Angry

P 3313 Blockages to love.

/ DVH

“Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds. We know that the truth lives within us because we demonstrate love in action, which will reassure our hearts in His Presence.” 1 John 3:18-19 TPT. There is little power in loving people who love us – the power of God is in  loving people who hate us.

Do you need reassurance of His Presence in your life? Are you living a life of humility and love toward everyone around you? If, like me, your answer is sometimes, then that’s where we can begin. I start by asking myself, why am I not doing this all the time? What is blocking His love through me toward this person? Today I want to talk about unforeseen blockages to love. Because anybody with a lick of sense knows that when we are angry, unforgiving, or in unbelief, those things block the love of God through us.

‘It’s the little foxes that can spoil our vines.” (Song of Songs 2:15.)  So let’s look at some. If we do not choose to consciously remain connected to our source, Jesus — with the help of the Holy Spirit — we will rapidly lose our faith to continue in love, etc. with other people. That’s when we make the mistake of thinking that love is a feeling. James is so helpful! He makes it clear that God’s love includes actions. (James 2:18.) Let us call loving others using our ‘faith,’ and this will help us clarify what happens. Feelings follow faith. 

Instead of begging the Lord for more love toward whoever is a thorn in your side, start by asking Him to increase your faith! None of us will have a problem with other people and their behaviour, if we stop waiting to feel something, and simply see love as an act of obedience. Without His help we will find barriers. Somebody, somewhere is bound to do something that ticks you off! 

The atmosphere in this world is geared to how we feel and it’s anti-biblical. Abraham did not feel like killing his son, his preparation was an act of sheer obedience and faith. Those are the words we need to remember when we think about LOVE. The Lord Jesus did not feel like dying for mankind, LOVE empowered Him to do it. Never ever forget you have an enemy, who is delighted to help you misread other people’s actions.

We all have Aunt Minnies or Uncle Clarences in this world (names altered to protect their identity 🤣) – and they are bound to get up your nose because … they are broken! It’s like a game they play. BTW they do this to everyone else around them too. These people can’t figure out why other people don’t enjoy their company. They practically double-dare you to love them. The only way you are going to be able to get through to difficult people is to refuse to play their game, and deliberately do things the way the Lord tells you to do them. Let’s choose to go to the Source first, and spend time remembering what God’s love has done for you.

His Love looks like something these people don’t even know they need – unconditional acceptance – and that does NOT mean we are putting a rubber stamp on their behaviour! Instead we are choosing to separate their behaviour, from them … the person God made. Then we act on what He says in the book. They are no longer in charge, anymore – now we are under His orders. He knows the Way in. I can’t tell you what to do, or how to do it, but I urge you to be prayerful and do what He says- for Him, not for them. I call that worship! We are ‘presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice.’ That takes faith, and it is why love needs faith to operate. Faith calls things into being that are not there and that includes love when you feel you have none!

Let’s start with forgiveness, and go on to asking for healing for both parties, then ask the Lord how to turn your prayers into actions. It can be as simple as giving Aunt Minnie and Uncle Clarence their favourite coffee or tea, when they arrive unexpectedly at 5.30am and it looks like they plan to stay for the day! 😱 When any attitude of ours remains unchanged, it can quickly become a bad attribute that seems like it is sealed in with cement. However, God can melt mountains like wax, so a wrong attitude of the heart will simply melt in His Presence. That’s why we go after Him first. HE needs to come with us.

Tackling your nemesis is impossible without the One Who made them in the first place! In God’s enormous Grace, the Holy Spirit shoots people in the heart when they aren’t looking because He wants them for Himself. Watching this process happen is so much fun! The best bit is afterwards, old Auntie M and Uncle C don’t remember being changed, they think they’ve always been a nice person. My advice when this happens is this -, don’t correct them. Be kind to yourself, don’t poke the dang bear! Leave people in their ignorance. That’s called GRACE. Hilarious. And WE get to exercise OUR faith. Win, win.

Only God Himself knows what other people need, He may ask you to supply what they need, and, at the same time, what they actually need may surprise the living daylights out of you! Try telling the grumpy person that you love them, and give them a hug when they are being horrid. THAT lets the air out of their tyres!! Our God is so good, so loving so kind, He allows ALL OF US to forget how horrid we have been – to Him and others. These injuries and things can become unforeseen blockages to releasing His love. When we follow His instructions, we get to exercise our faith and they get to experience His love. 

Love always looks like something, and the Lord’s love looks like a waterfall of Grace, over the people we wish we didn’t know. Let’s remember, NONE of us deserve it. Bye. 👋

P 3248 Let joy REMAIN.

/ DVH

“Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness You’ve done for me?” Psalms 103:2 TPT. “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. ‘I have told you these things, that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing.” John 15:11. First of all we let JOY remain by remembering Jesus has chosen to walk with us here and now – and the Holy Spirit is here to lead us.

Joy is like peace, don’t lose it! If you lose it I urge you to go and find it again. His joy, in us, makes this life worth living. It is precious and costly – it cost Jesus His life. Let’s treat our lives like an operating room. Nobody operates on a patient without first thoroughly scrubbing themselves clean, so we must make sure we ask Him to help us look after our hearts. This means if and when, we get angry etc., we need repent quickly. Nurturing anger and feeding irritation, facilitates letting our hearts harden against that other person. Sorrow and suffering are joy murderers, unless our joy is permanently in the One Who saved us. Then circumstances can’t rule us.

Our enemy comes at us with whispers about this and that, and before you know it, there is no joy, no peace, no reconciliation – there is only RAGE and SORROW left. To let JOY remain, we need to guard our hearts against pride, self-satisfaction, revenge, bitterness, self-pity etc. And deliberately repent and remove any reason to justify ourselves, our actions and words. Take all that ugliness to the cross and leave it there. Humble yourself and fix things with others. We can’t serve two Masters … we will end up with divided hearts. Let’s choose Who we will serve and permanently settle it inside us. 

Then we need to deal with the state of our hearts, and the all pervading feeling that we are entitled to be angry, because the other person did or said this and that! Rehearsing other people’s sins is not only a dead end road, it’s a disaster! When we go to the cross we leave our entitlement, our judgment, our need for retribution there – my best advice is this – don’t go back and dig it up!  

Baptism isn’t just a ritual, some people go under the water and come up exactly the same! That means the water of the Word has not washed them clean of this world’s attitudes and systems. Instead this life continues to feed them entitlement and anger – over and over again. There are others who like to think of themselves as wounded beings, and they feel the rest of the world owes them something, because this life has wounded them. Here’s a big revelation for all of us, we are all wounded one way or another. Hurt is not a reason to indulge ourselves.

Thankfulness in the face of adversity is one of the biggest keys to allowing our joy to remain. Meditating on what someone else did or said, feeds the wrong spirit. Eventually that becomes a defensive way to think, and the habit of not seeing the good in things, will drag us under. But God is bigger than the spirit of stupid we can so easily succumb to – cry out for help, and He will rescue us, over and over again. Consider this life to be a journey, and point yourself in His direction and don’t allow detours. 

This is what the Lord said in Matthew 26:53 when people were deliberately murderous, vicious and cruel to Him.“Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”Right there, is the well-spring of our joy. The Lord didn’t try to save Himself, instead He chose to rescue us. Our choices are also powerful! We can help each other immeasurably if we simply stop putting our expectations onto other people. Other people cannot hold us up, that’s like putting your expectations on a badly broken chair. You’ll hurt yourself when you fall down! 

There’s real joy in what Jesus did. JOY is one of God’s glorious traits. Jesus didn’t sail through His earthly life without conflict and confrontation, He walked carefully, prayerfully through it, sometimes one step at time. And every single time He did that with that with US in mind. Our focus matters! “Keep your eyes on Jesus, Who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how He did it. Because He never lost sight of where He was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—He could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now He’s there, in the place of honour, right alongside God.” Hebrews 12:2.

The joy we experience here and now, when we see what Jesus can do with one ordinary little changed life, that is our way through to the finish line. Where incredible eternal joy awaits us. We need to put immediate gratification, or instant relief from annoyance and irritation down … In favour of the greater good. Jesus looked through the pain of the cross, the separation from His Father and the Holy Spirit, and He saw us —- all of us together, in His Father’s house – forever. It is HIS joy we are learning so we need to learn it HIS way.  The Lord Jesus is the best reason of all to choose to learn to let joy remain. Bye. 👋

P 3238 Unplugged.

/ DVH

“Keep creating in me a clean heart. Fill me with pure thoughts and holy desires, ready to please You.” Psalms 51:10 

I like this version, because the word ‘creating’ is used in the present tense. I actually think this is an ongoing process for every one of us. Daily, sometimes minute by minute, the Holy Spirit continually creates a new living-for-Jesus heart in us – if we let Him do it. Yielding to the Lord is one of the best assets we have.

However, we can personally short-circuit this entire process by choosing our own way, and giving into our baser desires – simply by ignoring repentance. Repentance is the way out of the kind of difficulties we can get ourselves into! When anything seems to be clouded or muddied in my mind and heart, I know I need to repent! 

I realised years ago, that I will always need to ask for His help to back up and start again, because I’m human and repentance means humbling myself. Even in the times when I am really mad, and I think the other person is utterly wrong, that’s when I really struggle to repent! Like I said – that’s also when I really need His help – and He will give it. He longs to help us. 

True repentance is the very best kind of prayer, it clears away the deceitful cobwebs we allow to hang around in our mind and heart. The Holy Spirit always answers that kind of prayer, immediately. I confess that there have been times when I kind of wished He wouldn’t!  But that is because, in those moments I want to justify myself. It is exceedingly dumb to give up the Lord’s blood bought justification for us. When I settle into my own kind of justification, nothing gets fixed, plus  ….I end up with a permanent lousy attitude!

Maybe you don’t even think about something like revenge, because you know that would be wrong. However, I still think we are all capable of speaking, thinking and wishing someone else ill, silently. I think that’s why the Lord spoke to the Israelites so often about “murmuring and complaining.’  Sadly if we are not murmuring and complaining about God, then someone else is probably in our firing line. That’s because human beings have a habit of doing it!  By the way, the Lord does not accuse us when He points this out, so we can repent. Instead He is diagnosing something that shoots all of us in the foot all the time… our inner attitude. 

Honesty, with yourself and others, can be very costly, but it also creates opportunities to truly connect. Sometimes I think the only time people feel free to be honest is when you’ve annoyed the living daylights out of them and they are angry! If we sincerely want to have the Lord create a clean heart in us, then we need to be free to own up to the stuff we keep on doing … the stuff that no-one else knows about. Even the stuff we don’t think we want to escape from that we try to hide from ourselves with lame excuses.

Because He’s our God and He can do anything—He can change our motivation!  Always remember, the bible is called GOOD NEWS! Seriously, there are some things I used to do that I can’t stand anymore. God changed my attitudes when I wasn’t even looking. I don’t know if you have met this wonderful quality the Lord has, but it blows me away, every single time I encounter it. 

It means I have ceased to be attracted to something dumb that uses up the time He has given me. One day I was able to enjoy … (whatever it was, without blinking) … and then almost instantly, I simply couldn’t stand it anymore. And all I did was give it to the Lord and I left it with Him. I cannot stress how much total surrender has changed my life. Yet it was the very thing I specifically avoided for years, 

I was so scared of Jesus taking over and taking way stuff… I knew nothing about the fact that the Lord won’t do that – our power of choice always remains. This is the blessing we have, when we deliberately choose to go in His direction. Our preferences change instead. He has never made me do things I didn’t want to do.. But eventually I figured out I was never going to be the person I longed to be from self effort… … I’m a bit thick, so that took a while. 

Finally I gave up! That’s when total surrender became easy … when I realised I was never going to be able to create a clean heart in myself, by myself. Not to mention the lack of ability to have pure thoughts and a right spirit within me! This world had provided me with so many opportunities to get mad and stay mad—eventually I had outsourced my ownership of my own emotions, into someone else’s hands.  

The reality was they weren’t doing so well either, so that was an entirely dumb move. Back then I could tell you what was wrong with everyone around me, far better than I knew myself! In order to walk like Jesus did, I needed to unplug from this world’s thinking and plug into His. I urge you to take that path, it makes all the difference. 

Bye. 👋

P 3199 Real life.

/ DVH

At our house, we like to watch endless Christmas movies before Christmas. My dear husband loves them… ME? … not-so-much. He likes the soppy, sappy, sometimes sad ones the best. And if we find a funny one, it becomes a classic, and it comes out year after year, after year … …Unfortunately, I’m a Big Bird meets Bambi girl myself, I like to look for movies in the kids department … well, I did, until they became nasty as well!

My daughter explained to me that this situation could be much worse. Lots of men like exploding, guns blazing, blood and gore movies …I think those blow-everybody-up movies should be piled in a heap and burnt. Now there’s a strangely telling response to violence if ever there was one. Any-way … we were suffering through… sorry …’happily watching’ … some totally inane junk … and somebody in one of them actually said something that was worth our attention. 

It took me a little while to recover, because what they said was vastly unexpected!  It actually made sense to me, but we will definitely need His help to do it! When you are watching soppy movies endlessly, the most ridiculous things suddenly seem quite brilliant. It’s called brain damage, and should be listed under the heading of things you should never do to your wife! Hmm, I may have a slight problem with resentment there, I’ll have to look into that.

This is what was said, and it really got me thinking: “Let’s act like the person you want to become.” I mean, like WOW! … Like how cool is that?  U-oh! Please hold…I’ve just realised that I may have been spending wa-ay too much time with my adorable granddaughters, and I’ve picked up the habit of over-using the word “like.” That word now seems to be the new comma. I wonder whatever happened to ENGLISH, and peculiar things like Grammar. Meanwhile it seems good to keep up with the younger generation, they’ll be in charge one day soon. Now, where was I? … ‘acting like the person I want to become’. Well, that got lost in the wash fast didn’t it?  Maybe it is easier said, than done. 

Yet this sentence still has a clear ring of truth in it.  So, today, I want to look at something I learnt from some dumb movie I recently watched to help my spouse enjoy Christmas. After all, hubby endlessly does all the work and all the cooking so that everyone else can have a lovely Christmas. That is now my motivation. However, at the same time, I must honestly say that a teeny tiny bit of the rest of the movie did make me laugh …. 

Here’s the bit — one of the main characters in the movie is asked by their small granddaughter. ‘why there are so many Santas?’And, then she wanted to know all their names because they couldn’t all be Santa! Of course Grandpa didn’t have a clue so he said whatever popped into his head. ‘Santa, Janta and Mylanta…” For some inane, utterly ridiculous reason I found that hilarious. Probably because Mylanta and I have more than a nodding acquaintance. Meanwhile, I think some of my marbles may have given up on me.

Third try to go back to my point… let’s act like the person you want to be.  I have to say that I’m not big on acting at all, because actors get paid incredible amounts of money to LIE for a living! But, I believe the Holy Spirit is delighted to help any one of us, as we begin to take teeny tiny faith steps out onto the choppy dangerous waters of this life.  He can take our intention and make it real.. What would happen if we decided to ignore any and all provocation, and respond with love instead? It could go like this:  someone says something mean because they are angry, but we choose to say something sweet instead: “I’m so sorry, I seem to have offended you,” I have to say I’ve tried that one and it works beautifully.

At the same time there is a chance that others can take great offence if it seems you are able to be more gracious than they are feeling at that moment. That’s why I pray help a lot! I pray like that because everyone needs it. All by myself I can make things far worse than they were ten minutes ago. The Holy Spirit is a wonderful Helper, and He often tells me: “Time to be quiet now.” He’s way too kind to me to tell me to shut up! There are other times when He reminds me that I may be mad in that immediate moment, but I do actually love that other person, so it is not good to injure our relationship by flinging my uncensored opinions about all over the place. 

He is, without a doubt, the very sweetest Person I have ever met. He gently reminds me about what the bible says too. My advice is to watch out for His whisper. He says lovely things like: “Love suffers long… it bears all things …” You know, all that stuff that we can say by heart — but then we find that what we believe is only skin deep. And right now it seems I am tempted to run on hurt feelings, so I’m probably going to choose to go with, ‘I wanna hurt you back!’  That’s not a good plan.

Here is a scripture to refresh everyone’s memory, including mine, about the kind of Love the Lord Himself,  extends to us, all day every day.“…that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favor with God]. …” 2 Corinthians 5:19. In real life, we may feel like we are pressed hard on all sides. But actually we’ve left our faith behind. Let’s go get it again and choose to find our inheritance and use it instead. Bye. 👋

P 3150 Living by faith.

/ DVH

Like I said, yesterday, this means that we will put down our desire to hone in our focus on a problem, and choose to look at Jesus instead. He perfectly mirrors the things we are looking for in ourselves, and others. Let me put that this way – if all you are focussing on is what the other person did wrong, then you can’t focus on the One Who IS perfect in all of His Ways. Unless you are cross-eyed!

A single focus is needed and the bible calls that being single-minded. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24. When difficulties occur, our part is to realise that although we are weak in many areas – Jesus isn’t! So we choose to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to focus on the Lord, because He is good at it!

Practically speaking, if we just yelled at someone else, then it is a no-brainer that we need to repent and repair things – even when we feel provoked. Extending forgiveness is the quickest way to go back to focussing on Him. It will lead us back into single-mindedness. We can’t look at two vastly different things at once. Our choices matter, and most of the time we make them almost without thinking. But when we review what Jesus said, that means our focus switches from what went wrong, to what He did. We choose to look just one way – at Him. Forgiveness is much easier to access in His Presence.

When you are annoyed or angry with someone else, take a breath, and say “Jesus please help me” I’ve read the bible for years but I have never once read about Jesus saying: “That person is wa-ay beyond redemption. It’s OK, you can’t help being mad at them.” We both know that He simply won’t do that. Why not? Because He bought redemption for everyone when He died! He knows it is a done deal. It cost Him His life-blood and His time on earth to do it! 

Unfortunately, we can easily become used to making room for our scratchy, nasty, irritated attitudes. This means our focus can be sidetracked. But if we choose what the scripture says, we will look at Who Jesus is and what He has given us, and those facts change everything! In the face of such incredible generosity, anger has no place to stand. Loving generosity takes the ground out from under our enemies – not to mention our stinky attitudes.

Because we are still in process, perhaps there are times when we don’t want to look at the Lord, because we think we want to punish that other person. After all they upset us, so they deserve to be in trouble. That whole POV is deceit. It’s like locking yourself up, throwing away the key and saying: “That’ll fix them!” Free means free – even for the guy you don’t like! In moments like that, I’m not sure we understand the whole concept of freedom clearly enough. We need to practice.

When we hold onto anger, resentment, and bitterness, we are locking ourselves away from the Answer. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. A bad attitude is extremely costly – not to mention heavy! You don’t have to sell your house and give the money away to live by faith.  We just need to live our lives like Jesus would.

This reminds me of an old cartoon, with the Road Runner and the Wile E. Coyote. That dumb Coyote was never ever going to win. It wasn’t in the script! His job was to end up blown to bits, flattened under a rock, or smashed by a train etc. The Road Runner was always going to beat him. Defeat is inevitable when we play in satan’s backyard. It is not in God’s heavenly script for us to punish the people who despitefully use us. Read the book! Living by faith is not some big deal ‘raising the dead’ occasion – it consists of the daily choice to obey the Lord, forgive others, and live like He did. One hurt at a time.

Every time we give away undeserved Grace to someone, we are releasing God’s Grace into their lives. That Grace is powerful. It saved us!! But when we hold onto someone else’s sin, we are keeping them from the kind of Grace that can deliver them from the very attitudes that caused the problem in the first place! Many people are easily imprisoned by how they feel. Hanging onto things like a list of all the wrongs that other person did – and keeping it in our heads, together with the accompanying emotions is a deep pit with no way out. 

When that stuff hits your heart – boy are you in trouble.That’s when a tree of bitterness can take root and grow. Let’s kill that tree, and stop going over what they did repeatedly – even if they just did it again ten seconds ago. Don’t throw anyone’s past sins into their face in an argument, and don’t talk about what happened to you, with other people to soothe yourself. Their opinion actually doesn’t matter. Building a case against someone else is dumb. Sin belongs under the blood of Jesus.

Lastly, talk to the Lord. He understands betrayal, heartache, disappointment, anger, and provocation etc. The Holy Spirit will help us negotiate our way through the crumbling cliffs of excuses, the explosive reactions, the endless litany of disappointment and the utter despair we face when we feel betrayed. Living by faith is only hard for us because we have not cultivated it. Bye.👋

P 3078 Anger is like Hydra – it has a lot of heads!

/ DVH

Many people give up on God because it seems to them that following Him from day to day, doesn’t work, and so they just float off proclaiming “that religion thing didn’t work for me.” The good news is – Jesus never ever gives up on us. Even when we are kind of pretending we are OK, as we sob or angrily bob about on our man-made li-los. The Lord Jesus will always come after us. Reconciliation is at the core of Who He is. 

Anybody who has had a difficult person in their lives will tell you that being misunderstood;  or having your motivation treated with suspicion;  or even being judged by someone else’s standard —  is an awful kind of suffering. I think Christians are a bit like salmon, swimming against the pressing tide of the rest of humanity, waiting for the power to jump up the next waterfall. Meanwhile the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet are merrily cruising the freeways of this life, creating accidents and disasters for others.

This week I fell over, or under, or maybe into!  — an old learning curve and it knocked me on my head. My spiritual life lately has forced me to re-evaluate a whole lot of things, a death in the family does that. It included issues that I thought were kind of settled. I discovered that sometimes being ‘angry’ with someone else doesn’t go away permanently, even when I am trusting Jesus to help me with it. Instead it hangs about and waits for an opportune moment to pop its nasty little head up again and poke you! That aforementioned many-headed Hydra! Things often make a return appearance when we’ve been weakened by adverse circumstances.

I am astonished at how ordinary events can hit buttons you didn’t know you had anymore, because they have remained hidden. Even those things that you’ve given over to the Lord and forgotten, can still be dragged up and used by the enemy against you. satan will still remind us of our past grievances, and at the same time, we can get sucked into into a ‘poor me’ vortex. It is good to remember that when we confess our sins our God forgives us, and now our sins are under Jesus’ blood. We need that!

I’ve prayed about anger a lot, I had to!  And the Lord reminded me: “It says in the Bible: be angry but don’t sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” This is what I’ve come up with since then —I’ve been practising giving my anger to the Lord before I go to sleep! Because right now when I am in an unexpectedly pressing moment, I can’t seem to deal with my anger. It just keeps popping out, unbidden, in the darndest places. I was in the bank the other day, facing mountains of idiotic red tape — and what I actually thought just flew out of my mouth, at someone else, and boy was I grouchy.

And, even worse,I wasn’t sorry either!! I fake apologised to the person I grouched at, but the inner rumblings continued. So, I exercised self-control, but I practically had to whack my hand over my mouth. Then  I managed to shut up. I actually didn’t repent, repent, until we were back home again. That’s when embarrassment grabbed me by the throat, because I had been caught publicly being rude to someone who was very nice and polite to me. Sigh.

God’s Grace came to meet me, through my husband. He reminded me that part of any normal grief is anger. I always thought that meant you got angry at the person for dying and leaving you. Wrong answer!  I’m actually  happy for my mother, because she was very old and very ill. But at the same time, I was also relieved, because we often had a complicated relationship while she was still here. 

My anger came from many many unresolved issues between us over the years. Instead of confronting those issues at the time, I simply sucked it up because she was my mother. They say one straw breaks the camel’s back? Well, I had a bus load of straw that landed on my head — and the bank’s rigidity and inflexibility regarding their rules won. The lack of justice banged on a wound, and I ran out of Grace. It instantly reminded me of my past injuries. Our enemy is a snake, he knows right where to poke us and find a sore spot..

Up until then, I thought I had been a bit successful at overcoming anger, because I had defeated my bad attitudes after a bit of a skirmish or two. It sounded like this: … “that was so tough, but I made it through to love – ya-ay me!” Here’s a really good thought to remember, pride goes before a fall! But fortunately Jesus throws all our sins in the sea of forgetfulness … however, our enemy still has a whole other agenda. 

This battle we are currently living in, will not be over until the Lord Himself comes back. Plus anger has a lot of heads, and it comes at us in many different ways. However, the bible tells us that the martyrs under the altar are continually crying out to be avenged. Revelation 6:9-10: “…I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying,“How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 

I found this scripture oddly comforting. These Godly people have left here and now they are in the safest most glorious place and yet they still want to be avenged!  Ya might want to think about that yourself – I did. Bye. 👋

P 3024 The sky is the limit.

/ DVH

How many people today have been boxed in by this world’s interpretation of their ability to learn, or their mental condition, or emotional or physical skills? Today’s so-called experts analyse people and put them into categories, with more labels on the outside than a misdirected parcel! This one has ADHD .. that one has Autism …  the kid is three and someone has boxed it up and classified it for life!  Our kids are actively being “categorised” before they have left High School. We need every member of our Father’s huge family and some people are just plain late bloomers.

It is a very bad idea to put this world’s ceilings on what we think someone else can do – no matter how many letters they have after their name. We must appreciate what each of us has been given for the benefit of others  “… preferring one another in love…”  There are times we try to use someone else’s differences against them – that’s ungodly. Almost half of the recorded disciples were fishermen and Jesus chose them! Today, in order to manage humanity, our societies’ categorise people, so we don’t have to deal with each person, one at a time. 

Thank GOD! He is not even remotely like that! He sees every single one of us and loves each one of us as His very own individual children. He doesn’t look down and think; “This one is broken” OR –“That one is no use to Me.” We are all incredibly dear to His heart – no matter how this world sees us. And we are all incredibly important to His Body too. We are going to need every single member of the Body of Christ standing in their place, because the enemy of our souls is at the gates and he is trying to pinch our kids by writing “not acceptable,” “don’t expect much” and “broken at birth” all over them. Don’t you believe it.

Our Heavenly Father is a redemptive Father, Who longs to reveal Himself to all of us. Every single one of us has a place in His plan! Yes, even the so-called broken ones!! We are all broken one way or another— some of us are simply badly broken inside where nobody else can see. Occasionally some of that ugly stuff leaks out every  where and that person gets put in jail. We must not disqualify people on the grounds of what this world thinks about them. Jesus clarified sin: “…but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” Matthew 5:22.

Sinfulness is our common denominator, not so called beauty, athletic prowess or intelligence! Right now we are reaping what we have sown into this world through our own ambition, and greed for more. Sadly we have sown into the whirlwind. Our children are growing up believing that to be pretty, handsome, athletic, gifted and/or highly intelligent is something to be greatly desired. Who says that? 

Manufacturers, fashion gurus, universities, teachers, people in political arenas — the people who will make money from what we do … THAT’S who is saying it! Give me one reason why we should trust their judgment? Unless making money is your god, these attitudes are poisonous vapours. They come, they go. Even the best athletes get hurt, highly intelligent people go wandering off into abstract land, and supposedly beautiful people are constantly criticised. What are we doing to our kids? Why are we not teaching them to be who God made them to be? We are a gift to each other. 

Even in the church we fail. We can easily make too much of one gift over another …“But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”?

As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honour just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?” 1 Corinthians 12:21-27 MSG.

I think the bible tells us very clearly how we need to treat each other – we need to encourage other people’s potential to serve the Lord. Let’s look for Jesus in others, watching for the Grace of the Holy Spirit on each life. I’m not talking about positive speaking either. I’m talking about having a genuine prayerful appreciation for someone else’s POV. You never know, if we all do that we all might learn something!

We need every single member of the Body of Christ, even those gentle, timid souls who hide up the back and hope nobody asks them a question. We are limiting a limitless God if we limit His kids based on our own opinions and experiences. Instead we need to proclaim – the sky is the limit and the heavens beyond it! Bye.👋

P 3022 God’s faithful family.

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God’s faithful servants are always up for change, because they choose to trust Him. They relish the opportunity to see the our world afresh through God-given revelations, and renewed spiritual eyes. These people don’t back away from a fight, instead they know WHO WON and that is enough for them. They know how to stand still until the Lord is the victor.

All these faithful people care about, is glorifying Him, not just escaping from hardship or difficulties, because the Lord promises to be with us in trouble. They don’t go looking for hard things, but they won’t back off if that stuff bangs on their door. These people pray for transformation, as well as patience —believing God will answer them. Their prayers are full of praise. They don’t expect their life to be a perfect because they know it has a purpose, and those two things are not always compatible. 

After praying prayers of commitment or holding fast to a promise  —they know there will be a test. They are alert to anything that could blindside them because they know that they are not perfected, but their trust is in Him. They respond to every situation with gratitude. Even the Lord’s discipline in their lives shows these people He loves them: “…because the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son.” Hebrews 12:6. 

The Lord needs His family to cultivate a very strong intimate connection to the Vine Himself, because we can’t do anything without Him. His faithful people realise His power is made perfect in weak people. So weakness does not surprise or intimidate us – instead we rely upon Him to get us through whatever happens.

God’s people know the battle they are fighting to win is in their OWN heart and mind —it has nothing to do with the other person in front of them. That is the true stance of an overcomer. Of course there will be times when other people will jump on any, or every nerve, especially when life is already difficult… that’s because  satan has no mercy…  Mercy is a love gift from our Father!

The reality is, those people who annoy us, are not attacking us. They are attracted to, and need the light that is IN each one of us. Even though it seems personal, it isn’t. Difficult people are tools in the hands of an angry enemy who knows he cannot win because he has already lost! satan will keep right on throwing hate at us, trying to cement rage, hatred, despair, disappointment, frustration etc. in all of us. We need to live this life AWAKE, rejoicing in the light of everything that Jesus has done for us. Sleepy, half-hearted people can make bad choices. 

God’s people don’t forgive their enemies because it is a nice idea —- we forgive them because we have been given the power to retain their sins. All that means is that everyone can get stuck if we choose to hold on to whatever someone did to us. Prayer for an enemy is powerful prayer. Forget praying for the sun to stand still! We pray for the guy who lords it over us and treats us badly. We pray blessings over the people in our lives who despitefully use us. This kind of prayer opens our eyes to new, deeper realities.

The bible says:“Owe no man anything but love.” Romans 13:8. God’s faithful family choose to live a life of LOVE despite the cost – because they know Love can never fail. Bye 🥰

P 2994 Love = great grow food!

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“I continue to pray for your love to grow and increase beyond measure, bringing you into the rich revelation of spiritual insight in all things. This will enable you to choose the most excellent way of all —becoming pure and without offense until the unveiling of Christ.”Philippians 1:9-10 TPT.

Choosing to love the unlovely, ushers in growth.However, this will not be a happy little ‘walk in the park’ — it will cost us to learn to love the people who have hurt us, ignored us, and despitefully used us. Especially those people who did it on purpose! That’s the dying to self bit. In the flesh I may want to tell the whole world about the mean things that person did to me. I also want to vindicate myself, as well as give myself valid reasons to live this life as an emotional cripple! That’s called a side benefit BTW.  If I blame ‘you,’ or ‘them,’ then I have no responsibility to change. I can point to other people and say it is their fault I am like this. My sins, errors and missteps become sad, a result of someone else’s unkindness, not my own choices.

Adulthood will not fall on us. Hopefully sooner rather than later, we must choose to grow up and face this life from a mature point of view. Maturity is not about voting, or being able to drink alcohol, or get married. True maturity is taking responsibility for my own actions and responses to whatever has happened to me. Otherwise I am still allowing the person who hurt me to control my life. My own personal choices can take me out of that place of weakness, and place me firmly into God’s place of strength. 

This is why Paul is praying for the Thessalonians to “grow and increase beyond measure.”  Greater offences need even greater measures of love. Instead of sloughing off my responses in my situation onto whoever hurt me … now I stand up, make a choice and let Him take control of my destiny. Because now my aim is no longer just to survive—now I want to learn how to thrive within His unconditional, eternal love.

Living in love, which is the way the Jesus Himself lived, expands my capacity to take more and more of His life, and His ways, IN. If I want to be an overcomer, I must first of all learn to overcome the unnecessary things that tie my life into this world with cords of distrust, anger, bitterness and hatred. Choosing not to excuse my behaviour goes a long way toward changing it. We all know 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 well, but here’s a very different reverse, self-centred view of what Paul said: … 

“Love is not patient because you need to love me! I’m broken, and you can’t expect me to fix my own broken places. My love doesn’t have to be kind because I need people to be kind to me, and my needs are more important than yours. My kind of love is jealous, because I can’t stand for you to get more of anything than I do. At the same time, I’m needier than you! My love totally needs to boast because it makes me feel important and I need to be important, because I have good things inside me that will amaze you, if you would only co-operate with me and treat me kindly. 

Why shouldn’t I talk about you? You don’t appreciate me! When I am seen and appreciated I will be a much better person. Of course I get angry with you, you are constantly showing up my bad side, and I hate you for it. I have lists and lists of things you have done to hurt me. I need to keep those lists! They are my protection against letting you get near me in case you hurt me again. I love it when someone else is mean to you the way you have been mean to me – maybe it will teach you a lesson! 

The truth is what I think and say it is. Because I’ve been hurt, now I have lots of insight into other people’s faults. Why should I protect someone else? I don’t trust other people, they are just out for themselves. My kind of love doesn’t dare hope, it is always scared disappointment is heading my way – again. And my kind of love is too tired to persevere with anything or anyone. Nobody does that for me, why should I do that for them?”

Let’s all pray that this person never ends up in charge of anything!! … Sh-a-ll we? Amen! You know what was really scary, I wrote the above perverted version of 1 Corinthians 13 … so easily. Yikes! None of us can afford to go down that road, we’ll fall into a ditch. Here’s a huge tip to help us on our way — stop waiting for other people to love you and start actively loving them.

Real Love, the God-kind of love, helps us choose His very best way through all kinds of situations. It gives us insight into our own faults and the things that will make us stumble and fall. We simply have to ask ourselves regularly, “Is this love?” And if it is not, then we repent, go back and fix it. That’s not hard to remember! God has a way for things to be done. As we live in His love and give it away to others, we will find we know what He wants us to do. And when we are challenged by love, remember, the result of that challenge is growth. Bye 👋

P 2962 What ARE you wearing?

/ DVH

When my kids were little I can remember uttering the above words to them many times. One of them insisted on going out with a jumper inside out and backwards. 🙄

We’ve all heard these words from Colossians 3:12, but applying them has become a priority. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” I think it is appropriate for us to ask ourselves daily — what does compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience look like? Personally I do that with prayer and a whole lot of help from the Holy Spirit, with great truckloads of His Grace. Unfortunately, I have an awful feeling that these things that we are meant to wear, every single day, are the absolute antithesis of what the world all around us says we should wear daily to survive.

So let’s remember first of all, that survival by this world’s standard, is no longer our aim. Our Saviour set the example for us. Jesus led the way. He had so little personal stuff that the soldiers played ‘two up’ underneath His cross to own it!  At the same time, no matter what kind of a fancy slant we put on the way we live, we cannot disguise a lack of compassion, or kindness, humility etc. This means we will go out into this world naked unless we choose to wear the clothes that Jesus Christ bought for us. Ya might want to pause and think on that one. 🤔

Romans 13:14 talks about the origin of our brand new faith clothes. “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” The secret to wearing His clothes is stop worrying about what we wear, or how our life will go – or even what we can do to cheer ourselves up, because we’ve had a bad day. We just leave everything with Him.“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”Matthew 6:25-27… well, sort of … I left bits out OK?

Worry steals our God-given clothing. So does anxiety, or anything else you care to call that stuff we all do at 3.00am — when we can’t sleep and we are trying to figure out what to do about something that seems insurmountable! We are exhorted by Paul to put on Christ. Put on His attitude to this life. That’s the answer! After all, Jesus never worried about anything. By the way, let’s remember that the Lord Himself had a great deal on His shoulders – He only came to save the world! Plus there’s Isaiah 9:6 … Talk about expectations!! 

You can check what He did out for yourself in the Gospels. Jesus knew the value in trusting God in all things. He walked on the same dirt you and I walk on, probably a great deal further every single day than we do! He needed to eat etc, just like us, but He did not worry about those things – not even about where His next meal was coming from – He quite simply gave thanks for the meal in front of Him!

“… put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbour, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,…”Ephesians 4:22-26. There are a whole lot of clues about our new clothing in these verses, and nodding our heads and agreeing with it will not make it happen! Restraint is invaluable. These things aren’t suggestions, they’ve been given to us to help us become an overcomer. Please note the big clue that we can be corrupted by our own lusts.

The thing is, we can’t fit into our new clothes, if we feel we must lie to protect ourselves, or make ourselves look good. Plus there are no good reasons why we should be angry with others. God turned His anger away from us and now it is our turn to do that for those people who live around us! Instead we are to live our lives grateful for the gifts of His righteousness and holiness  – these are the clothes Jesus personally paid for us to have. And we use our faith in what He said, to choose to live like that.

At the same time we must deliberately choose to stop revising and reviewing someone else’s faults and ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. We don’t give up until it comes. It’s called perseverance, and it’s in the book! When somebody or something annoys us — we choose to see that as an opportunity to cultivate the spirit of self-control by remaining silent in the face of provocation.That takes practice. In the meantime we can be grateful to God that the perpetrator has given us an opportunity to practice a skill we don’t have… yet. 

Maybe we think it is too hard to change. Here’s a verse: “You have not yet struggled to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;..” Hebrews 12:4. So … I look around me and at my clothes and say to myself —If the answer is negative then I conclude that someone has hurt my feelings but … I’ll live! Ask yourself, what are YOU wearing? Bye 👋