November 25, 2025
“Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.” (Psalm 100)
In this profound thanksgiving psalm David tells us that coming into the presence of God is like having an audience with a great King. That audience begins with the gates of thanksgiving followed by the courts of praise. In a corporate worship service or in your worship closet, always try to begin your approach to God at the gates of thanksgiving followed by the courts of praise.
I personally know of no other worship aid that means more to me than to begin my approach to our Heavenly Father with thanksgiving. When I begin thanking Him and praising Him, I soon find myself coming before His presence with singing.
In His presence I know that He is God. I know that He is my Shepherd, and I am His sheep. I know that He is good and His mercy is everlasting. I know He wants me to share the truth of His Word in all the lands of this world because He wants people in all the lands of this world and in every generation to know what it is to make a joyful shout of worship in His presence.
This week let David’s worship psalm show you how to have a joyful Thanksgiving Day!
Dick Woodward, 23 November 2011
Editor’s Note: The Blog Posting Elf wishes everyone a Thanksgiving blessed with extra doses of God’s grace, peace, patience, joy, love and gratitude (the kind that overflows into the courts of praise!)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
November 18, 2025
“This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was the first time Jesus revealed his glory. And his disciples believed in him.” (John 2:11)
An allegory is a story in which people, places and things have a deeper meaning. In addition to being the record of a supernatural miracle, the story of Jesus turning water into wine is a beautiful allegory that shows us how to be born again. (John 2:1-11)
A first step is expressed in Mary’s words when she tells Jesus: “They have no wine.” Wine is a symbol of joy in the Bible. This statement of Mary is like a confession. Our first step in being born again is to confess that we have no wine (joy) and we need to be born again.
A second step in this formula is when Jesus tells the servants to fill the huge thirty-gallon jars with water. The Scripture is sometimes symbolized by water because of the way it cleanses. A devotional application here could therefore be that our second step toward regeneration is to fill our human vessel with the Word of God.
A third step is pictured when Mary tells the servants to “do whatever Jesus tells you to do.” While we are filling the vessels of ourselves with God’s Word, we must do what Jesus tells us to do.
The fourth step is when Jesus tells the servants to draw out what they had just poured into the huge jars and serve it as wine. Precisely, when did the water become wine? I’m convinced it was when the servants had faith to serve the water as wine. We are born again when we believe Jesus can turn our water into wine and show His glory through us.
Dick Woodward, 14 November 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
November 14, 2025
“But this was displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry… ‘Oh Lord…I knew You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.’…And the Lord said, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?” (Jonah 4:1-4)
As you apply the central truth in the Book of Jonah, ask yourself if you are prejudiced. To be prejudiced means to “pre-judge.” I was introduced to prejudice as a boy growing up near Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) when I heard Italian Americans called “daggos” and Polish Americans called “hunkies.” During my freshman year at a southern Bible college in the late 1940s, I was shocked to see “white” and “colored” water fountains and African Americans sitting in the back of buses. I was even more bewildered when I discovered “colored people” were not welcome in “white” churches.
As a new believer I was disillusioned when I heard professing believers use discriminatory labels. From what I learned preparing for the ministry, I expected followers of Christ and spiritual communities to be free from prejudice. As a believer now for more than 60 years and a pastor for more than five decades, I am still alarmed by the deceitful ways of the evil one when I discover prejudice in my heart and in the lives of other believers.
I learned from personal experience that prejudice feeds on ignorance. I grew up during the Second World War when propaganda presented Japanese as sub-human creatures. In my junior year at a Bible college in L.A., my roommate was a devout Japanese disciple of Jesus Christ. He was the most Christ-like and disciplined disciple of Jesus I had met at that point in my life. The experience of knowing him completely erased the cumulative impact of all that war propaganda from my mind. Until I met my roommate, I had never met a Japanese person before. My prejudice was fed by ignorance.
Most prejudice is fed by ignorance.
Examine your heart before God and ask yourself if you have prejudice that is blocking the love God wants to channel through you to lost and hurting people in this world.
Dick Woodward, Jonah Coming & Going: True Confessions of a Prophet
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Posted by Dick Woodward
November 11, 2025
“So the word of God became a human being and lived among us. We saw His splendor (the splendor as of a father’s only son) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
The Gospel of John is like an inspired art gallery. Every chapter is a room in that gallery with beautiful portraits of Jesus Christ hanging on the walls. The portrait in the first room is of Jesus as the Word that became human to make His home among us.
If you want to communicate a great idea wrap it in a person. God does that all the way through the Bible. God communicates the concept of faith by wrapping it in the person of Abraham. God tells us what grace is by wrapping that beautiful concept in the person of Jacob.
What does it mean when we are told that Jesus is the Word? A word is the vehicle of a thought. When I want to communicate thoughts from my mind to your mind I use words as vehicles of my thoughts.
God had ‘Thought’ that God wanted to express to this world. Jesus is like a comprehensive Word that expressed the Thought of God to this world – and to you and me.
Our loving Heavenly Father decided that an inspired written Word was not enough. God wanted us to see His expressed thought in human flesh and blood. God therefore became human and made His home with us as Jesus so we could see and experience His expressed thought toward us.
The Word not only made His home among us – Jesus wants to make His home in us. If Jesus has done that for you, what great ideas does He want to communicate to others by wrapping them in your life?
Dick Woodward, 10 November 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 31, 2025
“God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, might abound unto every good work.” (II Corinthians 9:8)
This is the most emphatic verse in the Bible about God’s grace. According to Paul, God is able to make all grace (not just a little bit of grace), abound (not just trickle), toward you (not just your pastor and missionaries, but toward you), that you (he repeats you for emphasis), always (not just sometimes), having all sufficiency (not just some sufficiency), in all things (not just some things), may abound (not just limp along), unto every good work (not just some good works.)
All grace, abounding, always, all of you, all sufficiency, all things, always, abounding in all the good works God wants to do through you! The New Testament church turned the world right side up because they believed and experienced the truth Paul proclaimed in this extraordinary verse about God’s amazing grace.
The challenge for you and me is to believe in, and access, this grace. The grace of God is not only the undeserved favor of God we receive when our sins are forgiven – grace is the power God wants to pour in us as we live for and serve God. The word “charis” is the Greek word for grace. The word “charisma” or “charismata” is the Greek word that describes the grace God dispenses. It is impossible to be a disciple of Jesus Christ without this charismatic grace of God.
The great challenge is to access this grace on a daily basis. Do you believe God is able to make all grace abound toward you today? That you, always, having all sufficiency in all things can abound unto every good work God wants to do through you?
Dick Woodward, 20 October 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 28, 2025
“Yet this I call to mind… Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed… His compassions never fail… They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3: 21-24)
After writing his prophecy which has moved many scholars to label Jeremiah “The Weeping Prophet,” he adds a short postscript to his fifty-two chapters of weeping. That postscript is called “Lamentations,” which means “Weepings.”
You need to know why Jeremiah is weeping to understand his writings. He is weeping about the Babylonian massacre and captivity of God’s chosen people. For years he warned the people of God that unless they repented this awful tragedy would happen. As he writes his Lamentations he has been permitted to remain in the land of Judah. Sitting in his Grotto he laments all the tragic things that have now happened.
In the midst of his deepest expressions of sorrow he suddenly breaks forth with the verses quoted above. These verses have been translated and paraphrased to tell us more clearly that what God revealed to Jeremiah in his darkest hour was that God had never stopped loving God’s chosen people.
A providential wonder of prophecy is that Jeremiah’s Grotto where he was seated as he wrote these Lamentations was on top of a hill called “Golgatha.” This means that God gave Jeremiah this wonderful prophecy of God’s unconditional love during the tragedy Jeremiah was lamenting on the very spot where centuries later God would pour out unconditional love for the whole world.
Dick Woodward, 28 October 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 24, 2025
“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
As I look back over my life since I was born in 1930, and born again in 1949, this verse sums up my entire walk of faith and ministry. According to the J. B. Philips translation, God fits into a pattern for good everything that happens to those who love God and are called according to God’s plan. I like this because by implication there may not be anything good about many of the things that happen to us.
But if we meet two prerequisites – if we love God and are called according to God’s plan – our loving God will fit into a pattern for good all the events of our lives.
Before we personally apply the great promise of this verse we must meet two prerequisites. The first is that we love God. It isn’t easy to love God. The Apostle John asked us how we can love the God we cannot see. (1 John 4) We can’t hug a Spirit. Jesus told us that if we love Him, we must keep His commandments. According to the writings of the Apostle Paul quoted above, we can show we love God by being called according to God’s plan.
We are so self-centered we are quick to assume that the good into which God fits all the events of our lives means our good. However, when we understand what it means to love God the only good that will interest us will be God’s good.
Dick Woodward, (05 November 2010)
Editor’s Note: Tomorrow (October 25th) is Dick Woodward’s birthday. Here’s to celestial celebrations up in Heaven with Mama & dear friends as we miss him & them here on earth!
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 17, 2025
“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)
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 that what he called the “secret things” belong to the Lord but the things God wants us to do God has made very clear. (Deuteronomy 29:29) That means there are secret things God is keeping secret, so nobody can explain them.
These verses considered together are telling us that while we walk with God, we should not expect to understand everything. If we understood everything, we would eliminate the need for faith.
We walk by faith.
Dick Woodward, 19 October 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 14, 2025
“…for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)
In this epistle of joy to the Philippians, Paul exhorts us, “Delight in Jesus. Learn to derive your joy from knowing Him.” He uses the word joy again and again. And what he’s really saying to us in the conditions in which he’s living is simply this, “Learn to derive your joy from your relationship to Jesus Christ. Learn to delight in Him.”
What is the source of your happiness? In what do you delight? If you delight in your health, well, you’re on thin ice. What would you do if you lost your health? If you delight in money, what would you do if you lost everything? If you delight in your loved ones, and many, many people do, what are you going to do when you lose them?
It’s because God loves us that God tells us things like this, “Delight in Me. Learn to derive your joy from knowing Me.” That’s the source of joy. And so that should be our delight.
That’s the reason Paul could have peace, even in a dungeon, even when he was in prison, no matter what the circumstances were. The reason he could say, “I’m ready for anything. I have learned how to live when everything’s good and I have learned how to live when everything’s bad.”
Here is a key point: Paul’s delight was in Jesus, and Jesus was the Source of his happiness. Not what he had or didn’t have.
Dick Woodward, (Ben Lippen,1979)
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Posted by Dick Woodward
October 10, 2025
“… Being confident of this very thing that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ… for it is God at work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure.” (Philippians 1:6; 2:13)
As he wrote these words to his favorite church, the Apostle Paul was in prison chained between two Roman soldiers without any privacy. He was unable to shepherd and teach the Philippian believers he loved so very much. Is he stressed out because he fears that they will fall away from their faith? No, he has confidence that they will continue in their faith until the day Christ returns.
The source of Paul’s confidence is found in two realities: he knows that the risen, living Christ has begun the miracle of regeneration in them and he is completely convinced that Christ will continue the miracle work of salvation He begins. His confidence is not in the fact that he has led these people to Christ. His confidence is in Christ!
Paul adds that his confidence is in God Who is at work in them giving them the will and the power to do according to that which pleases Him.
Where is your confidence that you will continue in what Christ has begun in your life? Where is your confidence that those you love will continue in what Christ has begun in their lives? Is your hope in them? Is it in your ability to shepherd and mentor them?
Or is your hope in Christ Who began that miracle and in God Who can give them the will and the power to do what pleases Him?
Dick Woodward, 09 October 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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