July 31, 2012
“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. He 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?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 6, 2012
“Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough ways smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Isaiah 40: 4-5)
The essence of Isaiah’s great sermon is that when you build a highway you do four things: you level mountains, you fill valleys, you straighten crooked places, and you smooth out rough places.
Isaiah preached that God was coming into our world and when He did He was going to travel on the highway of the life of His Son. In that life the mountains of pride would be leveled, the empty spaces would be one hundred percent filled with the Holy Spirit, the crooked ways of sin would be perfectly straight and His rough places would be made smooth by the way He responded to them.
Just before Jesus parted with His apostles He told them that in the same way the Father sent Him into the world He was sending them into the world. If His life was to be a highway on which God traveled into this world, our life is also to be a highway for God. I challenge you to ask God to make your life into a highway for Him to travel into this world.
If you pray that prayer when God’s bulldozers start leveling your mountains of pride, His Holy Spirit fills your empty spaces and straightens out your crooked ways of sin and then gives you the grace to smooth out the rough challenges that come into your life.
While all that is happening you can write “Caution: God at work” across your life.
I dare you to have the courage to pray this prayer.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 7, 2012
“As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.’ So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, ‘Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?’ When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the water, ‘Silence! Be still!’ Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, ‘Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?’” (Mark 4: 35-40 LB)
I have not posted a blog for quite some time because I had a medical crisis that put me in the hospital followed by a limited ability to work for about eight weeks. This experience has reminded me of the story above of a fierce storm that was turned into a great calm by a profound question asked by Jesus.
The disciples clearly believed they were all going to drown including Jesus. The question of Jesus was essentially “When are you going to get some faith?” In other words, “Do you think that all I have told you about My kingdom and your part in it is going to drown at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee?”
Jesus promises to take us to the other side. When fierce storms break into our lives they will not invalidate what Jesus is doing in and through us if we will let this profound question turn our fierce storms into a great calm.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
May 4, 2012
“… your fellowship in the Gospel…” (Philippians 1:5)
When you read the first words of Paul’s letter to his favorite church they show you the passion of Paul and the heart of this church he loved. The bonds that made them so remarkably one in heart are expressed in the repetition of one word: “Gospel.” Paul writes that the things he has experienced have fallen out to the furtherance of the Gospel. And that he has them in his heart because in the defense and confirmation of the Gospel they all are partakers of God’s grace.
As Paul continues to repeat the word “Gospel” he expresses his heart’s passion when he describes what he calls “the faith of the Gospel.” He precedes that with the concept of behavior that becomes the Gospel. Paul is describing the purpose and function of a church when he calls their church “a fellowship of the Gospel.” The context in which the Gospel is to be believed is that fellowship of the Gospel.
Paul is in prison when he writes these words and he doesn’t know if he will be released. In verse 27 he writes his ideal for his ideal church. His great Gospel prescription is: “I want to hear that every member of your church is a Christian; every Christian is Christian and Christians are Christian together in a way that results in other people believing the Gospel!”
Paul’s plan for filling this prescription for his ideal spiritual community is to “Stand fast in one Spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel!” (1:27) That Church in Philippi is to act as if they have one mind among them because in fact because they do.
It is the mind of Christ.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
April 25, 2012
“Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:13)
In the great prayer our Lord prayed for His Church (John 17), Jesus asked His Father, not once but five times, that we all might be one. In light of that great prayer priority of our Lord, is it not an evidence of the work of the evil one when we consider all the “sects and insects and isms and spasms” that say they are His true Church today?
The risen, living Christ can be known by His followers today. One of the favorite ways the authors of the New Testament identify the authentic followers of Jesus is when they refer to them as being “in Christ.” When His Church in Corinth was hopelessly divided the Apostle Paul asked that church a very appropriate question: “Is Christ divided?”
If thinking people really track with the authors of the New Testament would they not think it strange if people profess to be in Christ and then cannot agree on anything? There is, however, a supernatural oneness or agreement among people who are truly in Christ today.
Many decades ago when African American believers were petitioning white churches in the southern part of our country to integrate I discovered that it didn’t matter whether the people in my church were born in northern or southern United States. What mattered in my congregation was whether or not they were born again. Christ does not feel more than one way about civil rights. Neither will we if we are born again and in Christ.
Paul concludes the second chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians by claiming that we have the mind of Christ. If we in fact do have the mind of Christ we will agree.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
April 12, 2012
“Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.” (1 Corinthians 15: 49)
Have you ever watched a dragonfly move from one plant to another with its two sets of wings making it possible for it to hover like a helicopter? A dragonfly actually spends the first two years of its existence at the bottom of a large body of water. When that phase of its existence comes to an end, it rises to the surface of the water, climbs up on the bank and lets it wings dry in the sun. Then it spreads those magnificent wings and begins the second dimension of its existence when it becomes an aeronautical wonder.
Easter reminded us that like the dragonfly we are meant to live out our existence in two dimensions. If you did a cross-section of that under-water dragonfly you would see that it has two respiratory systems. It has one for living under water and one for breathing air in the second dimension of its life.
If you could do a spiritual cross-section on a born again believer you would find that we are also equipped with two systems. We have an outward man and an inward man. Our outward man is just a little clay pot in which our eternal inward man lives.
We are told in the great Resurrection Chapter (1 Corinthians 15), that we are given a body for living this life and we will be issued another body for living in the eternal state. According to Paul, that new body will be a spiritual body that will equip us for living throughout all eternity. I don’t know about you but as a bed fast quadriplegic I’m really looking forward to being issued that new body!
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Posted by Dick Woodward
April 5, 2012
“Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.” (John 13:1)
Jesus was celebrating the Passover with His apostles. Luke writes that on the way to the upper room where they were to celebrate the Passover with Jesus the apostles argued about which of them would be the greatest in the kingdom Jesus promised. What a shock it must have been when Jesus assumed the attire of a slave and washed their feet!
Having washed their feet He asked the question “Do you know what I have done to you?” His question is answered in the words quoted above. The most dynamic characteristic of the personality of Jesus was love. He had loved these men for three years in ways they had never been loved before in their entire lives.
He also answered His question by telling them that He had given them an example. If He as their Lord and Teacher had washed their feet they should wash each other’s feet. Then He made the connection between feet washing and love by giving them the New Commandment. They were to love one another in the same ways He had loved them. This would be the absolute credential that they were His disciples.
A New Commandment directed them to a New Commitment. Each of them had made a commitment to Jesus but now they were to make a commitment to each other. This new commitment established a New Community. We call it the church. The secular people said of the early church, “Behold how they love one another!” If they made that charge today about your church or mine would there be enough evidence to convict us?
Oh Lord make it so!
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 27, 2012
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.” (Luke 5: 37)
Here Jesus uses a metaphor that had probably been the experience of some of those who heard this teaching. Undoubtedly they had made the mistake of putting new wine, or unfermented wine, in an old brittle wineskin. They would hang that wineskin on the wall of their home to let the wine ferment. But one afternoon while they were taking a siesta there would be a loud popping sound and they would see wine running down the wall. They would immediately know they made the mistake Jesus was describing. The expanding fermenting wine burst the wineskin.
By this metaphor Jesus was teaching that His truth was like unfermented wine. When they took that truth into their mind, if they did not yield to the pressure of that truth and apply the teaching it would literally blow their mind!
We place such a high value today upon knowledge that many people think knowledge is virtue. However, it is the application of knowledge that leads to virtue and wisdom. Jesus taught in another place that it is when we do what He teaches that we will know His teaching is the Word of God (John and 7:17).
This is also a warning from Jesus. If we build up a reservoir of the truth Jesus taught that we never apply, that unapplied teaching can give us so much conflict it can make us sick. The greatest truth this world has ever heard came through Jesus. Resolve to do it before you know it. The application of the truth Jesus taught can convert you into a new wineskin.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 25, 2012
“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 of us only remember that he took his eyes off the Lord and would have drowned if the Lord had not saved him.
We read that his magnificent faith was flawed. He saw the wind. Since we cannot see wind this actually means when he saw what the wind was doing, he lost sight of what Jesus was doing and he was afraid. The remarkable thing here is that when he kept his eyes on Jesus he walked on water!
It was not until he was beginning to sink that he prayed this prayer that is a model prayer for us all. Jesus taught that our prayers should not be long and we should never think we will generate grace with God by our much speaking. 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” and I believe our Lord was smiling when He did. He literally asked Peter “Why did you think twice?”
Rick Warren took his entire congregation of twenty thousand people through the eight steps of what is called “Celebrate Recovery.” When asked why, his response was: “Because we are all in recovery. What do you think the word ‘salvation’ means?” When we truly understand the meaning of this word “salvation” we will frequently pray this model prayer.
Pray this three word prayer of Peter often and don’t think twice. Don’t be a “Little Faith.”
Lord, save me!
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 21, 2012
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness…It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.” (Matthew 5:13 NIV/NLT)
When Jesus told His disciples that they were the salt of the earth there are several ways to interpret and apply this metaphor. We find a clue to my favorite interpretation when we realize that our word “salary” is made up of the two root words “salt money.”
Twenty centuries ago the Roman Empire wanted to control the population of the world. They knew that no human being can live without salt. So, they controlled the salt of the world. They actually paid their slaves in cubes of salt. This is where we get the expression that a person is not worth their salt.
This means Jesus was teaching that secular people do not have life. His disciples have life and they are the way the secular people of this world can find that life.
Years ago a missionary statesman said that when missionaries live in a compound in a foreign country with a fortress mentality they are like manure: they stink! It’s only when God spreads them around that they do a little good. Similarly, when the followers of Jesus meet together they are like salt in a saltshaker. The only way they can have a salt influence is to come out of that saltshaker.
One way our Lord brings us out of the saltshaker is that we must make a living. Be challenged by the reality that your workplace can be God’s way of placing you next to secular people who need life. Realize that you are not only there to make a living…
You are there because they need the salty impact of your life.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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