The Me First Faith Club

April 28, 2026

“Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.”  (1Timothy 4:16)

Although it sounds contrary to what we have been taught, the Apostle Paul wrote to his son in the faith, Timothy, that there are times when we should join the Me First Faith Club. When you find something great in the Scriptures, how many times is your first thought the person who simply must hear this truth?

In this prescription for spiritual growth Paul writes that Timothy should place the Scripture on his life and then hold his life up to Scripture. Paul promises Timothy that if he continuously does this as a spiritual discipline, he will experience salvation and then lead others to salvation.

There are at least three times when committed disciples should put ourselves in first place: when we are judging, when there is sin to confess, and when it comes to our spiritual needs. Many disciples become casualties because they neglect these priorities.

There is a sense in which if we first do not let God save us, we cannot save anybody else. When oxygen masks appear on a commercial air flight, mothers are instructed to place their masks on first and then put their babies’ masks on.

If you are a spiritual leader don’t apply Scripture to others that you have not first applied to yourself. Think of the priorities being taught here as concentric circles. You are the innermost circle. The other circles represent those with whom you share God’s Word after you have joined the Me First Faith Club.

Let God save YOU, and then watch God save others.

Dick Woodward, 27 April 2013

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The Word of God & God’s Purpose

May 26, 2015

“My Word… will achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

In a marvelous chapter taken from the prophesy of the one called “The prince of the prophets,” Isaiah tells us why he preached the Word of God.  Earlier in this chapter he proclaimed that there is as much difference between the way we think and act and how God thinks and acts as the heavens are high above the earth.  He tells us he preached the Word of God because God’s Word can bring about an alignment between the way God thinks and acts and the way people think and act.

There is a strong emphasis in Scriptures on the importance of our will being in alignment with the will of God.  Jesus made his greatest prayer when He sweat drops of blood and prayed, “Not My will but Your will be done.” He taught His disciples and us to pray, “Your will be done in earth (or in their earthen vessels), as it is in heaven.”

The Word of God frequently describes the struggle between God and men like Moses, Job, Jonah, and many others who finally submit their will to the will of God  – and the will of God is done in and through them on earth as it is in heaven.  When God declares through Isaiah that His Word will not return to Him without accomplishing the purpose for which He sent it, I am convinced that this is the purpose God had in mind.

When you read, study and hear the Word of God proclaimed, will you let God accomplish this purpose for the Word of God?  Will you let the Word of God bring about an alignment between your will and the will of God?

Dick Woodward, 28 September 2010

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A Prescription for Learning the Word of God

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.

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