Month: November 2024

P 2813 Avoid stumbling blocks.

/ DVH

Matthew 23:1-3 “Now Jesus turned to address His disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. “The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behaviour. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.”

And onto  …Matthew 23:8-10: “Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let Him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and He’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—CHRIST.”

So, I have decided to comment on the second scripture Matthew 23:8-10 first — the Apostle Paul also very carefully addressed the issue of people choosing one person over another to follow —- because that situation happened to him. (1 Corinthians 1:10-17)  The point is, we follow Christ, and we remain open to correction. Meanwhile, we also do our best to remain in an attitude that is flooded and guided by love.

There are ordinary people who have extraordinary gifts and these were given to the Body, and made available for all of us. These supernatural gifts, are to lead, heal, and demonstrate His love to everybody around us. But please remember – HE is the Giver. Each one of our leaders is a gift. There is no room in Christianity for cult followers. Nobody is right all the time! We will always need each other.

And every single member has something to contribute. However, some people have quiet unobtrusive things to do and some don’t. Actually, I think the hidden people should rejoice. There is nothing like praise, notoriety and excitement to puff up somebody’s head. Walking in step with the Lord, unsung and unseen, is one of the safest places on earth – as long as other people can see Him through you. Sadly, Christianity today seems to have created an environment of Christian super-stars. We love people’s theology, their gifts, and the excitement that surrounds everything these people say and do. 

But, the truth is, each one of our own day-to-day lives needs to mirror and demonstrate the scriptures. Otherwise that is dangerous for us – and the people around us. There is only One Who is perfect and it is not Brother or Sister-everybody-knows-their-name!  It is the Lord. He alone is worthy of worship and praise. If we are not careful we can become quite faddish – suddenly, this preacher is IN and that one is OUT.

I love fresh insight, it means that I can see the Lord in a brand new way, and that’s good for my spiritual health – but we are not, nor should we ever be, an exclusive club, with human heroes in charge. Laziness on our behalf, has caused us to encourage others to hear for us. We all need the skill of personal hearing, otherwise we will not have the complete picture of the glory of Jesus Christ to present to this world.

The second stumbling block, is in Matthew 23:1-3. What the Lord mentions here is the precious fruit of a life lived for Him. It is not good to be a Pharisee, spouting this and explaining that – and not allowing the Word of life and hope to work IN us. I know from experience that whatever I write about in this blog, the Holy Spirit challenges me time and time again – “Are you living what you say?” I hate it when that happens but of course it is good for me. His people need to be especially careful because the utterances of God can be heady and so profound we can pretend that understanding stuff is the same as living it. IT ISN’T.

Let’s remember, the Pharisees, Sadducees and the Teachers of the law look like the bad guys in the gospels from our POV in time. But they were actually revered and esteemed in their own time by the people around them. Their mistake appears to be that they thought they were above the law – simply because they knew it so well. Anybody can fall into that trap. Knowing what the bible says and doing what it says are two very different things. 

One of those things has a huge cost. It means you choose to die, daily. Plus you get to deal with loads of stuff that other people merrily ignore, and the same people will probably jump all over you while you are doing it. That’s is not fun. I decided long ago, whatever He gave me to do, I would do it as He empowered me and led me. So my faith gets a good work-out every single day. But if or when He tells me to stop, then I will. None of us want to end up a stumbling block to the people Jesus dearly loves. Bye for today, 👋

P 2812 Contentment has great value.

/ DVH

Here’s a great source of contentment for us from the Bible: “His love endures forever” — that’s in Psalm 136, it is repeated 26 times. Now there’s something we can attach our contentment to! In this mixed up world we need firm anchors for our faith, and the fact that God’s love is never-ending is a great anchor! Jesus freely gave us His access to contentment.

Let’s look at one of the Lord’s servants and see how this grace worked out for Him. Paul teaches us that we can learn to be content In any circumstance. In the book of Philippians, he clearly tells us he lived that way himself. Yet this saint’s life was full of more ups and downs than a giant roller-coaster on steroids – with a death wish! I have always thought that any guy with a theory is completely disadvantaged by the man who has experience, and Paul had heaps of experience.

We will begin by reading Philippians 4:9-13 “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”

You know I am constantly learning, often the hard way –  that when I am not content with what I have, and worse stuff happens, life quite quickly seems like the sky is falling. Ya might want to think on that one. We are now look at the Apostle Paul’s life very briefly — he was beaten three times with rods. Stoned once. Thrown in jail, and wait for it – shipwrecked three times! I mean can you imagine that? He tells us he was hungry, thirsty, cold and not clothed, dragged in front of governors etc. to ‘please explain!’ Plus he was once bitten by a poisonous snake! Meanwhile, in his spare time, he only wrote 23% of the entire Epistles!! That’d be funny if it was not so weird!

It can be easy to think that this was Paul, and he was specially gifted. But if we look at his life carefully we can see that he learnt to be content through … or even because of, his circumstances and suffering. You know, I’ve tried the popular system that says we are meant to claim this and speak out that – and I found that I was just going round and round, spiritually speaking. I didn’t actually grow! Instead, I kept fighting the same battles over and over again. The only sign of growth I had was grow in the wrong direction! I grew impatient with the Lord for not recognising all my efforts to follow Him! Boy, that’s not a good place to land! Self-effort promotes self … and …discontentment, and discontented people make allowances for repeated dumb responses!

Real growth started to happened when I chose to learn to be content no matter what was going on. Now let’s be clear, I would hate to think that you think, that I am saying: “Look at what I did all by myself.”  Hah! The thing that utterly changed my whole walk with Jesus was when I learnt to be obedient to His word, His way and started to rely upon Him to help me do it.  I stopped making excuses for myself because “my life is hard, blah blah blah, boring boring boring,’ and I chose to forgive others, put bad stuff behind me, I believed He could save me from all of it.

Father God grabbed me in my heart one day when I was merrily rehashing someone else’s faults and He asked me this question. “How do you think that they can make up for all they have done to you?”  I was stumped. None of us can redo yesterday! It’s gone. Plus these people had no clue about what they had done over long periods of time. But that was the very thing that had skewed off my thinking into ‘poor me.’ Actually the people thought they had done well and I was the difficult one. 

I learnt a couple of useful things that day – only God knows human hearts, plus He’s the only One Who can change them. To do that He needs co-operation, and that can’t happen when the person doesn’t think they are wrong in the first place! I am still regularly tested about forgiveness, but something amazing has happened that is worth noting. I have become far more generous toward others when they annoy me, as I continue to acknowledge my own humanity. Given their circumstances, I could easily have taken some of the same roads they did…if it weren’t for God’s enduring love and what Jesus did for me.  

Here’s a piece of trivia that may change the colour of your day – the word “let” is used in the bible 1,511 times. In order for change to come we must let/allow God to change our perspective. The Lord has never said what happened to me in my life so far was OK with Him – instead He reminded me that sin is common to man. So instead of exacting verbal, emotional, physical, and mental retribution from someone, I have learnt to pray over it and let things go. 

The secret of contentment is to remember God always loves us and His love is enduring, steadfast and eternal. I urge you to focus on that – not on someone else’s sins, deliberate or not. Their sins against you and I are as forgiven – just like ours are. But when I focus on what someone else did to me, my ability to remain content disappears. That’s how I discovered that contentment is a thing of great value.  Bye 👋

P 2811 Selective deafness.

/ DVH

Now there’s a subject we’d all like to avoid. I have a theory … anyone can end up being selectively deaf to some stuff in the bible when they don’t like what it says! How am I doing so far? I am not just talking about the whole …”Go into all the world and preach the gospel …” verses either. Here’s a few other strong and challenging verses to start us off:“I urge you, my brothers and sisters, for the sake of the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree to live in unity with one another and put to rest any division that attempts to tear you apart. Be restored as one united body living in perfect harmony. Form a consistent choreography among yourselves, having a common perspective with shared values.”1 Corinthians 1:10 TPT.

When we get to phrases like ‘perfect harmony’ it is too easy to say yes but do no. If we aim at nothing we are sure to hit it, so let’s not be intimidated by language!  Today I want to look a bit more closely at that kind of content instead. I think this whole verse hinges on the phrase …”agree to live in unity with one another.”  And I’m pretty sure that “putting to rest any division that attempts to tear you apart”  kind of stretches a lot of people too. In my denomination, people argue with you over the meaning of this verse and its application, but they don’t bother to work it out, instead they quit your church and go somewhere else. Which means nobody learns nothin’! However, trying to put grumbling and discontent to rest, can end up making any chasm of division wider … unless some of the people in the dissenting group are prepared to die to self.

I like this verse from Corinthians, it makes our interaction with each other sound a bit like a ballet. Although I strongly suspect we can keep tripping over each other’s feet regularly! But I like it because this book is His Word and He has given us an Answer before we even asked for one! Like… ‘having a common perspective with shared values’ can help to keep us in step with one another. Sometimes the reason disharmony takes root in our communities is that our common perspective is theology, or the latest trend to come down the turn-pike.

However, I think our common perspective etc. is, and should always be – Jesus Himself and all He did for each of us! Those facts will help our feet to be firmly planted in the soil of His love, and we can be in step with each other again.  We can become so focussed on corporate agreement over what we think are essential things, that we miss the fact that we are only together as a group, because of what He did.  Precious servants of God often leave churches because of differing theology. That’s like my hand deciding that it doesn’t need the rest of me anymore – it makes no sense. Ask someone who has damaged or lost a limb, they will quickly tell you every single part of us contributes to the whole. 

The next verse is another great key to living in love with one another. “Resist revenge, and make sure that no one pays back evil in place of evil but always pursue doing what is beautiful to one another and to all the unbelievers.” 1 Thessalonians 5:15 TPT. Revenge only prospers our enemy’s agendas, but true forgiveness works to find common ground for His sake. I like the phrase; “pursuing doing what is beautiful to one another.” I think this is what separates us from many other religions, that pursuit of ‘building one another up in our most holy faith.’ It seems to me that none of that implies we need to straighten out someone else’s theology! 

Love is the most powerful force on earth – that’s why it is so costly. After all, LOVE saved us! We are told to run after it. Personally I have found if you are running after love – you have no time for anything else. It certainly keeps me fully occupied and it helps me avoid confrontation. Especially about things that may drag somebody else down. The thing is, when we decide this verse is more important than that one we are choosing sides – every single verse is good and profitable.

Last verse for today: “But if we keep living in the pure light that surrounds Him, we share unbroken fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, continually cleanses us from all sin.”1 John 1:7 TPT. This is a great secret. It is not what you or I think about this doctrine or that sermon – the secret is to continue living in the light. People of the light value His Presence above their opinions. His light equalises everything. When He is present, our pettiness and irritability fly out of the window. My advice today is this, if you are struggling to relate to Sister-grumpy-face, or Brother-know-it-all, then just sit and pray together. The Lord Jesus loves ‘together.’ After that we need to forgive and forget all that is past, and press on toward the mark. 

Sometimes, selective hearing comes from a personal desire to hide from the truth, because it is striking too close to home. Sadly it is that very truth that makes us free – so hiding from it is a dumb idea! We must put away our white sheriff hat and stop thinking the other guy is deliberately wearing a black one, and aim at LOVE – anything else is missing the mark. Bye.👋

P 2810 Discipline is not a bad word.

/ DVH

I wanted to call this blog:“What can you do when life whacks you around the ear-hole?” But then I thought: “Nah! That’s too long for a title.” Bad things have been happening at our house – as well as in our immediate family, and to people we love dearly. This stuff has been going on for weeks, sometimes it feels like forever!  It seems like we are being water-boarded by circumstances! We’ve barely had time to take a breath –  it’s like ‘whack a mole!’  

The latest jolt at our house was my 97 year old Mum being carted off to hospital with chest pains. There ought to be a law against getting difficult news before 7.00am! My mother is fine – she’s still very old – but she’s fine! I had to repent for not trusting the Lord to take care of her. You know when life overwhelms me, and it really does, there are times I have to crawl into the throne room to worship Him. I’m not looking for pity, BTW, we all have things going on that stretch us further than we want to go. 

Actually, apart from the actual circumstances — it’s my response to them that turns things upside down. I have come to love 💕 this scripture. “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” Ephesians 4:26-27. Did ya get that? The bible says it in black and white … it is my all-time fav book, and – it gives me permission to be angry – temporarily! Of course that permission comes with a caveat … don’t sin. Fix bad stuff before the sun falls out of the sky. I guess that means whacking people around the ear-hole is out… sigh. But still … it is not a sin to be angry … BUT it IS a sin to let it go on and on and on, for DAYS, without fixing it.

Lately, as I have mentioned before, I have had to avoid the news. It makes me shouting-at-the-TV-mad! And I can’t even hold onto the mad … I have to get rid of it before night comes!!  I came from an era that believed when kids were naughty or rude you smacked them … not round the ear-hole … just on the padded bit that we all sit on. This whole no smacking kid’s policy is at war with the bible … read Proverbs and hang on to your hosiery… otherwise you just might end up fighting HIS system. 

Where I live 12-14 year old kids, boys and girls, are pinching other people’s cars, bashing up old people, disrespecting the law, and carrying knives and guns. Yeah! I rest my case! BTW, I live in a quiet suburb in a reasonably quiet city. It’s not the location that matters, it is the lack of discipline in the home. We are going to live to regret the new-age idea that children are born blameless. That’s not what the book says.

As a little child I lived in one of the worst suburbs for crime … two of my childhood friends tried to burn their mum’s shop down. Crime bosses walked down the street, and if you were unfortunate enough to meet them, you looked at the ground and said ‘hello’  and hoped they didn’t know where you lived. You also said SIR because you didn’t want to annoy them.  

Consequently, I can get really angry about the lack of discipline everywhere today, because it’s ungodly. Read the book! These poor greedy kids will end up in prison – all because discipline was a distasteful word to their parents. Any bird brain knows that people should not beat their kids up, but a well placed smack on the seat of learning can help little brains realise they don’t rule the world. Start young. You won’t catch them when they get into their teens, they can out-talk and out-run you.

Changing the subject slightly – here’s a great verse that can easily get stuck in anyone’s throat: “For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes.” Hebrews 12:6. And here’s another one — but this one is guaranteed to bring a huge lump into your throat if you think on it.“Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him scourged.” John 19:1. I think this shows us clearly that Almighty God did not spare His only One-of-a-kind Son– so telling yourself that God will make an exception for you …  ! Well, you do the sum.

It also means that His discipline in our lives shows us that we are cherished by Him. Now ain’t that a rare and precious new thought!! I keep telling people that His ways are not our ways …BTW, did ya get the “everyone” bit in that Hebrew’s verse – no exceptions – not even JESUS! I understand that nobody likes discipline. It hurts. But it is necessary, because we can easily end up going the wrong way.

We must learn to resist the devil and persist in doing good while we still have the opportunity. Be-cau-se we need to be … “making the very most of (y)our time [on earth, recognising and taking advantage of each opportunity and using it with wisdom and diligence], because the days are [filled with] evil.” Ephesians 5:16. Discipline is not a bad word. Bye!👋

P 2809 Keep pressing on!

/ DVH

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39. The Apostle Paul really had a handle on something that we need to pick up and wear as a permanent garment! Nothing can take us away from the Love of God. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. His love has been freely given to us, because of what Jesus Himself chose to do for us.

Real love gets down in the dirt … then it writes something in that dirt that shames everybody else present. The people who are standing there, waiting to throw rocks at someone else! Jesus did that. Love dismisses the naysayers and critics because its source is from the sternest, boldest, most magnificent, strongest place of all. The throne of God Himself. The life, death, and resurrection of Christ, plus the infilling of the Holy Spirit, has made that kind of strong, powerful love, available to us.

So why don’t we have it? I mean seriously… we both know we don’t!  All we need is a hard couple of days and love leaks out of us like we are a sieve, and we end up wondering what we did to deserve this next heartache. Sadly I think sometimes we settle for a NICE attitude and hope that will do. Nice and pleasant seem easier …it means  we can make up a bunch of rules and stick with them, and after a while ‘nice’ becomes a habit which seems like love … until it is severely pushed by life’s circumstances!

God’s love on the other hand, in difficult times, can seem a bit ethereal. We need to walk with the Holy Spirit minute by minute to know what His thoughts on love look like. I do know His love is about way more than feelings. It means I give Him my trust and obedience, and I choose to follow His instructions no matter if my world is collapsing around me. I probably won’t end up responding the same way in every single situation – even if those situations are identical. People and their needs are not identical. 

And the Holy Spirit dearly loves people! Every single time He gets an opportunity, He sweeps them up into His arms and loves on them. It’s His all time favourite thing to do. That’s why He lovingly heals, delivers, and gives each one of us wisdom and insight when we ask for it. It’s because He deeply loves people. He is intimately involved in the things that concern us. He knows exactly what we need and why, He also knows when we need it. Plus He knows what is not good for us. My immediate response when things go bad is to want to escape from the bad … like yesterday!! But I know with His help, I can learn to live His way.

In this busy life it is too easy to forget that Jesus is our role model. I bet He would have wanted to come down from that cross from the very second He was nailed to it!  The pain would be excruciating!!  He is God – He had options! He could have come off it at any second, But He chose the painful way of obedience. God’s love is accessed by faith and it operates through our deliberate, intentional choices. His love actually makes hard, unpleasant choices. It is not weak, it constrains us to push toward good. 

His Love also chooses to love people who simply don’t deserve our approval, let alone our begrudging affections! How we feel fades into the background, when we choose to learn to walk in Love, because what He wants is far more important to us … and that takes over. We are no longer limited into escaping from pain – instead we understand that pain often speaks the loudest. TIME is also factor in our personal growth.“There’s a time for every purpose under heaven …”

Here’s another great scripture: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”Galatians 4:4-7. God’s timing is perfect…we need to gird up our loins and wrestle our feelings of desertion and not being loved by Him, into submission. Praying, reading the bible, joining in with fellowship — all these things give us courage to continue under pressure.   Each one of us, despite our personal feelings, were born again to be His Sons and Daughters — and we all know that sons and daughters have responsibilities!

I’ve found this helpful, when I have prayed the same prayer 100 times and there appears to be no answer — I start asking the Lord to show me what HE wants. He and I could be experiencing a conflict of interest, and as His interest is more important than mine … I may need to talk to Him about it. Always bearing in mind that He is not with us to serve us – we serve Him. His disciples died serving God’s plan. That means they put their own interests in this life to one side, and had a completely different life than the one they had planned for themselves. 

The glorious thing about this arrangement is that we will actually fall more deeply in love with the Lord as we watch Him at work in our lives – or even in someone else’s life. His love is REAL – we need to keep pressing on to experience it as a part of our daily lives.It is not a doctrine or a theory. It is worth living and dying for – Jesus thought so. Bye. 👋

P 2808 Love triumphs over everything.

/ DVH

The world we are living in today, has created a huge vacuum, by banning some things and not replacing them with better ones. Hubby and I were talking about this yesterday. There are so many rules about how you and I must interact with other people, with no thought to what we can do to replace the things we are told we must not do, except swallow the poison like it doesn’t matter.  It’s left a vacuum…

…so we can’t say this and we mustn’t say that. We dare not imply that someone else’s lifestyle is incorrect, we simply have to accept everything. These rules are pressed right up against our faces, every single day. They batter us through the news, and the TV. Plus there are images everywhere that you can’t UNSEE. And you must not comment on them either! 

These pagan, hedonistic attitudes are reinforced through our kindergartens, schools, and universities, as well as in the work force. We are told we must be tolerant, or we will be punished and penalised. We have to accept this thought and that idea, because we must be inclusive. Actually these thoughts are everything that true faith, by itself, can and will accomplish — but unfortunately now it’s law, not GRACE. Otherwise someone will sue us, or we will go to jail, and be shunned by society to boot! Fear of reprisal comes at us from every corner of the globe. So how can WE – the people whom the Son has made free, live this kind of life – when the-people-who-don’t-know-Jesus-yet demand that we obey things that would make normal Christians shudder?

Glad you asked that!! The bible teaches us to live this life, the only one we are going to get, loving others. That means our freedom lies within. We are told, in the book, by the King of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords that we need to pursue love. However, that does not mean we have to accept everything! So we cannot possibly go forward in this horrifying atmosphere of permissiveness – without His wisdom. We now need Jesus like He is our Air, He can no longer be an optional extra. We will need His guidance all the time. And yes, I know that some things are so repulsive to innocence it is hard to cope. But we need His eyes, His ears, His heart of love to guide us through, so we can continue to live and flourish in love.

I tell the Lord all the time: “I just plumb ran out of my kind of love, I definitely need Yours.” That may be simple but it is a great prayer and it works for me. He always helps me when I ask Him. My prayer is not fancy, but it is heart-felt, because I know I can’t do this stuff and live this way, without Him. I’m w-a-y to opinionated for my own good. Sigh. 

Back to my point today …God’s LOVE can fill any vacuum. He’s GOD He can do anything! Well, YAY! Today, we need to be so familiar with love, and so fluent in its language, that we are societally sweet, but pragmatically out of sync with this world’s ideas and ideals. Loving others does not mean we agree with their behaviour or ideals. Love is a higher law.  We don’t have to live this life down in the dirt staring at sin – we are to live a kingdom life, looking at Him.

Here’s an example of a conversation Jesus had when He met with Nicodemus. This man was a Pharisee. In reality he was in the religious rules camp. He was steeped in the law, because the law was part of his training. Yet Jesus did not dismiss him, or avoid him, the Lord met and talked with the man and gave him access to truth. 

John 3:1-8. “Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with Him. Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at My saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

The Lord did not argue with this man’s theology, He simply replied with REALITY – the ACTUAL TRUTH. He was stating a fact. Jesus never ever separated our earthly life from spiritual reality  … like we sometimes do. Instead He spent His time teaching others that spiritual things can, and do actually govern earthly ones. He did not see mankind as fleshly people who need a spiritual reality – He sees us all as spiritual people who have LOST our spiritual reality!

When we live in love, for love’s own sake – we step into who we really are. What people do with their flesh may be utterly repulsive but it is not ALL they are. We don’t have to live inside this world’s vacuum, we live IN CHRIST. He is a spiritual reality that supersedes whatever happens to be in fashion currently.  Love will always triumph, it can take a bit longer, but it is permanent. Bye 👋

P 2807 Keep your anchor fixed in His Love.

/ DVH

Part of the reason Christians can become inactive is that we have been careless, we have lost our first love. That means we will have no sense of purpose. Here’s what I have learnt … when you watch what the Lord does and is still doing, every single day, you will fall in love with Him over and over again. You know … somebody ought to write a song about that! I believe our love can grow cold, when we are not using our faith … and ‘.. faith without works is dead!’ 

A boat without an anchor drifts about, moved by this current and that storm – tossed around by this theology, or that special event. Our hope is IN Christ, everything He did, everything He said — Who He is, and what He has done for us. Nothing more, nothing less. MY hope is not in my faithfulness it is in HIS.  I must learn to accept that I can get to know Him, no matter what is currently going on. “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”Romans 5:3-4. I don’t care two beans for whatever fabulous Christian teaching book is currently flooding the market place … our hope is always IN Christ. Loving Him is our finest priority. 

Then all we need to do is to reflect what we see when we look at Him, and be ready to tell someone else how wonderful the Lord is. I’m absolutely blessed when our Heavenly Father gives someone I know this revelation, or that dream, and this vision, and I love that they want to tell me about it…. YAY! But I want to see Him for myself thank you. We need to know Him, personally. He is our only hope, so we cling to Him like a baby Koala clings to its Mum.

The bible says this: “That I might know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings; being made conformable to His death,” Philippians 3:10. Over the years I realised that I will have to die to what I want for my life, in order to know Him. I must take personal responsibility for my response to what He’s done for me. Suffering is a part of life and a great leveller. But it is not a happy word.

We all know we will suffer – it’s in the book, but we must still choose to give up this attitude, and put down that expectation and let Him be God. He never sleeps. Now we no longer say this by choice, instead we simply must say that! When we live chasing Him, we will get to know Him. Jesus Christ chose to live His life for our sake. That means we have a shared fellowship with Him as we choose to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily – and live our lives for His sake.

People can go to church week by week and chat to everyone there, but that does not mean we know each other! So, how do we get to know each other? Here’s my little theory … …you knew I’d have one!  …we need to share each other’s joys, sorrows, suffering together and learn to help one another. We must celebrate our victories, and pray for one another in our defeats! Privacy is great, but it can be costly – nasty things hide in the dark. 

Our hope in Christ, is our firm anchor and without that hope it is too easy to drift from this fad to another one. Sadly we can foster and cling to the things that tickle our ears and tell us we can do whatever we like because we belong to God now. We can’t develop our own personal faith, living like that because we are too busy following the way somebody else does it!  The way to develop our own faith is to USE IT. I call that obedience to the Word.. We read what the Lord wrote and find something to do in it. There’s always something to do in that book! But I admit that I do sometimes need the Holy Spirit’s help to find it.

I’ve read about Samson, just like you … and Jonah and Moses and Jeremiah … however, that doesn’t mean I will grow my hair long and avoid whale-watching trips …  Instead, I read the bible looking at the way God interacted with the people who are in it. So I look at how Moses talked to God … and I see how Jeremiah complained a lot because his life was hard. At the same time, I notice our Heavenly Father’s response. I see His patience with Jeremiah and Samson. Our God is so incredibly diverse, He totally loved both of these very different men. I also see that these men had contestable issues with the Lord, they weren’t perfect. But boy!  Was HE LOYAL!

To me that means I can disagree with God and not get zapped by lightning bolts from heaven. He is way more tolerant of my humanity than that –  I just need to live my life honestly, before Him. I’ve learnt if He tells me to do something, I’d better do it, because it did not go well for any of those men I’ve mentioned when they ignored Him! I have learnt through their testimonies, as well as my own life, that trouble cannot be avoided but it can be an opportunity for transformation, it is not something we must hide from. Holding your breath and waiting until it is over doesn’t work so well either!

The New Testament has taught me that I am so much more fortunate to have been born on this side of Calvary. I don’t have to be swept along by how I feel – or how you feel – I just need to keep my anchor fixed by staying attached to Him. This means my life will be run by my hope in Who He is. Everything else passes away. My hope is fixed. It is in Who Jesus Christ said He is, and what He did, as well as what He said He did. He did it all those things for us … …including the big guy in the supermarket who is a grump … plus the receptionist in the doctor’s surgery who is totally unhelpful. I don’t have to go digging around to find candidates who are eligible for His love – they are all around me! 

Those thoughts about Him, His goodness, His reliability – keep my little boat from swinging about, and going under in a storm. I honestly don’t believe it is wise to live my life rushing from this port to that one, trying to distract myself from the fact that I am finite. One day I will leave all this behind me. But I am going somewhere when this life is over, and so are you. That’s what hope looks like. We are anchored into Who He is, and How reliable He is. His book tells me, over and over again, that He loves me. It is my all consuming hope that one day I will hear Him say that to me in person. Bye. 👋

P 2806 Healing.

/ DVH

“…you will lay your hands on the sick and they will get well…”I’ve checked out these verses in Matthew, personally, in my own life and here’s my point for today —  sometimes when I prayed for people who were sick, and sometimes they got well, and sometimes … they died. To be fair, the ones who died were terribly sick, and they definitely died happier than they were before they were prayed for — but that was not the result ANYONE was hoping for in the first place.

Praying for sick people involves us taking a risk. When we love them dearly, that risk for them, and for those who love them and us, is HUGE. Sometimes we could think that the answer relies on us – or maybe we think that we won’t pray correctly? Loving compassion and obedience are our part, because prayer for the sick relies upon the Word of God. Meanwhile nobody likes ‘no’ for an answer.  

Plus, at the same time, we may have to … “wait.” Sometimes, there is a space between our prayer and His answer. We need to always pray and not give up and that is a painful place to have to live! In the meantime, the bible says: waiting upon the Lord renews our strength. That waiting is ghastly for the sick person, who is trying trying trying to believe and get well – and horrible for their loved ones at the same time – but keep right on praying. Jesus dismissed people telling Him that a child had died and a bigger miracle occurred.

I am comforted by the fact that the Lord’s disciples walked with Jesus, they themselves saw all kinds of miracles when they prayed for others, and they watched Him bless people with astonishing miracles. BUT at other times they prayed for people and nothing happened. His disciples were unable to minister to an epileptic person, or deliver a demonised child. These men were blessed to have Jesus walking with them, in Person, and He stepped in and healed the sick one. The Lord pointed out to the disciples that their faith was too small. We must point our faith at God Himself, His nature, His loving kindness – not just at an illness or even healing. 

I’ve learnt some stuff along the way. I am not God and I’m not perfect! In my passion for others I can easily promise things I can’t deliver. Meanwhile, I don’t know everything either! I am His representative, not the answer. My part in this process is to keep praying and not give up, because somebody’s well-being is at stake, even if my own faith is being shaken. The reality is:  failure can lead very quickly to disappointment for everyone. Particularly if the person concerned is someone special, and you love them. This is the place where our faith can atrophy and grow weary. Even when we don’t feel like fighting we must continue to fight. 

If you have ever prayed for someone for healing and they got sicker or they died, you may have noticed that shortly afterward … disappointment rushes at you like a freight train, coupled with incredible grief. Jesus said this to Peter in Luke 22:32:“… but I have prayed [especially] for you [Peter], that your faith [and confidence in Me] may not fail; and you, once you have turned back again [to Me], strengthen and support your brothers [in the faith].”   Jesus prayed for Peter before his testing time ever happened. He is praying for us, right now, too.

We are so programmed for positive results, that when the answer to our prayers is negative, logic takes over. Well why wouldn’t anyone grieve after a terrible loss? The thing is… the bible exhorts us not to grieve without hope. 1 Thessalonians 4:13b “…so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.”  There’s a reason for that exhortation – our faith can falter when it appears to be unfulfilled.

Even in times of deep despair and sorrow we must ask the Holy Spirit to help us. We need His help to watch over our hope — because HOPE is our anchor. Our hope is IN Christ – His goodness, His mercy, His loving-kindness. It is not in the answers to our prayers – no matter how important they seem, or how fervent they are. Prayer changes US – it does not necessarily always change our circumstances. Talking with God and getting His perspective is essential, otherwise disappointment can crush us. I’ve noticed when this has happened to me, the next time someone needed prayer for healing, it was easier to step back, instead of forward.

We are commanded to pray for the sick etc. in Jesus’ Name. At the same time it is good to remember that the sick person’s life is ultimately in the Lord’s Hands. Like the disciples, we pray as He leads us and the opportunity presents itself. Acts 3:1-8 … bits of it: “Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried … …at the gate of the temple … …to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.

And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.  And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; BUT SUCH AS I HAVE GIVE I THEE: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.”

Part of our problem concerning healing is that we don’t know what we have. Peter knew what he had. Do we understand that Christ lives in us, and He was, and still IS, always delighted to heal the sick? His compassion for mankind is huge. That thought should be the centre of our thoughts, not: “will it work – or not? We are commanded to pray for the sick to be healed. it is not an optional extra. I believe the biggest sin in the Body of Christ is inactivity. Bye. 👋

P 2805 Righteousness.

/ DVH

“This gospel unveils a continual revelation of God’s righteousness—a perfect righteousness given to us when we believe. And it moves us from receiving life through faith, to the power of living by faith. This is what the Scripture means when it says: “We are right with God through life-giving faith!”” Romans 1:17 TPT.

Righteousness, means the ability to live, day-by-day in right relationship with God, and others. It is not a static thing – it keeps unfolding and expanding in and through our lives. We need to live valuing what we have been given, and we do that when we live justly, honestly, and faithfully according to God’s instructions from the book. This kind of life is not a dream, or a wish-thought, it is an ongoing process that we enter into with Him. It flows from a continual revelation of what He died to give us.

Jesus Christ revealed, in Person, what righteousness before God looks like. It looks like – praying for lepers, forgiving those who have treated you dreadfully, giving without measure, and loving others, as we honestly wrangle with the hardships of this life. After the Lord went back to heaven, He left behind Him a small group of ordinary men who changed history. However, those men found out everything He told them was true – firsthand – for themselves. Don’t ever be content with knowledge about righteousness – learn to live in it instead. Let the Holy Spirit teach you.

‘Righteousness’ is an old fashioned word that is easily overlooked or ignored in today’s abbreviated language. As we embrace absorbing this incredible, church-ified word into our lives, and we choose to look our lives through His eyes — the way we think is changed. It needs to be. We must move past the try-harder-to-be-a-good-person school into the I-can-never-do-that-by-myself … one! There we will learn that our faith is not just series of idioms we repeat endlessly hoping they are true. We will begin to see what we believe come to life, like the disciples did. We will learn to rise up to be all each one of us was sent here to be.

That’s because the cross was an exchange and not just a destination — we were taken out of this world’s kingdom and made citizens of heaven when we said yes to the Lord Jesus’ sacrifice. Christ’s righteousness, His Godly, right way of living, giving, and dying on planet earth, is available to us. We gave Him our sin, and He gave us His Grace, His place – His position before our Heavenly Father. 

If you pause and take the time to think about it, Jesus was never ever worried that God would not listen to Him when He prayed. He expected to be heard because there was no sin to separate Him from His Father’s will. “Jesus raised His eyes to heaven and prayed, “Father, I’m grateful that You have listened to Me.I know You always do listen, but on account of this crowd standing here I’ve spoken so that they might believe that You sent me.” John 11:41. That’s why we can be trusted to ask for whatever we want – because now we’ve entered into a new agreement with God. We are going to live our lives for His will, His way, from now on.

We too, can have confidence we will be heard when we stand on the simplicity of the gospel and let it daily work on our lives, thoughts and hearts. Now …”In this [union and fellowship with Him], love is completed and perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him]; because as He is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 4:17. The thing we need to remember is that His righteousness is not permissiveness. Jesus Himself “…only did what He saw His Father doing  etc…” The limitless One chose to limit Himself, as He lived in obedience to His Father’s will. Even to His death. 

The bible tells us that God’s kind of Love avoids even the appearance of wrong. We call that self-control, and it is a fruit germinated and fulfilled by our relationship with Jesus Himself. We choose to live like this because of the passion we have for Him – He is our Beloved! We limit ourselves in this life for His sake, because He limited Himself for our sake.

Almighty God became one of us and He came here to show us He means us no harm! Now when He looks at you and I, He sees the pure, spotless, innocent blood of Jesus covering our sins. We’ve moved out of sin and darkness into His marvellous light. Which is why it is D.U.M.B./stupid to deliberately keep on sinning. God is so good! When we sin – Jesus is our lawyer/advocate – He points to His blood covering our lives and claims us as His own.

Real repentance is our only way back into the light of love. Ask yourself: ‘Why would I ever choose to move out of His light? What can possibly be more important than walking with Him?’ We can see this world far more clearly in the light. Darkness blinds us to reality. Jesus Christ died to give us His righteousness – so let’s live our day-to-day lives for Him, grateful. Bye 👋.

P 2804 Thoughts from a Grannie.

/ DVH

Jesus is speaking to His disciples in John 14:15-17:“If you love Me, you will obey My commandments Then I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot accept,because it does not see Him or know Him. But you know Him, because He resides with you and will be IN you.”

Christians all have a live-in … Counsellor; Comforter; Baptiser; Advocate; Strengthener; Sanctifier; Spirit of Christ; Spirit of Truth; Spirit of Grace; Spirit of Mercy; Spirit of God; Spirit of Holiness; Spirit of Life. And just because we cannot always hear or see Him at work, that does not mean He is not with us! He is FAR bigger than our measuring sticks, but unfortunately, He sometimes falls off our radar because … HE IS NOT LOUD.

This world we live in today likes to loudly feature what we can see, feel, touch, taste, and experience – it quite gladly shows us demons … … but refuses to acknowledge Almighty God! When SomeBody or something does not line up with our instantly focussed, darkly-imagined world, those people fall under suspicion and doubt – they are accused of trying to steal someone else’s fun away. They are restricting someone else’s freedom to express themselves. I think that’s when and why, we end up labelling things … without consulting the Creator’s greater knowledge. 

The reason Christians choose to get to know the Lord every single day, is because the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of the Word of God to us as we read it. He reminds us, over and over again, that Father God loves us dearly – He teaches us, step by step, that we are part of something far greater. At the same time, He is also praying for each and every human being, every second of every minute of our lives. I have learnt that the kingdom He comes from is so much bigger than the world I inhabit – so I have learnt to refuse to be limited by the things I don’t yet understand! I will be prayerfully careful with those things, but I refuse to be limited, because I have a limitless Father!

When I only look at my own limitations, or the limitations of the people around me, and I choose to be guided by them, I cease to grow. That’s when I have put ‘fitting into the status quo’ above ‘growth.’ Loads of people do that. Life kicked them in the teeth when they have tried to stretch, or extend the edges of their thoughts and now they are looking for safety more than adventure. Here’s what I have observed … safety becomes a BOX that limits my God-given possibilities. 

Jesus told us to be like little children, and healthy little children are curious. They start out in this life asking: “Why? Wat dat? How?” But instead of fostering that curiosity, human beings made a great big container and they named it school and instruction – and now we plonk these precious bundles of natural curiosity into it, hoping against hope that “school” will teach them… something – anything .. that means they can make a living some day. We are not trying to make decent human beings – just societally functioning ones.

Unfortunately, school rarely teaches most children how to think, instead they teach them how to learn. That channels most people’s thinking processes into established streams. It takes a very brave inquisitive child to push against these established schools of thought. Many children who refuse, for one reason or another, to be ‘streamed’ are labelled today with man-made diagnoses, that limit their ability even further to become who they are to God. If we want to go higher than the status quo – our aim should to be lift them higher than we’ve already come.

Sadly with these non-conformist kids we say: “something is wrong with that kid, so we will give it a great big name that means this kid is a dud who won’t do what it is told, or is too dumb to learn.” We limit them with our fear and labels. Oh, we do it nicely, because we’ve learnt to practice our PC, so we pat the kid on the head and say: “Poor baby, this one was born broken.” And then we use them as a statistic to prove our ideas are right.

Maybe in our societies today, the dollar has become more important than our kids, So instead of teaching them how to explore our world safely, we stick a lid on them and tell them this is all there is, that only a few people can grow up to be special. You can make great clones that way. However … God made us all individuals for a purpose. We each have a role to play in His plans for this world – and it won’t necessarily just be on the sporting field, stage or TV! 

What we call education, steals away His purpose, under the guise of things we must know to survive. It has stolen away faith from many, and labelled it ‘a minor need in some individuals who are already weak.’ It does not see faith as something that opens doors, it sees it as an enemy. It is our job, as parents, and grandparents, aunties, and uncles etc. to foster our children’s interest in this bigger world of faith. That bigger world is HIS world. And you can give your children a far better start in this life if you teach them how to really SEE – spiritually. Don’t expect our schools to do it, it’s our job to teach them about that bigger world, which is far realer than this one. 

Instead of just teaching them to digest facts and information that can be proved or disproved – let’s teach them about His kingdom. Let’s tell them what that looks like. Help your kids to see that words on a page in His book, can expand into dreams, visions, and a greater reality that will bless everyone, not just themselves. And that’s this Grannie signing off for today! Bye. 👋