Author: Ian Bothwell

One of my students walked into class this morning wearing a tee-shirt that said, “Jesus Loves Everyone but I’m His favorite.”  There it was.  This is the heresy of almost every religion.  If you are not a Jehovah Witness, they cannot pray with you.  If you are not a Mormon your baptism by anyone other than a Mormon is disqualified and you are lost.  If you are not a Catholic you cannot be buried in the same cemetery with other Catholics.  If you are not Islamic you are an infidel. I can go on and on.  This is the cancer that eats away at the Gospel of Jesus and most other religions as it feeds the egotism of the soul.  You are okay but I am better.

Now of course my student was joking.  But the truth about humor is things are not funny if there is not an inherent element of truth.  Everyone so wants to be special and what could be more special than being God’s favorite?   Before we enter heaven Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15 that this corruption will put on incorruption and thus we will have some different ideas about things.  But, I wonder how I would manage eternity if I were God’s favorite.  I might never mention it nor deliberately rub your nose in it but there would be an unacceptable ting of arrogance in my mannerisms.

In Acts Peter said, “God is no respecter of persons.”   Everyone who lets Him into their heart becomes the apple of His eye.  Does that mean we are His favorites?  The answer is yes.  And all those who have not accepted Him are candidates to join our favorites club.  God is equalitarian to the extreme.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 18, 2014

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

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The world is awakening to the reality of Ebola.  It must be confined and eradicated.  Councils in many nations are brainstorming strategies for effective action.  After Adam and Eve introduced sin on earth heaven knew it must be confined and eradicated.  But unlike Ebola, a physical malady, sin was a psychological malady that could spread throughout the universe ravaging civilizations and turning them into populations of selfish warring creatures.  Being that sin is psychological, the cure was not pills or vaccines, it was something so dramatic, so stunningly over-the-top, so horrific and so convincing that once administered sin would never arise again anywhere. The only cure required the death of the Creator Himself.

When announced angels were horror-stricken.  Surely there had to be another solution.  But, God in His infinite wisdom knew this was the only way.  Sin must run its course demonstrating to all the natural consequence, which is death to everything good and bad. It would even torture and kill the Creator Himself.  Sin is self-destructive.  Left unchecked sin will ultimately destroy everything.

In order to salvage something from this world and to inoculate other worlds that are watching, Jesus came and Lucifer was delighted.  His plan was to make the cost so dear Jesus would give up and go home.  In Gethsemane he pressed Jesus to the earth with the idea that Jesus’ eternal sacrifice was going to be forever and no one would benefit.  It was a waste.  But the hope that someone, even one, might be saved Jesus decided to pay the price no matter what.  On the cross, Jesus cried, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”  He was alone.  The price, the cure, was a plunge into the darkness of eternal hell.  Not only earth was saved.  The universe was saved.

Written by Roger Bothwell on Sept. 17. 2014

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

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I went to the seminary with a future preacher who claimed it was wrong to prepare one’s sermon.  He contended if at the beginning of the sermon he would ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance the Holy Spirit would then use him as His instrument for conveying what God wanted the people to hear.  I have to admit it sounded good but I was never willing to give it a try.  My idea was the Holy Spirit knows who is going to be there and what they need and can inspire me during the sermon preparation.   There is an advantage to what my unprepared preacher did.  I have to take responsibility for a lousy presentation, he never did.  Whatever happened no matter how poorly presented wasn’t his fault.  It was God’s will.

Through the years I have seen variations on this concept.  People are faced with difficult decisions where each will produce both favorable and unfavorable results.  (Very few decisions in life are all good or all bad.)  Because it is difficult they don’t decide. They let happen what will happen and then say that God’s will was done because they surrendered to Him.  Therefore, the mess that followed was God’s will.

It appears to me this is a tactic for not taking responsibility for one’s life.  It seems to me when confronted with a difficult choice we should pray for wisdom and make the best choice we can.  I believe He will bless knowing we tried.  That doesn’t mean everything will be perfect.  That will only happen in heaven.  While here we are expected to use the mental gifts He has given us.  1. Ask for guidance.  2. Gather as much information as possible.  3. Decide.  4. Take responsibility.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 16, 2014

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

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When I was in college we humorously referred to a couple of our very bright professors as having a 20/20 I.Q.  Thus I was excited when I first read Ephesians 1:18 where Paul speaks about our “eyes of understanding”.  That’s the King James Version.  The New International Version renders it, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

So it was that I understood God wants us to have 20/20 I.Q.s.   God is not honored by ignorance.  Parents take no delight in the dullness of their children.  It is with pride that children, who are on the honor roll, are praised.  After God make Adam and Eve He came to the Garden in the evenings to walk and talk.  Those talks were science lessons filled with facts of flora and fauna.   As each evening’s lessons were absorbed they became more and more like their Creator.  They were made in His image and were to become mental wizards in which their Father could delight.

Paul, a man with a 20/20 I.Q., understood and shared with us in Ephesians 1 God’s great hope that we will grasp the inheritance to which we are called and realize great power comes from great knowledge.  God is all powerful because He is all knowing.  Creation was not a work of magic.  It was the product of mental prowess and scientific action.  As Albert Einstein once said, “God is a scientist, not a magician.”   “By the word of the Lord were the heaven’s made.”   The word was His encyclopedic knowledge of all that is.  It is to this that we are called.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 15, 2014

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

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There is an interesting YouTube of a man on a street trying to sell a $50 Canadian gold coin for $25.  No one will buy it.  He is even standing near a store that buys gold so someone could go inside and check its value.  No one will do that.  At one point he offered to trade it for a bottle of water someone was carrying and he was unable to trade it. The coin weighed an ounce and gold was then selling for $1500 an ounce.  Many people refused the offer by saying, “I’m good.”

In Revelation 3:18 God calls for His last day church, Laodicea, to buy His gold so it can be truly rich.  The gold He offers are the riches of spiritual understanding. He so wants us to grasp the wonders of having an ever growing good character as we become more and more like Him.  It is so easy to be comfortably content with where we are.  We say and mean it.  “I don’t want to harm people.  I don’t want to steal from them.  I want the best for others.” However, there is so much more.  There is an incredible peace that continues to grow as we watch the world go mad about us.  There are philosophies and mental riches that come with a friendship with Jesus.

Like the people who refused the gold coin by saying “I’m good” we just don’t get it.  They didn’t buy the coin because they didn’t understand the value they were being offered.   We don’t spend the time in prayer and study because we just don’t grasp the value of what we are being offered.  So who is the biggest loser?

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 14, 2015

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

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Do you ever wakeup about 4 AM with a parched mouth?  You want to roll over and go back to sleep but something cool and refreshing slipping over your dry lips would be an oasis.  The longer you wait the more intense the thirst.  Finally you head down the stairs for the kitchen.  Now the real dilemma begins. In the darkness illuminated only by tiny LEDs scattered about the room you put your hand on the handle of the fridge.  You have tried to keep your eyes half closed as to remain in a semi-stupor so going back to sleep would be easier.   If you could only just crack open the fridge door but you have open it wide enough to get your arm inside and maneuver.

How is it that a forty watt bulb can produce a burst of light equivalent to the first atom bomb blast at Los Alamos?   It isn’t just your eyes?  Even your skin reacts as the light rays push the wrinkles out of your face.  Reeling and staggering away from the light you try to back up to the open fridge as not to be permanently blinded.  You put in your arm without really looking directly into the heart of the “sun.”  I know where the sun goes when it goes down at night.  It sleeps in my fridge.

It is no wonder God cautioned Moses not to look at His face.  Surely the light would have incinerated Moses.

There are two kinds of light.  Too much too fast of either can harm.  Books and knowledge must be dispensed carefully.  In ancient times Hebrew children were forbidden to read certain chapters in Scripture.  Light in due time.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 10, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

There are times that David makes me gasp in astonishment.  In Psalm 26 he wrote, “Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have led a blameless life, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. 2 Test me, O LORD, and try me; examine my heart and my mind. . . .  6 I wash my hands in innocence, . . . 11 But as for me, I lead a blameless life, redeem me, and be gracious to me.  12 My feet stand on level ground; in the great assembly I will bless the LORD.”   This comes from a man who ravaged Philistine villages and killed everyone, even children, lest they identify him to his Philistine host.  This is a man who had one of his mighty men killed because he, David, wanted the man’s wife. On his deathbed he tells his sons to kill someone. Perhaps I could understand this better if he would have ascribed his innocence to God’s forgiveness but he brags of “my integrity.”

Granted he was brave.  He was a magnificent poet. He was a good musician. But he was far from innocent.  I find myself wondering what magnificent things David would have written if he had known Jesus and had read the writings of Paul who called himself “Chief of Sinners”.   If David understood Christ our righteousness and the cost involved in truly making us innocent he would have waxed ever so more eloquent about our God.   We shall stand tall in the integrity of Jesus.  Our sins will not only be forgiven but blotted out.  We shall, like David, sing of integrity, but it will not be ours.  But wait.  Yes, it will be ours.  It is a gift and after a gift is given to us it is ours.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on Sept. 12, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

In our little city and most likely also in yours there are markings on the street for bikers where there are traffic lights.  If you are on a bike and want the light to detect you so it will turn green for you, you have to stop on that marking.  It’s a pretty good system.  We live in a fascinating age of electronics detecting us.  Electronics in department stores can profile us as we move about and they can instantly change the ads we see to cater to our profile.   Our homes have electronic sensors that warn us when someone is moving about where they are not supposed to be.

We are being watched. But that is not new.  God has been watching us from the moment we were conceived.  We can’t hide.  Jonah tried.  That was wasted effort.  Psalm 139 tells us, “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.”  When I was small I was told my angel would not go certain places with me.  If I wanted to go I was on my own.  Really?  Just when I needed him/her/it the most I was abandoned?  If this were true it seems Satan would take the opportunity to do away with us.

God watches over us as a mother hen watches her chicks.  And we don’t have to stand on a prescribed mark like the biker at the traffic light.  Our comings and goings are His concern.  If this is so why then do bad things happen to good people?  We don’t know.  Horrible things happen every day that are not God’s will. But this one thing I do know.  He will in love more than make it right.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 11, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I grew up in central Pennsylvania and like every area (especially before television standardized American English) we had our own colloquialisms.  “It’s all” meant it’s finished like when Porky Pig says, “That’s all Folks.”   Or as in “That’s all she wrote.”  It wasn’t until I lived in other places when I would say, “It’s all” people would look at me waiting for me to finish the sentence.  They wanted me to say, “It’s all right” or “It’s all I can do” or “It’s all the ways it can be said.”  But I was finished speaking when I said, “It’s all” because it was over.  There wasn’t any more pizza.  It was all, not all together, all gone, all.

I have a treat jar on my desk and my dog comes and begs.  She can really give me the “I’m so hungry look. I really, really need a treat.”  But when I tell her “It’s all” she walks away.  Even dogs understand what “It’s all” means.

We are waiting for the promises of Jesus to be fulfilled.  We are waiting for the time when we “shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.  And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” Matthew 24.  There will be no time left.  It will be over.  Nations will have waged their last war.  People will have abused their last child.  Terrorists will have cut off their last head because finally our God, the maker of heaven and earth, the king of kings, the lord of lords will stand up and say, “It’s all!”

Written by Roger Bothwell on Sept. 10, 2014

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

Roger Bothwell.org

 

We have some very nice neighbors who for many years we pass on our evening walks.  We stop and chat.  We know tons about them.  We know where they work and what they do.  We know about their sons and what college courses they are taking.  We know when they bought their home and what they paid for it.  There is just one really important thing we don’t know.  We don’t know their names.  I’m also sure they do not know our names.  I really should ask them and tell them ours but it seems so awkward after knowing them for years.  Some evenings when we walk past their house and we are sure they haven’t come home yet from work I am tempted to look in their mailbox to read their names on their mail.  I would probably be caught and arrested.

Can we call them our friends?  I don’t think so.  I don’t think you can call someone your friends if you don’t even know their names.   Ever since I have been a little guy I have loved John 15:15.  Jesus said, “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”   Jesus doesn’t keep secrets from us.  If we want to know what God is thinking we should study the teachings of Jesus.  I grew up singing the song I Come to the Garden Alone.  The refrain says, “And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am his own.”  Those are sweet words especially when they come from someone who knows our name and a whole lot more.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 9, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org