Month: January 2026

P 3240 Come up higher.

/ DVH

Sometimes we can become so earthly-minded we are no longer of any heavenly use. It seems to me that the church has become distracted by the cares and worries of this world. At the same time, it kind of looks like we expect Almighty God to enter our world and meet our needs here and now — He already did that. The thing is, He has higher priorities and I don’t think that it is His priority to make sure His kids have a cushy life.

Let’s take what the bible says seriously, and start making investments and withdrawals, using that book as our guideline. Then we can begin to bring His kingdom down here where the truly needy live. Truly needy people are the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet! Personally, I think telling people Jesus died to make them rich and prosper, is an abomination! 

None of Jesus’ disciples settled down into living in a grand house, in the ‘burbs, with everything they needed on tap. Instead they hit the road, and trusted Jesus to meet their needs. BTW, I am not saying, sell your house, go and sit on the curb and wait for Jesus to come back, but I am saying  – He is our priority. His agenda is now our agenda. We have given our lives to Him, so we can’t afford to let this life dictate what happens to us, through us and around us. 

As kingdom people, our destiny is to bring light and hope into the darkness. We may have to punch a hole in the darkness sometimes. The author of the book of Daniel punched a hole, and it took a while for the answer to come. Yet this man kept waiting for the Lord to do what He loves to do for all of us. Redeem the situation. Jesus loves to redeem situations, as well as relationships. It’s faith that gives us the impetus we need to pray, and keep on praying as we wait for Him to answer.  

Sometimes a believer’s problems can be a wrong attitude. Especially when we want to use God to make this life, our own earthly life, better. This world is a sewer. You can’t see the kingdom of God in a sewer, unless God Himself called you in there! This means we can’t afford to steep ourselves in the gunk that goes on around us – we need to soak in the Word of God to stay clean! We are called to be IN this world and not OF it. That means this world is not alive in us.

We can use our spiritual energy up by trying to praying our way out of this and that. But the bible says we are already more than conquerors, because of what Jesus has done. Let’s focus on that instead, and deliberately make sure all our relationships are based on the kind of love Jesus gave us. And when things are difficult, and “stuff” happens – while we are in the middle of it – let’s look for someone we are there to help, to witness to, to care for.

We seem to have given up on fulfilling the Great Commission. Sadly, we’ve become so involved in human affairs, we’ve forgotten our mandate. My advice is this – tell the Lord your needs, and choose to walk with the Spirit of God. Our faith is not designed to be like a credit card that is whipped out for use when we need it. Our faith is like an atmosphere that surrounds us. We live there, in good or bad seasons, we choose to focus on our glorious God being in charge. We comfort ourselves that He is doing what He set out to do … we just can’t see it yet. So we pray for steadfastness in trials and the ability to rest while He’s doing whatever He is doing. It is going to be for our good, we just can’t see it yet.

The Body of Christ is here to be salt and light — to lift everyone around us up higher, by the way we regard others. It is not lying to speak to the good in someone else who has been anything but good to you! It takes faith. We have the power to speak things into being – ask the Lord to show you what He sees in those people. Let’s stop rehearsing other people’s sins, and start looking for why they are here, and speak into that… … encouraging them into those things. 

In the last century, my age group made a mistake, we started exalting ourselves. Telling ourselves that we were  this or that and quoting verses from the bible to prove it to ourselves and others. It was a lot of hot air. Forget being the head instead of the tail – Jesus is our Head! I do not care if I am a toenail in the Body of Christ, I’m just glad to be included! Jesus is the only One Who is all this, AND that. We are here to encourage and bless and uphold others. We don’t need to big note ourselves spiritually. 

What stands us out in this world needs to be His GRACE and LOVE operating in us and through us. Let’s  decide what kingdom we want to live in, here and now – HIS kingdom is the Higher Place, living like He lived. We dare not call ourselves successful unless we are living to help others, because loving one another has become our priority. Let’s put our prayer, faith and energy into that. Bye 👋.

P 3238 Unplugged.

/ DVH

“Keep creating in me a clean heart. Fill me with pure thoughts and holy desires, ready to please You.” Psalms 51:10 

I like this version, because the word ‘creating’ is used in the present tense. I actually think this is an ongoing process for every one of us. Daily, sometimes minute by minute, the Holy Spirit continually creates a new living-for-Jesus heart in us – if we let Him do it. Yielding to the Lord is one of the best assets we have.

However, we can personally short-circuit this entire process by choosing our own way, and giving into our baser desires – simply by ignoring repentance. Repentance is the way out of the kind of difficulties we can get ourselves into! When anything seems to be clouded or muddied in my mind and heart, I know I need to repent! 

I realised years ago, that I will always need to ask for His help to back up and start again, because I’m human and repentance means humbling myself. Even in the times when I am really mad, and I think the other person is utterly wrong, that’s when I really struggle to repent! Like I said – that’s also when I really need His help – and He will give it. He longs to help us. 

True repentance is the very best kind of prayer, it clears away the deceitful cobwebs we allow to hang around in our mind and heart. The Holy Spirit always answers that kind of prayer, immediately. I confess that there have been times when I kind of wished He wouldn’t!  But that is because, in those moments I want to justify myself. It is exceedingly dumb to give up the Lord’s blood bought justification for us. When I settle into my own kind of justification, nothing gets fixed, plus  ….I end up with a permanent lousy attitude!

Maybe you don’t even think about something like revenge, because you know that would be wrong. However, I still think we are all capable of speaking, thinking and wishing someone else ill, silently. I think that’s why the Lord spoke to the Israelites so often about “murmuring and complaining.’  Sadly if we are not murmuring and complaining about God, then someone else is probably in our firing line. That’s because human beings have a habit of doing it!  By the way, the Lord does not accuse us when He points this out, so we can repent. Instead He is diagnosing something that shoots all of us in the foot all the time… our inner attitude. 

Honesty, with yourself and others, can be very costly, but it also creates opportunities to truly connect. Sometimes I think the only time people feel free to be honest is when you’ve annoyed the living daylights out of them and they are angry! If we sincerely want to have the Lord create a clean heart in us, then we need to be free to own up to the stuff we keep on doing … the stuff that no-one else knows about. Even the stuff we don’t think we want to escape from that we try to hide from ourselves with lame excuses.

Because He’s our God and He can do anything—He can change our motivation!  Always remember, the bible is called GOOD NEWS! Seriously, there are some things I used to do that I can’t stand anymore. God changed my attitudes when I wasn’t even looking. I don’t know if you have met this wonderful quality the Lord has, but it blows me away, every single time I encounter it. 

It means I have ceased to be attracted to something dumb that uses up the time He has given me. One day I was able to enjoy … (whatever it was, without blinking) … and then almost instantly, I simply couldn’t stand it anymore. And all I did was give it to the Lord and I left it with Him. I cannot stress how much total surrender has changed my life. Yet it was the very thing I specifically avoided for years, 

I was so scared of Jesus taking over and taking way stuff… I knew nothing about the fact that the Lord won’t do that – our power of choice always remains. This is the blessing we have, when we deliberately choose to go in His direction. Our preferences change instead. He has never made me do things I didn’t want to do.. But eventually I figured out I was never going to be the person I longed to be from self effort… … I’m a bit thick, so that took a while. 

Finally I gave up! That’s when total surrender became easy … when I realised I was never going to be able to create a clean heart in myself, by myself. Not to mention the lack of ability to have pure thoughts and a right spirit within me! This world had provided me with so many opportunities to get mad and stay mad—eventually I had outsourced my ownership of my own emotions, into someone else’s hands.  

The reality was they weren’t doing so well either, so that was an entirely dumb move. Back then I could tell you what was wrong with everyone around me, far better than I knew myself! In order to walk like Jesus did, I needed to unplug from this world’s thinking and plug into His. I urge you to take that path, it makes all the difference. 

Bye. 👋

P 3237 Always remember WHO He is.

/ DVH

“Look at the splendour of Your skies, Your creative genius glowing in the heavens. When I gaze at Your moon and Your stars, mounted like jewels in their settings, I know You are the fascinating artist who fashioned it all! But I have to ask this question: Why would You bother with puny, mortal man or care about human beings?”  Psalms 8:3-4 TPT. Because HE LOVES US! That’s why.

In John 13:23 we are told this: “One of His disciples, whom Jesus loved (esteemed), was leaning against Jesus’ chest.” I want to say this before I say anything else today … If safety is something that you treasure, then what John said shows us that being right here next to Him, is the safest place in all the world. The Lover of our souls, our Beloved, will keep us safe – in spite of whatever is going on around us. 

Resting in and on, the Lord Jesus, is our great privilege and quest. Forget ministries, or human importance, or platforms, or even other people’s admiration, this particular disciple picked the best place to be — listening to His heartbeat.  We will miss so much of Who He really is when we are too busy to listen to His heartbeat.

It is important that we understand that our God, our Heavenly Father, the Great and Wise Omnipotent, Omnipresent Everlasting God of all the ages – is to be listened to, and revered and obeyed, not just quickly passed over or ignored!  We must learn to put our easily influenced feelings aside, to stop and remember the God – Who made everything we can see – loves me! 

The fact that He loves all of us with a love that will never die, does not mean we can simply flick away our responsibility to pay attention to everything He has said. We can’t ever afford to cherry-pick our responses or use His beyond-our-ability-to-understand, Grace, against Him… by telling ourselves: ’God loves me, He understands, He won’t mind.’ That’s misusing the Grace He has given us. This ever-present, always living and loving Grace has been released into our, lives. Yours and mine, as a gift. It was incredibly costly.

I think that deceit has wrapped the Christian church in its blanket, and we are becoming hard of hearing and blind to what is actually going on around us. I urge us all to pray  —  and then go and do!  Don’t ever let the size of the task discount you from participating. The bigger the test, the greater the victory.  Instead be truthful and sincerely tell the Holy Spirit: “I can’t do this, please help me!”  Amen. 

We need to remember, that we are not dealing with a god made in our own image, we are dealing with the One Who placed the stars in the sky…with His fingers!!! And despite what we tell ourselves, or this world tells us, we are His people.  Whenever we are ill, or infirm in one way or another, we truly find out how frail we are, often helpless against the darkness that presses in against us without Him. The answer is simple —never do anything without Him!

Let’s stop our solitary focus on me, my situation, my health – or lack of it, my family, my poverty – and start gazing at Him. Gazing at Him is another form of worship. Worship is not just singing songs on Sunday—it is the way we live. When we know, from our own personal interaction and experience, that our God is bigger than anything we can think or imagine – we can more easily rest, be at peace, and let Him do the work. BTW, rest does not mean we sit on our hands and do nothing. It means that we know we can do a whole lotta somethings, because we are utterly relying upon Him! 

God can do anything, with anyone, no matter how inadequate they feel. The bible shows us that. It is filled with men and women who would never have made it without God helping them. Instead of wrongly using His Grace to excuse our non-participation in His kingdom, let’s choose to rely, rest and depend on that Grace to help us do the things we are here to do. Everything the Lord asks us to do, we simply cannot do without Him. 

You may not have my difficulties, Some days, I have to ask Him to help me get out of bed or go to the loo! But the reality is I have been blessed so many times because of the Way He loves and helps me. Over and over again the Lord Jesus surprises me with His goodness. Plus He never does the same thing twice. Bonus buy!

The daily opportunities to serve Him and others that the Lord puts before us, will always be bigger than we are. Stretching us is part of His plan. My advice is to start cheering right away!! Take it from me that this means we are going to see the goodness of God operating in a way we’ve never seen before. And that … is simply ev-ery-thing!!

Because our God is so big, and so mighty, plus His creativity is inexhaustible … routines or methods won’t pass this way of thinking on, it is a LIFESTYLE. We choose it, and then we hold fast to it, despite everything else that happens around us. Jesus gets all the glory because what happens is undeniably impossible. He is so much more glorious, caring, kind, creative and wonderful than we can ever imagine! Bye.👋 

“Yahweh, You are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness You’ve done for me?” Psalms 103:2 TPT. Amen. 🥰

P 3236 We too can be dazzled by the WRONG side of Jordan.

/ DVH / Leave a comment

This is what I noticed the other day, when I read Numbers 32:1-22. When the Israelites came to the Jordan river, two tribes chose to stay on the east side of that river. They decided the land suited them there. However, Moses insisted that their fighting men had to come with the rest of the larger group, to defeat the people on the west side, and help them get rid of those enemies who lived on the other side of Jordan, in the Promised Land . 

Let’s be clear, the land these two tribes wanted was on the east side of the Jordan river to the Promised Land.These tribes wanted to stay there because they could settle down, spread out and make new lives. They preferred the land outside the Promised Land, it was more convenient, and invited prosperity.  

“The Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were suitable for livestock. So they came to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the community, and said, “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo and Beon— the land the Lord subdued before the people of Israel—are suitable for livestock, and your servants have livestock. If we have found favour in your eyes,” they said, “let this land be given to your servants as our possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan.”

Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites, “Should your fellow Israelites go to war while you sit here? Why do you discourage the Israelites from crossing over into the land the Lord has given them? This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to look over the land. After they went up to the Valley of Eshkol and viewed the land, they discouraged the Israelites from entering the land the Lord had given them. The Lord’s anger was aroused that day and He swore this oath: ‘Because they have not followed Me wholeheartedly, not one of those who were twenty years old or more when they came up out of Egypt will see the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob— not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they followed the Lord wholeheartedly.’ 

The Lord’s anger burned against Israel and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in His sight was gone.“And here you are, a brood of sinners, standing in the place of your fathers and making the Lord even more angry with Israel. If you turn away from following Him, He will again leave all this people in the wilderness, and you will be the cause of their destruction.”

Then they came up to him and said, “We would like to build pens here for our livestock and cities for our women and children. But we will arm ourselves for battle and go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their place. Meanwhile our women and children will live in fortified cities, for protection from the inhabitants of the land. We will not return to our homes until each of the Israelites has received their inheritance. We will not receive any inheritance with them on the other side of the Jordan, because our inheritance has come to us on the east side of the Jordan.”

Then Moses said to them, “If you will do this—if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for battle and if all of you who are armed cross over the Jordan before the Lord until He has driven His enemies out before Him—then when the land is subdued before the Lord, you may return and be free from your obligation to the Lord and to Israel. And this land will be your possession before the Lord.” 

This section of scripture hit me between the eyes. It showed me that we too, can camp on the wrong side of the river – where the work has already been done, and we know we will be comfortable because it suits our needs. But we don’t appear to give two figs about what the Lord has told us He has given us. He gave us a Promised Land filled with everything the Lord Jesus did for us. We need to be the grateful people who want to live in the Promised land and are more than willing to fight for it. These tribes, Reuben and Gad, didn’t care about the others, because they had already got what they wanted, space for their flocks etc.

Sadly, I think this is also true of the Body of Christ today. Many of us have settled on the wrong side of Jordan –  because where we are, and what we have, suits us. I’m talking about our faith. So we stay home and do nothing. We don’t want to lose our sense of safety. There are those in this world who need our help, but few want to be part of the solution, because they might lose something! We haven’t got a dispute about land, etc., per se, instead, our dispute is about comfort and where we want to settle down and be comfortable. Plus what we choose to believe. 

These two tribes wanted to settle for something God had not given them, but Moses made it very clear — they would have to fight alongside their braver brethren or lose what they had chosen, because God Himself would fight against them. The battle for real faith, living faith, the kind of faith that loves and lives a life like Jesus did, is still in front of us. He won for us! But we are not doing our part! It seems we like to go to places where we hear stories of other people’s victories, but then we want to return to the safety of the place we’ve called our own, where ‘our kind of faith’ suits us. We cannot afford to decide we know what our inheritance is – God has decided that.

Let’s learn to fight our enemy together, so Christ can have the whole reward of His suffering. The battle belongs to the Lord, but – we cannot, or dare not abstain, simply because we think that fighting will ruin what we have already decided is right for ‘our lives.’ There is so much more on the other side of Jordan, so let’s not settle for what we think is comfort, or even be blinded by the immediate,  let’s press on for personal victories!  Bye 👋

P 3235 We give away what we have.

/ DVH

Now there’s a daunting thought!! Peter and John were off to a prayer meeting when a lame beggar asked for money. “When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” … … “Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”  Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk…” This story is in Acts 3:3,4,6-8a.

The thought that Peter knew what he had, blows my mind. ‘Lord, please help all of us to know what You have given us in these jars of clay!’ Amen. This kind of confidence in God’s investment in His children can motivate anyone into action. One of our major difficulties in the church at this moment, is we don’t know who we are. People who know who they are, have confidence, they do great exploits. 

Secondly, Peter knew what was really important for this man. It was healing, not money. I mean wow! I counted the gifts Peter used;  two words of knowledge, plus discernment, and healing. Plus let’s remember, that he and John were actually going somewhere else! Think about that. What would be your response if you saw a lame man begging at the side of the road, as you were going off to church? Yeah, I know, bring that up! Sadly I think we’ve turned into a people who gather info and form committees, rather than responding to need. Could it be because we doubt what He told us He has given us?

It was amazing in Acts. Nobody knew what was going to come next and God came to every meeting. He was their treasure. How He must have loved it!  But people also dropped dead when they lied to God. Someone else died because he spoke the truth and was stoned to death for it. One man, whose name we all know, was going about his business, finding Christians to kill, and God knocked him down, and blinded him. Then, the Lord very kindly revealed to him how truly blind he was. “Please Lord do that for us too!” Amen.

Have you ever asked yourself – what on earth has happened to us? Good. It’s good to ask questions. Even better to start with yourself, like —why aren’t I doing this? Then, we need to move past ‘me,’ to all of us, the church as a whole. But please remember, we can hide ourselves away from our own personal responsibility if we start out by blaming the church, or the pastor etc. In that state, we may never find the answer! But if I start with me, I’m pretty sure I will get plenty to go on with. I have so far!

We can always give away His kindness, mercy, joy, peace, faithfulness and goodness. Because He gives that to us every single day, “Resist revenge, and make sure that no one pays back evil in place of evil but always pursue doing what is beautiful to one another and to all the unbelievers.” 1 Thessalonians 5:15 TPT. 

Did you get that? Paul said PURSUE it.  It won’t fall on us … we will have to run after it. I want to do my best not to waste my time even thinking about revenge. Otherwise I will have no time or energy left to pursue giving other people beautiful things. The beautiful things we do should far outweigh any revenge etc. that we have or an attitude that someone has toward us. Meanwhile, sadly, we are way too smart in the church to call anything revenge—we call it “hurt feelings” instead. That sounds much better doesn’t it?

Except for one little thing the Lord Himself said ..“Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” Matthew 16:24-26. It is necessary to look at what is really at stake, if we decide to  give in to our hurt feelings — or vengeful attitudes. 

People who deliberately do mean-spirited things to us are the splinters in our new life in Him. Some of those splinters really are BIG ones. And we get stabbed purely because we have chosen to deny ourselves and follow Him. Some situations are little splinters that you can feel, but you can’t seem to get rid of  … and every now and then they poke you hard and hurt you again.  And some slivers remain invisible for virtually years, only to stab you in the heart at the least expected moment. One way or another we all pick up, and get stabbed by splinters.

The major difficulty we have is that we don’t yet fully understand Who lives inside us. The Person Who lives IN us is greater than any old splinter. Peter and John definitely KNEW what they had. They had been filled with the Holy Spirit and He brought a whole new way to think with Him. They didn’t form a prayer group, or phone around to find out what everyone else thought. They were both there on the spot, so Peter gave what he knew he had. That’s our issue right there…

We cannot give away what we do not think we have. It’s definitely time we did something about that. Bye. 👋

P 3234 PAIN.

/ DVH

I have been a daydreamer since I was first conscious of my thoughts. Life was pretty tough when I was a child, so daydreaming became an easy, silent, escape route. I quite literally “built a world of my own.” Of course I was the star in that world. Well, they were my thoughts… so why not? This method of escaping reality … which, was at the time, blooming awful… became a habit. 

Sometimes I used to imagine what I could say to the people who were tormenting me. However, I didn’t say that stuff out loud, I was too scared. Let’s be clear —the pain I felt was always present and it was real! I couldn’t imagine that away … whether it was an angry parent, or my siblings, or teachers, or a boss who barely knew or liked me, or anybody else who didn’t like me! The pain of rejection was fierce, and I had been traumatised by it … so I chose to opt out of this life and live a life of distraction instead. Here’s the clanger…Jesus was standing there with me, loving me, while all this escapism went on. He wept with me, and for me, but I was too afraid of HIM punishing me like I was told He would. Man can be cruel.

Over the years I learnt that pain torments everyone, and anyone. However, now I am learning to ask the Lord to help me, when fear or rejection grabs me by my throat. Sin is common to man – we all do it to others… and we all have it done to us. Damaged people do daft things to cope! Pain can drill itself into our psyches, and the person in pain would do anything to avoid it. However, we really do need His help to stop judging each other and realise not one of us is better than another. We are all in pain, but our God has the Answer. PERFECT LOVE.  He wants to pour out that perfect love on us, and out through us, onto other people who are tormented by pain. Kindness is the first step to helping others.

The Lord has a Love that will not criticise or attempt to destroy someone else – His love only wants to do each one of us good. Just because we think we know what is good for us, that does not make us right! We all have limits. If you are suffering and you’ve adopted patterns that hurt others in order to stay safe, go to Jesus – repent, and ask Him for His help and His MERCY. His death brought mercy and grace into this world, for free. He has the power to walk any one of us through trauma and pain. Pain is like a barbed leather whip across the soul. I believe that’s why Jesus endured being beaten by those Roman soldiers — with that awful whip that was studded with nails! For us, to bring us healing.

This happened right before they killed Him, and He took those blows for every one of us. The bible says we all deserve punishment, but Jesus loves us so much He did what He did for us. Now He offers us transformation. It took me years to realise that being ‘fine’ is a lie — everybody’s broken — even the people who used to beat and abuse me. It is a bare-faced lie from our enemy that we are the only ones who don’t fit, and we shouldn’t be here, because we are a mistake. God Himself brought each one of us here. There’s simply no point in arguing with Him! His plans for our lives, are for our good and to give us a good forever future.

I know it can seem very scary to give away your life – but be honest with yourself.  What if Jesus asks you to do something you don’t want to do? Let’s fix that now shall we? HE WILL… but if you ask Him, He will give you the grace to do it. Meanwhile how are YOU doing, all by yourself with the life you are living? The very best way to stop living our lives tormented inside, is to put aside our own ways of thinking, doing, being, and even escaping! And go to the Lord Jesus and ask Him to save us from ourselves. 

Read the Gospels, and take note of the way He speaks to people. We can trust Him, He will not reject us. He is, now and forever, the God Who understands and chooses to stand with us. He chose to die to take satan’s power over us, away – from our thinking, our broken-hearts, our situations, so that now we can live this life free from torment and rejection etc. and live it the way He intended us to live it. Jesus Christ is our living hope. 

“We have this certain hope like a strong, unbreakable anchor holding our souls to God Himself. Our anchor of hope is fastened to the mercy seat in the heavenly realm beyond the sacred threshold, and where Jesus, our forerunner, has gone in before us. He is now and forever our royal Priest like Melchizedek.” Hebrews 6:19-20 TPT. Now we have a true priest Who is just like Melchizedek. Our precious Prince of Peace can’t be bought off, or scared off — unlike many other kinds of priests who have not been trustworthy. He is totally trustworthy! Jesus cannot be influenced in any way – except for our good.

When He suffered for us, He also suffered with us, AS us! He has perfect understanding of what it is like to be human. He knows the Way through to the other side of those things that torment us. He is our Redeemer Who can and will redeem anything. The way through pain is to give it to Him, not to try to work it out for yourself, surrender to the One Who is ‘altogether lovely’ and trustworthy. Please don’t take your pain out on everyone around you, whether they are the perpetrators or not. Salvation changes everyone and anyone.

Pain is vicious, it can destroy everything around it, but Jesus brings healing. “He came to bind up the broken-hearted, bring relief to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed – to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Amen. Bye 👋

P 3233 Here’s hubby!!

/ DVH

1 Corinthians 14:12: “So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church.” Today I want to introduce a very special guest speaker. My husband made these remarks to me a couple of days ago, when we were sitting talking together. What he said was so good, I simply had to share them with you guys. So I asked him to write it all down. My dear husband loves to see people like you and I stepping up and using their gifts to help others. Today I’ve  made it his turn to help you. I pray you will be blessed by the wisdom and clarity of what he said to me. 

“There is a gulf of real difference between 2 paradigms — the world’s way and God’s way.  One is about procurement of information to ‘better’ the self — and the other is about God’s kingdom activated and working through our lives. 

If you are working person, you will already know that workers can get Professional development days. They are paid to do courses to improve their professional status and expertise. Or perhaps someone might buy self help books etc.  Alternatively someone else has been encouraged to gather more information, to gain a greater advantage, or knowledge of a subject – as a person or a professional. So the self gets ‘better’, more improved, stronger, to gain an advantage in this world. This system glorifies man himself.

However, God’s way is to die to self, to serve, to prefer others to yourself, and constantly rely on Him. That aim is to glorify God alone. If we take the methods of the world’s paradigm into Christianity, we too will begin to gather information, and be deceived into thinking that we are progressing in the faith life and equipping ourselves to be a ‘better’ Christian. But in reality, we are piling in more knowledge – without the power of God working in us, and through us to others. We will have more reliance on self, instead of on the Holy Spirit. More insight from human knowledge, instead of revelation from heaven. 

Christians have learnt to gauge their ‘growth’ on how much we know, instead of allowing Jesus to teach us “through the kind of active obedience that can only be learnt through suffering.” This means yielding and allowing the Holy Spirit to divide our soulish attitudes and actions by deliberately choosing to use the scalpel of God’s Living Word, in and on our lives. At the same time, we also make quality choices to love others … even those who are not with us.”

…I’m not going to play ‘top this thought’  today— quite simply because I know I can’t. Hubby is saying a whole lot of stuff that I know I have said in various ways for the past 8+ years – except He took ONE page … and I have taken 3,232 of them! Is my face red? Ho-hum! I think this is what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 14:12, when he exhorted us to excel in gifts that build up others. This means we will know it’s a spiritual gift when it benefits other people! That, BTW, is our Godly criteria. 

Let’s choose to be a people who don’t care about all kinds of spiritual hoop-la, the kind of enthusiastic stuff that turns up in our churches to try to attract the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet. We want Jesus to come and be with us, to do what He wants to do. He loves to set people free. We want true, genuine joy and wisdom from God Himself because He always changes lives. Those things can only come from the Holy Spirit, not from our own clever self-improvement think tanks!  Plus we want all of us to thrive in the Holy Spirit’s Presence, and go out and do whatever God has set for each one of us to do, for His glory.

I won’t say anything else today, I will leave you to think on what hubby said. Man I love clarity and he’s got bags of it. Such a blessing! Bye and bless you! 👋

“I pray for you that the faith we share may effectively deepen your understanding of every good thing that belongs to you in Christ.” Philemon 1:6 TPT. “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” James 3:17

P 3232 We are never alone.

/ DVH

Despite how we might feel – we are NEVER alone. When we give our lives to the Lord, He comes to live IN us and WITH us, in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Right after Jesus told the disciples that He had to leave them – He explained the Holy Spirit will be with them instead. Let’s start chewing on these verses, because Jesus said them, and this stuff is the very substance of comfort when our world blows up! God is always with us.

Both Philip and Thomas ask the Lord questions that show they have no clue what is going on. But the Lord Jesus is extraordinarily patient with them, and He further explains Himself in John 14:15-17. “If you love Me, keep My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to HELP you and BE WITH you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.”  He didn’t say they would ‘feel’ the Holy Spirit, instead Jesus said He would be with them. This is a faith matter.

During this conversation Philip and Thomas have taken what the Lord is saying to them literally. Our own thoughts, unless we ask the Holy Spirit to help us, will just confuse us, and we need His input. Jesus is explaining to His disciples that He has to leave, but the Holy Spirit is coming to help all of them after He is gone. The Lord is introducing them to the One called Comforter. He is already resident in Jesus, and BECAUSE we know Jesus – we know Him!

These two disciples have their humanity showing, they want to know what comes next and they think they need proof. Our inadequacies don’t bother the Lord, at all. What we see here shows us that even our earthly way of thinking can draw Him into revealing deeper truths. These two conversations teach me about the Way God responds to our honest, if not sometimes misguided, questions. He responds with enduring, endless patience and kindness, and imparts to us the potential to see deeper. I urge you to be like Joshua! Don’t run out of His Presence when God gives you an answer, stay a while, and wait for what He will say NEXT. Meanwhile, if we feel condemned in any way, that’s not the Lord we are talking to! 

Jesus does not do what you or I might do, and call these men idiots because they weren’t paying attention to this or that sermon. He is incredibly generous with both of them. They are His beloved disciples and friends, and He knows that the thought of Him leaving is scary. I am greatly comforted by the fact that this shows me that no question is too dumb! These men teach us it is better to ask a dumb question than it is to remain silent.

Jesus tells His disciples they are to wait for the Holy Spirit to come, because He is going to return to heaven. Do you see that? The Greater revelation is coming, they just have to wait for HIM. The Father will personally send the Holy Spirit back to them to be their comforter, teacher, guide, counsellor, the One Who would be there beside them and IN them. All of these verses show us the Lord is focussed on US…His disciples. Jesus isn’t expounding theology, He is revealing truth – even though these men don’t get it yet. 

Meanwhile, disobedience, not stupidity, or silly questions, can get in the way of us hearing and obeying Him. Humility is needed, otherwise we will have blocked our own ears. However, just because we don’t understand what He says to us, that does not mean we’ve done something wrong. The Holy Spirit loves to help us understand – His aim is communication, not information! His ability to be everywhere with everyone, all at the same time is to our advantage. We simply need to remember that we can’t put a timer on God’s answers. He will answer us, in the fullness of HIS time. 

Because of these verses we can see that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are ALL engaged on our behalf to help us and comfort us whenever we feel lost and alone. Even if we have sinned, or done, or said something dumb, They are there for us, to walk us to a new place where we can understand. Just don’t give up when you don’t get it. Wait! Press in, keep asking the Holy Spirit for His help.

Jesus teaches us that we can recognise the Holy Spirit because the Spirit of God will make Himself real to us.He will say the things we daily read in His book..“ALL Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honourably with personal integrity and moral courage];…” 2 Timothy 3:16.

If we need His comfort, we can read from anywhere in the bible and the Holy Spirit will reveal God’s comfort to us. It doesn’t matter where we read, just press in and wait. We will discover His comfort. It’s all over His book, but we won’t see it if all we want is answers. God is not Google – Google is just a servant of our times! The Holy Spirit is God sent to us to help us understand. What is under the microscope is that God Himself has given us His Word. WE can be faithless, but He is always faithful, God speaks faith – we will always be learning.  Please remember, we are never alone – He’s always there. Bye. 👋

P 3231 Stepping out in faith.

/ DVH

All of us meet people that are here in our lives one day, and gone the next. Living for Jesus means that we need to live this life prepared to spin around, and change our plans in a heartbeat. For some people we meet, we could be their only Christian contact, so let’s be alert to His leading. Sometimes strangers are more prepared to listen than friends.

Here’s one example of why it is good to talk about Jesus to people you barely know. Up until the age of 25, to my knowledge I had not met a Christian who had the life of God in them. According to Google, who apparently knows everything (!?!) this means I had met between 10,000 – 30,000 people. And not one of them impressed me with their own living faith. Faith that showed. Nobody talked about Jesus personally. He seemed to be an out-of-reach deity that we had to answer to, one day. A woman I barely knew, told me Jesus was alive and He wanted to know me.

Since then, in all the years of loving and serving Him, I’ve met heaps of religious folk – and let’s be clear about it – they were all lovely people. People with principles. People who went to church weekly… but hardly any of them stood out as someone filled with the life of Christ! What I noticed was this, those people who did stand out, did what He told them to do. They lived the kind of life He would. Jesus wasn’t only their Saviour – He was their Lord! Sometimes we skip that ‘Lord” part when we invite people to come forward to the altar. We forget to tell them they are giving their lives away. Making that kind of choice clear takes this huge decision out of head knowledge, into heart knowledge. 

Anyway, I attended the lady’s church, and I did so with happy anticipation. From my perspective, these were the people who knew Him. They had known Him much longer than I had, and I couldn’t wait to hear their stories. Sigh. They looked at me like I was from Mars whenever I talked about how meeting Jesus had changed  my life. It seems to me that this kind of sleepiness, has slowly been overcoming many of us who are attending  church. We’ve ended up as passengers. People who got onto the train with the destination of heaven in mind, but they know nothing about running the train.

Fortunately, our Lord wants to take us all on a journey, moving what we learn from our heads, into our hearts. Otherwise we end up leaving things like witnessing to evangelists, or we settle for asking people to come with us to church. Jesus never once asked anyone to come to the synagogue with Him! He simply proclaimed God’s love was Good News. Sadly we often leave proclaiming the good news to the pastor… because that’s what he’s paid to do! …And yes, I have heard that said, and similar comments.. 

However, if no-one dares to sound the alarm, or we don’t care to listen, we will keep on doing the same old, same old, until we leave this world. Consistently expecting that someone else will do what we’ve all been asked to do. Signing up is one thing, going out watching and listening to Him, is entirely another.

The way to totally transform our lives is to live our lives His Way! That’s in the book. This one decision — the action of complete and utter surrendered obedience — plunges us into a place where we need to rely upon His strength, goodness, wisdom, and loving kindness, because we’ve learnt our own resources aren’t working. The Lord is kind, the Holy Spirit will take us gently through His learning processes. He has never asked me to do anything He did not prepare me to do beforehand. Let’s be clear, I don’t always like His lessons, but I have definitely come to appreciate what they do for me, inside! 

These situations don’t appear in my life with big signs on them that mark them as ‘lessons.’  Instead I’ve found that the action starts by deliberately making a choice to do something He asked me to do. Today, I thought I’d give some ideas from my own life. —  I’ve found I am so much more willing to do a hard thing, after the Lord has taught my heart to be obedient in the little things… Like not telling someone what I think of them, when I am annoyed to the point of anger. Or perhaps I feel I am to give away funds I could personally use. Or I read the scriptures – and one word, one phrase or one verse jumps out at me, then I pray and ask Him to show me how to put it into action. 

At the same time we need Him to help us to be alert to every contact we make – some people are only in our lives momentarily. Hubby and I have had countless opportunities to speak openly and honestly to people who were never going to be a permanent or even a temporary part of our lives. Ships passing in the night, some people would call it. We were once driving a long distance, delivering bibles, and we stopped, randomly – so we thought – at a service station, to break up our journey. We decided to have a hot drink and sat at a table outside. 

An older couple asked if they could join us. After a brief conversation, during which we explained we’ve delivered bibles all over Australia, they asked if it was possible for them to buy one from us. They had no idea about where or how to buy a bible. We happily gave them one, and some simple things to help them to read it themselves. After that… they went north and we continued going south. We arrived as they were leaving! But I believe that when we choose to yield to Him, God personally arranges our steps. 

The bible says… “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord …” Psalm 37:23. When we live like the verses we read are true – He makes them true in our lives. My own life is proof that incidental encounters can change lives! However, not everyone we meet is our God-appointed assignment. That’s why faith is required. Stepping out, even when it is not anticipated, can open all kinds of interesting doors. Bye. 👋