Category: devotional

It was the worst possible day in the history of the universe.  The Creator Himself was being crushed by the work of His hands.  Finally, “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘”Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.”  Amid the horror and the celebration of hell, there was a sweet moment.  That final prayer was the prayer Jesus learned from Joseph.  When going to sleep each evening Joseph taught Jesus Psalm 31:5.  Did Jesus remember?  Was He comforted in that last moment by the memory of a strong carpenter cradling Him and saying, “Jesus, repeat after me.  Father . . .”   One could do much worse in life than to die with a small child’s prayer upon one’s lips.  Surely the angels wept as they made the connection.  They remembered.

The Sabbath that followed was silent.  There were no anthems sung.  There were no choirs celebrating the creation of their galaxy.  There were no crowns thrown before the Father in praise.  The universe was dressed in black.  Every intelligent eye was focused on earth.  The sun set and the Sabbath was over.  One could feel the excitement in the air as Gabriel waited for the command.  Sunday was coming.  Dawn moved across Japan then China and then India.  No one wanted to miss what was coming.

“Thy Father calls thee” had to be the most exciting four words ever spoken.  He is the leader of the resurrection parade.  Because of what happened next millions will hear that same command.  Millions will live again.  Millions will never again die.  Millions will spend millennia telling and retelling the story that will never grow old.  It is the greatest story ever told.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 13, 2017

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Don’t you just love it when television commercials, for whatever product, inform us their offer is for a limited time only?   Just how dull do they think we are?   Of course it is for a limited time only.  Everything is for a limited time only.  When we are born “for a limited time only” should be printed on our birth certificates.  Even the rock of Gibraltar is there for a limited time.  One would have to be very unobservant if one looked at a map of the Atlantic Ocean and didn’t notice South America and Africa used to fit together.

Of course I understand they are trying to motivate us to hurry in and open our wallets.  They want us to think their March Madness Sale will never be repeated.  However, it will.  It will become the April Shower Sale which actually might be better because not enough people showed up for the March event.

Preachers do this.  The offer to come to Jesus is available for a limited time only.  They are right.  When we stop breathing the offer goes away.   Now that I have said that I do want to point out that Revelation 22 indicates there will be a time when the offer is no more.  Just as the door of Noah’s ark was ultimately closed Scripture indicates this existence that we now know is for a limited time only.  Some might be tempted to think, “Okay, I can wait.”   True, but why?  Why live a substandard life when Jesus offers the best to begin now.  The benefits of citizenship in God’s Kingdom are not just a future thing.  They begin now.  And best of all they are for an unlimited time.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 3, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

When I was very small my father was a high school principal.  On Saturday nights he brought home a 16 mm Bell and Howell projector and films that had been ordered for his school.  This was before television so I was wowed and very excited.  He hung a bed sheet on the wall and we were living on easy street.  One night we saw Walt Disney’s Fantasia.  One of the segments was The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”  A little Mickey Mouse was totally overwhelmed by a magic process he began and then could not control as brooms continue to bring in buckets of water.

Being so little I did not comprehend what it meant other than to entertain.  Now I understand.  Great power in the hands of the uninformed can bring great disaster.  The huge lottery this past week reminded me that money is power.  Suddenly, someone, most likely with little understanding of what that much money can do, will hold in their hands the power to do great good or do great harm.

When I was a young pastor I earnestly prayed for power to heal.  I would leave hospitals and cry in the parking lot because I could not save some small child’s mother from breast cancer.  What kind of useless servant was I?  Now it is slowly dawning on me as to the havoc that would have wrought.   In Ephesians 3 Paul wrote, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, . . .”  The power is there but in finely measured amounts.  A power surge can destroy our computers.  A divine power surge could destroy souls.

Written by Roger Bothwell on April 2, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

It was quite blustery yesterday as we walked through Boston Common with friends from Sweden.  Stopping to retie my shoe we noticed a lovely pearl and silver earring on the path.  Not being Vincent Van Gogh one earring would not be sufficient for me.  We left it perhaps with the hope the owner would retrace her steps and recover the treasure.  As we walked on I wondered was it a pearl of great price?

“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”  Matthew 13.   Just about everything I have ever read about this story tells us Jesus was teaching us that eternal life is so valuable we must not hesitate to sacrifice all to be sure it is ours.  I have never been totally comfortable with that.  There is way too much focus on us and our labor.  Therefore, I find another meaning that seems so much more in harmony with the Gospel.  We are the lost ones.  And God, the great lover and pursuer of sinners, sees us as the pearl.  He was the one who made the great sacrifice.  He is the one who will not let us go.  He is the one constantly moving silently among people in search of ones who will respond to His wooing.

I look in the mirror and ask “How can it be?”  Everything I see is withering away.  Where is this value He sees?   Those are questions I need not answer.  All we need to do is be thankful and accept.  Go and look in a mirror and repeat after me.  “I am a pearl of great price.”  Oh what jewels He has!

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 31, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

When I was really little things were right or wrong depending upon the pleasure or pain I experienced from particular behaviors.   However, it did not take long before I would begin negotiating with my parents.  If I was a good boy, what would I get?  Maybe I could get three stories before going to bed. When I was a teen things were right or wrong depending upon the rules of the school.  No matter how inane the rules, it was wrong to disobey.  They did not have to make sense. It was very much like a line from Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”  “Theirs is not to reason why.  Theirs is but to do and die.”  That works in the military but not in civilian life.

Unfortunately some Christians obey merely because they want to go to heaven.  They want the treat.  Or worse they don’t want to be punished.  Many Christians operate on the next level of morality.  A common bumper sticker reads, “God said it and that’s good enough for me.”  That’s the Tennyson level.  But what about the brain God gave us?  He did say, “Come and let us reason together.”  Moses argued with God.

A higher level of morality is for us to understand the reasons for rules and laws.  Often we discover the rules no long fit our present culture and our human laws sometimes need to be amended.  God’s laws do not change because God’s laws are based on reasons and principles which do not change.   Ultimately we understand that we obey because it is the right thing to do.  Or we disobey because it is the right thing to do.  Enter onto the stage Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Jesus.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 27, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

My wife has a much better sense of smell than I do.  When we go to the market she literally sniffs her way through the fruits and vegetables.  Her nose scans the melons and boxes of tangerines.  She makes sure we get good produce.  Yet, at home I can open the pantry and pick up the faintest sweet scent of an onion going bad and she does not detect it.   I shouldn’t be puzzled regarding this because I know that each person has unique qualities.   The world would be a very uninteresting place if each of us had the same talents and gifts.  Can you imagine how dull conversations would be?

A football team would be a pretty sorry organization if everyone was a quarterback.  It needs those guys who look like refrigerators just as much as it needs runners who can make a hundred yards seem like a stroll in the park.  Churches need an endless array of gifts from hospitality to scholars, pastors and evangelists.  Churches even need administrators because roofs will leak and furnaces will get old.  That is where we come in.  Each of us has something to contribute.  No one is giftless.  I have a friend who cannot see.  You should read some of the wonderful poetry that flows from her pen.  She is really good.

One thing that breaks our hearts is when we see gifted youth wasting for whatever reason.  Sometimes it is because they have yet to recognize their value. That’s where older people need to step in.  Remember Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  Too often we only apply this verse to moral issues.  It has a much vaster application.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 29, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

A few years ago we brought home a few hostas from our son’s yard.  Being a botanical ignoramus I had no idea what was going to happen in our yard.  Two years ago we dug up half of them and put them in the side yard.  Last year we dug up half of them and put them in the back yard. This year we will dig up half of them and give them to a local greenhouse; if the owner will take them.  I knew about squash but had no idea these things could be so prolific.  Hostas must be the rabbits of the plant world.

There are two ways I can go with this.  I can speak about one really little lie multiplying to keep up the cover story.  Little sins grow into big sins.   But that is so negative and while true it’s not what I want to write.  I would rather focus on good deeds multiplying.  There is a bank currently running a commercial where a lady uses the cover from her coffee to stop a table from teetering.  Next she helps a dog get untangled from a tree by giving him a treat.  Next she puts tin foil on a man’s radio antenna increasing his reception.  Goodness can be just as infectious as evil.

Paul wrote in Romans 12:20.  “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”  We can do this on an individual basis.  We can do it in our communities.  We can do it internationally. The challenge is there and the results could be more stunning than the reproduction of hostas.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 28, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

There was a very popular story in the Middle Ages about a dog named Gelert.  One night his master returned home to find his child’s cradle overturned and Gelert was covered with blood. Immediately his master killed him only to turn around and see the body of a dead wolf that had attacked his child and had thusly been killed by Gelert.  It was then that he found the baby still alive under the cradle. There are several variations to the story but the message in all of them is the same. Wise people do not act without gathering as much information as possible. How fortunate we are that our heavenly Father knows everything about us.

In a time of edited media clips and sound bites it is relatively easy to make one’s opponent say anything we want them to say and then watch the masses rise up with so little real information. We do it in the arena of politics, in the world of religion with one group pitting itself against another, and we do it in our personal relationships at work and at home.   Have we ever been riled because someone told us a certain someone said something we didn’t like to hear?   We were not there.  We did not know the context.  And we did not hear the tone of the voice which can actually reverse the meaning of a sentence.

Revelation 12:7 speaks of war in heaven; an almost impossible thing to imagine.  Lucifer, the master of sound bites, the subtle raising of an eyebrow, tonal inflection, and outright lies had attacked the throne.

The Gelert legend continued that the master buried Gelert with great fanfare and honor.  But he never smiled again.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 27, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

The local chess club meets in a classroom near my classroom at our local university.  I had to smile at some of the “trash-talking” going on in the hallway.  These were nerds.  Their “trash-talk” wouldn’t hold a candle to that of NBA players.  One of them said, “Come on and play with the Big Guys.  We’ll teach you.”  See what I mean?

What I thought was amusing was that I never thought of Jeremiah “trash-talking” but 12:5 raced through my mind.  He wrote, “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, then how can you contend with horses?”  If we can’t be honest with the little things how can we expect to be honest when it’s big money?  It is the little things that reveal the depth of our character.  It’s tax time.  I don’t need to say more about that.

When we are born God has plan A for our lives.  It is to run with the big guys.  But our failures, while forgiven, causes Him to change to plan B and then to plan C etc. For some of us He must be working on plan triple Z.  He can’t trust us to run with the horses.  Lest this sound way too discouraging and dismal please let me add that accomplishing any plan for our heavenly Father is a privilege and He loves us so very much He will never let us know about plan A.   After all He loves us and never wants us to be disheartened or discouraged.  And the greatest reward of all, eternal life, isn’t the fruit of some great accomplishment.  It is a gift of His love.   Please read the Ephesians 2 where Paul speaks of God’s plans for us.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 26, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

It was one of those “Oh, no” moments.  While picking up a dozen eggs I dropped the container before getting it into the basket.  There it was; six of the twelve eggs broken on the floor.  I felt like I was one of the “king’s horses or king’s men” not able to put “Humpty Dumpty” back together again.   How many times in life I have tried to fix the things I have broken.  Some things I can fix.  But, eggs and often relationships with others, can never be repaired no matter how often I apologize.  There is an old saying that is so true, “You can’t unring a bell.”  Once the words are spoken people, unlike God, remember what we said. They can forgive but the relationship is never quite the same.  The bloom is off the rose.

Sometimes in the heat of an argument we are tempted to call someone a not very nice name.  Don’t do it.  If we feel ourselves losing control, please, retreat until we can govern our words. If we are in a car and can’t get away, just say nothing. I realize there is a school of thought that says. “Let it out,” it will take off the pressure.  That is bad advice.  You cannot unring the bell.  It is time for some serious silent prayer.  He is able.  We just have to be open for Him to take over.

Humpty Dumpty isn’t just for children. It is very much for us at any age.  All the king’s horses and all the king’s men” can’t put the pieces back without cracks and scars.  In James 3 we read, “No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”  We can’t but God can and will help.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 25, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org