2 Corinthians 10:5

P 3309 Anxiety.

/ DVH

Charles F Stanley wrote the following. I hope it is helpful: “Anxiety is a problem we all will deal with at one time or another. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”(Matt. 6:25-26)

The Greek word for “anxious” in this passage means “distracted.” It’s a word that refers to uncertainty. That’s what anxiety produces in us. It gives us a feeling of, what’s next? It’s a feeling that the rug has been pulled out from underneath us and we have no idea if we’re going to fall, how hard, in what direction, or onto what.

The word “anxious” is also translated as “worry” in the Bible. For many people, worry has become a way of life. If that describes you, I encourage you to read again the words of Jesus. His words are not a suggestion—they’re a command. You may say,“I can’t help feeling anxious, I’ve always been a worrier.”I’ve heard that from many people through the years. My response is, “Yes you can.”

There’s nothing about a circumstance that automatically creates anxiety. Anxiety occurs because of the way we respond to a problem or troubling situation.Your ability to choose is part of God’s gift of free will to every human being. You can choose how you feel. You can choose what you think about, and you can choose how you will respond to a circumstance. It certainly isn’t God’s purpose for you to feel anxious—He doesn’t allow situations in your life so you’ll have anxiety. 

The Father may allow a situation in your life to develop stronger faith, grow and mature, or change a bad habit or negative attitude. But God doesn’t set you up for anxiety. He’s always at work to bring you to a place where you’ll trust Him more, obey Him more fully, and receive more of His blessings.

You can fall into a downward spiral of anxiety, or you can say: “Father, I bring this to You. It’s beyond my control. I feel helpless in this situation, but You have the power to change what I’m facing. You love me perfectly, and I’m trusting You to handle what concerns me in the way You see fit. I know whatever You’ve planned for me is for my good. I look forward to seeing the way You choose to express Your love, wisdom, and power.” Amen. Friend, this is the way of peace—the road out of anxiety and worry.” 

Back to my little bit for today! I think this is the stuff that haunts most people. I put these thoughts by Charles F Stanley on my blog today because so many people are under siege from the things he talks about. His writing is clear and concise and he said it a whole lot better than I can! My motivation is this:  whatever it takes to help someone else get free is useful!  

This mini-sermon was particularly helpful to me, because we are preparing to put far too many things inside our car and even more stuff on top of it!— And still fit us, in it! Plus we will end up talking to a whole bunch of strangers. All this happens as we are travelling over 3,600 kms in the middle of a petrol shortage with prices through the roof. Some generous people have already helped us out financially with the extra burden of the cost of petrol. But my point is this: hubby and I are not exempt from anxiety either, it’s an ongoing battle for all of us.

I do have one helpful hint that works for me. If anxiety and worry start to build and I end up mentally knitting, I phone a friend or text someone. I don’t always tell them the problem, I simply ask them to pray. God knows what I am concerned about. I can fall into worse trouble when I talk about the difficult stuff, it actually kind of magnifies the problem in my mind. I might end up looking for sympathy instead of explaining that I simply need to hold fast. I have to pick my battles. Sometimes there are some things I can’t solve, but I can pray.

I’ve learnt that as I relinquish my anxiety about the things that bother me, I am far more open to His passions than my own. It’s not hard to love a God who values human beings so much, that He died for them. I think anxiety is a bit like a snowball rolling down a steep hill, it gathers momentum as it rolls on, and on. You can’t stand in front of it, it will squash you flat! The important bit is to know where and when that snowball begins in your life, so you can stop it at the top and jump all over it to disperse the thoughts.

The bible says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 …  “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  Anxiety is our enemy’s lies on steroids.  We can pay attention to the incessant ugly noise or give our attention to the One who lives inside us. Yes, it is a battle, many, many times – but Mr Stanley offers great advice, I intend to take it. Bye 👋.

P 3149 Fight the good fight, your faith is worth it.

/ DVH

“Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honourable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising Him always.” Philippians 4:8 TPT. When I read that scripture, I can look at the magnitude of the task of keeping my thoughts fixed on Him, and fixing them to everything wonderful that He does … a-n-d… I could easily feel like Don Quixote … in Man of La Mancha. Tilting at windmills, and dreaming the impossible dream! 

We often ruminate over the wrong task. It is easy to think that verses like this one only apply to the bad thoughts that flit through our brains like greedy moths. But the real thought I need to deal with here isn’t those incidental distractions. The actual real thought that demands my attention is … wait for it .. “I can’t possibly do that! I can’t meet that standard. No matter how hard I try – I know I will fail.” When I sink into that state I am sinking into a lake of despair, and I begin to slowly relinquish my faith, bit by bit. Right now, I need to remember I have a Lifeguard and He’s already right there, with me, ready to help me, and He wants me to win!

Let’s be clear – I cannot possibly meet that standard in Philippians in my own strength, I never could! However, that thought means I can get discouraged and give up too quickly. I continually need to remind myself that I have SomeOne else’s strength that is made perfect in weak people like me! It’s time to talk to Jesus, Who promised to be always with me. Meanwhile that standard in my mind that I am missing, is not actually the point. The real point is I’ve stopped looking at Him. Now I am looking at my failure, my performance. But IF I stop to  consult Him, then I am fixing my mind on Him!

This means I will begin to think about good things – like what Jesus means to me! Otherwise, day by day, I get busy in normal life-land, having a shower, eating my breakfast, making the bed etc. and I am totally unaware that a negative attitude toward my own faith is running along like a silent script in the background. We are not performers, we are followers.

The verse needs to be digested, and that means I need another scripture! (This BTW is why people memorise scriptures … to help them out when they are under attack!) “…[Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One),…” 2 Corinthians 10:5. The true knowledge of God is that He unequivocally, without reserve, LOVES ME, and that has nothing to do with His feelings – it’s His choice! And at the same time He wants to help me out of that hole of despair and dumb theories I’ve fallen into.

I’m going to need to make a decision to capture those dratted moths, that keep trying to eat away at my faith in His goodness and everything He has done for me. The above verse in Corinthians is a good one. It contains instructions. So, first of all, I humble myself and ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. Now it’s no longer me, all by myself wrangling those thoughts of “what a failure I am.” Because I have THE penultimate Helper. Whether I feel like it or not. Obedience is never about feelings. 

This negative argument I’ve come up against is a ‘works’ argument  … the argument goes like this…I must try harder to rid of my negative faith thoughts. But what if — instead of trying harder — I give up? And then I follow and trust by obeying His instructions. I fix whatever needs fixing in my heart, and follow through by doing whatever He tells me to do about it. ‘Works’ wants me to believe I have to be all that, because I gave my life to Jesus. But Jesus already DID ALL THAT WORK FOR ME, 2,000 years go.

It works like this:  I remind myself that that work is already done, there is no longer any need for me to try to achieve it. Instead, my task is to repent and release my fear of failure, grab hold of the Lord, and humble myself. After doing whatever He says I should do, then I jump straight into REST. If I mess this up while I am learning, then I tell the Lord, and anybody else I may have accidentally trodden on, that I’m sorry — and, I go right back into expecting Him to help me with the situation. That’s what faith is. It’s not IN my performance but IN a Person.

It’s in Him. I don’t have it but He already gave it to me.  I will keep failing Him in my own mind while my focus is on MY failure. But when I begin to rejoice, and give thanks for Who He is and What He did for me – that means I am fastening my mind to: “…all that is authentic and real, honourable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind.”And He IS those things. I am practising what the verse says I should do. I have taken my thoughts captive and fixed them, using my faith, on the One Person Who is all that and more.

“Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses].” Hebrews 11:1. Our faith in His ability to save us is ongoing. Jesus cannot and will not fail us – we give up and give in too quickly! We simply need to do our part, because He has already done His. And our enemy has already lost, because we have chosen to focus on the Lord. This is how we fight the good fight and boy is it worth it! Bye. 👋

P 3106 This will blow your mind.

/ DVH

“Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.” Romans 12:2 TPT. As carefully as I can, bearing in mind I’m not a theologian, I want to give you my thoughts about this verse. I have taken note of any other verses like it – Joshua 24:14-15;  2 Corinthians 10:5;  Philippians 4:8;  Ephesians 4:23. 

’We have now chosen to live our lives passing on our Father’s beauty to others, together with His power flowing through our hearts, and minds as well as our lives. This means we daily choose to reject the ideals and opinions of our current society. Now we live by a different standard, the one illustrated by our Saviour. He also lived His life under extreme pressure to conform. But His death and resurrection bought us the freedom to choose.

Now, we value and act on those things He taught us and what was illustrated in His own life. Jesus Himself taught us that we could live in this world but not be influenced by it. Our desire is to learn a new way to think—scrubbed clean of self-centredness, self-protection, guilt, shame and blame. Using our faith, we recognise that we have been released by God’s power to be the most loving version of ourselves. Purely for His sake. Our daily responses to the Holy Spirit help us move forward. We need, and will always have, His help.’

There is no ambition in Romans 12:2, rather it simply explains the way to achieve the kind of ‘oneness’ with the Holy Spirit that Jesus Himself enjoyed. All the work has already been done. This kind of transformation will require our deepest trust in Jesus’ truthfulness. It goes way beyond agreeing with Him. Instead it falls happily headlong into our knowledge that He cannot or will not fail us. We have learnt that retraining the way we think, by meditating on His Word and daily living that Word in actions – ushers in heavenly thinking. Unfortunately, we will always end up half-hearted in our endeavours if we excuse our own wilfulness as being normal.  

This complete turn around cannot be attempted in our own strength, because humanity’s lack of altruism means we have to look outside ourselves, including our own inner and outer resources, or our valiant self-efforts—to SomeOne Who is pure Love, and totally devoted to our good. Jesus is our God-given, perfect, practical, and ONLY trustworthy example of our new way to live. His disciples reflected His Way to live until they died.

The Lord was motivated by love and guided by love, plus He utterly and totally cast Himself headlong into God’s love, grace and mercy;  these things guided and motivated Him. Because of the Lord’s example, following Him will take the deepest kind of faith – the kind that cannot be manufactured by human beings. To walk in this kind of faith, we must move beyond trusting Jesus to save us—into trusting Jesus to save us from ourselves, and our past, while we are still ALIVE. That’s called living faith.

If we trust Him to save us after we’ve left this world, we actually still have something to gain! He promises we will live forever, in eternity with Almighty God Himself – this is faith that needs to be developed. However, trusting the Lord Jesus to save us while we are alive in this world has no side benefit. We simply have His promise that He will help us!  It will involve sacrifice and it will cost us but the gain is always greater than the cost. Just like Jesus lived a life of sacrifice that cost Him everything while He was on earth. He did what He did for our sake.

Now, we choose to daily put aside our hopes of being understood (security and peace);  and our dreams of making a valid contribution to the world (ambition);  our desire for human love and approval, in favour of His will. We refuse to panic about whatever comes at us, because we know that our God is always in charge.

However, we are eligible for the blessing that Jesus explained to Thomas: “But he (Thomas) said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” A week later His disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed;  blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”John 20:25-29. Thomas had to see to believe – God has given us His grace to see by using our faith – and then faith opens the door to see further.

This verse shows me how much our God values our FAITH, He says believing without seeing is the better way. The very best place to start renewing our minds is to take our immediate needs: heartaches, suffering, fears, etc. and lay them down at the cross. These things are deadly to faith, and, sadly, if they are allowed to flourish, they will come back over and over again to torment and deceive us. The bible clearly tells us God will supply our needs, and we can ask Him for whatever we need – but then we leave those things with Him and go about our Master’s business. We must never stop asking. God is good He loves us dearly, and hears every prayer – His timing is not like ours.

Living like this, will literally blow, (and change!) … our minds. It produces a beauty in us that this world cannot manufacture. Bye, bless you! 🥰