Month: February 2023

The Self-Help book section at Barnes and Noble is impressive.  There is everything there to help us transform ourselves from wimps to giants.  No matter what deficiency we think we have, there is a book to help us conquer.  We can develop seven healthy habits or work through twelve steps.  We can forget the negative thoughts and realize the power of positive thinking.  It is all there.

I even saw one entitled “Live to Be a Hundred.”  Honestly I thought that was pretty puny.  Only a hundred?   I realize there is something called the Hayflick Limit that which tells us cell replication is limited to 40 to 60 times and then senescence occurs bringing mitosis to a grinding halt.  This puts a cap on human life somewhere in the area of 135 if everything else functioned optimally.   But, in spite of this, 135 is pretty paltry when we consider what Jesus offers.  Barnes and Noble should have a section called, “How to Live Forever.”   It should be an array of various translations of the Bible, the best, the most incredible, the most promising, the most fabulous book ever written.

Just think of the wonder of Jesus’ promises.  In John 3:16 He said, “Whosoever . . . (That’s you and me.  We are the whosever.) believes in Him shall have everlasting life.”  In John 5 Jesus said, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”  Recently I heard a preacher declare that we all had to face judgment someday.  Apparently he failed to read John 5.

I realize in a way this isn’t self-help.  It is Jesus help.  But we do have to accept the gift.  That is the ultimate self-help.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 3, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

John 14:1-3 was probably the second memory verse I ever learned.  As a child I always thought of it in a literal sense.   Jesus was a contractor and the angels were the carpenters and plumbers.  They were busy constructing fabulous mansions for us.  Each home was uniquely constructed to the particular desires of the future inhabitants.  This was not a cookie-cutter subdivision.  So you can imagine my delight when one day I learned to think of mansions as a metaphor.  All kinds of doors opened up.

Mansions were houses filled with different families.  There was a Lutheran family, a Baptist family, a Catholic family and an Adventist family.  There were mansions for those saved by Jesus, who had never heard of Jesus.  They were saved by Him and His sacrifice for them.  They just didn’t know it until He got the opportunity to tell them face to face.

Just yesterday I was thinking of I Corinthians 6:19, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?”  I suddenly realized the most fabulous mansion of all is where God dwells.  If He is dwelling in you, you are a fabulous mansion.  I looked around the room I was in and saw a hundred mansions walking about interacting with each other.  “In my Father’s house are many mansions” took on a whole new excitement.

Now I have to admit many of these mansions are in various stages of disrepair.  Just like my current house they are aging and need attention.  I need a new roof on my current house just as once I needed a new hip and knee in me.   Surely the promise “Behold I make all things new” applies to us.  Each of us will be the best looking mansion on the block.

Written by Roger Bothwell on February 7, 2016

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

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