Roger Bothwell

I don’t think I ever said to another kid, “My father can beat up your father,” even though I surely thought he could.  I thought of this because of Romans 8.  Paul wrote, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  I think that pretty much means “My Father can beat up your father.”

The history of God in the Old Testament was the Hebrew God (our God) doing battle with the gods of surrounding pagan nations. In story after story Abraham’s God was in competition with Dagon, Baal or some other national deity.  Elijah’s standoff on top of Mount Carmel was classic.  Elijah taunted Baal’s priests.  He really rubbed it in by pouring water over the altar prior to the burst of lightning.  You have to hand it to Elijah.  The man had faith.  Things really got very bloody before the day was over.  There was no doubt in Elijah’s mind.  His God could beat up anybody’s god.

Today’s religious battles are very different.  Christians, Jews and Muslims claim to worship the same God.  God must be very disappointed with us.  He is supreme.  But we are not.  He watches as we all claim to be His favorites.   As adults we don’t argue about whose father can beat up whose.  Instead we argue that we are His special ones.  We usually base this on the proposition that we are righter than the others.  We have more truth.  We have more insight.

The last time I took inventory of my love for my two sons and six grandchildren I once again reaffirmed that each is so unique I love each of them uniquely.   Not one is favored over the other.  Each has a room in my heart.  Didn’t Jesus say something about “in my Father’s house are many rooms?”

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 24, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

On our way home from school this evening my wife and I decided to stop at a local ice cream parlor.  It was a beautiful spring day and it seemed like a great way to start the evening.  Without looking at the prices I ordered a double thick double chocolate malt.  I am so glad the girl didn’t bring me the check until after I had thoroughly enjoyed it.  It really was amazingly delicious.  It was also amazingly expensive.  After putting my eyeballs back in their sockets after looking at the bill I knew I never would have ordered it had I known.  I think sometimes I forget this isn’t 1950 when such a treat would have been thirty-five cents with maybe an extra penny for the malt.  I’ll know better the next time.

Maybe this has also happened to you.  You bought something before counting the cost.  Jesus even talks about a man building a tower without first considering the expense.  See Luke 14:28.   It is a mistake God would never make.  When He first planned to redeem us with the sacrifice of His only one-of-a-kind Son, He counted the cost.  And for reasons I will never ever understand He thought we were worth it.  One of my favorite authors once wrote, “God made Himself poor when He gave us Jesus.”  It is an awesome thought.  God’s richness isn’t all the stuff He can speak into existence.  His richness is Jesus.

As Jesus was dragged from the high priest’s court to the court of Pilate and Herod and back to Pilate with brutal inhuman beatings occurring along the way, the universe watched in stunned silence.  Every intelligent eye watched for either Jesus or the Father to say, “Enough.”   He never did for God so loved the world.  God so loved you.

Written by Roger Bothwell on May 14, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

I thought my windshield was clean.  There were no squashed bugs or bird droppings on it but when a low sun came blaring in I was blind.   An almost invisible film on the inside flared light all over the place.  I was afraid to put on my brakes lest the car behind me had the same experience and would not see my brake lights.  Fortunately the road was curving and a second later the angle of the sun changed and I was all right again.

In I Corinthians 13 Paul tells us we see through a glass darkly.   We think we understand.  We think we see.  We think there isn’t anything getting in our way.  But we are so limited we don’t know we are limited.  I have students who think they know but they don’t.  Their background and experience is so limited they don’t know what they don’t know.  Thus they think they know.  I thought I could see through that windshield.  I didn’t know the almost invisible film was there.

In Mark 9 a frantic father most anxious for his son’s well-being said to Jesus, “Help my unbelief.”   My prayer needs to be, “Help, my ignorance.” There is so much I don’t see.  I have no understanding of the Trinity.  I don’t understand what resurrection morning means after our bodies have totally decayed.  I don’t understand how one man’s righteousness can wipe away the horror of our sins.  I do not begin to grasp the immensity of God’s universe and His care for us.  How can God be everywhere at once and yet be on His throne?  My list of “I don’t knows” can go on and on.

I am quite reduced to faith.  Faith is the evidence of things not seen.  I see very little.

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 12, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

I loved Sunday afternoons when I was a boy.  Sunday afternoons were my alone time with my dad.  We had a truck and a dog and we had favorite places in the mountains.  When the weather was bad we went to the movies.  I loved westerns.  Randolph Scott was one of my favorite cowboys.  But every once in a while my dad, for reasons I could not understand, took me to a musical.  I hated them.  I clearly remember going to see An American in Paris and could hardly wait for it to be over.  I was nine.  This afternoon about fifty-seven years later I sat down and once again watched An American in Paris.  Now I understand that my dad had good taste.  The music was great.

Isn’t it fascinating how we become like our parents as the years go by?  I go to the mirror and see my dad.  I see his hands sticking out the sleeves of my shirt.  He was a teacher and I have ended up being a teacher.  Now if I can just do the same thing with my heavenly Father.  I realize my current resemblance isn’t even close but He can fix that on resurrection morning.  It is more a matter of attitudes and desires that interest me.  In Isaiah 58:8 He tells us that our thoughts are not His.  Well, of course, He is God.  He knows everything.  He understands all the secrets of the universe.  He was here before there was a here.  However, we can take great joy in Peter’s promise in his second letter that we can begin, right now, participating in God’s nature.  It’s just a matter of time and time is something we will have in abundance.  Little by little we will become more and more like Him.  How grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 2, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

It was a “mystical” day in central Massachusetts.  Especially in the afternoon, dark gray clouds lay low and swirled across the mountains moving in and out of the heavily hued groves of oaks, birches and maples.  It made one turn on one’s windshield wipers at their slowest speed.  The mist played peek-a-boo with one  town’s church steeples.  Geraniums not yet bitten by frost gathered droplets of water prisming surroundings and begging to have their pictures taken.  Too warm for a coat and too cool for none, the day called for a sweater.  Somewhere on top of the clouds the sun shone brightly but you would never have known, living on the ground.  I love “worsted” days near Worcester, Mass.  It’s the right place to be.  It’s the right time to be. It’s the end of October in New England.

If Jesus had met Nicodemus tonight in our city park, surely He would have said, “You know well enough how the mist moves this way and that. You see it swirling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the mist of God, the Spirit of God.”   Today was a good day to be born again.  It was a day to thank God for the chance to start fresh.  In Colossians 2:13-14 Paul wrote, “Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s Cross.” *

Actually, everyday and any day is a good day for that.  But somehow today seemed like a better day.

*The Message by Eugene Peterson

Written by Roger Bothwell on October 28, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

I misspoke this weekend while preaching.   I said, “The Bible says God loves each of us as much as He loves Jesus.”  Immediately my brain said to me, “Hey, there is no such verse.”  However, instead of stopping to correct myself I went on because in that instant of time my brain told me that while it is not actually so expressed in Scripture, recently I read it and I believe it.  I mentioned it to one of my friends and he instantly told me that I had read it in The Shack, a publication that will become a Christian classic.

I believe it is true because I am a father.  When Jesus told us to call God “Our Father” He changed everything in regards to our understanding of the true nature of God.   Actually we do not love our children equally because love cannot be measured.  However, we do love each of our children uniquely as each child is unique.  We don’t love one child more or less than the other.  We love each one differently than the other.   Each draws from us exactly what they need as we are willing to give all we have to each.  We would not die for one and not the other.  Each would receive the ultimate from us.  As we brought each into the world, we would give all to each to keep each as safe as possible in this world.

By giving us Jesus on the cross God by His actions has demonstrated that each of His children will receive all that is necessary, even at the sacrifice of the very One of which He says, “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; . . .”  Hebrews 1

Written by Roger Bothwell on January 5, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

I am in such trouble.  My wife just made cookies for a school event.  She used a new mix and didn’t want to take bad tasting cookies so I tested one.  It was wonderful.  No, it was beyond wonderful.  It was the most perfect cookie I have ever eaten.   I am in trouble because it is early evening and I have hours left before going to bed.  Here I sit at my computer knowing in the next room there is a box full of those amazing cookies and I cannot have any more.  I am salivating just thinking about it.  I need to wipe off my keyboard.  What am I to do?  I would have been so better off had I not had one.

I feel like Eve in the Garden with the forbidden tree.  Of course what happened to her was worse.  As her curiosity brought her close to the tree there was this amazing talking creature that enticed her with promises of enhanced intelligence.  If he a dumb creature could talk as a result of eating from the tree what would it do for her who already could talk? It would make her like God.   What is so sad about this is God really did want her to be like Him, just not this way.  God has spent the following thousands of years doing His best to transform us into His likeness.  See IIPeter 1. He even paid the ultimate price on the cross to make that happen.  Via His indwelling Spirit we can grow more and more like Him each day.  It is God’s goal for each of us.

In the meantime I know what I will do.  I will get a drink and wash the flavor out of my mouth.  That will help.  Ah, but there is still the smell permeating the entire house.  I need to take the dog for a walk.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 11, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

When I could not find my cell phone last Friday evening I wasn’t concerned. It was obvious that I left it at the college.  It was not until I got to school Monday morning that I discovered it really was lost.  It wasn’t there. Most likely you have also had that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when something is lost.  Keys, wallets and phones have a way of attaching themselves to us. Upon coming home in the evening we turned up all the lights as bright as possible and there it was.  It had been sitting at eye level on top of the china closet all weekend.  How could I count the number of times I walked right by it with it just inches from my nose? It wasn’t until the lights were up that it became evident.

It is no wonder Jesus called Himself the Light of the World.  We are the lost and we wander around in a philosophical wilderness searching for meaning, wanting our lives to count, seeking peace in a very troubled world, and what we are looking for is right there all the time.  If my phone was animated and could speak by itself it would have called out to me each time I passed by, “Hey, I’m right here.”

Jesus is the light.  He can shine on us and fill us with meaning and joy. He gives us purpose.   He chases away the darkness of our secular society and says, “Before you were born I knew you.” “I have something special only you can do.  Trust me and I will take you to it and give you the wisdom and strength to make your life count.”   Ah, with Jesus we are lost no more.

Written by Roger Bothwell on November 10, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

About 15 years ago I was riding to a cemetery in a hearse with the undertaker.  As we waited for a traffic light to change I suddenly realized the light was green and we were not moving.  Looking over at the undertaker, who was supposedly driving, I discovered he was dead.  What made it even more bizarre and sad was the EMT who responded to the 911 call was his son. I remembered this today when I heard that this week in South Carolina a first-time skydiver noted his instructor, to which he was connected and falling from 13,500 feet, had died. Obviously he was in a much more precarious situation than mine had been.

I could spend time here talking about being ready to meet the Lord because we don’t know when we will check out.  Perhaps I should say “check in” since the next thing we will know is a face to face meeting with Him.  But I think I would rather speak of the assurance we have that the ultimate One in charge of our lives, if we have given our lives to Jesus, will always be there and we need have no fear of being on our own.  He promised, “Lo, I am with you always.”

I have always liked that promise.  When I was little I was told when I did something I knew was bad that Jesus and my guardian angel left me to be on my own.   That really bothered me because that meant when I needed them the most they would not be there for me.  As a father I could never imagine not responding to my sons’ needs even when or if they had just disappointed me.  I just can’t

He promised, “Lo, I am with you always.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 2, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org

The packaging carried all the usual fine print that comes with most all new items we purchase. Near the bottom of the list there was one thing that caught my attention.  It said-lifetime limited warranty.  I read it twice to make sure I had seen it correctly.  Yes, it was saying that the “lifetime warranty” was limited, so in reality it wasn’t a lifetime warranty.  Or maybe it just means the warranty is for the lifetime of the product and when something happens to it and it no longer works its lifetime is over; that is most likely the case.

When God created Adam and Eve they had a really truly lifetime warranty!  They were made to live forever and had they not eaten of the forbidden fruit and sin entered the world all the future inhabitants of this world would have had the same lifetime warranty.  Nothing bad would ever happen to us.  No sickness, accidents, aging, disease, or death-we would live in perfect health forever! But because of sin we now have a limited lifetime warranty.  We are subject to all the ravages of thousands of years of sin.  The effect is devastating any way you look at it.

But lest we think it’s hopeless there is good news.  John 3:16 says, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”  Please notice, it doesn’t say “life for a long time” or “life for thousands of years.”   No, it says “eternal life”. There is no limited warranty for those who believe.  How grand!

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 22, 2009

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

rogerbothwell.org