December 24, 2013
“There are three things that will last — faith, hope, and love…” (1Corinthians 13:13)
When Paul tells us there are three things that will endure, have you ever wondered why one of them is hope? The other two are love and faith: love will last because God is love, and faith is the way we know God. But why is hope one of the three?
Hope is the conviction that something good exists in this world and we are going to experience it. God plants hope in the hearts of people and it keeps them going. While studying psychology in college we analyzed the 25,000 suicides in 1952. Psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and sociologists determined that those people committed suicide because they lost hope. That same year a man committed suicide by jumping off the top of my dormitory which was located where Hope Street ended in front of the Los Angeles Public Library. The newspaper reported that he jumped to his death at the end of Hope Street. That accentuated what we learned in the classroom, big time!
Tonight is Christmas Eve. Millions of people will gather in families and extended families to celebrate, but many millions more will be alone. Pastors and those who work with people know that life is unspeakably sad and millions are hope-challenged because they have experienced nothing good.
In his famous carol Philips Brooks wrote that the hopes and fears of all the years were met in Bethlehem when Christ was born. God intersected human history that night but what the Bible calls the blessed hope of the church and the only hope for the world is that God is going to do that again when Christ returns.
Are you guilty of criminal negligence because you are not sharing that hope with hope-challenged people?
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Posted by Dick Woodward
December 14, 2013
“Whoever touches the body of anyone who has died… that person shall be cut off from Israel.” (Numbers 19:13)
In 1970 a medical doctor named S. I. McMillen wrote a book entitled None of These Diseases. In his book Dr. McMillen highlighted practices Moses mandated like quarantines and sterilization of medical instruments. As quoted above, if a person had contact with a dead body (and in other verses someone who was sick), they were considered unclean for seven days and quarantined from the rest of the population.
Dr. McMillen referenced the discovery of a low percentage of ovarian cancer at Mount Sinai hospital in New York City, which research traced to the fact that Jewish husbands were circumcised as mandated by Moses. This led to the common practice of circumcising male babies. At the end of each chapter this doctor raises the question: did Moses scoop medical science by thousands of years, or did he have a revelation from God as he claimed?
This should convince us that the Bible is in fact the Word of God. And it should inspire us to follow the wise counsels of the Bible ourselves and then share them with others. As a young pastor I was mentored by Dr. Henry Brandt, a Christian clinical psychologist. He encouraged me to use the wise counsels in the Bible as I helped those in my congregation who had many problems.
As I did I found the Bible to be filled with counseling for the problems people had with worry, stress, personal peace, prayer, guidance, love, marriage, the dynamic to cope and other issues. The best marriage counseling in the world is in the Bible.
Do you believe you can trust the counseling you find in the Bible?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Christian counseling, Dr. S.I. McMillen, faith, healing, Moses, None of these Diseases, S. I. McMillen, Studying the Scriptures, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
November 27, 2013
“There we saw the giants … and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight…” (Numbers 13: 33)
The book of Numbers records the death of an entire generation. Twelve spies were sent to do reconnaissance in the land of Canaan. Ten of the spies gave the report quoted above. Only two told how great the land was and exhorted the people to invade Canaan. While Joshua and Caleb were men of great faith, the other ten were experts in “Giantology.”
The entire generation who listened to the ten perished in the wilderness and only two people survived the most tragic judgment of God recorded in the Bible. An old spiritual put it this way: “Others saw the giants. Caleb (and Joshua) saw the Lord!” We read that they wholly followed the Lord because they believed Him well able to conquer those giants.
I have spent most of my adult life as a pastor. I cannot help but allow the thought that the twelve spies resemble a board of Elders, a Session, a Vestry, or a board of Stewards. Sometimes when a church is facing a huge challenge two will have the faith of Caleb and Joshua and ten will be giantologists.
We all have “giants” in our lives. As a bedfast quadriplegic with a wife in a wheelchair I certainly have mine. I’m sure you have yours. We also have choices. We can choose to see the giants and spend much time talking about how big they are. Or we can choose to see the Lord conquering our giants. We might call this “Two people in a pew — which one are you?”
Are you a Caleb with a conquering-the-giants faith, or are you getting your Ph.D. in Giantology?
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: Facing the Giants, faith, God's judgement, Joshua & Caleb, Numbers 13:33, Numbers 14, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
October 15, 2013
“… Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress…” (Psalm 4:1 KJV)
Just about every emotional challenge we experience today was faced by the psalmist many years ago. If we will observe what he did when he struggled, and receive from God the grace to respond as the hymn writer responded, we can often overcome our emotional challenges.
In Psalm 4 the psalmist faces the emotional challenge of distress. If you drop the first two letters, the word becomes stress. We all have stress. If we do not have stress we atrophy. I have not put stress on my legs for 30 years. Consequently, my legs are the size of your arms. “If you don’t use it you lose it” is the way the physical therapists describe atrophy.
Our loving Father God knows that what is true for our bodies is also true in our spiritual life. God is fiercely committed to the proposition that we are going to grow spiritually. If we have no spiritual stress we will experience spiritual atrophy. He therefore will not only permit, but direct into our lives any stress that will grow us as He gives us the grace to cope with that stress.
God tells us through the prophet Isaiah: “I create calamity” (Isaiah 45:7). Many of us can trust God for the good things that comfort and sustain us. But do we have the faith and the knowledge of God to see Him in the challenges that make the difference for us between spiritual growth and atrophy?
The Greek compound word hupomone, translated as “perseverance” in our English Bibles, literally means “to abide under.” To apply hupomone, we should ask God for the grace to abide under stress, grow spiritually, and not atrophy.
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: atrophy, emotional challenges, faith, hupomone, persevering faith, Psalm 4, stress, stress management, trusting Divine Providence, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
September 18, 2013
“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 permits and designs calamities or trials that force us to access His all sufficient grace.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: 2 Chronicles 20:12, effective mentoring, faith, Gift of Faith, God's grace, Grace, religion, spirituality, test of faith, testing God, theology, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
September 7, 2013
“My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct it to You, and I will look up.” (Psalm 5:3)
In one sentence in this beautiful psalm David twice emphasizes the reality that he will pray to his God in the morning. There are three directions of life we must master. We must learn to look up. We must learn to look in until our Lord shows us things we need to know about ourselves. Only then are we prepared to look around in all our relationships.
Anytime we are having difficulty in our relationships with spouses, children, parents or those who are outside the home we should always ask ourselves if we have looked up and looked in sincerely. Knowing ourselves as God wants us to know ourselves is crucial preparation for relating to others.
Smart people are very often right and so they sometimes think they are always right. It is very difficult to live with those who think they are always right. In the same way it is difficult to relate to those who think they never sin. When God helps us look in and see ourselves as He sees us it gives us a humility that is a tool we need to face our relationships.
What would you think of a concert violinist who plays a beautiful concerto solo and then instead of an encore comes out and tunes her violin? In the same way we should not play the concert of our day and then tune the instrument of our lives.
We should begin ‘in the morning’ tuning our lives through our prayers to God as the Psalmist directs us, so that we can look up, look in and then look around.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: christianity, daily prayer, faith, knowing god, morning quiet time, prayer, Psalm 5, relationships, religion, spirituality, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
July 19, 2013
“It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” (1 Corinthians 15:44)
Have you ever seen a dragonfly with its double wings moving like a helicopter from one flower to another? This amazing creature actually begins its life under water. For about two years it exists as a shellfish with a long narrow body like a knitting needle.
If you did a cross section on that shellfish you would find that it has two respiratory capacities. With one it can absorb oxygen from passing water through its body like other shellfish; however, it has another respiratory system that will one day breathe air.
When the two years of its underwater life have ended it rises to the surface of the water, moves to where land begins, dries its magnificent wings in the sun and then begins the second dimension of its existence.
The Apostle Paul writes that we are also designed to live our life in two dimensions and God has provided a body for us to live in each place. He has given us a body so we can live on earth and a body so we can live in heaven. Paul labels our earthly body “a natural body” and our heavenly body “a spiritual body.” He then identifies a third spiritual value: A spiritual body is a greater value than a natural body.
Since I have spent several decades trapped in a quadriplegic body I really resonate with Paul when he declares that a spiritual body is prepared for me. How I look forward to that spiritual body that will not have the limitations of my present body. With great joy I anticipate the spiritual body God has prepared and Christ has made possible for me.
Do you value your spiritual body?
3 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: apostle paul, eternal values, faith, Heaven, I Corinthians 15, spiritual body, spirituality, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
July 13, 2013
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)
According to C. S. Lewis, “Life was not meant for pleasure only, nor for ease, but for discipline. Not for temporal, but for eternal values; not for the satisfying of a life here on earth, but for the development of a life for heaven.” He also wrote that “the clergy have been set aside and trained to look after what concerns us as creatures who are going to live forever.”
Some believers live as if their life span is everything and eternity is nothing, while some live as if eternity is everything and their life span is nothing. Some are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good while some are so earthly minded they are no heavenly good. As in everything there is a need for balance, but there are many Scriptures that exhort us to be more heavenly minded and to hold eternity’s values in view while we live out our lives here on earth.
One eternal value is that the invisible is a greater value than the visible. A reason for this is described in the verse above. What is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal. The Old Testament prophets were called “Seers” because they saw the unseen God and many things God wanted them to see and then share with the people of God.
God is a Spirit and a spirit is unseen. We are told in the Scripture that faith is the evidence of that which we cannot see. Do you value that which you cannot see more than what you can see?
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: 2 Corinthians 4:18, C.S. Lewis, eternal values, faith, faith values, religion, theology, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
July 10, 2013
“Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You.” (Psalm 73: 25)
The author of Psalm 73 has a problem. He envies the wicked because they always seem to prosper while God is forever chastening him and putting him through hard times that grow his character. The Psalmist becomes a great model for us as he takes his problem into the sanctuary where the Lord shows him the end of the wicked. That changes his attitude toward the wicked from envy to pity and compassion.
How would it affect your outlook on life if God permitted you to spend five minutes in hell — or in heaven? Both experiences would probably make you an evangelist.
The Psalmist goes on to write: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength (reality) of my heart and my portion forever.” By this he means that God is the great Reality in this life. Jesus said the same thing when He prayed: “This is eternal life that they might know You the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent.” (John 17:3)
When we have a revelation of eternal reality we will realize that the things we leave when the Lord calls us home are not worth living for while we are here. As Peter considered the great Day of the Lord in which every material thing will be dissolved he asked the question, “Since everything will be dissolved in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?” (2 Peter 3:11)
The answer to Peter’s question is that we should be people who know God and make Him known in every nation. This is how we hasten the coming of that great Day of the Lord.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: eternal life, Evangelization, faith, Jesus Christ, knowing god, Psalm 73, religion, theology, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
June 28, 2013
Oh, that we might know the LORD! Let us press on to know him! Then he will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.” (Hosea 6:3 NLT)
When I first came to faith and for the first few years as a pastor I struggled with the concept of knowing God personally. I struggled until several spiritual heavyweights mentored me in this dimension of my faith journey. They helped me by shaking everything down to three simple propositions that were basic, yet absolute.
The three propositions are: God is there, God is real, and God is personal.
I have not struggled with the proposition that God is there. My mentors challenged me to think about all the ways God responds to our many prayers to Him. As proclaimed by Hosea I found that when I related myself to God He responded by relating Himself to me. That inspired me to believe that He is not only there but He is very real when I relate to Him and make contact with Him there.
Over time as I shared the intimate dimensions of my personal, private and even secret life with Him I affirmed the glorious reality that God is personal and I should believe Him when He tells me He knows the number of hairs on my head at any given moment. I should also believe Him when He tells me He has a plan for my life that when followed will make me an original person distinct from every other living person.
Are you pressing on to know the Lord? If you are, I offer you these three propositions that can help us all know the Lord when we believe them.
2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: believing God, faith, faith journey, Hosea 6:3, knowing god, prayer, religion, spirituality, Trusting God | Permalink
Posted by Dick Woodward
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