Oneness

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

Still Waters

April 20, 2012

“He leads me beside the still waters.”  (Psalm 23:2)

Most people associate the still waters of David’s Shepherd Psalm with peace.  However, if you do some research you will find that when a sheep drinks from a stream of water that stream must be as flat and still as a mirror or the water will go up the snout of the sheep.  The authentic application of this metaphor is therefore that the still waters mean our great Shepherd leads us to the places just suited for us.

In 1979 I resigned from a large church and accepted a call to a small church that had just begun.  After being in the small church for a year I went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota because of weird symptoms I was experiencing.  After nearly a month of studies, the doctor who directed my program misread my file.  Thinking I was still in the large church, when he gave me the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis he told me I needed to go to a small church in a small town.    I told him that I had already been in a small church for a year.  I was to learn to be fulfilled with doing less and doing it better.

As my symptoms persisted and I was confined to a wheelchair a group of men helped me build a house that accommodated my physical challenges.  One of them made a stained glass window with two words on it.  Near the entrance for 26 years those two words have been “Still Waters.” Those two words are not just a label for my home but also my ministry – in this location I have accomplished the most fruitful work of my life.

Can you write those two words across what God is doing in your life right now?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

The Original Talk Show

March 30, 2012

“… the just shall live by his faith.”   (Habakkuk 2:4)

 The prophet Habakkuk lived in one of the most difficult times in Hebrew history.  God gave him a prophetic message to preach when the Babylonians were about to conquer God’s people.  The watchtowers were manned with soldiers who were listening for the dreadful sounds of the Babylonian army.  This little prophet had witnessed the terrible ways the great Prophet Jeremiah was treated when he preached his message.  Being a simple choir director he could only imagine how he would be treated if he assumed the role of a prophet.

He therefore came up with a very clever literary form.  He proclaimed that he was going to build a spiritual watchtower and ask God all the difficult questions that were on their hearts at that time.  Questions like, “Why will you use a people more sinful than we are to chasten us?” He told them that when he heard from God he would tell them what God said in answer to these and other questions.  His literary form was like a talk show in which he was the host and God was the Guest being interviewed.

God’s answer was that the wickedness of the Babylonian would be their undoing, but the just would live by their faith.  Originally this meant faith in the prophecy of Jeremiah that they would return from the Babylonian captivity.  By application these seven words, which are quoted three times in the New Testament, were used to inspire the great protestant reformation.

People say God does not speak today as He did then.  The truth is we do not listen for God as this prophet did.  Do you have a spiritual watchtower? Do you listen for God and expect to hear from Him?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

A Model Prayer

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

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