Psalm 23: Saying “baa!” to God

February 18, 2020

 “The Lord is my Shepherd…”  (Psalm 23:1)

Can you declare the first five words of this great Shepherd Psalm as a personal confession of faith? Can you personally confess with authentic faith, “the Lord is my Shepherd?”

People often touch me as they describe the way the Lord came into their lives, made them lie down and say, “baa!” I am frequently concerned, however, when I don’t hear how that relationship is working in their lives today.

One of David’s most remarkable declarations in this psalm is that the blessings provided by his Shepherd-God are in place ‘all the days of my life.’ Be sure to make the observation that David’s great profession of faith is not, “The Lord was my Shepherd,” but “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

When we confess that God is our Shepherd, we are also confessing that we are God’s sheep.  Sheep are so ignorant they are completely helpless and hopeless without their shepherd. Yet, the Word of God clearly tells us God wants us to agree with this appraisal and confess, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6)

Many years ago I was out of bed at an early hour. When my wife Ginny woke up, she asked why I was getting up at 4:30a.m. I told her what I had read during my devotions: “When you wake up, get up, and when you get up, do something for God and for His lambs.”

She responded, “baa! baa!” Ginny was reminding me of something busy pastors often forget – that she and our five children are also God’s lambs.

Psalm 23 is filled with sheep talk that God wants to hear every one of us say, “baa!”

Dick Woodward, from Psalm 23 Sheep Talk

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Indestructible #LOVE

February 14, 2020

“Love never fails.” (I Corinthians 13:8)

Human love is often based on performance. When we apply the love of Christ, our love is not based on the performance of those we love. That is what makes this love indestructible.

The love of Jesus Christ is a tough, indestructible love because it is unconditional.

In wedding ceremonies, many couples make the unconditional vow: “…for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part.” The living Christ, empowering the love Paul prescribes in 1 Corinthians 13, is the dynamic that makes that possible.

We can also make the application that these ways of love are irresistible, because they are inspirational. Peter, ultimately, could not resist the positive reinforcement of Jesus calling him a rock. I personally could not resist when my mentors prayed, imagined, dreamed, hoped and believed in my ultimate potential.

If you ask Christ to make your life a conduit of His love to your spouse, children, and those who are difficult to love – you may make the joyful discovery that they will ultimately find the love of Christ to be irresistible and inspirational. They will begin to believe what you pray, imagine, dream, hope and believe about and for them.

For 28 years, I have experienced the gradual, but relentless onset of paralysis, which has reduced me to a helpless, bedfast quadriplegic. During that time I have learned much about the love of Christ from my wife, who is the most selfless, others-centered person I have ever known. In all these years she has never taken a day, weekend or vacation from her care of me. There are very few people in this world who know as well as I do what it means to be the recipient of the unconditional and indestructible love of Christ.

Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Love

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#Faith and (Abounding) #Grace

February 7, 2020

“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 God calls and leads us to do. 2 Corinthians 9:8 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, 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 God leads us to do, 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 it there was an eloquent pause before he said, “Sometimes you cannot help but allow the thought that God oversold grace in the New Testament.” He then preached a powerful message challenging us to believe God has not oversold His grace but that we need to learn how to access His grace.

The hymn writer wrote, “The favor God shows and the joy He bestows are for those who will trust and obey…”

That is a good place to start.

Dick Woodward, 10 February 2012

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God’s #Mercy & Unconditional #Love

February 4, 2020

“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

The reality that God loves us unconditionally is often described in the Bible by one word: “mercy.” This word is found 366 times in the Bible. That’s one for every day of the year – and even leap year – because God knows we need His mercy every day. 280 of these references to God’s mercy are found in the Old Testament.

My favorite is the last verse of the 23rd Psalm where David wrote: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Hebrew scholars tell us that the word “follow” can be translated as “pursue.” This means that David believed the unconditional love of God pursued him all the days of his life.

What a dynamic truth. God not only loves us unconditionally, He pursues us with His unconditional love all the days of our lives.

Does that mean our Heavenly Father loves us when He is cutting us back or chastening us? Absolutely! The author of the book of Hebrews tells us that if God did not chasten us we would be like illegitimate children and not His sons and daughters.

Chastening confirms the reality that God loves us.

When we are experiencing one of those cutbacks, rather than thinking that God does not love us anymore – the opposite is true.

God is pursuing us with His unconditional love.

Dick Woodward, 06 February 2009

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Patience: Faith-Waiting & Love-Waiting

January 17, 2020

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances may be.” (Philippians 4:11)

Paul includes patience as part of his prescription for peace. Throughout the history of the church, patience has been considered a great virtue by spiritual heavyweights like Augustine, Thomas à Kempis and Francis of Assisi. Why is patience such an important virtue? For starters, patience is one of the nine fruit of the Holy Spirit profiled in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Throughout the Bible we are continuously exhorted to “wait on the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14) In our relationship with God we might call patience faith-waiting. Nothing will test and grow our faith like waiting on the Lord. When we are praying for something and receiving no answer, God may be teaching us that there are times when faith waits.

In our relationships with people, patience can be called love-waiting. I had no idea how selfish I am until I got married. I had no idea how impatient I am until I became a father waiting for teenage children to grow up. I find the Lord wants to grow two dimensions of patience in us: vertical patience, by teaching us to have a faith that waits on God, and horizontal patience, by teaching us that in relationships, love waits. Love is the primary virtue through which the Holy Spirit wants to express the life of God through us.

While impatience is a peace thief, vertical and horizontal patience are supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit that give us the grace to accept the things we cannot control. Patience is the virtue God plants and grows in our lives while teaching us to wait on God and trust God to do what only God can do about the things we cannot control.

Dick Woodward, from A Prescription for Peace

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#FAITH: A Bull’s Eye Focus

January 10, 2020

“But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me…” (Philippians 3:13-14)

Picture your priorities as a target with a bull’s eye surrounded by a dozen circles. As you think and pray about your priorities, what is the bull’s eye of your priority target? Once you have determined that, how would you label the dozen circles that surround your bull’s eye?

Great men of God like the Apostle Paul could reduce their priorities down to one thing. Paul’s one thing was to forget what is behind and strain forward to win the prize at the end of the race.

That prize was what God was calling him to do.

Can we reduce the forty eleven things that are spreading us thin down to one thing? If we do so, what would that one thing be? Sometimes there is great wisdom in forgetting the things that are behind. Then there are times when there is even greater wisdom in determining our one thing type of goal for the future.

How do we do that?

One way is to consider what we might call “eternal values.”  None of the things we are going to leave behind when God calls us home are worth living for while we are here. Jesus told us: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)

Will knowing God be an eternally focused bull’s eye for our priority target this year? Think of how that priority will dramatically affect the dozen circles that surround it when our lives become expressions of the love of God and the risen living Christ.

Dick Woodward, 13 January 2012

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Are You Ready for a New Thing?

December 31, 2019

“Then He brought us out that He might bring us in…”  (Deuteronomy 6:23)

Are you ready for a new thing? God often wants to do a new thing in our lives but He has three challenges.

Often when God wants to bring us out of the old and into a new place He cannot get us out of the old because we are insecure and want to hold on to the old place. God then has to blast us out of the old. That’s why a call of God is often made up of a pull from the front and a boot from the rear.

God’s second challenge is that He has to pull us through the transition between the old place and the new. Transitions can last for years and they can be very painful, but God promises He can pull us through the worst of them.

God’s third challenge is to get us right so He can settle us into the new place. We should no more resist that work of God than a baby should resist being born and coming out into life.

Don’t give God a hard time when God wants to do a new thing in your life. If we trust God’s character we should cooperate with God when God wants to make changes and do new things in us and for us. A rut is a grave with both ends knocked out. Our loving Heavenly Father does not want to see His children in the living death of a rut.

Instead of giving God a hard time, make it easy for Him as He brings you out of the old place and leads you into the new places He has for you in the New Year.

Dick Woodward, 28 December 2012

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A CHRISTMAS THAT IS…

December 24, 2019

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20)

The risen living Christ sends a letter to a Church in Laodicea, as recorded in Chapter Three of the Revelation. The church has been reading that letter for 2000 years. The risen Christ wishes they were hot, but if they are not going to get hot He would rather they be cold. Because they are neither cold, nor hot, but lukewarm – they make Him want to throw up!

The risen Christ then tells them how to have a Christmas that is and can be all day long, every day of the year. It is as if their life is a house and their heart is the door to that house. He is knocking on that door. He is patiently waiting for them to open that door and invite Him into all the meaningful areas of their life.

Verse 19 makes it clear that His knocking is chastisement which He wants to grow into repentance. His inspired metaphor illustrates repentance. It would seem there is no latch on the outside of the door.

The door must be opened from the inside.

Martin Luther wrote a Christmas carol that uses a similar metaphor: “Holy Jesus, precious Child make Thee a bed soft, undefiled, within my heart that it may be a quiet chamber kept for Thee.”

In our church on Christmas Eve children sing: “Christmas isn’t Christmas till it happens in your heart.  Somewhere deep inside you that’s where Christmas really starts. So give your heart to Jesus. You’ll discover when you do, that it’s Christmas, really Christmas for you!”

 Dick Woodward, 24 December 2010

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A Christmas Question: Where is He?

December 6, 2019

“… Behold, wise men …came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is He? …” (Matthew 2:2)

In the Old Testament God begins a dialogue with us by asking the question “Where are you?” The New Testament begins with wise men asking the question “Where is He?”

As we read the Old Testament, God will show us where we truly are. By the time we reach the New Testament we are ready for the question of the wise men because by then we know that we need a Savior – and we want to know where our Savior is.

Wise men and women still ask the question, “Where is He?”

The Gospel of Matthew reports that those wise men were directed to a house where they found and worshiped the young Christ Child about two years of age. By application, when we ask that question today, what are the answers we should expect to receive?

In the profound letter of the Apostle John that is found at the end of the New Testament we find these words: “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2) These three words “as He is” raise the question: in what forms and in what ways can we expect to find Jesus today?

If you ask the question “Where is He?” today, I suggest that you look where a unique quality of Christ’s Love can be found. Look for where a unique quality of Christ’s Light and Truth can be found. Look where an abundant and rich quality of Life is being experienced.

If you want to know where Jesus is, look where the Light is.

Then become a conduit of that Light.

Dick Woodward, 07 December 2010

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Dois Rosser: An Extraordinary Man of Faith

December 2, 2019

“…Well done, good and faithful servant…” Matthew 25:23

On 12 November the world lost a valiant man of faith, but Heaven gained a steadfast soul. As Dois Rosser went to be with Jesus, he joins his precious wife, Shirley, along with his long-time friend and partner in ministry, Pastor Dick Woodward.

Extraordinary is a word that describes Dois Rosser. He humbly called himself “a car salesman.” That’s the ‘ordinary’ part of Dois, although he ran one of the most successful car dealerships in the country and hobnobbed with business luminaries like Lee Iacocca.

The ‘extra’ in extraordinary depicts his incredible devotion to Jesus Christ and His commandment, “Go and make disciples.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

While leading his booming businesses in the 1960s and 1970s, Dois also served on the Boards of Trans World Radio, Prison Fellowship, Leighton Ford Ministries and was involved with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism.

Extraordinary is the way Dois offered up his everything for the Kingdom, especially at the age of 65 (when most businessmen contemplate playing golf fulltime) he founded International Cooperating Ministries (ICM) in 1986.

Extraordinary describes his friendship with Dick Woodward that continues to yield miraculous fruit for the Kingdom today. Dick had a vision to make the “whole Word available for the whole world” through the Mini Bible College, an Old and New Testament survey course designed to make Scripture applicable in our daily lives.

Dois was mesmerized with how Dick’s MBC teachings put the Bible “on a shelf of understanding accessible to all.” He made Dick’s vision a reality with strategic efforts undergirded by prayer. After recording the MBC in the early 1980s before Dick’s neurological disease constricted him to a wheelchair, Dois sponsored broadcasts and translations of the MBC.

At Dick’s memorial celebration in 2014, Dois said that God intersected his life with Dick’s and blessed their friendship into a miracle: the ministry of ICM (assisting church growth worldwide) and MBC (nurturing believers with practical discipleship tools.)

To date ICM has constructed 8,700 churches in 93 countries with indigenous ministry partners, while MBC has been translated in 56 languages and shared with millions around the world.

Dois was also an extraordinary conduit of God’s love. He spread the love of Jesus in ways that mattered, often anonymously.

He loved his precious wife, Shirley, for 76 years of marriage before she passed on September 29th. He loved his daughters – Pam, Cindy, and Janice – and their families.

Dois also shared the love of Jesus as a great friend and brother in Christ. Before Dick’s quadriplegia, Dois organized speaking opportunities for him around the country with Prison Fellowship and other organizations. Dois and Shirley and Dick and Ginny enjoyed sweet fellowship on many of those trips.

When doctors said Dick would need a wheelchair, Dois organized a group of friends to build a one-story house especially equipped for Dick’s health challenges. When Dick needed an expensive van for his wheelchair to get around, Dois helped. When Dick became a homebound bedfast quadriplegic, Dois brought countless visitors to Williamsburg to see him there.

When not scheduled to visit, Dois called regularly to check in, “How’s it going, Dick?”

Dois Rosser leaves a legacy of extraordinary love, faithfulness and friendship. He will be missed!

Dick, Dois, and his daughter, Janice Allen (CEO of ICM)

Our hearts, prayers and love are with his daughters – Pam Minter, Cindy Higgins, Janice Allen – and the extended Rosser family at this time along with everyone at ICM.

A Memorial Celebration of Dois Rosser’s life and ministry will be held on Sunday, December 8th at 3:00PM at the Williamsburg Community Chapel (3899 John Tyler Hwy) in Williamsburg, Virginia.

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