Acts 17:28

P3460 Trying is out, doing is in.

/ DVH

Following Christ is not about trying hard to find the will to do what He said … it is about doing it. I hear so many sincere people telling me that they are trying to please the Lord but it’s too hard. Trying means you are simply attempting to do something — in other words — trying includes the possibility of failure. To DO something means you launch yourself out into the action hoping God Himself will catch you. Don’t try — DO.  Don’t try for instance, not to gossip, or criticise others, close your mouth! Let’s not let any immediate feelings of impossibility or failure discount your ability to do what He said.

So we don’t try not to watch movies that create anger, or access sensuality in us – turn them off.  It’s dumb to allow the wrong kind of thoughts to sit in your head. Those things are leading you down an inevitable pathway, to all kinds of stuff that will steal your peace and make you hate yourself for failing. We can’t fail – Jesus did all the work for us! He conquered sin and death. That’s love. Let’s remind ourselves daily, how much the Lord loves us. Did you wake up today? 🤪 That means God believes in you. You have another opportunity to choose to change – some people didn’t wake up. Make the time to sit with Him and let His endless unconditional love minister to you, then go out and do what He tells you to do.

Let’s look at Matthew 14, and what happened to Peter, as he learnt that God can and will make a way! Verses 18-30:  “As soon as the meal was finished, He insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while He dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, He climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night. Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up against them and they were battered by the waves. At about four o’clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared to death. “A ghost!” they said, crying out in terror. But Jesus was quick to comfort them. “Courage, it’s Me. Don’t be afraid.” Peter, suddenly bold, said, “Master, if it’s really You, call me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come ahead.” 

Peter didn’t just ASK for help … you and I can’t just stand there waiting for Jesus to come and fix things – there’s no active faith in that! Faith has substance, in other words you can see it. Instead, Peter acted on what the Lord said! Jesus said, “Come,” and Peter actually had to climb over the edge of a perfectly good boat, and start walking on the water. That’s faith! That’s what it looks like. Faith is obedience in action. Peter kept his eyes on Jesus and kept right on walking. He only failed when he took his eyes off the Lord. Keep your eyes on Jesus! … BTW, failure is not the end of the world because Jesus took that to Calvary too.

Here’s my advice: find out what the Lord says about that thing that you are struggling with, and act on it! Do something. We are only failing in some areas because we are leaving the things we need to do ourselves, to Him. We are not puppets, He will not make us. He will show us the way and help us, but we will have to decide to act differently, and then do something about it, using our faith. If you have trouble with swearing, stop. Seriously. Don’t believe that voice in your head that tells you, you can’t. YOU … “can do all things through Christ Who strengthens YOU.” So when you feel weak, ask Him for strength, and … whack your hand over your mouth!

I’ve learnt to do stuff like that all the time. If the Holy Spirit tells me to do something, then I start moving – despite the fact that I know I can’t do most things easily – it has now become an automatic response. Especially when I get grumpy. We all get angry sometimes, but the thing is … don’t stay there, ask the Lord to help you. Our faith is meant to be operating all the time. It is not just an emergency stop button on a runaway train. It’s the way we live now. ”For in Him we live and move and have our being.’  As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’” Acts 17:28. 

We are wrestling with our own will when we feel like we can’t do this or that. Jesus died so we don’t have to do anything anymore. Now we have the freedom to choose. Just because we don’t like some choice or other, that does not invalidate the fact that we actually have one! Let’s turn that around, when we want to do something we know is bad for us, other people can’t stop us. That’s what our will looks like in operation. We simply can’t live a life of faith, and indulge ourselves at the same time. Nor can we say to the Lord: “Thy will be done …” in our prayers, when we know full well that we only do what He wants, when and if, we feel like it! … Did you notice that word ‘feel?’ 

The real struggle is against our own flesh. Our will has survived thus far because we gratify it through the stuff we’ve done that we ought not to have done – so stopping it is bound to be a wrestling match. Let me put that another way — neither of us will probably want to participate in this wrestling match. It is so-oo much easier to just give in to our feelings. Plus this sort of scenario is usually accompanied by loads of angst and temptation. After all, we don’t live in a blameless holy society! Someone else will have done something to set us off. The point is … Jesus is bigger than anything we face, so we put Him in charge, and step out onto the water of change even though it seems like it will not be pleasant and we don’t feel like it.

BTW, this does not mean we are not supposed to have any feelings, it just means our feelings are not supposed to be in charge of us anymore — Jesus is now. How do you think the Lord endured the cross? “Saying, Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but [always] Yours be done.” Luke 22:42. Faith is not faith if we only believe things in our heads. Faith is faith when we let it change our behaviour. That will mean some wrestling matches. The upside is we will stop blaming other people for what we do, and start to take responsibility for our own choices. We don’t want to be the bad people, we want other people to be in that role. The truth is we are ALL bad, and … “It’s by Grace we have been saved, not because of works lest any man should boast.” 

The glory of Jesus and what He did for us, is that He gave us the Holy Spirit Who wants to help us to obey. Obedience is a wonderful smell to God, it is better than a sacrifice. Along with the Holy Spirit – Who gave us the power to obey our Father – we also have in writing, what the Lord likes and what He doesn’t. Feelings don’t come into it. I never feel like saying sorry when I am angry and I know I am wrong – how about you? Let’s ignore how we feel, and obey what He said. Nobody is making you or I choose to indulge ourselves — those feelings of helplessness and powerlessness are simply not true. The bars on the jail you have painted yourself into are not there anymore. Take a step of faith – you will walk right through them.

What I think I know about myself is not all there is to know, there’s more. Father God made me, and He knows me, and what I can do, I can choose to trust Him over my feelings. We will fail to use our faith when we don’t believe what He said, instead of what we think about ourselves. Trying is out, doing is in. Bye. 👋.

P3457 Peace is our guide.

/ DVH

“Let your heart be always guided by the peace of the Anointed One, Who called you to peace as part of His one body. And always be thankful.” Colossians 3:15 TPT. Peace is not a feeling, or even an absence of conflict – peace is a Person. Jesus. He wants to help, comfort, guide us and lead us on. The Lord Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit for that specific purpose. We can have peace with God forever, because of what Jesus Christ did for us. He resolved the conflict between mankind and our Heavenly Father. He will help us with the one we daily confront – those difficulties we have with each other! Peace lights the way ahead.

Because we are His children, God Himself always has a Way that we should go so we can live with His peace on the inside of us at all times, even when the world around us is in rising panic. Peace is our portion, if we don’t have it, then we are told to seek it out – go after it. Peace helps us decide between what is Godly and right, and what is not. We need an umpire when life gets messy, and only the Lord knows our hearts – we don’t.

The Holy Spirit lovingly guides us into a new relationship with God Himself, one of trust. We can’t afford to simply know about Him — we need to know Him, His ways. The Holy Spirit manifests Himself in different ways, so we need to stay alert in our spirits, so we can recognise Him. The bible shows us what the things of God look like. Some things are a warning, others are there to show us how God Himself deals with individuals, as well as nations. Plus we learn Who He is, from this book – when we look a little deeper. Otherwise human beings can get easily tangled up in the things that don’t matter.

This world is filled up with lots of opportunities to be distracted. Noise, trouble, and hardship, even entertainment. If we focus on what is going on around us – we will lose our peace, little by little. Our finite minds try to resolve the conflicts that exist today by leaving Him out. Let’s remember that we don’t know what that other person is thinking. They don’t approach this life like we do. At times stuff just happens to us, and we are drawn into a whirlwind. That’s when we need to grab our anchor – Jesus – and throw what He did for us, down into the depths of our troubles and hold fast to it.

We can pray for peace, or we can simply embrace and surrender to Jesus – because He is the Prince of Peace. Jesus Christ bought us peace with God, because of what He did for us, now peace is our home country. WE ARE CITIZENS OF HEAVEN – no longer of this world. Peace won’t just ‘happen,’ we must value it enough to prioritise it, and repair the things that are broken. Then repent if you have tried to be the whole ballgame by yourself. His Peace is His gift to us. We deliberately choose to walk in harmony with Him and others because we want to understand the WAY He thinks and acts, because we want to know Him even more than we want to be understood. Jesus is not like us. Read the Gospels — He does not think the way we do. To start with, we often reject the people He reached out to!

This is what Paul meant when he said we need to be “in Christ.” When we choose to live ‘in Christ’ that means we do the things He would do, and His opinions become more important than our own. Then we stay hidden in what the Lord would do, that means we can’t afford to rush about excusing ourselves when we’ve done something He wouldn’t! Things like gathering people around us to feel sorry for us when things get hard. The plain fact is we can’t be seen by others, and hidden in Christ, all at the same time. Instead HE is seen and WE are hidden inside His Grace. We can ask people to pray for us, but then we will have to let go of self-pity and our need for sympathy, and hold on tightly to His Grace and faithfulness.

“For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3. This is how we become one of those ‘spectators – ourselves hidden in the secret place of Almighty God.’ (Psalm 91) A spectator is an observer. They simply watch what is going on around them and pray for the other people who are stuck in conflict. Jesus is our own personal hiding place – not our own resources, which may be many … or even our head knowledge of the bible. Head knowledge has to become heart knowledge if we are to be hidden in Christ. 

Paul also said “In Christ I live and move and have my being.” Acts17: 28. Paul let his own reputation crumble in favour of living for Jesus and what the Lord told him to do. Who or what motivates you? The Lord, other people, or circumstances? There are times when fear, or our feelings can get in our way and we end up trying to BE what we already are! Instead, let’s use our faith, stand still and watch Him at work, then do whatever He asks us to do, and then we will slowly start to see the way Jesus does things. That’s how we get to know Him better.

We have peace because we are His – not because we deserve it. His peace is the inner assurance that God is all over whatever is going on, and He will see us through it. That does not mean we will get our own way, instead peace will lead us into participating in HIS WAYS. His peace will guide us through to the place where we are resting in what Jesus already did. This peace is not just a feeling, it is an inner assurance that God is in charge and He is always present with us. Bye. 👋

P 3299 fall in love with God’s word.

/ DVH

“When You speak to me, I devour every word. Your word brings me such boundless joy. The endless delight of my heart is in knowing that Your beautiful name is attached to me, O  Yahweh, Commander of Angel Armies.” Jeremiah 15:16 TPT.                   “But those who embraced Him and took hold of His Name He gave authority to become the children of God!” John 1:12.

I treasure the people God put into my life who have taught me to love His Word. Their passion for the bible ignited a fire in my own heart that still burns to this day. The thing I have observed over the years is that if I get lax and do not treasure His Word regularly, even the bits I have kept close to my heart seem to melt away, quietly, unseen. Suddenly it seems I can’t remember even the things I knew by heart. 

The bible says: “I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:11. God’s word treasured, will keep us from sin … the kind that is accidental, or done on purpose. His Word is our yardstick. Taking any verse out of context, is dangerous. Do I get it right all the time? … Nope! The only thing I can say for sure, is that I know the Holy Spirit is right every single time. Human beings, not-so-much. The bible itself says: the Word of God is like … “an apple of gold in a setting of silver.” 

Father God loves to speaks things into being. In other words, whatever He says to us is not only possible, it’s a true word for us. However, these words are a teeny glimpse into our future, not a signed certain certification. We are still responsible to prayerfully steward and centre that word we were given upon His written word and maintain our obedience. I often urge people to hide His Word in their heart …but then I say, ‘don’t start selling T-shirts, yet!’ I have sadly seen too many dear people wander off into lah-lah land thinking they had already attained what was said to them. Prophetic words are future-centred. They are something we nurture, not run with. 

However, I confess I dearly love it when people give me scriptures, because then I can put what was said into a context and pour over it with the Holy Spirit helping me. His Word is my joy. These precious words are the  things that are our Heavenly Father, our beautiful Saviour and the Holy Spirit are daily speaking personally to us.  Some days those words are desperately needed, simply because they contain so much comfort. God’s comfort is far bigger and more comprehensive, than the comfort of a friend or a relative. His words have power in them, so we need to receive them and prayerfully act on them. Lastly we are so blessed, we fall over ourselves thanking Him.

One word from God can change the way we view a situation – things can go from hopeless despair, to joy – just because the Lord said something about it. We are told to hide His Words in our heart, in Psalm 119, and hold tight to them. However, it is not our responsibility to help God make them come true. Rather they become our reference point as we move forward prayerfully, carefully. Many times, with other people supporting us. God’s Word is a map, leading us on, letting in little brilliant shards of His light, plus exposing new attitudes, and things to conquer, helping us to find a better version of ourselves. At the same time, there is always more of Him to know, and love.

Loving His word means we are treasuring Him, and because the Holy Spirit wrote it, we have a sure foundation we can stand on. However, it is essential we do more than believe what we are reading. Let’s read it actively looking for something to do, looking for the places where we can pray and ask Him to help us change an inner attitude or action. Please don’t excuse yourself from obedience. That is a fatal error, and we cannot afford to be sidetracked by things like this. We put our feet firmly on the road of obedience, and watch and see what He will do with that singularity of purpose. The power of God’s word to comfort us will wash over us as we simply read, but the power of transformation lies in doing what He says – and not just when it suits us!

We can easily think of giving our whole lives to Him, at an altar, or in a special time of fasting and prayer – but our demonstration of inward yielding needs to be worked out daily in our lives. Father God is looking for fruit, and you can’t get fruit from a picture in a book. We have to grow fruit, day by day – by watering, fertilising, weeding.  Loving His Word, immersing ourselves in it, helps us to see what He wants, and then that Word provides the impetus for us to go ahead and act on it. 

We also have Jesus’ Name and we have been given authority to use it for other people’s good. When we pray in His Name, we are not just using some formula to ensure that God will pay attention to what we are praying —we use His Name because we understand the power of that Name. Heaven and earth bow to His Name!  After we have allowed His power to work IN us, then we will experientially know that it truly sets people free, because it set us free. We use His Name because we know Him, and He knows us. 

Acts 19:15: “And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”   We are on a journey to intimately know the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. When we use the Name of Jesus with the same authority His disciples did, we are expressing deference toward Him.  Lastly, falling in love with God’s Word means we know who we are and Who our God is. Acts:17:28 says:  “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring.” Bye. 👋