Putting God First

May 6, 2016

“…but you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will come to you as a matter of course.” (Matthew 6:33, J. B. Phillips)

The message of the entire Bible can be summed up in two words: “God First.” That is not easy.  In fact, that is impossible without the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).  This concept is not complicated, but we complicate it because we do not want to put God first.  However, over and over again in the Scripture the bottom-line truth in a Psalm, in the life of a Bible character, in a parable, a metaphor, and a teaching of Jesus will come down to this simple concept: “God First.”

I was blessed with a godly mother.  She often said to me: “If Jesus Christ is anything to you, then Jesus Christ is everything to you.  Because until Jesus Christ is everything to you, Dick, He isn’t really anything to you.” As I have carefully studied the values of Jesus Christ, I have realized that my mother had the support of the Lord when she brought my profession of faith to a verdict the way she did.

Matthew 6:33 is the conclusion of a study Jesus gave regarding values. He taught that our heart is where our treasures are. He challenged us with questions like: “Where is your heart? What are your treasures? What is your life? What is your body?” and “Who is your master?”

Think of a target with a bulls-eye surrounded by ten or twelve circles.  According to Jesus, the bulls-eye of our priority target should be that our first value is God.  We are to put Him first.  If we do that we have the promise of Jesus that God will bless us with everything we need.

Are you putting God first?

Dick Woodward, 09 November 2010

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Joy, Peace and Optional Misery

April 8, 2016

“Delight yourselves in the Lord; yes, find your joy in him at all times.” (Philippians 4:4)

“While pain and suffering are inevitable, misery is optional.” Those were the words of Tim Hansel, a man who lived every day with excruciating pain (in his book You Gotta Keep Dancin’.)  How could misery be optional for someone in agonizing pain? And how do we explain Apostle Paul mentioning joy seventeen times in the short letter he wrote from prison to his favorite church?

Paul explains that for those who are experiencing a relationship with the risen, living Christ there is a peace and joy that is not controlled by circumstances. What Paul experienced could be called, “peace that doesn’t make good sense” and “joy that doesn’t make good sense.” According to Paul, the foundation of that peace and joy is the Lord Jesus Himself. He therefore prescribed that we are to delight ourselves in the Lord and then find our peace and joy in Him at all times.

What is the foundation for your peace and joy? If your foundation is the relationship with a loved one, do you realize there is no relationship with people here in this life that cannot be removed? If that foundation is your health, your youth or your athleticism, many thousands of people, who had those foundations before age, an illness, or an injury destroyed them, will join me in warning you that they are very fragile foundations for the peace and happiness Paul is prescribing.

In the Gospel of John 17:3 we’re told: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  Jesus identified and declared the right foundation for us as knowing God and Jesus Christ Whom God sent into this world.

What is the foundation for your peace? your joy?

Dick Woodward, 23 June 2009

Editor’s Note: To learn more about Tim Hansel, who was a great inspiration to Dick Woodward, check out this blog written at Dick’s request by Clark Morledge over at Veracity.com.  Click here to read it: Joy: Tim Hansel

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Asking ‘Why?’ vs. Saying ‘Oh!’

March 18, 2016

When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3)

A word we use often in this life is, “Why?” And the word I think we will use most in the next is, “Oh!”  The Providence of God is like a Hebrew word: we have to read it backwards.  By the Providence of God I mean that God is in charge and the events of our lives have meaning.  Sometimes it is as if we are on the inside of a woven basket.  All the threads that come up on the inside of the basket represent the way we see the things that happen to us, which seem to have no meaning and pattern at all.  If we could just get out of that basket, on the outside we would see beautifully woven patterns.

Job is the biblical example of a man who tried to sort out, by looking inside the basket, what appeared to be the tragic meaninglessness of his life.  It was not until he looked up and saw all his tragic circumstances from God’s perspective that he was moved from asking, “Why?” to exclaiming, “Oh!” (Job 35: 1-7; 40-42)

In Psalm 11:3 the Psalmist asked a question: “If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?” The NIV version of the Bible has a footnote that suggests this alternate reading: “When the foundations of your life are breaking up, what is the Righteous One doing?”

My wife and I have made that question a knee jerk reaction to the events of our lives as they happen.  As a result, although we’re not on the other side yet we are already saying, “Oh!”

Will you confront the challenges you encounter daily with that same question?

Dick Woodward, 25 August 2012

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Look and Live

February 26, 2016

“… Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.” (Numbers 21:9)

When the children of Israel complained and griped about Moses, God showed how He felt about the gripers.  He sent snakes to bite them.  (Some pastors may wish they could do the same.) Then God in His mercy directed Moses to erect a pole at the center of the camp with a bronze serpent on top of it.  The good news was proclaimed: if any of the snake-bitten gripers would get to the center of the camp and look at the bronze serpent they would be healed of their snakebites.

Some of them said that defied all the laws of medical science and they died of their snakebites.  Others said it didn’t make sense but it was the only hope they had.  With help they somehow got to the center of the camp and looked at the bronze serpent on the pole.  When they looked, they were healed and lived!

This story takes on much greater meaning when Jesus makes His most dogmatic declaration: He is God’s only Son, God’s only Solution and God’s only Savior (John 3:1-21).  As He told a Rabbi named Nicodemus about Moses lifting that serpent in the wilderness, it is a picture of something in the future.  If we will look to Jesus on His cross with faith we will be healed of our sin problem.

Jesus made it simple.  Just look and live.  When you want to solve problems that demand a supernatural solution, look and live.  Have you ever done that?  Why not do it now?

Dick Woodward, 10 December 2013

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A Go-To Prayer for Stormy Weather

January 22, 2016

“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 only remember that he took his eyes off the Lord and would have drowned if the Lord had not saved him.

We read that Peter’s magnificent faith was flawed.  He saw the wind.  Since we cannot see wind this actually means that when he saw what the wind was doing, he lost sight of what Jesus was doing and became 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 Peter cried out this prayer: “Lord, save me!”  Two thousand years later, this remains a go-to prayer for us through the many storms of life.  Jesus taught that our prayers should not be long and we should never think we will generate grace with God by our many words.  If Peter had prayed a longer prayer, additional words would have been glub, glub glub (as he sunk under water!)  When Jesus caught Peter by the hand He gave him the nickname, “Little Faith.” (I believe our Lord was smiling when He did.) He literally asked Peter: “Why did you think twice?”

While very ill the past two weeks many people have been recruited to pray for me.  Yesterday it occurred to me that I had not prayed for myself.  I then fervently pleaded this prayer that the Lord always answers:  Lord, save me!

In your spiritual walk, don’t think twice and don’t be a “Little Faith.”  Instead, learn to plead this prayer…and soon you will find your way through the stormy waves of life walking on water.

Dick Woodward, 28 January 2014

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Learn To Wait On The Lord

November 10, 2015

“Then he blessed him there.”  (Genesis 32:29)

It takes more faith to wait than it takes to be active.  God’s guidance prescription for what we call Type A personalities like Jacob is to wait on the Lord.  Jacob was missing God’s will for his life because he was always running ahead of God.  He was a make-it-happen, mover, shaker and doer kind of person.  Read the story of Jacob in Genesis, chapters 25 through 32, and Paul’s commentary on that story in chapter 9 of Romans.  As you read how God crippled Jacob so He could crown him with His will for Jacob’s life, you will see what I call, “The Cripple Crown Blessing of Jacob.” When a man is crippled what else can he do but wait on the Lord?

Sometimes on our journeys of faith, God puts us in a holding pattern.  We are like commercial airplanes when they are directed by the control tower to circle the field while waiting their turn to land.  In the book of Psalms, the word Selah is found in 73 places.  The Amplified Bible’s paraphrase for Selah is: “Pause, and calmly think of that.”

As He leads us God frequently places Selahs in our lives. Sometimes what God does in our lives while we’re waiting can be more important than what we’re waiting for.  He may want us to pause and calmly think about our priorities, our vision statement and mission objectives and other issues as we experience His will for our lives.  When you encounter one of the Lord’s Selahs and find yourself in one of His holding patterns, ask yourself what God wants you to pause and calmly think about.  And, never put a question mark where God places a period in your walk of faith.

Dick Woodward, 10 June 2013

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When We don’t know What to Do??

October 17, 2015

We do not know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.”  (2Chronicles 20:12 NLT)

Have you ever faced problems that confronted you with the intolerable, the undeniable, the unthinkable and the impossible?  Throughout Hebrew and church history the people of God have often been confronted with these overwhelming realities.  Scripture supports the thought that God sometimes not only permits but creates these circumstances (Isaiah 45: 7).  According to Isaiah He does this because He wants us to learn that He is our only hope and our only help as we live for Him in this world.

The Word of God teaches that God is our Mentor and He does His most effective mentoring when we are coping with calamities and trials of every possible description.  The confession quoted above is proclaiming that the people of God have two problems.  They do not know what to do and they do not have the power to do it when they know it.

Scripture tells us God will give us all the wisdom we need when we confess that we do not know what to do (James 1:5).  And Scripture teaches that God will give us the power to do what He wants us to do because He is God and He always completes what He begins in us (Philippians 1:6; 2:13).

There are times when it is wrong for us to put God to the test.  Then there are times when God invites us to prove Him.  God wants to give us the gift of faith.  He also wants to give us immeasurable degrees of the grace to overcome the greatest possible obstacles.  That’s why He sometimes permits calamities or trials that force us to access His all sufficient grace.

Dick Woodward, 18 September 2013

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Do Right (& sleep @ night!)

October 9, 2015

“Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, ‘Who will show us any good?’”  (Psalm 4:5)

David cannot sleep.  He is uptight and anxious.  From the context of the psalm we know he cannot sleep because he is under great stress.  He decides to meditate within his own heart and be still.  (He has a little “board meeting” with himself in the middle of the night).  If he does the right thing, he believes he cannot survive.  He is therefore thinking about doing the expedient thing.  But since he is a man of great spiritual integrity he finds himself awake and uptight.

As a result of his meditation he resolves his dilemma.  He makes the decision that he is going to make whatever sacrifices he has to make to do what is right and then trust the Lord for his survival.  He knows there are many people who are looking for someone who will do what is right even though it costs them everything to do right.

Have you ever found yourself awake, uptight and stressed out in the middle of the night because you are in a crisis?  If you do what you believe God wants you to do, you don’t see how you can survive.  But your spiritual integrity won’t let you sleep if you don’t do what you believe God wants you to do.  David models here a prescription for resolving that kind of dilemma.

His prescription is simply to do right.  Whatever it costs you, do right and trust God for the consequences.  Many people will be blessed, God will be glorified, you will have great peace, and get some sleep.

Dick Woodward, 02 March 2012

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Distress-driven Balm from the Psalms

August 28, 2015

“Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.”  (Psalm 4:1 KJV)

One of my favorite Scripture verses is the first verse of Psalm 4 in the old King James translation. David is in a wringer and he is talking to God about it. Almost parenthetically he drops this thought, “You have enlarged me when I was in distress.”  As I reflect upon my wringer years of disability, and I think of the growth I have experienced while in the wringer, that little phrase says it for me. Truly God has grown me in my time of distress.  In His providence, I believe God always has that agenda when He is growing His children…

As I mentioned on the phone, Psalm 46 is a great psalm that applies to servants of the Lord when they are living on the edge and the whole world seems to be coming unraveled like a cheap sweater. An NASB footnote says the opening verse could be interpreted this way, “God is my refuge and strength.  He is abundantly available for help in tight places.” This psalm inspired Martin Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” It can be applied devotionally to believers who live in contexts like where you are.  The Living Bible paraphrases the Psalm, “Even if the earth blows up and the mountains are thrown into the sea, the believer can say, “the Lord of hosts is with me, the God of Jacob is my fortress.”  The punchline comes when the Psalmist instructs the believer in the midst of chaos to, “Be still and know that I am… and that I will be.”

I hope you have a chance to check out Psalm 143.  As I meditate on this one, having memorized it, the Lord brings you to mind.  David cries to God, “Answer me speedily because my spirit fails. Cause me to hear Your loving kindness in the morning.  Cause me to know the way in which I should walk.” I like the last part when he prays, “Revive me.”  The old King James reads “quicken me.”  That word, quicken, means something like, “touch me to life – give me a touch from You that will spring to life the work of the Spirit in my heart and life.”

… Well, as your ‘ole daddy and pastor I just wanted to unload some of these Scriptures that mean so much to me.  You may be down in the well, but we are holding the ropes. Recently I heard somebody say, “When saying goodbye to a fellow soldier of Christ, we should never say, ‘take it easy.’ We should say, ‘Hang tough, and fight the good fight.'”

Gobs and gobs of agape….

Dick Woodward, 01 April 1997 (fax to his overseas daughter)

Editor’s Note: Found this fax while sorting dusty boxes this week. Although much longer (many more Psalms, all typed out!) thought it might bless someone out there like it did Papa’s kid, again, after 18 years.  Kinda long, but since The Editor has averaged only 1 post per week the last 2 months, this can make up for two.   Bi-weekly posting grooves will hopefully be back on track soon.

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A Recipe To Rest

June 9, 2015

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  (Matthew 11: 28-30)

Jesus loves to give invitations.  He addresses this one to people who are loaded with problems and working themselves to exhaustion trying to solve them.  Jesus promises that if we come to Him He will give us rest.  If you look closely at this invitation, He is inviting us to come to Him and learn about His heart, His burden and His yoke.  What we learn there will lead us to this rest.

Jesus wants burdened people to learn that His burden is light, His heart is humble and His yoke is easy.  There is a sense in which Jesus had the weight of the world on His shoulders and yet He claimed that His burden was light.  His burden was light because He let the Father carry the load.

The most important part of His recipe for rest is what Jesus wants us to learn about His yoke.  A yoke is not a burden — it’s an instrument that makes it possible to bear a burden.  When a cart is piled high with cargo the yoke makes it possible for an ox to pull a great load with ease.  It is the yoke of Jesus that shows us how to pull our heavy burdens of life.

The yoke of Jesus was that He let His Father carry the burdens.  We take His yoke upon us when we let the Holy Spirit carry the load.

Dick Woodward, 05 November 2013

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