Category: devotional

Student loan debt has surpassed credit card debt.  Student loans have filled me with mixed feelings through the years.  While it has opened the education door for many who otherwise couldn’t attend college, it has also burdened graduates with mortgage size debts before they ever have their first jobs.  Something else that bothered me through the years is too many students flippantly borrowed as if there never was going to be a day of reckoning.  That flippant attitude then spilled over into a lack appreciation for the education itself.  Often times we only value things for which we have worked.  I have often advocated that loan moneys must be matched with wages from work study programs.

 

So why am I speaking of this?  Occasionally I hear people speak of cheap grace.  Jesus saves.  Eternal life is a gift.  Is there a problem that humans do not appreciate that for which they have not worked?   Maybe this is why so many churches have developed works theologies?  Paul wrote to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight.   I finished the race.  I have kept the faith.”  So there is some kind of battle.  It isn’t accepting the gift and going on with life as usual.   There is something else involved.  One issue is character development.  The obligation of love draws us to be like our Savior.  Another issue is to continue to abide in grace.  If one has come from a works environment such as Paul there is this constant lure, a pull back to the theology of the past because the story of grace seems way too good to be true.  Keeping the faith for Paul was just that.  Hang on.  Don’t get sucked back in.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 9, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

All over the nation 18-year-olds hold their breath as they anxiously open mailboxes.  Is there a skinny envelope or a fat one from the university of their choice?  Skinny means you’re out.  Don’t bother opening the envelope.  Fat means you’re in and there are lots of forms enclosed for you to fill out.  Getting in or not creates a lot of sleepless nights.

I know some people who toss and turn at night who are not 18.  They are tossing as they fret about a more important destination.  They are concerned that as hard as they try they just can’t feel like Jesus has saved them.  They try to keep all the rules and laws they know of.  Somehow that doesn’t take away their stress.  Maybe they are missing one and will be lost because they only kept 631 out of 632.  They heard a sermon last weekend telling them that isn’t the way.  Jesus is the Way.  That seems far too simple.  Despite saying the words, “I am saved by grace” they just don’t feel safe.  What if the preacher was wrong?  They certainly don’t want to accompany him where he’s going if he misled all those people in church.

Hopefully, I have some good news for these folk.  And yet why should they believe me if they aren’t overly sure of their pastor?   So forget me and believe Paul.  He can’t be wrong and even if they don’t feel saved, the truth is we are not saved by feeling, nor by intellect, nor by any other thing except what is expressed in the promise in Ephesians 2. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”  Best of all there aren’t any forms to fill out.  The skinny envelope works.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 7, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

After beginning a class today by reading from Luke 14, one of my astute students asked, “How can salt lose its saltiness?”  That’s a good question in the twenty first century when the salt we think of comes in a Morton’s Box.  That stuff could sit forever and never change its molecular structure.  Salt is salt.  We are so spoiled.  The salt Jesus grew up with in Nazareth most likely came from the Dead Sea area and was probably a poor quality of rock salt.  It didn’t take much moisture to wash away the real salt and leave behind a bag of useless tiny stones. Dilution was not uncommon.

And so we come to Jesus’ real point.  Should we allow work, relationships, responsibilities, life itself to dilute our experience with Jesus, we lose the abundant life.  No, we don’t completely lose it.  We only lose it in proportion to the loss of our walk with Jesus.  I realize there are some who believe you are either in or you’re out.  Either you are walking with Jesus or you are walking with the devil.  I don’t think so.  I have come to believe God loves us so much that He is willing to stick with us through the good and bad times.  If we want to walk afar from Him He follows along.  He is very persistent and just plainly doesn’t give up on us.  He isn’t a “my way or the highway” kind of Father.  He is so much better than that.

I realize this could encourage someone to say, “Hum?   I think I will walk a 70% walk with God.  I can get some of the blessings and get by without all of them.”  I guess someone could think that.  But frankly, that doesn’t make much sense.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 12, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

My wife just asked me if today she told me she loved me.  Let’s see. I had clean clothes to put on this morning.  Breakfast was ready for me when I came downstairs.  She drove me to a doctor’s appointment and sat with me for an hour.  She filled the bird feeders so I could enjoy the Goldfinches already in all of their summer splendor.  I just finished a great supper she prepared. I don’t actually recall hearing the words but she told me over and over and over. There is a song in our church hymnal that ends with “How much do I love thee my actions do show.”

One of Jesus’ stories was about a father who asked his sons for help. One said, “Sure, Dad.”  But he never did anything.  His other son said, “Sorry, Dad.  No way.”  But after leaving he had second thoughts and went and did what his father wanted.  Matthew 21.   This is so plain there is no need for an explanation.  Love shows. Love grows.

Jesus also said, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me.”

Now that I have said all this, I have to confess while fruit is nice, words are so sweet to hear.  Ooops – she just reminded me that she had on the way to the doctor.  Uh-oh.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 11, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Decades ago when I took flight training I learned that flight traffic controllers respond back to pilots at the same speech pace the pilot used upon initiating contact.  If I called in with the N number of my plane and spoke rapidly they would rapidly send me altitude and directional heading.  If I spoke slowly I got my directions slowly.  I made sure I spoke slowly so I did not have to say, “Say again, please.”  I seem to process numbers only at a pace that I can visualize them.  Thus I have immense difficulty with my answering machine.  Often people give me a callback number at such a pace I have to listen again and again just to be able to write it down.  So, I have a policy.  If I cannot get it on the third attempt they don’t get a call back.  Sorry.  Slow brain here.

What I have discovered through the years is God is a patient communicator.  He consistently feeds at a pace He knows I can grasp.  He should understand my intellectual pace because He made me.  Even then I have discovered I do have to say to Him, “Say again, please.”  It isn’t because He was speaking so fast.  It is because what He is saying is so phenomenal.  He has said things like just “confess your sins and I will cleanse you.”  Wow.  Say again, please.  Or how about “believe in me and you will cross over from death to life.”  Awesome!  Say again, please. And I love it when He says, “While we were yet enemies He died for us.”

I have gotten to the place where I think I understand but I still say, “Say again, please” just because I love hearing it.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 6, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Have you ever wondered if you had been zapped by some atomic ray that made your car invisible?  I just had one of those evenings.  Three times on the way home cars pulled right out in front of me forcing me to come to a full stop lest I strike them in the driver’s door.

While I really don’t believe my car was invisible I do realize there are all kinds of things around us that we cannot see or hear or smell.  My dog hears and smells things I cannot hear and smell.  There are light waves above and below what I can detect.  We do not have to stretch our imaginations beyond intellectual reason to read and believe Bible stories that talk about angels.  People who think the only things that exist are tangible haven’t considered radio, television, Internet and radar waves that literally fill our environment.  Recently while taking a nap my cell phone rang.  What I noted was it was in my pocket between me and the couch.  The fact that my body was smothering it didn’t seem to matter.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Here’s where it can get a bit tricky.  This verse is not carte blanche for us to believe all manner of crazy stuff.  Just because we can imagine something doesn’t mean it is so.  Real faith requires real intellect and real intellect requires some manner of evidence.  As Jesus said to Nicodemus, the invisible wind blows and we can see the leaves move.  The world contains much that we cannot see and God requires that we use the brains He gave us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 8, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

In John 14 Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in my name it will be given to you.” If this were so all of us would be riding around in luxury cars, living in luxury homes, eating killer diets and not needing health care insurance.  But wait, if we all were doing so, who would go to work to make the cars, build the houses and raise the food?  Everyone would be a Christian for the wrong reason.  Our characters would be corrupted and everything Jesus taught would be nullified.  Jesus’ name would become “hocus pocus.”  Furthermore, giving a child all they ask for is terrible parenting and God is not a terrible parent.

The key of understanding is the expression “in my name.”   In His name is an expression of trust that when we ask He will respond in the utmost best way for us.   He knows what we really desire is happiness, growth and eternal life.  Each prayer is uniquely answered with these root desires in mind. This week I stopped to look at a row of luxury cars.  They were pretty – inside and out.  However, what was more appalling than the sticker price was the posted estimated gas mileage.  It was horrible and I might add sinful.  For the sake of personal comfort and more than a little vanity they expect us to add to the ruination of our small planet by driving their product and using twice the gasoline we need so we can get from pillar to post in STYLE.

If I asked God for one of those cars and if He gave it to me, together, God and I would be violating what we both really want.  I want a better world and God knows that.  Asking in His name means trusting Him to give me what I REALLY want.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 5, 2011

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

Rogerbothwell.org

My tanks were full as I lifted off from the Redlands airport.  I had more than enough fuel to carry me home to Pacific Union College.  But something strange happened after crossing the Mohave Desert.  I was a comfortable three thousand feet above the Tehachapi Mountains as I sought to slide over the top and drop down into California’s central valley.  However, I wasn’t making any forward progress.  As I looked down, not only were cars passing me, but I continued to be over the same pile of rocks.  My airspeed indicator read 140 mph but when I tuned into the weather report I quickly learned that I was heading into an over 100 mph head wind.  I wasn’t going anywhere.  I was just burning fuel and I needed to stop in Bakersfield for a fill-up if I was going to get home.

I have seen many college students not really going anywhere.  They were just burning up tuition.  It seemed they were in college merely because they didn’t know where else to be.  No matter what we are doing we need to be making progress.  It can be a career.  It can be mental growth.  It can be building better relationships.  It can be developing character.  Whatever it is we should not just burn up life.  The days and years are too precious to let slip by.

Being a Christian is not just about living forever.  It is about growth.  Stagnation just doesn’t hack it.  Stagnation is a waste of brain power.  Stagnation is a waste of life. God’s gift of eternity is for us to become more and more with each passing century.  Note it is not to have more and more but to BE more and more.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 5, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I have no idea why I thought of Margaret just now.  I haven’t seen Margaret since fourth grade.  She was taller than the rest of us and sat in the back left hand corner.  Every day Margaret wore the same faded simple cotton dress.  Perhaps that’s why she sat where she did for the room steam radiator was there.  Winters can be cold in Pennsylvania especially when she had no socks, just a bad looking pair of boy’s shoes on ends of her pencil legs.  Today Social Services would intervene but this was sixty years ago.  Her long unkept hair was extremely unattractive.  Some of the kids called her “Cooties.”  I don’t think I ever did.  But neither did I tell the others to stop.  We can be most cruel.

When Christmas came we drew names out of a hat for a present exchange.  I think the teacher brought a present for Margaret to exchange.  We were all high as kites the afternoon before Christmas break.  Most likely it was a sugar high from all the sand tarts.  The room was electric when two little girls started passing out the presents.  Then our eyes grew large as something wonderful started happening in the back left hand corner.  Margaret got one present and then another and then another and then another.  They just kept piling up.  As my fading memory can recall there were thirty children in the room and Margaret received over twenty-five presents.  The teacher took her home so she didn’t have to try to ride the bus.

I also remember that for the rest of the school year no one ever again called her “Cooties.”  Every once in a while something happens to tell us that humans aren’t all bad.  How I would love to know where she is today.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 5, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Dagwood Bumstead and I have a common interest in life.  We love naps.  Also like his dog Daisy who comes and awakens him, I can be completely unconscious on the couch when I feel hot breath enveloping my space. I have learned not to open an eye, not even to peek.  From six inches away she stares waiting for the slightest flicker of an eyelid.  To flicker is to get a gigantic red tongue swash over my nose and mouth.  Yuk.   This is followed by 100 pounds of nuzzling and cuddling and pushing.  The nap is over.

In 1893 Francis Thompson first published his poem “The Hound of Heaven.”   God is the relentless hound that once on our trail with His gift of grace, continues the pursuit.  From inches away He watches us, waiting for the faintest flicker of an eye or raising of our brows.  Any signal that the time is right will be capitalized upon.  We can’t run away.  Jonah tried.  Psalm 139 reads, “Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

If you have felt the nearness of His pursuit, give up.  I promise you He will not.  He is extremely patient.

By the way if you ever have the opportunity to hold a lab’s ear lightly crunched in your hand, do it.  It is one of the softest things you will ever hold.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 4, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org