Month: September 2025

P 3097 How to live.

/ DVH

“But He’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.” Micah 6:8 MSG. 

I just love that this verse says don’t take yourself too seriously. In my life as I follow His instructions and learn to live by them, I’ve discovered accidental times of sheer bliss. It is as if heaven comes down in a little bubble of joy and hubby and I and the Lord are right in the middle of it. He’s laughing and we’re laughing – and we have no clue why we are laughing … we just are! And it feels so good! Eventually you end up wondering why you were worried, harassed or upset in the first place. That’s the place to stop wondering why, and just enjoy the moment! You and I ain’t getting out of this life alive!

Here’s an interesting thought that might help with that. We cannot spend the life we now have, trying to punish any previous generations for the mistakes they made. This life is not meant to be lived retrospectively – it’s too short. I’ve also learnt that deliberately avoiding someone else’s mistakes means I’m just going to make different ones! And I did! Groan!! Judgment always leads to a worse place than we started at.

Hubby and I have just returned home after a little time away in a peaceful place. I’m always glad to get home again, but boy I will miss the view. (See above.) We met a new group of tiny friends here. A small flock of sparrows appeared on our balcony. The bible says that the Lord feeds birds! I distinctly remember that God once fed His little birds my homegrown, much anticipated raspberries. I was pretty ticked off about it too! I didn’t even get ONE! Yes, I repented!

Back to our sparrow visitors. These dear little birds kept arriving early in the morning, and peering hopefully through the big glass window. I’m a sucker for any bird that sits on the back of a chair and sings its heart out! Meanwhile, those little birds really know how to eat, they sure can sock it away. The way they ate you would think they were emus!

OK – it seems it is time to be spiritual! Did you get that instruction in the above scripture? Right at the end, it says: ‘don’t take yourself too seriously, take God seriously instead!’ That’s the whole point of course. That’s why we are all still here, we are here to learn to take the things of the Spirit, seriously. Here’s a question I don’t much like to ask myself, but it has been helpful because it diagnoses my own attitudes rather quickly. What if you were the only person left in circle of family and friends who knows Jesus? Is your life a witness? Yeah, I know. Bring that up!

Meanwhile, we don’t just witness by what we say – we also witness by WHO we are – especially when people are looking, and …even when they aren’t. However, somebody, it seems, is always looking – I’ve learnt that the hard way. Living this life, the only one we have, for His sake, is part of taking Almighty God seriously. The same God Who heals the sick and raises the dead, makes the deaf hear and the blind see – is living inside you. Our job is to let Him out for the world to see. That’s what Paul did.

Paul often ended up in nine kinds of trouble because nobody could shut him up! Everywhere he went he found a public place and started telling people about Jesus. He told governors, kings, religious people, important people, business people, ordinary people, and some listened and some didn’t. Some hauled him off to jail, and he took that in his stride and witnessed to the guards instead!  Paul didn’t wait for revivals – he started them!

The thing that Paul’s life clearly shows me is that half-hearted won’t do. Whatever the Lord has in His plans for each one of us  – we need to make sure we listen, stay humble, and simply go and do it.  Paul was so brilliant, he could do more than one thing at a time. He witnessed, preached, founded churches, and wrote a huge chunk of the New Testament. But all of the Lord’s disciples, with the exception of Judas, gave up the rest of their lives serving God. 

It seems to me that we can sit about waiting for the Holy Spirit to do what He has already done, many many times before in the church’s history – or we can take God Himself seriously and get on with His kingdom’s business. We still have the book and that’s plenty to go on with! I would hate to think that we will spend our whole lives knowing we are saved, yet ignoring the many who are not. What Micah is talking about here is our attitudes – our attitudes are meant to lead to actions. 

We were saved to serve Him. Look! I’m truly sorry if nobody told you that you were actually giving your life away when you first said ‘yes’ to Jesus — but I just did that, right here, right now. So what are you going to do about it? That’s the real issue. How to live this life now, is all over His book. Bye. 🤪 !

P 3096 something to think on.

/ DVH

“Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust Him along the way, you’ll find He pulled it off perfectly! He will appear as your righteousness, as sure as the dawning of a new day. He will manifest as your justice, as sure and strong as the noonday sun. Quiet your heart in His presence and wait patiently for Yahweh. And don’t think for a moment that the wicked, in their prosperity, are better off than you.” Psalms 37:5-7 TPT. 

These verses are a great summation of how faith works. They help you to experience all that the Lord has for you as you surrender your whole life, and then begin to obey the stuff that is already in His book. Useful tip! Please don’t excuse yourself by saying “I don’t do that.” That’s leaning on your own understanding — ASK HIM instead. At the same time it is not good to skip over any apparently hard bits, instead it is important to take them to heart. I keep going back until He gives me an answer.

Most of my answers come when the Holy Spirit brings another verse to my mind and it clarifies the first one. Then ask Him – “What would You like me to do about this Lord?”  I have met so many people who are stuck right there agreeing with the bible but dismissing their own responsibility to change. Perhaps their thought is: “I’ve prayed about my sin, I confessed it. Now changing me and my unfortunate attitude is up to God.” I put “stinky attitude” but most people don’t like to go that far.

Leaving changing our core values up to Him is like shouting into the wind.The Lord expects us to do something about those attitudes, and He is happy to help us. To start with: He loves the interaction that takes place when we choose to engage with Him over these seemingly small things. He will tell us what to do, and help us as He tells us how to do it.

Look, I am going to be blunt here – you and I are not babies who sit about bleating: “I can’t help it, and God hasn’t done anything about it so it’s not my fault. After all I prayed!” That’s like nailing one foot to the floor and wondering why you are going round and round. We blame God because we think we did all we could, by praying. Do the opposite on purpose! Remember Zacchaeus? This man overpaid to make up for his sin. Excusing yourself is called evasion. I know people who say: ‘Jesus paid for my sin’ –YEAH! He did! But repentance is in the book too! … Repentance involves fruit. If you want fruit – this is how you get it!

My advice is to read His book with the idea that we will “hear” something to help us every single day, then we act on it. I have learnt, over and over again, that the Lord is often doing something behind the scenes …  somewhere I didn’t even think about. He is doing something else – every single time. This has become so predictable, it is amazing. If you want eyes to see and ears to hear this is how you get them. Stick yourself under His heavenly bible-microscope and ask questions. Don’t give up or use avoidance because you don’t have enough time – press in. Words are cheap, actions speak louder than words.

However, acting in faith on what He tells you to do can be hard. The bible says:“let the thief steal no more!” Now that person needs to find another way to earn a living because stealing is out! Jesus told a lot of people to go away and stop doing whatever it was that got them down the hole they had fallen into. You and I aren’t glove puppets – He will not make us change our behaviour. The Lord loves to come alongside us, to help us fix whatever it is, with His guidance and wisdom. He loves the interaction that happens as we learn to rely upon Him step by step – yes I know I already said this! 

It works like this: Pray! Ask for His help to identify any problem. Then ask Him to show you how He wants you to fix it. If someone else is involved, then pull up your big guy pants and go and ask for forgiveness. Explain to them you have been praying about this fault but you did not know you were asking amiss. You thought that was the way this stuff was done. Their response to your humility is their problem, you are working on your own spiritual life with the Lord. Faith grows when you use it to overcome your own weaknesses. 

Waiting patiently for some whose faults are driving you batty, can be incredibly irritating! But that response is our cue to ask God: “Lord, what log is in my eye that is obscuring my view of what is really going on?”. This is how we will discover the stuff we need to prayerfully do about ourselves. We are not meant to live this life irritated. Irritation is the opposite of learning to live in love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” We all know where that scripture is! 

The Holy Spirit knows the steps each of us need to take to get us to this place in Corinthians! My steps won’t be like yours, because we are different. But He promises to counsel us with His eye upon us, and He will. There is absolutely nothing like doing God’s Will God’s Way! All sorts of glory comes down. My insides get so happy I just want to do some sort of little dance on the spot! I don’t, of course, because I can’t dance for toffee – but I yell a lot instead! “Praise You Lord!” When we pray about this kind of stuff we are touching the eternal, and allowing Him to be the focus of our lives. That is definitely something to think on. Bye. 👋

P 3095 Trust can be cultivated.

/ DVH

Proverbs 16:3:“BEFORE you do anything, put your trust totally in God and not in yourself. Then every plan you make will succeed.”TPT. “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.” NIV.“Put God in charge of your work, then what you’ve planned will take place.” MSG. This is one of the very best ways I know that shows us how ‘to taste and see that the Lord is good.’

Please note the ‘before’ aspect of the first scripture! It makes it clear that the first place we need to go to is to Him. His ways are above ours, and He knows the future, so trusting Him is pure wisdom. We can tie ourselves in knots over something big like: ‘who should I marry? OR where shall I live?’ — But those things are not necessarily the best place to learn trust. A day-to-day experience of the Lord’s personal guidance, with His eye upon you and your life, is far better. Plus taking the time to notice what He has already done!

Trust is learnt through daily application, not just life-changing decisions! Our thirst to know what comes next can lead us astray. Our daily lives flow better as we learn to live guided by Him. Plus allowing the Lord to correct us and then deliberately acting on His correction, transforms our hearts and minds, because that too involves trust. It softens any hardness that may have calloused over our hearts in our relationship with Him, and others. Plus it introduces opportunities for humility. It’s hard to be proud when you know you need to  go to someone else and confess your faults!

My advice is this – start out the way you mean to finish. God can redeem anything, even our missteps, and He will — but, unfortunately, whatever we carelessly end up doing, can hurt other innocent people and their faith. There is so much wisdom in learning to trust Him and WAIT for what He wants. Let’s forget about taking a survey! By taking a survey, I mean asking six people to give you their feedback on something that totally affects the direction of your life. You could quite easily get six different answers! Or 3 for and 3 against! Neither of those options will grow anything but uncertainty. Trust is like a plant, it needs to be deliberately cultivated and nurtured and cared for, from day to day. 

We can misplace our trust, because we are not first honouring the One Who is always trustworthy with our actions. In order to cast all our cares upon Him so He can make our paths straight, we need to know Him, and His ways first! Regular prayer and reading the bible is a reliable way to expose us to the way the Lord thinks. Otherwise presumption will lure us away from the purposes of God Himself. The best way to cultivate trust is to be more prepared to hear ‘NO!’ or ‘wait,’ than ‘yes.’  Uncertainty is not postponement, it can be God saying wait. 

“There’s a time for every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1. King Solomon learnt this lesson the hard way. With so many wives etc., not to mention all the children who called the king ‘Dad’ – it’s a wonder he could cope at all! But God Himself personally told this king not to marry or take foreign wives who worshipped other gods. Unfortunately, He did not trust God’s judgment over his own needs and wants.The result was catastrophic. He let his appetites rule his obedience and he treated women like sweeties in a sweet shop – “I’ll have one of those, and one of those etc. …”  Many people today are searching, and searching for the kind of permanent, idealised love from others, that only God Himself can provide. 

Trusting the Lord when everything seems to get harder and harder can be exhausting. This is when we discover how much of our lives the Lord really has under His supervision. I’ve learnt, in those harassing times, to simply lay it all down and let everything go. Let Him be God, and you just be you – that sad little exhausted puddle in the corner. “I can’t do this” is a useful prayer. Just like “help, help.” My premise is this, if we want to follow Him all day every day, then we need to live yielded lives – all day every day! And don’t forget repentance, it clears away any cobwebs. 

Trusting God means I WILL choose to take His Word over mine and that means what I want will die a little. It means I learn to shut my mouth whenever my insides are shouting – “vindicate yourself, you are being misunderstood again!” Another way to learn trust is by letting Him vindicate you. The bible clearly tells me He will vindicate me in Psalm 37:6-8. “He will vindicate you in broad daylight, and publicly defend your just cause. Wait patiently for the Lord! Wait confidently for Him! Do not fret over the apparent success of a sinner, a man who carries out wicked schemes. Do not be angry and frustrated. Do not fret. That only leads to trouble.” 

It is far better to trust the Lord to vindicate you in any circumstance. Anything that tries to push or prod us along is not God. HE leads. If we misplace trust by trying to work things out, or we chase after someone else’s opinions, or we are guided by our own appetites, that will lead to further distrust and confusion. Trusting God is like stepping out of our little boat onto the sea – it is essential that we keep our eyes on Jesus — not on whatever is going on around us! Our Heavenly Father is utterly trustworthy, and learning trust is a hands-on experience. Bye. 👋

P 3094 Let’s smell good!

/ DVH

“God always makes His grace visible in Christ, Who includes us as partners of His endless triumph. Through our yielded lives He spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere we go.” 2 Corinthians 2:14 TPT. I mean … WOW!! How about that! Jesus made US, you and I, a part of His endless triumph! Then Paul goes on to say: ‘We will smell like Him to other people, just because we live for Him, know Him, and talk with Him.’ Devotion to Jesus has many forms. Mary released the smell of her devotion to the Lord, it was sweet nard in an alabaster box, she poured it all over His feet. The disciples left everything and followed Him everywhere. 

Here are some other versions of the same verse. “But thanks be to God, Who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him.” NIV. “In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, He brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life.” MSG V14-16.

Our Lord Jesus has been captivated by us, by our total surrender to His will, even when sometimes that was done through copious tears and clenched teeth! Yielding our will to His can be hard but our perfume of yieldedness contains myrrh – it is a bittersweet smell – and He knows and loves it.

Because of everything our Lord did for us, now we in turn, reveal and release Jesus’ sweet fragrance to Father God Himself – it benefits everyone around us wherever we go. We don’t set out to do it, it simply happens because of our proximity to Him. His life flows from Him into us, and from us to others. Now that is a really good reason to deal with enmity. All those things that drive schisms between the members of His body. If we are careless or rebellious we will begin to lose our sweet Saviour smell! 

His fragrance thrives on, and exponentially expands with true UNITY. And our unity bursts with His life! It is His beautiful oil of true harmony flowing between us. Oneness is essential to being able to move into all the things the Lord has for us. “How can two walk together unless they be in agreement?” Amos 3:3. Oneness is the vehicle that allows Jesus’ fragrance to be released. The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are one, and Jesus made it clear, that our priority is to protect and keep unity alive between us.

If we wanted to make any perfume, we’d need a distilled fragrance taken from flowers, carefully mixed and layered together to make a pleasing smell. Then those flowers are crushed, and that fragrance is introduced to an emollient. This is either an alcohol base, or an oil one. The Holy Spirit is the Glorious OIL that carries the fragrance of Jesus out into the community. He wants to be the only perfume that we release, so we can enrich the lives of those who are around us. Not to mention anyone else who crosses our path. We have all probably experienced the sensation of walking down the street and following someone who is wearing perfume.

You know, each of one of us could wear exactly the same perfume but it will have a slightly different result. It all depends on who is wearing it, because our individual body chemistry affects perfume. In the same way – you and I will spread abroad the sweet smell of our depth of interaction with the Holy Spirit. Each one of us will be a bit different to someone else, but the underlying glorious smell is always Jesus!  He makes us smell so good to others because we have chosen to make Him our treasure. 

BTW, please let us remember that the Holy Spirit knows how to handle His own oil – He does not need us to pray it up or down! That’s treating Him like a commodity, rather than a Person. He is also our Treasure. It is His joy to see us delighting in our Heavenly Father’s loving approval. We, however, need to be vigilant and aware of our own shortcomings, because sin interrupts the flow of whatever He is doing. However, it is truly a tragedy when we make God’s gracious gifts into rules. Of course we need to be pure vessels of beaten gold to contain the glory that belongs to the Lord! BUT! Rules stop the flow of His oil, because rules lead to striving. So when things get tough, just remember, we are His chosen vessels, and yieldedness comes at a cost.

Some of us have been stinky selfish nitwits for a very long time! That’s ME not YOU, of course. Selfishness stinks and it ain’t pretty. It doesn’t matter how we feel, or even if we want to yield or not, we need to yield to His will His way, simply for obedience’ sake. Feelings can be overrated and we end up chasing them, instead of running after Him. The purity of doing whatever we do, with all our hearts – as though we were doing it for Him – cannot be underestimated. Obedience ushers in fresh revelation. Jesus did not want to go to the cross, but He obeyed His Father because He utterly trusted Him. I have found my attitude changes after I obey. 

In order to be His sweet fragrance in the world around us, we will need to meditate on everything He did for us. We are free because He paid the cost to give us freedom. Now we need to daily cling tightly to Who He is, and what we know about Him. The Holy Spirit wants to help us with that, so we can smell good! Bye. 👋

P 3093 Think bigger.

/ DVH

“This is love: He loved us long before we loved Him. It was His love, not ours. He proved it by sending His Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if He loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life!” 1 John 4:10-11 TPT.

Does anyone remember that old joke? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I think I know that answer! The chicken! God would never leave a little helpless baby chick to raise itself! So what has that got to do with anything? God’s love and His loving provision came first, that’s what. We don’t have to prove ourselves worthy, because, quite simply, we ain’t worthy and without the blood of Jesus over our lives, we never will be! Our Almighty, Omniscient, Ever-present Father loved us first. 

Here is a verse in Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew  you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Our God isn’t just talking to Jeremiah — He is talking to each one of us. He’s saying to us all: “You were in My heart before you were in this world. I always had a plan for your life.”  None of us are an accident. Every single human being is precious to God and we all have a destiny – a place in His kingdom. There are no ‘big’ guys or ‘little’ guys – there’s only Jesus!! He not only knows our names, where we live, what He has for us, He is thinking about us daily, all of the time. Every single one of us was born into this world with a loving Father watching over us – whether we had an earthly father or not … Father God was there.

He is the Author and Finisher of our intimate development inside our mothers. Let’s look at Psalm 139:13-18 for a minute, it says: “For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with You.”

Only Father God Himself loved humanity enough to take a record of every single child ever born – He knows each baby’s name. This was my conclusion – you were a great idea God had! He was there when each of us struggled to take our first breath. See Ezekiel 16:6: “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood ‘LIVE!…”

We started this life with God pronouncing life into us, and Jesus Himself told us in John 10:10: “…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”‘Life, life and MORE LIFE.’ Please don’t ever use your life experiences, the good or the bad or the mediocre ones, as a yardstick for how the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit feel about you. They are incredibly passionate about you. The bible itself clearly tells us we are destined to be filled with LIFE. His life. That kind of life is called Zoe. ‘Zoe’ life refers to the uncreated, eternal life of God, the divine life uniquely possessed by God Himself, and He shares that life with us.

We were designed to live our lives, here and now, filled with that life. This is blessing, this gift, is part of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to each one of us. We don’t just yield our lives to Him so we can be guided by His Will, His Way. When we actively live His Will, His Way we are partaking of Father God’s ‘Zoe’ life. Jesus lived on this earth like that. He was so full of life it was almost like sparks flew off Him everywhere He went. 

One time God lifted the curtain between Jesus and His disciples and 3 of them saw what that life in Him looked like – it made them almost speechless. Matthew 17:1-2:“After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.” It is time to think bigger than just the same old same old life that we plod through day after day. Life is so much more than the mundanities we’ve accepted. Jesus took ordinary fishermen and made them disciples, and those guys turned the known world upside down!

Our Father has so much more in His heart when He made each one of us. I have had this phrase running around in my Spirit for months now. “BIGGER STILL!!” I think it is important to refuse to put a lid on what you think the Lord can do with your life. He’s God! He made a man from dirt, and a woman from a rib, then He breathed His Zoe life into both of them. Everything we can see around us, was once a creative idea that came from within Who He is… But there’s MORE!!…

Here is another way to think about the troubles you face daily:  “Father God is bigger than this thing that keeps coming at me. He can show me the way through everything that is going on around me, as well as the stuff going on inside my head and heart. I’m just going to lay back and let Him be God, and I’ll be a wholly yielded lover of Jesus, on this ride called, life.” Bye. 🕊️

P 3092 Witnessing is not hard.

/ DVH

First of all, let’s look at the Apostle Paul. He has given us a great illustration of being ready to testify to what Jesus did in his life. Three times he was dragged before the authorities – governmental, synagogue and occupational forces – and three times he just talked about what happened to him. He didn’t preach theology. Instead He told his story exactly the way it happened to him. That’s the key to successfully witnessing to someone else. Just tell them what happened to you. The truth needs no defence.

Okay, so now I want to talk about another guy in the Gospels. MAN! I love this particular life-changing story. I wish I could put it all here, but I have limited space, so I will hit the highlights. The disciples are talking about who is responsible for a man who was born blind. And Jesus says: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”Verse 3 Chapter 9 of John. Hmmm. This incident kicks the whole idea of sick, sinful people are getting what they deserve to the curb! Please note: their theological argument was unimportant to the healing, Jesus healed the guy anyway.

He healed this man by spitting in the dirt and making mud and smearing it onto his eyes. I mean really? He spat in the dirt?? Funny how we have adopted many things from the bible but not that one!! 🤣 Next the blind man is sent off by Jesus, to the pool of Siloam to wash the mud off – love that bit … I mean like … whatever did this guy say as he stumbled through the crowds? He’s still blind going there!… However you slice it, this man is off, he’s charging along as much as a blind man can charge because he wants that miracle!

So the guy washed the mud off! Now he can see and the people who have known him as a beggar, can also see that he can see! ‘’How did this happen they ask?’’ He says: “Funny thing you should ask me that.”. And he told them. When they ask him where the man was who healed him is – he says “I dunno! Go find him yourself!!” Okay, so you are getting the ‘me’ version now, but oh, how I love this story – did I already mention that? 

The Pharisees and other power mongers are now officially getting their knickers in a twist because it is the Sabbath. They start debating how the blind man can’t be healed by God, because after all, it’s the Sabbath. They know that they should honour the Sabbath, and so that means God should too – apparently! Good luck with that one fellas, like telling God what to do with what He introduced is such a good idea!

These religious men focussed on the wrong thing … they were looking at a miracle and they missed it because of their belief system. They know it is a miracle but it messes with their theology big time! Meanwhile the Lord doesn’t care what day anybody gets healed on – He just wants us well! Yaaaaay Jesus! Back to my story, … the powers-that-be start quizzing the guy-who-was-healed. Eventually they launch out into unbelief and send for this man’s parents, so they can prove he wasn’t really blind in the first place.

Verses 19-21: “Is this your son?” they asked.“Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see? “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind. But how he can see now, or Who opened his eyes, we don’t know. Ask him. He is of age; he will speak for himself.” They gave that answer because they were afraid — anyone who said Jesus was the Messiah got tossed out of the synagogue. Imagine losing all your church family because your kid got healed. Oxymoron anyone??

Now to my punchline v24-25: “A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. “Give glory to God by telling the truth,” they said. “We know this man (Jesus) is a sinner.” He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” This ex-blind man is feeling pretty cheeky by now, and asks the Pharisees if they want to become Jesus’ disciples too. Ouch! That went over well!  More conversation ensued. Onto Verses 30-33: “The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where He comes from, yet He opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does His will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”

Nothing wrong with that guy’s theology! Can you see how simple it is?

So right there – that’s how you give your testimony. You don’t have to be fancy, you don’t need 2500 scriptures, you don’t need to disprove the other guy’s theory. You just need to tell the other person— I was like this, and now I’m not! This guy’s knowledge of God was limited to the fact that he was born blind and now he wasn’t after he did what Jesus told him to do. ← I just have to say this – did ya get that? His obedience led to healing! 

We do not witness so we can straighten out other people’s theology, or the lack of it, or even their error. We are merely witnessing about what God did for us. If they ask questions then we answer them. If we don’t know then we say, like the parents of the blind man said: “We dunno, ask him!” Remember, a witness tells what he saw, and, most of the time, no two witnesses will see the same thing. Easy peasy. Bye. 👋

P 3091 Define the word ‘gift!’

/ DVH

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, Who does not change like shifting shadows.”James 1:17.“Ask, and the gift is yours. Seek, and you’ll discover. Knock, and the door will be opened for you.”Matthew 7:7 TPT.

If I were to ask you to define what you think a good gift looks like, what would you say? A happy life, travel, health, a nice house, great kids, plenty of money …a happy wife? Here’s a side note … the bible talks about finding a wife. “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favour from the LORD.” God has a whole other take on what He thinks good gifts look like! That cranky wife is His gift to you  – you prayed for transformation!

It seems to me that we have translated the above scriptures in James and Matthew to mean that ‘I’ get to define what a good gift looks like! Good luck with that one. Why? Because only God is good … so He is the only One we can trust to define what good looks like! You might like to put your false teeth back in and chew on that one. God’s idea of good, and ours aren’t always the same. The bible tells us in Isaiah 53:10 that: ‘…it pleased the Lord to bruise Jesus’ – His Son.

Father God looks through the difficulties and pain to the overall end result. Jesus’ death meant salvation for all of us! He will use every bit of our journey through hard things – to grow, and diagnose and transform us. I believe human beings cannot discern good, because our minds are saturated with bitterness, resentment, troubles, worries and strife … as well as the so-called pleasures of this world! Somehow all that stuff skews our thinking, and we end up focusing only on the things that we think are advantageous to US, and not on the overall benefit to everyone. 

While our minds are in defensive or offended mode – we cannot easily see whatever is going on in that other person. We’ve been emotionally and mentally distracted, and we will be clouded by our own self-interest. Maybe a nasty attitude in another person is a demonic influence. Maybe it’s a habit, or maybe they are in nine kinds of pain!! But because we are prepared for pickiness, or fight, or flight, that means we are not in a prayerful position to receive heaven’s download about the situation.

The Holy Spirit always has a contribution to make … a gift.  A word of knowledge, some insight, a word of wisdom for every scenario. If we concentrate on how we feel – our anger, loss or pain, we probably won’t see or hear His answer, or we will reject it! And that means the broader deeper blessing is missed. We sometimes trot off feeling relieved when we manage to avoid a grumpy person. But, in truth, we have only postponed change – for me, for them, for the situation. Part of being transformed means we will need to yield to His wishes, His way, even though at the time it feels like the last thing we want to do.

He says this in His word: “No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; He’ll always be there to help you come through it.” I Corinthians 10:13. Did you see the gift in that sentence?  Yeah yeah, I know you think you’ve had times when you’ve been pushed too far, but the punch line is this — Almighty God thinks you can do it! He believes in you! Here’s another gift to think on:“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” Psalm 27:14. You know, the bible says that waiting on God renews our strength. (Isaiah 40:31) 

When we start out prayerfully trying to resist any kind of temptation, we may feel weak and not capable of what we know we need to do. But waiting for Him, pulls our focus out of the normal mixmaster mindset that rattles our brain. Waiting allows us to breathe – to find our peace. This is also a gift! Suddenly all the mind-cloudiness etc. lifts and we can begin to see spiritually. When we stop rattling our brains about “this or that or some other solution” and just sit in silence, and wait for Him! The same way we might wait for a friend in a coffee shop. We will quickly find that silence is another gift.

“My soul, wait in silence for God alone, For my hope is from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, My refuge; I will not be shaken. My salvation and my glory rest on God;  The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God.” Psalm 62:5-7.

This answer is a gift to us. In reality the Lord is saying to us:“this is the way walk ye in it!”He is showing us another way to get through difficulties – and that’s another gift! God daily gives us good gifts and if all we choose to see is this whizz-bang spiritual gift, or that special ability, we will miss seeing Him in our day to day ordinary life.

We need His definition of the word GIFT not ours. Prayerfully ask Him to help you to see and recognise Him, as He is active in your life. He showers us with blessings every single day! If you want to settle for a car park when you need one, then … have at it! But there is more! If what you receive is just perfect, then it is Him. Bye. 👋

P 3090 Trust.

/ DVH

“May the Lord answer you when you are in distress;  may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May He send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion. May He remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings. May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. May we shout for joy over your victory and lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Now this I know: The Lord gives victory to His anointed. He answers him from His heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of His right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Psalm 20:1-7. “Before you do anything, put your trust totally in God and not in yourself. Then every plan you make will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3 TPT

Most of people barely trust each other nowadays, so I often wonder how Christians are doing with regard to trusting in the Lord? The bible tells us to trust in Him with all our heart and forget about what we think we know. I’ve commended David many times on this blog, he sets a wonderful example of someone who knew how to trust God. This man remembered what God had done for him in the past and it gave him momentum to push forward into the next challenge.

So where does that leave us today — when we want to learn how to trust in the Lord, but our society oozes mistrust and bitterness? Every single day we will simply have to choose to use our faith! Our only option is to follow Him, and believe His Word, over the rubbish our eyes and ears take in. We can be influenced for good by God’s Good News, or we can soak in the filth and stench of sin that saturates this world. In my opinion, our enemy has infiltrated our thinking so deeply, sometimes our first thought is not: “What would Jesus want me to do in this situation?” It’s often: “How does this affect me?”

Let’s make the Lord our first priority, because that’s a fixed mindset not an optional extra! I think the lack of faith we end up exhibiting daily has affected the temperature of the world around us. I am not trying to be negative here, I have had to face my own fears, and I didn’t do so well every single time. But I try to remember this: we learn to trust the Lord in the trenches and the ditches and dirt of this life – when we know full well if we poke our head up, some clown is going to shoot at us or we can wind up in jail for some misplaced remark! Trusting the Lord does not always mean we are in a peachy-keen rainbow situation, with milk and honey constantly flowing down the mountain …the Israelites are proof of that!

It’s called having the courage of our convictions. Sadly, for those amongst us that do try to stand up and speak out, a great deal of negative comments can sometimes come from… wait for it … other Christians. We are quite good at shooting our own wounded! I have known great men and women of God that have been constantly smashed against the side of someone else’s convictions, and left battered and bleeding because of it. I know this might shatter somebody else’s theology, but Almighty God is capable of contrasting opinions! WE are the limited ones – we need clarification, not competition. 

Trusting God with internal opposition going on can seem almost impossible – He promises to help us! But if His people have no grace at all, even for their brothers and sisters, then it seems highly improbable that the world is going to do all that well either. However, with God ALL things are possible. That’s in the book! We must not forget the power of the Holy Spirit to help, guide, lead, comfort, and transform our ways of thinking, doing and being – daily!  Sometimes we can be so busy being reformers, we forget we are merely grace carriers. Just because we don’t always understand what others are saying, that doesn’t make them wrong. As a matter of fact, that kind of attitude can make us look intolerant, and that is not a good look!

Over the years, I’ve learnt that I can’t trust myself under pressure, I will probably try to look after myself. I’ll make excuses for me, and blame you. Without His GRACE we are sunk. Thank God an incredible endless amount of His grace was released at Calvary — now nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That means the only thing that can pull us this way and that, is our perception of the truth of His Word. However, at the same time, we dare not forget Jesus Himself is called – the Living Word! That’s how important it is to take note of the way Jesus lived.

God’s Grace is always available, when we let go of our opinions and bad attitudes and step into the place Jesus bought for us. “Before you do anything, put your trust totally in God and not in yourself. Then every plan you make will succeed.”  He is not with us so we can ‘win’ some ridiculous theological point! We all have a part of the many-sided wisdom of God available to us. However, He is with us, because HE IS GOOD not because we are smarter than someone else. Daily we have to make a quality decision. Do we want to be right, or walk with Him?

Walking with Him means we can change our minds – press the refresh button! That’s part of walking and learning to trust and walking by faith means trusting Him. We trust Him every single day, to get us out of whatever fool thing we just fell into. And at the same time, we choose to hold fast to the fact that He will bless everyone else as well! He’s God He can do anything. Bye👋

P 3089 Keep running.

/ DVH

“Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how He did it. Because He never lost sight of where He was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—He could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now He’s there, in the place of honour, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility He plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who by faith have testified to the truth of God’s absolute faithfulness], stripping off every unnecessary weight and the sin which so easily and cleverly entangles us, let us run with endurance and active persistence the race that is set before us,…” Hebrews 12:1 (GNB & AMP)

My first thought was this … these guys use more words than I do!!  Would you believe this is just one verse both times? There is something therapeutic in reading the bible in an unfamiliar version. I do it a lot, because words are incredibly limited, and we can become overly familiar with the version we read every day. However, every single fresh glance at a different version, clarifies and expounds our understanding.

We don’t want past knowledge to throw us off present revelation. Otherwise it is easier to start skipping bits instead of absorbing precious old truths in new ways. When you have been reading this book for many years like I have, the newer translations are like meeting an old friend with brand new up-to-date clothes on. I love it.

What’s not to love about this? “… It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, Who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how He did it. Because He never lost sight of where He was headed …”  Doesn’t that paint pictures in your mind?

In my mind’s eye, I can see the Lord Jesus – He ran this race before me. He’s warming up on the tinder track, stretching His muscles – now He is on the blocks, ready to run.There is no-one else on that track – He was a solitary runner. We all know the end of His race — He finished it and HE WON. Despite how it looked as He rounded that last curve, when the enemy was beating Him, taunting Him, and throwing all kinds of stuff at Him from the stands, He finished His race. 

The Holy Spirit is always there for us – He’s our Coach – the heartbeat of God inside us. He runs with us. He calls out encouragement, and warns us of any pitfalls ahead. He wants each one of us to finish our race. We don’t have to win – Jesus did that for us – we simply need to stay in the race and keep on running. Keep following in the Lord Jesus’ footsteps. I don’t run against you, you don’t run against me. We are in an individual race toward glory, and Jesus is our prize. 

Our task is to throw off anything that will slow us down. Things like other people’s opinions, our circumstances, our youth or our age, even our own self-efforts. All those things and more can distract us. They can stop us from being in peak spiritual condition, as well as break our stride and try to prevent us from keeping up with God’s pace for us as individuals. Some of us are racing this race holding onto a walker, some have no home. What does it matter? We all need to grasp and hold onto the stamina the Word of God gives us. Our race is not a sprint – it is a marathon.

We can’t afford to strive and strain, otherwise we will exhaust ourselves and throw this race off the rhythm we need to keep running. Step after step after step. Heart pounding, blood pumping, feet striking the ground bam, bam, bam! We cannot afford the luxury of wondering whether we are doing it right. Instead our eyes are on the prize. So we ignore anyone else but the Holy Spirit. He’s ALWAYS there. His loving voice is in our heart and ears – He helps us remember that verse we read yesterday: “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” Big deep breath, quick prayer, and on we go. We cannot afford to let distractions, noise, or the difficulties and heartaches of this world keep us from running our race.

As we round yet another turn, suddenly all hell breaks loose, stuff is flying through the air at us. Our bodies are screaming for fresh water, as well as relief. Every muscle, every part of us aches with tiredness. Then we become aware of all kinds of voices and distractions around us, calling out. Not every voice we can hear is cheering for us, or on our side. We must remember that the finish line is not unattainable. Then suddenly we become aware of the sound of SomeOne Else’s footsteps running beside us, and we can see the Lord is there with us. He is our constant Companion in this race. He is praying for us – He lives to pray for us.

As we grow closer to the end, we can see so much compassion in His dear face. He is laughing, because He knows that we can do this. And He knows, personally, intimately, how hard this race is. “One more step dearest, you can take one more step. I have given you My power to keep running. Let go of the past, let go of your infirmities and weaknesses, and just keep taking one more step. I love you!”  Bye.👋

P 3088 On being human.

/ DVH

Never forget you are a human being – Almighty God doesn’t!! “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in Your unfailing love;  my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for He has been good to me.” Psalm 13.

We can all have days, or weeks, or sometimes even months like these! Times when it seems like we are all alone, and we appear to have been forgotten by God. Faith is our in-built God-detector. As we use that faith despite the mess we are in, we will begin to see signs of His loving kindness all over our lives. It wouldn’t be called FAITH if we could be certain about it all the time. There are times when even though we know He is not absent, our feelings become bigger than what we know to be true.

I know what it is like to wrestle with my thoughts and struggle to break through to a more peaceful, victorious place. When we feel like God has deserted us, it is way too easy to turn our focus back onto whatever is going on inside us. Sadly, that way we can eventually sink into despair. You can hear those thoughts from Asaph in the above Psalm. This life can be hard and cruel, many things happen to us that are outside our control. 

Even though our primary desire is to be a joyful, song singing, obedient and prayerful, worshipping person of God, we will always need to learn more about how to use our faith to get through stuff. Those times can be both enriching and hard – all at once. They seem to pull us toward despair, especially if we think that we are supposed   to have everything together, and remain cheerful all the time! That’s a lie that will lead you and I into striving, because we can never reach that goal without Him. No matter how we feel, our God will never desert us.

Day after day when I read what these men wrote, I am greatly comforted by the truth that is exposed by what is in the Psalms. They took the time to write down their blessed happy feelings – as well as their  “I’m not coping, let’s brain the bad guys” ones. There are times when my own thoughts betray me, and I can’t figure out why! Let’s not to mention other people, whose feelings, and interpretation of what is going on in life often leave me spinning. The blessing in reading the Psalms is that I will come away from them feeling more normal, if not a bit reassured that my humanity has value to God Himself! He left this stuff in His book!

How can I ever manage to learn anything, almost in spite of myself? Glad you asked that. The Holy Spirit, the-greatest-of-all-time-Leader and Editor, left these grumpy, sad Psalms IN. That whole vibe of – “couldn’t we just kill those people and tell God they died?” – is not what you expect from the bible! It’s astonishing. Many other books in the Word are about mankind’s interactions with God. But here is a whole collection about the human heart, and feelings – warts and all! When the Holy Spirit did that, He left room for us to be real and learn.

At the same time, we can all be kept so busy with this life, that we forget our sin is paid for, so we don’t have to let it master us any more. The problem is that we have well-established old pathways, and they fool us into thinking they still have power over us. However there is no greater force in this world than love: “it hopes all things, believes all things, bears all things.”And our God loves us LIKE THAT. Meanwhile, we don’t only need help, although we do! … We need personal SUPERVISION. And the Holy Spirit is brilliant at it,  His vigilance is without peer, His promptings gentle but firm.

Human beings can become insecure, especially if our proposed ways of thinking and being are unrealistic to the very real level of our faith. Some stuff we want to walk in may be currently a great theory, but we can’t quite put it into practice — especially if we don’t get answers immediately! BTW, don’t take your faith back, hang on to Him and don’t let go  Our help is in the Name of the Lord – God will sort stuff for you. Father God allows us to be stretched to help us grow and rely more completely upon Him. God Himself is our safe place.

Our part is to daily absorb His Ways, and, with the Holy Spirit’s help, then we consistently apply the things He shows us. In the end we need to remember, we are day by day, rewiring our brains! “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12. This is no small task, thank God the Word of God is powerful!  

It is important to know the path to take in times of ease, or when difficulties arise, and the Psalms show us other people struggled too. God’s path means that over time, we will learn to use our faith as a full time way to live – because it is not just meant to be emergency relief in times of strife. Feeling helpless in the face of trouble and difficulties happens to all of us. These Psalmists help us remember that it is not a sin to be human. Our God is always with us no matter how much we’ve wandered off!  Bless you 👋