consoles us with the thought that God can be a very present help to us in our “tight places.” The helpful alternate reading presented alongside verse 10 is “Relax, let go and prove that God is – and what God’s will is. He is God and He wills to be exalted among the nations and in the earth.”

When you find yourself experiencing calamity be still long enough to experience these realities: that God is God, that He is there for you, and that He can help you in the tight places of your calamity. So, relax, let go, and prove Him. Then ask yourself how your response to your calamity might align with what He wills; that He might be exalted among the nations and in the earth through the way you live your life here on earth for His Glory.

Dick Woodward, 13 March 2009

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Dick Woodward: Standing Tall!

March 8, 2024

Today marks the 10-year memorial of Dick Woodward’s passing on March 8, 2014. The blog posting elf would like to share a poem her sister wrote for one of Papa’s birthdays and later shared at his Memorial Celebration. Although it’s been 10 years, Papa’s bible teaching continues exponentially through ICM’s global ministry. As Papa would say, “I didn’t, but God did …” & is still doing!

DAD

How do we tell the story of your extraordinary life?

Your background conditions would have predicted only strife.

Growing up in the Depression with barely enough to eat,

Your father working day and night just to make ends meet.

Overshadowed by your siblings—the seventh child of eleven,

But at the age of nineteen sought out by the God of heaven.

Such a change in direction,

Indescribable new affection!

ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE, ANYTIME,

Was your commitment to your Savior divine.

A gift for speaking and engaging wayward souls,

Making the Word simple in order to make men whole.

Many years spent preaching to empty pews,

When suddenly the wind of the Spirit blew.

Then came along the Mildred Alexander show,

And a TV audience with a hunger to know.

Many folks tuned in to discover

The Mini-Bible College from cover to cover.

So much spiritual success,

But one day really put to the test,

A crippling illness took away your mobility,

Yet grace was greater than your disability.

Immeasurable fruit on seven continents,

Broadcasts, booklets, “God-pods” and Internet.

“Unexplained happiness” for all to see,

“I can’t, but He can”—your secret remedy.

So how do we tell your story, Dad?

By telling of the Savior you’ve had.

Jesus Christ is your all in all,

And by His grace you’re STANDING TALL!

* * * * *

Cindy Woodward Kranich (25 October 2007)

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God’s Strength in Our Weakness

March 5, 2024

“And he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

I shall never forget an afternoon in the late 1970s when I tried to mow my lawn and realized I was too weak to cut the grass. When I tried to replace the license plates on my car, I learned to my horror that I was too weak to do even that.

Although it was two years before I could accept the awful reality that I would never feel full strength again, my weakness made it possible to resonate with Paul in a deeper way when he described the way his weakness drove him to access the strength and power of the living risen Christ.

I have had times of such great weakness, especially while ministering from my wheelchair, when I’ve thought: There is absolutely nothing coming from me; everything is coming from God! As God used Paul in mighty ways, he put into words what I have felt many times: “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God!” (2 Corinthians 3:5. italics added)

These were merely familiar Scripture verses until I had no strength of my own. There is a dimension of the power and strength of Christ I did not discover until I was powerless. My experience of weakness forced me to discover that the strength of the risen living Christ outweighs my weakness.

Dick Woodward, from Happiness That Doesn’t Make Good Sense

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Asking, Seeking, Knocking

March 1, 2024

“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 author of Hebrews 11, the faith chapter of the Bible, presents what we might call “The Hall of Faith.” He parades by heroes of faith who show us by the way they lived what faith is. Before exhibiting these walking definitions of faith, the author writes a few introductory thoughts. He writes that without faith it is impossible to please God or come to God.

He adds that if we want to come to God and please God we must believe two things about God: We must believe that God is, and that God rewards those who diligently seek Him.

In two places (Matthew 7 and Luke 11), Jesus taught that we should continuously – and with perseverance – ask, seek, and knock. With this exhortation, Jesus promises that everyone who asks in this way will receive, everyone who seeks in this way will find, and the one who knocks in this way will discover that the door on which they are knocking will open to them. Seeking is intense asking and knocking is intense seeking.

Jesus was not talking about salvation when He gave this exhortation. He was teaching us how to diligently seek God. According to the author of Hebrews, this is a prerequisite to pleasing God and coming to God. Can there be such a thing as an authentic believer who does not want to come to God and please God? If you want to come to God and please God, find out what it means to diligently seek God.

Dick Woodward, 01 March 2011

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Appreciated by God

February 27, 2024

“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 will experience a time when we are not appreciated. It’s challenging to labor long and hard helping people without a word or gesture of appreciation. The author of Hebrews gives us a beautiful message for unappreciated servants of the Lord: we can know we are always appreciated by God.

Our Lord Jesus 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 private closet knowing that our Father in heaven sees and knows everything we pray and do. (Matthew 6)

In the same spirit God said through Moses, “Walk before Me!” (Genesis 17:1) In our daily walks, if we hold on to the perspective that everything we do is done before and as unto God, Hebrews 6:10 reminds us that we are always appreciated when we look up and walk before God.

At the beginning of my ministry, I met a lovely elderly couple who had served as missionaries for 48 years in China. Visiting them in charity housing, in so far as I could tell they had been shown no appreciation whatsoever for their hard work in China. When I asked them how they could bear that their answer was: “You have to know for Whom you’re doing it.”

Walk before God as you do your work – and when you need appreciation.

Dick Woodward, 29 February 2012

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Mercy & Grace

February 23, 2024

Goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.” (Psalm 23:6)

“God is able to make all grace abound toward you, so that you, always, having all sufficiency in all things may abound unto every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8)

Two of the most beautiful words in the Bible are “mercy” and “grace.” The mercy of God, which is the unconditional love of God, withholds from us what we deserve, while the grace of God lavishes on us all kinds of blessings we do not deserve, accomplish, or achieve by our own efforts.

As we thank God for our blessings, at the top of the list we should be grateful for the mercy that withholds and the grace that bestows. The good news of the gospel is that when Jesus suffered on the cross for our sins, everything we deserved that we might have peace with God was laid upon Christ. (Isaiah 53:5-6; 2 Corinthians 5:21)

If you want to grasp the meaning of these two words observe when and why they turn up in the Bible. Try to understand what we deserve and why. That will grow your appreciation for the mercy of God. Then investigate all that is bestowed upon us by the grace of God.

As you find these two beautiful words in the Bible you will understand why I have written that when you pray you should put at the top of your thanksgiving list: “The mercy that withholds and the grace that bestows.”

Dick Woodward, 26 February 2009

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At the Feet of Jesus

February 20, 2024

“… but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better…”  (Luke 10:42)

Every time we meet Mary, the sister of Martha, she is at the feet of Jesus. The verse above describes her at the feet of Jesus hearing His Word. Martha is frustrated because Mary is attending the Bible study while she is doing all the serving. Jesus sides with Mary because she chose the number one priority that day.

In the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John the brother of these two sisters dies. When Jesus arrives too late to save their brother, both these sisters greet Him with the same words: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”  However, when Mary spoke these words we read that she prostrated herself at his feet – showing that she accepted His will.

In the next chapter Martha and Mary’s resurrected brother is the guest of honor at a banquet. Mary is once again there worshiping Jesus at His feet. She anointed His feet with perfume that was worth a year’s wages. What would it mean if you worshiped Jesus with your annual income?

Mary is a great example for us as she is at the feet of Jesus hearing His Word, accepting His will, and worshiping Him. If we will not merely read our Bibles but hear Christ’s personal word to us at His feet when we do, we will find His will for our lives. If we continue to follow Mary’s example, we will be at the feet of Jesus accepting His will. As we follow Mary’s example we will find ourselves at His feet worshiping Jesus forever with costly worship.

Dick Woodward, 19 February 2013

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