Category: devotional

Do you every wonder how it is that evil people and good people are members of the same species?  The human mind is by far the most mysterious thing on earth.  It sits behind the eyes and holds within its folds the universe.  It receives a continuous stream of data and processes it into consciousness and self-awareness.  That consciousness transforms into an “I.”  “I” then make highly selective choices as to how “I” will respond to all that sensory stimuli.

There are some who believe that what we do with self is already determined and we have no real freedom.  There are others who have concluded that we have absolute freedom and power to choose what we will be.  Perhaps reality is somewhere in the middle.  A Volkswagen brain cannot will itself to become a Mercedes.  But it can will itself to be the very best Volkswagen brain ever.  We are limited by our physical inheritance.  But we can train, we can alter, we can discipline, we can hone our minds as a body builder strengthens and defines his biceps.  We can feed our brain quality thoughts and exercise it by contemplating character-building ideas.

Paul says, “Let this mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ.”  Philippians 2:5.  Paul also says, “I in Christ and Christ in me.”  Jesus wants to be our personal trainer.  He wants to guide us into a more excellent state of thought and consciousness. He wants us to think heavenly ideas and intellectually soar above the crowd.  The freedom to be such is ours to choose.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 8, 2001

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

rogerbothwell.org

As you can imagine with several feet of snow beginning to melt (spring is only two weeks away) there are streams of water running down our New England streets often hiding this year’s new crop of potholes.  Potholes are nature’s way of telling us we do not have its permission to drive cars.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year for businesses that sell tires.  Last week when I picked up our car from the shop the mechanic had it all washed and shiny.  That was a labor of futility.   By the time I got to the first traffic light the car was covered with salty, gritty, muddy water.  He really should not have bothered to clean it.

This is so much like our attempts to be righteous and have a clean heart.  We are living in a world of moral potholes filled with sinful gritty slime designed to keep us dirty.  I once had a church member who told me how good he was because he prayed three times every day and asked for God to forgive him his sins.  He felt like he could go six hours or so without sinning and thus he could stay clean by praying so often.  Really?  That would be like me washing my car three times a day while continuing to drive on our city streets.

Part of the problem was his understanding of sin.  He thought sin was an act, a deed or some kind of performance.  Sin is much more than that.  Sin is a condition.   Sin is a state of being.  Sin is selfishness that oozes from our almost every thought. This is why Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15 that corruption must put on incorruption before we go to heaven.  Until that happens we are indeed forgiven but we are forgiven sinners.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 6, 2015

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

rogerbothwell.org

Good chess players not only anticipate their opponent’s next move but their opponent’s next several moves.  A good player knows a fairly innocuous looking move might not appear dangerous in the immediate future but could be the key to victory as it sets the stage for a later devastating attack.  A game can be lost several moves back, but the loser did not know it then.  He did not know where he was led until it was too late.

In 1 Peter 5:8 we read, “Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  Peter did not know about chess but he surely knew about lions.  If he had known about chess he might have written, “Your enemy the devil schemes like a grand master seeking to devour you.”  He is patient.  He has a lifetime to get us.  He can plant a seed now and water it knowing the ultimate fruit of an idea or action.

Psalms 1:1 tells us to be careful where we walk, where we stand and where we sit down for this is the progression of disaster.  The walking seems so innocent.  The standing is just satisfying curiosity.  The sitting is the fruit.  We need to be so careful because the grand master of evil is playing for our souls.  How reassuring to know the true champion Jesus Christ is playing on our side.  As Paul says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”  Romans 8:37

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 4, 2003

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

rogerbothwell.org

My hands have become my father’s hands.  When I see what protrudes from my shirt sleeves I am transported to another time and place.  These hands I bear are no longer the hands of my youth but are the hands of my father’s seventies.

My father was a school teacher and he should have had school teacher’s hands but for years he worked two jobs.  At night he worked in the steel mills in central Pennsylvania to come home in the morning and get ready to go teach.  Those years his hands were the hands of a laborer.  It was his seventies hands that I now have.

If I had looked closely I think I would have seen something I missed.  In Isaiah 49:16 God says to us, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”  I wasn’t smart enough to look carefully for had I been I would have seen my name and my sisters’ names etched in the calluses forged from working eighty hours a week for years on end.  Alas, how often we get smart too late.

Isaiah 45:12 God says, “It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it.  My own hands stretched out the heavens: I marshaled their starry hosts.”

Are we not humbled and thrilled to grasp the immensity of His grandeur and yet feel the intimacy of His care?   Often in life we feel we have been wronged and no one cares.  We could not be more wrong.  He cares. He didn’t just write our names on His hands with ink that would fade.  Oh no.  He engraved our names in His hands.  This Father relationship is a forever relationship.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 5, 2015

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

This morning I witnessed one of the most thoughtless acts of indifference I have ever seen.  As I started to pump gas into my car another man finished and went inside.  In a few moments he returned to his car with a handful of lottery scratcher tickets.  By this time there were two cars waiting behind his car to pull up to the pumps.  He was totally oblivious and sat in his car and scratched his tickets without moving his car away from the gas pump.

I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he was so self-absorbed with his lottery tickets that he never noticed the other cars.  Alternative explanations are even worse.   When I finished and drove away he was still sitting in the same place.

Could it be that I am so wrapped up with me and my concerns that I don’t notice others?  I hope not.  I wonder if anyone noticed Zacchaeus in that tree except Jesus.  The good thing to note is Jesus saw him.  He paused looked up and called him by name.  That must have been a thrill for Zacchaeus.  Our names are important and this Great Man knew his.  Then the thrill got even bigger.  He invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ home for dinner. Zacchaeus would never have invited Jesus to his home.  Not because he didn’t want Him.  He just never would have dreamed that would happen to someone like himself.

Out of all the amazing things we can say about Jesus one of the more important was His notice of and concern for others.  A woman touched the hem of His robe.  Jesus noticed.  Do you have a care or concern today?  I guarantee that Jesus has noticed and cares.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 4, 2015

Spring of Life, PO Box124, St. Helena, CA 94574

rogerbothwell.org

 

On the last day of May in 1880 Queen Sunandha of Siam and her daughter drown when the royal boat capsized.  Many bystanders could have rescued them but were unable to help because it was forbidden on the punishment of death to physically touch members of the royal family.  It is a classic story of laws becoming more important than principles.  The law was made to protect the royal family from overly fond admirers harming them in a quest to touch them.  (See the story of the woman who wanted to touch Jesus’ robe.  Matthew 9)

Jesus’ struggled with the religious establishment who had fallen into the same trap.  Many of His miracles performed on the Sabbath were an attempt to teach them the principle of human need and care.  This was the important issue.  It is fascinating that they knew the law condensed to two principles – love your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.  (See Matthew 22)   In Galatians 5:14 Paul says, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Yet they were obsessed with rules.

Once we understand and begin to live by principles we experience a marvelous life of freedom.  When I love you I only want the best for you and would never desire to harm you.  I don’t even think about the Law.  I am free to do anything I desire because what I desire is to benefit you and all those around me.  It is a wonderful way to live.  Just think about getting up in the morning and doing anything you want to do and not fearing you would upset God.  Being a real Christian is an incredible way to live.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 3, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I have to admit Malachi 3:10 reads like a contract and while I have to say in my particular case, God has always kept His end of the deal.  “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”   Well, the “not be room enough to store it” is a hyperbole.  I can say without a moment’s hesitation there has always been ENOUGH.   And what more can a person ask for in life?  I can only wear one pair of shoes at a time.  I don’t need a closet full.  As a matter of fact my black dress shoes are over twenty years old and have been resoled so many times the shoe repairman told me never to bring them back again.

But I do know some people who, if they are telling me the truth, did keep their part of the Malachi 3:10 contract and they experienced tremendous financial loss.  This forces me to reexamine the “contract.”  Could it be that God is rewarding people in other ways than money?  Perhaps He pays off by making sure we are eternally cared for.

Or is the “contract” the wrong way of looking at it?  Perhaps it is a relationship thing where I say, “God I trust you with everything I have.  I trust you with my home, my income, my family and most of all with my soul.”  And whatever happens will always be for my best interest.  When I someday have the opportunity to see all the details of life’s events, the back story, I will then know His promise was to do the best for us and He did.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 2, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Have you ever looked at an 8 ½ x 11 inch piece of plain white paper?  A piece of paper like that should be good for lots of things.  But what if it had had a tiny red dot near one of the corners?  When you looked at the paper, was that tiny red dot all you could see?  Did you have to force yourself to be conscious of the 99.9999% of the paper that was still plain white?

We often do the same thing with people.  Someone can be a good person who has done much to help others.  The person can be generous, kind, unselfish and giving.  But let us detect one small flaw and suddenly that is all we can see.

Why do we do this?  Is it because we are aware of the multitude of flaws in ourselves and subconsciously we don’t want others to be perfect?  Do we feel better about ourselves by pointing out the flaws of others?  Have you ever said, “Well, I’m not so bad.  So and so does such and such.”

They did this to Jesus.  They wanted so badly to pull Him down to their scummy level that they finally found a flaw.  He associated with bad people.  Therefore, they reasoned, He must be bad, too.  After all, don’t “birds of a feather flock together?”

Shame on them.  Shame on us.  Let us rejoice when we have a good person in our midst.  Lord, give us generous hearts for others.  Aid us in treating them as we want to be treated.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 28, 2002

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

I have a very thin scar where they put in my new knee.  There are no little pin points on either side of the scar because the doctor did not stitch it shut.  He glued it.   I have a few crowns on my teeth that were glued in place.  Last week a Honda hit me while I was waiting at a traffic light.  It wasn’t hard, but it left a small tear in my bumper.  As soon as it gets warm enough outside I am going to glue it back.   Glue is wonderful stuff.

I have met some people who know how to solve problems.  They know how to hold families, churches and organizations together.  They are the glue of society.  They know exactly what to do after someone else has broken something important. They are fixers.

Death came to the home of Jesus’ friend Lazarus.  Jesus knew what to do.  He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus come forth.”  Lazarus came forth.  It was wonderful for Mary and Martha.  It was a death knell for Lucifer.  Lucifer claimed the dead belonged to him.  He tore that family apart and determined to keep it that way because he hates us to be happy.  Jesus glued that family back together.  And so it will be for the entire world and universe.  The hater of all that is good rent the beautiful tapestry of God’s Kingdom.  He filled it with horror and sorrow.  But Jesus meant it when He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Jesus will glue whole every broken family, every torn life and reputation, every broken heart will be new again with the glue of Jesus power and love.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 27, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I sat through a Power Point presentation today that said absolutely nothing.  When it was over I had to conclude that the presenter had been told to give a report and to justify his salary he got very creative using nothing.   At first I wanted to say that is what God did on Creation Day.   He got very creative using nothing, except God ended up with a marvelous product unlike the Power Point presenter.  But upon second thought perhaps God did not make us out of nothing.  We can turn matter into energy.  Perhaps God does just the opposite and takes energy and turns it into matter.  Move over Albert E.  The Creator is in the house.

“By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”  Psalm 33:6 doesn’t mean it was magic.  It was science and we came from His omniscience.  He didn’t say “Abracadabra” and it happened.  He said, “Let us make man in our image.”   Our making required so much knowledge and design that our finest researchers are still just beginning to open the secrets of   knowledge required to breathe the breath of life into us.

Nothing comes from nothing.  One would have to wait forever for something to come from nothing and even then it would still be nothing.   Now isn’t that something.  Yes, we are something and it’s a very special something.  We are the sons and daughters of that Creator designed to live forever and do some creating of our own.  He has made us thinkers just like Himself.  Now if only that Power Point presenter could have been a thinker I would have had a better day.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 26, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org