August 30, 2022
“But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles…” (Isaiah 40:31)
The Golden Eagle in the Mediterranean referenced in the Bible likes to build its nest at least ten thousand feet above sea level, preferably in a Craig near the top of a cliff. From that elevation the eagle can see a storm approaching while the storm is still far off.
With great patience the eagle waits until the winds of that storm reach a high velocity and engulf the eagle and its nest. The eagle then leaps fifteen feet from its nest directly into the adverse wind of that storm. This adverse wind gives the eagle the lift and aerodynamics it needs to soar over the storm.
When the prophet Isaiah exhorts the people of God to mount up with wings as eagles do, he is referring to this storm strategy of the eagle. When a storm comes into our lives, our reflex response should not always be to ask God to deliver us from the storm. We should consider applying this exhortation of Isaiah. We can wait on the Lord until God shows us it is the right time. Then we can leap into the adverse winds and find in them the spiritual aerodynamics to soar over the storm.
When the Church was born at Pentecost the great miracle happened after the apostles had waited on the Lord for forty days. The apostles found miraculous spiritual aerodynamics by moving out against severe persecution, obeying the Great Commission, and making disciples for Jesus Christ.
When God permits or directs a storm into your life and mine, are we willing to wait on the Lord until God gives us the power to soar over the storm?
Dick Woodward, 29 August 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
August 26, 2022
“Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven…” (Matthew 6:9-13)
As we face the challenges of life every day, we should be poor in spirit enough to confess that we need the power of God.
When I have entered a challenging day, I have confessed thousands of times in my journey of faith and ministry, “I can’t, but God can.” Jesus prescribes the mandate (in the Disciples’ Prayer) we are to confess to God that the results of our answered prayers are in place because the power of God has worked in answer to our prayers.
We are to conclude our prayers by essentially confessing, “Yours is the glory.”
When we apply this third providential benediction to our prayers, we are simply confessing, “Because I didn’t but God did, all the glory goes to God.”
Along with our confessions about the kingdom and power of God, Jesus prescribes that we conclude our prayers by making this solemn commitment to God: the glory for everything that happens in my life because You have answered my prayers will always go to You.
The essence of this benediction is: “Because the power will always come from You, the result will always belong to You, and the glory will always go to You.”
“Amen” simply means, “So be it!”
Dick Woodward, A Prescription for Prayer
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Posted by Dick Woodward
August 12, 2022
“Jesus said to them, ‘my food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.’” (John 4:34)
When Jesus met a woman at a well in Samaria He sent the apostles into a nearby village to buy food for their lunch. When His disciples returned with the food He refused it and spoke the words quoted above. Jesus obviously wanted to have a private interview with the Samaritan woman.
His interview has been summarized by a riddle: “The SW met a SW at a SW. The SW became a SW and went on to be a great SW.”
The explanation of the riddle is as follows: “The Savior of the World met a Samaritan Woman at a Samaritan Well. The Samaritan Woman became a Saved Woman and went on to be a great Soul Winner.”
When the apostles returned they marveled that Jesus was speaking with a Samaritan woman of questionable reputation. Earlier in this chapter we are told that Jesus was just passing through Samaria. He wanted to reach this woman who would reach all of Samaria for Him after He left. We’re told she did this for Him.
Jesus told the apostles that this was the work of God for Him. And doing the work of God was His food. In the Gospels, the magnificent obsession of Jesus was to do the work of God. Is the work of God a magnificent obsession for you?
Dick Woodward, 14 August 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
August 2, 2022
“Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.” (Psalm 4:1)
One of my favorite Scripture verses is the first verse of Psalm 4. David is in a wringer and he is talking to God about it. Almost parenthetically he drops this thought, “You have enlarged me when I was in distress.” As I reflect upon my wringer years of disability and I think of the growth I have experienced while in the wringer, that little phrase says it for me. Truly God has grown me in my time of distress.
Psalm 46 is also a great psalm that applies to servants of the Lord when they are living on the edge and the whole world seems to be coming unraveled like a cheap sweater.
The opening verse could be interpreted this way, “God is my refuge and strength. God is abundantly available for help in tight places.” It can be applied devotionally to believers who live in difficult contexts. The punch line comes when the Psalmist instructs the believer in the midst of chaos to “Be still and know that I am… and that I will be.”
I hope you have a chance to check out Psalm 143. David cries to God, “Answer me speedily because my spirit fails. Cause me to hear Your loving kindness in the morning. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk.” I like the last part when David prays, “Revive me.” The old King James reads “quicken me.” That word, quicken, means something like “give me a touch from You that will spring to life the work of the Spirit in my heart and life.”
…Recently I heard someone say, “When saying goodbye to a fellow soldier of Jesus Christ, we should never say, “Take it easy.” We should say, “Hang tough and fight the good fight.”
Hang in there!
Dick Woodward, (1997 fax to his daughter overseas)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 26, 2022
“I have brought you out that I might lead you in…” (Deuteronomy 6:23)
There are times when God wants to do a new thing in our lives. To do this new thing God faces three challenges. First God has to get us out of the old place. That is not easy because we often love the security of where we are. God therefore has to blast us out of the old. That can happen in many ways. We could be fired, or we may just know in our knower that it is time to make a change. The call of God is often made up of a pull from the front and a boot from the rear.
The second challenge is that God has to keep us going to pull us through the transition time between the old place and the new place to which God is leading us. Transition times can be difficult!
The verse above describes the way God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt to bring them into the Promised Land. Their transition time involved crossing a desert, which should have taken eleven days. They went around in circles for forty years. They circled that desert because they did not have the faith to invade the land of Canaan. When God wants to do a new thing in our lives, do we go around in circles because we do not have enough faith to enter into the new place God is leading us?
The third challenge is that God has to make us right to settle us into the new place God has for us. One translation of 2 Corinthians 6:1 reads that we are “co-operators” with God. When we realize what God is trying to do in our lives, are we ready to give God a little more cooperation?
Dick Woodward, 24 July 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 21, 2022
“This is how we know we are in Him: whoever claims to live in Him must walk even as Jesus walked.” (1 John 2:5-6)
In the first sixteen verses of his short letter, the Apostle John gives us a prescription for fullness in seven parts: facts, faith, forgiveness, fellowship, follow-ship, fruitfulness, and fullness.
John’s facts are the death and resurrection of Jesus. When we have faith to believe the first fact we have forgiveness. When we believe the second the result is fellowship with the risen Christ. By changing one letter in the word “fellowship” to “follow-ship,” I have come up with the key to John’s prescription for fullness: you will know that you know when you walk as Jesus walked.
This word follow-ship is also a key to the fullness emphasized by Jesus. His covenant with the apostles was “Follow Me and I will make you.” (Matthew 4:19) The most important part of the Great Commission occurred when Jesus commissioned the disciples to make disciples. (Matthew 28:18-20) A synonym for discipleship is apprenticeship. Jesus apprenticed the apostles and He commissioned them to apprentice disciples.
The Gospel of John Chapter 7 records a great claim of Jesus when He declared that His teaching is the teaching of God. Jesus also proclaimed we prove that when we do what He teaches. (John 7:17) According to Jesus the doing leads to the knowing. Intellectuals have claimed for millenniums that the knowing will lead to the doing, but Jesus said “When you do you will know.”
Are you willing to do that you might know the Word of God?
Dick Woodward, 18 June 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 14, 2022
“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 great discovery: God is here and God can comfort us.
There is supernatural quality of comfort that can be found in simply knowing God. 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.
Many of us have known people we love 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 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 pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Dick Woodward
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Posted by Dick Woodward
May 20, 2022
“… He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas (which is translated ‘Peter.’) (John 1:42)
When Jesus first met Peter, his name was Simon and his life was characterized by instability. Yet Jesus gave him the nickname “Peter,” which means “rock” and “stability.”
In Matthew 16 we have an intriguing interview between Jesus and Peter. Jesus had done the “who are you?” question in reverse. He asked the apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter came up with the right answer. The Lord then said in so many words, “That answer really didn’t come from you. It came from My Father.”
In this interview Jesus was telling Peter who and what Peter was, and what he was being called to be. In the Gospels Peter’s life is recorded like a spiritual roller coaster. But after Jesus called Peter a ‘rock’ for three years and after Peter experienced Pentecost, we read in Acts that this unstable man became the rock-like, stable leader of the New Testament Church.
When you read the Gospels and Acts, you realize Jesus was convincing Peter of what he could become because he had come to know Jesus as his Savior.
Do you hear the voice of the Christ Who lives in your heart trying to give you His answer to this question, “What are you?” Is Jesus making you know what you can become and do for Him since He has made you a new creation? Is Jesus making you know what He can equip you to become as He is calling you and revealing what He wants you to be and do for him?
Dick Woodward, A Spiritual Compass
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Posted by Dick Woodward
May 17, 2022
“Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!” (Isaiah 40:3)
In ancient times if a king wanted to travel to a faraway province in his kingdom they would build a highway for him. While they were working on that project they called it “The Kings Highway.” Isaiah is using that metaphor to say that God is going to travel into this world on a Highway that will be the life of the Messiah.
When you build a highway you do four things: level mountains, fill valleys, straighten crooked places, and you smooth out rough places. In the life of God’s Son the Messiah the mountains of pride will be completely leveled, the empty valleys will be filled with the Holy Spirit all the time, the crooked ways of sin will be straightened, and He will respond to the rough places in a way that will bring glory to His Father and salvation to the world.
After spending three years 24/7 with a dozen men, Jesus challenged them that in precisely the way His Father had sent Him into the world, He was sending them into the world in the same way. (John 20:21) One of many practical applications to that challenge for them, and for us, is that our life is also to be a highway for God.
I challenge you, in fact I dare you to pray this prayer: “God, make my life a highway for You!” If you do this, don’t be surprised when God’s spiritual bulldozers show up in your life leveling your mountains of pride and filling your emptiness with the Holy Spirit, making straight your crooked places and smoothing out your rough places.
Dick Woodward, 15 May 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
May 6, 2022
“They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
We must learn the difference between what we can do and what only God can do. We must have faith to wait on our Heavenly Father until He empowers and enables us to do what He desires.
I have summarized waiting on the Lord in Four Spiritual Secrets: I’m not, but He is; I can’t, but He can; I don’t want to, but He wants to; and I didn’t, but He did.’
These spiritual secrets affirm that it is not a matter of who we are, but Who God is; it’s not a matter of what we can do, but what God can do; it’s not a matter of what we want, but what God wants. If these first three secrets are in place, we will know the joy of one day looking back and affirming it was not a matter of what we did, but what God did through us.
When I first began learning these spiritual secrets, I’d say, “I can’t, but He can.” Then, as a mover and shaker, I’d look at my watch, “I’ll give God five minutes, and if He doesn’t, I will!”
It took 40 years and a bush to teach Moses how to wait on the Lord, and it has taken 40 years for me to learn how to wait on the Lord the way an eagle waits on the wind.
Waiting on the Lord was not my style until my (quadriplegia) illness forced me to learn why an eagle sits on the side of its nest and waits until the wind currents are strong enough to soar over the winds of a storm.
Dick Woodward, As Eagles: How to Be an Eagle Disciple
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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