Accountability

P 2947 Who are you really … ??

/ DVH

Matthew 21:33-46: “Now listen to another story. A certain landowner planted a vineyard, built a wall around it, dug a pit for pressing out the grape juice, and built a lookout tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenant farmers and moved to another country.  At the time of the grape harvest, he sent his servants to collect his share of the crop. But the farmers grabbed his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. So the landowner sent a larger group of his servants to collect for him, but the results were the same.

“Finally, the owner sent his son, thinking, ‘Surely they will respect my son.’“But when the tenant farmers saw his son coming, they said to one another, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate. Come on, let’s kill him and get the estate for ourselves!’ So they grabbed him, dragged him out of the vineyard, and murdered him. “When the owner of the vineyard returns,” Jesus asked, “what do you think he will do to those farmers?” The religious leaders replied, “He will put the wicked men to a horrible death and lease the vineyard to others who will give him his share of the crop after each harvest.”

This parable reminds me that without active, visible, accountability and supervision what are WE, you and I, actually like? As in, who are we when we are at our house? The nice people at church can’t see us there! Don’t be two different people:“Admit your faults to one another so that you may be healed…” This is a good time to ask your family if you are the same person wherever you are. If not – why not?? The bible says:“I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength …”

This is one of the parables I like to call, ‘the very-scary-better-think-carefully-about-them” parables. Not a cheery story. Not a happy ending either! However, I love that Jesus is a realist. He understood mankind, including the best and the worst of us and He knew what we could do to each other. Some of our biggest spiritual problems can come from thinking:“Oh, I would NEVER do that!” Can anybody smell the Pharisee in the room? Like somehow we have become exempt from our own humanity. That’s called P.R.I.D.E. OK, so now there’s another 27 people who have gone right off me! Ho-hum.

None of us know what we are capable of, until we are pushed hard enough by circumstances, or maybe we see an opportunity for gain. I’ve met a lot of the “Oh, I would never do that,” type of Christians in my life. Good luck with that one! If that really IS you, then you need to thank the Lord for delivering you from temptation! Nobody knows our hearts but the Lord, and boy does HE know what’s nattily hidden away in there. Stuff that can be disguised quickly with a change of our facial expression. I’m not keen on dishonesty. I think deceit is a deadly poison, it eventually floods the body and becomes a way of life. Self-deception is the biggest thief of all!

The only thing that can actively transform every single one of us is the blood of Jesus, and the truth is, if you don’t think you need it – then you won’t see the need to apply it into your life! Really, REALLY dumb move, Basil! You can lie to me, your mother, your family, the pastor, your friends, but … when life squeezes you hard enough you never know what is going to come out. The biggest danger we face is what I call the ‘who will know?’- opportunities.

So let’s get real, and hang onto your bonnet sister, it’s about to blow off —  there can be no redemption without acknowledgment of sin. Now breathe… and listen to what the book says … you could always read it out loud: 1 John 1:9 says:“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Hmm … maybe you need to read that again, it’s possible you missed a word in your clever speed reading. IF… if… if… if!!!! 

If’n ya don’t own your sins, you won’t see any need to confess them… and if we make excuses for our behaviour … we won’t own that either! I have heard about every excuse under the sun, from people who want to hide their real attitudes and self-centred ways from everyone. What a waste of a life! It is a waste of time letting fear and deceit run the show … we know that Jesus died to pay for all of it – but the prerequisite to qualification involves confessing our faults. We all have them. Presumption shot Peter in the foot, he was caught by a chook!

SomeBody already knows each one of us, who we really are!! He’s the Person we should all have holy fear about!We have made a god in our own image, and He’s very permissive and understanding … He understands I can’t help it, I had a hard childhood! Forget the gossip club at church, GOD knows! And our excuses just won’t hold water in front of His precious Holiness.

Forgiveness comes from His compassion, faithfulness, and that is only IN CHRIST. Our sin is no longer the problem, when we’ve given our lives to Him. However, when we try to hide from Him, and hide the things we still do from other people, then we are denying the power of the cross to cancel that sin. That’s the problem. 

Out of sight out of mind, doesn’t work in the kingdom of God. Honesty does. Confession does. Purity of heart does. The sacrifice Jesus willingly made for us does not give us permission to ignore the prompting of the Spirit of God. Just because we can’t see Him, that doesn’t mean He isn’t here, with us, right now. His Presence is all over His book … so quit skipping the bits you don’t like! The question for today is: who are we when no-one will know? Bye. 👋

P 2726 When I get tired …

/ DVH

I have learnt to take a lack of Grace as a signpost that I am walking in the flesh again. It means I’ve been trying, all by myself – to access something that Jesus died to GIVE me. I am bound to fail, without His Grace. To start with I can get very tired of being kind to people who continually hurt me. At the same time, in my own enthusiasm, I can spend ages trying to figure out what to do … when God already has an answer.

My problem becomes something Jeremiah spoke about in Chapter 2, v 13.“Stand in shock, heavens, at what you see! Throw up your hands in disbelief—this can’t be!” God’s Decree. “My people have committed a compound sin: they’ve walked out on Me, the fountain Of fresh flowing waters, and then dug cisterns— cisterns that leak, cisterns that are no better than sieves.” I can exhaust myself trying to find answers using my own systems. At the same time, I am ignoring His powerful ever-present fountain-provision of Grace, by honouring and using my own strength instead. 

Self-effort leads to frustration with Him, myself and others. It’s incredibly easy to get angry, because I’m making all this effort and it looks like God is not helping me, and neither are you! Changing myself has limitations – my patience and human wisdom will wear out – v-e-r-y quickly! The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:9-10 “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am,and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

This man understood that the way through everything that happened to him was to stay in the Grace of God. God’s Grace is our dwelling place. It is “the fountain of fresh flowing waters.”  We need to put aside our own human rationale toward others, as well as the excuses we often make for abhorrent behaviour, and instead …call SIN, sin … Then choose to forgive it or repent from doing it. This choice means that we are determined to partake of His freely flowing Grace, so we can walk through whatever is going on, without rancour or disappointment. Then we are eligible to give His Grace away to others from a position of fullness and humility – because we know WE also sin.  

Grace is Eternal. Self-effort, trying harder, making excuses, etc. wears out, quickly. Actually, I do not think we should sugar-coat any kind of sin. Sin killed Jesus. IT’S REAL. Our sin had consequences, and HE paid for them! The answer to sin is redemption, not avoidance, or working harder, or even excuses. These things are not just a difference in some sort of personal perception – this means we dare not pretend they don’t exist! Our job is to pray for Grace, Grace, and more Grace, and use our faith to walk in it. We all need to reach a saturation point when it comes to Grace. Grace needs to become normal in our lives.

We pray for the perpetrator, and also pray that we will be able to bear whatever is going on, by remaining in His Grace. Even if that other person simply will not quit behaving badly and they continue to deliberately hurt us or others. We all need His Grace to get through anything – we dare not use the try harder/make excuses for others system. So how do I get this Grace? I ask Him for it, and then I do whatever He says to me – either personally, or from His Word. God’s answers are not like our answers – because His Ways are higher than ours.

Our society today has currently adopted an ‘I can’t help it I had a hard life’ view of abhorrent behaviour. Instead of paying attention to accountability. Are we all three years old and everything is someone else’s fault? If we are old enough to sin, then we are old enough to own it. Unfortunately, we seem to have become a “now” society. Electricity on now! TV on now! And if it causes me pain, then it has to stop – NOW – because you are infringing on my rights, now! We have not learnt to suffer wrong. Jesus Himself chose that way, and Christians are meant to follow Him. Not our own personal code, or some self-help psycho-babble methodology. 

Every single human being needs His GRACE. Otherwise, blame becomes a way of life. Then my personally perceived poor activities, or heartache are the government’s fault – or my parents’ fault, or teachers, friends, or the pastor! When we think like that we are shrugging off our own responsibility. Our responsibility is to take everything to the cross and prayerfully access the Grace of God, as well as leave our sinful attitudes there. Sometimes the only way ahead is to go through our problems, to an answer. And that route may go through a desert or wilderness – where there is no water. This means we go back to the Source and ask for His Grace to bear things so we can keep on walking and following Him. 

Like the saints of old, we may suffer as we lay down the right to figure out man-made solutions – but that is nothing compared to the glory that lies ahead. We simply cannot afford to step out of GRACE. We don’t visit it occasionally, on a good day – WE LIVE THERE. Bye. 👋

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1.

P 2712 Our difficulties are actually stairs.

/ DVH

The every day obstacles, irritations and difficulties we face can be obstructions to living a new life … OR … stairs leading us up into all Christ’s blood bought for us. When we see things as obstacles, we face them with a different mental attitude. An obstacle must be avoided, or conquered or mastered, and all that involves effort and application. Stairs simply take you from one level to another. They take us from a lower place to a higher one. Today, I want to highlight the thought that the Christian life is meant to be one of progression, while we gain increasing humility, accountability, and wisdom, plus maturity. 

Nobody told me this stuff when I was a baby Christian. I was not taught that Jesus has faced every single obstacle I will ever have to endure, and that He knows the way through them. Instead I was taught to try harder… like it was a Maths test! So I just kept failing, and the harder I tried, the more I failed … I was taught I must somehow, by myself, transform myself into a new person. But Jesus actually died for, fought for and He won that battle for me. The thought that I was personally responsible to be different in my everyday life, nagged at me daily. I was supposed to be a good Christian witness to others, but I could easily end up shouting like a fishwife! 

None of the credit for starting to change my awful attitudes and actions belongs to me. All I ever needed to do was ADMIT that I can’t do any of this transformation by myself, and ask the Holy Spirit for His grace. And then – step up into it, using my faith.There are things that I know I used to do, almost automatically, that I simply don’t do anymore – I don’t even want to do them anymore. I asked for His help.

I wish I could say that when I’ve learnt something, and I’ve seen His grace in action in myself, that this means I will always act graciously! What a sad little laugh that thought is! Instead I have found that I need to practice practice practice trusting in His ability to get me through whatever He is teaching me, at every opportunity. Or I will lose touch with His grace, faster than a gambler can lose his quickly gained bundle of notes! However at the same time I have also noticed my thought patterns are changing too.

As I read the Word, and refused to accept what it said as something I would become some day – He began to teach me to act on it in faith. I started to understand that the things I dismissed as being only human, actually meant that I was not totally sold out to Jesus! Because me, myself and I – still became grumpy and nasty over the stupidest things. 

The Lord is so faithful. He revealed to me through the bible that He has already done all the work … so my part was to believe Him and step up into what He has already done, no matter how I feel.  Those things that accused me, and led me into looking after myself first, are the everyday, niggly little grumpy or sarcastic responses that the Holy Spirit loves to help us master. All we need to do is to step out of that bad mood or irritation, INTO His grace. After all, Peter stepped out of a perfectly good boat when Jesus said – “Come!” He didn’t think about it He simply obeyed!  Living this way is our birthright.

Sadly in the past, I did not have any idea that I didn’t have to live such a frustrated life, pretending to be something or someone, I wasn’t. I found, over time, that  a lot of what I was taught was a lot of theory, as well as unrealistic expectations – heaps of I “ought to be this or that!” It was not practical enough. Yet everything Christ taught was PRACTICAL. Because of what He has already done, my part is to take each attitude as He reveals it to me – then repent, repair and ask for His help. And then I simply followed His prompts, and they helped me escape from the temptation to let fly.

Jesus Christ’s death opened the prison door of sin we were forced to live behind, that place where we were trapped by our own anxious, fearful, unkind attitudes. We can even learn to resist provocation! We are no longer trapped by who we used to be. Freedom is more than a lovely song we sing passionately – it is a faith step. Freedom doesn’t mean I can do what I want – true freedom actually means I CAN DO WHAT HE WANTS!  We believe Him and what He has already said in the bible.

You know, in the natural, I have the worst trouble with real stairs, nowadays. Having fallen down our stairs a while ago, I am a bit intimidated by any stairs that have no railings. And so hubby helps me step up from one step to another, by giving me his arm. This is what the our precious Saviour does for us. We exercise our faith in the Lord’s Word, by taking His arm, as we choose how to respond to the daily irritations of this life according to His Word. We learn to lean on Him! And if we go under, like Peter did – Jesus’ strong right arm will lift us up again.

Psalm 119:133 “Direct my footsteps according to Your word; let no sin rule over me.” 1 Corinthians 10:13 TPT “We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face so that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust Him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously.”

If we want to follow Jesus and overcome every day irritations, obstacles and difficulties, as well as entering into our new life in Christ, we need to live this life with absolute humility. At the same time we need to be aware and open about our limitations. Let us not pretend to be someone we are not! Every one of our difficulties are actually our own personal stairs. My advice is to take the Lord’s proffered arm and walk up each step with His help. Bye. 👋 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3-12.

P 2630 The false cloak of invisibility we need to lose.

/ DVH

Today the Lord spoke to me about a problem that is reoccurring in our churches — mainly because the Body of Christ has wilfully remained ignorant of the side effects of our actions and attitudes. Sometimes we pray and pray so faithfully, but we are not responding to the Lord with FAITH in action for the things we are praying ABOUT. We must be prepared to put feet to our prayers, otherwise we are not expressing our faith fully. There is no room for compartmentalisation. If God tells me – then it’s my job!

We need to get up from prayer and go on to engage with the difficulties He has indicated. Then we use our faith to do those things the way He says to do them. I know it can take faith to pray, I know that first hand – but I also know that the Lord wants us to take what we believe and act on it. Otherwise the enemy of our souls can steal away our hope! Plus we become unaccountable for our mistakes and missteps – if we are unfortunately praying amiss. Outside of our own personal, intimate conversations with the Lord – we need to initiate action after prayer, prayerfully.

Sometimes when we are put into difficult situations, we need to say: “I’m sorry, I can’t do that, it’s wrong. It’s against my beliefs and what my God tells me to do.” It’s time to stand up, not hide. It is not good to stand silently by and say nothing. I’m not just talking about witnessing here, I am talking about following our prayers and beliefs through with actions. At the same time when we pray for someone to be helped then we need to be prepared to be His hands and feet and help them. Maybe we should take the time to go and pray with the people we are concerned about.

Societally we are being pulled apart into categories —even in families, some of the members don’t always know what their close relatives are doing. As a body, we are often only superficially related to each other … perhaps by using social media accounts. These things allow us to have impersonal PC opinions, as well as superficial ones. Things that we can say freely on paper, but we actually don’t LIVE them out in our daily life. We need to take the time to be accountable. Accountability has all but disappeared because we don’t know enough about each other to expose the way we really live in our own homes. Embarrassment and shame causes us to hide from each other. Hidden sin is dangerous. DEADLY.

Christians are designed to stand up and be counted as His disciples, and that means we will automatically become accountable, as well as visible for our actions. Instead of being “found out,’ we need to “confess our faults!” We need to be honest about our sinful behaviour: “confessing them to one another so we can be healed.”(James 5:16) The bible says:“They will know we are Christians by our love.” (John 13:35.) How can that occur when we only talk about superficial things?

I can’t see privacy being of paramount importance to the early disciples. Transparency flourished. Just look at Ananias and Sapphira. What happened to them came out of a lack of transparency. That incident created holy fear amongst the believers. Nobody wanted to lie to the Holy Spirit, EVER, after that!! And a good thing that is too.

When we keep on living our lives like this world does, we are pulling on lampshades – so we won’t offend people. People need the light!! And you and I have it. There’s always room for gentle, loving disclosure, we don’t have to whack others over the head with our belief systems! However our lives still need to be visible in our communities and homes. The way we live behind closed doors matters. 

God challenges me about that all the time. If hubby and I disagree He says: “Are you going to leave that there? Go and fix it.” Purity of heart matters to the Lord. It is not about getting things right, it is about constantly going back and beginning again until we have mastered the skill of following in His footsteps – always with His direction and help. My own resolve to change melts like butter when opposition comes up – but with His help, I can stand still and stop fighting for my rights and yield to Him.

Human beings are very busy fighting for their rights today – everyone is militant about something! The earth, women’s rights, children’s rights – God’s wisdom is not in any of that. He sees individuals not corporate agendas! We already know the outcome of this earth, Jesus is going to roll it up like an old carpet!  We are told to submit to one another  – one sex is not better than the other! These earthly ideas do not leave any room for dying to self – they profit us nothing! Christians must not hide, or have private lives, we’ve been saved to take this stuff PUBLIC – not by being argumentative or disagreeable but by being loving and open.

Maybe we are ashamed to take things public because we are not living this life the way Christ said. This world already thinks Christians are hypocrites because we don’t live up to what we say — sadly instead, we’ve let judgment rule, to protect our own little world. We need to lose that cloak of invisibility and become transparent. Everybody’s faults were paid for once and for all!  That’s called THE GOOD NEWS. Remember ALMIGHTY GOD MADE HIMSELF VISIBLE WHEN HE SENT HIS SON! Bye. 👋