January 2, 2018
“… But one thing I do… I press toward the goal of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)
Are you entering this New Year with resolution? Can you reduce your priorities to just one thing? In the excerpts above from the writings of the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest missionaries of the church wrote that he had just one priority: “the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
The great apostle often used athletic terminology in his writings. Here Paul likens life to a race and the goal at the end of this race is what God is calling him to be and do, in Christ, until he is called home to be with the Lord forever.
When athletes are pacing a race, their objective is to give everything they have to winning the race at the instant they break the tape at the end of the race. If they spend all their energy before they break that tape they will collapse before the race is over. If they have not given it all when they break the tape at the end of the race, they have not done their best to win the race. That is the race plan and life plan Paul is describing here.
As you begin your race in this New Year do you have a race plan for your life span? Are you pacing your race in such a way that when you break the tape at the end of the year you will have given it all for what God is calling you to be and do in Christ this year?
Dick Woodward, 14 January 2010
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December 29, 2017
“Where have you come from, and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8)
The last days of the year are a good time for reflection. Have you ever had such a bad year that you could not live with the idea of another year of the same? Are you there now? If you are, you could be ready for this question that God likes to ask people from time to time.
“Where have you come from, and where are you going?”
This consummate question of direction implies that if we do not have a crisis that changes things, we are going where we have come from.
Sometimes we are what needs to change. Jeremiah actually mocks us for trying to change ourselves: “Why do you gad about so much to change your ways? … Can the Ethiopian change the color of his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good, who are accustomed to doing evil.” (Jeremiah 2:36; 13:23)
There is a big difference between trying to change ourselves and being changed by God. Unless we are changed by God, or God changes what only God can change, we’re trapped in a cycle of going where we have come from.
David, with great spiritual discernment, asked God to create in him a new heart. God answered that prayer. (Psalm 51:10) God can do that today. We’re not doomed to that cycle of going where we have come from. We can be changed. God can change the things that must change so we will not go where we have come from next year.
Confess that you can’t change yourself or your circumstances, but believe God can as you enter the New Year, then watch at God work.
Dick Woodward, 30 December 2011
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December 26, 2017
“… as He is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)
Christmas has a twin holiday that slips into many of our Christmas cards along with letters – complete with family pictures –that give updates 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 us a marvelous perspective on security. “…as He is, so are we in this world.” We can interpret and apply these beautiful words several ways. 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 He 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 2,000 years His followers have been the only body Jesus has. This presents the challenge that the only Christ the 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 19, 2017
“Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.” (Luke 2:20)
A teenager once asked me the question, “If Christmas was surrounded by all these miracles, why is it that 30 years later Jesus had such a hard time convincing everybody He was the Messiah?” If you will carefully read the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke, you will find the answer: the Christmas that was involved very few people.
When Angel Gabriel told an old priest what God was going to do, the priest didn’t believe God. When Angel Gabriel informed the priest that God was going to do Christmas anyway, unbelief shut the mouth of the priest. Zechariah had the greatest sermon to preach any priest has ever had, but he was smitten with muteness. As the miracle of Christmas unfolded, he couldn’t preach his greatest sermon.
God then shared the miracle with a very godly young woman who was to be the birth mother of Jesus. Mary’s response (called the “Magnificat”) showed how godly she was, because in 10 verses of Scripture she referenced the Old Testament 23 times. But, as godly as she was, she kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. God then informed her fiancé, Joseph, because it was on a need to know basis and he surely had a need to know.
God then told some lowly shepherds what God was doing. Why tell them? He told them because before and after they saw the miracle they told everybody about the Christmas that was.
Luke has given us 132 verses that tell us about Christmas. Are we telling people about the miracle of the Christmas that was?
Dick Woodward, 21 December 2010
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December 15, 2017
“…whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:26)
I have suggested in my two previous blogs that if you want to find the blessedness and comfort Jesus promised to those who mourn in His second beatitude, you should ask the right questions and listen to God’s answers. My third suggestion is implied by Jesus as He gave an excellent answer to Martha when he asked, “Do you believe this?”
My suggestion is that you believe God’s answers to the right questions. When we ask, listen, and believe, the death of someone we love is like an investment in the world to come. We have simply bought shares in heaven, increasing our motivation to be there in the eternal dimension with Christ and with them.
A devout surgeon I know says that the word we use most in this life is “Why?” However, the word we are going to use most in the next world will be “Oh!”
An old hymn I don’t hear much anymore proclaims:
“Friends will be there I have known long ago.
Joy like a river around me will flow.
Yet just a smile from my Savior I know,
that will be glory, be glory for me!”
The Bible is filled with God’s answers to the right questions. When we believe those answers we will discover the blessed state Jesus promised those who mourn in one word: salvation. Salvation and the comfort He promised can begin right now and last forever if we ask, listen, and believe!
Dick Woodward, 17 December 2010
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December 12, 2017
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
If this happy and joyful holiday season finds you unhappy because you are mourning the loss of a loved one, in my previous post I suggested you should ask the right questions. My second suggestion is to listen to God’s answers to the right questions. For example, listen to the answer of the One Who was God in the flesh and gave us the second beatitude that promised comfort when we are mourning.
Jesus gave this answer (John 11:25-26) to Martha who had lost her brother, Lazarus, whom she and Jesus loved deeply. To paraphrase, Jesus told Martha that if a man like her brother believed in Him, even though he died he would live. Jesus then opened this great reality to all of us with the declaration that whoever believes and lives his or her life in fellowship with Him will never die.
Make the observation when the Lord appears to be redundant He is not merely repeating Himself. The second time Jesus makes this declaration He opens the reality of everlasting life to whoever meets two prerequisites: if we believe in Him and if we live our lives in Him, we will never die.
Faith alone can save but the faith that saves is never alone.
When Jesus focuses the validating faith of living in Him, He uses an expression that is found nearly 200 times in the New Testament. It means to be in relationship with Him the way a branch is in relationship with a vine.
Dick Woodward, 14 December 2010
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December 8, 2017
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)
In our culture today, there are many people who are praying for the grace to get through the weeks that begin with Thanksgiving and end with Christmas Day. These people are often ‘single again.’ By that I mean those who have lost a spouse through death or divorce, or those who have lost a child or a loved one.
If you have lost someone, it would be good to listen to the second beatitude of Jesus. He shows that His values are very different from ours when He announces that those who are mourning losses can be blessed and comforted. The word blessed can mean “happy,” “spiritually prosperous” or “in a state of grace.”
If you would like to experience the blessing and comfort Jesus promised those who are mourning losses, a first step in that direction would be to ask the right questions. Perhaps, for the first time in your life – ask the right questions.
When we suffer loss, there are right questions and there are wrong questions. The question “why” is very often a wrong question, because it can lead to questions nobody can answer. There are, however, right questions. When we lose a loved one through death there is a question God wants us to ask. It’s found in the fourteenth chapter of the book of Job, where Job writes: “When a man dies he lies prostrate, he expires and then where is he? When a man dies shall he live again?”
When we are mourning, God wants us to ask right questions like that one. Have you ever asked that question?
Dick Woodward, 10 December 2010
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December 5, 2017
“… Behold, wise men …came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is He?” (Matthew 2:2)
In the Old Testament, God begins dialogue with us by asking the question: “Where are you?” The New Testament begins with wise men asking the question: “Where is He?” If we are spiritually wise, as we read the Old Testament God will show us where we truly are. By the time we reach the New Testament we’re ready for the question of the wise men, because we know by then that we need a Savior – and we need to know where our Savior, Jesus, is.
Wise people still ask the question, “Where is He?” The Gospel of Matthew reports that those wise men were directed to a house where they found and worshiped a young Child about two years of age. By application, when we ask that question today, what are the answers we should expect to receive?
In John’s profound letter at the end of the New Testament we find these words: “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1John 3:2) These three words “as He is” raise the question in what form, and in what ways, can we expect to find Jesus today?
If you want to be spiritually wise, ask the question: “Where is He?” Then look where a unique quality of Love can be found today. Look for where a unique quality of Light and Truth can be found today. Since we do not find Him in a test tube or a fossil, look for Jesus in an abundant spiritual dimension of life.
Dick Woodward, 07 December 2010
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December 1, 2017
“So do not throw away your faith; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised… For he that is righteous shall live by faith.” (Hebrews 10:35-38)
As the author of the book of Hebrews continues giving doubting disciples reasons why they should not throw away their faith, he tells them they should not throw away their faith because they need their faith for living. Authentic disciples know they are saved by faith, but the disciples to whom he was writing did not know, or had forgotten, that they are also called to live by faith.
He quotes the key verse of the prophecy written by Habakkuk to suffering people. When we are suffering, we especially need to be reminded that God has given us the faith to persevere and do the will of God in our crisis.
I have observed a direct correlation between spiritual growth and suffering. The Greek word translated “persevere” in these verses is a quality God grows in us when we are living by faith while we are suffering, according to the Apostle Paul (Romans 5:3-5).
The immediate response of many authentic disciples when we find ourselves in a difficult situation is: “Lord, get me out of here!” When that doesn’t happen, we are sometimes tempted to throw away our faith.
The message conveyed by these verses is “Don’t throw away your faith. You need your faith to live through your crisis.”
Is this a message you need to hear today?
Dick Woodward, 03 December 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
November 28, 2017
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you rest in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)
The Apostle Paul challenges us in these two verses with two options: when we face challenges we can worry about them, or we can turn our challenges into prayer requests. Paul writes that we are not to worry because worry is counterproductive. He therefore prescribes that if we are overwhelmed with problems, we should let our mountain of problems turn us into prayer warriors.
So here we have two options. We can be worriers, or we can be warriors. Prayer changes things! Worry, on the other hand, does not change anything except for the severe negative consequences it can have on our body, soul and spirit. When we consider the devastating effects of worry and the miraculous results of answered prayer, that’s a no-brainer that should resolve our two options into one.
When we realize we are anxious and uptight because we are choosing to be worriers, we should ask God to convert us into prayer warriors. We should hold our problems up before the Lord and trade our futile worries for powerful prayers. God may deliver us from those problems, or give us the grace to cope with them.
But, in either case, God will give us peace.
As Paul writes, God will stand guard like a soldier over our hearts and minds and give us supernatural peace as we rest in what Christ will do.
Dick Woodward, 29 November 2011
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