Month: June 2022

When God asked Adam about eating the fruit Adam blamed Eve.  Surely Eve blamed the serpent and I’m sure the serpent blamed Satan and Satan blamed God.  That has been his game-plan right from the beginning.  Tornados and earthquakes are called “Acts of God.”  The rationale is that God could have stopped them had He chosen so.  That’s true.  He could have.  However, God is in a battle with Lucifer (Satan) and should God continually intervene in the affairs of earth this pail of pain could never be put to an end.   Lucifer would take credit for all the good and continue to smear God’s character.   This drama has to play itself out to the bitter end so when it is put to an end it will never happened again.  Everyone must know that God is love and just and wants the best for His children.  Does God ever have a good day?  He has to witness millions of events every day that are not His will but are the bad choices of Adam’s children.

Jesus came to pay the redemptive price for sin.  Death is the natural consequence of our sins.  He paid the price but cannot accept the blame.  That has to go to the one who started the mess.

In our ignorance and inability to see the big picture we are confused and continually ask, “Why me?”   Bad things happen to good people.  We and our choices are the lesson book to be studied for all time.  Our contribution is part of an intellectual vaccination that will ultimately end pain and death forever.   While Satan might desire us to think so, God is not responsible.  There are universal issues beyond our comprehension.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 19, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Many years ago when I was the commencement speaker at Atlantic Union College, the platform party had to weave its way through the college orchestra. When I stepped onto the platform I heard someone calling to me, “Sir, sir, my music stand.” Unknowingly I had snagged his stand on my academic robe and had dragged it up the stairs onto the platform. It wasn’t my finest moment.  Then there was the occasion when performing my first baptismal service in a church where I was the new pastor.  I thought I had descended all the stairs into the water.  I had not.  The next step found me face down in the water in front of two thousand people.  Don’t you just love moments like that?  They are better when they happen to someone else?

When most people fall down in front of an audience they are embarrassed and try to laugh it off.  But there is another kind of falling that isn’t so funny.  Paul speaks of it in I Corinthians 10.  “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” He obviously isn’t talking about falling into a baptistery.  The real danger isn’t the big sins we easily recognize.  It is those subtle defects of character.  Too often we only think of sin as breaking one of the Ten Commandments.  The really dangerous sins are the insidious moments of smug moral superiority, justifying being selfish, jealousy of another’s gifts or never having enough when we already have plenty.

Here’s a Good News Bulletin. Just as a parent doesn’t expect their one-year-old not to fall down so Jesus knows we are going to fall.  But like a great parent He is there to pick us up.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 18, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

While the tenth commandment forbids coveting perhaps it should also have included envy.  According to the dictionary coveting focuses on our desire to have something another has while envy is a negative feeling directed toward a person, perhaps the person who has what we covet.  Envy and not coveting is listed as one of the seven deadly sins. It is perhaps the queen of sins for it has absolutely no gratification.  Greed might make you rich.  Gluttony might get you a great meal. Lust might find you temporary satisfaction but envy has no benefit even short lived.

Envy feeds on the destruction of others.  Often it causes us to be hypocrites and we pretend to celebrate when something good happens to another but we feel the best when something bad happens to them.  It is not enough for us to succeed.  We don’t want success for anyone else except perhaps our children.  From them we feed and take vicarious satisfaction from their accomplishments.

Lucifer’s great sin was a combination of coveting and envy.  “I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”  The irony of this is God’s goal for each of His children is for us to be like Him.   The secret ingredient is love. If Lucifer had loved God he would have continued to grow.  How dramatically opposite that Jesus left His throne on high to become one of His creations.  He came to us poor.  He died for us poor.

Envy is such a wicked thing.  It blinds us to the reality that when others succeed we increase.  The worst sins are way inside us where we live.  The best virtues are way inside us where God wants to live.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 17, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Friday night when taking the dog out for the last time for the day I almost stepped in my Father’s Day present.  The FedEx man left a shoofly pie on my doorstep.  I barely escaped squishing molasses and brown sugar into a pancake instead of a pie. Having grown up in eastern Pennsylvania meant that I grew up eating lots of Amish food.  Shoofly pie is by far one of their very best contributions to the civilized world.  It is a marvelous concoction of pie crust layered with molasses, cake and crumbly brown sugar.  It is going to be available on the Tree of Life mentioned in Revelation.

It was an amazingly appropriate gift.  The more we know about someone the better we can gift them.  When we know their tastes in food, fashion and books we can select just the right item for the occasion.  Now just think for a moment about who knows you best.  Who knows so much about you that He knows the number of hairs left on your balding head?  Who actually lives inside you and knows your thoughts?  (That’s one reason why our prayers don’t have to be verbalized.  He already knows what we need.)  Therefore, when He selects a present for us it is absolutely the most perfect thing that can be given and He plans on giving us lots of presents.   Note in Ephesians 2 we read, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us.”

We are so blessed.  How could anyone say “No” to an offer like this?

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 17, 2014

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

We have all done it.  Someone is hurting or suffering from a great loss and we say to them, “If you need anything just call me.”  Really?  Anything?  How about making my car payments or my mortgage?  How about paying off my medical bills?  Now I do realize and so do those in pain realize that you are speaking of something within reason.

This happened to my sister this weekend.  Her very sick neighbor came home from the hospital and my sister said the “anything” thing.  “Oh,” her neighbor said, “Could you bring me some egg custard.”  This sounds simple enough except my sister did not know what egg custard was (obviously my mother never made it for us) and my sister did not find it at her supermarket.  Fortunately we live in the wonderful age of the Internet and a Google search for egg custard provided a recipe.

I am reminded of Jesus’ parable of the midnight knock on the door.  It’s found in Luke 11 and it contains one of my favorite verses.  “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”  God, our Father, is a giver.  He cares about our needs and is anxious to help.  For some reason that I do not understand often times we have to ask. Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”  Maybe it has something to do with our adversary the devil, who accused God of over giving to Job. So go ahead and ask.  If it is good for you, you will get it.  If it isn’t you won’t.   I hope you like custard.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 16, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

Each of the Ten Commandments is designed to keep us happy.  No one knows us better than our Creator and therefore He knows what is best for us.  When He tells us not to covet He is telling us how to be happy with what we have.  It is miserable to see something another person has and to want it.  Sometimes we talk about “Gateway Drugs.”  We should talk about “Gateway Sins.”  There is no question that little sins lead to big sins.  Coveting is a “Gateway Sin.”   If we did not want what another person has we would not be tempted to steal it or worse, kill them so we could get it.  Thou shall not covet definitely belongs in the Big Ten.

I am amazed at how many people I speak to who are not happy.  We should have happy courses and the first class should be dedicated to paying attention to what God has prescribed for us.  One of the things I notice is how fearful people are.  They talk about how bad the world is getting.  Having been a history minor in college I would like to propose that the world isn’t any badder than ever.  Horrible things have been occurring since Cain killed Abel.   The difference now is the 24 hour news channels. In order to fill up all that time newspeople scour the world for all the horror they can find and then they pump it into our living rooms.  The bad stuff happened before this.  We just didn’t know about it.  Technology enables them to make us miserable.

Please remind yourself every day that Jesus loves you.  Be comforted that your sins are forgiven and rejoice in your citizenship in God’s Kingdom.  It’s a happy kingdom.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 15, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

 

Ever so gently and as kindly as possible I whispered to the elderly lady cashier, who had given me five dollars too much in change, and I returned the five to her.  I knew it would have come out of her pay if her cash drawer was short at the end of the day.  However, before you smile and think, “I knew he was honest” allow me to say if it had been a very rude seventeen-year-old, I’m not so sure I would have returned it.  I would have figured she deserved to be stuck for five dollars or even more.

This brings me to the issue of our allowing other people to determine our behavior.  Should I have allowed a rude teen the power to make me dishonest?  This really starts when we are very little.  How often as parents have we heard, “He hit me first.”  Somehow that was a justification for hitting back and, of course, when we hit back, it was always a tad harder.

Not only is it difficult to teach children to turn the other cheek, it is difficult to do so as adults.  In kindergarten we should offer Tongue Biting 101.   “A soft answer turns away wrath.”  Thank you Solomon.  And our Jesus has something to say about this in the Sermon on the Mount.  “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.”  Jesus is not telling us to be a doormat.  He also tells us to “shake the dust off our feet and leave.”

Don’t hit back, which is what I wanted to do to that seventeen-year-old.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 12, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

This morning I stared at a maple frosted sprinkle-covered doughnut pondering one of life’s great dilemmas – to eat or not to eat.  Just then I spotted an ant.  It wasn’t one of those big guys.  This was one of the really tiny ones you can barely see with seventy year old eyes.  He also came to the doughnut and stared.  He was an ambitious fellow for he decided to eat it.   It must have been like you or me finding a doughnut that is fifty feet high.  There was enough doughnut there to feed him forever.  I wish I could have experienced his joy as he climbed up the side and came out on top.  There was the thick layer of maple frosting with red, yellow and blue sugar logs scattered about.  I felt like singing Big Rock Candy Mountain for him.  There was so much to eat and such limited capacity.

I feel that way when I read Romans.  There is so much to eat, so much to comprehend, so much to ponder while trying to crawl inside Paul’s mind.  Like the ant’s stomach’s limitations, my brain is so limited beside this mountain of inspiration.   Recently I heard someone say Paul was a great philosopher but had limited if any scientific knowledge.  I’m not so sure.  He was educated in occidental thinking as well as eastern.  He had access to Aristotle’s works which contained the best science of his day.  Should Paul be alive today he would despair at the so called conflict of science and faith.  God is a scientist.  God created us not with magic but with knowledge that He Himself allows us to learn and advance in His sciences.  The best minds of the day, when standing by the works of God’s hands, are like my ant standing beside my (not his) doughnut.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 13, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

We attended a small private school 8th grade graduation this evening in Worcester, MA.   Just a mile away President Obama was speaking at a large graduation.  You can imagine the security with all the closed roads and helicopters overhead.  As we walked into the lobby of the church a little boy, who looked to be about six, stared at me for a moment, cautiously approached and said, “Are you the President?”   Needless to say he made my evening.

I have heard stories of people doing wonderful things for a child only for the child to ask, “Are you Jesus?”  My event wasn’t nearly that great.  But how grand it is that we do have opportunities to be like Jesus.  We can, if we are watching, find people around us with serious needs.  If we make them happy we make our community a happier place.  If we make our community happier we make our world a happier place.

In Ephesians 2 Paul speaks of God having special work for each of us.  How I wish He would send us an email with instructions.  He is more subtle than that.  He infuses us with His Spirit tooling us for the tasks.  Often we do it and we don’t even know we have done so.  Someday we will find out specifically what it was and then we will be the happy ones knowing we did our best.  In the meantime it seems to be that our task is to be tooled and ready.  Ask for His guidance and somewhere, sometime we will do something for eternity that no one else could ever have done.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 12, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I’m on a new med and partial loss of smell seems to be one of the side effects.  I have noted that while there are disadvantages to this there also seem to be benefits.  My wife came into the room and complained about what the dog had done and I honestly could not notice.  One of the disadvantages is after shave lotion.  I am using way too much and I reek on my way to church.  And the lilacs, whose scent I love, were nothing to me this year.

My dog is a real sniffer.  We don’t go for walks.  We go for sniffs. It takes so long to get around the block I am not sure if I get any exercise.  Sometimes when she finds something wonderful to sniff she will look at me and seem to say, “Come here and check this out.  It’s intoxicating.”  I’m glad my nose is never that good.

In the ancient Jewish sanctuary there was an altar of incense.  While it represented the prayers of the people ascending to God it also had a very practical purpose.  As holy as the place was it smelled like a butcher shop with all the sacrifices and the blood that was daily sprinkled on the veil between the Holy and Most Holy places.  In the Song of Solomon we read, “Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out.”  While this was written by a human for a human I can easily see how it would apply to God’s love for us.  Our names are to Him “like perfume poured out.”  It is like that when you deeply love someone.  Their name sates our senses.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 11, 2014

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

Rogerbothwell.org