P 2911 LET.

/ DVH

‘Let’ is actually a really big word despite it only having 3 letters! God clearly tells us: “I will LET you learn.” The dictionary says this about the word LET… not prevent or forbid; allow. As we deliberately pick up His yoke, He has promised to teach us everything we will need for our new life. But the Lord won’t push us, we still need to choose what He wants. So … let’s move on and look at a few of the many blessings of ‘letting’ …

“Let us gaze upon Jesus, as the Author and the completion of our faith,…” Hebrews 12:2;  Looking at our failure kills faith, but looking at what He did for us, opens us up to learn His Ways.“And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds…” Hebrews 10:24. WE set the pace, we choose our growing edges. God is always waiting and willing to teach us.“Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not …” Galatians 6:9. If we get tired we can ask for help, that’s how we will learn how patient He is, how ready to help us. 

“…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus,…” Hebrews 12:1.We need to let Him guide us, and teach us what we need on our journey with Him, His book is a revelation of His will. Some things are weights, so we can get tired if we don’t  leave them behind. We need to choose to confess our sins, and receive His forgiveness, be-ca-use … “IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.

So much is available to His kids when we chose to deliberately learn His Ways and practice them! Jesus said: “…Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:29a&30. The Lord allows us to learn how Grace works, as we read and put into practice what He said in the book. This is how we learn to trust Him, because what He does can be seen unfolding around us.

His overflowing Grace is always there for us, and we have more than enough to give away. That’s because we have a more-than-enough God Who is rich in these qualities and HE LOVES TO SHARE!  A.S.K. and … keep on asking!  Jesus gave this world an inexhaustible supply of Grace. We are encouraged to learn how His Grace impacts our lives and the lives of those around us, with His help, by using our faith. We are now grace dispensers.

Grace is our all day, all night, in every circumstance – enabler of good! It’s the Holy Spirit’s forte. He is so-oo good at it! Sometimes I have been as dumb as the dirt I came from, but HE knows how to do anything and everything – well!  When His Grace is present it means my focus is on Him, not just any pain or circumstances. I deliberately choose to put my focus onto the Lord and His eternal provision, and at the same time, I understand that He is teaching me about Himself. Then: “having done ALL I stand!” … until I hear from Him again. The Holy Spirit helps me, and praise Him, He will help and allow His kids to learn LOVE in all its forms.

We can gladly embrace the Love God has for every single human being, because our focus is not on what they have done, or did or didn’t do — it is on Who He is and what He already did! As we let that kind of love in, using our faith — it opens us up to the infinite possibilities of His Kingdom. He helps us by pointing out where we are falling down … so we don’t have to fall down next time! He lets us learn His Ways with His loving Eye upon us. Our God is never an absent God – He can be silent – but He is never gone!

You and I are a part of Him now, because we are His Body. We know we will always be received and He loves to help us to be ministers of reconciliation.. We need to make Him welcome, as our personal tutor/teacher/helper/guide/interpreter. We just need to A.S.K. I am so grateful that He lets us learn. I’ve found that the action of letting Him, or allowing HIM to take charge, is a HUGE thing.

Despite this word’s actual size, it is incredibly important. It has opened the door to a whole other way to live – in another Kingdom – His! Bye. 👋

P 2910 What’s NEXT?

/ DVH

When God kisses whatever is currently going on with His peace and power, maybe we would like to look like the guy in Psalm 18 who said:“For by You I can run through a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect! The Word of the Lord is tested and tried; He is a shield to all those who take refuge and put their trust in Him. For who is God except the Lord? Or Who is the Rock save our God,

The God Who girds me with strength and makes my way perfect? He makes my feet like hinds’ feet [able to stand firmly or make progress on the dangerous heights of testing and trouble]; He sets me securely upon my high places. He teaches my hands to war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have also given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand has held me up; Your gentleness and condescension have made me great. You have given plenty of room for my steps under me, that my feet would not slip.” (verses 29-36.) 

I know this mythical guy talking here is actually King David — but I call him leaping Larry! You’ve met someone like this too. They pirouette around other people like Nijinsky. They have a perfect spiritual life, and while you are slogging away fighting off stuff on every side, spiritually speaking — they dance all around you telling you about how yesterday they defeated 45 demons, healed 19 sick people and reorganised their closet all on the same day … And they still had time to cook a three course dinner! …I’m not jealous or anything…😳

There are things that we do and say to each other  😱 … without even a thought for where the other person is. When we leave our humanity and faults out of our testimonies, we instantly eliminate most of His army from identifying with us. His army consists of people who continue to get it wrong as well as the broken, the down-trodden, the outcasts. Even Paul told us once he almost despaired of life itself!

We need to stop inflating our spiritual image so we can feel like we belong to His kingdom. I know that God can win anything with just a few people, but … He wants us ALL to live in the blessing of doing the work of the kingdom together!  And sometimes the guy we need the most is on the floor with his marriage in tatters, and his kids have walked away from all things spiritual..

We cannot afford to stand about simply observing the half-dead person walking next to us, even though we can see that they are staggering. Maybe that person is carrying more stuff than 12 people could. Of course we pray for them, but unfortunately, we are often spectators, instead of participants in whatever is happening around others. And we optimistically call that fellowship!

If your brother is up to his neck in deep trouble and he is not coping, then we need to take that suffering human being by the arm to a quieter place, and ask if we can pray for them. Then ask if there is anyway we can be of help … AND THEN, we need to start suggesting, and doing, helpful stuff!! Privacy can sometimes be overrated. Meanwhile when someone is overloaded, and burdened — trying to think up what someone else can do to help you, ends up overtaxing your brain, emotions, energy and time! Love carries people. It recognises difficulties and the weight of sin upon an individual’s life, without judgment, and it HELPS others.

True fellowship is far more than tea or coffee and cake at interval at church. Here’s a fantastic scripture to chew on …“He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” Isaiah 53:3. This is what happened to Jesus – people hid from His suffering and pain too! This fatal flaw has become almost normal behaviour in today’s world. We think support means throw money at it, but we are His servants, so we need to actively accept and adopt an attitude that says: “I will not let you suffer alone, I’m standing with you. SomeBody Else already did the work for both of us.” 

I am not saying we should take over someone else’s life, or leave our own lives endlessly dangling over an abyss while we are ‘helping.’ But at the same time we need to do something concrete, that makes our love for others something they can stand on. Love is an action that can be seen.  God’s Love, the love we are all aiming at … covers sin, plus it has a strong belief for good when the other party can’t find any! It hopes for everyone’s future. It puts up with all kinds of rubbish, and stuff simply rolls off a God-prompted person like water off a duck’s back! We can’t fail each other when we participate in His kind of love. 

Waiting for that kind of love to fall on us is folly. We get this kind of all-purpose, all-encompassing love for others, by being obedient … doing whatever He tells us to do in the bible. This means that we don’t sit around waiting for a “voice” to tell us to help people. Instead we’ve read the book, on purpose, and we know how to obey what it says. We don’t excuse ourselves, or hide away from reality. Our true spiritual life is all about growth, so we don’t pretend we have arrived! 

Let’s treat the people we know, and even those we don’t, the same way we would treat our own family – simply because everybody is valuable to Him. In these troubled times, my prayer often consists of ‘what’s next?’ That way I can’t easily miss anything. Bye 👋

P 2909 Into the storm.

/ DVH

I think I wrote about the following verses just the other day … but here we go again … and this time, we have an actual storm. On the horizon, locally, looming… Mark 4:37-39: “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.” As I was thinking about that snippet from the bible  early this morning, some things jumped out at me. I’ve been reading this stuff for 50+ years and I’m still seeing stuff I didn’t see before!

Back to my storm story: Jesus is sound asleep but the disciples are not, they have been kept awake because they are furiously fighting with a storm, trying to obey Him. Now they are caught up in a panic, looking at the physical evidence of watery chaos all around them. They were trying to go to the other side, because that is what Jesus told them to do. But at this moment these men are going up and down, tossed about by big waves in a little boat, soaking wet and scared of drowning. The sky was filled with dark clouds, maybe even lightning and they are rowing like mad and getting nowhere. 

It ain’t peaceful! We all like peaceful. We all like life to go the way we want it to. So how come Jesus can sleep? Well, He said they were going to the other side and when the God of the Universe and beyond says we are going to the other side – then that ride is on Him! I just made an important point for someone out there … ‘You are on His dime – this ride is ON HIM – stop trying to organise Him and sit back and enjoy the ride.’ Moo-ving on …

Panic overtakes the disciples, and so they wake Him up with an accusation – ‘Don’t you care???’ Why should the Lord sleep when they are so-oo-oo scared. Isn’t it His job to protect them? After all, He put them in that boat! He’s in charge, and the people who are in charge need to fix things. Boy were they in for a surprise! I have no idea what they thought Jesus would do… um maybe if they woke Him up He could join them in their panic? 😳 Human beings can be so irrational when they throw their faith out of the window, just to see if it will survive the fall! 

Here’s my point for today: first Jesus rebuked the wind and waves, then He rebuked the disciples! There were two storms that night, one IN the boat and one OUTSIDE it. You know, we can get so carried away trying to control our external circumstances, that we forget that our internal state needs help too! We cannot afford to let the external rule the internal … we will start sinking.

After that, Jesus explained to these men that their faith was far bigger than that storm. Sometimes when we face difficulties and terrifying things, our real task isn’t to fix the problem – it is about learning to rest in the face of whatever is going on. We can rest in the fact that JESUS IS ALWAYS IN OUR BOAT.  

If you don’t believe me, then let’s have a look at what the book says. Jesus is speaking here: “And lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the world.“ Matthew 28:20. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before Me.” Isaiah 49:15&16. “The LORD Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Deuteronomy 31:8. The last two verses are our Heavenly Father speaking. 

When we look at our circumstances, or our inner state of panic, we can easily feel deserted – left to fight whatever it is by ourselves. But this is our opportunity to believe what the bible says, above how we feel. Inclement circumstances are where we learn to REST in Him. Jesus Christ has paid for and given us HIS rest, nobody else can steal it away. We can only choose to lose it, by choosing fear, dismay and anger above rest.

As we descend into this storm, we are not alone – Jesus is in this boat with us. Bye and bless you. 🕊️

P 2908 Alfred.

/ DVH

Good morning everyone. It seems that part of our preparation for our bible trip next Monday is reorganising our house! I shan’t bore you with many details – one room has sprung a leak and another room is even lower than that one. So we are emptying both rooms and stuffing everything we have in them into the rest of our quite small home. Like many people where we live, we have not experienced a cyclone. Personally, I could have cheerfully skipped that event, but it seems the Lord has other plans in my transformation process.

Man, we are sentimental packrats at our house! We’ve been married for 38 years and I think we have kept every single thing we ever bought. We have thought about moving on various occasions but the trauma of all that packing etc. etc. …if you have ever moved you will know that a lot of stuff happens in those words etc.etc!!

Many times, all that work has dissuaded us from moving, and so we decided to stay put. I don’t think anyone likes to have to pack their life into boxes. But currently it seems the Lord wants us to revise our pack-ratty ways and we will have quite a bit of sorting out to do when we get back home. Yes, we are still going, the Lord willing, if the planes are allowed to fly out. I imagine it is not much fun in a plane in a cyclone! 

The rising panic of this whole event makes for a difficult atmosphere all over the place. A lot of people at the shops seem quite afraid because it has been 50 years since the last cyclone darkened our city’s doorstep. That fear is almost palpable everywhere you go. It highlights for me that most people have no clue about the Lord Jesus, or eternity, or ‘what happens to me?’ Those people live in our neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, we are having a crash course in letting go and letting God, and allowing Him to bring His kingdom into our lives despite the temptation to fling up our hands and give in to despair. 

Thank the Lord our son has come to help us practically because I think hubby has had to transform himself into three people when I wasn’t looking! One of them is looking after me, the other one is preparing for our bible trip and the most exhausted one is moving furniture! Life is never boring. But we keep on giving things back to the Lord, and dealing with them one at a time. Sadly my brain turns into confused mush if you push on it, and so I am not much help. But I can and will pray.

I said all that to finally introduce my subject for today’s blog – clearing and cleaning out our spiritual closets. I have learnt over the years that what is happening in the natural world around us can mirror what is happening inside us. Speaking for myself, there seems to be a whole lot of stuff I have stored, hiding unnoticed and undisturbed! Life is busy, and time passes more quickly than any of us think – it is good to have a stock-taking event now and then!

So here is my verse for today … I think it may end up my verse of the month! “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.” Psalm 51:10-19. 

This made a great deal of sense to me  – we cannot go out and talk to people about the Lord next week, with unnecessary burdens and dirty hands. These precious people mean so much to Him and we want the purity of His love to shine through us. So thank you, cyclone Alfred, for calling us to revise our absent- minded ways. Bye, 👋

P 2907 Out of the realm of darkness …

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…into His marvellous light. God’s Word is His light! Almighty God said in Revelation Chapter 21 verse 5, “And He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also He said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. ‘”

What our Father said is so important that He kept it, preserved it, protected it, for our benefit. He is so amazing, He can say the same thing on different days and it will mean different things on each day! In my mind it is really dumb to expect tomorrow to be exactly like today, or last week, or last year! Our God is always active on humanity’s behalf – making everything in this world, our homes, our families, our lives, our hearts … NEW! If we are still the same person that we are today, two years from now — we aren’t doing it right! Change is not just inevitable when we follow the Lord Jesus, it is essential – He is leading us all somewhere.

We study and read to learn how to apply His lessons into our own lives, because the bible lights up every single shadow! It is incredibly important to get our own fresh bread/Manna daily. Last Sunday’s sermon is not enough to take us through the sort of difficulties most people face every single week. We need to hear from Him, personally, every day: ‘His mercies are NEW every morning.’ 🙌  This is how we learn to fight deception and everything else that comes at us.The bible is the light of God – it gives us a true picture of ourselves;  what He has done, and what He says He will do, plus what He IS doing – right here and now.

At the same time, to be a true disciple of Christ, we need to accept His correction. When we find something in the book we can’t, or don’t want to do, we need to talk to Him about it and ask Him to help us. Jesus corrected His disciples all the time. We live for Him by making the choices He would make. This means we will learn how to cherish the Holy Spirit and His input. At the same time there is no true discipleship without loving others and laying down our lives for them.

The thing about God’s light is … it exposes flaws. Yeah, whoopee! But standing partly in the shadows is actually telling us about our own inner life. Things like … why do we feel the need to hide? “This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”1 John 1:5-7.

If you want to live in the security of knowing that Jesus blood is continually washing you, even from the things you don’t know you’ve done, then living IN the LIGHT of what He said in the book – is the answer. Hidden agendas, hidden personality flaws, hidden rotten attitudes etc. are all meant to be exposed by His light. Let’s always remember the Lord’s strength is made perfect in weak people! There is no need for us to hide our flaws. 

If we live a hidden life, we are denying the power of God to change us. It seems like we see the problems, attitudes, and situations we are stuck in, bigger than He is. Our faith will become too small. But letting His light loose in our lives, also means so much more than just agreeing with what He says. Meanwhile, don’t just read the Psalms all the time to pacify any weaknesses, and make you feel better, read Paul’s Epistles. They are full of instructions and plenty of points of conviction. The bible is not an optional extra – it is an essential asset.

I love the Old Testament, but we can’t continually hide in the stories of things that God did for someone else. We need our own stories – we must ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’ – for ourselves. That’s going to take humility, effort, and a strong desire to see what God wants to do next! I urge everybody reading this – to live the life you have, daily reminding yourself to walk in the light by reading the bible, and doing what it says.

Hidden agendas and sins will keep us away from the reality of how powerful God’s love and light is. When His light is ON in our lives, the only person who can turn it off is ME. Let’s leave behind everything that lies in darkness and choose to live in His light. Bye. 👋

P 2906 Humility is essential.

/ DVH

Luke 19:3-10:“He wanted to see Who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see Him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”So he came down at once and welcomed Him gladly. 

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Zacchaeus gave up his former life at warp speed, no questions asked! Here’s a little thought about this man. He had invested his energy in being able to see Jesus properly when he ran and climbed that tree. I’ve heard people debate what the tree means … I could care less. What I see is a man who wanted to see Jesus. We pray for those kind of people when we go on the road, that we would find the ones searching for Him. Something was happening in that man’s heart that prompted him to get a better view. 

First he climbed the tree, then Zacchaeus came down when Jesus called him. Immediately afterward, his validity to have Jesus come to his house for dinner, was questioned. So he started cleaning up his sins on the spot. After all, his sins were calling Jesus’ wisdom into account. Then he went one step further than simply fixing his sins, he became outrageously generous.

After that this man repaid four times over what he had cheated out of others. You can see his faith progressing as Zacchaeus began to understand the honour he had been given. Jesus was honouring this man with His Presence, owning him, in front of everyone. And this guy shows what true repentance looks like! Repentance requires turning around not just sorrow – Judas was sorrowful.

OH! That we would understand the honour we have been given when Jesus chose to save us! It is not something to be pushed aside and treated lightly. It needs to be the focus of everything we do. Pharisees etc. expected to be treated well, have the best seats, and have their thoughts and lifestyles admired by everyone. But we must remember, we serve a God Who SEES. He sees through our uppity attitudes, into whatever is in our hearts and half the time even we don’t know what has crept into it!!

Some times we feel bad because what we did was bad – that’s called conviction. I’ve learnt to pray this prayer from Psalm 51:10-13 often, because I want the best attitude. I need to spring-clean myself from sin, selfishness, ambition, and the need for recognition. I don’t have to do anything else but confess my sin, repair things with other people, and then I rely upon His faithfulness!

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your Presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be converted to You.“

The thing is, we cannot even have a clean heart without His help! This Psalmist’s reverence for God comes through his words, and so does his heart. He has a desperate need for God to help him achieve what his heart desires. And He values God’s Presence more than anything else, and wants to always remember, that he has been saved from who he was and God has restored him. There is no value we can put on being able to respond with such humility. And we see this in Zacchaeus and a woman who washed Jesus’ feet. She is perfect example of repentance and humility in action.

You know we can have this opinion and that thought, but the way God thinks about people often escapes us. Jesus was incredibly loving and supportive to this woman. She washed His feet with her tears and dried it with her hair and she did it to honour Him.  She broke the most valuable thing she owned and poured it over Him. Right in the middle of a dinner party where she stuck out like a sore thumb! She did not care, she was testifying to His Sovereignty, His God-honoured total right to be glorified. And she had gone there to be forgiven and worship Him – then she humbled herself because He was worth it. That’s called having an open heart!

Spiritual eyes and ears are incredibly valuable. Any one of us, at any time can be in His Presence, at home, in church, in the car — and yet we can’t hear His voice, because our hearts have hardened — maybe we think we’ve heard it all before — the thing is — we aren’t listening. Maybe we are too busy critiquing the message!! Big mistake. It’s one I have made more times than I care to remember. The Lord is looking for humble hearts, a people who will put His needs above everything else. These people won’t care if whatever they do is ever seen by anyone by Him. Here’s a big thought: … if HE is the only One Who can see it, then it is true worship.

Humility is essential, otherwise we wander along, never changing, and blaming others. Instead we lay ourselves at His feet and wait to hear what He will say. Bye. 👋

P 2905 What will you leave behind for His sake?

/ DVH

Luke 18:22-30: “When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”Peter said to Him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”A kingdom life is not always meant to be easy!

We all need to take the time to carefully consider and discern what is keeping us from total surrender. Sometimes it can be people, or things, or even places. I try not to say: “I’ll never go to that place again” because IF I believed in gambling … and I don’t! — then the next trip is definitely going to be about going back to the place I just disavowed! Ages ago, I told hubby that we could not go on a plane anymore. Hah! I think I might have control issues – I’m still checking that out with the King. A-ny-wa-ay… next week we are flying off interstate, 2 hours each way. Never say never.

Father God loves to knock down man-made sandcastles. Why not? He’s God, He’s in charge of our lives. To my total astonishment – every single time, no matter what He does, it is always good! It hardly ever turns out the way I thought it would, because what He does is always better than I can think or imagine. I think this is why God allows us to be tested, He wants us to know that we know – from our own personal experience with Him – that He will always be there, helping us, guiding us, loving us. When you decide to trust Him, no matter how it looks – things may go more slowly – but in my experience, what God does, cannot be undone.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.”  That’s from Isaiah 43, verse 2. Our faith needs to learn to watch for, and expect His input – always remembering that Almighty God doesn’t do things the way we would do them!  By the way I like that word WHEN. Trouble is not optional, actually it seems to be quite normal as you follow Jesus and want to serve Him!

Just recently our daughter and her son were told that they would have to move. I actually spent sooooo much time thinking about how we could build something for them to live in our backyard, as well as repeatedly going on line to look up cheaper rentals … and then she came to me about a month ago with this huge testimony that had nothing whatsoever to do with all my efforts.

Father God had found the two of them somewhere marvellous, and she can afford the rent. It is so close to work she could walk there if she wanted to. Guess what? I wasted all that time trying to solve a problem, that was not mine. Our daughter gave it all to the Lord the minute she heard that their old house was going to be sold, and she left the whole thing with Him for Him to solve. Someone came to her about this other house… imagine that! I am learning that we need to leave the people we dearly love in His hands. Meanwhile, when you put whatever is disturbing your peace down you have to walk away at the same time.

The body of Christ has often been fascinated with the idea that brilliant preaching, miracles, supernatural happenings and healings somehow prove that whatever they are doing must be ‘right.’ It seems we think it means we definitely have God’s approval and, bonus buy, we are proving to other people that He exists. Well I believe, first of all, that we already have God’s favour because His Son died in our place! He chose us.  Miracles are a sign and a wonder, but they are not the point – Jesus is the point! 

A life laid down for His sake, makes itself available for whatever God Himself wants, whenever He says. If He says we are to love our enemies – that means we can do it! It is easy to feel like we can’t, but maybe we are bumping into fear or pride or ‘I don’t want to!’  However, bravely stepping out into the path of whatever Goliath is challenging us, while we are trusting in God’s guidance, means we’ve put the Lord in charge of whatever we are facing. Our faith is far away from any problems, because instead we believe in His goodness and we cling to our faith in HIM like a limpet to a rock. We literally shall not be moved.  

We need to give the Lord everything – our lives, our livelihoods, our kids, our health, our self-worth, our family and stuff etc to Him, and leave it all there – because  “… I (we) know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that Day.”2 Timothy 1:12. Maybe today is a good day to ask ourselves, what will we leave behind – for His sake? May God bless you, 👋.

P 2904 New way of life.

/ DVH

“Keep turning your back on every sin, and make “peace” your life motto. Practice being at peace with everyone.”Psalms 34:14 TPT. This psalmist says that we need to practice maintaining peace, because that will be always needed, so in every interaction with the Lord, or someone else, we will need to use our faith. I ask for His help a lot! You can tell I am very literal about what the bible says – I use it diagnostically. I find that this helps me focus on Him and not get overwhelmed by the ‘stuff’ that keeps coming at me.

Isaiah 26:3 says: “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in YOU.” This new life we have been given, is about continually, steadily, believing we are who the Lord says we are. We need to fix our minds and hearts on His goodness. The fruit of the Spirit will come alive in us when we believe the work has already been done, and act accordingly, using our faith. “We cast our cares on the Lord, and He will sustain us, He will never let the righteous be shaken.” Psalm 55:22.

I think we often look at many verses in an unhelpful way – we look at them as a rule to be kept, and when we fail, we blame ourselves. That’s a vicious circle produced by our enemy to keep our hearts and minds off how good God is! The bible has within its pages a description, as well as God’s MODEL, (Jesus!), of our vibrant ongoing faith. I don’t have to listen to what I feel, I am guided by what He said.

In the above verses the writers are teaching us about who we are now – they are telling us how to bring God’s peace into our daily lives. We do that by refusing to invest our time, energy, angst –  in anything that is not God’s will, and focussing on what He says about everything. Peace thrives when we live according to His purposes, remembering that God saved us to faithfully serve Him.

This is not wish thinking, or even … ‘I-will-obey-God-about-that-someday’ thinking! Instead, this is now what we need to invest our God-given time in. We choose to step into our new life in Him by standing on what He has done for us. He saved us, delivered us, empowered us to overcome this world, sin and the devil, and our emotions are secondary. Jesus did more than die for us, so we can go to heaven one day, He died, to get heaven into us, here and now. He died to give us the power to have a different relationship with Father God — as His precious child. Now we live a life that begins to resemble the way Jesus lived. 

Peace is a Person. So we need to learn to protect our peace, and keep our eyes on the bigger prize which is walking with Christ, because He’s the Prince of Peace! We daily read the bible to become familiar with what He thought was important. You know whatever we focus on will become bigger – so it is best to aim at focussing on Him, and then after that, other people. Our prize, right here and right now, is that we will get to know Him better. Particularly as we practice keeping our eyes on Him, and His Ways. 

Following ‘do this, don’t do that rules’ can lead to failure, disappointment with ourselves and others, and discouragement. However, when we trust that God knows what we need and when we need it, we are investing in our faith life. Following Jesus by being obedient, taking that step by step, leads to His new life flourishing in us. As we live like this, what He wants becomes more important than any superficial gratification here and now. 

Instead of getting mad and distracted with ourselves or others because we’ve missed the mark, now our focus is is to be about – who or what He says we are. What He has already said about us in the bible, already has the power of transformation in it, as we use our faith and act on it. So we leave behind what we were before. Mark 9:23 says:“IF you can?” said Jesus.Everything is possible for the one who believes.”How can we believe Him for miracles if we cannot believe He can transform us, minute by minute?

Turn your faith eyes toward following Him, looking at what He would do. I’ve noticed that there are times when we try to use prayer as a way out of the very thing God wants us to learn from! Here’s a good question: “What’s Your will in this Father God?” The power to overcome is in doggedly, unemotionally, choosing to follow Him, by obeying Him, loving Him, enjoying Him, and preferring Him. At all times we must keep our eyes on the prize — His Presence is our Prize.

In a nutshell, when we read the bible, we obey what it says, believing that the power to obey comes from the fact that Jesus Himself said it – not from how we feel about it! From now on we ignore those parts of us that are clamouring for pity or relief because it all seems too hard. Of course it is hard, we are dying to our own will, by choosing to believe and honour the exchange we made when we said yes to Him! 

Faith has a ‘way’ to approach this life. Jesus began our faith, and He has already finished the job – 2,000+ years ago! In this life, we simply use our faith to access what has already been done for us. Sin has no longer power over us, because we died when He died. We simply choose to be obedient to what He has already told us in the book. The more we do that, the easier it becomes to hear His voice. My advice? Tackle the hard stuff first!  Let’s live in freedom in spite of the devil’s harassment and enjoy this new way of faith. Bye. 👋

P 2903 Do I listen?

/ DVH

Listening is an important skill. How can anyone learn and change, if they think we already know? On the other hand, if we think we are right, perhaps we are listening … with an agenda?! I bumped into this particular attitude in myself today – it was not a happy thought! One of the very best gifts we can give someone else is to listen to them. Whether it is our children, our spouse, a friend, or a stranger who needs a listening ear. 

Because we are constantly bombarded by all kinds of media, I think we’ve lost the art of true listening – from the heart. The term social media, by the way, is a misnomer. There’s nothing social, or truly interactive about social media! Because of this phenomenon, people have become used to either oversharing, or colouring in what they say with pretty pencils to make themselves look better. 

I think that this extreme has resulted in losing the art of listening with love in our hearts, and concern on our faces. I have no excuse for my own personal behaviour – as you know, I don’t partake in any sort of social media. By the way, I just bumped into contempt and pride when I said that! 😱 We all know, I have no love for that stuff. Blimey, it’s raining bad attitudes at my house!!

There are times that someone could still be typing their response furiously while the person on the other end is trying to communicate with us, via this or that platform. Instead it becomes a game of one-up-man-ship. Who types the fastest? I also think sometimes our lack of intimacy with the Lord, can actually show up in our personal relationships. And…  our lack of intimacy with others can show up in our relationship with Him! Jesus is passionate about people, He is so passionate about people He died for all of us. The Lord is a great listener, if we will put away our agendas, and simply ‘…be still…!’

Sad to say, we can get so busy doing this and saying that, we can’t hear each other speak anymore! Important words get lost, or people get the brush-off because we think we know what the other person is going to say, or maybe … we don’t actually want to know what that other person is going to say because we are not interested. Either way we are the losers because the bible tells us that iron sharpens iron – and that sharpening won’t happen in a vacuum, we will have to choose to participate.

The bible is all about all kinds of relationships and it teaches  us how to live, side by side, with each other. Sadly, today all the godly motivated ideas about forgiveness have been thrown out —- and instead we get indignant stories about people being disobedient to society’s new laws, which are sometimes called political correctness. I’ve looked hard at that lot, and those things also totally annoy the living daylights out of me! They rub me up the wrong way so hard, I can lose my cool over it all. That’s when the Holy Spirit whispers to me that I have been called to love people, no matter what society tells me I should do. I am to obey the King – my allegiance to His message is my first priority.

You know, I found out that if you pay attention to the stuff you actually don’t like to admit about yourself, you can learn a lot of things you’ve never even thought about!  In this process I learnt that I don’t like being told what to do. I can be extremely compliant when things suit me, but when something is outrageously unjust – the red balloon goes up and so do my anger levels! So much for having a loving inclusive attitude. We can’t be transformed if we don’t admit to having a problem, and I was  totally unaware that this attitude had crept up on me. I was judging people without hearing His heart on the matter, first.

Jesus had injustices all around Him, yet still He only said what He heard the Father saying, and He only did what His Father told Him to do. (John 12:49-50.) That sounds like a great plan to me! Maybe my own personal problems have occurred because I’ve been busy justifying my snarky ways by pointing to the bible, and using it as a club instead of a book that was designed to heal. His book is designed to heal our relationship with the Lord first, and then it heals our relationship with others. We will miss His greatest blessings when we use His Word to justify stuff that is resistant to transformation.

Today, I just want to share that I fall on my head in matters of change, often. Many times I miss the mark and I don’t even know until hours, or even, days later. I’ve been too busy pompously riding about on my high horse to notice. Then I can easily spend a couple of days trying to avoid the only cure … ‘Draw near to God, humble yourself…’ James 4. Humbling yourself cures a whole lotta stuff – I recommend it. It helps me listen. Bye.👋

P 2902 Give yourself a break OK?

/ DVH

The Lord knows we all need a break sometimes, so God has been incredibly generous to mankind, He has given us gifts to help us. When you read His book you might easily notice that Almighty God often picks the oddest people to represent Him, I think it is because His goodness shines very brightly in needy people. 1 Peter 4:10-11 says:  “God has given each of you a gift from His great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen.”

We can sometimes overestimate and esteem human beings, because they have been anointed by God to deliver His Grace to His people. Then we face disappointment and a further battle for our peace. However, it is God Himself Who deserves the glory and honour. Those people who represent Him are a gift from Him. With things like teaching, writing, sermons etc. we need to remember as we listen, that the person communicating is His Grace in action. If it touches our heart, that’s our Father, kissing us, hugging us — those things that bless us have been inspired by God for our benefit. 

I believe we desperately need to pray for our leaders – not occasionally, but all the time! Leadership is not only a gift of spiritual stamina, it is a gift of His Grace. These people are out in front of us, right in the firing line of our common enemy. They need our prayers. And we need to consistently elevate and thank the Lord because He gave us those who lead, they are His gifts to the church. Yes His gifts are precious, but that’s because they came from Him! So the glory belongs to Him. Everything He does is worthy of our praise – we simply need to wake up enough to notice what He is doing, all the time, every day.

If any one of us fail, or give up temporarily, or get discouraged or even lose heart — let’s remember that we have SomeOne praying for us, 24/7. Jesus and the Holy Spirit take our walk with our Heavenly Father, personally! Father God could care less if we are successful – He is looking for us to be His own submitted obedient kids, following His Son’s example. Jesus Christ was not successful by today’s standards – yet everything He achieved will one day be revealed in heaven. For now, WE HAVE HIS BOOK! 

I believe we are to be a people who press forward toward the goal, and live every single day, with the knowledge of an  astonishing revelation — we know that our God is always for us! Nothing else can prevail against us because He is on our side. He’s with us when we get it right, He’s with us when we get it wrong. Now here’s 2 Peter 1:3:“Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.”

The ones Jesus loves (Zach Williams):

It may be that this life has become so difficult we have begun to give up on ourselves, because our situation seems so dire we cannot see any answer. In hard times it is so easy to forget Jesus is the answer… to anything. One of the most passionate, desperate prayers was prayed by a little lady who crawled through the dirt unseen to get to Him. Luke 8:43-48. God knows when we get stuck and He runs to the aid of one of His little ones. If He seems to be absent, don’t be afraid – He is confident you will get through this. Incredibly, even at the same time as our troubles, we actually need more than a resolution of our pain and hard situations, even though those things are merciless — we need to be reminded that Jesus is filled with mercy. Pressed down and running over. He won’t leave us or forsake us.

These are the times that I need to remind myself how very much God loves me. How much He understands my pain and loss and sorrow, personally. Jesus didn’t pick out an easy escape route when His life got hard for Him. He totally understands what severe testing is like! He came to this earth, by His own choice, to live this life the way we do. Praise God the Lord Jesus has personal experience, He understands where we are. He will hold us up, relieve our suffering and sorrow and set us free to live in His love despite our circumstances. He has promised to walk with us through our deepest valleys.

Last scripture here! Matthew 11:28-30.“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to ME. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Give yourself a break and remember that it is not the end of the world to be human. God honoured mankind by sending His only Son to become one of us. What a wonder that is! And oh how very much He loves us! May He shower you with His peace and love, and help you to see those things today, Amen. Bless you, bye. 👋.