July 31, 2012
“I am the vine, you are the branches.” (John 15:5)
The apostles had been in awe of the profound words and miraculous works of Jesus. In their last retreat with Him, Jesus essentially said that the key to His preaching, teaching, and supernatural ministry is that He and the Father are one. The Word of the Father was spoken on earth and the work of the Father was accomplished on earth through Him because He is one with the Father. He then taught them that after His death and resurrection, if they would be at one with Him His Word would be spoken and His work would be done on earth through them.
While they were in a garden, He pulled down a vine, which had many branches loaded with fruit, and said: “I am the Vine and you are the branches.” In this metaphor the fruit does not grow on the vine. The fruit grows out on the branches because they are properly aligned with the Vine. The branches can bear no fruit without the Vine and the Vine can bear no fruit without the branches. If the Vine, Jesus, wants to see fruit produced, He must pass His life-giving power through the branches, the apostles.
Jesus wants to see this fruit produced far more than the apostles want to be fruitful. By this inspired metaphor, He was actually teaching two propositions: “Without Me, you can do nothing” and, “Without you, I will do nothing.”
It is the plan of God to use the power of God in the people of God to accomplish the purposes of God according to the plan of God. Jesus is a Vine looking for branches.
Are you willing to be one of His branches?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
July 20, 2012
“… that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)
These words are taken from one of the great sermons Moses preached after the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt just before they invaded the land of Canaan. They had wandered in a terrible wilderness for 40 years in which they suffered every imaginable hardship. In this sermon God tells them through Moses that He was using all that suffering to make them know every word that He has ever spoken.
By devotional and personal application we can realize that this is one of the ways we learn the Word of God today. God is our Mentor and He does His most effective mentoring when we are in difficult places. While facing crises and challenges that overwhelm us God makes us know His Word. Every adversity God permits or directs into our lives is redemptive and is an opportunity for us to let God make us know His Word.
God is fiercely committed to the proposition that we are going to grow spiritually into perfection or completeness and maturity. The first chapter of the letter of James informs us that God’s trials should not be treated like intruders but welcomed as friends because they are sent from God. He does this because He wants us to be perfect or complete and lacking nothing. Jesus told us to be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
So when those tough times come sit up and pay attention. God has come to the front of the classroom and He is about to teach us His Word.
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Deuteronomy 8:12, facing crises, faith, God's Word, Moses, religion, Scriptures, spirituality, Studying the Scriptures, The Bible, Word of God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
June 27, 2012
“Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy…” (Psalm 107: 1, 2)
Redemption means to get something back that has been lost. It is similar in meaning to the word “rehabilitation” which essentially means “to invest again with dignity.” I have quoted the first words of a marvelous hymn of redemption. A thought that is repeated at the end of each of the five stanzas in this psalm is that those who have been redeemed by the Lord should step up and say so – gratefully giving thanks for the various ways in which they have been redeemed.
Levels or dimensions of redemption are profiled and each description ends with the charge that we thank the Lord for His goodness in redeeming us in this way. God redeems us from our chaos when He finds us. He then redeems us from our chains when He sets us free from our sins.
This is followed by the way He redeems us from our foolish and sinful choices. He emphasizes our responsibility for bringing on the consequences of our sins.
He then describes the way God redeems us from our complacency by meeting us in our crises from which He redeems us when we are at our wits end and don’t know what to do. He agrees with Isaiah that God creates these crises (Isaiah 45:7).
Meditate on all these levels of redemption. Ask God to continuously redeem you in all these ways. As you reflect on each individual dimension of redemption step up and join the redeemed of the Lord in grateful worship.
And say so…
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Posted by Dick Woodward
June 20, 2012
“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” (1 Corinthians 4:2)
Paul declared that the greatest virtue of a servant of the Lord is faithfulness.
The story is told of a man who was told by God to push against a huge rock as his primary work for a lifetime. The man did that and exhausted, burned out and discouraged told the Lord that rock had not moved a centimeter. The Lord responded that He had not told the man to move the rock, but to push against it. He made the observation that pushing against the rock had given him a strong healthy and muscular body. God knew all along that only He could move that rock.
This leads to an acrostic based on the word push. It goes like this:
P- Pray
U– Until
S– Something
H– Happens
I am now living in by 82nd year of life. One of the observations I have made in my long life is that God is our Mentor. He is always teaching us and He is fiercely committed to the proposition that we are going to grow spiritually and in every other way. He deliberately assigns us tasks that are not only difficult but impossible knowing that those tasks will grow and mature us into a faithful servant He can use to do through us what only He can do in this world.
Another observation without which I could not function as a human being or especially as a pastor is what I call four spiritual secrets. They are that I’m not, I can’t, I don’t even want to but He is He can He wants to and He does.
So push and pray until He does work through you.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
May 4, 2012
“… your fellowship in the Gospel…” (Philippians 1:5)
When you read the first words of Paul’s letter to his favorite church they show you the passion of Paul and the heart of this church he loved. The bonds that made them so remarkably one in heart are expressed in the repetition of one word: “Gospel.” Paul writes that the things he has experienced have fallen out to the furtherance of the Gospel. And that he has them in his heart because in the defense and confirmation of the Gospel they all are partakers of God’s grace.
As Paul continues to repeat the word “Gospel” he expresses his heart’s passion when he describes what he calls “the faith of the Gospel.” He precedes that with the concept of behavior that becomes the Gospel. Paul is describing the purpose and function of a church when he calls their church “a fellowship of the Gospel.” The context in which the Gospel is to be believed is that fellowship of the Gospel.
Paul is in prison when he writes these words and he doesn’t know if he will be released. In verse 27 he writes his ideal for his ideal church. His great Gospel prescription is: “I want to hear that every member of your church is a Christian; every Christian is Christian and Christians are Christian together in a way that results in other people believing the Gospel!”
Paul’s plan for filling this prescription for his ideal spiritual community is to “Stand fast in one Spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the Gospel!” (1:27) That Church in Philippi is to act as if they have one mind among them because in fact because they do.
It is the mind of Christ.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
April 12, 2012
“Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.” (1 Corinthians 15: 49)
Have you ever watched a dragonfly move from one plant to another with its two sets of wings making it possible for it to hover like a helicopter? A dragonfly actually spends the first two years of its existence at the bottom of a large body of water. When that phase of its existence comes to an end, it rises to the surface of the water, climbs up on the bank and lets it wings dry in the sun. Then it spreads those magnificent wings and begins the second dimension of its existence when it becomes an aeronautical wonder.
Easter reminded us that like the dragonfly we are meant to live out our existence in two dimensions. If you did a cross-section of that under-water dragonfly you would see that it has two respiratory systems. It has one for living under water and one for breathing air in the second dimension of its life.
If you could do a spiritual cross-section on a born again believer you would find that we are also equipped with two systems. We have an outward man and an inward man. Our outward man is just a little clay pot in which our eternal inward man lives.
We are told in the great Resurrection Chapter (1 Corinthians 15), that we are given a body for living this life and we will be issued another body for living in the eternal state. According to Paul, that new body will be a spiritual body that will equip us for living throughout all eternity. I don’t know about you but as a bed fast quadriplegic I’m really looking forward to being issued that new body!
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Tagged: Easter, faith, Heaven, I Corinthians 15, Jesus Christ, religion, Resurrection, resurrection chapter, spiritual bodies, spirituality | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
March 27, 2012
“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.” (Luke 5: 37)
Here Jesus uses a metaphor that had probably been the experience of some of those who heard this teaching. Undoubtedly they had made the mistake of putting new wine, or unfermented wine, in an old brittle wineskin. They would hang that wineskin on the wall of their home to let the wine ferment. But one afternoon while they were taking a siesta there would be a loud popping sound and they would see wine running down the wall. They would immediately know they made the mistake Jesus was describing. The expanding fermenting wine burst the wineskin.
By this metaphor Jesus was teaching that His truth was like unfermented wine. When they took that truth into their mind, if they did not yield to the pressure of that truth and apply the teaching it would literally blow their mind!
We place such a high value today upon knowledge that many people think knowledge is virtue. However, it is the application of knowledge that leads to virtue and wisdom. Jesus taught in another place that it is when we do what He teaches that we will know His teaching is the Word of God (John and 7:17).
This is also a warning from Jesus. If we build up a reservoir of the truth Jesus taught that we never apply, that unapplied teaching can give us so much conflict it can make us sick. The greatest truth this world has ever heard came through Jesus. Resolve to do it before you know it. The application of the truth Jesus taught can convert you into a new wineskin.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 21, 2012
“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness…It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.” (Matthew 5:13 NIV/NLT)
When Jesus told His disciples that they were the salt of the earth there are several ways to interpret and apply this metaphor. We find a clue to my favorite interpretation when we realize that our word “salary” is made up of the two root words “salt money.”
Twenty centuries ago the Roman Empire wanted to control the population of the world. They knew that no human being can live without salt. So, they controlled the salt of the world. They actually paid their slaves in cubes of salt. This is where we get the expression that a person is not worth their salt.
This means Jesus was teaching that secular people do not have life. His disciples have life and they are the way the secular people of this world can find that life.
Years ago a missionary statesman said that when missionaries live in a compound in a foreign country with a fortress mentality they are like manure: they stink! It’s only when God spreads them around that they do a little good. Similarly, when the followers of Jesus meet together they are like salt in a saltshaker. The only way they can have a salt influence is to come out of that saltshaker.
One way our Lord brings us out of the saltshaker is that we must make a living. Be challenged by the reality that your workplace can be God’s way of placing you next to secular people who need life. Realize that you are not only there to make a living…
You are there because they need the salty impact of your life.
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Posted by Dick Woodward
March 18, 2012
“Lord, how they have increased who trouble me! Many are they who rise up against me. Many are they who say of me, ‘There is no help for him in God.’” (Psalm 3: 1, 2)
As David writes the Third Psalm he is facing the greatest crisis of his life. His son has turned the entire nation against him and has driven him out of Jerusalem into the wilderness where he hid from King Saul when he was a young fugitive. His situation is so desperate that many people said that even God could not help him. But in this psalm David explains how he knows God will be there for him; he is not having a panic attack so he gives us a prescription for one.
Observe the way David uses three tenses as he lays out his prescription that kept him from panicking. He recalls that in the past there were many times when he cried out to God and the Lord heard him. When he lay down to sleep not knowing if the enemy would slit his throat while he was sleeping, he awoke alive because the Lord sustained him. He then declared that he will not be afraid of the thousands of people who wanted to see him dead. He then declares in the present tense that God is with him and His present blessing is upon him.
When you are in crisis think back to times in the past when God met you and brought you through a crisis. Then let those past answered prayers inspire you to trust God for the present and the future crises in your life.
Look back. With faith, look forward. Then look around at your present circumstances, not with panic but with faith and peace.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: be not afraid, faith, Faith in Crisis, Faith in God, keeping the faith, King David, panic attacks, Peace of Jesus Christ, Psalm 3, religion, spirituality, trust god, Trust in God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
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