A Message of #LOVE

July 17, 2020

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:11)

The Apostle John points to Jesus dying on the cross and writes: “This is love… that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:10) He follows that with the words quoted above: if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

Hours before He was arrested and crucified, Jesus challenged the men He had been apprenticing 24/7 for three years to love one another as He had loved them. He then prophesied that by this the whole world would know they were His disciples.

Peter wrote that by His death on the cross Jesus has given us an example and a calling that we should follow in His steps. (1 Peter 2:21)

The Apostle John is in alignment with Jesus and Peter when he gives us yet another reason we are to love one another. In principle Jesus was instructing the apostles that the best way to reach out is to reach in.

Essentially, Jesus was saying that we have a message of love to communicate to the world. The best way to do that is to love one another and show the world a community of love.

If our churches were the colonies of love Jesus desires them to be, the love-starved people of this world would be beating our doors down to be part of our spiritual communities. Everyone has a need to be loved and to belong. The love John is profiling is the greatest evangelistic tool our Lord has given His Church.

Are you willing to reach in that you might reach out for His glory?

Dick Woodward, 20 July 2010

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

God’s Mandate for #LOVE

July 14, 2020

 “…because as He is, so are we in this world…” (1 John 4:17)

As the Apostle of Love continues to give us reasons why we must love (in 1 John 4), having told us twice that God is love (verses 8 and 16), he writes that as God is, so are we in this world. He also told us in verse 16 that God lives in us. If God is love and God lives in us, then it follows that as God is (love), so are we (to be love) in this world.

This is yet another reason why we must love.

The perfect example of this is Jesus Christ when He was God in human flesh for 33 years. The greatest dynamic of His personality was love. If you met with Him for a day like Zacchaeus, the Chief of the Publicans (Luke 19), or for an hour like the Samaritan woman (John 4), or briefly like the young man we call the rich young ruler, you would know that you are loved as you have never been loved before.

We are told that Jesus, looking intently at the rich young ruler, loved him. (Mark 10:21)

The Apostle John, the author of the fourth Gospel, lived with Jesus 24/7 for three years. John refers to himself in his Gospel many times with these words: “I am the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Sixty years later, he dedicated the last book of the Bible to Jesus with the words “…unto the faithful Witness Who loved us…”

When people meet with us today do they feel that they have been loved as never before because we are God’s Love with skin on in this world?

Dick Woodward, 16 July 2010

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

#LOVE ONE ANOTHER!!

July 10, 2020

“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God Whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20)

Tradition tells us that the Apostle John escaped from the Isle of Patmos by swimming out to a ship that was bound for the city of Ephesus where he lived to a very old age and was buried. With white hair and a long white beard he was so feeble they had to carry him to the meetings.

While at the meetings he would bless those who attended and cry:

“Little children, love one another, little children, love one another!”

As we have seen in this chapter, John gives us ten reasons why we must love one another. One reason is that God is love and if we plug into the love God is we make contact with God, and as we become a conduit of God’s love God makes contact with us.

John gives us a second reason that if we say we love God and we hate our brother we are liars. Because if we do not love the brother we can see how can we love God Whom we cannot see?

His point is that it’s not easy to love God because we cannot hug a Spirit. There is an inseparable vertical and horizontal dimension of this love that God is.

These two dimensions form a cross.

We cannot say we love God if we do not love one another.

Dick Woodward, 09 July 2010

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

Conduits of God’s #Love

July 7, 2020

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him.” (1John 4:16)

In the epistle of First John, the apostle of Love is giving us ten reasons why we must love one another. Among those ten reasons is the one expressed above.

We must love one another because God is love and the person who loves in this way is living in God and God is living in that person.

One application of what he is writing is that when we plug into the love that God is, we live in God and God lives in us. In the 1950s I made a great discovery. As a social worker while responding to a night call at 3:00AM, I prayed a prayer like this:

“God, You say You are a special quality of love. I believe You are doing Your love thing where people are hurting. I’m now going to where hurting people are. When I get there please pass the love You are through me and address their pain.”

There were times when I prayed that prayer I thought I was being electrocuted with the love of God. I challenge you to accept the challenge of the Apostle John.

Go where the hurting people are with that prayer on your heart. When you become a conduit of God’s love, you will never be satisfied with anything less than having that experience again and again.

This is because as a conduit of the love of God you will experience Who, What and Where God is – and where you want to be for the rest of your life!

Dick Woodward, 06 July 2010

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

A Prayer for God’s Peace

July 3, 2020

“Heavenly Father, You tell us in Your Word that You can keep us in a state of perfect peace if we meet Your conditions for peace. Please give me the wisdom to worry about nothing, and the faith to pray about everything.

May I receive from You the discipline to think about good things and the integrity to do the right things.

May I always have an incurable optimism that believes in goodness, and such an insight into what You are doing in my life and in my world that I will give thanks in all things.

May I never try to push You or run before You, but always wait on You, experiencing the gentleness and patience that are the evidence of Your Holy Spirit living in me.

As I sort out my priorities, may I always value Your approval of who and what I am, and not walk before others to be seen by them or to please them.

Never let me forget how near You are to me as I draw near to You, worshiping and enjoying You each day and forever.

And finally, Heavenly Father, realizing that it is not who I am, but who You are that is important; acknowledging that it is not what I can do, but what You can do that really matters; agreeing that it should never be what I want, but always what You want; and remembering that in the final analysis it will not be what I did, but what You did that will have lasting eternal results, give me that absolute trust in You and total dependence on You that will truly rest my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus.

I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, and for Your glory. Amen.”

Dick Woodward, (“A Prescription for Peace”)

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

A Prayer for Peace (in times of crisis)

June 30, 2020

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”  (John 14:27)

When I was in a very difficult situation, the prayer of Saint Francis had great meaning for me. I memorized it and prayed it every night for several months. I know you are very familiar with it but in case you don’t have a copy there, here it is:

 “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

Dick Woodward (email to his daughter, 2005)

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

#FAITH: Let the Redeemed SAY SO!

June 26, 2020

“Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy…” (Psalm 107:1-2)

Redemption means to get something back that has been lost. It is similar in meaning to the word “rehabilitation” which essentially means “to invest again with dignity.” The first words of Psalm 107’s marvelous hymn of redemption are quoted above. At the end of each of the five stanzas in this psalm, we are told that those who have been redeemed by the Lord should step up and say so.

Levels and dimensions of redemption are profiled in this psalm. Each description ends with the charge that we thank the Lord for His goodness in redeeming us in this way.

God redeems us from our chaos when He finds us. God then redeems us from our chains when He sets us free from our sins.

This is followed by the way God redeems us from our foolish and sinful choices. The psalmist emphasizes our responsibility for bringing on the consequences of our sins.

The psalmist then describes the way God redeems us from our complacency by meeting us in our crises from which He redeems us when we are at our wits end and don’t know what to do.

As you meditate on all these levels of redemption, ask God to continuously redeem you in all these ways. As you reflect on each individual dimension of redemption, step up and join the redeemed of the Lord in grateful worship.

And say so!

Dick Woodward, 27 June 2012

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

Pizza! Pizza! – The Anatomy of a Sin

June 23, 2020

“Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” (James 1:15)

In this verse James gives us what we might call the “Anatomy of a Sin.”

One day more than twenty years ago, my wife had to be gone for six or seven hours. Watching sports television that evening, every thirty minutes or so an advertisement promoting pizza came on. I truly love pizza but I’m not supposed to have it because I am a diabetic.

Each time I saw the commercial I developed a stronger desire for pizza.

I had a telephone and some money in my pocket, so eventually I called and ordered a pizza. I told them I was in a wheelchair so please walk in. When the delivery man arrived, I asked him to place the pizza on the blanket in my lap and take the box with him (to leave no evidence.)

When my wife returned, however, as she picked up the blanket to fold it a small pizza crust dropped to the floor. Needless to say, I got in trouble, big time!

According to James sin involves a lure, a look, a strong desire, and eventually temptation – then sin and death, which means “the pits.” The lure is like a piece of metal and our strong desire is a powerful magnet. If we don’t do something to break up that magnetic field between our desire and that lure, we will sin.

I didn’t do that, so pizza landed in my lap.

James shared this with us so we would understand the importance of breaking up the magnetic sequence of sin.

Are you willing to do that?

Dick Woodward, 24 June 2011

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

A Prayer for Comfort

June 19, 2020

“Thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is our Father and the source of all mercy and comfort. For He gives us comfort in our trials…” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Suffering can drive us to God in such a way that we make this discovery: God is here and God can comfort us.

When you undergo a life-threatening surgery and you, completely alone, are being placed under the bright lights, remember that God is the ultimate source of the greatest comfort you can experience in this lifetime.

As a pastor I have frequently heard believers say that God met them in a supernatural and intimate way while they were going through a medical crisis.

Many of us have known people we loved very much who are depressed and oppressed. They are nearly always alone and their pain is so intensely private they do not want any of the caring people in their lives to be with them.

Others believe their suffering is so personal they must place themselves in self-imposed solitary confinement. If that happens to you, I challenge you to make this great discovery: God is here, and God can comfort you.

Father of all mercy and comfort, make me know personally that You are the source of all comfort. Comfort me in my pain. When I feel alone and depressed, may I discover that You are here, You are real, and You can comfort me. 

I ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Dick Woodward, from 30 Biblical Reasons Why God’s People Suffer

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

Ministers of Comfort (for the Brokenhearted)

June 16, 2020

“…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)

They say an evangelist is “one beggar telling another beggar where the bread is.” Paul is telling us in this passage of Scripture that a minister of comfort is “one hurting heart telling another hurting heart where the Comfort is.”

According to Paul, every time you enter into a deeper level of suffering God gives you a diploma to hang on your wall of spiritual credentials.

Jeremiah Denton was in solitary confinement in Hanoi for seven years. While he was alone in that cell he made a discovery: God was there and God comforted him. Have you entered into a level of suffering that was deep enough for you to make that same discovery? If you have, then as a qualified minister of comfort you can tell other hurting hearts where the Comfort is.

As a pastor for just under six decades I have made a discovery. The best one to comfort a parent who has lost a child is a parent who has lost a child, and best one to comfort the person who has lost a spouse is someone who has lost a spouse – when those who have suffered these losses have been comforted by God. The same is true for women who have had mastectomies, those who are going through divorce, battling cancer, and every other type of suffering.

When God has comforted you in your deepest levels of suffering are you willing to reach outside yourself and become a qualified minister of comfort?

Dick Woodward, 17 June 2010

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »