Author: Ian Bothwell

In our home in Africa my wife heard our littlest calling from outside “nake nake.”  Looking out the window she saw him running across the yard, not away from, but after a snake.  Before she could get outside she saw one of our students, who was working in our yard, tear across the grass and swoop up our little guy and continue running – away from the snake.  It was a spectacular rescue, considering our boy didn’t know he needed to be rescued.

This is pretty much the case for most of humanity.  God has provided a spectacular rescue and most people don’t know they need one.  Jesus said, “For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.”  Matthew 24   When the end comes life will be going on as usual.   Jesus also said, “Then will appear the Son of Man in heaven. And all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.  And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.”

If we believe that Jesus is who He said He is and that He tells us the truth, we have to assume things will not always be as they are now; thus the need for us to avail ourselves of His rescue plan.  So what must we do?  It really is very clear.  Please read John 5 for details.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 8, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

It all happens in a millisecond.  You place a buy order on the stock market and a computer notes your offer and because it is a faster computer than yours it quickly buys that stock at your price and then the stock at your offering price is gone.  If you still want it you now have to pay more.  The price went up.   It happened many times faster than it takes to blink an eye.

This entire idea of communication occurring so fast and action being taken so fast reminds me of Isaiah 65:24. “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.”  Our heavenly Father is so attuned to our needs He answers before our lips can form the words.  Before we say, “Give us this day our daily bread” He has.  If He is so attentive and so giving, which He is, then why do we need to pray?  Surely it is not for some angel with a quill and roll of parchment to record our words.  God didn’t need to hear them.  It must be because we need to hear them.  There is something to be said for articulating one’s thoughts.  They become more real.  Often we surprise ourselves as the content develops.

Sometimes my wife will ask me what I am writing and my answer is “I don’t know I haven’t written it yet.”  When finished I think, “I didn’t know I thought that.”  The human brain creates when it is called upon.  Our prayers focus us not only on our need but on the One who answers and enable us to understand why we have what we have and where it comes from.  Our prayers make us wise, sagacious, thoughtful and more intelligent.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 4, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

The Queen of England is not legally required to have a driver’s license or use her seat belt.  Upon learning this, my mind went to a silly thought.  Would God always use His seat belt?  The question raises some interesting issues regarding God and His laws.  Inherent in this is the nature of Jesus’ miracles. According to my dictionary the definition of “miracle” is “an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God.”  Does God perform miracles?  Does God break or supersede or overrule the very laws He Himself established?  And if so, does He have immunity?  We must not miss the word “appears” in the definition.

God does things that “appear” to us to be miracles.  But He does not break His own laws.  If so, Lucifer could have a heyday accusing God of making laws that cannot be kept and saying that God Himself does not keep them.  I don’t think God would open Himself up to that horrendous allegation because that is the very heart of the struggle between good and evil.

God is a scientist. There are scientific secrets not yet discovered by us.  Twenty years ago few of us could have grasped the technology that now aids our daily lives. He was not breaking a natural law when Jesus restored sight to the blind.  He is the Creator of eyes.  He was not breaking a natural law when Jesus put new fingers and lips on the lepers.  He is the One who said, “Let us make man in our image.”  When airplanes zoom us quickly around the world and rockets shoot us to the Space Station, it isn’t superseding laws.  It’s being educated.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 2, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

“Solomon said, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”  During an earthquake in Chile 300 prisoners escaped.  It almost sounds like a story in Acts 16, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”  The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”  They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”

Well, it isn’t exactly the same.  While Paul and company could have escaped they stayed and the results were terrific.   One thing you have to say about Paul is the man was consistent.   When he was Saul he was a completely committed member of the Sanhedrin with all their rules.  After he became known as Paul his message had a consistent clarity.  Salvation wasn’t about all the rules he lived by as Saul.  He now gave his total being and future into the hands of Jesus.  He truly upset his old colleagues.  Once they realized they couldn’t best him in face to face confrontations, they followed him around and when he moved on they moved in and tried to poison the new Christians with their rules,.   Thus Paul wrote back to the Galatians, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 3, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

This evening my wife baked a dozen muffins.  I ate one.  It was really good.  So I had another.  At this point my head said, “Fine.  Good stuff.  However, that’s enough.”  But my nose and eyes kept looking at the tray saying “Just one more.”  My head said, “Okay.  But that’s all.”  I don’t know how to explain the next half hour.  I must have taken out my brain and put it on the mantel because after that I ate three more.  I don’t feel so well. Why did I eat until I was on the brink of ill?

Why do we do all manner of “pleasurable” activities when we know the results are not going to be good?  God gave us brains to govern but we foolishly surrender to desire.  It’s not that pleasure is bad.  It’s a question of moderation.  The very thing we so desired becomes repugnant.  I really don’t want to see another muffin, at least not for quite some time.

There are the pleasures of the flesh but also pleasures of the mind.  Why could I not be this very moment filled with the pleasure of knowing I had allowed reason to prevail?  The mental joy would not have left me nauseous.  I would sleep better tonight and be more refreshed in the morning.  Alas.

The battle of reason over desire has been the bane of human progress.  What is very disconcerting is often we allow desire to distort our reason and we deceive ourselves into thinking we were reasonable when all we do is create excuses to feed desire.  Listen carefully the next time you hear an argument.  Note how each side invents spurious ideas to defend a passion.  It is not easy being human.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 3, 2013

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Only one peanut out of a hundred is selected to be an M&M chocolate peanut.  The other 99 are chopped up for Snickers.  The next time you treat yourself to one please notice the peanut is surrounded by chocolate and never on the edge. How they do that is a secret.

When I was a boy I heard a horror sermon (If we can have horror movies we can also have horror sermons.) that really frightened me.  The preacher told us that only one in a hundred would be saved.  Well, I looked around the church and there were about two hundred people present.  It didn’t take but a millisecond to do the math.  Only two of us were going to make it.  The preacher surely thought he would make it.  That left room for only one.  What chance did I have?  There was no way it would be me.  Obviously you had to be like an M&M peanut.  You had to be perfect.  If I hadn’t been ten years old and needed a ride home I would probably have walked out and never gone back.  What was the use?

My teen years weren’t much better.  There were many more horror sermons telling me all the things I had to do.  I am so thankful one day I woke up and realized that just because someone is a preacher it doesn’t make him right.  As a matter of fact most of what I heard was wrong.  Yes, we did have to be perfect.  But the perfection was a gift.  Jesus did it for me.  My part was to accept it.  Oh, the joy when I finally came to my senses and read the Bible for myself.  John 3:17 – “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”   Please note “through Him” not us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 1, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

In Defense of Hypocrisy

This evening while watching a perfect picture in Hi-Definition I remembered the first television my Dad brought home 65 years ago.  It was an amazing 12 inch black and white picture filled with snow.  If the picture wasn’t rolling like a scroll it was slanted sideways. We thought it was wonderful.  A few years passed and our next door neighbor started bragging that he had color television.  It was a piece of plastic attached to the front of his screen.  It was tinted blue on the top and green on the bottom.  It wasn’t too bad for outdoor scenes but looked rather ridiculous for the inside of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo’s apartment.  I guess it was fun to pretend one had color television.

We define the word “hypocrite” as one pretending to be something they are not. Usually it is someone pretending to be better than they are; however, I once knew a student who really was a good kid but he pretended to be bad because he thought it would make him popular.  Traditionally we have been very hard on hypocrites.  Jesus really took them on in Matthew 23.  But I would like to speak in defense of hypocrisy. By pretending we become. If we assume a persona or a role and work on being that, we are slowly transformed.  I am aware in Jeremiah 13 we find the following, “Can a leopard change its’ spots?  Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”  But that is the point.  If we become accustomed to doing good, ever so slowly we do change.

No, I am not preaching humanism.  We still need Jesus for righteousness.  However, we can be better people by consciously practicing being good people.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 1, 2013

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA

Rogerbothwell.org

 

On April 8 Microsoft Windows will cease supporting its XP operating system. The reason they are giving is they can no longer keep it secure.  There are bad guys out there creating computer viruses that can use the XP operating system to access your computer and do major damage to your precious pictures, financial records and other work files.  The message they are broadcasting is “Do not continue using or you will be sorry.”

3,500 years ago God via Moses sent us some important security information.  He told us not to kill, not to steal, not to tell bad stories about our neighbors and other important warnings.  The message was if you do these things you will be sorry.  Unfortunately Satan jumped in telling us that if we did these things God will be furious with us and severely punish us.  That is just not so.  That is like telling us if we continue to use XP after April 8, Microsoft will send infectious software to wreck our computers.  Obviously that is not so.  What Microsoft is saying is there will be consequences to our continued use, but not caused by them.   God is saying to us there will be ruinous consequences to certain behaviors, not because He is punishing us, but because the ruinous consequences will be the natural results of doing these forbidden things.  They are forbidden because He doesn’t want us to be hurt.  He is a parent telling his children not to play baseball in the middle of an interstate highway.

Smart people will upgrade their computers, or replace them, with newer systems.  Smart people will not steal, not kill or not covet because they are smart.  Be smart listen to the experts.  God is the expert on human behavior.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 31, 2014

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Beautiful Old Homes

Our little city is peppered with beautiful old homes.   Victorians and other styles reek with elegance.  Many of them are impeccably maintained with elaborate paint and manicured lawns while others show their years.   They are like people.  We are incredible mansions which God’s spirit wants to inhabit.  Paul calls us temples.  Just like old homes some are well cared for and others have been neglected.  Some are well groomed and exercised and others have spent way too many hours on a couch with a remote control in hand.

As spring comes and dirty snow piles slowly vanish winter’s broken branches and other refuse litter lawns.  Any day now we will have a seventy degree weekend day and snow shovels will be replaced with rakes, edgers and mowers.  Daffodils and crocuses will decorate walkways.  It is a grand time of the year.

As for us we can begin to undo the ravages of the blizzards that gave us a legitimate excuse for not going for that all important daily walk.  After all it really wasn’t safe with the snow narrowed streets and icy footing.  However, those excuses as good as they were have melted away.  God’s temple, you and I, need to vacuum the floor, wash the windows and dust out the cobwebs.  We need to move.

For those of you who live in warm comfortable climates, I know you can totally ignore this because I know you have not allowed yourself to go to pot and you have impeccably cared for yourselves.

The definition of sin is doing anything that is harmful to others or to self.  We definitely don’t want to sin against ourselves let alone the others we live with.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 29, 2013

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.org

I couldn’t believe it.  There was a freezer in the supermarket with half gallon containers of ice cream for 85 cents.  The sign read “Being Discontinued.”  Really?  This was good stuff.  It wasn’t a cheap brand or some weird flavor like “Tuna Fish.”  I could barely contain myself for my good fortune as I picked up Chocolate Chip for me and Butter Pecan for my wife.  I am going back tomorrow for more.  But I really doubt if there is any left over.

I couldn’t believe it.  We just switched over to FIOS and I was having serious issues getting my email to work on my laptop.  Just then the phone rang.  It was a technician from Verizon asking if everything was alright.  In less than five minutes he had me up and running.

I couldn’t believe it.  I found gasoline on sale for a dollar a gallon.  No, not really. I was just kidding. (Wishing)

However, I still have a difficult time believing that the Creator of the Universe became one of us and suffered as horribly as He did so we can live forever.  I do believe it but it pushes my faith envelope.  I just don’t understand our value to Him.  Then it is that I look at my wife, my sons and grandchildren.  Would I do the same for them?  Absolutely, yes.  But there is a disturbing text in Romans 5:10. “For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.”  We aren’t talking about dear ones.  We are talking about enemies.  Hard to believe but none-the-less true.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 26, 2013

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574

Rogerbothwell.ord