Roger Bothwell

We were standing in line at the supermarket behind an old guy about my age.  I could not help but notice the food he was putting on the conveyor belt was a hodgepodge of very unhealthy items.  There were Oreo cookies and beef jerky and those were the healthy items.  I had already rolled my eyes at my wife when he turned to me and quietly said, “My wife just died.  We were married 36 years and I just don’t know what to buy.”  As he walked away with a plastic bag in each hand I looked at the checkout girl who had started to cry.  If I were a person who uses bad language I would have called myself a very bad name.  When will I ever learn to stop being a smart Alex and stop judging people?  What is it with me?  Do I need to make myself feel superior by putting others down?
 
Why can I not act like a follower of Jesus?  I am so thankful Paul talked about this inner conflict in Romans 7.   If he had not I would be extremely depressed, but chapter 8 verse 1 is so wonderful.   He asked who can help?  Who can rescue us from us and His answer is an anthem that resounds through the universe.  He said, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus . . .”
 
So I am going to stop beating myself up over this lapse, learn a lesson and go ahead and do better next time.  That is what being a Christian is about.  It is not about being perfect.  It is about learning and growing.

Each of us decodes what others say to us using a host of filters which are the products of our culture, our age, our education, our personal biases, and past experiences.  I am amazed that we understand anything others say or write.  I have students from Haiti, Jamaica, New York City, Boston and upper New York State.  Surely there is a bit of lunacy on my part to walk into a classroom with the expectation that students will understand anything I tell them.  If it isn’t lunacy then it must be arrogant ignorance.  Thus it is that explaining the simplest of assignments can be a major task.
 
This brings me to the foolishness of preaching, whether it be to a gathering of thousands at a camp meeting in southern Kenya or ten people gathered together in Iowa.  Believing that one has something to say that is meaningful to either of these groups is an audacious act.  God must be amused at our conceit.  We might think we were splendid and did God a great service by “spreading the Good News.”  However, He knows it would have been utterly meaningless had not the Holy Spirit been present.  Only the Holy Spirit knows the unique hungers of each soul.  Only the Holy Spirit can translate our feeble attempts into meaningful thoughts that truly nourish.
 
So many times I have had people thank me for saying “such and such” because it was just what they needed to hear.  I often take credit by saying thank you when I know I never said what they said I said.  I’m sure it is a form of the gift of tongues mentioned in Acts or should I say the gift of ears.  However, the process works, it isn’t our brilliance.  It is God’s desire to save.

Just for a mega second today a gust of wind picked up a cloud of snow crystals and swirled them over my car.  Visibility went to zero.  Our minds are amazing museums of memories that merely need a key to bring them rushing back.  As the road broke clear for me I remembered flying from Collegedale, Tennessee to my parent’s home in Pennsylvania.  I was over Virginia with miles of visibility when a cloud happened.  I mean happened.  Instantly visibility was zero.  There I was a mile and a half above the Blue Ridge Mountains hurtling along at 150 miles an hour and I could see nothing.  As fast as I could I called flight control explaining and asking for guidance. No questions were asked.  I was assigned a transponder number, given a heading, and an altitude to maintain.  I couldn’t see him but I knew I was in good hands.  After a while his voice came back saying please climb 2000 feet you will be going over Dulles International Airport.  I couldn’t see but I obeyed and I was safe even with 747s coming and going around me.
 
The spiritual lesson here writes itself.  We think we are cruising along fine when something totally unexpected happens and we need guidance.  A quick request and our Master is there. If we trust and obey, even though we can’t see Him, He is watching.  Just as I safely arrived in Pennsylvania we will arrive exactly where God wants us to be and where else would anyone in their right mind want to be.
 
Psalm 73:24 promises, “Thou shall guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.”  You have to admit it doesn’t get any better than that.  God is not only great, He is good.

Houses have memories.  The sounds of babies crying and children laughing are imprinted in the wallpaper.  The kitchen sounds of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner preparations accompanied by the sounds of football games and commercials in the background permanently give a home the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.  Before this week’s snow I drove past an old doghouse sitting by the side of the road with a big “Free” sign attached.  I wondered about its memories.  Was its owner long gone or was its passing recent?  Did the house have the sounds of puppies imprinted on the insides of its walls?  Some of the shingles were missing.  Was that from old age or did its owner imitate Snoopy and wear them off by sitting on the roof?  Whatever the answers to all these questions I hope it has good memories.  I hope its owner’s owner did not make him or her stay in that house in Massachusetts’s Decembers and Januarys.  I hope it was a summerhouse.  But now the house is “Free.”  Surely the new owner will not use it for firewood but will give it to a nice dog.
 
Houses are special.  Every house takes on the uniqueness of its owners. I had a new house once.  I never want one again.  I like moving into a pre-owned house with pencil marks already on the door frames of the bedrooms.  I like the scratch marks of a dog on the back door.   In John 14 Jesus tells us He has gone to prepare homes for us.  I want mine to come already personalized with wear marks on the stairs.  He could really personalize it by putting marks on the bathroom door frame indicating the heights of my sons at ages 3, 4, 5, etc.  That would be super special.

I used to think Thomas Edison took the honors for being persistent.  He worked 18 months until he got a light bulb that would burn for 13.5 hours.  However I now think a Korean named Seo Sang-moon might be the most persistent man in history.  He is almost 70 years old and after 271 unsuccessful attempts to pass the non-driving part of the driver’s test he passed.  It cost him almost a thousand dollars in fees but he passed on his 272nd attempt.  The test givers cheered.
 
In Luke 18 Jesus tells a very interesting story about persistence.  It seems there was a widow who needed judicial protection.  The judge was not a godly man and didn’t care a bit about her but finally granted her request because she endlessly pestered him.  He was sick of her and gave her what she wanted to get rid of her.  Jesus goes on to say if this ungodly man would give this woman what she wanted how much more will our faithful heavenly father hear us and give us what we need.  Jesus is not telling us we have to beg God for good things but merely pointing out the surety of God’s love.  We can count on Him!
 
I once heard a sermon based on this parable teaching us the necessity of repetitive prayer.  While there may be some benefit in repetitive prayer, not to change God’s mind, but to prepare us to receive, the lesson of this parable is just the opposite. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”   The God who loves us dearly hears us and will answer when the time is right.

Our New England world is sated with white.  One wonders if it could ever be whiter and still it falls from the sky.  The green boughs of our pines are laden.  The arms of our maples, oaks and beeches are dressed in bridal splendor.  It is a moment to savor the purity and imaginative touch of our Creator.  Amidst the falling blanket juncos, finches, cardinals and woodpeckers are banqueting outside our breakfast window.  It is so glorious and yet it comes with a sadness because it will end. 
 
Life is that way.  Every good thing comes to an end.  Our babies are given to us and in a blink of an eye they are married and gone to have their own babies and to blink.  The vigor of our youth melts into summer and fall.   Life’s winter brings its own whiteness if we are fortunate to keep any.
 
The wonder of Jesus is the whiteness that will never melt.  I love the way the New International Version renders Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”  The matter is settled!  There is no negotiating.  God says it and it’s finished, sealed in love.  It is a whiteness without sorrow because it will never end. Aeons from now we will be pressed and wrinkle free.
 
Salvation is a glorious thing that will never end.  God’s measureless love is as huge as His universe. Therefore we must never fear He will change His mind.  “God is changeless in his love.”  Psalm 59:10.   Our world is sated with mercy and white.

Coming from someone who declared himself to be a Pharisee of Pharisees (See Acts 23) Galatians 5 is a doctrinal 8.9 earthquake.  It is an arrow piercing the core of our human nature that wants to do it ourselves.  When we are small and watching our parents do something we often cry out, “Let me. Let me.”  But we can’t.  Salvation is way beyond our skill set.  In the passage below taken from Galatians 5, Paul speaks specifically of circumcision because that was the issue of the day.  However, the foundation of Paul’s argument is the inherent principle.  That means we can supply any “work” in place of the word circumcision.  It could be food, tithing, etc.  Not that those are not important.  They are.   The point is they are not contributors to our salvation.  They are the fruit of salvation.
 
“Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. . . For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
 
Please note the “only” thing that counts.  It is a constant theme for Paul.  Please check out I Corinthians 13.  If I have not love I am only a clanging symbol.   Galatians 5 is Paul’s Emancipation Proclamation. It is a declaration of freedom.

All this week Friendly’s restaurant in our little city is providing huge sundaes free in honor of the Patriots’ Super Bowl win this past Sunday.  There is a catch.  You have to ask.  There are no signs on the door or anywhere.  It’s one of those things you have to know.  We’ve already taken advantage yesterday and today.  I think I’ve reached my sugar limit and won’t go tomorrow.
 
As I was spooning down hot fudge and vanilla ice cream this afternoon I thought of Jesus’ sayings in the Sermon on the Mount, “Ask and it will be given to you.”  Matthew 7:7  “How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” Matthew 7:11 And in Matthew 6:8 He said, “Be not you therefore like unto them: for your Father knows what things you have need of, before ye ask him.”  
 
This is fascinating.  Before we ask our Father knows our needs and yet we are instructed to ask.  Could this possibly have something to do with God’s battle with Satan?   Satan accused God of pampering Job.  Satan said God gave Him everything.  Could it be that if we ask, God can respond to Satan’s accusation by saying we asked?
 
Whatever the reason, unlike Friendly’s that doesn’t tell unless we ask, God tells us what we can have?  The Bible is full of promises for care, food, forgiveness, peace of mind and many other blessings.  God is a great parent and if what we ask is good for us, we can be sure it will be given.   If we ask for things that will ultimately harm us, the answer is no.   Check out the story of Hezekiah asking for fifteen more years of life.  That didn’t work out very well.

Being that I live in New England and being that the New England Patriots football team won the Super Bowl on Sunday and being that almost at the end of the third quarter they were down 25 points and being that no one had ever made a comeback to win being so far in the hole and being that the Atlanta Falcons were playing superbly, one would assume I would use that event as the foundation for today’s devotional, drawing the obvious lesson that no matter how big the mountain is before you, you should never ever give up, because miracles can happen and because this paragraph is one sentence with 131 words, I am not going to mention the Super Bowl because you are most likely not a Patriot’s fan. 
 
According to the dictionary a fan is an enthusiastic admirer, an enthusiast, an aficionado, a follower, a devotee or a supporter.  I want to say we should be fans of Jesus but there is something about that that seems shallow.  Loving Jesus is so much beyond being a fan.  Loving Jesus is making a life commitment to service and surrender of self.  When Thomas said in John 11, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” he was speaking of something so important and meaningful it was from the core of his being.  Blessed is the person who loves something worth more than life itself. 
 
I am not a fan of Jesus Christ because the word fan does not come near doing justice to the depths of love I feel when I contemplate the cross and the hellish experience of what happened to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.  To die for Jesus is gain.  “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  Jim Elliot.

I was browsing a hymnal looking for just the right song to match my sermon this weekend when I spotted the old favorite, In Times Like These.  What a great song.  Ruth Jones, wrote it in 1944. WWII was raging and the Normandy Invasion was in June.  She wrote the words, melody and harmony while ironing – some people are so very gifted. 
 
“In times like these you need a Savior.
 In times like these you need an anchor;
Be very sure, be very sure
Your anchor holds and grips the solid Rock!
 
 This Rock is Jesus, Yes, He’s the One.”
 
It seems like we have been at war somewhere in the world ever since.  Has there ever been a time when In Times Like These wasn’t appropriate?  Every morning seems to bring us something unsettling and even startling.  I often wonder how people manage who don’t have Jesus in their lives.  He brings amazing comfort.  His promise “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” could not be more appropriate and calming.
 
Sometimes we look at photographs of earth taken from afar in space and we look so isolated and so alone hurtling through nothingness.  Thankfully appearances can be deceiving.  We are not alone.  We are watched, nurtured and loved by the one who spoke us into existence.  In Romans 8 Paul points out the logic that if God gave us His only Son will He not then give us all the things we need. 
 
He is our Rock not only times like these but in all times and anywhere.  With His help our anchor will hold.  That’s a promise.