Month: February 2021

One of our friends invited us to his high school drama production.  Each year he works diligently with his students preparing a really great production.  We went a bit early to be sure to get good seats.  We need not have hurried.  When we walked in the door there were two premium seats with signs that said in big letters, “Reserved – Bothwell.”  How grand.  We felt important.

In Revelation 14:9 we understand that a third of the angels of heaven accompanied Lucifer when he left heaven.  That certainly left a lot of empty seats in God’s throne room.  And how will those seats be filled?  I cannot but think they are now reserved for the redeemed.  Just as Jesus said there is a place for us in His Father’s house (John 14) it makes good sense to follow that with an understanding we also have a seat in the throne room – a reserved seat with our names engraved for eternity.

I have a friend who for the past several years has served in the House of Representatives in Washington.  He does not have to search for a seat each time he attends.  His seat is well marked.  It is his.  Just so we need not fear there will not be a place for us.  Our seat is well marked and we will use that seat each time we attend of God’s events.

Unlike today where my reserved seat partially blocked the view of a little guy behind me there will be no blocked views in God’s throne room.  Some years ago upon entering a large room I asked the attendant for an unobtrusive seat in the back.  He stared at me and said, “We have no such seats.”

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 6, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

On our way to Philadelphia we came up behind a car being very poorly driven.  The driver changed lanes several times without signaling and when we passed him he was on his cell-phone.  The real surprise was the business name on the side of the car was Farmers Insurance.  So much for being a role model.  I realize not one of us is perfect but this was excessively bad.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  That could be a source of major discouragement. It is setting the bar so high we can’t even see it let alone get there.  Perhaps the issue is one’s definition of perfection. John Dewey, the great American philosopher, urges us to understand that perfection is a process.  He proposes that no matter how good someone has been if he ceases to grow he is a bad person.  And a person with a morally unworthy past, who is moving to be better, is a good person.  I like this concept but fear for the elderly.   I have watched some very kind, generous people age into someone not nice to be around.  Surely we can take comfort in the knowledge that God knows the condition of their aging minds and treats them with love and understanding.

For those of us who think we are still mentally running on all eight cylinders our challenge, our goal, our destination is to be a better person today than we were yesterday.  A comforting promise is found in John 15.   Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will abide with and in us so we do not have to do it alone.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 4, 2013

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

For four million dollars we could have purchased thirty seconds of airtime to advertise whatever we like during this year’s Super Bowl.  When someone spends that much they definitely want to maximize the experience with the most creative and interesting advertising possible.  Or to put it more crudely, “Get the most bang for your buck.”

I was wondering how we would use thirty seconds to advertise Christianity.   Would we show a reenactment of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead?   Would we show Jesus restoring fingers and facial features to a decayed leper?  Would we show Jesus on the Cross or perhaps better Sunday morning coming from the tomb?   Perhaps we would broadcast a few of His fabulous promises?   Or we could read highlights from the Sermon on the Mount.

It would be very difficult to reduce the grandeur of the Gospel to thirty seconds when one is advertising the gift of eternal life.    Better than all the above is a single individual living a kind, loving, unselfish life.  We are walking commercials for the best product ever conceived.  Our lives, the brief and extended contacts we have with others, our influence makes more of a difference than we can imagine.   Temporary lives become eternal lives because  of us.  We are God’s ads and He spent so much more than four million dollars to have us on His side.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 3, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Our brains are most amazing memory organs.  From the moment we are born, daily it stores billions of bits of data.  The challenge of those first years is for our brains to sort the enormous intake.  Little by little as the years go by it gets very good at categorizing stimuli.  Soon it begins to form the story of a life.  That’s why there can never be another like you because even a twin with the same DNA will experience different stimuli thus forming a unique person all its own.  Decades later when we try to remember our childhood experiences we will unconsciously select the memories that harmonize with the self we have become. That is why it is most interesting to listen carefully to the stories people tell of their youth and childhood.  It tells us much about who they now think they are.  Events that cannot be synchronized are not discarded they are just not remembered even though they are there.

Other than God’s miracle of mitosis over which we had no control we are self made.  There is no one to blame other than the person we see in the mirror.  No amount of resurrecting repressed memories can excuse who we are and what we do.  When we come to God for grace, forgiveness and salvation there is no room for excuses.  There is no blaming moms, dads or uncles.  The joy is we don’t have to blame anyone.  God isn’t looking for shared responsibility.   He is looking for a contrite heart and an openness to begin anew.  He is looking for a heart that cries out Romans 7:24, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

And the answer is (no drum roll needed) “Jesus Christ, our Lord.”  Verse 25.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 2, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

The English language abounds in four letter words.  Some are not so nice but there are others that are wonderful like “glad,” “hope” and “love.”  There is one that increasingly bothers me more and more.  It is “them.”   “Them” as in “those people.”  I guess it is not so bad when we want to say something nice about “them” but it seems more times than not it is not that way.

“Them” are not “us.”  “Them” are “those guys” who are not quite as good as we are. “Them” usually have sinister motives and are not quite as “human” as we are.  “Them” are outsiders who can only be trusted if watched carefully.

Paul grew up in a “them/us” culture.  He has much to say about this human disease.  “. . . He (Jesus) came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.  Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household . . .” Ephesians 2:17-19  In Colossians 3:10-11 he wrote, “. . . (we) have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

Who are the “them” in our lives and what can we do to make them “us.”  Could it be the change needed is not in “them” but in “us?”  Jesus fed two crowds.  The one was Jewish and the other was gentile. They both got the same meal.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 1, 2012

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

Rogerbothwell.org