November 4, 2025
“…tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer…” (Philippians 4:6)
It’s easy to say, “Don’t worry,” but what are we going to do about our problems if we don’t worry about them? The Apostle Paul doesn’t leave us in a vacuum when he prescribed: “Pray about everything!” God’s Word exhorts us to pray when we are in crisis situations. Psalm 46:1 has an alternate reading, “God is our refuge and strength, abundantly available for help in tight places.” God delivered Paul from many tight places. We should therefore always pray in a crisis.
“When it’s hardest to pray, pray the hardest!”
Paul knew from personal experience that God doesn’t always take our problems away. Paul had a physical condition he described as a “thorn in the flesh.” Three times he asked God to take it away. Paul saw many people miraculously healed as he ministered the healing power of the Holy Spirit to them. Yet, when he asked God to solve his problem, three times God said, “No. No. No.”
But God also responded, “My grace is sufficient for you and that is all you need. My strength looks good on weak people.” (2 Corinthians 12) Paul’s weakness drove him to discover the strength of God. When he did, Paul not only accepted his condition but eventually thanked God in it so God’s power might be showcased in him.
As Paul accepted the will of God regarding his thorn, he learned that the will of God will never lead us where the grace of God cannot keep us. Paul exhorts us from his personal experience that prayer may deliver us from our problems, or prayer may give us the grace to cope with them. But, in any case, pray.
Always pray about everything!
Dick Woodward, from “A Prescription for Peace“
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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 22, 2025
“…that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John 17:23)
God is love. God’s Son, Jesus, is ‘God with skin on.’ Love was the most mesmerizing dynamic of His 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. People who are filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit are always conduits of the love of Jesus Christ.
Do you know and believe that God loves you? 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!”
The two beautiful Gospel words mercy and grace declare that God does not love us if and when we are worthy, because He loves us even while we are sinners. (Romans 5:6-10)
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 God 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
March 20, 2015
“… I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” (John 9:39)
Jesus claimed that He is the light of the world. He also commissioned His followers with the exhortation that we are the light of the world. From the verses above we learn that the light of which our Lord speaks is a very strange quality of light. It makes it possible for those who are blind to see and it reveals the blindness of those who think they see.
When I was a child I lived near coal mines. One day a terrible explosion rocked a coal mine where 20 miners were trapped and isolated for three days in a small pocket of that mine. When they were rescued there was great jubilation and celebration among the rescued miners and those who had broken through to them. The celebration grew quiet when one of the rescued miners asked the question: “Why didn’t you guys bring any lights?” The rescuers had actually brought many lights. The miner who asked the question had been blinded by the flash when the explosion happened. He had been blind for three days, but in the pitch black darkness of the mine he didn’t know he was blind until the light came.
The light that Jesus is – and the light He tells us that we are – has that purpose and function. It reveals the spiritual blindness of those who think they see and it gives sight to those who know they are spiritually blind. Jesus told us we are that light. Are you willing to let the light of Jesus shine through you?
Dick Woodward, 21 May 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 10, 2015
“And he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2Corinthians 12:9-10)
I shall never forget an afternoon in the late 1970s when I discovered that I was not able to lift the set of weights I regularly lifted. I then tried to mow my lawn and realized I was too weak to cut the grass. Finally, I tried to replace the license plates on my car and learned to my horror that I was too weak to do even that.
Although it was two years before I could accept the awful reality that I would never feel full strength again, my weakness made it possible to resonate with Paul in a deeper way when he described the way his weakness drove him to access the strength and power of the living risen Christ.
I’ve had times of such great weakness, especially while ministering, when I’ve thought: There is absolutely nothing coming from me; everything is coming from God! In spite of his great weakness, as God used Paul to make the Church a worldwide force, he put into words what I have felt many times: “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God!” (2Corinthians 3:5. italics added)
These were merely familiar Scripture verses until I had no strength of my own. There is a dimension of the power and strength of the risen Christ I did not discover until I was powerless. The vehicle that brings the grace of God to me which outweighs my challenges is the strength of the risen, living Christ. Paul’s experience of weakness, recorded for us in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, directed me to that miracle.
When we have no strength of our own, we simply must learn that is possible to tap into the strength of the living Christ. I now thank God for my experience of weakness that forced me to discover the strength of the risen living Christ that outweighs my weakness – and helped me discover the happiness that doesn’t make good sense.
Dick Woodward, Happiness That Doesn’t Make Good Sense
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Posted by Dick Woodward
November 16, 2012
“In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: surely God has appointed the one as well as the other” (Ecclesiastes7:14)
Many devout people are confused about prosperity. Some preach and teach a prosperity theology that is pure heresy. It could only receive a hearing in a place like America. It will not receive a hearing in places where devout people suffer poverty and persecution because they believe. Others believe we should feel guilty when we experience prosperity.
Solomon writes that in the day of prosperity we should rejoice and know that our God has given us all things richly to enjoy. And he informs us that in the day of adversity we should consider the profound reality that God has made the one as well as the other. A truth that means much to me is that God is our personal Mentor and He does His most effective mentoring when things are difficult for us.
Now that I am old I spend time looking back over a long life. As I reflect on my relationship with God over more than eight decades I realize that my times of spiritual growth have been times of adversity and my times of spiritual regression and stagnation have been times of prosperity.
Paul wrote that he knew how to be abased and he knew how to abound. He presented a challenge to us. That challenge is that it takes more grace and wisdom to know how to abound than it takes to know how to be abased.
If you are enjoying prosperity I hope you do not feel guilty but rejoice. If you are experiencing adversity let it be a time of effective mentoring from God and a time of growth for you.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
August 31, 2012
“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 countless 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 of 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, or the energizing unction of the Holy Spirit upon us as we serve Christ. I am using the word in that sense when I tell people that His 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). This is the most emphatic verse in the New Testament regarding the anointing and energizing grace of God.
Check out the superlatives he 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 His grace outweighs our challenges!
Do you believe the grace of God can outweigh your challenges today?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 24, 2012
“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 great Apostle Paul begins his letter to the 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 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. This is because grace is the dynamic of God that saves us. We can define grace if we turn this five letter word into an acrostic and use each letter of the word to spell out:
“God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.”
But grace is not only the way God saves us. The grace of God is the dynamic we desperately need to live for Christ.
In the second verse of the fifth chapter of this same letter Paul writes that God has given us access, by faith, into 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 life for Him in this world.
Since grace is always our greatest need, consider meeting and leaving your fellow believers with a wish and a prayer for grace.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 10, 2012
“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 must receive from God to do what He calls and leads us to do. This 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 and 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 He leads us to do, and 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 the verse there was an eloquent pause and then he said, “Sometimes you cannot help but allow the thought that God oversold the product in the New Testament!” He then preached a powerful message challenging us to believe that God has not oversold His grace but we need to learn how to access His grace.
The hymn writer wrote, “The favor He shows and the joy He bestows are for those who will trust and obey…”
That is a good place to start.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
December 20, 2011
“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ …” (Titus 2:11-13)
In these words of Paul to one of his pastors he is giving us a wonderful theological description of Christmas. Paul writes of the appearing (epiphany) of the grace of God that brings salvation. That is what happened on that first Christmas Eve. He then writes of the glorious appearing (epiphany) of Jesus Christ in the Christmas that shall be. He also calls that epiphany “the blessed hope.”
Then he writes of a third epiphany that shows us the purpose of that first Christmas Eve. It also shows us our motivation for looking forward to the blessed hope of that epiphany to come. He is writing of the appearing (epiphany) of God right now to this present age through the righteous and godly living of people who believe in all three of these epiphanies.
He goes on to write of God’s purpose in all this by explaining that God wanted to redeem for Himself a unique people who would be His own peculiar – in the sense of unique – people in this world. This describes and summarizes the Christmas that was, that shall be, and that is right now.
The people who were involved in the Christmas that was were mostly holy and godly people. Paul is writing here that those who are involved in the Christmas that is right now are people who are living soberly, righteously and godly lives. Are you one of those peculiar people who are the epiphany that is? By faith you can be.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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