Agendas

P 2878 Unconditionally forgive everyone.

/ DVH

““Your ancestors have also been taught ‘Love your neighbours and hate the one who hates you.’ However, I say to you, love your enemy, bless the one who curses you, do something wonderful for the one who hates you, and respond to the very ones who persecute you by praying for them.”Matthew 5:43-44 TPT. Many people don’t like this scripture because it hits something inside them that they don’t care to acknowledge. Personally, I think things like gossip have their roots in these attitudes. We try to bring people down by badmouthing them to others, especially if they threaten us or we can’t forget what they did! 

Hatred can be generational. It can be taught to us by the people we dearly love, who raised us. After that sort of family indoctrination, it can become quite easy for gossip, slander, lies, and hatred to be passed down from one generation to another. When generational things are cherished and repeated endlessly, eventually they break out against other people Jesus died for! Meanwhile, how sensible is it to hate some people ‘cos your folks, or your friends, or people we esteem hate them too? You know that voice that you can hear in your heart that keeps saying: “Wrong way, go back.” Listen to it.  We have the power of God in us — we can usher in generational change by our choices.

Any unloving focus can drag us away from our main objective – loving others. Gossip and judgment build themselves, through repetition about what some perceived enemy did or said.  And when the bad incident that started with anger, or judgment happens to our people, our house, our group of friends – then it becomes personal!  That personal experience adds weight to everything else that has gone before it. It’s a distraction from our main purpose – let’s not allow ourselves to be distracted away from our purpose.. 

Between all the hating, cursing, lies and the repetition of the terrible stories — hatred is now flourishing in this world. Now this ghastly attitude is set firmly inside a demonic stronghold. I think the press/media etc. lies to us regularly in order to provide sensational stories to get our money and attention. Advertisers love that idea! The press blows up information and twists things to make what we read, see, or listen to, sensational. 

Meanwhile, our thirst to be in the know, and our efforts to find out about something that garners a lot of attention, have created a monster. We have made ‘knowing things;’  or ‘having the skinny on this or that,’  into some kind of a competition, and in the process we have devalued the people Jesus died for. Those people who are supposedly informing us – prefer making money, or gaining information — to caring about their fellow man. Real lives are affected and sometimes destroyed, by falsely reported things. 

This happens when the story becomes more important than the participants. Things like that help to create hard, and sometimes deceitful hearts. Meanwhile the media is about money and making some people rich. It seems to me, that the press take their little texta pens, and colour-in what really happened, by bringing up the bad shades and diminishing the good ones, so that we will read/watch/listen to their version of what is actually going on. We can easily get sucked into this filthy whirlpool and end up angry with somebody we’ve never met!

I believe this practice is a device of satan, because he loves to capitalise on greed, plus our own perceived desire to know stuff. Gossip etc. has become a new form of addiction. But the truth is, we don’t actually need to know! We can pray for the people involved in terrible things, but we often can’t do anything about whatever is going on. All we can do is to STOP and deliberately let His light in through prayer. Unfortunately our idea of light, and the Lord’s idea of light can be very different things. How do I know that …? Because our light can often be hidden under a basket – that’s how! Hidden light is not useful. Darkness still remains in the corners. We dare not bring our own agendas into our prayers. 

Even some churches have been deceived, they have become more concerned about being politically correct than loving others. Our priority is always LOVE. There are times that we too borrow the press’s textas and do some colouring-in of our own – villainising people! We are here to shine His light into the dark places – not to spread the darkness around. To me, that means I need to be like Him no matter what is going on around me. A light illuminates, it doesn’t have an opinion, it simply shines by its nature. 

So what can we do about these things? Well, I think investing emotionally in something we have no control over, is the enemy’s way of wasting our time. We may even feel better initially, more in control of things, but unless we pray for both sides of whatever is going on, we are missing the point. We don’t get to judge who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. My advice is – don’t believe everything you hear, and remember to unconditionally forgive everyone. Let’s not get so tied to the things of this earth, that we can’t hear when heaven comes calling. Bye. 👋

P 2864 Don’t go anywhere without HIM!

/ DVH

Luke 5:1-10:“When He (Jesus) had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch. Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But *because YOU say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”  For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him.”

*”Because YOU say so” … let’s just let that thought sit there for a minute or two… and reflect upon the ordinary simple fisherman that Jesus spoke to – Peter. I have it on good authority  … Google! 🤣 Hah! How come I can believe Google but sometimes struggle to believe in what HE says. Well, that thought is for another day. Any-way, apparently fishing by night is far more successful. Even hobby fishermen go out really really early in the morning, or at dusk ’til about 1.00 am. Why? Not a clue – feel free to tell me if you know!! 

Here is what I noticed when I read that scripture today, there was something so powerful and appealing about Jesus … PS actually it was the Presence of SOMEONE… and because we have the book we are witnesses of what happened. The Holy Spirit, He came upon the Lord right after Jesus was baptised. Maybe we’ve all undervalued hosting the Presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives! He has promised to be with us, just like He was with Jesus. John 14:26: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” 

I do know that He helps me type this blog, daily! He reminds me: “There is this verse and that one!” Thoughts like that just pop into my head … like John 14:16-17b:“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth.” Let’s just pause again and think about this for a few moments. Do you think that Father God is going to listen to Jesus’ request when HE asks for us? Yeah, me too! 

So why don’t we feel like we have Him? Here’s my peanut gallery thought — because we can’t just look for the Holy Spirit with our feelings – we access His Presence using our faith and obedience, and by the way we choose to live. Faith values His Presence more than anything else. We understand that you and I can do NOTHING without Him.

And here’s Galatians 3:14:“He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” And there we have it. We receive the Promise God sent us, because the Lord Jesus died to make available to us — as we use our faith. You know, our faith gets severely tested when we’ve done something that we know He doesn’t like. Yet sincere repentance changes that in a heartbeat and we go back to walking with Him. Charge up your faith in His forgiveness and go, go, go again!

Let’s make a New Year’s resolution – no more walking in and out of the Holy Spirit’s Presence – let’s all just stay IN and do whatever we have to do to live that way! We can all live this way, so long as we are prepared to live our lives for His Ways. God does not exclude us, He never will! We exclude ourselves when we decide that we want what we want and we know better than He does. We get out of sync with Him.

Jesus chose to manifest His heart at the beginning of His ministry, to a bunch of fishermen who had worked hard all night for nothing and yet He cared enough to rectify their problem. Does this sound like SomeOne you can trust Who is on your side? Uhuh! The secret to living our lives for the Lord lies in walking around with HIM! Yielding – letting go of our own agendas. We pray, we ask, and we believe that He will not lie, because we have His promises – AND we let the Holy Spirit become our treasure.

My very best advice is don’t go anywhere without Him…  I should listen to my own advice more!! And value Him above all else. Jesus did. Bye! 👋

P 2759 🎼🎶 I’m walking with Jesus …

/ DVH

…walking all the way, walking every day. I’m walking with Jesus, walking with Him alone.🎶”  No! You have not tuned into Children’s Church, kindergarten class – it’s still me, writing today’s blog. Jesus left this earth but He sent back the Person Who helped Him with this life – THE RESIDENT EXPERT. When I walk with the Holy Spirit, it is the same as walking with Jesus, just like the disciples did way back when.

Living this life dead means we will suffer. When we make the choice to follow Him, it will hurt me, because it will uncover my selfishness, my agendas, my unwillingness to live this life not being in charge of the things I do. The Holy Spirit isn’t with us just to help us do what we want to do – He was sent to us to help us do what JESUS wants us to do! He is, without a doubt, the most undervalued, underestimated Person in the whole bible. Learn to value Him! Learn how He speaks to you. I often find that I have to listen very carefully, I have to pay attention to Him.

There are times I get so tied up in my own stuff – the day to day things that cloud my hearing – that I end up centred on what this world is saying. So I repent.  Recently I asked Him about something that is going on in this world today that really scares me – He simply said: “I am not bothered about that.” Now, I have His word on that matter so whenever it comes up, I simply remind myself about what He said. If you want a scripture for that…”In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”John 16:33b. BTW I didn’t choose that verse, even though I remember it, He reminded me of it.

Editing my blog every day can be difficult sometimes, I actually have three editors. My hubby edits it, then I read it and edit it until I’m thoroughly sick of it, and then — the Lord edits it … He is incredibly specific about the way He wants me to write things but that’s not to say I think I always get it right, BTW!  Part of my daily walking with Him includes me talking to you. He wants all of us to understand that this life we are now leading we live by faith in the Son of 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.” Galatians 2:20.

I pray all the time as I walk with Him. I’ve done this since I was born again. I just talk to Him as I go along. I wouldn’t call it “praying without ceasing” because that seems much too grand for the likes of me!  But I consult Him about absolutely everything, as I go about my day. We do stuff TOGETHER. As I live like this, I’ve learnt that He will go anywhere — HE even went to hell for me! And I’m so-oo-oo much better off when I listen to His advice. He has my back and He is brilliant at it. The Holy Spirit is so real to me, simply because I walk with Him. I’ve studied Him, loads of times. When I get out of His way – HE works everything out for everyone’s good. But He defines GOOD – we don’t!

You and I have a Helper, Who lives inside us. He walks with us, He will guide us, teach us, show us the way we should go. This means that every single day I present my body to Him as a living sacrifice. The bible says: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship…” Romans 12:1&2a. 

Did you get that? There’s a way to worship God and not have to sing!! Singing on the train or at work might be kind of misunderstood. But this kind of surrendered worship is called the true way to worship. Do you want to worship God every minute of every day? Yield. Then present your body to Him. When it’s the easy thing to do, and when it’s not. Even when someone is jumping on your last nerve. When you have forgotten Him and then you remember. When you are busy, or not, when you are sleeping… or not. He is always with you. 

The truth of His Presence with us is in Hebrews 13:5:“Let our character or moral disposition be free from love of money [including greed, avarice, lust, and craving for earthly possessions] and be satisfied with our present [circumstances and with what you have]; for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! Assuredly not!]”

This verse contains three times, very clearly, God’s intention toward His kids. It also has a condition – don’t let the love of money rule your life. One of the ways I’ve found that helps me to meet that condition is to continually look at what He has given me, not at what I think I don’t have. If we want to walk with Jesus, every moment of our lives, we must devote ourselves to learning, from our own experience, what that looks like. No-one else can do that for you.

Bye. 👋

P 2749 Don’t settle for less than on fire!

/ DVH

I’ve been listening to a number of different things lately, all made possible by YouTube. I discovered Project of Love this morning. It consists of verses from the bible in spontaneous song. Featuring books like Isaiah, Psalms, Habakkuk, Mark, and many more – about 22 so far, and these Scriptures set to music are accompanied by the really powerful images. It was a breath of fresh air.  Xander, the guitar playing singer, heard the Lord tell Him to pick up his guitar and sing what He was reading from Isaiah.

At that time, Xander did not know God, and he had been deeply depressed, he was on suicide watch. He was saved on the spot! After watching this man’s joy in action it really convicted me that it is easy to get stuck in the ways of the past. In the days to come I think that the Lord will bring out some extraordinary gifts from ordinary people, in whatever He is going to do next. Meanwhile, maybe we’ve made worship or teaching about having musically experienced leaders, and competent musicians. In other words we look for the people with the best voices or those who have been trained. But we sing to help US focus and to bless His heart. Ephesians 5:19 – “Speaking to yourselves, in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” 

This thought meant that I asked myself some questions …  why should worship be about the sound, and not our hearts? The danger for all of us who know exactly what to say and do, is that worship can become a routine, and everything is left to the leader out the front. Yet I think we could see a day when the Lord might take members of society that the church would reject, or maybe pass over, because they don’t meet some sort of ‘ministry’ standard. He wants them contribute.

Personally, I believe God is going to gift some people in extraordinary ways, like our friend Xander! But because the people outside our churches are ‘unchurched’ they will not have the inbuilt agendas most of us cheerfully adhere to. 

Sometimes it seems that the church at large has accepted fear as a subtext, accidentally. It seems that we are afraid of wandering off into error. However, that’s when we can unfortunately trample on the very gifts God wants to raise up! It is much too easy for us to get stuck in the way that things have always worked in the past.

Here’s a thought: … muscles are developed when they are gently but regularly stretched. Maybe the Body of Christ needs to do some heavenly stretching! Is our collective faith big enough for what He wants to do next? Our trust in His ability to care for us in any circumstance, seems to have given way to the fear of making mistakes or being misled by enthusiasm. Are we settling for the known and the comfortable, the routine and predictable, because those things are regarded as being normal and controllable. Our God is bigger than that. When Jesus came into this world, He challenged the norm by His very Presence!

Does our preaching and teaching rely more on expertise and knowledge than passion? I heard someone preach the other day and they were all over the place like jam, and yet they still managed to challenge me! Is strict adherence to conformity the very reason the church has settled into separate denominations? In many churches we go along with the same old same old, because somebody more senior and knowledgeable in God sets the rules and now we just blindly follow them. Maybe this is why some people continually hop about changing churches like the pop-up moles in Whack-a-Mole? Perhaps we are shopping around for churches that make us comfortable? Who are we here for again?? HIM or us?

We all know that I’m not the biggest fan of jumping around between churches –  yet in my denomination that seems to be almost expected, as well as accepted. But it is extremely important to remember that the Lord will choose the setting He wants to place us in. A new church is not like choosing a new shirt – for us to reach our full potential we need to rub up against people who are going to annoy the living daylights out of us! If we choose our comfort over His opportunities for our growth – we will stay babies and toddlers. 

Growth occurs as we discover our own hearts have deceived us and we are convicted by our sinfulness. So, do we  avoid change because it is inconvenient or we don’t like it, or we don’t think it is necessary? Maybe we even know we are stuck but we keep waiting for the Lord to turn up and fix the mess we’ve made?  Our job is to repent, and work with the Holy Spirit — to challenge ourselves and face up to the things we don’t like. Then we need to prayerfully revise our attitudes. Change is not just agreeing with the bible, change is when we look like Jesus and act like He would.

As Christians we cannot afford to settle for anything less than being on fire! Let’s reject the comfortable same-old same-old status quo, and press in to make sure we please His heart as well as continually press in to expand our love for Him. Bye.👋

“Don’t you realize that together you have become God’s inner sanctuary and that the Spirit of God makes His permanent home in you?” 1Corinthians 3:16 TPT

P 2743 HE is our Hope …

/ DVH

… our ever present help in time of need! “Here’s what I’ve learned through it all: Don’t give up; don’t be impatient; be entwined as one with the Lord. Be brave and courageous, and never lose hope. Yes, keep on waiting—for He will never disappoint you!” Psalms 27:14 TPT  Today, I want to exhort everyone to embrace the hope that we have because of what Jesus Christ did for us!  When we dredge up or try to conjure up hope based on our circumstances, we can get disappointed in God, others, or ourselves. The bible makes it clear —if we have become disappointed, then we’ve lost our hope. God’s hope does not disappoint!  And Christ is that HOPE.

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It seems to me that we often want the Lord’s help, but we don’t want to live our lives looking to Him all the time. Maybe we are a bit scared that God’s idea of what is good for us, will not match up with what we think it is! Philippians 2:21 says: “For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.”  We must take the time, even if it is just a few minutes every day, to stop, and specifically remember what Jesus did for us and thank Him. This pushes the refresh button in our hearts spiritually.

If we simply take the cross for granted, seeing it as a past accomplished event, there is a strong chance that eventually we will run out of hope, because the world around us is continually creating false finishing lines. I’m talking about running after those transitory things that really aren’t worth it when you get there! But Christ’s work and intercession on our behalf will create amazing things from our ordinary little lives. What Jesus did perfectly for us, is our best point of reference. His sacrifice is the hope that keeps us going, His POV is the lens we deliberately choose to look through.

Here’s what Paul said. It really sharpened my view of HOPE: Colossians 1:22,23a  “But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.”

We choose to stay with the reality of the Gospel because we can’t afford to move. We can’t wander off into theology land. Our hope cannot come from there, owing to the fact that theology land creates debate and uncertainty. Our hope comes from what Jesus did, and it’s in the book! It is very important that we don’t use up our energies running toward false finishing lines. I’ve found there is a huge blessing after I realised that hope actually comes from somewhere else – actually, it comes from SomeOne Else! I learnt that if I’ve lost hope, then I’ve moved away from my real life in Him.  It means I’ve wandered off and gone over into my own agendas.

Christ is always our only hope – not our circumstances, not the possibilities tomorrow presents, or something material we are striving for. He is our HOPE source, and He will stretch and enlarge us as we choose to walk with Him. Our hope isn’t IN what we think we believe, or what our favourite preacher said – but Jesus Christ Himself! That’s what building your life upon the Rock, looks like. The sand in our lives is the stuff in that shifts and moves, it gets stolen away, fades, or falls away and it can’t last! Hope is now our leader, it takes us, day by day, further into what the cross did for us. We choose to trust in Christ because of that cross.

Paul finishes his thoughts a few verses further on:  “I have become its (the church’s) servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ IN you, the hope of glory.”(V25-27).

Real hope now lives inside of us. We all received that hope when we said yes to Jesus – at the same time we gave away our old life and began to learn how to live the way the bible says.  Our task is to keep feeding and watering our hope with an ever expanding knowledge of what the cross of Christ did, in us and for us. I add to that  whatever the bible has spoken to me today, together with my obedience. We can’t afford to get our hope from our circumstances … practically everything around us can change in a heartbeat. 

The way to get through the times when it seems like our hope is fading, is to look at the cross and revisit what Christ did on it, for us. Because of what He did for us  – we changed kingdoms. Our sins were ever-so-real to us and others, before, but now they are gone! When our Heavenly Father looks at us – He sees Christ. Our bit is to co-operate with the Holy Spirit so that what Father God sees, becomes who we really are!  We need to daily remember Christ is IN us. He is our reference point. He is our hope of glory. 👋

P 2632 Will you yield?

/ DVH

When I hear that sentence I am transported back to the days of knights and quests etc. I can see some big guy in an overgrown sardine tin suit pointing a lance at some poor peasant’s chest, and the victor is giving the man a chance to continue living.  As I went looking for a picture to use in today’s blog, I discovered that there seems to be an exciting video game – ‘Aerial Knight.’ And the theme of the game is – WE WILL NEVER YIELD. 

Yeah, well that explains a lot! No wonder there is so much suspicion, rebellion and anger floating about in this world. Many people are stuck in an angry stage – they’ve never made it into reconciliation. The whole point of Christianity is yielding! The thing is, now all that ugly internal stuff is outside where we can see it. It seems we took off all the pretty bows, plus the sparkly paper we’ve used to hide a whole lot of garbage, and there is no hiding now from how truly selfish and wilful we really are. 

Jesus Christ has set us an incredible example. He voluntarily gave up His life on mankind’s behalf! Nobody pointed a sword or even an uzi at Him to get Him to do it either. That’s been a huge problem in the church, over the years – in the past, and it still happens today … The church at large has used blackmail, guilt, oppression and misrepresentation to push and manoeuvre people into compliance. Meanwhile, if you don’t happen to like what your group says, then it’s OK to vote with your feet and …go over there. Those people think like I do, so I will be much happier with people like you. 😳 

Christians move churches like other people change their undies, because they can’t agree with what the previous church’s pastor said!  Lunacy!! Where’s that in the bible? Where does it tell us to shop around until we find somewhere we will want to go to church, because it will make US comfortable? Jesus isn’t remotely concerned about our comfort! He will always comfort us, and He helps us to comfort others – but making us happy by saying things we will like and approve of is not on. 

Read the book! The Lord Jesus made everyone around Him uncomfortable by what He said and what He did. It was almost His life-theme – right after redemption that is. He loved upending wrong concepts. I think He is saying:  WILL YOU YIELD? Today. Will you and I voluntarily lay down our lives, the only ones we have? I mean that life that we’ve so  carefully and neatly planned, and put aside our agendas and plans, to live this life HIS way? 

“Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods. Many, Lord my God, are the wonders You have done, the things You planned for us. None can compare with You;  were I to speak and tell of Your deeds, they would be too many to declare.” Psalm 40:4&5&V8:“I desire to do Your will, my God; Your law is within my heart.”

You know, if we think this life is all about our comfort then we definitely aren’t spending enough time with Him! God doesn’t want us to be happy MORE than HE WANTS US TO BE… HIS! The God Who made you and I, is looking for volunteers, but He’s not above giving us a bit of a shove to get us there. He will even push us from behind if necessary! Think about Jonah, or Moses, or Jeremiah.  Pick someone in this book that doesn’t get their life turned on its head by following and listening to Almighty God. You can’t can you?? However, we can limit an omnipresent, omnipotent, almighty God simply by thinking about Him, and His Word, from our human POV. 

Jesus came here to show us what God is like. He chose to become one of us to reveal the Father’s heart to us and then He chose to die to make it possible for us to belong.. He followed His Father’s plan! If He can do it then so can we. In that time He exhibited love like we could not imagine. The Lord talked to and healed people that nobody else would touch. He dealt with demons like they were dandelions. And at the same time, He was totally devoted and dedicated to His Father’s will. Jesus did everything He did, His Father’s way to show us we can too.

When I look at churches today, we are falling short of our glorious ideal … CHRIST.  We’ve underestimated everything about Him and His purposes. The Person Who made eyeballs, whales and platypuses isn’t limited like we are! So when we are interacting with the LIMITLESS ONE — WE, that is YOU AND I — may need to adjust our ideas and attitudes. Jesus did not die to give us everything we will ever want or need in this life. It’s time to think again … 

“These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful.”(Revelation 17:14) Jesus is the Almighty Everliving One, the First and the Last, The Beginning and the End. Learn to YIELD. Bye 👋

P 2631 Beware of roadblocks.

/ DVH

There is a possibility in our lives that we can have hidden, (even from ourselves), agendas – things that will inadvertently get in the way of true growth. Sometimes we can get caught up in our minds or emotions with ideas, people or things that we fiercely defend, but we are totally unaware that is what we are doing. Over a longer period of time, we can also learn to carefully avoid some situations because we are subconsciously aware that we don’t cope with them. Likewise, we can steer away from, or even get angry about, some things, purely because there is concealed pain behind them.

Ask yourself this question – apart from Jesus Himself – Who is THE most important person in your life – is there anyone or anything that you strongly feel that you cannot live without? Maybe a person who you value so much, that even the smallest thought of loss can send you into fear or anxiety? If you are a parent, maybe it’s a child …whether it is an adult child or not …  or perhaps a spouse;  or a close friend. Even the thought of any loss connected with these things can send you into an overwhelming downward spiral. If even the very thought of letting go of something or someone sends us into a panic – that is a clear indication something has grabbed hold of us!

You know, the thing we are most afraid of, can sometimes be the greatest spiritual strength in our lives, when we overcome that fear with His help. Always remembering that His help leads us TO DO SOMETHING. Perhaps there is a job we don’t want to lose, or we’ve fixated on finding somewhere safe to live – but this thing, whatever it is, influences every other decision we make. And it may not even consciously register in our minds. In this scenario that person or thing, no matter how normal or insignificant they seem to be, can become a roadblock to spiritual growth. 

When things get tough, and hardship strikes — this predisposition to protect ourselves and hide from suffering, will get in the way of any of the Holy Spirit’s solutions. Simply put, we won’t ask Him to help us with someone or something we don’t want to lose … just in case He takes that thing or person away! Plus we can easily go on from there to make decisions based on fear and pain instead of what the Lord wants. 

It is incredibly easy to think we know what is best for us – but that decision can be formed within the framework of hidden fear NOT FAITH. The assumption that our feelings, or even familiar thought patterns are a good guide, is a lie! The Word of God is our primary, solitary guide. I have seen godly parents put up with abuse, because they feel they cannot live without their fully grown child and the sneaky wrong spirit in that adult child ends up ruling the roost.

Or maybe the parent is afraid of what will become of their progeny and sadly, co-dependency has taken hold. We can sometimes desperately pray and hope: “that Jesus won’t mind, because He understands I can’t help it, I need it to be like this.” Read the gospels … the Lord told one man to leave his recently deceased father behind!

I have also seen sweet Godly Christians hurt others because they refuse to let go of something that should have been left behind them years ago. That has been caused by fear which has been carried forward from childhood pain. It can colour our adult thinking. The thing to do in such situations is to get to the root of the tree by asking WHY?

Why do I feel so strongly that I cannot let go of my child, or spouse etc. and give them to Jesus unreservedly, without any agenda in my heart? What pattern of ungodly thinking is preventing my growth? What fear is ruling my life? How did it start, and what am I still doing now, today, to keep that fear alive? We need to prayerfully identify and deal with these issues under the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and guidance.

Our God is not mean. He is a loving caring Father, who is deeply involved, and intimately engaged in our everyday lives. BTW, this issue is not about disobedience, it is a deep lack of trust. We are not trusting the Lord to take care of those things that are extremely important to us. Sadly we could even be letting fear rule. But our precious loving Father knows us, and He knows the way we need to go to get through things like this. We must follow Him, step by step into relinquishment. It is not good to hold on to other people so tightly that you lose your own God-given freedom!

Matthew 16:19:“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” The Lord Jesus Christ gave His power to the disciples when they were too dumb to know what they were given. That’s how generous to mankind He has been! We can personally prevent any change in difficult situations or even dangerous ones by misusing the power we already have — instead of yielding people or material things to Him and progressively learning to live a life of faith. We need to let go of those things that weigh us down. At the same time by holding on too tightly to someone/something else we have the power to prevent growth and change in that other person or situation.

It is part of our job description to voluntarily choose to live this new life Jesus died to give us, embracing the power to overcome, instead of hiding away from it because it might pinch something from us! Plus always watching and aware of any roadblocks or ‘keep-out signs’ we have inadvertently put up or embraced… because we know those things will steal His new life away from us. Bye. 👋

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. 👋

P 2574 That time factor, again.

/ DVH

I have been reading in 2 Samuel, and while I was reading it, I was reminded again that there was a time factor involved in establishing David as a King over Israel. There were many battles, many hardships and great losses between God’s choice and David being crowned king. That victory didn’t happen overnight. My point today is this: before David actually became king, in God’s eyes He was already His appointed man for the job! Samuel anointed David to be king as a YOUTH … even before he fought Goliath.

BUT, there was a very long period of time between those two events —- between the anointing and the actual appointing. 14 years, some people say. Yet this man was always God’s chosen man for the job. In this illustration we can see that time is not always the biggest factor in God’s Ways! The time between what God says and does, and it happening, can be longer than men are happy to talk about. We must not take things into our own hands, even when we know we heard what He was telling us.

My next question was why? Why was that time factor allowed? A whole lot of good men died during that time. I came to the conclusion that time can often clarify our motives – good or bad. Yet in that large passage of time, David grew more and more loyal to the king, despite Saul’s persecution of him. This illustrates that David’s best qualities were enhanced through that longer amount of time. If we think this life is about enforcing the kingdom, we are in error. David was tested about his beliefs and true motivation, and he had an incredibly honourable attitude – even to his own hurt. As the king in a powerful role, David was going to need some of the things that obedience, pressure and time bring out in a life – in order to fulfil that role, well. 

The other thing I thought about relates to us. Today we like to have an idea and bring it to fruition almost instantly. Yet it is apparent in the book that the Lord likes to take His own time! He has an appointed time for things to happen. Read Ecclesiastes 3! Even when we look at Calvary, there was a time period between the Lord Jesus’ death, and His resurrection. Then there was more time between Him revealing Himself to His disciples and His ascension into heaven. After that there was even more time between the ascension and Pentecost! Forty years to make an 11 day journey – those Israelites could not go in … they were not ready! When I notice stuff like that, I like to ask why.

My thought was that the Lord God seems to regard time in a different way to the way we see it. That made me wonder if we could give up on the things He tells us He is doing, too soon. Simply because it appears that the Lord is not meeting our timetable. Instead of pressing on in to learn perseverance, maybe we lose heart? What could we miss out on, when we push things along for the sake of convenience etc. instead of waiting on Him? Are we drawing the wrong conclusions, based on our needs, ideas and agendas? Time sometimes passes and then – we see a suddenly.

We all know that the Lord is never late, and the bible says, His timing is always perfect. Maybe we would manage things better if we stopped putting our own expiry dates on our ideas and hopes, and start asking Him what HE thinks. Then we need to take the time to wait for His answer. He’s never in a hurry so that  ‘hurry hurry rush rush’ thing that often happens is most likely not HIM! The devil pushes us — but Jesus leads us. He’s the Shepherd and He goes out in front!

It is not good to let our circumstances dictate our responses. Despair destroys faith. Holding things loosely allows Him to be in charge. Even if things seem pressing, it is better to continue to hand them over to the Lord and wait for His response. There is a little story about a persistent woman in Luke 18:1-8 …  “And will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will He keep putting them off?”I think this story beautifully illustrates our Father’s character, it is not just about getting our prayers answered by bothering God until He answers us! By all means ask and keep on asking, but I recommend handing things back over to Him after you do it.

Ephesians 6:18: “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.” James 5:16: “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Never stop praying.”‘Never stop praying’ could also mean don’t give up too soon!

The lack of an immediate answer does not mean that the Lord has not heard us. Our confidence, our faith is in the fact that He ALWAYS hears us and His timing is perfect, so now we are waiting for Him to guide us through things. The time factor is not the criteria, David could have legally seized the kingdom, everyone knew he was the chosen one. Instead, he chose to endure persecution and hardship as well as honouring the Lord’s principles over a very long time. Time can be an important factor, even in difficult situations. We will need eyes to see His answers even more than we need the answers. Bye. 👋

P 2573 Godly advice for the sleepless.

/ DVH

From the book! “I lie awake each night thinking of You and reflecting on how You help me like a Father. I sing through the night under Your splendour-shadow, offering up to You my songs of delight and joy! With passion I pursue and cling to You. Because I feel Your grip on my life, I keep my soul close to Your heart.”Psalms 63:6-8 TPT.

Man, those psalmists knew how to write. However, it seems like they didn’t sleep so good all the time, even back then!  The Holy Spirit must have helped them with their attitudes, because the things that are written in these psalms are wiser than the ways of men. There is no greater ambition than for us to live to praise and enjoy Him, at any hour. Today I was up at 4.30 am writing the blog … at about 6.30 am I started to wish I had stayed in bed. My brain feels like it is melting. I do wish I could write beautiful stuff like that psalmist did … he’s inspiring.

Here’s some of my less-than-spiritual advice for free — unless you are single and live by yourself —bursting into song singing to God in the middle of the night may not work out well for you! Somebody else… maybe even a bunch of somebody elses … could wake up and be less than enthralled by your singing! My advice is if you have to sing, then don’t sing loudly, or take it elsewhere … like into another room! I try to toddle off upstairs when I do the early bird routine – hubby needs his sleep, he works hard.  We can see that Jesus went away from His disciples to talk to His Heavenly Father. Apparently they weren’t like Joshua, who stayed talking to God longer than Moses did!  Moving away from those who can sleep is called appropriate public relations behaviour –  anybody with a lick of sense knows you don’t poke a bear when he is sleeping.

But in those moments, in the middle of the night, I sit and quietly read the scriptures to set my heart firmly back on Him. So often nowadays, this life squeezes us so tightly, sometimes it feels like we can’t breathe. Even the bible can seem to be impossible to grasp, especially when you feel like you have fallen down a deep deep hole and His love and light is hidden from you. That’s when you PAF … Phone A Friend. Seriously. But!! Not between 12.00am and 6.00am!  You might find out your friend’s smiley face is wearing thin at that hour. Most of all take the time talk to the Lord, despite how you feel. He’s your Dad and He’s always UP and happy to hear from you! “He that keepeth thee does not slumber.” Psalm 121:3.

Sadly, for me, and about a zillion other people in this world, that word ‘Dad,’ has little or no meaning. But I’ve seen enough Dad-like qualities in the godly men around me to get a picture of what a great father looks like. Plus Jesus talked about it too. Almighty God is the greatest of all fathers. He’s where Fatherhood comes from!  His book gives us a lovely picture of what a great father looks like. Here’s Matthew 7:9-11.“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!”Good verse to think about at 1.00 am.

Our Father will not lie or try to deceive us. When He says something He means it. Our task is to believe what He has said, even though sometimes in this world, other people are trying to sell us something. I’ve found that many people lie because they want something, or they have something to hide or lose. When we are sleepless, or down, because of life, or something someone else said or did — we need to remind ourselves that our God does not lie. HE has nothing to hide and He doesn’t have agendas. Everything He says is the truth. ‘There is no shadow or turning in Him.’ This simply means — because HE IS THE LIGHT … good luck finding anything dark anywhere near Him.

Our current world provides us with poor images, those things are not good to think about at 1.00am. This world is used to double-dealing, double-talking flam-flam artists who pretend to be one thing when they are really another. Deception often flows through our streets like water. Think about a simple thing like watching a movie. Movies are all about people lying to themselves …and to each other … and to YOU, for a living. And we pay them heaps of money to do it!  We’ve gotten so used to living with these things that we think of them as harmless. God is truth,  and we already know that ‘in Him there is no shadow or turning’ –so anything that is a lie is not from Him. And yes, I watch movies too! But I think that some movies are definitely not geared to help us sleep!

However, this psalmist has the sense when he wakes up at some ridiculous hour of the night, to respond to God with praise and worship. He meditates on God’s goodness, instead of making his worries bigger by thinking about them. Nor does he think about that cute little maiden he saw last week in the temple! He remembers what the Lord has already done and he gives thanks. This man is giving us sound advice. In the middle of the night when we have any worries, we need to hand them over, and go after Jesus. Try praying for people who need to be saved – satan is glad to let you nod off when you do that!  

I also like to remind myself, that even though I know I can be faithless, my Heavenly Father cannot!  BTW, FYI, I do not expect you to be Him — if I want to see what my Father looks like then I look at Christ – He’s a sure thing. The most wonderful miracle of all miracles happened a couple of thousand years ago – God came here to reveal Himself to us, personally.  And that’s plenty to think about today or tonight … or in the middle of the night when your brain is UP and you wanna sleep! Bye zzzzzzzz. 👋