March 10, 2012
“… who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:4)
The Apostle Paul has just experienced life threatening persecution when he was stoned in Lystra. As he describes that experience for the Church in Corinth he gives them (and us) a perspective on suffering. He writes that there is a kind of suffering that drives us to God and there is a quality of comfort that can only be found in God when the level of our suffering drives us to Him.
According to Paul, an evangelist is “one beggar telling another beggar where the bread is.” A hurting heart that has discovered the comfort that can only be found in God is “one hurting heart telling another hurting heart where the Comfort is.”
As a pastor when I met grief stricken parents who had lost a child, since I had never suffered that loss I sent a couple to comfort them who had lost a child and found the comfort of God to help them. Any time your heart is hurting because God has permitted you to suffer, realize that you are being given a credential by God. As you find the comfort that is to be found in God you are now qualified to point any person with that same problem to the comfort you discovered when you had that hurt in your heart.
Although you will not answer all of the “why” questions until you know as you are known, are you willing to let this perspective bring some meaning and purpose to your suffering?
Or would you rather choose to waste your sorrows?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 6, 2012
“When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’” (John 5:6)
The Apostle John describes a pathetic scene that confronted those who approached the Temple as they entered the city of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day. There was by the Sheep Gate the Pool of Bethesda. A great multitude of weak and sick people lay in the porches surrounding that pool given the superstition that when the waters in that pool rippled the first one to get into the pool would be healed.
When Jesus came upon that pool He moved among these weak people until he found one man who had been there for 38 years. He was paralyzed and Jesus asked him the remarkable question quoted above. The man might have thought that question ridiculous since he had been faithfully lying beside the pool for 38 years.
We may well ask the question “Why did Jesus heal just this one man?” It may be that Jesus healed this man because he had given up on the Pool of Bethesda.
Today there are millions of people who are sitting beside “Pools of Bethesda” that cannot heal them. Like Solomon, some people try money, knowledge, painting the town red and not withholding from their eyes anything they see that they want. People try success, power, social status and everything but the spiritual for their healing.
Do you want to be made well inside your heart? Give up your “Pools of Bethesda” and ask the risen, living Christ to lead you to your healing. Get into His Word and become His disciple indeed.
Go beyond the sacred page and meet the Living Word and He will heal you.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
February 17, 2012
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind…” (Jeremiah 17: 9-10)
In this passage of Scripture God gives us all a spiritual cardiogram. According to the prophet Jeremiah, our heart is not only desperately wicked, but above all things our heart is deceitful. We can pay a professional therapist thousands of dollars to help us understand our deceitful heart. But according to Jeremiah, the reality is our heart is so deceitful only God is qualified to understand it.
I once had the immature belief that if you showed me someone I could understand you would be showing me someone I could love. In my experience of more than sixty years as a pastor I have met people I understood pretty well but found it very difficult to love. I now have a more mature belief.
In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John we read that Jesus told the apostles to lift up their eyes before they looked upon the fields (people) of this world. He was teaching them that if we look at people through the lenses of the way God sees them we will never meet anyone we cannot love because God loves them all. He loves them so much He became a man and died for them.
Beginning with those who live under the same roof with you, and moving out from there, are you willing to lift up your eyes and get God’s perspective on the people who intersect your life before you look at them? That can revolutionize your relationships!
This is true because you will never see or meet anyone God does not love whom Christ cannot love through you.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: God's love for all, Gospel of John, Jeremiah 17, Jesus Christ, love of God and others, love of Jesus Christ, prophet jeremiah, revolutionized relationships, Spiritual cardiogram, Spiritual hearts | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
February 14, 2012
“So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” (Luke 10:36)
Jesus was the absolute master storyteller of parables – stories that illustrated His teachings (in Greek Para = “alongside of” and Ballo = “to throw.”) A lawyer asked Him the question: “Who is my neighbor?” In response Jesus told a parable about a man who was mugged and left half dead. When a priest saw him he passed by on the other side of the road and did not get involved. A Levite, or Temple assistant, who traveled that road did the same thing. Then a traveling Samaritan came down the road. When he saw the helpless man he gave him all the first aid he could, put the man on his animal and took him to an inn where he paid for his care. Jesus then asked the question quoted above.
This parable presents three philosophies of life. The mugger’s philosophy of life was: “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours will be mine as soon as I can take it.” The religious professionals in the story believed: “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours.” The philosophy of the Samaritan was: “What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is yours any time you need it.” That is obviously the philosophy of life Jesus was teaching by His parable answer to the lawyer’s question.
May I ask you to get real and ask yourself which of these three philosophies of life and neighbor are yours? Do you believe people are to be exploited for your personal gain? Do you not want to get involved? Or are the people who intersect your life an opportunity for service?
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Faith in God, Good Samaritan parable, Jesus Christ, Love of Jesus for real, Luke 10, parables, philosophies of life, Teachings of Jesus | Permalink
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
February 3, 2012
“If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether My teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” (John 7:17)
The Apostle John records the claim of Jesus that His teaching is not merely the teaching of another Rabbi coming down the pike. His teaching is the teaching of God. If we want to prove that, we must choose to do what He is teaching. When we do it we will know it. The doing leads to the knowing according to Jesus. The intellectually sophisticated person usually claims: “When I know it I will do it.” Jesus told us when we do it we will know it.
That profiles what we call “discipleship” and “apprenticeship.” These two words are actually synonymous. A disciple is literally “a learner who is doing what they’re learning and learning what they’re doing.”
I once heard the vice president of a large shipyard explain to the business community of Norfolk, Virginia how they had just been given another contract to build yet another large aircraft carrier. He said he could answer their question in one word: “apprenticeship.”
He explained that a college student takes in huge amounts of information and then regurgitates that information periodically. After doing that for four years they are given a piece of paper that says they’re an educated person. But often they cannot actually do anything. He explained that at the shipyard they put a person in the classroom for two weeks and in the shipyard for two weeks. After five years the graduates of their apprenticeship school build large aircraft carriers.
Have you been apprenticed in your journey of faith? Are you apprenticing others in their faith journey?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Discipleship, faith journey, faith journeys, Jesus Christ, John 7:17, journey of faith, learning by doing, Spiritual apprenticeship, Teaching of God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
January 31, 2012
“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you…?” (1Corinthians 6:19)
All over this world there have been, there are now, and there always will be temples in which people worship their god. The Old Testament believers had the Tent of Worship which was followed by the Temple of Solomon where they worshiped the true and living God. However, in the New Testament there is a concept that was revolutionary and is not fully understood or appreciated by the people of God today: that the body of a believer is the Temple of God.
When we understand the Gospel of the New Testament we realize two vital truths: there is something to believe and Someone to receive. We are informed that the risen, living Christ is patiently standing at the door of our life and He is knocking on that door. We’re promised that if we will hear His voice and open that door He will come into our life and have a relationship with us (Revelation 3: 19-20). The Apostle Paul is telling us that when we experience that miracle our body becomes the Temple of God.
This presents a great challenge to all believers who have received the living Christ into their life in the form of the Holy Spirit. Wherever we go we take that temple with us. We might say that we are “A Temple on Wheels.” Everywhere we go and every time we find ourselves associating with people the beautiful reality that we are the Temple of God should bring a divine presence to all those relationships.
How should the reality that we are a Temple of God impact all our relationships?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 27, 2012
“For if I make you sorrowful then who is he who makes me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?” (2Corinthians 2: 2)
In this verse the Apostle Paul is telling us that relationships are a two-way street. Whatever we send down that street comes back up that street. Paul could have learned this from Jesus when he spent three years with Him in the desert of Arabia (Galatians 1: 15-20).
Jesus taught this same truth when He used a marketplace metaphor. In the marketplace if another vendor bought produce from you and you suspected his bushel measurement was inaccurate, you could ask him to go get his bushel measurement when you sold to him. In this way Jesus was teaching that whatever measure we use in giving to people they will use that same standard in giving back to us (Matthew 7 1-5).
By application, Paul and Jesus were teaching that in our marriage and family if we make people unhappy we will find ourselves living with unhappy people who were made unhappy by us. I knew a wise pastor who did a lot of marriage counseling. He wrote a little poem that had this line in it: “You can’t control the weather or rainy days but you can control the emotional climate that surrounds you.”
If you can surround yourself with unhappy people because you make them unhappy consider how much better it would be if you made those same people happy. Another wise pastor said that with Jesus the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things.
The bottom line is do we want to be surrounded by happy or unhappy people? What are we sending down the two-way street of our relationships?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
January 24, 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. People who read the Bible ask this question – in this parable Jesus implies two answers.
In almost six decades as a pastor people have often told me there are hypocrites in the church. They told me this as if they thought it never would have occurred to me, but actually it was no surprise to me and it would be no surprise to Jesus. In this parable He told us His church would be a mixed bag.
He also instructed us that we are not to weed the garden because we cannot tell the difference between the two. We are to let both grow together until the harvest when He will separate the wheat from the weeds.
His two answers to that old question about where evil came from are: “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.
The truly important though less obvious questions raised by this parable are: “Are we wheat or are we weeds?” What are we contributing to the harvest? Are we producing more wheat or more weeds? Are we asleep? Are we doing nothing?”
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Edmund Burke, ethical leaders, good seed, good vs. evil, hypocrites, Jesus Christ, Lord of the Harvest, parable jesus, Parable of the wheat & weeds, spiritual questions, weeds, wheat, where does evil come from? | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
January 20, 2012
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in My name.” (John 15:16 NIV)
Jesus had been with the apostles for three years when He spoke these words. It was as if these men had been in a three-year seminary with Jesus with no days off – no weekends, holidays or summers. It was just Jesus 24/7. He was now about to be arrested and suffer all the things Mel Gibson so graphically portrayed in his film about the Passion of Jesus Christ.
These words must have fallen like a bombshell on these men. They had all made choices. But He now informed them that He had made the choices. He had chosen them. They had not chosen Him. He chose them for a purpose. That purpose was that they were to be fruitful. They were to bring forth fruit that lasts.
That is the definition of what we call a legacy or legacy giving. A legacy is fruit that lasts long after we have gone home to be with God for all eternity.
By application, we do not choose Jesus and take Him into our plans. He chooses us that He might take us into His plans. It is not all about us – it’s all about Him. Jesus adds the commentary that when we understand this, God will start answering our prayers.
Mother Teresa told us that the only safe, sure, wise, and lasting investment is what we give to God. Have you produced fruit for Christ that will last beyond your lifetime? Wouldn’t you like to leave a legacy of lasting eternal values?
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Discipleship, eternal values, God's purpose, Jesus Christ, John 15:16, lasting investments, Legacy Giving, Legacy of Faith, Mother Teresa, passion of jesus christ, spiritual fruit that lasts | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
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