Anchor

P 2646 “Hope thou IN CHRIST!”

/ DVH

Hope is a sign our faith is healthy. If we are feeling hope-less then our situation has overcome our awareness of how Mighty God is! That’s bad. It’s bad, like not breathing is bad!! It means there is something we need to fix, first with the Lord, and then with others. Other people can be stumbling blocks – especially the ones who see no need to change, or they think they can’t, because they were just born this way! Christ knows how to walk with difficult, dumb people – He did it for three and a half years!

Here’s a revelation – everything God made is good, so if it is NOT good – then it’s NOT God. To clear that up we need to start with ME not the other guy. But sometimes the difference between not good and good is simply time! Just saying is all …

… The truth is clear, we can hang on to resentment, bitterness, anger, lying, hatred as much as we want to, but those things’ll drown ya! You end up snarling and snapping at others. It’s dumb to be lying in the muck and mire when SomeBody paid for you to live an overcoming life!

You know, I think that Covid did more than make a whole lotta people very very sick. It stole some people’s hope! We gotta watch out for that. Hope is our anchor. Hope holds us steady when the waves of this life get too big for us to cope. Actually, when a boat slips it’s moorings or loses its anchor, it floats away! Hebrews 6:19 says: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, …””  Hope anchors us into God!! Remember, we hope in what Christ is doing, not in our circumstances changing.

Jesus Christ is our hope anchor. What He did for us, and what His death gave us, anchors us into Almighty God’s kingdom. Jesus took us into the Holy place by what He did. Now we have Him as our priest praying on our behalf, before the throne, and that never ends. The Lord God Himself provided the ultimate Answer – Christ! And He is ever-mindful of our humanity. We are so blessed to have a Saviour Who is God and also a human being – He understands how tough this life is.

Sadly we sometimes forget what we’ve been given and we wander off into the wilderness, wondering where God went. Bleating: “Why is He not looking after me – He promised He would look after me?!”  In those moments we have become imitators of the Israelites in the wilderness… remember, the Good Shepherd always goes after a lost sheep! The Lord always looks after His own, He just has a different timetable than ours. That difference is meant to help us with patience and perseverance, not introduce doubt.

“There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!” Romans 8:8 MSG.

When we lose sight of our anchor, our hope – Jesus Christ the HOPE of all mankind – we are forgetting who we are now. We do not have to grab, grasp, scheme, scream and connive to make life work. Now we trust God and let go of our own ideas, and pay close attention to His Word. His word is our strong fortress, our hiding place, our comfort, and our defensive position. Otherwise, we are running the risk of forgetting Who we belong to! Our strong hope is in what Christ has already done.

“But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God My Saviour; MY GOD WILL HEAR ME.”Micah 7:7. We remain confident that if the answer we were hoping for does not happen, then we remind ourselves that our God has heard us and HE HAS A PLAN. That’s our anchor. Hopelessness takes over when we concentrate more on the problem, than on our ever-present, always loving, constantly praying for us, Saviour. Our problem being solved is a temporary relief –instead we need to refocus on Christ Himself,  He is the Answer. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”BUT!!! …“We can do all things through Christ because He strengthens us.”

As we learn to cultivate patience, and wait on the Lord, we will renew our strength. We are given the energy to rise above our problems and keep running the race. We are enabled to keep on walking without fainting. Holding onto hope stretches our faith so the next time we use it, we become aware that our faith has grown. We must keep a watch over our hope, it is the warning light on the overcoming dashboard of our lives. We do not have to live downcast lives …”SOUL, HOPE THOU IN CHRIST!”👋

P 2577 Grief and death.

/ DVH

Yeah, I know, everyone’s least favourite subject. The only Person who is well-qualified to talk about life after death is the Lord … as well as people like Jairus’ daughter, and Lazarus! And the very worst point about dying and death, is we won’t know what it is like until we get there. Fortunately this concept is all over the bible and we can study it, so the Holy Spirit can help us.

The bible is not silent about death. It simply says: “we must not grieve like someone with no hope.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13) But our lack of experience with God’s goodness can often carry us into head knowledge, not grief and sorrow resolution. If that is you, then please don’t be condemned. Tell the Lord you need His help. Some kinds of grief are like liquid mud – if we fall in it is hard to get out! Everybody dies, however it seems most human beings don’t cope with the finality of death. Sometimes, someone dies and our unresolved grief gets muddled up with other terrible losses. Daily keeping short accounts with others makes a great deal of sense because it is inevitable that those left behind will need closure.

The hard part of losing someone important to you, isn’t simply just because of their absence – it is that the possibility of change dies with them. Your relationship with that other person suddenly becomes stuck in time.  And now we must somehow go on to build a new life without them, and move on from the pain, regrets, failures and losses of the past. This is why we need to repent as we go along, wherever necessary. And, at the same time, we also need remember to give our pain back to the Lord. Jesus bore it on the cross and He carried it. (More on that later.) Eventually, all of us do our best to move on. Yet every time we remember, sadness rushes in.

I think grief is a vastly misunderstood normal response and emotion. It manifests itself differently through different people. Some people get mad, some people are sad – some people get mad and sad, and some just walk on, furiously suppressing how they feel. I like what a psalmist said:“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”Psalm 30:5. This tells me something about grief. It can seem like it will drag on forever, but it is meant to be a progressive moving thing – not a parking station we can’t get out of. 

Also grief is not just about shedding a tear, it is about a dark place our hearts sometimes go into, when any hope for any kind of further future has gone. Now this world seems to be a place where true reconciliation is suddenly out of our reach. We start to regret things that we’ve said;  what we didn’t say – and the things we should have said. Like I said, repentance helps. In those days we need to remember Jesus is our hope, He is our anchor. Park your little boat (life) and throw out the anchor – He will hold you through the storm.  Meanwhile, I’m all for appreciating people while they are still breathing! 

Our society is quite intolerant of the effects of grief upon individuals. We do not seem to have the freedom to allow a mourner to pass through this kind of tough season. The BIBLE says in Ecclesiastes 3:1ff- (bits of it): “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; … …A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; …  …A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;” I love this scripture. It explains there is definitely a time for all kinds of things to happen to us in this life — BUT IT DOESN’T SAY, HOW LONG that time should be. 🤔

Now let’s look at what Jesus Christ has already done for us in this area. Remember, the bible says these things are a living established fact! “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”  Isaiah 53:4. Jesus Himself said:‘Come unto Me all you who are labouring and are heavy laden.’ In exchange for griefs and sorrows, we can have HIS REST. That doesn’t mean we leave grief and sorrow behind us, it means He carries it FOR us.  It is an exchange. We will all suffer from some sort of grief, but it does not have to weigh us down, because Jesus has already carried it for us. I’m a literalist when it comes to the bible, I use it like a prescription. I believe that we can pray and exchange our grief and our sorrow for His REST.

Personally, I think as long as the bereaved person is moving forward in their grief, we should butt out and simply support them in ways that are meaningful to them. Grief suppressed can be dangerous – so let’s biblically learn to deal with the reality, and the pain, instead of using avoidance. Somebody – I can’t remember who said it – once said: “Grief is love with no place to go.” I think that sums this situation up beautifully. Remember our griefs can be given to the Saviour, Who knows all about it and took it with Him to the cross.   🥲👋

P 2548 Fight for your HOPE.

/ DVH

Psalm 42:1-11. “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”  Have you ever thought to yourself? … “If I can just get to Jesus, I know I will be alright.” It seems this Psalmist guy had a similar thought … or … maybe he is just a realist? A lot of our time can be wasted on trying to work out stuff we can’t possibly fix – and/or things that are way outside our control! When all it takes is “help help” Lord! We cannot manage our new life without Him.

“These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God.”

Remembering the good things of the past sets us up to have renewed hope for the future. This guy has enough sense to know that his soul, his feelings, his imagination and his circumstances are never good things to be allowed to lead us. He asks himself questions! We cannot afford to spend our time and focus lamenting about the things that come at us. We must remind ourselves God is still on His throne and He always wants to help us!  BTW, unless we are continually renewing our minds, our minds can go into terrible places too.

“My soul is downcast within me;  therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.  Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;  all Your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs His love, at night His song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.“

This Psalmist has a great grasp on reality. He doesn’t deny what is going on, instead he uses his memory to remind himself of better times, wherever he goes. Without the Lord Jesus continually guiding us, our lives can be smashed against the rocks of this life and they can immediately seem purposeless.

In the Western world we’ve been led astray, because we’ve been living lives of comparative ease. We don’t face the terrible things daily other people in this world are facing, daily. It is too easy to think that having whatever we want;  a good life without hardship, is our right. And then we can get our crank on when this life becomes difficult. Easy lives raise shallow people, just like shallow soil raises plants with shallow roots. God wants to grow oak trees, not radishes. You can harvest radishes in a week, oak trees take a little longer! 

“I say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God? Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Saviour and my God.”

You know, if we absolutely have to complain, then let’s go and talk things over with the Lord. But remember, if all we ever do is complain then — He will eventually leave us to work things out for ourselves. Complaints need to turn back toward faith in Him and asking for His help. We must push past our feelings into the reality of His Presence. Our God is always with us, He wants to help us. He will even save us from our own stupid selves. Trouble is the best time to ask yourself questions. Why am I feeling so overwhelmed? Why isn’t my faith handling this Lord? 

The way through trials and tribulations is to continually push back against everything around us that wants to soothe us off to sleep, into oblivion. This world will be happy to tell us how unfair our life is. We have to learn to resist whatever is going on around us, and go back to lifting our eyes and hearts, up to the Lord. That’s where our help always comes from – He is the centre of focus – not the things that pass away. Plus our feelings, will lie to us!  Let’s press on into hope and resist our circumstances, because they can change in a heartbeat. And then we ask ourselves, ‘Who is in charge of my life, my responses, my well-being … my circumstances, or God?’ I will always have a choice to make. I can choose to give in to how I feel etc. or remember where my hope comes from.

Just because things don’t get better that does not mean God has deserted you – He has a plan. No matter how dark it seems – He has a plan to ‘give us a hope and a future.” Hold on! Don’t let your feelings push your faith aside. The man who wrote this Psalm knew he was able to get through things, because he knew that in God, he was bigger inside than outside. Whenever we let go of our hope we are letting go of OUR anchor! Hebrews 6:19, 20.”We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, …”

If you end up bobbing about in rough seas wondering why you are being pushed around by huge waves, currents and undercurrents of this life – it is time to remind yourself that you’ve forgotten to let down the anchor. Grab hold of Jesus and tell Him, “I will not let You go!.” Because of what Christ did, we can go into the Holy of holies and seize our hope. Hope is our forever anchor, and our Hope is always in the Lord and what He did for us, not in our circumstances. Jesus is our everlasting hope that God has a purpose in the midst of the chaos. 🙌

P 2383 Love is not the same as … ‘Like’.

/ DVH

And love doesn’t look like tolerating others, either. Yeah, I don’t like those two sentences much myself.  But Jesus gave us clear directives about love… 1 John 3:16  “By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”  

Matthew 5:44-47 ““You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives His best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the loveable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.”

John 15:12, KJV. “This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” – Love is a great subject to study because it will definitely give everyone plenty to pray over and act on. It is like most things in the bible if you apply them into your life you will know about it!! Jesus said, ‘love your brothers, love your friends, and love your enemies,’ and none of that is easy. Especially when we take into account that the people who can hurt us the most are probably not our enemies! 

Here’s some stuff that has helped me to cope with dealing with people who are a black hole where love is concerned. First of all I remind myself that I don’t have to feel like it, to do it. Love is a verb not a noun – it’s something I do, not something I feel.  I deliberately bring to my mind that … ‘I can do all things through Christ because He strengthens me!’  So I ask for His strength, then I do whatever He says in the book. Take emotions out of your effort and obey instead.

In my experience feelings always come later. Sometimes MUCH later. I have people in my life that I have been loving for years, I wish I could say that living this way changed them —- but it hasn’t – not so far. Instead it is changing me. I simply need to learn to fight disappointment and resentment and as I did that, I learnt about self-control. This became another way to invest my life in the kingdom of God. And it also showed me stuff I did not know I had – until the resentment etc. bubbled up!

When you make a big effort in your own strength toward people and they flick it off like it is nothing, it takes real dedication to continue to love them. I discovered I didn’t want to make that kind of effort for careless people, because I quite quickly ran out of dedication … But when I did it for Jesus — my expectations and motivations changed. So now I do whatever I do, for HIM. I do this to obey Him. I stopped putting hope in someone else to get it right. Because Jesus is my hope, my anchor and my source of strength – I’ve learnt to put my hope in Him, not others.

This means I’ve learnt to love others literally ‘under orders,‘ and now I do whatever He tells me to do. Often a bible verse pops into my head. Previously, I had become used to being motivated by need, or human affection, or some other feeling, but there were also times that Lord asked me to do something sweet for someone else at a time when I had no desire to do it. Choosing to love in the face of lack or need is powerful. When the people you love don’t love you sacrificially, you can suddenly find a whole lot of anger you didn’t know you had!

I also learnt the wisdom of Colossians 3:23 … “…whatever you do, do it with all your heart as though you were doing it for the Lord and not for people.”. That phrase ‘and not for people’ really resonated with me. The Lord explained to me that when I did things for others, hoping they would appreciate my efforts, I was doomed to fail because I can’t ever control other people’s responses. But when I do whatever HE asks me to do, I learn obedience… plus I ‘die’ to self in the process. I am renewing my mind. 

Obedience always brings us closer to Him. The Lord Jesus was obedient.  Loving by choice is not easy, but it sure beats the heartache of ‘trying hard’ with people who have no idea how much they are hurting you! Love is not the same as human emotion – whether it is ‘like’ or ‘tolerating’ – it’s an investment in someone else as the Holy Spirit Himself leads you. 👋🏻

P 2334 There is no other place to build.

/ DVH

Luke 6:46-49 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” (Also in Matthew 7:24-27)

Hmm… what does building on sand look like? It looks like fads, and easy answers and things that have no substance to them. Things that cannot last. Any house without a proper foundation cannot take weight or stress. It cannot withstand adverse conditions. Pressure causes a house like that to sink and crumble, because the structure is on something that is not rock solid. 

Building on Rock is hard work from beginning to end. There are no easy answers. Right from the start we need to teach our kids more spiritual survival skills, instead of over-protecting them. They are going to need to be spiritual warriors in this world. They not only need to know how to fight things like – their feelings, shallow doctrine, carelessness, lack of real devotion – they are fighting for their spiritual legacies. The ones we are leaving them! 

Christianity is not for people who cannot, or don’t want to,  persevere. It’s for tough people. Because digging through rock is hard work! Doing what He says can be hard work. Sometimes I think we don’t understand how important our foundations are. Reading the bible is not meant to be a walk in the park. It’s a treasure hunt and sometimes you just plain can’t read the map! Maybe you allocate 30 minutes for  … blasting the rock, (aka reading the bible) as well as clearing away the rubble  – however some days it is going to take a couple of hours instead. Reading the bible cannot be just a regularly scheduled thing with a set amount of time allocated, like ordinary chores. We cannot survive without His word. (Matthew 4:4)

How can we do what He says … if we don’t pay attention to WHAT it says? Doing what it says is part of digging a foundation. Otherwise as James so succinctly said, we go away from God’s mirror and forget what we look like. God’s book often leads to more questions than answers. And that ANSWER will probably not be the same the next time you crash into that question again, anyway.

We are digging through all kinds of rock and shale to find something substantial to anchor our spiritual house into, because when we are anchored into rock, (Jesus) nothing can easily shift us.  Plus we are looking for aspects of His nature, we have not seen before. That’s gunna take some digging because our God is not a surface dweller, and there are gold, silver and precious gems for us to find. Those things do not just lie about on top of the ground. 

Doing what it says helps us to digest what we have read, and it helps us to retain and value the treasures we find. It will also provide us with regular testimonies about His Grace in action, and make relying upon Him easier.  It takes things out of the realm of information, and shows us how faith works! Plus it fixes His truth as the measuring stick we use in every corner of our lives.

Sometimes we need to assess how our lives are going by our response to trouble and difficulty. I’m not talking about our initial response, but if whatever has happened shakes your world, and you can’t seem to find your spiritual feet again, then perhaps part of your foundation is faulty. Maybe you could prayerfully look for scriptures with the Holy Spirit’s help, to build up your foundation.

Remember God’s Word is most powerful when it is acted upon. There is no other safe place to build!👋🏻

P 2226 Jesus helps me to keep going.

/ DVH

When I sit and read about the Lord, and think about what He did while He was on this earth, and how HE struggled with facing His own death – it helps me to keep going every day. First of all, let’s look at the fact that the Lord needed to pray 3 times in the garden of Gethsemane. He needed to pray what He was facing through, and He waited on God for the spiritual strength to carry it all out. Jesus prayed until He knew the job was already done – spiritually speaking. His total surrender, in those awful moments, gave Him the power to endure what came next. He died to Himself in that garden and it was a terrible battle. 

This scene shows me that it is OK to struggle with spiritual stuff – it doesn’t mean I’ve missed His will, or I am going the wrong way. When things are hard to do – we need to press into Him. Jesus spoke a great deal about His death in the days before the crucifixion, so He already knew this time was coming. Yet He still prayed for that destiny to be taken away! He struggled with God’s Will. Praise the Lord, because Jesus is my visible illustration of God’s Will in action! It’s OK to struggle – remember to surrender and then go into trust. Push on past your fears etc.

Let’s look at this in Matthew 26: 38-46 …“Then He (Jesus) said to them, (His disciples) “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.” Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” Then He returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with Me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

“He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done.” When He came back, He again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So He left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then He returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners…”

Jesus allowed Himself to feel the total appalling impact of what was coming toward Him. He didn’t hide from it, or  have a stiff-upper-lip mentality, nor did He deny the reality of what He was facing. It’s OK to hurt, it is OK to be disappointed or even grieve about whatever has happened to us. But, at the same time, we need to remember that we have HOPE – His Name is Jesus … He is our anchor. If someone you love is suffering then pray that God will give them real HOPE in the face of adversity.

Jesus was very hurt with His disciples, for not praying with Him. I think He was also disappointed for their sake. Getting in touch with God in a crisis is the only way to get through whatever is coming next. The biggest test those men had ever faced was hurtling toward them… and they were vastly under-prepared for it. He was still caring for them on the brink of His own pain, suffering and death.

Lastly, the Lord Jesus helps us to have courage because He did everything He did for all of us. Our failures, fears, sicknesses, disappointments, sins, those things were all dealt with as He struggled with the concept of being a substitute for us. He was about to be separated from God’s bright Presence and He did that deliberately for our sake. He became our separation so we don’t ever have to be, or go anywhere without God’s Presence again! 

In times of despair difficulty and trial – I think of the Lord Jesus saying, with such incredible faith: “… Your will be done.” That was a faith statement. Christ had never physically suffered to the point of His own death and He had to rely upon the Holy Spirit to bring Him out of that grave. Jesus knows how hard it is to have faith in times of crisis. His vulnerability at that time helps me keep going when stuff happens in my life.  Praise Him. 👋🏻

P 2096 Our hope is in Him

/ DVH

“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5 “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He Who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13 “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, …” Hebrews 6:19 

Sometimes, Christians put their hope in things, or situations, or even other people  As nicely as I can put this, that’s a dumb idea!  Don’t do it. You will end up disappointed. Other people are bound to disappoint us. Let me put that another way – everybody has choices because God Himself allows us all to choose. Unless we all walk minute by minute with Jesus, then our selfish self will pop up and have its selfish way. The only place for our hope to be is IN Christ.  In what He did for us.

I want to address just one of the above verses, the one in Hebrews 6: “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul …” Our soul, mind, will and emotions need an anchor. Otherwise we will be tossed and stretched by circumstances and difficulties. Our feelings can easily betray us and sometimes we can’t even figure out why or where we went off the track. We need a strong anchor! The Lord Jesus Christ is that anchor. What He did and Who He is. We must stop analysing other people’s, or even our own behaviour, and hold fast to the Saviour’s sacrifice for them and US – instead.

We need to let the Holy Spirit – Who is our resident expert about ALL things in this life – help us. He does all things well. Don’t just sit looking at your disappointments and sorrow, stick your head out of a window and look around – look at His work! The Holy Spirit will always point us back to Jesus.

What this scripture in Hebrews means is that Christ Himself is our hope, and the Holy Spirit confirms this truth to us in our hearts. HOPE IS A PERSON not a doctrine. Jesus is an historically proven Person. We do not hold fast to our POV, or someone else’s theory or doctrine – we hold fast to Christ. If He is not Who the bible says He is, we are all sunk, because we are now simply that committed to following Him. He is our sure foundation and the Saviour of this world. 

Christ is our anchor. We can’t limit or hold to ransom the awesomeness of our God by trying to appraise His answers to our prayers. Our faith has to be in the fact the Lord is doing something … at all times… even when we can’t see what it is! The Lord Jesus Himself put His own faith in His Father’s plans. Please don’t hold fast to an idea that Jesus will get you a nicer house, 10 cars and a Lear Jet! We are here in this world as messengers to speak His eternal hope to the nations. This life is not about our comfort. It is about allowing HIS incredible eternal life down here, to flow through our own little lives. The best bit is that we get to live in a taste of eternity down here! 🙌

Now – this day – we have been given His Spirit, His life flowing through us … we are carriers of His joy, His love, His hope, His goodness, into this world filled with sorrow, heartache, atrocities and despair. We are now His witnesses. Because we are being changed, now we can tell others they too can live a life of love and transformation. And all these wonderful outcomes are IN Christ. It’s all in the bible, read the book!

God’s goodness sent Jesus here at exactly the right time – so we could see a living example of His goodness and His good will toward mankind. Jesus Christ died and rose again. That is our hope.We must never forget all God’s benefits, BUT … His benefits aren’t the reason why we follow Him.. Brothers and sisters, do not stop short of the goal. Remind yourself constantly, that Jesus’ Name is above every other name and He completed His earthly mission so –  HE IS OUR HOPE – today, right now. Who HE is and what He did, is our anchor. Bless you and bye. 👋🏻