Put Love First!!

February 16, 2024

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love… I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:1-3)

The Apostle Paul composed an inspired poem of love in which he declared that the agape love of God should be the number one priority of spiritual people. In First Corinthians 13 he wrote that love is greater than knowledge and more important than faith.

Paul’s teaching about spiritual gifts in the previous chapter concludes with: “Earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I will show you a more excellent way.”  (I Corinthians 12:31)   Paul begins his great love chapter with his prescription for that most excellent way: “Let love be your greatest aim,” or “Put love first.”

A SUMMARY PARAPHRASE APPLICATION:

“If we speak with great eloquence or in tongues without love, we’re just a lot of noise. If we have all knowledge to understand all the Greek mysteries, the gift to speak as a prophet, and enough faith to move mountains, unless we love as we do all those things – we are nothing.  If we give all our money to feed the poor and our body to be burned at the stake as a martyr, if we give and die without love, it profits us nothing.

Nothing we are, nothing we ever become, nothing we have and nothing we ever will have in the way of natural and spiritual gifts should ever move ahead of love as our first priority. Nothing we do, or ever will do as an expression of our faith, our gifts, our knowledge, or our generous, charitable, unconditionally-surrendered heart is worthy of comparison, or can replace love as we live out our personal priorities in this world.”

Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Love

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Love, Love, Love!!

February 13, 2024

“Love never fails.” (I Corinthians 13:8)

Human love is often based on performance. When we apply the love of Christ, our love is not based on the performance of those we love. That is what makes this love indestructible. The love of Jesus Christ is a tough, indestructible love because it is unconditional.

In wedding ceremonies, many couples make the unconditional vow: “…for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part.” The living Christ, empowering the love Paul prescribes in 1 Corinthians 13, is the dynamic that makes that possible.

We can also make the application that these ways of love are irresistible, because they are inspirational. Peter, ultimately, could not resist the positive reinforcement of Jesus calling him a rock. I personally could not resist when my mentors prayed, imagined, dreamed, hoped and believed in my ultimate potential.

If you ask Christ to make your life a conduit of His love to your spouse, children, and those who are difficult to love – you may make the joyful discovery that they will ultimately find the love of Christ to be irresistible and inspirational. They will begin to believe what you pray, imagine, dream, hope and believe about and for them.

For 28 years, I experienced the gradual and relentless onset of paralysis, which reduced me to a helpless, bedfast quadriplegic. During that time I have learned much about the love of Christ from my wife, who is the most selfless, others-centered person I have ever known. In all these years she has never taken a day, weekend or vacation from her care of me. There are very few people in this world who know how I do what it means to be the recipient of the unconditional and indestructible love of Christ.

Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Love

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God’s Grace, Abounding Grace!

February 9, 2024

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

The mercy of God withholds from us what we deserve, and the grace of God bestows on us all kinds of wonderful blessings we do not deserve.  Grace is also the dynamic we receive from God to do what God calls and leads us to do. 2 Corinthians 9:8 quoted above is the most superlative verse about grace in the Bible.

It tells us that God is able to make all grace, not just some grace, abound toward us, not just trickle in our direction. Then we may have all sufficiency, not just some sufficiency, in all things, not just some things. We are then equipped to abound, not just do our duty, as we do every good work God leads us to do, not just the works we like to do, ALWAYS! Twice in this verse Paul emphasizes the reality that this grace is for you – not just for a pastor or missionary – but you!

Is this grace a reality in your journey of faith?

I once heard Dr. A. W. Tozer preach on this verse. After he read it there was an eloquent pause before he said, “Sometimes you cannot help but allow the thought that God oversold grace in the New Testament.” He then preached a powerful message challenging us to believe God has not oversold God’s grace but that we need to learn how to access His grace.

The hymn writer wrote, “The favor God shows and the joy He bestows are for those who will trust and obey…” That is a good place to start.

Dick Woodward, 10 February 2012

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God Loves You (& Me!)

February 6, 2024

“…that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John 17:23)

I learned from studying psychology that we are all a great network of needs. From the Bible I learned that God is love. His Son, Jesus, was ‘God with skin on.’ Love is the most mesmerizing dynamic of Christ’s life on this earth. The people who met Jesus were loved as they had never been loved before.

We are also designed to be ‘God with skin on.’ The Holy Spirit can be described as Love Incarnate: the love of God with skin on, yours and mine. Love is the primary fruit of the Spirit and evidence of the Spirit’s residence in us. When people are filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit, they are conduits of the love of Christ.

We should all ask God to make us conduits of God’s love. Many people don’t feel worthy of being loved by anybody – not even God. When someone says, “I love you,” a negative tape begins to play that says, “No, you don’t.  If you really knew me you wouldn’t!”

Jesus prayed that those who make up the Church would live in such a way that this world of hurting people will know and believe God loves them as much as He loves His only begotten Son. If you do not know that God loves you, then we who are part of the Church have failed you. God loves you!

…Because by the grace and mercy of God, I know that God loves me.

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

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Why Believe?

February 2, 2024

“Without faith it is impossible to please God.  He that would come to God must believe that He is and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

The author of these words is telling discouraged believers why they should not throw away their faith.  He writes that they must believe because without faith we cannot come to God, we cannot please God, and we cannot experience the beautiful reality that God rewards those who diligently seek Him.

When Jesus died on the cross a great veil in the Temple that separated sinners from the divine presence of God was supernaturally torn from top to bottom. The significance of that miracle was, and is, that we can now go directly into the presence of God.  We no longer need the intercession of a priest. The door into a relationship with God has been wide open since our High Priest Jesus opened it for us 2,000 years ago.  How could we not come to God through that door by faith?

We must believe because we are not only saved by faith – we are to live by faith. As we live by faith our chief purpose in life is to glorify God.  To glorify God means to please God and we cannot please God without faith.  As we live our life in this world the greatest fact of life we know is that God is, and He blesses, enables, and rewards those who come to Him by faith.

The author then gives us what we call A Hall of Faith which exhibits for all-time great examples of people who did not throw away their faith. In spite of great challenges, they believed that God is, they came to Him, they pleased Him and God rewarded their faith.

Dick Woodward, 01 February 2013

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Lord Save Me!!

January 30, 2024

“But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30)

In the Bible the Apostle Peter is the only one besides Jesus Christ who walked on water. Yet millions only remember that he took his eyes off Jesus and would have drowned if Jesus had not saved him. We read Peter’s magnificent faith was flawed. He saw the wind. Since we cannot see wind, this means when he saw what the wind was doing, he lost sight of what Jesus was doing and became afraid.

The remarkable thing here is that when he kept his eyes on Jesus, Peter walked on water!

It was not until he was beginning to sink that Peter cried out this prayer. Two thousand years later, this remains a go-to prayer for us through the storms of life. Jesus taught that our prayers should not be long. We should never think we will generate grace with God by our many words. (If Peter had made a longer prayer, the words beyond the third would have been glub, glub glub!)

When Jesus caught Peter by the hand He gave him the nickname, “Little Faith.” (I believe our Lord was smiling when He did.) He literally asked Peter: “Why did you think twice?”

While very ill the past two weeks many people have been recruited to pray for me. Yesterday it occurred to me that I had not prayed for myself. I then fervently pleaded this prayer: Lord, save me! In your spiritual walk, don’t think twice and don’t be of little faith. Instead, learn to plead this prayer, and soon you will find your way through the stormy waves of life walking on water.

Dick Woodward, 28 January 2014

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God’s Ways & Our Ways

January 26, 2024

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)

In one of the most important chapters of the Bible Isaiah shared what we might call his “philosophy of ministry.”  Isaiah, who is called “The Prince of the Prophets,” declared that he preached the Word of God because there is as much difference between the way God thinks and acts and the way we think and act, as the heavens are high above the earth.  Isaiah believed the Word of God can bring about an alignment between the thoughts and ways of God and our thoughts and ways. 

As an application to Isaiah’s profound declaration, Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, asked the question, “If our steps are ordered by the Lord, how can we always expect to understand the way we are going?” (Proverbs 20:24)

It is so important that we have this profound truth declared by Isaiah engraved in our minds: God does not think and act as we do! This is especially true when we are baffled by events and circumstances that overwhelm us and obsess us with “Why” questions.

A devout Christian surgeon I know says, “The word we use most in this life is ‘Why.’ And the word we’re going to use most in the next dimension is ‘Oh!’”  That’s because when we have eternal perspective on this life we are now living, in time we will say “Oh” when we see why God’s thoughts and ways are higher and better than the way we think and act.

Dick Woodward, 25 January 2011

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Champions for Christ

January 23, 2024

“All our steps are ordered by the Lord; how then can we understand our own ways?”  (Proverbs 20:24)

Solomon poses a wise question in Proverbs 20:24: “If we are going the way God wants us to go, how can we expect to always understand the way we are going?” I believe it is obvious that God is making you an original in an original way. There isn’t anybody like you and there isn’t supposed to be.

My thoughts turn to six powerful Bible verses: the last four verses of Romans 11 and the first two verses of Romans 12. They tie in with Isaiah 55 and the reality we often do not know what God is doing. The profound truth focused is that God is the source of, the power behind, and His glory is the purpose for everything He is doing. 

The application in Romans 12 is that you should worship by surrendering your body as a living sacrifice (not a dead one.) Ask God to transform your mind so you think as He does. Then, having met these prerequisites, prove one day at a time that His will for you is good and moves toward spiritual maturity.  (This passage is especially good in the Phillips.*)

God is shaping you to be a champion for Christ in dimensions that are far beyond anything you could imagine or even think to imagine! Whatever spiritual help it takes you must master this problem or it will master you. Every time God wants to do a great work like what He is doing in your life, the evil one is there trying to defeat it. 

Put on the whole armor of God to defeat what the evil one is trying to do.

Dick Woodward (email, 20 January 2007)

(*J.B. Phillips translation of The New Testament in Modern English)

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Praying with our Tears

January 19, 2024

“I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; surely I will add to your days fifteen years.” (Isaiah 38:5)

Early in my ministry as a pastor I made a discovery about prayer. I came to the conclusion that we are praying even when we do not close our eyes, fold our hands, and bow our heads. I discovered that prayer is the sincere desire of our souls no matter how we express it.

The sigh of a believer can be a prayer. When we come to the end of our resources and throw ourselves across a bed and sigh, or cry – that is also a prayer.

God sent the Prophet Isaiah to tell a sick King Hezekiah that he was going to die. Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and cried. When God saw the tears of King Hezekiah, God sent Isaiah back to him with the message: “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears.” And God added 15 years to King Hezekiah’s life.

When we express the sincere desires of our souls, which are often too deep for words, in tears and sighs of despair – that is prayer God hears and answers. God has as much interaction with people in the waiting rooms of hospitals as God has in the sanctuaries of our churches.

Realizing your tears and sighs of despair are prayers, will you offer them to God as the prayers of your heart?  God will hear you.

Dick Woodward, 18 January 2011

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Spiritual Temple Maintenance

January 16, 2024

Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal…”  (I Kings 19:18)

The prophet Elijah reached the zenith of his career on Mt. Carmel when he challenged the people of God to stop being spiritual schizophrenics. When they committed themselves to serving the living God, they experienced a great revival. (I Kings 18) The next day we read Elijah “went a day’s journey into the wilderness and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die.” (I Kings 19:12)

Elijah was one of the greatest prophets who ever lived. The drastic change we see in him is due to many things, but one factor is that he neglected what I call Temple Maintenance. The Apostle Paul said our bodies are the temple of God. (I Corinthians 3:16-17) Therefore, anything we do to maintain our bodies is temple maintenance. Neglecting our temple maintenance can have serious consequences on our health and ministry.

Observe in that dramatic victory for Elijah on Mount Carmel all the physical stress and effort he put out. He dug a deep ditch around that altar and filled it with water. Have you ever dug a deep ditch? …At the end of that long day, he ran in front of a chariot for 17 miles. Elijah must have been exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

The physical dimension of our lives directly affects our mental, emotional and even spiritual perspectives. Elijah obviously allowed his physical stresses to affect him. We know all his blubbering about being the only true servant of the Lord was neurotic when God made him know there were 7,000 faithful servants like him, who had not bowed their knees to Baal.

Take an example from one of the greatest prophets — don’t forget your temple maintenance!

Dick Woodward, Marketplace Disciples

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