February 13, 2018
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ… The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.” (Romans 1:7; 16:24)
The Apostle Paul begins his letter to believers in Rome with a marvelous greeting: “Grace to you.” He then closes his letter with the prayer that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with them.
Paul dictated all his letters but one to a stenographer. At the close of each letter he took the writing instrument from the scribe and in his own hand wrote these words: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Paul greets and leaves believers with a wish and a prayer for grace. This is because grace is a dynamic of God that saves us. We can define grace if we turn this five-letter word into an acrostic to spell out:
God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.
But grace is not just a way God saves us: the grace of God is the dynamic we desperately need to live for Christ.
In Romans 5:2, Paul writes that God has given us access, by faith, to the grace that makes it possible for us to stand for Christ and live a life that glorifies God.
Since grace is always a great need, consider meeting and leaving fellow (& fellowette*) believers with a wish and prayer for grace.
Dick Woodward, 24 February 2012
(*Editor’s discretionary inclusion)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 6, 2018
“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 23:6
The reality that God loves us unconditionally is often described in the Bible by one word: mercy. This word is found 366 times in the Bible – that’s one for every day of the year, and it even includes leap year – because God knows we need His mercy every day. 280 of these references to the mercy of God are found in the Old Testament.
My favorite is the last verse of the 23rd Psalm where David wrote: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Hebrew scholars tell us that the word “follow” can be translated pursue. This means that David believed the unconditional love of God pursued him all the days of his life.
What a dynamic truth. Our Heavenly Father not only loves us unconditionally, He pursues us with His unconditional love all the days of our lives.
Does that mean God loves us when He is cutting us back or chastening us? Absolutely! The author of the book of Hebrews tells us that if God did not chasten us we would be like illegitimate children and not His sons and daughters. Chastening confirms the reality that God loves us.
When we are experiencing one of those cutbacks, rather than thinking that God does not love us anymore – the opposite may be true.
God is pursuing us with His unconditional love.
Dick Woodward, (06 February 2009)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 23, 2018
“The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’ ‘An enemy has done this while men slept!’ the farmer exclaimed. ‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest.” (Matthew 13:27-30)
The question “Where did evil come from?” has baffled spiritual and ethical leaders since people began to think and ask questions. People who read the Bible also ask this question – in this parable Jesus implies two answers.
During almost six decades as a pastor people often told me there are hypocrites in the church. They told me this as if they thought it never would have occurred to me, but it was no surprise to me and it would be no surprise to Jesus. In this parable He told us His church would be a mixed bag.
Jesus also instructed us that we are not to weed the garden because we cannot tell the difference between the two. We are to let both grow together until the harvest when He will separate the wheat from the weeds.
His two answers to that old question about where evil came from are: “an enemy has done this” and “while men slept.” Edmund Burke told us that all we have to do for evil to triumph is to do nothing. Jesus told us all we have to do is sleep.
The truly important questions raised by this parable are: “Are we wheat, or are we weeds?” What are we contributing to the harvest? Are we producing more wheat or more weeds? Are we asleep? Are we doing nothing?”
Dick Woodward, 24 January 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 12, 2018
“But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30)
The Apostle Peter is the only man besides Jesus Christ who ever walked on water. Yet millions only remember that he took his eyes off the Lord and would have drowned if the Lord had not saved him.
We read that Peter’s magnificent faith was flawed. He saw the wind. Since we cannot see wind this means when he saw what the wind was doing, he lost sight of what Jesus was doing and became afraid. The remarkable thing here is that when Peter kept his eyes on Jesus, he walked on water!
It was not until he was beginning to sink that Peter cried out this prayer. Two thousand years later, this remains a go-to prayer for us all through the many storms of life. Jesus taught that our prayers should not be long and that we don’t generate grace with God by our many words. If Peter had prayed a longer prayer, the words beyond the third would have been glub, glub glub! When Jesus caught Peter by the hand He gave him the nickname, “Little Faith.” (I believe our Lord was smiling when He did.) He literally asked Peter: “Why did you think twice?”
While very ill the past two weeks many people have been recruited to pray for me. Yesterday it occurred to me that I had not prayed for myself. I then fervently pleaded this prayer that the Lord always answers: Lord, save me!
In your spiritual walk, don’t think twice and don’t be a “Little Faith.” Instead, learn to plead this prayer. Soon you will find your way through life’s stormy waves walking on water.
Dick Woodward, 28 January 2014
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 9, 2018
“Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.” (Mark 14:36)
Many people refer to the Disciple’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) as “The Lord’s Prayer.” However, the verse quoted above should be called “The Lord’s Prayer.” The Disciple’s Prayer was given with this instruction: “When you pray, you pray after this manner.” Jesus never prayed that prayer. For example, He would not have asked God to forgive His debts or trespasses.
But Jesus did pray the prayer in Mark 14:26 that should be a model prayer for every believer. God will often call us to do things that are difficult, or even impossible. God will call us to do things we do not want to do. When that happens, we should pray this model prayer our Lord Jesus has given us.
This prayer of Jesus forms the basis for one of the Four Spiritual Secrets through which I view my faith journey: “I don’t want to, but He wants to.” Implementing the answer to this prayer is possible because: “I’m in Him and He is in me.”
If you are facing a crisis today that involves doing God’s will, and not your own, I strongly encourage you to pray this “Prayer that Never Fails.” Realizing and believing that God can do anything God wills to do, you have the right and a responsibility to ask God to take this cup from you, but then you must finish the prayer by surrendering to the prayer that never fails.
Pray that the important thing is not what you want, but what God wants.
Dick Woodward, 28 January 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 5, 2018
“… 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 into a new year many of us review “these forty-eleven things I dabble in” as we consider our priorities. Spiritual heavyweights like Paul write: “One thing I do.” They can write that 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 to 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 then yelled again “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. We may need to let go of things we cannot control. And, sometimes we need to let go of hurts that people have inflicted on us that we cannot forgive and just let it go.
Do you need to let go and let God, so you can unload baggage and move forward with God?
Dick Woodward, 11 January 2013
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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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Posted by Dick Woodward
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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Posted by Dick Woodward
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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Posted by Dick Woodward
