"Not that I have already obtained this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." Philippians 3:12 NIV
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P 2781 Spiritual delays happen.
John 11:11-15: “After He (Jesus) had said this, He went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then He told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Some answers to prayer are delayed for reasons that only make sense much later! Today I want us to put ourselves into the position of Mary and Martha. Their beloved brother was dead after an nasty illness, and their faith in their Rabbi and friend had been rocked. Even though they sent for Jesus, He deliberately did not come when they thought they needed Him.
Disappointment grabbed hold of them. These two women had seen and experienced Who He was for themselves in the time they had known Him - they knew He was their deliverance - that’s why they sent for Him! But the Lord had a bigger plan. Experience is only a good teacher when it reinforces that there is nothing Jesus cannot do. At those times we have to press through the hard bits, to conquer our fear and hopelessness.
Back to the two sisters. Their precious brother was now dead. Dead always looks hopeless. Let’s be real, shall we? 3 whole days had gone by - the man was not only dead, He was buried! They knew Jesus was from God and it seemed as if He had let them down … on top of that He was also a dear friend of theirs, they needed His comfort. Days of mourning had passed and still Jesus did not come. This happens to all of us.
Lazarus is a fantastic illustration of God’s ability to do the impossible. What happened to this man shows us something amazing. First of all, Lazarus resurrection proves that dead is not dead! You might want to stop and think about that. The people we love, who are no longer with us, are not dead, they are just not here anymore. I’m so sorry for your loss and suffering, but, even in the middle of our grief, we must take the time to remember that Christ is our living hope! Right here in this story, Jesus shows us that not only is He God, He has power over life and death. Weeks later, He would do the same thing Himself!
The thing is that human beings often react to the circumstances. And if they are sudden or dire, then we throw up our hands and let our hope slip through our fingers. The time is upon us when we need to be the most hope-filled people on this planet! Yes, suffering is real and it is dreadful, and one way or another we will all meet the nasty side-effect of living and dying on planet earth - but we cannot afford to let go of our hope that God can work all things together for our good. Our hope is always in Him! It is not in the immediate circumstances, no matter how they seem. Grief is normal, and He’s still good. He’s holding tightly to you, in the middle of your circumstances.
Whenever we give things to Jesus, He takes them. Now, our faith is attached to His faithfulness, not to an answer. We have a book filled to the brim with how faithful our God is! In the daily grind, or especially in desperate moments, we need to learn that no matter what happens to us or around us, the Lord is still in charge. He has not forgotten us. Disappointment dogs our footsteps when we misplace our faith. Our faith is in Who He is, not in the answer to our prayers. Every single thing He does is good! Never ever let go of your hope in His goodness.
“He is the Rock; His deeds are perfect. Everything He does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright He is!” Deuteronomy 32:4. We need to trust Him. And my best advice is …we can practice this skill on those little ordinary things that irk us from day to day. Then if the roof falls in - we will have a platform of faith to stand upon … that is the evidence of those things we can’t see yet! His goodness, His provision in Christ is our sure foundation. When difficult things don’t resolve quickly we know we have an opportunity to stretch our faith in His goodness. We may need bigger faith some day down the road.
Fear of change can paralyse us, especially if we only look to the things we can see. Take Mary and Martha, after what they thought was the end, Jesus came…and He had a much bigger plan! His plan was not just to raise Lazarus from the dead … It was to give God glory! If we let our circumstances dictate how we regard our Heavenly Father, and His precious Son, and our wonderful Friend, the Holy Spirit - we run the risk of giving in to fear, disappointment and losing our hope. Hope is not meant to disappoint us, it is meant to lead us into greater things. Our hope is not in the answer to our prayers, it is in the goodness of God.
Spiritual delays happen. But because He is the greatest Father this world has ever seen … we can seize hold of His goodness in whatever circumstances are pressing against us and keep our hope alive. Bye. 👋
P 2780 Sin has no power over us.
We need to change the way we look at sin. Sin is not just what we do, or don't do - it is giving into how we feel. Our feelings will lie to us. The reality is in the bible! Jesus Christ conquered sin - He killed it and its consequences, stone dead. Did you get that? Our inheritance here and now, is life, life and more life! Of course none of us deserves that. We never will, obedience and gratitude are the only response. Meanwhile we can’t possibly live this life, here and now, without His guidance and help, and Father God thought of that too - we have the same Holy Spirit Jesus had to help us. The good news is - Jesus became a man and He knows the way through the mire around us.
Instead of looking at our difficulties as mountains to climb, lift your view higher - look at the One Who did everything for us. Can you trust Jesus? Is He a Man of His Word? He has climbed all the mountains we will ever face, before we were born. We simply need to walk with Him day by day, and keep our eyes on Him. Then we follow Him up the mountain of our own fear, doubt and unbelief conquering it …step by step. As we walk with Him, we learn to rely upon Him. Sadly, our unrealistic fear of failure can keep us from doing anything lasting in this life.
Ask yourself, if everything depends on our performance, in order qualify to for such a love, then WHY would Jesus have to die? Why would our Loving Heavenly Father put His ONLY Son through all that! The work for our total restoration has already been done. We must simply learn to fight, day by day, all the things that our flesh has learnt to value above Him! Then we can hear and see Him at work, in our lives, and in the lives of others.
We need to stop wasting our energy, thinking that being a Christian means we have to get everything right, all the time … and put on a good show. Now, today, we have a wonderful Helper Who has come to help us and prepare us for our wedding. Jesus Christ came to each one of us to woo and court us — now we are engaged, promised to Him. We are a part of His Bride. Christ loves His Bride - she’s everything He ever wanted, and more. He loves her so much He wants to be with her, every single minute of every single day.
Has the Holy Spirit ever nudged you and said: “Don’t watch that TV program or play that video game?” And then maybe, you rationalised what He said away and watched it anyway. Afterward you felt terrible! However, the answer is dead simple. Don’t do it! Obedience in these little things is like training your body in the natural - that spiritual exercise helps our spiritual fitness. Look, if you obey and it wasn’t the Lord, what have you lost? A dumb TV show or video game? H-e-l-l-o!! Isn’t His life within you worth more than entertainment?
Like I said yesterday, we don’t need to have faith in our faith, our faith is IN HIM. Who Jesus is! Is He Who He says He is, or not? Is He kind, loving, generous, faithful, gracious, forgiving? … Does Christ love us so much He died to be with us forever ….or not? Tell me something He can’t do! Even being dead didn’t stop Jesus. How can we go on, day after day, turning a blind eye to personal sin, when sin is like a blindfold. The result is we can’t see or hear Him clearly anymore. In the bible what pleases God is obedience. Read the book! The Israelites failed to obey Him. So- let’s learn something from that … sh-all we?
The Lord has promised to be with us. We can eliminate ourselves from the flow of the Holy Spirit’s river in our lives, when we dance around, pouting like a child refusing to surrender its favourite toy. Love watches over us and His love is our prize. It’s His choice to be with us. Jesus longs to see His Father, and our Father, glorified in all our lives! So, let's stop getting on with our lives day after day, dumb as rocks - with our hands over our eyes. Distraction wastes a precious thing we have to give Him - our time! So does living this life believing we can’t help it. That’s why we have the book, to diagnose sin, and we have the Helper to guide us around it.
Christ’s death took all the power sin had and killed it. DEAD. We do not have to sin anymore. We can look that rubbish in the face and choose to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him. When people are in love …the relationship comes first. Don’t let this temporary life with its temporary pleasures blind you to what He has for you. Sin has no power over us anymore. Bye. 💕
Romans 6: 6-11. “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with Him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and He will never die again. Death no longer has any power over Him. When He died, He died once to break the power of sin. But now that He lives, He lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.” Amen.
P 2779 Let the book change
your mind.
The bible is filled with miraculous stories. And if you or I want to see miracles with our own eyes, then we need to believe the bible and be prepared to look out for them. I’ve noticed that miracles hardly ever happen in a rarified, solemn, silent atmosphere. Nor is there quiet background organ music, or angels in white nighties with huge flaming swords!
Jesus did all kinds of incredible miracles with big crowds all around Him. Some people missed them, and they were there! Most sick people didn’t stand quietly in a healing line! They pushed and shoved, and called out. Hungry people, sick people, smelly people, mentally unwell people, little kids shouting and screaming! It wasn't quiet like church!! Forget the postcard pictures of Jesus with a halo round His head … if the Lord had had a halo, everyone would have noticed! Instead think about these things like this - what if someone famous from today’s world was trying to get through a crowd? That’s a more realistic picture. Wherever Jesus went, it was along dirty, dusty crowded streets with very little shade, or privacy. There was no pretty music!!
Yet our Lord loved it all - simply because He loved people. He never got angry or annoyed at all the people pushing and shoving and crying out. Speaking for myself I know I have seen quite a few miracles … but I wasn’t paying much attention at the time, and didn’t know they were miracles until much later when I thought about it. We aren’t half as smart as we think we are, trust me. I’ve seen some really brilliant things, and my first thoughts were: “Are they making that up?” “Is that real?” "Do you think it will last?"
The whole idea that the miraculous depends on us and our faith, is just plain silly. I know the skin I am in and it is not faith-filled. We need eyes to see what He is doing all around us. Our faith is in Him not in whatever is going on. My point is this: miracles occur all around us while this life keeps marching on - but do we stop to see them - have we let disappointment stop us? We need to let His book make miracles part of our thinking.
They often happen in messy situations - I had someone hand me a baby that was totally blue in the face and utterly lifeless and they begged me to fix it. It’s a long story… with a happy ending... I shook the kid and yelled at it: “Don’t you dare die on me.” Whereupon said baby opened it’s eyes and screamed its little head off. I gave it back to its mother and quickly went back inside my house. It was only afterward… when the mother insisted on thanking me over and over again… then I realised what God had done. We need Holy Spirit inspired eyes prompted by His book to see the miraculous.
Giving away bibles etc. means we've experienced all kinds of totally impossible things.. One of my favourite occurrences is when hubby says: “hello” and he smiles, and the person in front of him immediately bursts into tears and starts sharing their life story… I dunno how that happens -- maybe he’s got a crying anointing. Or maybe I’ve gotta stop him from wearing those Dracula fangs! (Only joking OK?) 🤣 … moving on … quickly.
Our pastor is ordinary, but heroic - what a champion! I saw this lovely man pray for a child who had broken a bone in his arm at church and after being checked by a doctor, by the end of the service the kid’s arm was fine. We need to look at this new life we have been given as a real thing. God's loving passion is inside us, and it surrounds us, and then it flows over onto other people-who-have-not-met-Him-yet.
The secret to spiritual eyes, is to aim at love, and keep insisting that you need it. BE POOR IN SPIRIT. We give up on the kind of love that endures anything, far too quickly. I believe that loving others is the biggest key on our Kingdom keychain. We read His book to find all the ways He has loved us and to learn new ways to love others.
Our God is marvellous, He always wants to help us! Listen to this:“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing Himself to the worst by sending His own Son, is there anything else He wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—Who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.”
“Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate You. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” MSG bible.
I dare you to read the above scripture three times in a row. Now, let it change your mind and act accordingly. Let His love embolden you. Bye. 👋
P 2778 Anybody got any oil?
““When my coming draws near, heaven’s kingdom realm can be compared to ten maidens who took their oil lamps and went outside to meet the bridegroom and his bride. But the foolish ones were running out of oil, so they said to the five wise ones, ‘Share your oil with us, because our lamps are going out!’ “ ‘We can’t,’ they replied. ‘We don’t have enough for all of us. You’ll have to go and buy some for yourselves!’ “But he called back, ‘Go away! Do I know you? I can assure you, I don’t even know you!’ “That is the reason you should always stay awake and be alert, because you don’t know the day or the hour when the Bridegroom will appear."" Matthew 25:1, 8-9, 12-13 TPT.
I have heard this scripture preached about nineteen ways to the dozen … So much so, I can talk about the bridegroom, or the ten maidens, or the oil, or the lamps/containers, or living ready. You know it seems to me … and I could be oversimplifying a tad - that if we make sure we have a good oil supply, everything else will fall into place! At this point, I need to say that I see the Oil of the Spirit as God's Love, released freely, to bless other people.
That thought kind of reminds me of something that happened to us ages ago when we were on one of our road trips delivering bibles. My story is not about oil, however, it is about petrol, but it was God's Love that helped us! When you travel vast distances in a car, petrol stations become very important. Anyway, we were stuck in the back of Burke, literally! And the only petrol available was not the type of petrol our car needed. We eventually did the sensible thing, after freaking out(!) We asked the Lord what He wanted us to do about it. After all, they are His bible trips! Yet, our love for Him, was greater than our fear.
On the inward journey to Burke, the town with the wrong petrol, I had developed a nasty ulcer on my side. It kept getting bigger and bigger. As it got bigger, so did my rotten lousy attitude. I got grumpier and nastier toward my poor hubby as we travelled through miles of grain fields, with no hope of help. No doctors or chemists. We had nothing on us to treat this wound, so arriving at our next destination was really important on a number of levels. God’s woman of paste and flour (me), kept explaining to her hubby, in a tearful angry voice, how he had no right to bring her out to the middle of nowhere when he knows how sick she is: blah blah blah, whinge whine whinge. Between the petrol lack and the lack of a cheerful, supportive spouse, my hubby’s prayer life improved mightily! I eventually calmed down and joined in with him ... after thoroughly repenting, of course.
When we set out, the territory ahead of us was just plain heavily-treed bush, filled with wild pigs and goats wandering about, and quite a number dead on the road. A road train and a beast aren’t really a fair competition. (See picture above.) We knew when we began the journey, that we definitely did not have enough petrol to get us safely to the next town. The needle was in the red. So for 200kms we both tried extremely hard not to look at the petrol gauge! That’s the whole point of walking by faith, you don’t know what comes next…and it’s often scary! For all we knew we could end up camped by the side of the road waiting for someone to realise we were missing. As we travelled along, deliberately-not-looking-at-the-petrol-gauge, we noticed how very few cars were going in the other direction! That was not a comforting thought.
Eventually, hubby said in an astonished whisper: “I think that there is more petrol in the tank now, than there was when we started out.” Boy that popped my eyes open! I leaned over and looked. He was right. The petrol gauge needle was up higher than when we started. We knew how much we needed, and we didn't have it, and ... now there was more. To make a long story much shorter, by the time we got to our destination - we had more petrol in the tank than we did when we started out! BTW, the Lord healed the ulcer - which was still bad - a couple of hours after we arrived, it disappeared.
I think that the church’s largest problem today is that She quite often runs out of oil. And our biggest enemy is indifference. The pastor or priest, or leaders might have oil, but most of the people in our congregations don’t! These women in Jesus' story in Matthew are not leaders or religious folk. They are simply attendants waiting for the Bride and Groom to appear ... and so are we! What this story Jesus told teaches me, is that WE - that is YOU and I - have a responsibility to make sure we have a living, lively, life-giving relationship with Holy Spirit! He’s our motivation and our source. We look to Him to supply our needs.
He is always ready to be our supplier. Human beings can run out of LOVE - because they don't know they will need it until they need it! However, Almighty God Himself stands ready to supply our every need. We need to ask for fresh supply of His love, His oil, daily! Then walk with Him. Stop expecting the leaders to be your only supplier and get your own relationship with Him. The Spirit of God will help us survive the next crisis at our house! The Body of Christ cannot afford to run out of oil. So, we need to ask … and keep on asking. Then we step out in faith and do what He says! The Holy Spirit never shuts down His supply of Love and that is exactly what we need. He is with us 24/7. Bye. 👋
P 2777 Conquering the storm of worry.
“But as for me, Your strength shall be my song of joy. At each and every sunrise, my lyrics of Your love will fill the air! For You have been my glory-fortress, a stronghold in my day of distress.” Psalms 59:16 TPT. Sheep follow their Shepherd, they don’t have a care in the world - they just jumble along eating and sleeping. Our God is so strong! Let His strength be the place you choose to hide in. We need to remind ourselves, as we read His book, that He will never change. What was true yesterday, in the bible, will be true today and tomorrow! Wake yourself up with the knowledge that you are loved so dearly. Despite the fact that a lot of people in this world don’t always understand you - Almighty God does. His Love is all-encompassing and perfect. He's the perfect Shepherd.
Verses like this one from Psalm 59 are in the bible to be an exclamation, exhortation and proclamation into every single day we are given. Reminding us that: 🎼 “This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it! 🎶” Some of those wonderful old songs keep me going when trouble tries to crush me. That and the knowledge that even though it feels like I have no strength - He is always my strength. Teehee! Now that old children’s song is going to play over and over in your head. Gotcha!
The bible is an enormous help to me, it stops me from flailing about when I feel like I am drowning from worry or sorrow or fear. Flailing about makes you sink…! ... No matter how many thousands of words we inwardly throw at our difficulties, worry does not accomplish anything. I have had to learn and practise handing things over to Him: ’Our times are in His hands.’ It's a learnt skill. In my natural mind, giving stuff to the Holy Spirit makes perfect sense … because absolutely nothing can be changed by worrying.
Yet my emotions often jump up and down and insist … "if you can just think of an answer …!!!" Round and round I go getting dizzy. Then fear kicks in. That’s why we need to read the bible every single day, we need an arsenal of bible verses to chuck at difficulties and problems. It has taken me years to admit that: “I can’t actually fix most things, by myself.” Many of my grand problem-solving ideas, involve somebody else’s co-operation or actions! Good luck with that!! People will do what they will do. That particular thought just flows naturally into getting frustrated with them.
The best course is to step back in behind the Shepherd and give everything to Him ... and leave it there. Then I amble on, walking behind Him like a dumb sheep. If those worrying thoughts continue to niggle at me, then I keep right on handing things back to Him. Even if I accidentally start trying to figure stuff out, I repent and … repeat … “There’s that thing I gave You Lord, please forgive me for worrying over it again.” Amen. Worry can’t change anything but your mood! It can take you from a good place to a bad one in a heartbeat.
God’s answers to problems are not the same as ours - praise HIM!… They are way better, for everybody involved!! Plus when we are worried, we can become more self-centred. But when we hand things to Him and leave them there, we become God-centred. We must keep our eyes on our Shepherd. Even a nasty thing like worry can be used to remind us that God has us in the palm of His wonderful hands. It isn’t lazy to give things to Jesus, it’s sensible. Some things in this life are totally outside of our control. I got tired of trying to figure out which was which, so now I just hand everything over.
One day I asked myself: “How much of my life have I wasted worrying about things I had no hope of changing?” Now there's a survey nobody wants to do! Sadly, worry always feels like you are doing something - when you actually aren’t. It feels that way because it is WORK. It’s the kind of work that exhausts you mentally and emotionally. You can get so tired from trying to figure out an answer, that you become impatient with everyone else around you. That’s not good!
“Let this hope BURST forth within you, releasing a continual joy. Don’t give up in a time of trouble, but commune with God at all times.” Romans 12:12 TPT. Tell the Lord what’s going on. Talk to Him! Prayer is simply stepping into His rhythm and walking with Him. At the same time ask Him for His opinion. Then listen for the bible verse that will suddenly appear into your heart. He speaks ‘bible’ to me often. There are times when I cannot remember even reading a particular verse but it pops up anyway. He's a fantastic Shepherd.
Here’s a last thought —- let's use the phone for more than texting or social media. Let's get a bible app that helps you look up words or phrases. I don’t know about you but I can’t always find what I’m looking for, the net helps me all the time! That storm of worrying will pass - we just don’t want to be one of its casualties. Baa! 🐑
P 2776 Learning occurs in a process.
When we live this life accepting our faults; as well as dismissing the fact that we are not what we can be; but at the same time refusing to choose to learn to overcome - that's when we are lowering the standard Christ set before us. The bible says we must press on … continually … toward that new mark. Human beings often make the right noises, so that they can remain comfortable. However - comfort is not our new aim. Our aim is to live this life like He would. Christ is not petty or mean, nor did He ignore human suffering, and He spoke constantly about His Father’s kingdom. My point is this: I believe we are stopping short of the mark Father God set for us when He sent Christ.
When I was born again, I knew I was different, inside. But, at the same time, there were parts of my personhood that had been previously damaged, in the way life damages all of us. At that time I did not know that I had left my sinful nature behind so instead, I tried to avoid sin, and I failed. I gossiped, or thought lustful thoughts etc. in secret. As I behaved like that I got mad at myself and I tried and tried even harder to be better. Avoidance, sin, denial, despair, guilt and condemnation plagued my faith. At that time I knew nothing about how real faith works. In the end, I slowly reverted to the old insecurities that had plagued me in my previous life. But, praise Jesus, He always kept after me.
We ALL need to die to self. We all fall short of God’s glorious ideal Man. That goes right across the board. There is no easy way to do it or say it, that’s why Jesus told us to pick up our cross and follow Him. We must choose to go on a journey - it's called dying to self. That’s where mercy and compassion grows. As I learn to die to self, I can easily see that life is hard for you too, because this kind of dying is not easy for anyone! It involves, discipline, self-control, and patience, as well as listening to and being guided by the Holy Spirit. I think that spiritual correction is normal, the Epistles have a lot of instances of it. However heart knowledge of the love of God toward us, will help us go higher - Christ already did the work, now we step out in faith and follow His lead. But some things are learnt under pressure. Christianity is not for cowards or slackers, it is for the dedicated.
Around about the same time I read in the bible that obedience is a key that unlocks the door to living out the kingdom of God - here and now. It is not good to read His book and disobey what it says. Instead, it is essential for Christians to read the bible looking for things to do. If it says to repent wherever you are reading, then stop reading, and ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you need to repent. Even when you don’t get an immediate answer just keep on pressing in. We already know we are not perfect, so we must have done something that we have dismissed or chosen not to remember! In those moments I refuse to excuse myself because I know I probably ignored the Holy Spirit’s gentle nudge.
So then I ask Him to forgive me for ignoring Him, and that opens the door to revelation of my own motivation. The things-I-have-said-and-done-recently that had their roots in selfishness, self preservation and cruelty. We are in a learning process. However, there needs to be a visible progression as we learn to love others. We are to love them like He does. Now our faith life becomes active. It shows up outwardly as it flows out of sheer, gut-wrenching obedience. I regard the bible as truth that has been written down. It becomes solid, seeable, when we ACT on it. That means I need actions and appropriate activities to validate His word, as it changes my life.
When I act on what He says, I begin to learn - from experience - how I can change. I can’t just say I believe the bible, and then still look and sound like everyone else around me! Or even say the word “sorry” and hope that will cover the fact that I keep repeating some sins over and over again. Doing that is a patch. Sadly, it will not transform anything. Jesus said in Matthew 9:16: that you can’t put an un-shrunken patch onto an old piece of cloth, it will tear. Our ongoing efforts to change ourselves, are that patch. We gain humility when we begin see ourselves realistically and we stop excusing the very things we are meant to crucify. Yes, we are dearly loved by God, but we are still not perfected. Our old man is incredibly active and selfish through and through - so we need to die - day by day, minute by minute, using our choices, perseverance, by acting in faith.
To re-present Christ we need transformation in the ranks. This life we live now is to be lived by faith, doing what the Holy Spirit tells and teaches us to do. It will not become a reality by simply pretending we are nice, and blaming everyone else for how nasty we can be when no-one else is around to hear us. Our potential needs to be realised by our whole-hearted participation, and true humility is knowing who we are without Christ’s ever present guidance. SomeBody Else paid to give us the right and the power to choose to change our ways. Now we voluntarily enter this life-long lesson of learning to love the unlovely… and we choose to stay there because that’s the teaching moment. Learning occurs in a process. Bye. 👋