Action

P 2304 Encourage one another.

/ DVH

I’m a big fan of this principle. Encouragement – ‘the action of giving someone support, confidence, or hope.’ Did you get that? True encouragement brings HOPE!’ It also means, ‘uplifting, inspiration, rallying, motivation, invigoration, making bold, fortifying, morale-boosting.’ HIS book calls it ‘exhortation.’

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”Hebrews 3:13. Will you look at that? Encouragement can help somebody else to avoid hardening their heart, without encouragement people start to stumble and fall into sin! Now … here’s today’s icky sticky question … when was the last time you encouraged someone? And please don’t tell me ‘that’s not in my nature” because when we said ‘yes’ to Jesus we got a brand new nature. 

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:1. See? This facet of Christ’s behaviour was so normal, Paul expected it. Here’s what I’ve learnt about encouragement so far …PRAY. Ask the Holy Spirit: ‘what can I say to breathe Your life into this situation?’  And if you wouldn’t like whatever it is – then others probably won’t either. Encouragement builds UP it doesn’t tear down. 

Katie Scott said this: “… Encouragement is brick by brick, word by word, action by action building towards Jesus. Not only building up, but building into— encouragement builds each follower of Christ into a home, both a dwelling place for God Himself and a location for a fallen world to encounter a risen Jesus.”

Who is Kate Scott? I dunno. But I don’t have to know her personally to appreciate the truth God has given her! 

Joshua 1:9 says— “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” This is God Himself encouraging us – and it is a great example of positive reinforcement. We are not going to do better than that! But use your own words as well as using scripture verses.

Encouragement is our investment in someone else’s future. The Holy Spirit  gave me that line, while I was typing this blog. Isn’t it lovely?  Encouragement is like releasing GOD’S very essence into the air around people. Suddenly instead of criticism, negativity and failure, people start to believe that maybe God wants to help them… maybe He does love them. We all have this power …Christ died to give it to us. 

People often go on about ‘the power of life and death is in the tongue.’  I see that verse as an exhortation to speak life instead of becoming paranoid and analysing everything that someone else says. People don’t actually mean a lot of what they say nowadays. 

I wanted to give a made-up example of what I think ‘speaking life’ might sound like to someone else …‘This is a terrible thing that has happened to you and I will not only pray for you, but I will actively believe with you that you can get through this. I think your power of perseverance is much stronger than you can see right now. These circumstances are stretching you …but you can do it, I know you can do it, I know you can push through to a new place and regain your hope in His goodness.’ 

Encouragement is a language. Speaking life takes God’s discipline and self control in the face of all sorts of visible, and invisible, apparently insurmountable odds. I believe we all need encouragement from day to day, as well as when we are going through the hard things we all face. However, we give ourselves and others a huge blessing when we choose to see what is going on through His eyes. We need to see despair, discouragement and disappointment as tools and tricks foisted upon us by our enemy. And remember that these things attack all of us. 

An encourager helps puts the wind of God back into someone else’s flagging sails so they can continue on with their journey with Him. 👋🏻

P 2301 Christianity is not a theoretical construct.

/ DVH

We can all fall madly in love with a whole lot of Christian principles. We can ‘like’ and repeat them over and over again on Facebook, or whatever … but none of that is worth a hill of beans unless we make those principles our lifestyle. There are a whole lot of other faiths that have sound principles and doctrine too. Living our lives giving away His Love from day to day changes everything – it takes the supernatural to do that.

Christianity is failing this world – especially in the West – in one place. It is all talk and no action! There are a whole lot of people who can talk a great game – they can quote the bible chapter and verse, and they have memorised whole books. But they disappear into the ether when the going gets tough and people or life get difficult. The practical outworking of their faith depends on their own personal circumstances and resources and not on flowing with the Holy Spirit.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, DEMONSTRATED Their love to us when we were yet sinners. This word means to – give a practical exhibition and explanation of …. AND – clearly show the existence or truth of (something) by giving proof or evidence.

“If anyone sees a fellow believer in need and has the means to help him, yet shows no pity and closes his heart against him, how is it even possible that God’s love lives in him? Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds. We know that the truth lives within us because we demonstrate love in action, which will reassure our hearts in His presence.” 1 John 3:17-19 TPT. Check out James 2:15-17.

So here’s a couple of my knotty questions for you today – ‘How many times in this past week have you demonstrated God’s love to someone else?’ Second question – ‘How many times did the Holy Spirit prompt you to do something and you turned Him down because you were too busy or didn’t have enough time?’ Here’s a big thought our God is the Author of time and He knows how to stretch it. Read the book. I’ve personally watched Him do that so many times…

We all long to see miracles, but in order to see a miracle, someone is going to have to take a risk. Taking risks and living in obedience are the most important part of how our faith works. If we knew what we were told to do was going to work, before we did it, then it wouldn’t be faith. We are going to have to become a bold, fearless people, which is why the Lord encourages us, through Joshua, to be strong and courageous. And through Isaiah He tells us, ‘When you walk through the fire, you won’t get burnt, when you walk through the river you won’t get drowned.’ Like I said, Christians are delegated risk takers.

So we give away money in the face of recession, we talk about Jesus even when we are embarrassed and afraid. Just FYI, I never once taught my children about the Lord that I didn’t feel greatly intimidated at the time. My kids looked at the floor, looked the ceiling, looked at their nails, and every single part of their body language said ‘please shut up now, mum.’ It  is not meant to be easy to witness or love or have faith, we are going against the very fibre and fabric of our society when we do it. That’s what makes it powerful. 

In order to demonstrate God’s love to other people, as well as strangers, we have to risk disinterest, rejection, anger and being told to mind our own business. Just because it’s not popular, that does not invalidate it. There are so many times in Christian history where Jesus’ love was demonstrated, His kingdom life was given away freely, and it blew people’s socks off. Not to mention it brought new life into abject darkness! We can operate in stealth mode as the Lord leads us, but we can’t ever be a light and not expose things that are hiding in the darkness. 

Plus we cannot say we love if there is no demonstration, otherwise we are presenting a theory and not a fact. Love looks like something – to the hungry it’s food, to the thirsty it’s water, to the rejected, it’s acceptance, to the outcast, it means finally finding a home. When we give away, and demonstrate God’s love we enter the Spirit’s River of Life. I urge us all, ‘don’t paddle around on the edge … JUMP IN.’ Jumping in shows commitment. 👋🏻 

P 2254 Advice about ‘open’ doors.

/ DVH

Doors are for going through, from one place to somewhere else. 😊 You don’t need a degree to go through a door or love people! As Christians we can spend a lot of our time waiting for God to sovereignly intervene in our lives… waiting for a door to open. Today I want to say this – don’t just stand there… hoping to be noticed …DO something! Show the Lord that you want to be transformed by His love, and start living this life, the one you already have – by giving that love away to others. Don’t wait to be empowered – OBEY instead!  Show God your willingness to be His vessel. 

Pick one or two difficult people in your vicinity and love on them and plan on not giving up on them – no matter what! Anyone can find something loving to do for strangers and do it … if you can do it in secret, even better! Visit the sick, talk to people in the supermarket. Help the poor, teach little kids, lead a bible study group … do something. It is easier to steer a moving object than a stationary one. It’s when we sit down, arms folded, almost daring Him to interrupt our well-made life-plans, that our lives become static and lifeless.  

The kind of life this world presents consists mainly of plodding along, day after day, doing pretty much the same stuff over and over again. If you want things to change, then see a need and do something about it. Open doors don’t just suddenly appear. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you find your purpose, while you are doing your bible study and praying. Nag Him about it. Show the Lord you mean business. There are unmotivated people everywhere. Instead, make a quality decision to learn His Ways – and start practising them. Start living like everything in the bible is true… because it is.  

Scare your pastor – volunteer to help out at church! Movement is a sign of life… um …that’s why they shake people who appear lifeless! You and I can debate spiritual theories about anything, up one hill and down the other. The truth is that His truth will always win…not my opinion, not your opinion, not your fav preacher’s opinion – His truth. One day all our theological errors will be revealed – because Christ will appear. And He will simply blow our theories away.  

At the same time, study the bible, but don’t study it so hard that your brain takes over from using your faith. Faith is an action word, and we need to show our faith a whole lot more than we tell it. “For the one who has will be given more, until he overflows with abundance. And the one with hardly anything, even what little he has will be taken from him.’” Matthew 25:29. Learn to overflow with love toward other people. Get rid of NICE, and go for real love. And if you get it wrong. Repent. Start again. Remember, love always looks like something.

Quit staring at, or ‘following,’ all those bright, shiny people in Christian circles, as if they have something you don’t! Phooey. They have the same Holy Spirit-Helper you do. If God withdraws His hand from their lives they will look just like everyone else. What you can see is the fire of God within!  Isn’t He so beautiful? So go after Him for yourself. Thinking about Jesus and what He likes, needs to be encouraged. Also remember to be grateful, even for little things.

There are great exploits awaiting any of His kids that dare to stand up and say: “Here I am Lord, send me!” Even if it is just two doors down the road, to the depressed guy whose yard looks like a tip! You don’t have to be anyone to love people – just HIS! Sometimes we sit around, mouths open like baby birds waiting to be fed. Read the book, Paul says, ‘come off milk, and get into meat!’ 

Meanwhile, don’t just sit about and hope and wait for someone else to tell you what your spiritual gift is. Instead, work on loving people, forgiving them, helping them. Gifts turn up when you do what He said – on purpose. Nobody told me what my gifts were for over 30 years. Nobody cared – they were too busy looking for their own. 😂 The church at large is often so busy that they need people to do practical jobs. Sadly they aren’t always looking for blossoming gifts .. Here’s a thought …stop using the pastor and love on him instead.

We need to stop making the wheels of routine relentlessly turn, and pick up His yoke. Whatever your gift from God is, it is not about you – your spiritual prowess, your calling. God doesn’t need our help – He needs our obedience! Everything, everything, EVERYTHING is about Him. “What do we have that was not given to us?”Last of all, please don’t settle for less. Open doors appear as we go along, doing good wherever we can. Real faith involves taking risks. 👋🏻

P 2249 A gift must be received.

/ DVH

“Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].” James 1:17. Sadly, Love is often simply a word to us, or a feeling, that can sometimes lead to actions. God’s love is ACTION – first. He came toward us before we knew He existed. In order to receive His love we must understand the gift. His love has been personified, and given to us in a form we can understand. Jesus Christ. A gift must be received.

God’s love is not just received through our senses, and our minds, because they are limited. When we receive His love that way – our senses or minds will begin to automatically define love for us. Our reception of His Love pivots on us understanding His love is an undeserved gift. Sadly, to some people any kind of love means you cannot say NO to them, and still tell them you love them. To others, love means strict rules to follow, and they cannot comprehend a love that needs no works. To others it means you live in some sort of euphoric state which can eventually fade. God’s love is not anything like that.

It is important to me today, that you understand my little scribblings here are totally inadequate for the subject I am tackling. I have never, and probably never will comprehend how incredible His love is. I am limited by my personal experiences and how much I can actually take in about this subject. However, I am doing my best here, to describe what I’ve seen through His book. 

So what is His love like and how do we receive it? I want to answer the second part of that question first, I believe when our heart says yes to Jesus: through prayer, through reading His book, or through something someone else says to us – we begin a process that never ever ends. It is similar to the conception of a child – there is a moment of conception. At that moment we say yes to the One Who chases each one of us through time … playfully, relentlessly, and with great passion and loving purpose.

Father God’s love is sacrificial as well as unmerited. It doesn’t wait for the ‘other person’ to love first. His love doesn’t depend on us or our behaviour. It is altruistic. God loves mankind both corporately and individually – the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is because His love depends on Himself, not who we are. He does not simply love responsively. He initiates love, even into a loveless vacuum. It is His very nature to love, so He doesn’t fall in love with people – because falling in love implies you can fall out! He is not irrational or whimsical about love. Our universe keeps expanding because His love keeps expanding!

Our God is where love comes from. He is the source of all that is loving, pure and holy. And so He defines love in ways we barely comprehend. To Him patience is not what we think it is  – it is an aspect of love. Whereas we think patience means sometimes we barely put up with one another – or we are stretched unfairly. But His kind of patience does not depend on the other’s actions, it does not fluctuate according to the other person’s attitude. His love is more like the sun, than the moon. Always there.

His love is expressed through kindness, it thinks the best, sees the best, and speaks the best to the other person and none of that is for personal gain. Nor is it deceitful. It is filled with hope instead. Yet our God is the ultimate realist – He sees us as we are and yet He still loves us. He came after us. And His love lacks any kind of jealousy which is possessive and controlling. Instead it throbs with a kind of jealousy that is beyond our tiny minds. Our God is so passionate about us – that even the idea that we would spend our life and energy on anything that cannot help us, and will not bring us closer to Him – those things stir Him with a passion to fight for us and win us back. He wants His beloved safe, with Him.

Think about the Eternal God in the garden – when He banned Adam and Eve, after they had sinned, and drove them away, He did so because they could easily have eaten from that second tree. That would have separated mankind from Him forever, because the fruit of eternal life was on that second tree. Eternal life filled with death was on that second tree because they had disobeyed.

But because His love is so patient, we have had thousands of years of history to see, over and over again, what WE are really like without Him. Any virtues we manage to produce are finite. His are totally endless. When a gift is given, a gift must be received. The key to understanding His love is to receive Christ into every single part of our lives, our thoughts and actions. This is why Jesus cannot be an add-on to whatever we want. When we do that we are treating the love the Father shows us with disrespect and contempt. That is the ultimate failure to appreciate and receive what we have been given. Bye 👋🏻

“But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name. …”

P 2243 On your mark…

/ DVH

Start TAKING FAITH STEPS. Seriously, if we keep sitting around in our ordinary little lives, no wonder we are disappointed. Perhaps we once went to a meeting and someone told us we could aim for the moon!  And then, in the everydayness of this life, the enemy took us out with discouragement, disappointment and despair – I call those things the three D’s. They will grab you around the throat and throw you on the floor, weeping because you think you’ve failed. We only fail, when we fail to try! Every single thing we do in faith, no matter how big or small, or hard it is, brings Glory to God! That’s what we are here for, to glorify Him in the face of opposition.

Faith is always needed. We exercise faith when we cross a road! The God kind of faith is about stepping out and doing that thing the Holy Spirit is quietly prompting us to do. Maybe we have bills to the sky and we are tempted to stop tithing or giving, “just until we get past this hard bit.”  Or… when we ask our neighbour if we can pray for them. That’s really using our faith. Faith is not a theory, it’s an action. All of the fruits of the Spirit are verbs, action words. If you can’t find His fruit in your life then you are probably not meeting opposition – with faith. It is good to remember, that when His fruit is eaten by someone else, it nourishes their spirit. 

I want you to think about NOT living by faith, for a moment. Do we really think satan is going to leave us alone if we do nothing? What would you do if you were the bad guy? Would you soothe the people with the power to change the world off to sleep and distract them until they run out of time? The bible is clear, our side wins in the end. It’s not the end yet guys. Don’t fall asleep bored, or join the rat race striving to get bigger better brighter things!  Get up and fight for the people God has all around you.   If we are always preparing, or recovering from our past, we will never get to GO! Go anyway!! Limping if you have to.

We’ve been brainwashed to think that winning means we come out on top all the time! That’s a fairy tale. When we decided to follow Christ we chose to follow SomeOne Who knows all about a higher purpose. Christ served God’s higher purpose, and when we live by faith we actually can’t lose. Our God always has a bigger plan! Read Hebrews 11 – many people actually died knowing they couldn’t lose. Initially it even looked like Jesus lost – however His death opened a door for us that cannot be shut ever again. We are not living this life we live for visible success.  We have eternal eyes.

We are no longer our own, we’ve been bought with a price … I l💖ve this scripture!! …”You were bought with a price [you were actually purchased with the precious blood of Jesus and made His own]. So then, honour and glorify God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:20. How do we glorify God with our BODIES? That doesn’t just mean we toddle off to church or bible study or sing loudly. We glorify Him by living this new life we have been given for His purposes, not our own. Jesus is our example of how our new life works. 

Father God planted His Holy seed, Jesus Christ the Righteous One, into this earth – and you and I, we are part of Christ’s harvest. But His harvest isn’t meant to stop with us … look outside your door … there are people everywhere with no hope. Today, right here, right now, we have the hope of the world living inside us! So what are we going to do about it? Faith is not pie in the sky when we die. Faith is our new way to live. Galatians 2:19-21 “For through the law I died to the law SO THAT I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

God asked us to live this life here in such a way that we bring a taste of His heaven to the people around us. We give them beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy for mourning – love for hate.That’s what the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control does. It brings a taste of heaven here. Our primary mistake is that we think it is meant to be easy. Dying to yourself while you are still alive isn’t easy. However, we are not alone as we step into this new faith dimension. The Holy Spirit will help us.

You know if you have ever joined a gym, or started an exercise routine, your muscles screech at you when you first start. When we start using our faith muscle it will be hard, because our faith has been frozen over by a lack of movement. But the more we use it … the more supple and stretchable it becomes. Faith is made to grow – and that kind of growth will demand our growth too. Ready? Set? Go!! 👋🏻

P 2149 We just gotta learn how to love like this….

/ DVH

… SO … I suggest we make love our aim, and daily pray for the Lord to give us His strength to live that way, because His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses. Plus we can use all the help we can get! The other day I was watching a non-Christian fictional story about a surfing manufacturer’s beginnings. I shan’t bother you with the plot, except it was set somewhere that hubby and I have been to, and we’ve seen those particular waves. Sooo cool and incredibly beautiful – just like jade jelly. 😊 

Anyhoo, back to the film. There were these two brothers who loved each other deeply … it took half the film to establish that fact. And one of them is out surfing in a surfing competition and the other is watching in the crowd on the beach. Man that surf is so-oo bad … it is like … out there!!  And the surfing brother gets dumped by this massive wave, and he does not come up. He is drowning. 

Instantly his older brother starts running. He strips off his outer clothes and he leaps into the incredibly dangerous surf to go and rescue his brother. A crowd of people are watching the surfers and someone yells at him -“What do you think you are doing man? You’ll die too. That’s nuts!” The older brother hits the water and yells back: “THAT’S MY BROTHER OUT THERE!”  …  … I cried! That whole scene hit me right in the spirit;  because that’s what God Himself did for all of us. Ya might want to stop and thank Him for it.

Meanwhile, back to the surfing saga, the older brother saved his sibling, of course … because it was fictional! And I started to think that it was a shame that lately, the only illustration of the power, strength and steadfastness of Love, the way God sees it, had to be fictional. Why are Christians settling for jovial, pleasant and nice, when there is more? One of the most deadly things we can do to our faith is to be comfortable and safe, and yet we all strive for that end. 🤔  

Lately I’ve been watching the rocks cry out in some of the story lines that have come up in whatever I’m reading or watching. I’ve come to the conclusion that this world’s rocks are now shouting at the top of their lungs, because we are very bad at communicating what love and faith look like to the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet! We are often all talk and no action. And so the Lord has to use the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet to teach and inspire US. Have we forgotten the story of the Good Samaritan already?? You know, Jews looked down on Samaritans, I think that’s why the Lord Jesus picked them for an illustration! Sadly, when we make Christian movies, we don’t seem to be able to produce stuff with strong, pithy story lines, so we end up looking weak, soft, soppy and wobbly. 

More’s the pity. We have the greatest story of all, and it’s true. As we both know, Calvary’s story is not about Jesus looking like some kind of a softie! Christ was a strong powerful man that strode into that temple with only a whip in His hands and scared the greed and avarice right out of those money lenders and closed down their miserable businesses. It was a real man who faced that cross, and bore all that pain, and still loved the people who did it to Him! We simply must stop thinking of the Lord Jesus as a nice man with blonde hair and blue eyes in an oversized nightie. He held His own with fishermen. Meanwhile I don’t know too many people who could have kept up with His schedule for three and a half years!

Back to my point! That surfing movie I watched illustrates the kind of love the Lord Jesus is looking for from us. The kind of love that would run unreservedly into danger, without thought, because our brother or sister in Christ is in danger. We just gotta learn to love each other like that. That’s the place where your problem becomes my problem – where I care about your soul, and your life, more than my own safety and reputation. We won’t be able to keep people out of our churches when we love like that. 

John 15:12-13. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 13:34&35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

Can you see that the way we love each another is the very best kind of advertising – ever! We cannot pretend this kind of love because it is HIS KIND OF LOVE. And we can’t skip over the process, either. Father God has been so generous to His family. Most of us have interesting  (??) immediate earthly family members we can practice on. Because if we can’t love our families of origin then the church family is in big trouble.

And yes, I know personally from my own experience, that most of us have origin family stories that would blow anyone’s mind. Moving on… we must always remember that He’s the God of the impossible. He simply loo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ves 💕 doing stuff we think He can’t do. 💕 Just to prove us wrong … teehee. 🤣 Let’s start each new day asking Him to be strong in us in the area of loving, because we are all weak there. 👋🏻

‘Lord, please give us all Your kind of love. A love that is willing to die for our brothers and sisters. We are not good at Your kind of love Lord and we need Your help, thank you. Amen.