January 15, 2019
“… but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)
As we move further into a new year many of us can say, “These forty-eleven things I dabble in” as we consider our priorities, whereas spiritual heavyweights like Paul write: “One thing I do.” Deeply spiritual people can write they have their priorities sifted down to one thing because they forget those things that are behind.
We all have things we need to let go of so we can press toward the goal of what God wants us to do now and in the future.
The story is told of a man who fell over a cliff but managed to grab hold of a little bush about forty feet from the top. He frantically shouted “Help!” several times but his voice simply echoed back to him. Desperately he yelled, “Anybody up there? A subterranean voice answered, “Yes!” He again yelled, “Help!” Then the voice said, “Let go!”
After a brief pause the man shouted, “Anybody else up there?”
Sometimes it takes a lot of faith to let go. It may be that we need to let go of things that we cannot do and only God can do. It may be we need to let go of things we cannot control. And, sometimes we need to let go of hurts that people have inflicted on us and we cannot forgive them and just let it go.
Do you need to let go and let God so you can unload baggage and move forward with God this year?
Dick Woodward, 11 January 2013
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January 11, 2019
“Give us this day our daily bread…” (Matthew 6:11)
Jesus is using the symbol of bread here to represent all our needs. We are a veritable ‘Internet’ of needs: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. This first personal petition should not be limited to our need for food, but all our needs.
Observe the concept ‘one day at a time’ is repeated twice in this petition of just seven words. Alcoholics and drug addicts with years of sobriety tell me that when they took their first step, they could not entertain the thought of being sober for more than one day.
This prayer of Jesus prescribes that we pray ‘this day’ and ‘daily’ when we present our needs to our Heavenly Father. This principle of one day at a time is a proven therapy that has made the difference between life and death for some of my closest friends who are celebrating many years of sobriety.
Observe how Jesus concludes His teaching about values with the same emphasis later in Matthew 6: “So don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time.” (Matthew 6:34)
We read in the book of Numbers that when God miraculously provided bread from Heaven in the wilderness, the Israelites were only permitted to collect enough manna for one day. That story, recorded in Numbers 11, is also applicable to the one-day-at-a-time principle Jesus prescribes in the prayer He taught us to pray.
When we apply the story of that manna miracle to our daily devotions, we should make the application that we cannot hoard our experience of a word from God or the blessings of a time in the presence of God.
We must have our souls and spirits nourished with heavenly manna every day, one day at a time.
Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Prayer
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January 8, 2019
“Only let us live up to the truth we now have.” (Philippians 3:16)
Paul had an experience on the road to Damascus. He often shared the details of that experience as he did in the third chapter of his letter to the Church at Philippi. It was as if his accounting books were turned upside down – what had been in the gain column of his life was now in the loss column and vice versa.
After his accounting books had been turned upside down, or we might say right side up, his ambitions totally changed in the gain column. He wanted to tackle the purposes for which the risen Christ had tackled him. Now he only wanted to know Christ and the high calling of God to which Christ was leading him.
Paul claims that he has not attained these things in his new gain column, but he has learned a principle about knowing the will of God:
If we want to know the will of God we must live up to the light and the truth God has given us at any given time on our faith journey.
We can take away from this a prescription for guidance. If we want to see further ahead into the will of God for our lives, we should move ahead into the will of God just as far as we can see. Like driving across country at night we can move ahead into the 100 yards of light our headlights give us – and that can lead us clear across our vast country.
When we live up to the light we have, God gives us more light.
Dick Woodward, 08 January 2011
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January 4, 2019
“…being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ…” (Philippians 1:6)
In this first week of the New Year a friend informed me that he no longer makes New Year’s resolutions. When I asked him why he said, “My willpower is nearly always out of power.”
The Apostle Paul’s favorite Church was the one he planted at Philippi. Having brought scores of people to faith in Christ in that city, he finds himself in prison and unable to have physical contact with them. As their pastor he cannot use his powers of reason and persuasion or his spiritual gifts of wisdom, preaching and teaching. Yet he has unwavering confidence that they will continue in their faith in Jesus Christ.
This confidence is not based on them or on himself. He has his upbeat perspective about them because he knows that the One Who began a miraculous work in them will complete what He started.
The word ‘perspective’ means “to look through to the end.” At the starting gate of a New Year it’s important to have healthy perspective. I’m not thinking about willpower driven resolutions but spiritual goals that only the risen, living Christ can make doable.
I’m talking about what you would like to see Jesus Christ do in your life this year.
This year I have a new challenge for setting goals – to make them big and audacious. As we set goals for this New Year, be sure to make them big enough to let Christ in. Then watch Christ work because we have set big and audacious goals that only He can accomplish!
Dick Woodward, 04 January 2011
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December 28, 2018
“Then He brought us out that He might bring us in…” (Deuteronomy 6:23)
Are you ready for a new thing? God often wants to do a new thing in our lives but He has three challenges.
When God wants to bring us out of the old and into a new place He cannot get us out of the old because we are insecure and want to hold on to the old place. He then has to blast us out of the old. That’s why a call of God is often made up of a pull from the front and a boot from the rear.
God’s second challenge is that He has to pull us through the transition between the old place and the new. Transitions can last for years and they can be very painful, but God promises He can pull us through the worst of them.
God’s third challenge is to get us right so He can settle us into the new place. We should no more resist that work of God than a baby should resist being born and coming out into life.
Don’t give God a hard time when He wants to do a new thing in your life. If we trust God’s character we should cooperate with Him when He wants to make changes and do new things in us and for us. A rut is a grave with both ends knocked out. Our loving Heavenly Father does not want to see His children in the living death of a rut.
Instead of giving God a hard time, make it easy for Him as He brings you out of the old place and leads you into the new places He has for you in the New Year.
Dick Woodward, 28 December 2012
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December 26, 2018
“… as He is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)
Christmas has a twin holiday that slips into many Christmas cards. Millions of us include in our Christmas cards a letter – complete with family pictures – that gives an update on how our year has come and gone.
What security do we have as we begin a new year?
In nine words the aged Apostle of Love gives a marvelous perspective on security: “…as He is, so are we in this world.”
There are several ways we can interpret and apply these beautiful words. We can say it is only because Jesus is that we can be as we should be in this world. We can say that our security rests in the proposition that Jesus is and He will equip us to be as He wants us to be in this world.
We can say these words mean He lives in us and through us. For 33 years Jesus had a physical body of His own. For over 2000 years His followers have been the only body He has. This presents the challenge that the only Christ people in this world know is the Christ they see revealed in and through you and me.
As you meditate on the memorial portraits of Christ the New Testament presents to us by those who knew Him, realize these portraits are precisely the way He wants to be revealed to this world through your life and mine today.
The overwhelming personality trait of Jesus Christ is love.
Love is as He was and as He is today.
Our purpose is not to be secure, but to let the love of Jesus pass to others through our lives.
Dick Woodward, 27 December 2011
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December 21, 2018
“Behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all people!” (Luke 2:10)
A man named Tim Hansel lived every day with excruciating pain. He wrote in his book, You Gotta Keep Dancing, that “pain and suffering are inevitable but misery is optional.” That is true for a Spirit controlled disciple of Jesus. Tim also wrote “I can choose to be joyful.”
Joy is one of the nine fruits of the Spirit the Apostle Paul wrote about in his letter to the Galatians. (Galatians 5: 22-23) As evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, joy could be paraphrased “happiness that does not make sense.”
The derivation of the word “happiness” has to do with what happens to us. But this joy, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit living in us, is not controlled by what happens to us. That is why it does not make sense, especially to non-spiritual people.
In the very short letter the Apostle Paul wrote from prison to his favorite church, the Philippians, he used the word joy 17 times!
Appearing to the shepherds the angels explained why their declaration would bring great joy to all people: “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)
Great joy came because the One born is the Savior. He is Christ, which is the Greek way of saying the Messiah. And He is to be our Lord.
Joy came because Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to those who follow Him. This joy is intended for all people, including you and me.
Are you choosing to be joyful?
Dick Woodward, 20 December 2013
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December 18, 2018
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” Matthew 1:23
The holidays are the most family-oriented weeks of the year. Yet for many – those who have no family, singles, widows and widowers, the divorced among us, and those with painful and negative family experiences – the holidays can be the most difficult time of the year. As a pastor every year I had parishioners who asked me in early November to pray for them to make it through the holidays.
The hard reality is that lonely, depressed, and anxious people are lonelier, more depressed, and more anxious during the “season to be jolly” than at any other time of the year.
At the same time, the last four weeks of the year are filled with joy and happiness for millions of people and their families. Whether the holiday season is your favorite time or your most difficult time of the year, consider bringing the true meaning of Christmas to your holidays and to every day of your new year.
Try to block out the advertising blitz of the commercial Christmas. Carefully read the Christmas scriptures in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke, and then read the first 18 verses of the Gospel of John.
You will see that the essence of Christmas can be described by the word incarnation. The biblical word ‘carne’ is the Greek word for ‘flesh.’ When we consider Christmas, we find ourselves face to face with the incarnation – the miracle that God decided to make human flesh God’s address when Christ was born in Bethlehem.
When asked about Jesus a little boy replied: “Jesus is God with skin on.”
Emmanuel, God with us.
Dick Woodward, A Christmas Prescription
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December 14, 2018
“They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses.” (Psalm 107:4-6)
This excerpt from the first stanza of Psalm 107’s great hymn of redemption describes how God redeemed His people when they were wanderers in a wilderness. Their way was desolate. They were hungry and thirsty to the point that their souls fainted in them. Then they cried to the LORD and He delivered them from their distresses.
Deliverance is a synonym for salvation, and salvation is a synonym for redemption. This first stanza of Psalm 107 describes how God redeems the Israelites from their CHAOS.
In the Gospel of Matthew we read several times when Jesus saw the multitudes He wept for them because they were like lost sheep that had no shepherd. They did not know their right hand from their left. In the Gospel of Luke the entire fifteenth chapter is called “The Parable of the Lost Things” because it describes the loving heart of Jesus for those who are lost. A key verse of Luke tells us that Jesus came to seek and to save those who are lost. (Luke 19:10)
From Genesis to Revelation we are told of the great loving heart of God for those who need to be redeemed from being lost. After eloquently describing this first level of redemption, the theme of this psalm is repeated: that those who have been redeemed from their chaos should step up and thank the Lord.
Can you resonate with this first level God’s redemption, and then step up and say so?
Dick Woodward, 14 December 2009
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December 11, 2018
“… Wise men came saying, “Where is he?” (Matthew 2:1-2)
Many Christmas cards tell us that wise men still seek Him. Wise men (& women) still find Him. Wise men (& women) still worship Him and give gifts to Him. We can add this observation: wise men (& women) still ask the question, “Where is He?”
If we want to know where Jesus is today we should look where Love is. Paul writes that Jesus is a specific quality of love. (1Corinthians 13:4-7) If we tap into that quality of love we will find ourselves connecting with God and discover that God is connecting with us. (1 John 4:16)
The great Christmas word is “incarnation,” meaning literally “in flesh.” (John 1:14) The Bible tells us that incarnation also means relocation. God wants to express the quality of love God is where people are hurting. If we intentionally place ourselves where people are hurting, as we become conduits of Christ’s love that addresses their pain we will discover where Jesus is.
We must also look where the Light is. We can place ourselves where there’s spiritual darkness and ask God to pass Christ’s light through us to address the darkness.
And we should look where the Life is. The Apostle John writes that God has given us a quality of life John labels “eternal life.” (1John 5: 11-12) We can experience this quality of life ourselves, and we can become conduits of that Life for others.
As conduits of Jesus when we go (and are) where the hurting are, there is darkness, and the quality of life is lacking – we discover by experience where He is.
Dick Woodward, 13 December 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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