Month: March 2023

While sitting at my desk I can hear winter retreating before the advancement of spring.  There are drips of water falling from the foot of snow from our roof unto the copper covering of the window behind me.   The dripping sound reinforces the clichéd name Old Man Winter.   Little by little winter is losing its grip.  While it is true we could possibly get yet another snow storm it would be like a delusional old man pretending he is still attractive to young ladies.  Winter is doomed to become history.

I just paid a Massachusetts excise tax on my car.  It is true.  Taxes and death are a surety.  Just as the taxman cometh so does our local mortician.  Old Man Winter and I have much in common.  His strength is ebbing and so is mine.  Lest I sound overly morbid I need to say I have an advantage over Old Man Winter.  He is doomed.  Quite to the contrary I am not for I know something he does not know.  I know about Jesus.  Oh to joy.

This ebbing of strength, this graying of hair (what is left), is only a temporary condition.  Soon my man-made knees will be replaced and I will leap and fly like an eagle. “But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”  Isaiah 40:31.   The really good part is that will be an eternal condition.  Last week I sat behind a man my age and looked at his full head of hair and I thought, “You just wait.  I too will be like that again.”   Following Jesus is loaded with benefits.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 11, 2015

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

This past weekend I commented to someone about how very kind and generous another person was.  The response I received was, “Yes, but did you know he doesn’t believe exactly the way we do.”

That response set off a flurry of thoughts. I don’t know where to begin.  But I’ll try.  #1. I wasn’t talking about the person’s theology.  I was commenting on his character.  #2. The negativity sought to cancel the positive. #3. Should the nice person’s theology matter at all?   #4. The heresy police are still with us.  #5.  Is orthodoxy more important than character?  #6.  I doubt if any of us believe “exactly” like another.  Does that make us all heretics to each other?

It is not that I think truth is unimportant.  It is indeed.  Without truth we would be at sea without a rudder.  What I do want to emphasize is priorities?   Character ranks above all else.   A person with character is safe to be near even if he is not orthodox.  A person steeped in truth can be dangerous if he does not have a Christ-like character.

Jesus never said, “Hereby shall men know you are my disciples if you have all truth.”  What He did say was, “Hereby shall men know you are my disciples if you have love for one another.”

And finally, which one of us knows all things exactly right?  When we get to heaven we are going to get a lesson in what is really right from the One who knows all things. The irony in this is I am espousing a truth that people are more important that dogma which makes it part of my dogma.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 10, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I have heard that we can add 11 minutes to our lives by petting a dog.   If so I need only to pet my dog 131 times each day to live forever.  I’m all set.  It’s a wonder she isn’t bald from all the rubbing.  Now I just have to get my wife to do the same and in 48 more years we will celebrate our centennial wedding anniversary.

Fifty years ago people used to say every aspirin one took subtracted 11 minutes from their life.  My response used to be, “Who would want to live for 11 more minutes with a raging headache?”

On my mother’s 90th birthday she made a secret wish.  She wouldn’t tell but I always knew what it was.  She wanted to live to be 100.   She made it to 97.

My wish is much more ambitious.  I never want to die.  Therefore I choose to take Jesus up on His promise to Mary and Martha.  “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.’”  Sounds good to me.   The French philosopher Blaise Pascal used to say if we trust Jesus on this we have everything to gain.  And if Jesus wasn’t telling the truth we have nothing to lose by believing Him.

So as I sit here with my dog pressed close to my legs, taking an aspirin for a slight headache, I choose to, and I urge you to also choose with me, to take Jesus up on His promise.   What a wonderful way to live.   Being a Christian is the best.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 9, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

Do you every wonder how it is that evil people and good people are members of the same species?  The human mind is by far the most mysterious thing on earth.  It sits behind the eyes and holds within its folds the universe.  It receives a continuous stream of data and processes it into consciousness and self-awareness.  That consciousness transforms into an “I.”  “I” then make highly selective choices as to how “I” will respond to all that sensory stimuli.

There are some who believe that what we do with self is already determined and we have no real freedom.  There are others who have concluded that we have absolute freedom and power to choose what we will be.  Perhaps reality is somewhere in the middle.  A Volkswagen brain cannot will itself to become a Mercedes.  But it can will itself to be the very best Volkswagen brain ever.  We are limited by our physical inheritance.  But we can train, we can alter, we can discipline, we can hone our minds as a body builder strengthens and defines his biceps.  We can feed our brain quality thoughts and exercise it by contemplating character-building ideas.

Paul says, “Let this mind be in you that was in Jesus Christ.”  Philippians 2:5.  Paul also says, “I in Christ and Christ in me.”  Jesus wants to be our personal trainer.  He wants to guide us into a more excellent state of thought and consciousness. He wants us to think heavenly ideas and intellectually soar above the crowd.  The freedom to be such is ours to choose.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 8, 2001

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

rogerbothwell.org

As you can imagine with several feet of snow beginning to melt (spring is only two weeks away) there are streams of water running down our New England streets often hiding this year’s new crop of potholes.  Potholes are nature’s way of telling us we do not have its permission to drive cars.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year for businesses that sell tires.  Last week when I picked up our car from the shop the mechanic had it all washed and shiny.  That was a labor of futility.   By the time I got to the first traffic light the car was covered with salty, gritty, muddy water.  He really should not have bothered to clean it.

This is so much like our attempts to be righteous and have a clean heart.  We are living in a world of moral potholes filled with sinful gritty slime designed to keep us dirty.  I once had a church member who told me how good he was because he prayed three times every day and asked for God to forgive him his sins.  He felt like he could go six hours or so without sinning and thus he could stay clean by praying so often.  Really?  That would be like me washing my car three times a day while continuing to drive on our city streets.

Part of the problem was his understanding of sin.  He thought sin was an act, a deed or some kind of performance.  Sin is much more than that.  Sin is a condition.   Sin is a state of being.  Sin is selfishness that oozes from our almost every thought. This is why Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15 that corruption must put on incorruption before we go to heaven.  Until that happens we are indeed forgiven but we are forgiven sinners.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 6, 2015

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

rogerbothwell.org

Good chess players not only anticipate their opponent’s next move but their opponent’s next several moves.  A good player knows a fairly innocuous looking move might not appear dangerous in the immediate future but could be the key to victory as it sets the stage for a later devastating attack.  A game can be lost several moves back, but the loser did not know it then.  He did not know where he was led until it was too late.

In 1 Peter 5:8 we read, “Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  Peter did not know about chess but he surely knew about lions.  If he had known about chess he might have written, “Your enemy the devil schemes like a grand master seeking to devour you.”  He is patient.  He has a lifetime to get us.  He can plant a seed now and water it knowing the ultimate fruit of an idea or action.

Psalms 1:1 tells us to be careful where we walk, where we stand and where we sit down for this is the progression of disaster.  The walking seems so innocent.  The standing is just satisfying curiosity.  The sitting is the fruit.  We need to be so careful because the grand master of evil is playing for our souls.  How reassuring to know the true champion Jesus Christ is playing on our side.  As Paul says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”  Romans 8:37

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 4, 2003

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

rogerbothwell.org

My hands have become my father’s hands.  When I see what protrudes from my shirt sleeves I am transported to another time and place.  These hands I bear are no longer the hands of my youth but are the hands of my father’s seventies.

My father was a school teacher and he should have had school teacher’s hands but for years he worked two jobs.  At night he worked in the steel mills in central Pennsylvania to come home in the morning and get ready to go teach.  Those years his hands were the hands of a laborer.  It was his seventies hands that I now have.

If I had looked closely I think I would have seen something I missed.  In Isaiah 49:16 God says to us, “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”  I wasn’t smart enough to look carefully for had I been I would have seen my name and my sisters’ names etched in the calluses forged from working eighty hours a week for years on end.  Alas, how often we get smart too late.

Isaiah 45:12 God says, “It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it.  My own hands stretched out the heavens: I marshaled their starry hosts.”

Are we not humbled and thrilled to grasp the immensity of His grandeur and yet feel the intimacy of His care?   Often in life we feel we have been wronged and no one cares.  We could not be more wrong.  He cares. He didn’t just write our names on His hands with ink that would fade.  Oh no.  He engraved our names in His hands.  This Father relationship is a forever relationship.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 5, 2015

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

This morning I witnessed one of the most thoughtless acts of indifference I have ever seen.  As I started to pump gas into my car another man finished and went inside.  In a few moments he returned to his car with a handful of lottery scratcher tickets.  By this time there were two cars waiting behind his car to pull up to the pumps.  He was totally oblivious and sat in his car and scratched his tickets without moving his car away from the gas pump.

I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he was so self-absorbed with his lottery tickets that he never noticed the other cars.  Alternative explanations are even worse.   When I finished and drove away he was still sitting in the same place.

Could it be that I am so wrapped up with me and my concerns that I don’t notice others?  I hope not.  I wonder if anyone noticed Zacchaeus in that tree except Jesus.  The good thing to note is Jesus saw him.  He paused looked up and called him by name.  That must have been a thrill for Zacchaeus.  Our names are important and this Great Man knew his.  Then the thrill got even bigger.  He invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ home for dinner. Zacchaeus would never have invited Jesus to his home.  Not because he didn’t want Him.  He just never would have dreamed that would happen to someone like himself.

Out of all the amazing things we can say about Jesus one of the more important was His notice of and concern for others.  A woman touched the hem of His robe.  Jesus noticed.  Do you have a care or concern today?  I guarantee that Jesus has noticed and cares.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 4, 2015

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

rogerbothwell.org

 

On the last day of May in 1880 Queen Sunandha of Siam and her daughter drown when the royal boat capsized.  Many bystanders could have rescued them but were unable to help because it was forbidden on the punishment of death to physically touch members of the royal family.  It is a classic story of laws becoming more important than principles.  The law was made to protect the royal family from overly fond admirers harming them in a quest to touch them.  (See the story of the woman who wanted to touch Jesus’ robe.  Matthew 9)

Jesus’ struggled with the religious establishment who had fallen into the same trap.  Many of His miracles performed on the Sabbath were an attempt to teach them the principle of human need and care.  This was the important issue.  It is fascinating that they knew the law condensed to two principles – love your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.  (See Matthew 22)   In Galatians 5:14 Paul says, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Yet they were obsessed with rules.

Once we understand and begin to live by principles we experience a marvelous life of freedom.  When I love you I only want the best for you and would never desire to harm you.  I don’t even think about the Law.  I am free to do anything I desire because what I desire is to benefit you and all those around me.  It is a wonderful way to live.  Just think about getting up in the morning and doing anything you want to do and not fearing you would upset God.  Being a real Christian is an incredible way to live.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 3, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org

 

I have to admit Malachi 3:10 reads like a contract and while I have to say in my particular case, God has always kept His end of the deal.  “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”   Well, the “not be room enough to store it” is a hyperbole.  I can say without a moment’s hesitation there has always been ENOUGH.   And what more can a person ask for in life?  I can only wear one pair of shoes at a time.  I don’t need a closet full.  As a matter of fact my black dress shoes are over twenty years old and have been resoled so many times the shoe repairman told me never to bring them back again.

But I do know some people who, if they are telling me the truth, did keep their part of the Malachi 3:10 contract and they experienced tremendous financial loss.  This forces me to reexamine the “contract.”  Could it be that God is rewarding people in other ways than money?  Perhaps He pays off by making sure we are eternally cared for.

Or is the “contract” the wrong way of looking at it?  Perhaps it is a relationship thing where I say, “God I trust you with everything I have.  I trust you with my home, my income, my family and most of all with my soul.”  And whatever happens will always be for my best interest.  When I someday have the opportunity to see all the details of life’s events, the back story, I will then know His promise was to do the best for us and He did.

Written by Roger Bothwell on March 2, 2015

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

Rogerbothwell.org