January 31, 2017
“…And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:13)
How does love fit into the trio of lasting qualities Paul writes of? The Apostle John answered the question for us when he wrote: “God is love and he who dwells in love dwells in God and God dwells in him.” (I John 4;16) When we dwell in the love Paul prescribed (in I Corinthians 13), we dwell in God, and God dwells in us.
By application, this means when we go where the hurting people are, as God’s love is passing through us and addressing their pain, we are touching God and God is touching us. Since the agape love passing through us is God, we are dwelling in God and God is dwelling in us while God’s love is passing through us.
Jesus gave us love perspective when He exhorted the apostles to look up before they look on the fields that are ripe for harvest. (John 4:35) The Lord was focusing on two perspectives we must master as His authentic disciples. Before we look around and relate to the people who intersect our lives every day, we are to look up, and then look at them. We should see them through the same love lenses God uses when God sees them. If we do, we will never see anyone we cannot love.
Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Love
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 17, 2017
“But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry… ‘Oh Lord, I knew You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.’ …And the Lord said, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?” (Jonah 4:1-4)
As you reflect upon Jonah’s story and apply the central truth in the Book of Jonah, ask yourself if you are prejudiced. To be prejudiced means to ‘pre-judge.’ Prejudice comes in many sizes, shapes and forms. I was introduced to prejudice as a boy growing up near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when I heard Italian Americans called ‘daggos’ and Polish Americans called ‘hunkies.’
When I attended a southern college in the late 1940’s, I was shocked to see ‘white’ and ‘colored’ water fountains and to see African Americans sitting in the back of buses. I was even more bewildered when I discovered that “colored people” were not welcome in “white” churches…
As a new believer I was disillusioned because I heard professing believers use discriminatory labels. From what I learned while preparing for the ministry, I expected the followers of Christ and our spiritual communities to be free from prejudice. As a believer for more than 60 years and a pastor for more than five decades, I am still alarmed by the deceitful ways of the evil one when I discover prejudice in my own heart and in the lives of other believers…
I have learned, from personal experience, that prejudice feeds on ignorance. I grew up during the Second World War when intense propaganda presented Japanese as sub-human creatures. In my junior year of college in L.A., my roommate was a devout Japanese disciple of Jesus Christ. He was the most Christ-like and disciplined disciple of Jesus I had met at that point in my life. The experience of knowing him completely erased the cumulative impact of all the war propaganda from my mind. Until I met my roommate, I had never met a Japanese person before. My prejudice was fed by my ignorance.
Most prejudice is fed by ignorance.
… Examine your own heart before God and ask yourself if you have prejudice in your heart that is blocking the love God wants to channel through you to lost and hurting people in this world.
Dick Woodward, Jonah Coming & Going: True Confessions of a Prophet
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Posted by Dick Woodward
December 6, 2016
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a candlestick, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
I love Christmas lights! Where I live in Williamsburg, Virginia, one of the signature features of Christmas decorating is using white lights. We put our Christmas tree up for all of December because we enjoy the white lights so very much.
A very significant Christmas gift I received is a book I wrote this year that was delivered from the printer on the third of December. It’s called Marketplace Disciples. The thrust of this book’s message highlights the mandate Jesus gave His disciples to be the light of the world and salt of the earth.
The risen, living Christ uses the fact that we need to make a living to get the salt out of the salt shaker and the candles He has lighted on candlesticks of His choosing. We should impact the marketplace because we are authentic disciples of Jesus Christ. The values of Christ should revolutionize our ethics and the way we do business.
This year when you see the beautiful Christmas lights remember that Jesus said His light flowing through us cannot be hidden.
Dick Woodward, 17 December 2013
Editor’s Note: Marketplace Disciples, the last book my father wrote before he passed in March of 2014, is available through the website of ICM (International Cooperating Ministries.) It’s really a ‘best of Dick Woodward’s teachings’ and makes a nice Christmas present. (hint, hint)
You can click here for a direct link: Marketplace Disciples
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Posted by Dick Woodward
August 13, 2016
“But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me…” (Philippians 3:13-14)
Picture your priorities as a target with a bull’s eye surrounded by a dozen circles. As you think and pray about your priorities, what would you call the bull’s eye of your priority target? Once you have determined that, how would you label the dozen circles that surround your bull’s eye?
Great men of God like Paul could reduce their priorities down to one thing. Paul’s one thing was to forget what is behind and strain forward to win the prize at the end of the race. That prize was what God was calling him to do.
Can we reduce the forty eleven things that are spreading us thin down to one thing? If we were to do so what would that one thing be? Sometimes there is great wisdom in forgetting the things that are behind. Then there are times when there is even greater wisdom in determining our one thing type of goal for the future. How do we do that?
One way is to consider what we might call “eternal values.” None of the things we are going to leave behind when God calls us home are worth living for while we are here. Jesus told us: “This is… life, that they may know You … and Jesus Christ.” (John 17:3).
Is knowing God and Christ an eternally focused bull’s eye for our priority target? Think of how that priority focus will dramatically affect the dozen circles that surround it when our life becomes an expression of the life of God and the risen living Christ.
Dick Woodward, 13 January 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
August 6, 2016
“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 of his kingdom a highway would be built for him. 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 is the life of the Messiah.
When you build a highway you do four things: level mountains, fill valleys, straighten crooked places, and 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 perfectly filled with the Holy Spirit all the time, the crooked ways of sin will be perfectly 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 His disciples, Jesus challenged them that in precisely the way His Father had sent Him into the world, He was sending them into the world (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 20, 2016
“Let me hear of Your steadfast love in the morning, for in You I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul.” (Psalm 143:8)
Early every morning the eagle preens its feathers for more than an hour. Sitting on the side of its nest, the eagle passes each feather through its mouth, something like steam cleaning while depositing a liquid that makes its feathers water repellent.
This is important because eagles fish by diving under the water. The fluid deposited on their feathers also locks them together to improve their aerodynamics. Whether an eagle is planning to fish or not, every morning for an hour they sit on the side of their nest and preen. They are not primping, they are preening – a very prudent preparation.
Like you and me, eagles never know what challenges they may face on any given day. Therefore, they preen in preparation for every possible challenge each day may hold.
Do you wake up holy in the morning? Before you’ve had your coffee? It’s possible for spiritual people to wake up holy, but if we’re honest we will concede that most of the time we don’t wake up that way.
Oswald Chambers wrote, “With your first waking moment learn to fling the door wide back and invite God in. Then pray in private to your Father, Who is in the secret place, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.”
It is very important to make a good beginning each day. When we consider the eagle’s daily practice of early morning preening preparation, we are challenged to begin every day of our lives with spiritual preparation.
Have you preened your spirit with God’s help this morning?
Dick Woodward, (from As Eagles: How to be an Eagle Disciple)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
April 29, 2016
“I am the vine, you are the branches.” (John 15:5)
The apostles had been in awe of the profound words and miraculous works of Jesus. In their last retreat with Him, Jesus essentially said that the key to His preaching, teaching, and supernatural ministry is that He and the Father are one. The Word of the Father was spoken on earth and the work of the Father was accomplished on earth through Him because He is one with the Father. Jesus then taught them that after His death and resurrection, if they would be at one with Him His Word would be spoken and His work would be done on earth through them.
While they were in a garden, He pulled down a vine, which had many branches loaded with fruit, and said: “I am the Vine and you are the branches.” In this metaphor the fruit does not grow on the vine. The fruit grows out on the branches because they are properly aligned with the Vine. The branches can bear no fruit without the Vine and the Vine can bear no fruit without the branches. If the Vine, Jesus, wants to see fruit produced, He must pass His life-giving power through the branches, the apostles.
Jesus wants to see this fruit produced far more than the apostles want to be fruitful. By this inspired metaphor, He was actually teaching two propositions: “Without Me, you can do nothing” and, “Without you, I will do nothing.”
It is the plan of God to use the power of God in the people of God to accomplish the purposes of God according to the plan of God. Jesus is a Vine looking for branches.
Are you willing to be one of His branches?
Dick Woodward, 31 July 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 3, 2016
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” (1 Peter 5:6)
Humility is a standard Peter sets for leaders. He writes that leaders should lead as examples and not as lords over the flock they shepherd. Humility is a challenging concept. If we think we are humble we are probably not humble. You probably heard of the church that gave their pastor a medal for humility, but had to take it back because he wore it every Sunday.
In Scotland a young seminary graduate was about to give a sermon as candidate for a church that had an elderly pastor about to retire. The pulpit was one of those old elevated ones where you had to climb many steps in order to preach. With a pride that bordered on arrogance the young man climbed up to preach. He had a disaster of a sermon. When he came down in tears the old retiring pastor said to him, “Lad if you had gone up the way you came down, you would have come down the way you went up!”
I Peter 5:6 describes a covenant with God’s part and our part. Our part is to humble ourselves. It is God’s part to exalt us. C. S. Lewis wrote that pride is the mother of all sins. “To live above with the saints we have loved Oh that will be glory. But to live below with those we know that’s another story.” As a veteran pastor I can tell you that when there is a sharp dispute among two disciples a pastor will often find somebody’s pride at the bottom of the dispute.
Humble yourself. That’s your business. Exalting you is God’s business.
Dick Woodward, 16 August 2013
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 21, 2015
“If any man wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the teaching whether it is from God…” (John 7:17)
Jesus gave us a principle that shows us how we can know His teaching is the teaching of God. The principle is this: If any man wills to do, he will know. For millennia those who approach the proposition of faith intellectually have said, “When I know, then I will do.” Their premise has been and remains: “the knowing leads to the doing.” Pointing to their temples they say, “Reach me here.” Then, pointing to their heart, they say, “Then I will follow through here.” They are essentially saying, “Reach me intellectually and then I will commit volitionally.”
Jesus cut through that when He proclaimed this principle: the knowing does not lead to the doing. The doing leads to the knowing. When you commit your will to doing what Jesus teaches then the intellectual affirmation will follow. It is only then that you will know the teaching of Jesus is the Word of God and not just the ideas of another Rabbi coming down the pike.
When people followed Jesus on His terms He called them ‘disciples.’ A synonym for that word is “apprentice.” An apprentice and a disciple are learning what they’re doing and doing what they’re learning.
As Jesus apprenticed His disciples they discovered that the doing leads to the knowing. Are we applying this principle to our faith as followers of Jesus Christ?
Dick Woodward, Lackey Free Clinic Health Beat, Summer 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
May 5, 2015
“… 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 met Peter, his name was Simon and his life was characterized by instability. Yet Jesus gave him the nickname “Peter,” which means “rock” and essentially “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, “You’re not that smart Peter. 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. When I had a chance to meet with Ravi Zacharias in my home, I asked him, “who is Ravi Zacharias?” He responded, “I think what really matters is how our Lord would answer that question.” In this interview with Peter, Jesus answered that question for him.
In the Gospels Peter’s life is recorded like an unstable 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 his Lord and 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 He making you know what you can become and do for Him since He has made you a new creation? Is He 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 (p. 71-72)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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