February 25, 2022
“God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown Him as you have helped His people and continue to help them.” (Hebrews 6:10)
All of us have or will experience a time when we are not appreciated. It’s challenging to labor long and hard helping people without a word or gesture of appreciation. The author of Hebrews gives us a beautiful message for unappreciated servants of the Lord: we can know we are always appreciated by God.
Our Lord Jesus instructed us that we are to work our righteous acts in secret. We are to give in such a way that one hand does not know what the other hand is giving. We are to pray and fast in a private closet knowing that our Father in heaven sees and knows everything we pray and do. (Matthew 6)
In the same spirit God said through Moses, “Walk before Me!” (Genesis 17:1) In our daily walks, if we hold on to the perspective that everything we do is done before and as unto God, Hebrews 6:10 reminds us that we are always appreciated when we look up and walk before God.
At the beginning of my ministry I met a lovely elderly couple who had served as missionaries for 48 years in China. Visiting them in charity housing, in so far as I could tell they had been shown no appreciation whatsoever for their hard work in China. When I asked them how they could bear that their answer was: “You have to know for Whom you’re doing it.”
Walk before God as you do your work – and when you need appreciation.
Dick Woodward, 29 February 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 22, 2022
“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 also closes his letter with a prayer for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to be with them – and us.
Paul dictated all his letters but one to a stenographer. At the close of each of his letters 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, the dynamic of God that saves us. We can define grace if we turn this five letter word into an acrostic:
“God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense”
Grace is not only the way God saves us, God’s grace is the dynamic we desperately need to live for Christ.
In the second verse of Romans 5, 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. Paul begins this letter and closes all his letters the way he does because he knows it is absolutely critical that we access the grace God has made available to us if we are to live our lives for God in this world.
Since grace is always our greatest need, consider meeting and leaving fellow believers with a wish and a prayer for grace.
Dick Woodward, 24 February 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 18, 2022
“… but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better…” (Luke 10:42)
Every time we meet Mary, the sister of Martha, she is at the feet of Jesus. The verse above describes her at the feet of Jesus hearing His Word. Martha is frustrated because Mary is attending the Bible study while she is doing all the serving. Jesus sides with Mary because she chose the number one priority that day.
In the 11th chapter of the Gospel of John the brother of these two sisters dies. When Jesus arrives too late to save their brother, both these sisters greet Him with the same words: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” However, when Mary spoke these words we read that she prostrated herself at his feet – showing that she accepted His will.
In the next chapter Martha and Mary’s resurrected brother is the guest of honor at a banquet. Mary is once again there worshiping Jesus at His feet. She anointed His feet with perfume that was worth a year’s wages.
What would it mean if you worshiped Jesus with your annual income?
Mary is a great example for us as she is at the feet of Jesus hearing His Word, accepting His will, and worshiping Him. If we will not merely read our Bibles but hear Christ’s personal word to us at His feet when we do, we will find His will for our lives. If we continue to follow Mary’s example, we will be at the feet of Jesus accepting His will. As we follow Mary’s example we will find ourselves worshiping Jesus forever with costly worship at His feet.
Dick Woodward, 19 February 2013
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 15, 2022
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love… I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:1-3)
The Apostle Paul composed an inspired poem of love in which he declared that the agape love of God should be the number one priority of spiritual people. In First Corinthians 13 he wrote that love is greater than knowledge and more important than faith.
Paul’s teaching about spiritual gifts in the previous chapter concludes with: “Earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I will show you a more excellent way.” (I Corinthians 12:31) Paul begins his great love chapter with his prescription for that most excellent way: “Let love be your greatest aim,” or “Put love first.”
A SUMMARY PARAPHRASE APPLICATION:
“If we speak with great eloquence or in tongues without love, we’re just a lot of noise. If we have all knowledge to understand all the Greek mysteries, the gift to speak as a prophet, and enough faith to move mountains, unless we love as we do all those things we are nothing. If we give all our money to feed the poor and our body to be burned at the stake as a martyr, if we give and die without love, it profits us nothing.
Nothing we are, nothing we ever become, nothing we have and nothing we ever will have in the way of natural and spiritual gifts should ever move ahead of love as our first priority. Nothing we do, or ever will do as an expression of our faith, our gifts, our knowledge, or our generous, charitable, unconditionally-surrendered heart is worthy of comparison, or can replace love as we live out our personal priorities in this world.”
Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Love
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 11, 2022
“Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing precious seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” (Psalm 126:5-6)
The ancient hymn writer is describing a father who is sowing seeds his family desperately needs because they are hungry. As a provider he knows that if he does not plant these seeds, there will be no food for them and they will starve to death. He therefore sows these precious seeds with tears streaming down his face.
The Holy Spirit leads the author to a beautiful application after he paints this solemn picture for us: sometimes when we suffer to the point of tears, those tears are precious seeds our heavenly Father is sowing in the soil of our suffering. When that is the case, we will doubtless come again rejoicing bringing the fruitful results of our suffering with us.
This is a truth that is often shared in the Bible. Sometimes suffering is not the setback it appears to be, but the cutback of our Heavenly Father who is like a divine Vineyard keeper. He cuts us back to increase the quality and the quantity of the fruit our lives are yielding for Him.
I sometimes think God is more real and works more effectively in the lives of people in waiting rooms outside operating theaters in hospitals than He does in the sanctuaries of our churches. God does not waste our sorrows, and we should not waste them either.
Listen to the wisdom of the hymn writer when he tells us our tears are precious seeds that will ultimately rejoice our hearts.
Dick Woodward, 15 February 2013
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 8, 2022
“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8)
The mercy of God withholds from us what we deserve and the grace of God bestows on us all kinds of wonderful blessings we do not deserve. Grace is also the dynamic we receive from God to do what God calls and leads us to do. 2 Corinthians 9:8 quoted above is the most superlative verse about grace in the Bible.
It tells us that God is able to make all grace, not just some grace, abound toward us, not just trickle in our direction. Then we may have all sufficiency, not just some sufficiency, in all things, not just some things. We are then equipped to abound, not just do our duty, as we do every good work God leads us to do, not just the works we like to do, ALWAYS! Twice in this verse Paul emphasizes the reality that this grace is for you – not just for the pastor or the missionary – but you!
Is this grace a reality in your journey of faith?
I once heard Dr. A. W. Tozer preach on this verse. After he read it there was an eloquent pause before he said, “Sometimes you cannot help but allow the thought that God oversold grace in the New Testament.” He then preached a powerful message challenging us to believe God has not oversold God’s grace but that we need to learn how to access His grace.
The hymn writer wrote, “The favor God shows and the joy He bestows are for those who will trust and obey…”
That is a good place to start.
Dick Woodward, 10 February 2012
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 4, 2022
“If the whole body were an eye where would the sense of hearing be?” (1 Corinthians 12:17)
The story is told of a doctor who came out of the delivery room and told an expectant father, “I have grave news for you. Your wife has given birth to a 7-pound eyeball. And that’s not all. It’s blind!” If you came home one night in the dark and found a 185 pound eyeball in the corner of your front porch, would that give you a rush of anxiety?
In the verse above the Apostle Paul used an illustration like what I just shared. He does this in his inspired letter to the Corinthians because he wants to make a point about the beauty of diversity.
One of the fingerprints of the Church of Jesus Christ is that we celebrate diversity. Diversity in the body of Christ is to be celebrated rather than resolved. If two of us are exactly alike one of us is unnecessary. Some members of the First Church of Corinth were telling others they were not authentically spiritual unless they had the same spiritual gifts that they had.
Paul’s remedy for that kind of thinking was the metaphor of a body being just one member and not a body with the beauty of many diverse parts. Other members of the body of Christ have what you do not have and you have what they do not have – that means you need them and they need you.
The body of Christ is a team sport. Are you willing to be a team player? If so, step up and do your part.
Dick Woodward, 05 February 2013
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 1, 2022
“…that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John 17:23)
I learned from studying psychology that we are all a great network of needs. From the Bible I learned that God is love. His Son, Jesus, was ‘God with skin on.’ Love is the most mesmerizing dynamic of Christ’s life on this earth. The people who met Jesus were loved as they had never been loved before.
We are also designed to be ‘God with skin on.’ The Holy Spirit can be described as Love Incarnate: the love of God with skin on, yours and mine. Love is the primary fruit of the Spirit and evidence of the Spirit’s residence in us. When people are filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit, they are conduits of the love of Christ.
We should all ask God to make us conduits of God’s love. Many people don’t feel worthy of being loved by anybody – not even God. When someone says, “I love you,” a negative tape begins to play that says, “No, you don’t. If you really knew me you wouldn’t!”
Jesus prayed that those who make up the Church would live in such a way that this world of hurting people will know and believe God loves them as much as He loves His only begotten Son. If you do not know that God loves you, then we who are part of the Church have failed you. God loves you!
…Because by the grace and mercy of God, I know that God loves me.
Dick Woodward, from Happiness That Doesn’t Make Good Sense
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 28, 2022
“But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30)
In the Bible the Apostle Peter is the only one besides Jesus Christ who walked on water. Yet millions only remember that he took his eyes off Jesus and would have drowned if Jesus had not saved him. We read 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 he kept his eyes on Jesus, Peter 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 through the storms of life. Jesus taught that our prayers should not be long. We should never think we will generate grace with God by our many words. (If Peter had made 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: Lord, save me! In your spiritual walk, don’t think twice and don’t be of little faith. Instead, learn to plead this prayer, and soon you will find your way through the stormy waves of life walking on water.
Dick Woodward, 28 January 2014
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 25, 2022
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)
In one of the most important chapters of the Bible Isaiah shared what we might call his “philosophy of ministry.” Isaiah, who is called “The Prince of the Prophets,” declared that he preached the Word of God because there is as much difference between the way God thinks and acts and the way we think and act, as the heavens are high above the earth. Isaiah believed the Word of God can bring about an alignment between the thoughts and ways of God and our thoughts and ways.
As an application to Isaiah’s profound declaration, Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, asked the question, “If our steps are ordered by the Lord, how can we always expect to understand the way we are going?” (Proverbs 20:24)
It is so important that we have this profound truth declared by Isaiah engraved in our minds: God does not think and act as we do! This is especially true when we are baffled by events and circumstances that overwhelm us and obsess us with “Why” questions.
A devout Christian surgeon I know says, “The word we use most in this life is ‘Why.’ And the word we’re going to use most in the next dimension is ‘Oh!’” That’s because when we have eternal perspective on this life we are now living, in time we will say “Oh” when we see why God’s thoughts and ways are higher and better than the way we think and act.
Dick Woodward, 25 January 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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