September 30, 2025
“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, we should never say, “Take it easy.” We should say, “Hang tough and fight the good fight.”
Hang in there!
Dick Woodward, (1997 fax)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 26, 2025
“My Word… will achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
In this chapter (Isaiah 55) the great prophet Isaiah tells us why he preaches the Word of God. Earlier in this chapter he proclaimed that there is as much difference between the way we think and how God thinks as the heavens are high above the earth.
Isaiah tells us he preaches the Word of God because God’s Word can bring about an alignment between the way God thinks and acts and the way we think and act.
There is a strong emphasis in the Scripture on the importance of our will being in alignment with the will of God. Jesus made His greatest prayer when He sweat drops of blood and prayed, “Not My will but Your will be done.” He taught His disciples and us to pray, “Your will be done in earth (and in our earthen vessels) as it is in heaven.”
The Bible frequently describes the struggle between God and men like Moses, Job, Jonah, and others who finally submit their will to the will of God – and the will of God is done in and through them on earth as it is in heaven. When God declares through Isaiah that His Word will not return to Him without accomplishing the purpose for which He sent it, I am convinced that this is the purpose God had in mind.
When you read and hear the Word of God proclaimed, will you let God accomplish His purpose for you? Will you let the Word of God bring about an alignment between your will and God’s will?
Dick Woodward, 28 September 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 23, 2025
“Wrapped in a bundle of life with God…” (I Samuel 25:29)
These words of Scripture are often found inscribed on the gravestones of children who died at an early age. This is especially true in a Jewish cemetery, because many Jewish mothers believe these words express the inexpressible feelings in their hearts as they lay their children to rest.
As Christians we can also inscribe these words on the gravestones of our children and adult loved ones. “Wrapped in a bundle of life with God” should bring comfort and consolation as we think of those we have lost through sickness and death.
However, if we think about it, these words can also be applied to our loved ones while they are living. The most exciting truth in the New Testament is presented in just two words: “In Christ” (or “In Him.”)
Jesus told the apostles that after His death and resurrection He would give them the divine presence of the Holy Spirit. They would then be “in Him” the way a branch is in a vine.
That means all of us can be wrapped in a bundle of life with Christ as we live our lives in this world. What an exciting concept! Jesus told the apostles, and you and me, all about this in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of John.
He even told us how to abide in Him and experience the miracle of Him abiding in us. Jesus told us we can abide in Him and He will abide in us if we abide in His Word.
I challenge you that if you abide in His Word today, you will find yourself wrapped in a bundle of life with God!
Dick Woodward, 23 September 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 19, 2025
“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
After World War II a devout woman named Corrie ten Boom told people all over the world how, in a Nazi concentration camp, God revealed this truth to her:“There is no pit so deep but what the love of God is deeper still.”
When the suffering of Job brought him to the bottom of a pit of despair, he received this great Messianic revelation: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.” (Job 19:25-26)
In the third chapter of his Lamentations, Jeremiah received the same kind of revelation given Corrie ten Boom and Job. God made Jeremiah know this truth about the deep love of God when Jeremiah’s weeping bottomed out in his grotto:“I have never stopped loving the people of Judah!”
The unconditional love of God is taught from Genesis to Revelation. It is not won by a positive performance or lost by a negative performance. Meditating on God’s revelation to Jeremiah, I am deeply inspired that all the horror of the Babylonian conquest and captivity did not mean that God no longer loved His people.
Millions have affirmed this great truth while singing the hymn, “Great is Thy Faithfulness,” written by Thomas Obediah Chisholm.
“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.”
Dick Woodward, Mini Bible College Handbook
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 16, 2025
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23)
When you break down the word perspective, it literally means “to look through.” (Per = through, specto = look.) The expression tunnel vision is a good paraphrase for perspective. People with tunnel vision see their objective clearly, oblivious to obstacles and distractions that could hinder accomplishing goals and objectives. Jesus showed us the importance of our perspective when He told us our lives can be filled with joy or darkness. Those two opposites are determined by our “eye” – how we see things.
One of the most important questions is: “How do you see things?” According to Jesus, if the way you see things is healthy and whole, your life will be filled with joy and light. If your perspective is not healthy, your life will be filled with darkness and depression.
Solomon wrote, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18) A discerning spiritual leader added these words: “Where there is no plan, the vision perishes.”
As the eagle has binocular and monocular vision, we must have a vision which continuously holds in perspective the long view of what God wants to do through us. We must also have a plan that gives us a monocular vision perspective to keep our vision from perishing as we move forward.
Dick Woodward, from As Eagles: How to Be an Eagle Disciple
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 12, 2025
“Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion…” (Psalm 103: 2–4)
The Old Testament people of God sang from the Psalms when they worshiped God. When they worshiped, sometimes they talked to God about God. Sometimes they talked to God about people, usually their own lives. And sometimes they were not talking to God, they were talking to people about God: praising and preaching.
When we read the psalms, we should always ask ourselves, “To whom was the author speaking and about whom was the author speaking?”
The verses quoted above are from a psalm of prayer. But the strange thing is there is no petition in this prayer. The verb “to pray” literally means to ask. So, we are not looking at a prayer psalm but a psalm of praise and thanksgiving. The Psalmist’s soul is so full all he wants to do is praise the Lord in grateful worship.
What an example for us to pray with no “gimme” in our prayer. Does your soul ever get so full that all you want to do is thank God for all His blessings? The Psalmist begins by thanking God for his salvation. In the Gospels Jesus heals ten lepers and only one comes back to thank Him. Jesus asked the question “Where are the nine?”
Are you one of the 90% who never thank the Lord for redeeming your life? Or do you want to be part of the 10% who thank the Lord for our salvation in grateful worship?
Dick Woodward, 12 September 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 9, 2025
“But he 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 changes we see in him between I Kings chapters 18 and 19 are due to many things, but one factor is that Elijah neglected what I call Temple Maintenance.
Before my quadriplegia when I went jogging, I told my children if anyone called “tell them your father is out doing temple maintenance.” For a pastor, that sounded like something official around the church.
The Apostle Paul tells us that our bodies are the temple of God. (I Corinthians 3:16-17) Therefore, anything we do to maintain our bodies can be described as temple maintenance. If we neglect our temple maintenance, it can have serious consequences for our health and ministry.
Observe during the dramatic victory Elijah won 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 also ran in front of a chariot for 17 miles. Our hero must have been completely exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
The physical dimension of our lives directly affects our mental, emotional and spiritual perspectives. The word neurotic has been defined as “thoughts and feelings for which there is no basis in fact.” Elijah obviously allowed his physical stresses to affect him mentally, emotionally and spiritually. 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.
Dick Woodward, Marketplace Disciples
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 5, 2025
“In my opinion whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the future God has planned for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the children of God coming into their own.” (Romans 8:18-19)
The view from the finish line has me fixating on the Providence of God, which like a Hebrew word can easily be read backwards. It is now easy for me to see what I considered random chaos in my life was really the loving hand of God leading me by making me offers I could not refuse. When events roll out over which you have no control, you will see how the hand of God is showing you what to do.
A friend put this new needlepoint on his wall: “Never do what somebody else can do when you could be doing what only you can do.” All our lives God has been shaping us in miraculous ways to make a unique contribution to God’s work.
As you pray about next steps, reflect on this thought: “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God before ordained that we should do for Him.” (Ephesians 2:10) This means we are all works in progress.
Over our lives you can write: “Caution, God at work!” God wants to point to you and say, “She is my workmanship!” There is verse in Romans 8 which tells us that all nature is on tiptoe in awe of the children of God coming into their full potential.
The issue now is: what is God doing in your present circumstances to point you to what God wants to do next in your life?
Dick Woodward, (email, 2005)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
September 2, 2025
“Delight yourselves in the Lord. Yes, find your joy in Him at all times. Have a reputation for gentleness, and never forget the nearness of your Lord. Don’t worry over anything whatever, but tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer. And the peace of God which transcends human understanding will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-7, J.B. Phillips)
When I was ill with an operation on my colon, my pastor and mentor, Dr. John Dunlap, came to visit me. I had an infection and was in the hospital 21 days. I said to him, “John, if you’re here to tell me I have a malignancy, I can’t handle that today.”
He laughed and said, “You’re not dying. And so, you don’t need dying grace. If you needed dying grace, God would give you dying grace.”
A year later my dear pastor John had a malignancy. He said to me right away (I was there the day he found out), “Pray for me.” He was a big tough guy, but a big baby when it came to toothaches or anything like that. He had one of the worst malignancies the oncologist had ever seen, but all of us, we never saw such an example of dying grace as God gave our dear pastor.
God will give you dying grace when you need it. And dying grace, really, is a supernatural anointing of the Lord that makes it possible for us to accept it. That’s what it is, really. Acceptance. That’s what Paul means by gentleness.
It’s like saying in another way, “Be patient.” Patience, when you think vertically, is faith waiting. There are many times in our walk with God where God gives us patience, which is faith waiting. God’s got to get you out before God can bring you in. You’ve got to keep on going, so you can get through. You’ve got to get right, so you can settle down.
…“Never forget the nearness of the Lord.”
Dick Woodward, (Ben Lippen Retreat, 1979)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
August 29, 2025
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8)
The mercy of God withholds what we deserve, and the grace of God lavishes on us blessings we do not deserve. As we appreciate what the mercy of God withholds and the grace of God bestows when we believe the Gospel, we should be filled with grateful worship for our gracious and merciful God.
When Jesus gave His Great Commission, He instructed the disciples to wait until the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them before they obeyed His Commission. (Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:4-5) After that happened to them on the Day of Pentecost, we read: “Great grace was upon them all.” (Acts 4:33) This use of the word “grace” means there is such a thing as the anointing and energizing unction of the Holy Spirit upon us as we serve Jesus Christ. I use grace in that sense when I tell people that God’s grace outweighs my challenges.
Paul was declaring this dimension of grace when he wrote: “God is able to make all grace abound toward you so that you, always, having all sufficiency in all things may abound unto every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8)
Check out the superlatives Paul uses in this verse: All grace – abounding grace – each and every one of you – he repeats all of you – all sufficiency – in all things – abounding unto every good work – always! According to Paul we should all be able to make the claim that God’s grace outweighs our challenges.
Do you believe the grace of God can outweigh your challenges today?
Dick Woodward, 31 August 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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