July 14, 2026
“…as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness… through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report… beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing… having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:3-10)
Paul tells us suffering is like a seminary in which God trains qualified ministers of the Gospel. There is a sense in which this seminary never ends. By passing through this seminary of suffering, we become ministers of God. When Paul uses “minister,” he does not mean a clergy-person; he means the minister every believer is designed, created, and recreated by God to be. Everyone who has experienced the miracle of reconciliation to God through Christ has been commissioned to carry out the ministry of Christ.
How do we prove ourselves to be ministers? Paul writes, “In afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger…”
I call these adversities “wringers.” When we find ourselves in a wringer, the important thing is our response to that wringer. In 2 Corinthians 6:6, Paul shows us how to respond: “By pureness, knowledge, patience, kindness.” In verses 6 and 7 of this passage, Paul tells us where to find the spiritual resources to respond: “By the Holy Spirit, by love unfeigned, by the Word of Truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left.”
Loving Heavenly Father, use our suffering to make us faithful ministers for You in this world. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Dick Woodward, from 30 Biblical Reasons Why God’s People Suffer
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 10, 2026
“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God Whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20)
Tradition tells us that the Apostle John escaped from the Isle of Patmos by swimming out to a ship that was bound for the city of Ephesus where he lived to a very old age and was buried. With white hair and a long white beard, he was so feeble they had to carry him to the meetings. While at the meetings he would bless those who attended and cry: “Little children, love one another, little children, love one another!”
As we have seen in this chapter, John gives us ten reasons why we must love one another. One reason is that God is love and if we plug into the love God is we make contact with God; as we become a conduit of God’s love God makes contact with us.
John gives us a second reason that if we say we love God and we hate our brother we are liars. Because if we do not love the brother we can see, how can we love God Whom we cannot see? His point is that it’s not easy to love God because we cannot hug a Spirit. There is an inseparable vertical and horizontal dimension of this love that God is.
These two dimensions form a cross.
We cannot say we love God if we do not love one another.
Dick Woodward, 09 July 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 26, 2026
“For if I make you sorrowful, then who is he who makes me glad but the one who is made sorrowful by me?” (2 Corinthians 2:2)
You can’t control the weather or rainy days, but you can control the emotional climate that surrounds you. There is a principle of relationships that tells us communication is a two-way street. Whatever you send down that street comes back up that street and into your relationship with another person.
That is the essence of what the Apostle Paul is teaching: “If I say things that get you down who is going to build me up and pull me up?” The reality is that you are probably going to pull me down because misery loves company. This is a negative way of stating the positive truth that if I say things to you that build you up, I have equipped you to build me up.
In another place Paul wrote: “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29)
In every relationship you have – with your spouse, children, parents, those you work with, those you work for, and those who work for you – make the commitment to say and do things that build them up and minister the grace of God to them. You will be surprised by joy to discover what you send down that communication street will come back up that street and into your relationship with that person.
Jesus gave an unstable man named Simon the nickname Peter, which meant stable like a rock. After calling Peter a rock for three years Peter became a rock. Try that in your relationships.
Dick Woodward, 29 June 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 19, 2026
“We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on You.” (2 Chronicles 20:12)
No matter how gifted we may be, sooner or later we will hit a wall of crisis where we do not know what to do. The Scripture from Chronicles is taken from a time when the people of God were overwhelmingly outnumbered, and they simply did not know what to do. James later wrote that when we do not know what to do, we should ask God for the wisdom we confess we do not have. (James 1:5) James promises us that God will not hold back but will provide a truckload of wisdom for us.
Years ago I received a telephone call from my youngest daughter when she was a first-year student at the University of Virginia. With many tears she informed me she had fallen down a flight of stairs and broken bones in her back. At the hospital they discovered mononucleosis and seriously infected tonsils that needed to be removed. She concluded her litany: “Finals begin tomorrow, and I just don’t know what to do, Daddy!”
Frankly, I was touched that my intelligent young daughter believed if she could just share her litany of woes and tap into the vast resources of my wisdom, I could tell her what to do when she did not know what to do.
According to James that is the way we make our Heavenly Father feel when we come to Him overwhelmed with problems and tell Him we don’t know what to do. A good way to begin some days is: “Lord, I don’t know what to do, but my eyes are on YOU!”
Dick Woodward, blog 2013
Editor’s Note: The blog posting elf wishes blessings to all the fathers out there as we celebrate Father’s Day this weekend! For those of us who have fathers in Heaven – like my Papa – it’s comforting that our Heavenly Father is always here when we don’t know what to do
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 16, 2026
“This is how we know we are in Him: whoever claims to live in Him must walk even as Jesus walked.” (1 John 2:5-6)
In the first sixteen verses of his short letter, the Apostle John gives us a prescription for fullness in seven parts: facts, faith, forgiveness, fellowship, follow-ship, fruitfulness, and fullness.
John’s facts are the death and resurrection of Jesus. When we have faith to believe the first fact we have forgiveness. When we believe the second the result is fellowship with the risen Christ. By changing one letter in the word “fellowship” to “follow-ship,” I have come up with the key to John’s prescription for fullness: you will know that you know when you walk as Jesus walked.
This word follow-ship is also a key to the fullness emphasized by Jesus. His covenant with the apostles was: “Follow Me and I will make you.” (Matthew 4:19) The most important part of the Great Commission occurred when Jesus commissioned the disciples to make disciples. (Matthew 28:18-20) A synonym for discipleship is apprenticeship. Jesus apprenticed the apostles, and He commissioned them to apprentice disciples.
The Gospel of John Chapter 7 records a great claim of Jesus when He declared that His teaching is the teaching of God. Jesus also proclaimed we prove that when we do what He teaches. (John 7:17) According to Jesus the doing leads to the knowing. Intellectuals have claimed for millenniums that the knowing will lead to the doing, but Jesus said, “When you do you will know.”
Are you willing to do that you might know the Word of God?
Dick Woodward, 18 June 2011
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 12, 2026
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6)
What is the basis of the unquenchable faith of King David? What gives him the assurance that all the blessings he has described (in Psalm 23) will be experienced all the days of his life and forever?
The word Selah, found frequently in the psalms of David, can be interpreted: “Pause and calmly think about that.” If we pause and calmly think about it, we realize that all through Psalm 23 David presents his Shepherd as the great Initiator of their relationship.
It is the Shepherd Who gets David’s attention and makes him lie down saying, “baa,” confessing that he is a sheep and the Lord is his Shepherd. It is his Shepherd Who makes David lie down where there are green pastures and leads him beside still waters. It is David’s Shepherd Who uses His staff when David strays from Him and drives him into the paths of righteousness that restore his soul.
It is God, the Good Shepherd, Who initiates these interventions in David’s life.
As David walks through the valley of the shadow of death, his confidence is not in his own extraordinary ability as a warrior to see himself through that valley. His confidence is clearly in his Shepherd. As David walks through this dark and scary valley, he is looking to God for protection and provision. He knows his Shepherd will personally anoint him with oil and keep that cup running over within him.
The source of David’s confident faith is clearly seen in the way he ends his psalm: “Kindness and faithful love pursue me every day of my life.”
Dick Woodward, from Psalm 23 Sheep Talk
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 9, 2026
“Now we have received… the Spirit who is from God, that we might know…” (1 Corinthians 2:12)
The Apostle Paul has given us a masterpiece of what we might consider spiritual educational psychology. How do we learn? According to Paul there are several gates of learning through which we must pass if we want to know spiritual truth.
Paul’s thesis is that we learn through the eye gate, which involves everything we observe and read. We learn through the ear gate, which involves everything we hear, including lectures and interaction with others, mentors, and those who are learning with us.
Then the apostle mentions the heart gate, which has to do with volition and the willingness to apply what we’re learning. Apprenticeship, a synonym for discipleship, describes a learner who is doing what they’re learning and learning what they’re doing. This is how Jesus trained His disciples. (John 7:17; Matthew 4:19)
According to Paul the most important gate we must pass through to learn spiritual truth is the Holy Spirit. Paul’s illustration is that no person knows the thoughts of another person except the spirit that is in that other person. In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God but the Spirit of God. Paul is excited about the glorious reality that we have received the Spirit Who knows the very thoughts of God. We can therefore also know the thoughts of God. One translation concludes the Second Chapter of First Corinthians with “Incredible as it may seem, we actually have the very mind of Christ!”
Prayerfully meditate on this chapter, then find your way through these gates of learning.
Dick Woodward, 08 June 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 5, 2026
“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances may be.” (Philippians 4:11)
Patience is part of Paul’s prescription for peace in Philippians. Throughout the history of the church, patience has always been considered a great virtue by spiritual heavyweights.
Why is patience such an important virtue? For starters, patience is one of the nine fruit of the Spirit we find listed in the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. When the Holy Spirit lives in us, one of the ways the Spirit manifests in us is through a supernatural quality patience.
In the Bible we are continuously exhorted to “Wait on the Lord.” In our relationship with God, we might call patience “faith waiting.” Nothing will test and grow our faith like waiting. When we think God is not responding to our prayers, it may be that what God is doing in us while we are waiting – like growing the virtue of patience in us – is more important than that for which we are waiting.
In our relationships with people, patience can be called “love waiting.” I have found that the Lord wants to grow two dimensions of patience in us. He wants to grow “vertical patience” in us by teaching us to have a faith that waits. And He is growing “horizontal patience” in us by teaching us that in relationships, love waits.
Love is the first and primary virtue through which the Holy Spirit wants to express the life of Jesus Christ in us. While impatience is a “peace thief,” vertical and horizontal patience are supernatural, God-given virtues that maintain the peace of God in our lives.
Dick Woodward, 09 June 2009
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Posted by Dick Woodward
May 19, 2026
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)
The Word of God exhorts us to pray when we are in crisis situations. Psalm 46:1 has an alternate reading in the New Standard version, “God is our refuge and strength, abundantly available for help in tight places.” The Apostle Paul also challenges us to pray: “tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer…” (Philippians 4:6)
God delivered Paul from many tight places. We should therefore always pray in a crisis: “When it’s hardest to pray, pray the hardest!” However, from personal experience Paul knew 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 own health 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, he 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
May 12, 2026
“Yea, though 1 walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me …” (Psalm 23:4)
The most important relationship we have is our relationship with God. One of the greatest descriptions of a relationship we can have with God is given by David in his Shepherd Psalm. After explaining how this relationship is established, David tells us how it works as God leads us through the dark valleys of our lives.
David tells us that God is with him, God goes before him and prepares a table of provision for him in the presence of all his enemies. He tells us that God is like a cup running over within him, and God is like oil being poured upon him.
He ends his psalm by telling us that God’s goodness and mercy will follow him all the days of his life. This Hebrew word for follow here could be translated as the word “pursue.” So, David is actually telling us that God not only goes before him but pursues him with divine mercy (unconditional love) and goodness all the days of his life.
By application, this means that when you are going through deep dark valleys you can believe that God is with you, God goes before you, God pursues behind you, God will provide for you in the presence of your enemies, or problems. God is within you, and God’s anointing is upon you as long as you say with authentic faith, “The Lord Is My Shepherd.”
Dick Woodward, 14 May 2010
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Posted by Dick Woodward
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