Category: devotional

We have all seen them and we all really dislike them.  I’m talking about the student who continually sucks up to the teacher.  As a teacher I have to confess that it takes me a bit to realize what is going on and then I really dislike the student doing so.   It takes me a while because I love all the nice things they say.  But really after a while it goes over the top and then the light bulb goes on.

How many times in church listening to the morning prayers do we hear people sucking up to God.  It usually goes something like this.  “Oh mighty Father, King of Kings, Ruler of the vast universe, patient one, loving one, and on and on.”    You get the idea.  Now don’t get me wrong; I think praise is fine.  The Psalms are full of praise.  It’s just that I get the idea that in the back of our minds we are thinking we want to make Him feel good before we ask for something.  I even sat through a prayer seminar once where I was taught we must always begin our prayers with a praise section. Really?  Let’s remember we are talking to the one who can read our minds.  He knows what we really think.  He knows the truth.

The best possible praise we can render to God is not a lot of trite, flowery phrases but a life of service.  What we do is so much more important than what we say.

Just as I am insulted when I catch on that a student is sucking up to me so we insult God when we suck up to Him.   Don’t do it.  Only say nice things to Him when you mean it.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 6, 2015

Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 93574

Rogerbothwell.org

Hebrews 4:15 is one of the most amazing and almost preposterous statements of all time.  Speaking of Jesus it reads, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet he did not sin.”  Sinning and being human are basically synonyms.  Yet we have this one spectacular exception.  Of all the billions of humans who have breathed earth’s atmosphere there is Jesus of Nazareth, a poor man by human standards. He was 100% human.  He was tempted in every way as we are.  And He never yielded!!

Therefore unlike us, He never felt remorse.  He never had to say, “I’m sorry.”  He never had to repent.  He never shed tears as He contemplated His behavior.  He suffered like us but not for His own failures.  Yet, like us there were times when He needed reassurance.  At His baptism the Father tells Him how pleased He is with Him.  On the Mountain of Transfiguration He is reinforced.  Tuesday afternoon prior to the cross the Father once again spoke to Him giving Him the confidence to continue on.  He must have, like us, experienced moments of self-doubt.

He was a moral miracle. This is not mentioned in the lists of His miracles.  It should be at the top.  This is greater than feeding the multitudes or even greater than raising Lazarus from the dead.  This Jesus of Nazareth is the only man ever who could have divided history into before and after. Now He says to us, “Come and follow me.”  He said, “I am the way.”  The way where?  Into eternity.

 

Written by Roger Bothwell on Feb. 5, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

One did not need to see today’s installment of horror from the Middle East to be repulsed at the repugnant savage barbaric nature of men.  Our imaginations can vividly supply the smell of gasoline and fire and the screams coming from the cage. I am on the verge of being ashamed for being a human being.  Is not God disgusted?  Surely these animals are doomed for no regime so evil can long endure.  Are not their fellows ashamed and when will they rise up and say, “No more”?

I wanted to say at this point that I have never been ashamed for being a Christian.  But that is not so.  So called Christians have appeared at the graveside services of our fallen soldiers with terrible signs spewing hatred.  So I am going to say with Paul, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” (Romans 1)  I could never be ashamed of a message that denounces hatred and the promotion of pain upon others.  How sad that sometimes we have to make a distinction between “the Gospel” and “Christianity.”  But we do not have to do that if we are talking about “Real Christianity.”  Anything that varies from Jesus’ message of our heavenly Father’s love is a blatant counterfeit and easy to identify as such.

Jesus is so different from every other religion in the world.  Edwin Markham’s famous words put it so well.

“He drew a circle that shut me out-

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle and took him In !

Of that I could never be ashamed.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 24, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

In Acts 10:38 Peter makes a wonderful statement about Jesus.  “He went about doing good.”  We call ourselves Christians which we all know means Christ-like.  That must mean that we go about doing good.   I wish.  I can only imagine what the world would be like now if during the past 2000 years Christians went about doing good.  I wonder what our environment would be like if we went about doing good.  What if each day we purposed to do at least one good thing?

The entire verse reads, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”  I am not going to even think about applying the entire verse to us because healing is something quite different.

If one of us had the real gift of healing chaos would result.  The media rush, the stampedes of the ill, the devastation to our hospital system and the unemployment that would result as nurses and doctors lost their livelihood would be horrific.  So I am going to concentrate on the “doing good” part of the verse.

In 1965 Dionne Warwick sang to us Burt Bacharach’s song, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing there’s just too little of.”  That is still true 50 years later.   Real love, sweet love, would bear the fruit of “doing good.”  If there’s someone out there who’s not your favorite person be creative and do something good for them.  Who knows?  You just might become their favorite person.  Now wouldn’t that be something?

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 3, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Psychologists call it groupthink.  It’s a simple term aptly describing a situation when a population continues to cyclically feed on an idea reinforced by only listening to each other.  North Korea is a prime example of an entire nation closing avenues of communication that might expose them to ideas contrary to the ones they want to maintain.  Members of political parties do the same thing by only listening to or reading editorials that bolster the ideas they already hold.

Churches and Bible study groups are also guilty.  Bible verses are sought as proof texts to maintain isms and tenets.  I have seen situations where access to pulpits was restricted to those belonging to a particular denomination.  The justification being, “What could that unbeliever have to share with us?  We have the truth.”  Many years ago I heard (with my own ears) one of my church leaders denounce us for having books that were not published by our church’s publishing house.

This was the rational used by the population of Nazareth when they sought to throw Jesus off a cliff.  “How dare he tell us things like this?”   In so thinking the religious leadership ultimately demanded that the Romans crucify Jesus.  Groups often become paranoid thinking the world is out to get them because they dare to think differently from the masses, thus turning themselves into God’s elect at the expense of all others.

To be open to the power of the Holy Spirit requires an open mind and the sharing of ideas.  Unless we are open, the only way the Holy Spirit can get through to us with a new idea is to knock us off our horses.  Well, He does have a history of doing that.  Just ask Paul.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 2, 2016

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

While driving through town this late afternoon one would have to be blind not to see the parking lots at the local bars are packed.  I wondered how the buildings could hold all the people if there were only one person per car.  I also noticed the parking lots at the churches were empty.  Surely there had to be at least one church in town holding a Super Bowl party.  They could have pizza and hot chocolate or soda.  While I am comfortable watching the game in my chair there are lots of people who want to watch the game with friends.  There is something bonding about cheering on the hometown team.  And like the theme song to the sitcom Cheers,

“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got

Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot

Wouldn’t you like to get away?

 

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name

And they’re always glad you came

You wanna be where you can see our troubles are all the same

You wanna be where everybody knows your name.”

 

There is something magical about our names.  It feels good inside when meeting someone who knows and says your name. When I was a pastor I tried to learn the children’s names.  Parents beam when the pastor kneels down, shakes hands and calls a little guy by his name.  People like to go where they are cared for.  It is one of the great things about going to heaven.  God knows our names.  Just like on the Price is Right, we will hear our names called with a variation.  Instead of “Come on Down.”  It’s going to be “Come on Up.”   How sweet that will be!

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 1, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

We have a new neighbor, who in an attempt to protect their new home, put up an unsightly red sign in the front yard stating they have installed Xfinity’s home security system.  The owners next door have an equally unsightly sign saying they are protected by ADT.  We have another neighbor who put up a sign advising dog walkers to curb their dog.  I find myself wondering why someone would spend decades of their life’s earnings for the lovely home of their dreams and then deliberately uglify it.  I do believe if I were an educated burglar the security signs would be for me a dare, a challenge, sport.  As for the dog sign, it was many, many times larger than what a dog would leave behind.

It seems that we humans often approach a problem with solutions that diminish what we are trying to preserve.  After 9/11 in an endeavor to preserve ourselves we voted away some basic freedoms.  We might have been safer but our precious values, earned by the blood of our forefathers, were diminished.

Fortunately for us God chose to preserve His values rather than diminishing them.  Freedom of choice, the hallmark of His government, could have been sacrificed.  He is all powerful.  He could have established a world that “would not” because they “could not” rebel.  What He would have been left with was a planet filled with beings without love, for love is only love when it is freely given and freely received.  Instead He preserved.  He gave us His Son that He might solve the sin problem by elevating Jesus on a cross.

The beauty of a home, the nature of a nation, the love of God’s children must be preserved without diminishment.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 29, 2016

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

My woods are deeply asleep beneath winter’s heavy white cover.  There are no rabbit tracks, no sign of chipmunks or disruptions in the scape indicating an owl’s early morning breakfast.  Only a handful of oak leaves are left clinging to their summer perches. The bones of the oaks, maples and birches are beautiful etched across a gray winter sky.  It’s a short menu, if any, for the coyotes, bears and foxes.

I wonder about the chipmunks living in dark tunnels and rooms stored with seed from my bird feeders.  During the summer months I watched them figure out how to harvest from the squirrel proof feeders. (There is no such thing.)  They would stuff their cheeks and disappear into the cracks at the edge of the patio and quickly return for another load.  I have a lot invested in those underground pantries.

In Matthew 25 and other places Jesus speaks of preparing for the future.  If we live long enough winter will come for us.  No one is immune.  We will be required to call upon the resources we have stashed away in easier times.  In Psalm 119:12 we read, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”  If there is any correlation between the ease of winter and the amount of seed carried away my chipmunks will have an easy winter.   We can ease the intensity of winter when it comes by storing up Scripture.  “Though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil….Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”  These promises are real and sure. It is a matter of preparing for winter.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 30, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

The following is a line in the musical Camelot, “I wonder what the king is doing tonight.”  Sometimes I have a variant thought.  “I wonder what God is thinking tonight.”  Did He notice the asteroid that swept by us this past Monday?  It came within 745,000 miles from us and had its own moon.  Is He horrified and disgusted that people are chopping heads off their enemies and doing it in His name?   Does He care about deflated footballs?  Is He watching parents’ hearts breaking at St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital?  Does it matter to Him that the stock market is down almost a thousand points?  It will affect the amount of tithe He receives.  Or is money meaningless to the one who owns all the cattle on a thousand hills?

I have an inkling what He might be thinking about tonight.  I think He is thinking about you.  Really.  I’m not messing with you.   Jesus said in Luke 12, “Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”

Sometimes we are tempted to think of God as being a huge creative force that governs the universe and we forget Jesus’ powerful message that He is a personal God who wants us to call Him Father.  Not only is He aware of all those things mentioned above (Well, maybe not the footballs.) but, the most minuscule detail of your life matters to Him.  For us, who struggle to manage the details of just one life, it seems preposterous to think He is involved with us.  But then again ask any parent with lots of children if any of them don’t matter.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 29, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

It’s been a busy day doing the Lord’s work.  It started snowing last evening and we are at about the two foot level now.  That makes it very difficult for the chickadees, cardinals, blue jays and others birds to stay fed.  We have had to refill the seed feeder and the suet feeders because of the constant stream of about eighteen different kinds of birds staying nourished.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

God’s work manifests itself in a huge variety of ways.  Who’s to say which is more important than another?  The farmer plowing his field, the auto worker going to his assembly plant, the teacher going to her classroom, the grocery store shelf stocker stocking, the cook cooking at Denny’s, the highway patrolman patrolling, the nurse nursing in the emergency room are all doing God’s work.

Occasionally I talk with someone ruing the fact they never got a job working for the church.  They made the mistake of thinking that working for the church is the only way to do God’s work.  God’s work is caring for others’ needs.  If I had to rank jobs as to what is the number one task that is God’s work I would most likely list Hospice workers.  The fact is God needs all of us to make life work.   Our part can change from day to day.  Today our job was to feed His birds.  Tomorrow when the snow melts it will be something else.  Whatever it be let’s do it well.  Luke 9:62.

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 28, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org