Month: August 2025

P 3067 Rules don’t reign here – Love does.

/ DVH

We are not in the Old Testament, under the Old Will – now we live in His kingdom. So rules don’t reign here — LOVE DOES. It is a very limiting thing to live by rules, because there is no freedom to change or explore other possibilities! In the past few weeks I have discovered that the loss of a loved one sharpens your awareness of who you really are. The pressure and sadness bring up things that might remain undisturbed, or even unseen.

People make choices that separate us from one another. So much more of this life can be explored together, if relationships were valued more than privacy. Sadly, my whole culture values privacy! Have you ever experienced getting angry with people who do some dumb thing you advised them not to do, and when it doesn’t work out — they want you to fix it for them?  Boy do I have a word for you today. It starts with RE and it ends with PENT! We are told to bear one another’s burdens so we can carry them to the Lord for that other person, not collapse under the load!!

Recently I found piles of anger, stuffed into previously unknown corners, all over the place in my heart. Apparently, I also have a postponing habit! I see something in my heart, and think, ‘I’ll fix that with the Lord, later!’ Well, later finally came, for me, and it wasn’t a bit like Christmas! I discovered I was sick to death with being asked what I thought, only to find, lo and behold – the other person didn’t like that answer and threw it away. It wasn’t that I wanted things to be done right – I just thought they could have been done better. 

I’m an external processor. I find out what I’m thinking by what comes out of my mouth and sometimes that is a bigger surprise to me than it would be to you! It’s dangerous stuff, trust me. It is amazing how easily my foot gets into my mouth. Especially as in the natural – I can’t even put my own socks on! Stuff started coming out of my mouth that definitely wasn’t true, and so the Lord began to deal with me about my own attitude toward myself. 

I had developed a habit of thinking that if I had said what the Lord told me to say in a better way, maybe things would have turned out differently. In other words I had picked up false responsibility, which meant that everything that went wrong was most probably my fault. It’s taken a crisis for me to see that I am definitely not that clever!! Other factors have come into play.

Individual people that I care about and respect, gently began to suggest that the way I was thinking about myself was not a great way to deal with things. And then another one came along… before you knew it — I had a queue of them, that nearly went around the block! And they were all saying the same thing. They didn’t all use the same words – but what was said had the same theme. The theme was —- “punishing yourself for other people’s poorly made decisions, is unscriptural and a bad idea.”

That’s the problem with honesty … it’s great but it can be brutal when you swing it like a sledge hammer… at yourself.I had developed an ungodly attitude that was disguised as humility. It seemed to be easier to me to be self-effacing, than it was to say to someone else: “But God said.” The Lord explained to me that attitude was not humility, it was negating the gift He had given me. Then I explained to Him that if I didn’t self-efface stuff, people would not only get mad at me, they would find, and use, that big hammer on me, frequently.! He very gently said: “Isn’t that called fear?” I sure didn’t have any answer for that one. Unless you count … UM! 

But that conversation led me to one question – how often does fear stop any of us from obeying Him? I mean, think about it. We live in a world where there are no rules – because we think rules restrict other people’s freedoms. So now we’ve made rules that say that you can’t stop others from being themselves! Does anyone see the irony in that?

In God’s kingdom, wherever we have had rules — He is actively helping us replace them with His LOVE — because Love is the perfect bond of unity. We can’t get to unity with rules because all of us are rebellious – even the nice people! I can’t get to the place where I am not afraid of you, simply because the bible says “don’t be afraid.” Instead I need a revelation of how great His love and acceptance is toward me. Those rules have not been discarded, they have been gloriously upgraded in one life-changing event! Jesus died in our place.

Sadly, I can keep on doing the very things that are preventing me from growing up into God’s plan for my life – by undermining myself. The Lord wants to tell each one of us today, that there are always areas in our hearts that He is working on. At the same time, He is preparing each one of us to be ready for what comes next, because He knows when those even more difficult things will land on us. 

We can miss the opportunities He brings to prepare us, by not replenishing the oil in our lamps. So don’t tell yourself: ‘I’m just broken.’ Our God can mend anything. The rules have been replaced by LOVE and love cannot, and will not ever fail. 👋 

P 3066 Position yourself to catch the Wind.

/ DVH

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If you truly want to follow Me, you should at once completely reject and disown your own life. And you must be willing to share My cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to My ways.” Matthew 16:24 TPT. I believe the secret to this verse is in the words: ”if you TRULY want to follow Me.” 

This thought is repeated in Luke 9:23-24 TPT: “Jesus said to all of His followers, “If you TRULY desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.”

We often look at our actions, we don’t often look at our aims, desires or wants. So we can quickly feel broken-hearted when we know we’ve failed the Lord. Especially if we revise the things that miss the mark. Those self-accusations won’t help us to follow Him. If you and I think we have messed up too much, we will start to AVOID Him, not follow Him! 

Meanwhile, that is not what He is saying here. Our wants and desires matter to Him. But it is LOVE that is meant to lead us into the place of obedience. Forcing ourselves, creates resistance. I think this means we need to change our primary focus – don’t look to other people for that kind of love, look to Jesus. Then BE the person you need others to be to you!  Read His book like a love letter. Go to the Lord and tell Him that you want to be close to Him, that you long to make Him your heart’s primary desire, but your flesh is weak. Tell Him you need His help. Then let the Holy Spirit be your Personal Coach and follow His instructions – they are in the book.

There are things that make us feel guilty – whether the guilt is real or not. But until they are confessed and dealt with and put aside …we can easily rationalise away the real issues and start fighting the Wind…literally! A kite doesn’t try to fly – it simply positions itself to catch the wind! The Holy Spirit is the wind beneath our wings.  I may not need what you need right now. I may need His loving discipline, but you could need a hug! Christianity is not ‘one size fits all!’ 

We have a Saviour Who personalised everything He did and said as He ministered to individuals. He didn’t go digging around in the coal cellar of people’s hearts, He accurately touched the sore spot in there, and then put His love and truth in its place. When a dumb thing came out of someone’s mouth – He addressed it. The secret to living a day-by-day Godly life, is check out internally what we are aiming at. If I choose to follow Jesus, then I will put down anything else that stands in my way.

Jesus is telling us here, that we cannot follow Him and still live a selfish, greedy, angry life. Those things do not work together. Walking in Love is the Answer. He lived His life showing us the way to follow Him. But the Lord will not beat anyone up because we are not dead to ourselves. And if we analyse our every thought and move that will just take up our precious time. Instead we need to be thanking Him, for all He has done and Who He is. It’s about our focus and our focus must be His love FOR US.

He has done all of the work, all the heavy lifting. In these scriptures He is saying… to achieve what we want, death to self is the only way. He’s pointing to the direction we simply must take. We can’t step into what He has given us through guilt, reprisal or condemnation. He loved us, walking right into death and then He went through that into a new life. That action has given us unfettered access to His heart. The Holy Spirit will lead us, and help us for free, we simply need to let Him have His Way. It takes faith. Jesus has told us what the results will be if we choose to live this life not following Him. 

Because of what the Lord did, we cannot afford to let condemnation strangle us anymore. Kick it off. Tell those thoughts you want to follow the Lord — that filthy snake can’t lead you anywhere but down the drain! Love is our Leader now. Jesus knows we are weak. OH!… but He is so strong! He can get us through anything, including our own weaknesses. He’s with us, as one of us. He is our Friend that is closer than a brother. And He has sent us His most cherished Helper – the Holy Spirit. He created each one of us. He knows what needs to be changed and when it needs changing. 

Whenever love prevails, our responses will be different. When we feel empowered, and safe;  His acceptance and Love gives us room to grow, without pressure. The decision to follow Him is difficult because it means we don’t call the shots anymore. But we are giving that power over to SomeOne Who put up His hand and said: “I see those sins My brother or sister committed, It’s all real. It hurt and destroyed other people. But kill Me instead of them. LET THEM LIVE!!” 

The Holy Spirit wants to guide us through any potholes, pits, and mudslides of this life, into a new way to live. Catch the precious Wind of Love and start your adventure with God Himself. Bye.👋

P 3065 Fruitless trees.

/ DVH

Our mango tree is a much discussed tree on this blog. Initially, it produced no fruit – but then the tree started to produce little nubs that had …potential!!…Then they fell off. Sigh. I’ve learnt a lot about personal fruit production in my own life by watching the progress of that darn tree. 

Here’s my thoughts. Some fruit trees can take a while to fruit. And some trees have no fruit because the tree is not mature enough to produce and sustain any! Fig trees, for instance, can take 2-3 years to get into fruit production. Let’s look at fruit production from a real fig tree: “…fig trees typically produce leaves before they produce fruit. They have a cycle where they first develop leaves in the spring, and then the fruit develops on the new growth or on the previous year’s growth depending on the fig variety and climate.”

The scripture below appears in Matthew and Mark. PS:always take note of something in the gospels that is written up twice. Here we go: Mark 11:12-14: “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to find out if it had any fruit. When He reached it, He found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then He said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And His disciples heard Him say it.“

You know, this scripture bothered me! Why did Jesus curse that tree? That thing died because He cursed it. This whole incident kind of seemed a bit petty, and irrelevant. And yet it was included twice, so it obviously needs prayer and Holy Spirit-inspired insight!  After all there was no McDonald’s on every corner back then in Jerusalem, so that lack meant no breakfast!

Here’s what I came up with: ‘If Jesus cursed that fig tree because it had no fruit, then I’d better make growing fruit a priority!” That improved my prayer life! I realised that the fig tree in this incident is a lot like some of our churches. All show and no go! We can have lots of leaves — singing, dancing, arm waving, kneeling, sermons etc. – but when you lift the leaves – where is the fruit? Our God’s-kind of fruit is people getting saved, healed, delivered and transformed. Where has that fruit gone? 

I want to take a quick look a those little nubs that look like fruit is coming, or the tree that produces fruit that looks soo-oo good … yet at the first sign of a change in the weather… it all falls off. I think this happens quite a lot in our churches too. Pastors, ministers etc. see someone in their congregation who look like they have loads of potential. But this person’s immaturity makes them a target for the enemy to come in, steal, and destroy, or even just nibble away at those gifts. So, should we throw away all that potential because of an immature faith? Maybe the little potential tree needs to go back into the greenhouse for some specialist attention.

Now let’s go to the optimum fruit tree situation — that is, we get fruit in all its perfection and glory. And you and I get to stuff ourselves with the results. In my little allegory, this means we are in church whenever the doors open, and we only leave because it’s morning! With truly wonderful fruit, the colour, smell and taste are fabulous, intoxicating! You have so much to enjoy, you can happily share with others and give lots away! So we advertise revivals, healings etc. to attract people to the church. We recognise the fruit of His Presence with us – but we fail to prioritise growth! The Holy Spirit’s power is with us to transform lives, not just make us feel good!

So then the thief comes — in my mango tree’s case he comes in the form of fluffy grey possums and imported minas — comes pecking at the fruit destroying its eating value. The beautiful fruit has munch marks all over it. Nasty little holes made by nasty little beasties and beaks!! I think this can happen when God’s people begin to revert to type, and they start pecking at what God Himself is doing.‘ This fruit is too big, too small, the wrong sort of fruit, not ripe enough’ and criticism begins to flourish. All that stuff happened to Israel. Read the book!… 

Eventually the church becomes divided and opinionated. And instead of Almighty God getting all the glory for the wonderful things He is doing, now nasty, spiteful remarks start eating away at the roots of His church. The real point is that everyone is so busy enjoying what God is currently doing, they become lax and careless about what they are saying – instead of maintaining the fire on the altar. 

I’m no horticulturist but it seems to me that any kind of fruit on a tree depends on new growth. Fruit comes from new growth. So if our churches aren’t growing … and I don’t mean numerically! I mean that each one of the members are actively choosing, day by day, to grow up into Christ’s likeness, instead of coasting along…  Then maybe that’s a reason why our fruit production has disappeared. 

Having fruitless trees is not a good witness to the world around us. Our churches need to prioritise personal growth and not just fantastic experiences. We want our little potential-filled trees to survive and thrive.  Bye 👋

P 3064 The missing piece to the meaning of life …

/ DVH

… IS IN THE BIBLE! Our Heavenly Father God has not left us to our own devices, instead heaven invaded earth in the most innocent, harmless, least intrusive and threatening form – Jesus Christ came here as a little, helpless baby! HE IS OUR MISSING PIECE. In the bible we have a permanent record of God’s love in action throughout the whole book. Because men and women, just like us, saw our God in action and wrote it down. Now we need to act just like the leper in Mark 1:45 ‘… he…began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter,…” What do we proclaim everywhere? That God’s love is clearly demonstrated through Christ! He is the Major piece of our life’s puzzle.

We have discovered that His Love needs evidence — and Jesus Christ is our personal, and corporate evidence that mankind is now, and will always be, greatly cherished and loved by God Himself. This fact was never meant to be kept a secret – God Himself came here!! We’ve been incredibly blessed, because the bible says to each one of us:  “whosoever-will-may-come!” In other words:  we don’t care what you did. If you are willing to make amends and walk away from sin, and trust Jesus to save and heal you from the torments and angst that sin has produced in your life … you are welcome here! There is no secret password, handshake, keycard or any particular puzzle skills needed! The bible has been given to us to make God’s love for us clearly known. 

That Love for each one of us is another major piece to find. Christians have been reborn to be walking, talking demonstrators of God’s love in action. We are to live this way with each other, and that will be our witness to the world around us.“In addition to all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” Colossians 3:14. The Father, Jesus His Son, and the precious Holy Spirit already have this perfect bond of unity. If we think about Their mutual love like that, then we will begin to understand how important OUR unity is to Them. Their kind of love explodes in us, and on us, and it intentionally fills up our hearts. But this love is not just a feeling – it is a choice. Choice is another huge part of our puzzle. 

Christ chose to love us and that love has always been on display through His words and actions recorded in His book. He did that whenever He chose to lift people up who were burdened by their sin, and He challenged those who thought they weren’t! He healed the sick, cleansed the lepers and delivered those long held captive by the devil’s wiles. One of our enemy’s greatest deceptions portrays him as a scary person in a red suit with horns. But, our bible portrays the enemy as disguising himself as an angel of light. So we need God’s wisdom to see and hear properly – there’s another puzzle piece. His book can teach us. 

Together with the Holy Spirit’s help, plus everything contained within His book, these things are our very best puzzle solvers, and part of God’s heavenly plans and tactics. However, even the bible itself can be a puzzle. We will sometimes need 3D laser skills to see the reality contained inside it. The Holy Spirit helps us to look through the words to the realities within. “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” John 10:10. If whatever you have bumped into steals, kills or destroys yourself, or others, it is not God. Jesus Himself made that clear. Our only hope is to tune into whatever the Holy Spirit is doing, then we can see beyond the obvious things in this world, into His realm, where love prevails.

We also need to hold tight to another puzzle piece that says ‘God chose to give His precious Son as a sacrifice.’ Jesus chose to come here. And the Holy Spirit chooses to be present all over the earth, guiding each one of us, as He is going to and fro. He is watching out for anyone whose heart is toward the Father. The Trinity’s deliberate choices have led to us having absolute freedom to choose which way we will personally go. And no-one else can take that choice, that puzzle piece, from you. You will have to choose to lay your entire life down at His feet. 

Day by day, we continually remind ourselves of His Ways by reading His book – that book is the key to every eternal mystery. My next proposed puzzle piece is an important fragment of the eternal puzzle we need to understand. When people die, where do they go? His book tells us that. The bible shows us the answer, when it tells us about a rich man who had a beggar named Lazarus at his gate. The rich man ignored the beggar’s needs. (Luke 16:19-31) You can read about the results for yourself. This puzzle piece looks like this:  whatever we’ve been given is to be used to further His kingdom, not ours.

My last pivotal puzzle piece is that salvation is available to every single human being, even the worst of us. In God’s kingdom ALL means ALL!  Almighty God does not use hyperbole, He doesn’t have to. What He says is truth! Jesus clarifies our view of our Heavenly Father and personifies His ways beautifully in the bible. This eternal puzzle was always meant to be solved by us… and FYI …Jesus Christ is the missing piece. Bye 👋

P 3063 The best kind of wrap!

/ DVH

““You are my place of quiet retreat, and Your wrap around Presence becomes my shield as I wrap myself in your Word!” Psalms 119:114 TPT. One of the things my mother left behind when she died recently, was a pretty wrap. I won’t ever forget who it belonged to, because it is now a part of our shared history. Hubby and I chose it and gave it to her a long time ago. Any time I wear it now, I will be wrapping myself in memories of all of us together.

This is true of God’s Gracious Presence, He keeps us surrounded by love, as well as sheltered within Him. He does not take away our trouble and difficulties, instead He promises us a place of safety within it. We are wrapped all around with Him. His kindness, love, and Who He is. His Presence becomes a barrier between us and everything else. However, this is not just a place of safety, it is also a place of enlightenment, full of personal strategic battle plans and solidity, in the middle of whatever is going on around us. It is a place where we are aware of His abiding love. His nearness comforts us. All that and much much more, is available as we wrap ourselves up in Him.

I can remember years ago, someone I dearly loved, who did not yet comprehend the hugeness of God for themselves –  got mad at me because I was so wrapped up in the Lord, that I virtually always had a bible in my hand. I was so preoccupied with what He had done for me, I wanted to be with Him all the time. We need to learn to value Him above everything else, including our own comfort.

Back then, I was taught that the Holy Spirit was like some sort of a glorious phenomenon – Who was given to only a select few people to empower them to do special things. The rest of us were doomed to plod on – making the best of what life chucked at us. And if you didn’t have a label, (a spiritual gift) you were given a practical job to help the rest of the church function. I had no idea that when the Holy Spirit fell on the church in Acts – He fell on EVERYONE in that Upper room! You and I are meant to be continually guided by, and led by SomeOne Else greater and wiser than we are.  

Psalm 91 has rapidly become my favourite Psalm, because it is all about safety and protection, the things I couldn’t always find in my own life, or even Christian circles. This Psalm became my God-given shawl. Despite the horror of this world today, we are to live within this secret place. We do not visit it and come out again to go on with other parts of our lives. It is our home-base — everything happens from there.

Verses 1-11. “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand]. I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust! For [then] He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. [Then] He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings shall you trust and find refuge; His truth and His faithfulness are a shield and a buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror of the night, nor of the arrow (the evil plots and slanders of the wicked) that flies by day, 

Nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor of the destruction and sudden death that surprise and lay waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. Only a spectator shall you be [yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the Most High] as you witness the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place, There shall no evil befall you, nor any plague or calamity come near your tent. For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service].”

Psalm 91 is God’s delightful “shawl” or “wrap” for each of us — it shows us, within the text, how it works! This Psalm hinges on a couple of little phrases like: “I will say of the Lord…” plus “he who dwells.” These phrases are clues for us …Where do you find your refuge? In distraction? Or maybe your refuge is within your family, group of friends, job, or your church. God Himself wants to be our chosen refuge, our shawl, our place of safety and comfort. He wants to be the place we run into when we are in trouble — all our memories are in Him.

This is why I am often so emphatic about total surrender — giving our lives completely over to Him. Because that is the place of provision and protection. In the secret place we get to watch whatever is going on, without it destroying us. We are not laying aside our responsibilities when we do this, rather we are giving them to, and deferring to – the Greater One within us. We expect that He will take care of things for us. 

Back at the beginning of my walk with the Lord, I had a terrible time with a sort of split-definition of the ways my spiritual life was supposed to work. I could never figure out which bit of my life was mine to go on with, and which bit was His! So I lived as I pleased, trying hard to do the things I read in the book, and I took the difficult, or impossible things to Him. The thing is, it is so, so much easier, less frenetic, time-consuming, and stressful to just give everything to Him. Little things and big ones.

This Psalm is the very best kind of shawl or wrap. We can see what is going on, but we are no longer in the line of fire. We can stand behind Him and become spectators of His love in action, toward us…and others. Bye.👋

P 3062 The Eternally Grateful are coming …

/ DVH

There is an army of people who will be coming into our churches any day now. In my heart, I can see them. They are broken-down by this life and the way they have chosen to live it. These are the people that you and I might reject because of their outward appearance, or bad life choices. However, these people have discovered that the Saviour is not interested in their past misdeeds, or their backgrounds, and as a result, they are overwhelmingly grateful. These people know they need saving.

They’ve done all the dumb, monstrous things mankind is capable of, and they’ve seen through the tissue of lies our enemy has been feeding society that says: “people are just expressing themselves.” They know, if Jesus is not Who He says He is, or He doesn’t save them, then they are utterly lost. Everything depends upon how we treat these lost broken souls when they begin to join us – will we tolerate them, or make them feel so uncomfortable they leave – or receive them gladly with humility?

One of the difficulties we face today in our churches is that we do not comprehend the depth of our own personal sin against the Lord, and His holiness. Sadly, we can even become totally pre-occupied with someone else’s sin against us! But …we are living our lives, from day to day, totally unaware that we are disobedient to our heavenly calling. Repentance is part of our ongoing salvation. ps. we all need saving from ourselves, daily! We need to be aware, pride and complacency have entered the church. Jesus taught us this about that subject:

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then He turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give Me any water for My feet, but she wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing My feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her sins, many [as they are], are forgiven her—because she has loved much. But He who is forgiven little loves little.” Luke 7:41-47. Our omissions, our refusal to obey Him, can harden our hearts.

I just love this lady! She interrupts a meeting between some bigwigs from the synagogue and Jesus, because of her desperate need for reconciliation with Almighty God. She knew how wrong her life was, and she did something about it!  Many believers today have become complacent about their faith. We can learn something from this unnamed woman. We need to take notice. She displayed her gratefulness all over Jesus’ feet, publicly. She did not care for herself or her dignity.

Everybody knows we are all sinners in theory. However, there are people who know, for sure, that they don’t deserve any of the costly Grace Jesus has poured out for them. They’ve learnt, the hard way, they are only capable of selfishness and chaos. Sadly it is too easy to think about repentance as an add-on, instead of a life-line. That’s when we end up excusing sin, instead of facing it.

I think the Apostle Paul is a wonderful illustration of how easy it is to think we are right, and that we are living our lives well serving God. This man was being obedient to what he knew, to the letter — and then God Himself went and knocked him off his (high) horse! Immediately Paul’s life was transformed.  “As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting ME?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Acts 9:3-5.

These verses show me that it is possible to think you are right, and still be wrong. Paul was. He thought he was doing God a favour by persecuting those radicals who followed Jesus. He saw himself as an avenger, getting rid of someone stealing God’s own glory. I particularly like the point inferred in these scriptures, where Jesus says persecuting believers is the same as persecuting Him. He takes our persecution, personally! No wonder we should pray for our enemies!!

Grateful people know that without Him they can do nothing. They’ve had their ability to resist sin and temptation tested, and they failed … or they came up empty. That’s when they realised that they simply did not have the power inside themselves to change themselves. These people now live their lives gratefully and they have an attitude that says: “I will serve You Lord, any time, any place, anywhere. My life is Yours now.“ Their desire is to see Him get all the glory, because heaven-sent gratitude has overtaken their sense of self-aggrandisement or need for approval.

These greatly anticipated newcomers, who are covered in the filth of this world, will have so much to teach us all, because their humility and devotion will be stunning. They won’t know what to say or wear, but they will be crazy about the One Who saved them! The Apostle Paul gave away his life, his position and his reputation to serve Jesus. He demonstrated what being saved means – it means we are a people who will always be eternally grateful for what we have been given. Have a good day! Bless you. 🙏

P 3061 Please don’t waste His light.

/ DVH

Ephesians 1:18:“ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people,..” What the heck does that mean? It means   that a spiritual person can see a glorious spiritual reality that a natural man cannot. We can place great value on the gifts of the Spirit, on the infilling of the Spirit, on receiving from the Spirit. We do this like those ‘experiences’ outweigh the reality of daily walking with Him! Walking with Him here on earth is our highest calling.

When you and I gave our lives to Christ, He came to live in us. The idea that Jesus would live in our hearts without the Holy Spirit makes no sense. Actually, God Himself as a revelatory, creative Being came to live inside us in the Person of the Holy Spirit. He knows the way ahead for each one of us. 

What we need to do is to acquaint ourselves with the ways of God, so that we treat Him like the priceless treasure He is! He’s right here, with each one of us every day. He wants to teach us, personally, as well as corporately. Whenever we live our lives choosing to do things according to our will – the Holy Spirit will quietly leave. But He does not leave us permanently – He strives with us to get our attention.

When I look at you through a slave’s eyes, what you do or don’t do, suddenly matters to me, because it affects me. When I am operating in the flesh, I can misunderstand your motivation, and become disgruntled or unhappy with you — if your behaviour is my yard-stick. But when Jesus is my yard-stick, I have been given the God-given grace to see YOU through His eyes. This means I can have mercy. I can give you grace, I can die for you daily, because I can see what He can see about you. 

Because I love Jesus, what He chooses to love, I love – now, your behaviour becomes inconsequential. And if we get snippy at each other we are reverting to the flesh. The flesh will not and cannot profit us, spiritually, These fleshly attitudes mean our God-given, Heaven designated Helper will leave, because I have chosen “my way” over “His way” and He will never take away our choices. He quietly waits for us to notice that He has left.

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”Joshua 24:15. Day by day our choices matter. Christianity is not a part-time religion, it is an all or nothing one! Winning this war depends on our daily choices, our willingness to surrender everything that matters to us, to Him. When we live like that, we are demonstrating our faith that our God is a good God and He will not do us harm. Our eyes are enlightened to see beyond the here and now.

We dare not waste the daily light God sends us through His Word. I exhort you to take those things you read every day to heart, and act on them. They will be essential on the next step of your journey with Him. Bye. 👋

P 3060 Times of refreshing …

/ DVH

“For I will refresh the weary soul and satisfy all those who have given up on life.” Jeremiah 31:25 TPT. The thing with verses like these is that it is easy to look at it, and then look at your own personal experience and think … maybe I keep missing out on that.

Here’s what changed the way I read things like this — I stopped seeing my own experiences as the plumb-line and I chose to take His Word literally instead. Now I look up to heaven and say: “Dear Lord, Thank You for refreshing me. Thank You that You are so faithful, You always keep Your promises.”Amen.

Life today is hard. It is so easy to want to give up on it. The people all around us choose to surrender to the rapidly increasingly, flooding disaster of foul media water, which sweeps away everything else in its path. So we have people who doubt their sex, or people that think that killing a bad person is justified, or that  lying is OK so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody. Apparently stealing is not stealing when it is only on paper and nobody knows. And sleeping around is just normal.  

This filthy stuff can daily wash over us and constantly demand our opinions, our participation and our judgment. Big mistake – huge! We must choose to yield to His greater wisdom. There are times when those awful things push themselves right into our own homes. Right here, right now, there is only one body of water that is safe to jump into and that’s the river of life. It’s in the book! We cannot afford to agree with the people who are being swept along by a torrent of filth, and go on to join them by jumping into the miasma. His life in us has something life-giving to say in every single circumstance. Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding:  in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Amen.

Here is another verse of scripture that helps me with life. It goes like this: “We do not have the audacity to put ourselves in the same class or compare ourselves with some who [supply testimonials to] commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they lack wisdom and behave like fools.” 2 Corinthians 10:12. Jesus is always our yardstick.

I have learnt that who YOU are, and what you do, cannot be my standard. I cannot afford to take my standard from the rest of mankind, because the bible tells me that all have sinned, they have fallen short of God’s glorious ideal, and Jesus is God’s glorious ideal. He met every single standard and requirement that was necessary, when He overpaid our debt. The best measuring stick is Christ, in every single situation. We no longer have to see each other through that yoke of slavery, when I see you, in Christ, I am blessed.

When I am reminded of verses like this one in Jeremiah 31:25, I stop using my feelings, or peering at the circumstances, or even the manifold activities around me, to try to satisfy my own need for validation. I don’t have to blame YOU, Jesus validated me with His love. I would not go to the barbers to buy JAM, I need to go to the distributor of jam, the supermarket.

When someone is annoyed with me, my bible says:“My God shall supply my needs according to His riches in glory.”So I go to God to supply patience, long-suffering, joy etc. I have access to this blessing because of what Jesus has already done on my behalf! He has plenty of the stuff we need, and He loves us. We can just ask Him for it!

Our God is out-of-this-world rich in all those things we desperately need daily. He can’t run out – heaven rests on Who He is …

Plus, I have been promised my needs in writing. Who needs a Lear Jet or a mountain of gold, when you can have Grace whenever you need it? And boy do we need it when somebody gets all-up-in-your-face and you know that it’s their problem not yours. God promises us times of refreshing whenever we need it, and personally, I need His refreshing daily. Sucking it up buttercup does not work well when you are mad. You are likely to get indigestion instead of refreshed. 

There is nothing more life-changing than asking Him for patience, or long-suffering, or joy, or hope, when you need it. You will find you can go further than you ever thought you could, when your motivation changes from: “Please make me happy and comfortable” to “I want what you want Lord.” ←That BTW is a great prayer – but do gird up your girdle Gertie, because this ride can get bumpy before it becomes FUN. When we think of this life as the only life we have, we can make very poor decisions. Yet the glory of God, and all of heaven awaits us. 

Stephen, was a church deacon in the book of Acts. He was given such a clear look at Jesus standing beside our Heavenly Father in heaven, that I doubt he felt the rocks whacking into the side of his dear head, breaking his poor body. He was refreshed when He was dying!! When you are struggling, when you are fed up, when you feel like giving up – ask for times of refreshing from the Lord. Bye. 👋

P 3059 Up close and personal!

/ DVH

“Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage.” Ephesians 6:12 TPT. 

Ignoring our enemy may well be one of Christianity’s biggest mistakes so far. But I totally believe in the Lord’s great all-encompassing goodness. I know He is raising up a generation of believers who will face all of our enemies, unashamed, and fearless. The way we can enter this brave band of brothers, is to practice fighting the good fight in our own little lives, every single day. Up close and personal! I pray all the time for His Grace to be abundant upon me because I’ve lived long enough to know that I need it!

Lately it seems the Lord is stretching my patience, while He is perfecting me and transforming me …Sigh. So there is a big l-o-n-g space between whatever bad event just happened in my life – to finally being able to see the Lord’s outcome. I will always need a big dollop of His hope daily to cope. Here’s a freebie …put your hope in Jesus, not in the Answer. Sometimes we don’t actually know what is good for us. My faith can be feeble and self-serving, and without His help, impatience will jump up and down on the inside of me – demanding my attention.

I battle with a sense of overall tiredness daily. It’s the kind of tiredness that makes you want to sleep for a week and hope that everything will be fixed when you wake up! I sort of understand the whole deal with the Israelites when they left Egypt and wandered around in the wilderness. I don’t like to live my life feeling uncomfortable either! The solution is easy – instead of waiting for my circumstances to change I need to give the whole thing to Jesus and walk away, leaving it with Him. And refuse to pick it up again..

God is good ALL the time. I simply need to cultivate my spiritual eyes and ears and make what He wants my priority. The problem is not with Him. It’s me!! There are days when I realise there is much more of the world inside me than I’ve comprehended so far. You know some days I also understand the Israelites longing for the leeks and garlic of Egypt, even when Manna fell out of the sky every day. It seems to me that there’s not that many ways you can cook Manna over an open fire! Boiled? Scrambled? toasted? I have a limited diet but manna porridge every day for forty years seems hard to bear. That problem is not with what I am eating – it is with what I am thinking!

The bible says in Galatians 2:20:“I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” I love the bible so much,.it shows me clearly there is no way forward without sticking to, leaning on, and totally surrendering to Jesus. ‘By faith’ means He is now my reference point, not the awful circumstances, or my feelings, but Jesus.

I love the bit in Galatians that says: “in the body.” My ability to conquer what’s going on in my head is already inside me – it came in when He came in! Salvation is not just something that happens only once. I am saved from all kinds of sin every single blooming minute of every day! Especially when icky thoughts float through my educated-idiot-box if I am irritable. That thing says stuff inside my head to the person who is annoying me: “If I give in to you, I am letting you win and there is no way you should win … because I don’t trust you!” Look at me, thoughts of reconciliation flowing about like a river! Hah! Fighting with YOU will not help ME overcome!!

That’s what this verse from Ephesians 6:12 is about. It is reminding us …“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:4. The war we fight daily, sometimes minute by minute, has nothing whatsoever to do with guns, spears, swords, or nuclear weapons – but it has everything to do with my own private thoughts … by the time that junk comes out of my mouth, I’m sunk!

If I let irritation with you pull up a chair in my private thoughts … then … all by myself, I can personally conjure up why you said what you said, and what you meant by it!   You did get the whole “conjure up” vibe right? I mean that junk floating about is not valid. It shows me that somebody else has been whispering to me:  “They said that because of this – and they mean this because of that!” That’s like one step away from necromancy and that stuff is bad news according to the bible. Saul lost his kingdom and his life to that sort of Chinese whispers because God did not answer the man according to his timetable. 

All of this fight is internal, and most definitely up close and personal! However, yielding my will to His, when I am in the middle of it, changes everything. When I choose to daily learn to give up quickly, and lay my life down for His sake, not yours …then He can make whatever He wants to make, out of it – and it is always good! Bye 🤗 

P 3058 A change is needed.

/ DVH

“I had to nurse you and feed you with “milk,” not with the solid food of more advanced teachings, because you weren’t ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready to be fed solid food, for you are living your lives dominated by the mind-set of the flesh. Ask yourselves: Is there jealousy among you? Do you compare yourselves with others? Do you quarrel like children and end up taking sides? If so, this proves that you are living your lives centred on yourselves, dominated by the mind-set of the flesh, and behaving like unbelievers.” 1 Corinthians 3:2-3.

You know, there’s a deeper place for Christians to live daily – simply because God’s GRACE is available to each one of us all the time. His Grace facilitates our new way to live. However, Grace can’t change a FAKE ME. By that I mean, who we are can be carefully hidden under layers of ‘pious sucking it up’ instead of true transformation. Real transformation means when somebody presses button “A” in our lives, we don’t explode anymore. OH for THAT day!! 

In our society today it seems the land of harder and worse is looming up right in front of mankind. Sadly, most of the time, instead of listening to our own reactions, we make excuses for our behaviour and get furious at someone else. But because of what Jesus did for us, we no longer have to be ashamed to acknowledge where we personally went wrong.

A lot of our time in this life is wasted by pretending we are managing – when we are not. The best thing about sin is that we have an opportunity to be saved and transformed from it, when we acknowledge it! Every person on this planet has sin in common. Realising that, can lead us deeper into the Lord’s incredible Love, we must understand that despite our sinfulness, He will not turn any of us away. It is always our choice … we can live in the need for revenge, or inner peace. You know, babies always need to be looked after, adults have a life to live. Babies are not productive at all, they are consumers.

It would seem from these verses in Corinthians that the Apostle Paul knew some undernourished fat-babies in his life as well! However! “There IS NO condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus…!!” Acknowledgement of our own sin will lead us into a wider, broader place … where I can love you no matter what you did, because I’ve learnt hating you is just as bad as whatever you did to me! Comparison of big and little sins is killing us – and our fake identities are muddying the waters of this life. There are higher places for every single one of us to go. I tell myself: ‘Every time I confront these things in my life, I’m building my faith muscle. Every time I humble myself I am stepping into His Grace.’

So we must decide, and choose to move on from the stuff that has held us captive for most of our lives, and believe what the Lord Jesus said. It’s all part of the same faith. “It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. The slavery comes in when we refuse to acknowledge to ourselves, that we were all born broken! Accepting the never-ending, all-encompassing love of God is available to everyone, changes our perception of things that appear to be stuck. Transparency helps us. We cannot afford to walk around with our noses in the air looking at others thinking: ‘they are more broken than I am!’

Let me be clear – the Lord won’t physically stop us, we must learn, through experience, to use our faith in His truthfulness, to stop ourselves. That’s what our faith is for – we are to live this new life we have been given, using our faith that what the Lord said He did, He did! Acknowledging our sinfulness puts feelings in second place, and at the same time we are telling ourselves that no matter how things look, Jesus has got our troubles or difficulties and He’s THE penultimate Redeemer. 

The door to that jail we lived in before we met Him – is now permanently open.There are no guards! They fell on their backs when He burst out of that grave! The enemy tries to keep all of us busy examining everyone else’s attitudes and actions for our entire lives. Unfortunately, if we put our faith down, and aim at excusing ourselves, we will continue to commit whatever sin we’ve been fighting that trips us up. Instead we must believe Jesus is telling the truth. He said He did it, so it is done. Now we repent and repair things wherever we need to, and move on.

Jesus said that while He was hanging on a cross in agony. “It. Is. Finished.” Every requirement for our new life is already in our account, it has been paid for, in full. Now we put aside the temptation to resent people, or to lie, to ourselves and others, or get angry and hate people. We simply go and do what Jesus would do. He came here to love people, so that’s what we do too! We are all pilgrims, we have not yet arrived: “but we press on!! …” 

There is incredible freedom in not excusing yourself and facing up to reality. There were times Jesus physically went up a mountain to pray. Here’s my little theory … I think He did that because He needed the spiritual, physical and emotional respite from the stuff all around Him. He need to find true REST in His Father.  Prayer and reading the bible are our spiritual life-blood – they gives us rest from striving. Listen as if God Himself was speaking to you, personally. What we need to change is our belief that your sin is worse than mine! Bye. 👋