Category: devotional

Last weekend we sat through an 80 minute sermon on the state of the dead.  He started preaching at 11:40.   At 12:50 I leaned over to my wife and said, “He hasn’t even gotten to the resurrection yet.  Let’s go.”  “No,” she said, “I have to know how long he can go.”  At one point he said, “This is a long subject.”  A man sitting beside me said out loud, “It sure is.”  He finally sat down at 1:00 without ever getting to the resurrection.  I believe there is a text about the “patience of the saints.”  Yes, it is Revelation 14:12.  On the way out an elderly lady (someone older than me) took my hand and said, “Come back again.  It isn’t always like this.  He is a good young man.”

I was delighted with the “patience of the saints.”  Only one family left and they had small children.  Everyone else politely listened because they cared about the young man.  Often times the best way we can show our love and appreciation for someone is to quietly endure their impositions and idiosyncrasies. While I did feel the need to stand up and stretch the truth is I didn’t have a very pressing schedule for the afternoon.  The imposition was minor to say the least.   I think it has a lot to do with what you are used to.  I like 30 minute sermons.  Recently someone told me if I didn’t speak for 45 minutes the saints would feel cheated.  But I sat down at 25 minutes because I was finished.  To have lingered would have been redundant.

The entire process is very arrogant.  Why would one person think others should sit and quietly listen to him?  Paul called it the “foolishness of preaching that somehow pleases God.  I Corinthians 1:21.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 15, 2011

Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, Ca 94574

Rogerbothwell,org

If we keep our eyes open we can find truly delightful moments as life passes by.   Yesterday afternoon as my wife and I were driving on a residential street we saw two of the most precious little girls standing at the end of their sidewalk at the curb.  They looked like they were 4 and 6 years of age.  The mail truck was coming toward them and they were bouncing up and down with smiles so big you would have thought their faces would crack.  They were clapping.  I’m sure the mailman must have been happy to see such a welcome.  Did he have a birthday card or a package from Sears or Amazon.com?  Was the mailman their daddy?  Whatever it was they couldn’t contain their joy.  Their joy became my joy.

There are so many things in life that are contagious and I am not referring to germs and illnesses.  A genuine smile is catchy.  Yawning is infectious.  A pleasant demeanor is transmittable.  Generosity and sharing are communicable.  It is amazing how we can and do have power over our environment.  Nothing spoils a gathering like gloom and doom.  But someone with hope and an energetic vision can overcome the downers and fill a space with so much happiness.

At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives us a model for happiness.  We call them the Beatitudes.   The word “blessed” can just as well be translated “happy”.   “Happy are the peacemakers.”  “Happy are the poor in spirit.”  Each one is our Creator’s secret to a contagious life of joy.  Granted it is a bit more difficult for us as adults than two sweet little girls by the side of the curb, but none-the-less we can do it.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 14, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

After the mail came today I sat down in “my” chair to browse one of the just arrived magazines.  I don’t recall much after settling into the comfort of one of my best friends.  About forty minutes later I heard a door close as my wife came near.  I had the strangest experience.  Sometimes when we take a nap, it’s just a nap and when we awake the day goes on.  But this nap was different.  Just two hours before I had lunch with the conference president. When I awoke from this nap, it was if a whole day had passed.  My day after the nap was starting all over as if someone had pressed a reboot button.   I reboot my computer often.  Rebooting is wonderful.  All manner of computer snags can be resolved by just rebooting.

Beginning a relationship with Jesus is like rebooting one’s life and not just the day.  We learn to forgive and negative feelings about past experiences go away.   We learn to look for good things in others and old friendship are revitalized.  We receive external power from the Holy Spirit and begin to experience victory over old temptations.  We realize that instead of twenty or so more years of life we have an eternity of life ahead of us.  It is the greatest reboot ever.

I often wonder why it is so difficult for some people to accept what Jesus offers.  Perhaps it is because we have been taught that if something sounds too good to be true, it isn’t.  This time it is true.  One of the things I learned in statistics class is rare events occur that do not fit the pattern.  Jesus is one of those rarities.  He is the ultimate reboot.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 13, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” John 14:15.   If I may I would like to alter the text to say, “If you love yourself you will keep His commandments.”

It is very safe to assume that we love ourselves.  There are a few people filled with self-loathing but it’s rare.   Most of us think we are the greatest.  When things go wrong it usually is someone else who messed up.  When we don’t get what we want it isn’t our fault; someone doesn’t like us.  Therefore, I want to make a case for obeying God based totally on what is good for us.

In God’s great wisdom He shared with us the secrets to a good life.  If we don’t kill we rarely have to fear someone wanting to kill us.   If we don’t steal we rarely have to worry about being arrested for shoplifting.  Black and white cars don’t make us pause to see if they are coming for us.  If we don’t tell bad stories about others people will rarely tell bad stories about us.  If we keep the Sabbath we get one day each week when we don’t have to go to work.  If we don’t curse we don’t have to worry about offending someone.

We are talking about the quality of life.  Jesus was not in error when He spoke of coming that we might have the abundant life. John 10:10.  Sometimes we err by thinking the abundant life is a big bank account; not so.  The abundant life is a life that is as stress free as possible and obeying God is the surest way to accomplish that goal.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 12, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Living in New England is a delightful experience of constant change.  This coming week our maples will turn scarlet reds and yellows followed by the rust colors of the oaks.  The birches are already yellow.  Then November will be a beautiful worstered gray as we wait for December to turn us white.  I relish knowing that under that layer of snow, life is getting ready to once again turn us green.   Each spring we have a pleasing patch of Lily of the Valley.  For years I have been picking small bunches for our breakfast table.  They smell so good.

Well, you can imagine my horror just today to learn that Lily of the Valley is extremely poisonous.  According to the Wikipedia website Lily of the Valley contains about thirty-eight cardio glycosides and we should wash our hands after handling it.  How could it be that something so lovely, something that smells so good be so dangerous?

When we are first born our sense of right and wrong is completely based upon our feelings.  If it feels good it’s right.   If it hurts it’s bad.  If it’s pretty and smells good it is right.  It’s a very low standard of morality.  Unfortunately occasionally we meet people whose morality has never advanced from that of a newborn.  The closing words to the romantic song “You Light Up My Life” are “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?”  It is difficult to grasp the truth that some seemingly beautiful relationships can be absolutely toxic.

Paul exhorts us in 1 Corinthians 13 to stop thinking like a child and think like a grownup whose sense of right and wrong are based on God’s Word.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 11, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

There was rumbling moving closer and closer.  Black clouds were moving our way.  There was that smell in the air as the barometric pressure lowers and nitrogen escapes from the ground.  We were definitely going to get it.  And what to my wondering eyes did appear but a man at a driving range.  There he stood with his metal shaft pointed high in the air as he focused on that golf ball.  The only thing I think he could have been thinking was he paid for that bucket of balls and he was going to get his money’s worth.  I was transfixed as I watched.  I have never seen anyone struck by lightning and I figured if he was going to get it, I was going to see it happen.  Fortunately it did not.  What made it really sad was he had a horrible swing.

As I was thinking how stupid he was, the thought occurred to me that I too am that stupid when I eat things I know will clog my arteries, when I fail to exercise, when I tolerate being overweight and when I neglect my devotional life.  My IQ isn’t any higher than that guy with the golf club pointing to the sky.  Alas, it is so much easier to see other’s mistakes and ignore our own.   It is so grand that we have a Savior who was and is one of us.  He knew about human stupidity and hypocrisy. He talks about it in the Sermon on the Mount.  He said, “How wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?”  Alas, we, at least I, do it all the time.

 Written by Roger Bothwell on August 26, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

This afternoon I watched with a mixture of amusement and disgust a very impatient driver just laying on his horn at the truck in front of him.  The light was green.  Of course the truck should go.  However the driver of the honking car could not see what was in the crosswalk in front of the truck.  There was a lady with one small child in one hand as she was trying to push a baby carriage with the other hand.

I was a bit chagrined as I realized that I and many of my former colleagues at our little college that closed were just like the honking driver.  We complained and we criticized and we had all kinds of advice for what should have been done when we could not see everything that was going on.  It is easy to sit back and offer all kinds of critical advice when we speak in ignorance.  How often we critique others behavior when we have no idea what kind of home they come from. It has taken me many years to learn what I am about to say.  But I totally believe the following.  “Most people are doing the best they can.”   Just because they do not do something the way we would do it does not make what they do wrong.  It merely means they do it differently.

I love Galatians 6 in The Message paraphrase.  “Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day is out.”  I think I like this so much because I have so often been the one needing the forgiveness.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 28, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

One of my favorite commercials is produced by Volkswagen.*  It’s the one with the little kid in a Darth Vader outfit trying to use “The Force” on various things around the house. He fails at everything until his father comes home with the car.  How startled he is when the car starts as he projects his force upon the grill.  Of course it is his father in the house with the remote.

“Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”  John 5:19.   One of the big differences with the little kid and Jesus was Jesus was never startled when His miracles worked.  When He said, “Lazarus, come forth” He knew Lazarus was coming out of that tomb.  Jesus knew if He was to be our role model He would have to limit Himself to the very powers that are available to us.  And so He did.  If we are to live successful lives we must never rely upon our own powers.  If we do we are doomed to failure.  The Holy Spirit has been given to us that we might be able to reach beyond our humanity and grasp onto and utilize the power of the Father.

In II Peter 1 we are encouraged to reach for the sky.  “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”  We can participate.  We can share.  We can have our Heavenly Father pour out incredible blessings once we get past our egos. Not an easy task.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 29, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Don’t you just love “ambulance chasing” commercials; bloodthirsty law firms preying on other’s miseries and making it extraordinarily expensive for doctors to treat us?   Yesterday, I think I heard the most amazing one yet.  “If you or a loved one has taken “A….” and died, dial 1-800 … immediately.”  Really!  I replayed it three times to make sure I heard correctly.  I think we better start putting cell phones in coffins.

What is it about human nature that wants to blame others for our misfortunes?  It is true bad things do happen to good people.  But can we, in this world of sin, really expect everything to go our way?  I guess that’s why people buy lottery tickets or smoke when scientific evidence of its detrimental effect on our health is overwhelming.  We are optimistic and can’t imagine something bad happened because we made a bad choice or random mayhem occurred.

We have been blaming others ever since Adam said, “The woman you gave me made me do it.”  Freud capitalized on it when he developed psychotherapy; it must have been my mother’s fault or my father’s.    It is true that sometimes people do bad things to us and it is their fault, but that is where forgiveness comes in.   If I don’t forgive you and dwell on your bad deed then I enable you to keep on hurting me every time I run the video tape in my head.   But if I am wise enough to forgive you then you only hurt me once and now it is erased.

Jesus was so wise when He told us to forgive if we desire forgiveness for our bad deeds.  But why should that surprise us?  He made us.  He knows how we tick.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 7, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

When Daniel Shechtman first discovered a new crystalline chemical structure that seemed to violate what we thought were the laws governing crystalline structures he was ridiculed by his colleagues and ultimately exiled from professional circles.  Yet he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

There are so many lessons we can draw from this.  First is the crowd isn’t always right.  Second is stand firm when you know you are correct.  Third is truth will ultimately be known.  Fourth is we don’t know all the laws of nature and the ones we think we know can be very different than what we think.

I am sure there were very depressing days when Dr. Shechtman’s friends rejected not only his work but his very presence.  His discovery was in 1982.   Almost thirty years is a long time to wait for this kind of vindication.  I’m sure there is great happiness in his home tonight.

The history of the world is filled with stories like this.   Graves are filled with people who never received recognition for their work.  Then there are martyrs who perished for believing and holding strongly to their faith.  Hebrews 11 is a very impressive list of such.   Hebrews 12 begins with “Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 6, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org