Month: September 2024

It is great fun to ask a little kid how old he or she is.  Usually the answers come with fractions.  “I am 3 and a half.”   Two months later you get, “I’m three and three fourths.” They like to hurry it along.  Birthdays are milestones working our way to thirteen when we are no longer a child, or sixteen when we can get a driver’s license, a passage to freedom.

Milestones are important to us and come in many forms.  This devotional is a milestone for me.  It represents hundreds of hours of starting at a blank computer screen.  Sometimes my wife will walk by and ask what I am writing about and my answer is “I don’t know.  I haven’t written it yet.  Once I read it I’ll tell you.”

Goals are also important to us.  Without a goal we just drift in life.  Therefore I have a new goal.  10,000.  I’ll be sure to let you know when I get there.  It should be about 2025.   In the meantime there will be birthdays, baptisms, anniversaries, graduations and most likely a wedding or two.   Also it will be a time to grow and seek new ways to tell you how much Jesus loves you and how He will be extraordinarily happy when you accept His gift.  And oh what a gift it is.  In John 5 He told us that when we accept we cross over to eternity.  Now that’s a milestone worth remembering.

Written by Roger Bothwell on December 30, 2013

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On America’s Got Talent six very talented people got sent home.  Twelve people competed for a place in next week’s final and only half of them will get to perform. It is a highly flawed system of honing it down to one winner.  There are singers (opera and country), a magician, a stand-up comedian, dancers and acrobat dancers.  This is like putting a pile of fruit on a table and saying the apple is better than the pear or the plum is better than the banana.  First prize is a million dollars; however, that is paid out over forty years.  So it isn’t quite as exciting as they make it sound.

How thankful we must be to know heaven is not a prize.  It is a gift.  Number two – there is room for everyone.  I have on occasion spoken with people who believe only 144,000 will be in heaven.  How sad to think that our heavenly Father would so discriminate among His children.  The Book of Revelation does speak of 144,000 but it also speaks of a multitude of redeemed that is so big it is uncountable.  I like that so much. Number three – We are not compared to anyone. We are all in the same category.  We are all sinners saved by God’s grace.  If we are not all saints then there are no saints.  It is just that simple.

Heaven will be filled with apples, pears, plums and bananas and all of us will be just as wonderful as watermelons. The gift will not be paid out over forty years.  All of it will be given at once and then repeated annually (whatever that means) forever.  There is plenty of room in God’s fruit basket.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 12, 2013

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One of my friends wished me a Happy New Year today.  For a second I hesitated and then I remembered.  Rosh Hashanah has come.  The ten most sacred days of the year begin at sundown and end with Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement. It is a high holy time for repentance and reflection on being a better person.  I guessed that it was 5400 and something.  I missed it by almost 400 years.  It is 5774.   He was very kind and said 400 was close.  But not really.  If we subtract 400 from 2013 that takes us to 1613.  The King James Version of the Bible was two years old.  Pocahontas was captured by the English, held for ransom, converted to Christianity and took the name Rebecca.   A lot can happen in one year and especially 400 years.

In the midst of the last 400 years we have managed to fill them with lots of wars and quite a few technological advances.  How sad that most of them have not only advanced our standard of living but in addition have proven very effective in killing other people. People used to live behind great walls of rock and granite.  Today we live behind an electronic wall designed to protect us from those who would destroy us.  We don’t see it but it is as real as what we do see.

This electronic wall proves itself every day to be quite effective.  However, I would like to advocate to you an even more effective wall.  “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, my stronghold.”  Psalm 18.   We don’t see Him but He is as real as what we do see.

Written by Roger Bothwell on September 5, 2013

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I want to thank all who quickly addressed my stale bread problem.  I received wonderful suggestions such as making French Toast, croutons covered with olive oil, bruchetta with basil or freeze the fresh bread until the old is gone.  Humans are marvelously creative creatures.  I came up with one of my own.  I take the semi-stale bread outside and feed it to the birds.  I feel very holy when I come back inside for not hogging it all for myself.

We feed wild birds all year round.  It’s delightful.  Our yard list has 84 kinds of birds which I doubt would be here if it were not for the supplemental feeding. Feeding the birds reminds me of Jesus’ remarks in the Sermon on the Mount.  “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

One of the great doctrines of Christianity is the value of a single life.  There are places in the world where human life is very cheap and is tossed aside like garbage.  Humans are used until they have nothing left and then they are discarded. Millions die in genocides merely because they have the wrong nose, wrong cheeks, wrong family name, wrong accent or wrong faith.  It must make our heavenly Father weep as He sees how cheaply we regard others when He regarded us so much as to send Jesus to redeem us for His very own.  It is true that God can use us, but He will never USE us.  We are much too valuable for that.

Written by Roger Bothwell on August 1, 2013

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The problem of suffering has been a philosophical issue since men began to think.  If God doesn’t cause suffering it is obvious that He allows it; otherwise, an omnipotent God would stop it.  If I had a definitive answer to this dilemma I would be ranked with the intellectuals of history.   However, I do believe the issue should be addressed in the context of God and Lucifer contending for the moral high ground in this great struggle between good and evil that began when Lucifer declared war in heaven.  See Revelation 12:7

God in His loving infinite wisdom had established a utopian existence for His created.  It was the best ever imagined existence.  Anything else would be something lesser.  Lucifer’s contention that he had a superior system had to play itself out for all to see the natural fruit of his rebellion.  Here is (for me – with my greatly limited knowledge) the key to the suffering issue.  Should God intervene to the extent of stopping all suffering, the universe would never fully see the natural results of sin and sin could never be ended.  Lucifer would take credit for the suffering-free world and nothing would be resolved.  God, much to His personal pain, suffers with us as this horrible drama unfolds.

The continuing issue is how much is enough?  Surely after the cross, after the holocaust, after a host of wars and genocides intelligent beings should get the message.  Lucifer runs an evil empire.  Jesus promised He will come again and will bring this to an end. So what is He waiting for?  Enough is enough!  We don’t know.  We are not privy to all the universal issues at stake.  One thing we do know is when everything has been made perfectly clear God will stop this mess.  He will not wait one extra second.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 10, 2013

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While sitting in a pizza shop this afternoon I picked up a newspaper that contained the local police blotter.  I soon became aware of my naiveté.  It took me a while to figure out what A&B and B&E meant.  It was (for me) like reading something from a different planet.  Maybe I ought to watch an episode of Law and Order and educate myself.  I wonder if people are embarrassed to appear on this list of infamy.  It would be very difficult to claim it was some other John or Jane Doe because birthdays and addresses were also published for all to see.

This is like the Book of Remembrance mentioned in Revelation 20.  And “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.”  Talk about a police blotter!  This book even has motives listed.  I don’t know about you but I have to be saved not just to live forever but to keep you from looking up my heavenly obit.  If we are saved all the bad stuff is blotted out.  “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”  Acts 3.

Can you imagine how juicily entertaining it would be to read all the records of the lost?  This is better than gossip.  This is true.  Somehow I don’t think we will be passing our days by filling our idle curiosities with this material.  There will be so much better ways to grow.  I believe we would find it quite distasteful – even painful.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 5, 2013

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When I got to 18 across on my daily crossword puzzle it told me to see 43 down.  But when I read the clue for 43 down it told me to go to 18 across.  Thanks for all the help.  I was reminded of James 2, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”   Thanks for all the help.

I’m sure you have noticed the latest cliché repeated over and over, especially by our political leaders, is “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.” Really?  What good is that?   Sorry to be so cynical but real help isn’t what we say.  It is what we do.  During my first twenty-four months as a pastor I had twenty-six funerals.  I was young and didn’t have a clue as to what to say.  Finally it dawned on me.  I didn’t have to say anything.  I just had to be there; even if it was two in the morning, perhaps, especially if it was two in the morning in the emergency room of the community hospital.

When it came to our fallen earth, God didn’t just say, “My thoughts are with you.”  He is a God that does.  Not only does He provide eternity for us He sends care packages to us on a daily basis.  We just don’t notice.  This world isn’t in automatic.  It is sustained. We are sustained. And when we say, “Thanks for the help” we are not being cynical but pouring out the gratitude of our hearts because we have a God who does.

Written by Roger Bothwell on July 2, 2013

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We are currently parrot-sitting for our son.  Max is an African Gray we once thought was a male until one morning we found an egg in HER water dish. Recently we gave her a Fisher Price toy with a white knob.  We never imagined what a success it would be.  For weeks now she has been sitting on that knob. I am wondering when she will give up thinking it will hatch.  But for now she loves it.

Her futile efforts remind me of the vast hordes seeking happiness in all the wrong places.  The Book of Ecclesiastes is the chronicle of Solomon’s quest.  He tried everything under the sun.  Everything was available to him.  However, over and over he came to the conclusion that he was chasing the wind.  Wealth, women, education, building and philosophy left him empty. He was a bird on a fake egg.

Every once in a while I see the bumper sticker, “Jesus is the answer.”  I always ask, “What’s the question?”  But I know.  The question is for all of us, “Where do we find fulfillment?  Where do we find satisfaction for the efforts of daily life.”  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”  Jesus provides us with meaning and purpose.  And what is that purpose?   Godliness.  Once we accept the free gift of eternity we have an unlimited amount of time to cultivate our mind, our body, our social relationships and our spiritual life.  The fruit of such a quest is unbelievably rewarding.  We open our lives to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and little by little each day we are refined and molded into God’s original purpose for us.  The result is happiness and contentment unheard of in any other arena.

Written by Roger Bothwell on June 27, 2013

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