The Lord Is My Shepherd

April 2, 2019

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me…You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:4-6)

The most important relationship we have in our lives is our relationship with God. The greatest description of that relationship is given by David in his Shepherd Psalm. After explaining in Psalm 23 how this relationship is established, David tells us how this relationship works as God leads us through the deep dark valleys of our lives.

David tells us that God is with him, goes before him and prepares a table of provision for him in the presence of his enemies. He tells us that God is like a cup running over within him and oil being poured upon him. David ends his psalm by telling us the goodness and mercy of God will follow him all the days of his life.

This Hebrew word for follow can be translated as “pursue.” So David is actually telling us that God not only goes before us, but pursues behind us with God’s mercy (unconditional love) and goodness all the days of our lives.

By application, this means that when you are going through deep dark valleys you can believe that God is with you, goes before you, pursues behind you, will provide for you in the presence of all your enemies and problems, God is within you, and God’s anointing is upon you as long as you can say with authentic faith:

“The Lord Is My Shepherd.”

Dick Woodward, 03 April 2009

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Faith: A Prescription for Failure

March 29, 2019

“He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness…” (Psalm 23:3)

Failure is one of the most feared and dreaded experiences in life. The fear of failure drives millions of people all day long, every day. There are many ways to fail. We can fail in our work, in our marriage or as parents. We can fail personally by feeling we’re not living up to our expectations or our potential. We can fail morally.

When we fail what do we do about it?

The third verse of Psalm 23 gives us a prescription for failure. David knew what it was to fail. When he needed restoration he tells us how his Shepherd God restored him when he wrote: “He leads me in the paths of righteousness.” He had already written that his Shepherd leads him to still waters.

When David uses the word “lead” for the second time he uses a Hebrew word that means God “drives” us into the paths of righteousness.

What David is telling us here is that when we need restoration we should not seek a cheap one or an easy one. Rehabilitation means “to invest again with dignity.” He was implying that his restoration was a matter of being driven into the paths of righteousness for some time – perhaps even for years. God used those paths of righteousness to restore David’s soul and give him an opportunity to invest again with dignity.

By application, when you fail and need restoration don’t seek a cheap one or an easy one. Let our great Shepherd-God lead you into the paths of righteousness that will truly restore your soul.

Dick Woodward, 28 March 2009

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#Faith: Hope vs. Despair

March 26, 2019

“I would have despaired, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”  (Psalm 27:13)

The Apostle Paul concludes his great love chapter by profiling three eternal values: faith, hope and love. We know that love is an eternal value because God is love. We can also understand why faith is one of the three eternal values because faith brings us to God.

But why is hope one of the three great eternal values?

God plants hope, or the conviction that something good exists in this world, in the heart of every human being. When you delve into the lives of many people battling a multitude of challenges, however, you cannot help but wonder how they could believe there is something good in this life.

When I was a college student in Los Angeles my dormitory was located at the end of Hope Street adjacent to the Los Angeles Public Library. The same day I learned in a course that more than 25,000 people committed suicide in 1952 because they lost hope, a man committed suicide by jumping from the top of my dormitory.

The newspaper reporter that day was more eloquent than he knew when he wrote: “An unidentified man jumped to his death today from a tall building at the end of Hope Street.”

David knew that he would despair if he ever lost the conviction God put in his heart the Bible labels hope. Hope is an eternal value because it is meant to lead us to faith, and faith leads us to God.

Let your hope bring you to faith and your faith to God.  And remember that people around you are despairing for the hope you have.

Dick Woodward, 24 March 2013

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Seeing the Good:God’s Strength in Our Weakness

March 22, 2019

“Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days, that he may see the good?” (Psalm 34:12)

When David was a fugitive from King Saul many other fugitives joined him hiding out in caves. About 400 who were in debt, in distress and discontent joined David. (1 Samuel 22:2) Psalm 34 gives us little summaries of sermons David preached to those fugitives and failures that eventually turned them into his mighty men.

David began by challenging them with questions like: “How many of you want to live? How long do you want to live? Do you want to live so you may see the good?”

When we are asked how long we want to live we almost never give a precise answer with a specific number of years, months, weeks and days. We just answer, “Many!”

In that culture “seeing the good” was an expression that meant a person was convinced there was something good in this life and they were going to find it. David preached that the Lord was the good thing they were seeking.

After telling them about the most humiliating and frightening experience of his life, David’s great battle cry to them was: “Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together!”  (v. 3)

David identified with the weakness of these fugitive failures. He then preached that the greater their weakness the more they exalted the name of the God when God used them. Finding the strength of God in their weakness made them the mighty men of David God used in mighty ways.

Have you learned how to find God’s strength in your weakness?  Have you discovered how the greater your weaknesses – the more you can magnify the Lord?

Dick Woodward, 21 March 2013

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What God Wants: Justice, Mercy & Humility

March 19, 2019

“…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 presents us with three answers to his 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 it. Since we live in a world that is filled with injustice this can 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. King David believed that the mercy and unconditional love of God pursues us all the days of our lives. (Psalm 23)

Micah’s final answer to his profound question is that we are to walk humbly with our God. Humility has consistently been a characteristic of the great spiritual 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 hates pride because God hates sin.

Are you willing to be the person of faith Micah profiled? There is a sense in which we cannot become a just, merciful and humble person on our own, but these three answers do 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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LOVE!! – Indestructible & Inspirational – LOVE!!

March 15, 2019

“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 often 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 will often make the joyful discovery that ultimately they will 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 have experienced the gradual, but relentless onset of paralysis, which has 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 as well as I 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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The Disciples Prayer: God First!!

March 12, 2019

“Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven...”  (Matthew 6:9-13)

The verb form of the word ‘to pray’ literally means “to ask.” Prayer is more than just asking, but asking God for something is often the heart of a prayer.

The message of the Bible frequently sifts down to just two words: God first. From Genesis to Revelation, the bottom line interpretation and application of the commandments, character studies, allegories, parables, psalms, sermons, Gospels, Epistles and teachings of Jesus is simply “God first.”

The prayer Jesus taught us begins with that God-first emphasis when Jesus instructs us to begin by asking God that His name, the essence of Who and what He is, might be honored and reverenced because we are offering our prayer(s) to our heavenly Father God…

Prayer is not a matter of us persuading God to do our will. The very essence of prayer is an alignment between our wills and the will of God. Prayer is not a matter of us making God our partner and taking God into our plans. Prayer is a matter of God making us His partners and taking us into His plans…

We are not to come into our prayer closets or into our corporate worship prayers with a ‘shopping list’ and send God on errands for us. When we pray, we should come into the presence of God with a blank sheet of paper and ask God to send us on errands for Him.

Dick Woodward, A Prescription for Prayer

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Three Absolutes of Knowing God

March 5, 2019

“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 truth is when I first came to faith and to the ministry I struggled to know God. Providentially I had several spiritual heavyweights who mentored me to God. They shook things down for me into three basic absolutes that made sense then – and still do today.

Their first proposition is that God is here. I have not struggled much with that proposition, especially reflecting on the many, many ways God responds to the prayers I pray to God here.

Their second proposition is that God is real. I found that when I related myself to God, God responded by relating Himself to me. That inspired me to believe that God is not only here, He is very real when I relate to Him and make personal contact with His divine presence.

When I found myself sharing with God the intimate dimensions of my personal, private and even secret life He responded to those prayers. I realized that I had come to believe in a personal God.

That is the third proposition of my spiritual mentors: God is personal.

They wanted me to believe and come to know God who knows the numbers of hairs on my head. By the grace and providence of God I have come to know that personal God. I believe God when He tells me He has a plan for my life which when followed will make me a unique person.

Do you believe in God Who is here, real and personal?

Dick Woodward, 05 March 2013

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Always Pray About Everything!

March 1, 2019

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6)

It’s easy to say, “Don’t worry,” but what are we going to do about our problems if we don’t worry about them?

God’s Word exhorts us to pray when we are in crisis situations. Psalm 46:1 states: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Alternate readings state that God is “abundantly available for help in tight places.”

The Apostle Paul was delivered from many tight places. He asked the Philippians to pray that he might be delivered from prison. They prayed, and he was delivered from his imprisonment at that time. We should therefore always pray in a crisis. It has been said, “When it’s hardest to pray, pray the hardest!”

Paul knew from personal experience, however, that God does not always take our problems away. He had a physical “thorn in the flesh” that he asked God three times to take away. Paul saw many people healed as he ministered the power of the Holy Spirit to them. Yet, when he asked God to solve his health problem, three times God said, “No. No. No.” God essentially said, “Tell you what I’m going to do, Paul. I’m going to give you the grace to cope with your problem.” (II Corinthians 12)

When God gave Paul the grace to cope, he discovered the power of Christ was upon him in a mighty way. Paul not only accepted the will of God, he learned that the will of God will never lead us where the grace of God cannot keep us.

“Tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer.”

Prayer may deliver us from our problems, or it may give us the grace to cope with them. But, in any case, pray.

Always pray about everything!

Dick Woodward, A Prescription for Peace

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Finding God’s Strength in Our Weakness

February 26, 2019

“When I am weak then I am strong…” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

In these eight words the Apostle Paul gives us a strength formula. When you are having a serious operation, instead of counting to ten as the anesthesiologist administers the medicine that knocks you out, I suggest you say these eight words:

“When I am weak then I am strong.”

While most of us are ‘control freaks,’ experiencing anesthesia we give up all control. But, as believers when we give up all control, we will find ourselves underneath the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27)  This makes us stronger than we have ever been.

Paul, quoting Isaiah, writes the key to spiritual strength is that God gives strength to the weary and power to the weak. (Isaiah 40:27-31) One translation reads that God’s strength looks good on weak people. The key to spiritual strength is therefore not found in our strength, but in our weakness.

These eight words are therefore a formula for strength. They give us great spiritual strength in our times of absolute weakness.  Discover with the Apostle Paul that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, not in trying to make ourselves strong.

We find our greatest strength in the Everlasting Arms that are there underneath us.

Prove what Isaiah and Paul teach us. The Everlasting Arms are there and they give us more strength than we have ever known as healthy active people. The next time you experience weakness on any level of life remember to pray these eight words: “When I am weak then I am strong.”

You will soon find yourself saying, “I’m not but He is; I can’t, but He can;” and then, “I didn’t but He did” when you let Jesus perfect His strength in your weakness.

Dick Woodward, 26 February 2014

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