Walking by Faith

August 30, 2016

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

A person’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand their own way? (Proverbs 20:24, NIV)

When God spoke through the prophet Isaiah God told us there is as much difference between the way God thinks and does things and the way we think and do things as the heavens are high above the earth.  Building on that revelation the wisest man who ever lived proposed a logical question: if God is directing the steps of a person how can that person always expect to understand the way they are going?

As a God-passionate person, doing your best to follow the guidance of the Lord, have you ever found yourself completely baffled and blown away by inexplicable happenings like the sudden death of a loved one, or other tragedies?  When we put the two Scriptures quoted above side by side we should expect there to be times when we simply do not understand what God is up to.

Moses explained what he called the “secret things” belong to the Lord but the things God wants us to do God makes very clear (Deuteronomy 29:29).  That means there are secret things God is keeping secret.  If God is keeping those things secret nobody can explain them.

All these verses considered together are telling us that while we walk with God we should not expect to understand everything.  We walk by faith.

Dick Woodward, 19 October 2010

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The Word of God & God’s Purpose

May 26, 2015

“My Word… will achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

In a marvelous chapter taken from the prophesy of the one called “The prince of the prophets,” Isaiah tells us why he preached the Word of God.  Earlier in this chapter he proclaimed that there is as much difference between the way we think and act and how God thinks and acts as the heavens are high above the earth.  He tells us he preached the Word of God because God’s Word can bring about an alignment between the way God thinks and acts and the way people think and act.

There is a strong emphasis in Scriptures on the importance of our will being in alignment with the will of God.  Jesus made his greatest prayer when He sweat drops of blood and prayed, “Not My will but Your will be done.” He taught His disciples and us to pray, “Your will be done in earth (or in their earthen vessels), as it is in heaven.”

The Word of God frequently describes the struggle between God and men like Moses, Job, Jonah, and many others who finally submit their will to the will of God  – and the will of God is done in and through them on earth as it is in heaven.  When God declares through Isaiah that His Word will not return to Him without accomplishing the purpose for which He sent it, I am convinced that this is the purpose God had in mind.

When you read, study and hear the Word of God proclaimed, will you let God accomplish this purpose for the Word of God?  Will you let the Word of God bring about an alignment between your will and the will of God?

Dick Woodward, 28 September 2010

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Becoming Champions (for Christ!)

January 20, 2015

“All our steps are ordered by the Lord; how then can we understand our own ways?”  Proverbs 20:24

God doesn’t think or act as we do so Solomon has the wise question in Proverbs 20:24: “If we are going the way God wants us to go, how can we expect to always understand the way we are going?”  That’s the revised Woodward translation.  I believe it is obvious that God is making an original and He always does that in an original way.  There ain’t nobody like you and there ain’t supposed to be.

Today my thoughts turned to six of the most powerful verses in the Bible:  the last four verses of Romans 11 and the first two verses of chapter 12.  They tie in with Isaiah 55 and the reality that we do not know what God is doing but the profound truth focused is that He is the source of, the power behind, and His glory is the purpose of everything He is doing.  The application in Chapter 12 is that we should express intelligent worship by surrendering our bodies as a living sacrifice (not a dead one), be sure we are not getting our signals from the secular culture, ask God to transform our mind so we can think as He does, and then, having met these prerequisites, prove one day at a time that His will for us is good, meets all His demands, and moves toward spiritual maturity.  (This passage is especially good in the Phillips.*)

You are such a magnificent person and God is shaping you to be a champion for Christ in dimensions that are far beyond anything we could imagine or even think to imagine! Whatever help it takes you must master this problem or it will master you.  Every time God wants to do a great work like what He is doing in your life, the evil one is there trying to defeat the work of God.  Don’t let him have the victory.  Put on the whole armor of God to defeat what the evil one is trying to do.

Dick Woodward, (email, 20 January 2007)

(*J.B. Phillips translation of The New Testament in Modern English)

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Seeking GOD’S Will (vs. our own!)

September 30, 2014

“…You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly…”  (James 4:3)

A consultant told me that much of the time, even though he is paid large fees, his clients do not want his consultation. They simply want him to affirm what they have already decided to do. At the heart of counseling session, a woman once said, “Don’t confuse me with Scriptures, Pastor.  My mind is made up!”  Knowing the will of God is often made difficult by our own wills.  It’s out of reach because we have our agendas in place when we come to God seeking His will.  If our minds are set like concrete before we converse with God regarding His will for our lives, we are not really seeking His will when we pray and open His Word. We are actually asking God to bless our will, our agenda and the way we have decided to go.

James tells us that when we pray, we ask and do not receive because our asking is flawed by our self-willed agendas.  To seek and know the will of God we must be completely open to whatever the will of God may be.  Our prayer and commitment must be in the spirit of the familiar metaphor, “You are the Sculptor, I am the clay. Mold me and make me according to Your will.  I am ready to accept Your will as passively as clay in the hands of a Sculptor.”

There are at least two reasons why you must be open and unbiased as you seek to know God’s will.  One reason we learn from Isaiah: the ways and thoughts of God are as different from our ways and thoughts as the heavens are high above the earth.  Another is that we become a totally new creation when we are born again.

It is tragically possible for you to miss the will of God for your life because you do not have the faith to believe that God can make you a new creation in Christ.  Your extraordinary potential as a new creation is one reason why you must be completely open and unbiased.  Seeking the will of God with your mind already made up could rob you of the will of God for your life… God loves you too much to let you live a life that is only a fragment of the life He has planned for you.”

Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Guidance

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Words and Ways of God

May 25, 2013

STEP NUMBER FOUR:  Spend much time in God’s Word.

Let me tell you why.  In chapter 55 of his prophecy, Isaiah tells us there is as much difference between the thoughts and ways of God and the way we think and do things as the heavens are high above the earth (vv. 8-9).   He then goes on to describe one of the many supernatural functions of the Word of God. 

The Word of God establishes an alignment between our thoughts, ways and wills, and the thoughts, ways and will of God.

I once heard Billy Graham tell of boarding a plane before he was famous.  He spoke to an old pastor friend who was sitting in an aisle seat reading his Bible.  The old pastor completely ignored Billy.  When they had been in flight for about an hour, the pastor came back to where Billy was seated and greeted him enthusiastically.  He apologized for ignoring Billy earlier.  He said, “When I pray, I am talking to God, but when I open God’s Word, He talks to me.  He was talking to me when you spoke to me and I could not interrupt God just to talk to Billy Graham.”

Thomas à Kempis opened his Bible every morning with this prayer: “Let all the voices be stopped.  Speak to me Lord, Thou alone.”   If we sincerely want to know the will of God, we must be in relationship and in conversation with God.  We should speak to our loving heavenly Father in prayer and expect God to speak to us as we open the Word of God.  That is why two of the bases we must touch when we seek to know the will of God are prayer and the Word of God.

 

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Why Evil?

December 17, 2012

“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. In this parable Jesus implies two answers: “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.

Thinking and hurting people in Connecticut are joined with millions who are asking questions like this today.  The Scripture quoted above is as close as Jesus came to addressing these questions.

Isaiah wrote that there is as much difference between the way God thinks and acts and the way we think and do things as the heavens are high above the earth (Isaiah 55).  Moses told us there are secret things that belong to the Lord but the things He wants us to do He has made very clear (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Our thinking is flawed and God has not willed to tell us why He lets the wheat and the weeds grow together.  We must conclude that somehow and in some way it glorifies God to permit that horrible enemy to be here. Ultimately, we must leave these questions with our faith in the character of God.

“While men slept” leads us to realize there are some things we can wake up and do to oppose that enemy.

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