answer

P 3250 Stay poor in Spirit.

/ DVH

“Strong to overcome. From Prayers on Fire, written by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez.                                                     “Every trial is a divine opportunity for our character to grow. It’s a chance for us to discover how truly faithful Jesus is and how strong we are when we’re fastened to His love. When our faith is tested and fear looms in the shadows, we can reach for the Light and He will come.

Trials are a launching pad for our glorious transformation. Though the enemy creates them to take us out, Jesus shakes things up and turns things around. Ironically, trials become things we can be thankful for. If it weren’t for them, we’d never know how faithful He is. If our love was never tested, we’d never truly know how devoted to Jesus we are. To discover His power, there must first be a need for it. To relish the joy of laughing in the face of adversity, there must be an enemy to laugh at.”

“Jesus, teach me to fight my battles from the posture of confident trust and perfect peace. Help me to remember that the safest place to be is in the warmth of Your glory, where the flames of praise are ignited by Your nearness. Your love casts out every fear and fills me with confidence.” Amen.

My thoughts: some Christians have such beautiful insights it blows my mind. I don’t often read this particular site, but hubby receives regular input from “Encounter God” The Passion Translation. As you know, I’m not big on including things, but this particular piece really challenged and spoke to me personally. Boy there is nothing like the truth to sort out your motivation. In this case my trials can show me how faithful Jesus is. 

Sometimes difficult things continue for a while. Unfortunately, they don’t just disappear on command! Aligning our hearts is one thing, steadfastness under pressure is entirely another.  And we never know which way anything is going to go, so we must be prepared to hold fast under pressure. That takes practice. I must say, I am learning that the Lord is not only stretching our faith to grow our faith, He is also revealing His goodness to us through the tough times. He knows better than we do, how far we can go. That’s called trust. 

The following scripture tells me who Jesus is —it comforts me better than someone else’s words can … Isaiah 42:2-4a “He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow weak or discouraged before He has established His justice on the earth….”

Instant comfort! Our part is to believe what He says and hold onto it, by reminding ourselves that He’s good and He’s looking after us. Then we deliberately give the whole situation to Him, and only do whatever He tells us to do. The we leave it with Him. Don’t try to figure out an answer or oppress or berate yourself for being human and hurting, instead allow yourself to rest in Him. He already won that battle you are fighting! Learn to rest.

Matthew 11:28-30 says: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  We are bathed in His comfort, as we read and believe His book. The Old Testament or the New Testament – it doesn’t matter! If we actively listen to what the bible is saying, and act on it, treating the scripture as instructions, we will begin to learn His Ways.

So first step – we need His Rest. Our own rest can be kind of seasonal, it comes and goes with whatever is currently going on. Taking up HIS yoke means we are choosing to learn how to respond, from Him, our Personal Counsellor. We don’t ignore trials, we face them leaning on His understanding and we follow what Jesus said or did. We can do this without fear because of Who He is and What He has already done for us. I put what I think aside. This is not the time to figure out someone else’s POV, it is the time to let go. Our ways are complicated, His are EASY.  So, if it is complicated it is not His Way! If what is happening is heavy and it is burdening me, I haven’t entered into His rest yet.

I only do whatever He tells me to do – if He says fight, I fight. If He says rest, I rest. We are not fighting against other people! Our warfare is against principalities and powers and Jesus already beat them. He has a plan for you and I to get through things. So I pick up my frayed feelings and mentally walk away, and continue to thank Him for helping me. His desire is to reshape my thinking so I trust Him more. I love the line in the “Encounter God” inclusion that says: ‘To discover His power, there must first be a need for it.’  It’s OK to be needy! 

Our God always cares about the needy no matter what the need is! My best advice comes from the Beatitudes:“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3. I am learning to stay poor in Spirit!  And I refuse to be satisfied with the things I think I know — otherwise I know I will stop moving. I just keep going back and back to Him. There are people who fall over and can’t get up again, because their ‘system’ isn’t working anymore. I don’t have a system, I just rely on Him! 

Many of us have gone from trusting Him, into trusting what we’ve learnt about Him – we’ve stopped being poor in spirit and became satisfied. And yes, there IS actually a difference. Bye. 👋

P 3171 Love Himself is the conqueror!

/ DVH

Have you ever noticed that Jesus was an immediate Advocate for people who could not speak for themselves? His defence of the wounded, scarred and sinful people is such an example to us. In the Gospels we see Him heal, teach and deliver people, but He also countered the criticism that battered them. There are many instances of the Lord intervening on behalf of someone who quite literally didn’t have a leg to stand on! 

Meanwhile, Jesus didn’t pay attention to their sin – He simply poured out God’s loving acceptance onto those people the world rejected, and He presented them with the truth. The truth itself can change lives. Jesus spoke to the sick, lepers, prostitutes, thieves, and law-breakers, people with multiple marriages etc. … all those people that His society rejected.

We don’t seem to have any real answer for people who sin today. Now it seems our society has legislated the world to be quiet and call sin normal, instead. However, the Lord Jesus didn’t pay any attention to behaviour – except the behaviour of the so-called religious. He always went to the person who was trapped in sin or sickness, and He went round their baggage and touched their hearts. The reality of His love saved them. 

I just want to briefly mention that Jesus interacted and loved on Judas right up until the moment when that man betrayed Him. Now, let’s look at what He said at a dinner party at Matthew’s house – 9:10-13. “While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Him and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”He sought out the sinners!

I think He saw both sin and sickness the same way— as the things that spoil God’s wonderful creation … US! He still wants to touch everyone around us – through us. Unfortunately, we are the ones, the people in church, who are preoccupied with sin. We gossip about it, fuss over it, and lecture it, and think about ways to get rid of the people who do it. Our answer seems to be – if you can’t be like ME then you can’t belong here! Jesus is the Answer, and the Answer is always bigger than any question!

When someone goes fishing, they don’t expect the fish to jump into the boat and be already gutted, scaled and cleaned! That happens after the fish are caught. We have put so many rules in place any people who, for one reason or another, live with sin, find it intimidating to come to us. Especially as 83% of couples cohabit before getting married, and one in three people have an unhealthy attachment to alcohol and one in twenty Aussies have a substance abuse problem! One in three Australians have also cheated or considered it, with 20% admitting to having cheated on a current or former partner. One third of all marriages statistically, will end in divorce.

When the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet start being drawn into our churches, we will know for certain that they are looking for very real answers – because they have very real problems! Jesus died for everyone’s sins, but in our churches, we can often turn our noses up at other people’s lifestyles – because we don’t do that kind of stuff. How realistic is that? He cares for and upholds the lives of all men and women – it’s their sin that needs dealing with not the people. Sin was taken care of at Calvary – our job is to give them that good news! Maybe through adverse appetites and previous experiences (without Him!) they have been trapped by their own desires and lifestyles. Now we tell people – ‘you don’t have to live like that anymore, let me introduce you to the Answer.’

I have another question to consider today: are we taking His exhortation to show mercy as a suggestion, or embracing it as heaven’s way to live? Holiness comes from our chosen proximity to Him, not from following rules. Rules point to sin, and sin is the thing that Jesus dealt with! God’s been panel-beating me for 50+ years and I still keep finding snarky nasty thoughts and attitudes that don’t belong in His kingdom! Here’s an idea: why don’t we drop the whole “them and us” attitude and instead let’s all just be human beings who need His Grace! I’ll give it to you, you give it to me and we will all get along together. Maybe we could have a dinner party like Matthew did, and invite those people-who-don’t-know- Him-yet. Now where have I heard that before?

At the end of the parable of the wedding feast, these words occur… “The lord said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” Luke 14:23. When we find people being drawn into and coming into our churches and gatherings because they feel compelled to come, we are standing on the threshold of something incredible. But, every single day our job is to give people a taste of His unconditional love – even those who are unloveable, unwilling to change. Or maybe even sometimes they are impossible to know! We all need it. Let’s stop telling the ‘Wind’ where He needs to blow and stand ready to be blown over by Him ourselves!!

Bonus buy: Loving difficult people changes us! That’s why it is good to bless those who despitefully use you or persecute you. Those people often reveal ourselves to us, and we don’t deserve His love anymore than they do. Jesus, and His love, will always be everybody’s conquering hero! Bye. 👋

P 3138 Be real.

/ DVH

Let’s actively work at being real. We have all become so tied up in our own thoughts and superficial communications with each other, that we are barely skimming the surface of what God intended to exist within the Body of Christ. One of our greatest strengths is being over-looked — it’s becoming one with each other. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.

“There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptised by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.

Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell?  God has placed each part in the body just as hHe wanted it to be.  If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body?  As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.

The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” In fact, it is just the opposite. The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can’t do without. The parts that we think are less important we treat with special honour. The private parts aren’t shown. But they are treated with special care. The parts that can be shown don’t need special care. But God has put together all the parts of the body. And He has given more honour to the parts that didn’t have any. In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of one another. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honoured, every part shares in its joy. You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it.”

This is a huge portion of scripture, but I believe it is often overlooked – except when we squabble with each other about which gift is important! Somehow we have convinced ourselves that having coffee and cake in the break at church means we are having real fellowship. I don’t think that for minute. Many churches seem to rely upon the individual to care for themselves, so what about the verses that talk about ‘one another?’ I believe that praying for something that someone mentioned in the coffee and cake time … can be incredibly important.  People need to know they are loved, and cherished by the Lord, and us, at all times!  And the Holy Spirit wants to use each one of us to communicate those things to each other. 

I go to a church that has members all around the city I live in. Most of those church members work, so they don’t have “spare time” during the week. So when can we minister to one another? My answer is simple – do it at church, do it on the phone, do it by TEXT!  Ask the person who is suffering: ‘Would you like me to pray with you about that?’ If they say ‘yes’ then do it. If their pain is enough to make them uncomfortable or cry in front of you, then my advice is pray for them! We are not the ANSWER to each other’s prayers — but we can hold up someone’s arms when the heaviness of their pain means they feel they can’t go on. We need to join our prayers with anyone who is suffering, instead of saying: “I’ll pray for you” – do it NOW, on the spot!” 

That person who is not coping, is an elbow, or a toe in the Body of Christ and I should no more ignore their pain, than I would ignore physical pain in my own body. I once broke a teeny tiny bone in my foot. On the grand scale of things it was nothing, but it hurt anyway! And it meant I couldn’t walk properly or do any of the normal things that happened in my day. Pain is a terrible thing when you feel all alone. But if you know someone else cares about you enough to hold you up before His throne of Grace – then you begin to feel a little better. Make it a habit, when you meet with other Christians to make sure you ask: “Does anyone need prayer?”

Many churches have people in them who are shy or inexperienced with extemporaneous prayer. Because they are not in leadership roles, they can feel their prayers are minor. The power of God operates when we take faith steps – He healed Naaman, the Syrian commander, because a little girl was brave and spoke up. Let’s actively encourage the Body to minister healing, help, kindness, wherever they can. We make time for the sermon, and the worship and the announcements – how about we make time to minister to each other? 

Church members need an opportunity to help, to take a risk, and pray for someone else. A bonus benefit is that they will gain more trust and faith, when they realise they too can hear God well enough to help somebody. That is irreplaceable gain. It means the stress to be everybody, to everyone, comes off the leaders. The barriers that hold us back from gaining further knowledge of each other, must come down. You may not think you pray all that well, but when God Himself answers your prayers for your brother or sister – you knock that lie into the bin where it belongs.

I once prayed out loud in a prayer meeting, and I hadn’t met Jesus yet! I sure fooled the other participants, they didn’t talk to me about the gospel for months, they thought I already knew the Lord. Just because I prayed aloud in a group!  I think it is time we were REAL with each other. BTW, there’s nothing realer than “confessing your faults to one another.” Bye. 👋 

P 3096 something to think on.

/ DVH

“Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust Him along the way, you’ll find He pulled it off perfectly! He will appear as your righteousness, as sure as the dawning of a new day. He will manifest as your justice, as sure and strong as the noonday sun. Quiet your heart in His presence and wait patiently for Yahweh. And don’t think for a moment that the wicked, in their prosperity, are better off than you.” Psalms 37:5-7 TPT. 

These verses are a great summation of how faith works. They help you to experience all that the Lord has for you as you surrender your whole life, and then begin to obey the stuff that is already in His book. Useful tip! Please don’t excuse yourself by saying “I don’t do that.” That’s leaning on your own understanding — ASK HIM instead. At the same time it is not good to skip over any apparently hard bits, instead it is important to take them to heart. I keep going back until He gives me an answer.

Most of my answers come when the Holy Spirit brings another verse to my mind and it clarifies the first one. Then ask Him – “What would You like me to do about this Lord?”  I have met so many people who are stuck right there agreeing with the bible but dismissing their own responsibility to change. Perhaps their thought is: “I’ve prayed about my sin, I confessed it. Now changing me and my unfortunate attitude is up to God.” I put “stinky attitude” but most people don’t like to go that far.

Leaving changing our core values up to Him is like shouting into the wind.The Lord expects us to do something about those attitudes, and He is happy to help us. To start with: He loves the interaction that takes place when we choose to engage with Him over these seemingly small things. He will tell us what to do, and help us as He tells us how to do it.

Look, I am going to be blunt here – you and I are not babies who sit about bleating: “I can’t help it, and God hasn’t done anything about it so it’s not my fault. After all I prayed!” That’s like nailing one foot to the floor and wondering why you are going round and round. We blame God because we think we did all we could, by praying. Do the opposite on purpose! Remember Zacchaeus? This man overpaid to make up for his sin. Excusing yourself is called evasion. I know people who say: ‘Jesus paid for my sin’ –YEAH! He did! But repentance is in the book too! … Repentance involves fruit. If you want fruit – this is how you get it!

My advice is to read His book with the idea that we will “hear” something to help us every single day, then we act on it. I have learnt, over and over again, that the Lord is often doing something behind the scenes …  somewhere I didn’t even think about. He is doing something else – every single time. This has become so predictable, it is amazing. If you want eyes to see and ears to hear this is how you get them. Stick yourself under His heavenly bible-microscope and ask questions. Don’t give up or use avoidance because you don’t have enough time – press in. Words are cheap, actions speak louder than words.

However, acting in faith on what He tells you to do can be hard. The bible says:“let the thief steal no more!” Now that person needs to find another way to earn a living because stealing is out! Jesus told a lot of people to go away and stop doing whatever it was that got them down the hole they had fallen into. You and I aren’t glove puppets – He will not make us change our behaviour. The Lord loves to come alongside us, to help us fix whatever it is, with His guidance and wisdom. He loves the interaction that happens as we learn to rely upon Him step by step – yes I know I already said this! 

It works like this: Pray! Ask for His help to identify any problem. Then ask Him to show you how He wants you to fix it. If someone else is involved, then pull up your big guy pants and go and ask for forgiveness. Explain to them you have been praying about this fault but you did not know you were asking amiss. You thought that was the way this stuff was done. Their response to your humility is their problem, you are working on your own spiritual life with the Lord. Faith grows when you use it to overcome your own weaknesses. 

Waiting patiently for some whose faults are driving you batty, can be incredibly irritating! But that response is our cue to ask God: “Lord, what log is in my eye that is obscuring my view of what is really going on?”. This is how we will discover the stuff we need to prayerfully do about ourselves. We are not meant to live this life irritated. Irritation is the opposite of learning to live in love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” We all know where that scripture is! 

The Holy Spirit knows the steps each of us need to take to get us to this place in Corinthians! My steps won’t be like yours, because we are different. But He promises to counsel us with His eye upon us, and He will. There is absolutely nothing like doing God’s Will God’s Way! All sorts of glory comes down. My insides get so happy I just want to do some sort of little dance on the spot! I don’t, of course, because I can’t dance for toffee – but I yell a lot instead! “Praise You Lord!” When we pray about this kind of stuff we are touching the eternal, and allowing Him to be the focus of our lives. That is definitely something to think on. Bye. 👋

P 3075 Hope is for today!

/ DVH

“Rise up in splendour and be radiant, for your light has dawned, and Yahweh’s glory now streams from you! Look carefully! Darkness blankets the earth, and thick clouds covers the nations, but Yahweh arises upon you and the brightness of His glory appears over you! Nations will be attracted to your radiant light and kings to the sunrise-glory of your new day. Lift up your eyes higher! Look all around you and believe, for your sons are returning from far away and your daughters are being tenderly carried home. Watch as they all gather together, eager to come back to you!” Isaiah 60:1-4 TPT.

We cannot afford to postpone promises from the Lord into the future. The tense in the above passage from Isaiah is present tense. The future, in the natural, can look pretty bleak! However faith is a daily walk, so believing God and what He says, needs to become an every day occurrence, not just an emergency vehicle we jump into and try to use when bad stuff happens. This life is a giant disappointment for many people. They had hopes and dreams and then the ordinariness of every day life has ground them into the dust.  Postponing our HOPE into the future, is not a viable option. When our faith is low our ability to cope grinds to a halt. 

Jesus is the solution! You and I are hope carriers. Our hope is never exists in an absence of trouble. This is earth – bad things happen here – what matters is our response. Listen to what Jesus said:“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.]” John 16:33. AMP. Abiding means more than existing, it means thriving in the face of difficulties, by choice. It means holding onto hope when you have no earthly reason to do it, simply because of the truthfulness of the One Who said what He said.

In this world tribulation and distress and suffering fly at us from all angles. Meh! Nobody wants that stuff. Unfortunately we can’t just package up our lives as an overall time period, and set our faces into living for hope and peace in the sweet bye and bye! Of course there is peace in heaven – the Father, and Son are there. But down here in this life that we live in from day to day … sometimes from minute to minute … we need to learn to live out the things He asked us to do, despite the degree of difficulty it can take. Like Jesus said, we aren’t sweating blood, yet. That’s why the Holy Spirit is here with us, we need Him!  WE are not the Answer – He is! 

When conflict happens at my house I ask Him: “What do you want me to do with this Lord?” Half the time the Lord says this – far more politely than I would! “Shut up now.” I’m really bad at that, so I choose to leave the room and go and pray. There are also times when I waste my God-given time being a cry-baby and moaning my head off about how hard life is, and how difficult people are… blah blah blah. That’s when I feel the Lord waiting patiently for me to get over myself. Then He brings me round to viewing what I actually do already have, differently.

Now I have become so excited about the incredible way the Lord fixes things. It can often seem to take years, but boy! When He is done with what He is doing, it really is FINISHED. It is a total joy to watch Jesus’ work. He does stuff I would never even think of, because He knows the end from the beginning, so He knows how it will all go and work together for everyone’s good.

Have you ever have an argument with someone else inside your head? Me too. The thing is, in that made-up scenario, I will probably look wise, and patient – and the other person will most likely look like a cranky dummy! In my head, they will fall at my feet and beg my forgiveness. Let’s now quickly return to the real world! That’s the place where nothing turns out the way we try to choreograph it. We need the ultimate choreographer – Jesus Himself. 

I have seen glimpses of heaven revealed on earth, when I changed my response and began to use my faith and treat the person I was mad at, like I love them like crazy! That is a huge faith step – and for a while I kept falling off it!  Now I treat them like I would like to be treated. I give the other person the benefit of the doubt, and stopped defending myself, and instead, I have decided to believe for the best in them. It is much harder to fight with someone who comes over to your side and silently stands with you! You don’t have to agree with people to love them – that idea is devilish misinformation.

It is even better when we choose to stand on the Lord’s side and just love everyone else involved. What if withdrawing love from someone who seems to want to hurt us, is the devil’s itinerary? Jesus kept Judas in His followers until Judas chose to leave. He gave that man the opportunity to be with Hope personified, Peace like a river and never-ending Truth! We cannot look at, and stare at this life, and still see Jesus. Obviously, if someone else is abusive, we will need the Lord’s guidance, but … what if we let love reign instead of hate, antagonism and suspicion?

The bible tells us our light has already come, because Jesus Himself is our light. We don’t have to run about, looking for light or seeking after light like demented loons, because we choose to acknowledge that we already have the light IN US. Our hope is in His Word! Do we think Jesus will stand by what He said or not? We are talking about NOW, not one day – we won’t need that stuff in heaven – we need it now!

The Gospels and the Epistles clearly tell us that Christ IN us is the truth — this means that we can continually make a withdrawal on the deposit God Himself has put inside us. Now we have a choice to believe, every single time we are tempted to doubt. Jesus’ death and resurrection gave us the freedom to choose. Sin can’t make us its slave, because we already have the greater One inside.  

This is not some weird doctrine – it’s in the book! And I am not talking about always getting what I want, I am talking about us having what He wants us to have. Let’s live in His hope, today! Bye. 👋

P 3023 The testing times.

/ DVH

John 19:11: ”When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free You or to crucify You?” Jesus answered, “You would have no power over Me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

The fear of God is real! Here is an illustration of that reality from the Gospels. Pilate did what we all do from time to time — we question God, and then we chase about looking for a loop-hole because we don’t really want to know His answer.. We are not sure we will like it, and we definitely don’t like the cost! This man was looking for a way to let Jesus go free that wouldn’t throw blame on him … be-cau-se … his wife had told him to be careful….

Pilate’s wife told him to ‘have nothing to do with this good Man’. Pilate was not a complete numb-knuckle, he was  trying to negotiate a way to do both things at once. After all he was the procurator/prefect of Judea – this man had power! He really wanted to release Jesus, listen to his wife, plus try to please the Jews. Fat chance of that! Sadly the Jews had already made up their collective mind. But God had a bigger plan!

This portion of John shows us a wonderful truth about Father God’s dealings with His precious Son — and us. Jesus clearly tells us that nobody can have power over any one of us unless we give it away, or God allows it. Now before you get alienated by that statement, we need to look at Job. Job is greatly underestimated!

“And the LORD said to satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.”So satan went out from the presence of the LORD.” Job 1:7-12. Job loved God, but he feared for his family. and those fears put him squarely within satan’s reach. God did not hurt this man satan did. 

However, it is clear that Father God believed in this man’s ability to endure, or He would not have allowed him to be tested in the first place..so satan went all snarky about God’s blessings on this man’s life. Because our Father is a good, good God and Father, He knew that testing would bring out things in Job that were not there before. He and Job would grow closer – and one of the things that Job grew into was a greater intimacy with Him. Job himself says: “I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen You with my own eyes.” Chapter 42, verse 5.

Once we have given our lives and hearts to Jesus, Almighty God is constantly transforming our circumstances, our joys and sorrows, our likes and dislikes to shape us into the image of His Son. He’s God! He can do lots of things at once!! Remember, our destiny is to be Jesus’ bride … it’s far bigger than just going to heaven. The Lord Jesus deserves a bride worthy of His sacrifice for her. That is why our character – our heart toward Him – day by day by day, becomes more and more important. 

This is also why the bible says:  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28. My translation of this verse is this:  nothing can happen to me in my situation – or to you in your situation – that is beyond our Father’s redemptive loving care and transformation. All He requires from His Son’s bride-to-be is that she would yield to His greater wisdom as it is revealed in the bible, plus we have the precious Holy Spirit’s guidance always with us.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3. We can count on the fact that God knows the end from the beginning, and there is nothing that can prevent Him from taking all things—every single thing, and weaving and working them together for our good. This is the way the Apostles lived and worked and spread the Gospel. They believed In their Heavenly Father’s power to redeem bad situations into good. 

Doubt is our enemy. So is carelessness and a lack of love for others, and we dare not doubt His goodness and His faithfulness.  We are transformed from day to day by believing what He has said about WHO we are now, because of Christ’s sacrifice. Let’s not miss the mark and get picky and choosy about being obedient. Meanwhile, the Lord is all wisdom, so we would have to be mighty dumb, or pretty disobedient not to pay attention to the things that are written in His book. If He has allowed a testing time, then He knows you can get through this – the Holy Spirit will walk you through it – ask Him to help you..

We will get stuck if we believe the enemy’s lies that we can’t do, or endure whatever God told us to do. We quite simply cannot afford to believe our feelings over Christ’s life and His testimony. If we mess up and go the wrong way then we repent, turn around and go back and do whatever He asked you to do, the way the Holy Spirit said to do it. 

We are His, and He is ours, and nothing can separate us from His incredible love. Jesus Christ Himself died to release all of us from satan’s power and JESUS LOVES HIS BRIDE!  Keep believing God is good, and turn your eyes away from any and all of the circumstances that drag you under. Ask others to pray for you. When God stretches our faith, our faith will be even bigger on the other side of those testing times. Bye. 👋

P 2995 Controlling our mouths …

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…is actually the biggest part of our daily battle … because speaking well of people is essential for our new language of love, so we all need to learn it. After all, the spirit of self-control needs to set its fruit somewhere … why not our tongues?

“Do not LET any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29. Here’s something I’ve learnt about myself that may benefit someone else. Sometimes the best response to something negative someone else says to you, is to smile — remember to include your eyes —and say nothing. Listening is a fantastic skill. Humility listens. Most angry people will de-escalate if we are prepared to give them a hearing. While I am listening, or trying to, I am inwardly praying: “Please help ME Holy Spirit, my feelings are out of control.”  

As we seek to truly love one another, reconciliation must never be far away from our minds. We cannot afford to make any argument a competition about who wins and who loses. If we start keeping score it adds to the anger. One of the participants in the problem is going to have to put their grievance – their sword– down. The best way to do that, is to start with an apology.

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 15:1. So it is good to say neutral things like: “I’m sorry you feel like that, and I have obviously hurt your feelings. I apologise.Please forgive me.” And then continue to say nothing. While we are busy defending ourselves, we aren’t loving that other person – we are empowering our flesh.

Loving each other is the secret ingredient to watching whatever we say. People who fall in love with someone else, watch their speech. The thing is, it is not good for our personal spiritual well-being to be a hypocrite, and love some people and not others simply because: “Love covers a multitude of sins …” It covered OURS!

Please understand that when we act in faith, with a spirit of reconciliation, we are not necessarily validating what the other person is saying – we are simply choosing to obey scripture: “First take the LOG out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see the splinter.” Matthew 7:3-5. None of us are blameless. What does it matter if we are falsely accused? What does it matter if we lose an argument? We might win the war by appearing to lose. The walls of Jericho came down because of a long silence, and one well-placed shout of victory!

Very few people walk up to someone else and punch them in the face FIRST! Arguments usually start with words, and then things grow exponentially as we use more and more words, and move on into hurling spiteful responses at each other and bringing up the other person’s past misdeeds. That’s the time we need to remember that we cannot control another person’s actions or reactions, we have to start with ourselves first. Maybe His Grace in our lives – which we get from spending time with Jesus in the secret place – has been diminished by the troubles and cares of this life.

“LET your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Colossians 4:6. One of my favourite preachers from the Brownsville Revival used to say – “this thing right here … (and he would point to his tongue) – that’s the thing we all need to be aware of.” “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be so.” James 3:10. But it obviously IS so, because God Himself tells us through James …that it should not be so! This is where our personal test of obedience kicks in.

The next verse is the secret to overcoming all that. We cannot afford to live this life forgetting, for even a second, WHO we belong to now. “Little children, you can be certain that you belong to God and have conquered them, for the One who is living in you is far greater than the one who is in the world.”1 John 4:4 TPT. You see our confidence is not in our ability to conform, or even perform – our confidence is in Him. It is not in me or you … it’s IN HIMI We believe and have faith in His ability to conquer whatever situation we find ourselves in — after all He conquered DEATH! Therefore my big mouth is not a problem to Him. 

All this is possible because we belong to Him and He lives in us. We have a God Who saves us, and Who lives in us! He has already saved us from the sin we will perpetrate against someone else by what we’ve said. Because of the Lord Jesus we have the deposit of self-control within us, by His Grace. All we need to do is to release it, using our faith. Controlling our mouths is the biggest part of our daily battle. Bye 👋.

P 2983 We have a Friend.

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“And in a similar way, the Holy Spirit takes hold of us in our human frailty to empower us in our weakness. For example, at times we don’t even know how to pray, or know the best things to ask for. But the Holy Spirit rises up within us to super-intercede on our behalf, pleading to God with emotional sighs too deep for words. God, the searcher of the heart, knows fully our longings, yet He also understands the desires of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit passionately pleads before God for us, His holy ones, in perfect harmony with God’s plan and our destiny. So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together for good, for we are His lovers who have been called to fulfil His designed purpose.”Romans 8:26-28 TPT. Prayer is our investment in someone else’s life.

I do love the way Paul says “at times we don’t know how to pray…” He only wrote half of the books in the New Testament!! I feel so much better!  I don’t know how to pray most of the time. I have to ask the Holy Spirit ‘please show me how to pray about this situation.’ And sometimes I ask Him ‘how do I join in with You in Your prayer?’ about this situation? I’ve gotten very picky in my old age, I don’t just want any old answer, I want His answer! I’ve tasted and seen for myself that the Lord is good, and I want to live in much deeper water than that. One word from Jesus and I come alive. There is always more… go after more.

For years I stuffed myself full of other people’s insights, simply because I liked what they said better than I liked what I managed to find for myself. I read this latest and greatest book, and that other fantastic book with the secret of getting your prayers answered. And my poor brain simply could not hold all that extra information and the keys they kept giving me. Just do this … and all will be well … . That stuff kept falling out. That’s when I started to grow tired of pre-digested food. I think the Holy Spirit must have been praying for me about this – I certainly can’t see how I could have been led into learning from Him for myself, otherwise! I was very stuck. And I was sick of being stuck!  

Hands up all those people who think that the Holy Spirit knows how to pray perfectly? Me too! So, what is better than chasing the One Who knows how to pray perfectly? Why follow another person who can get lost just like I can? To start with, I saved a heap of money on books!  It was a no-brainer for me. You know how the bible says in Psalm 103:2: “…forget not all His benefits…” ….Well, this is one of them. The Holy Spirit prays for us all the time, all day, every day, day in – day out. He’s in the eternal NOW and He doesn’t stop. That thought alone just makes me want to cry. Imagine that. Imagine His devotion to our spiritual well-being!

Even the best parent isn’t that good! Not only does the Holy Spirit pray, but when we feel weak, unloved, and unlovely;  He knows how to lift us up in that weakness, back up into the sacred space where we find God’s strength again. He reminds us how much Almighty God loves us. This is a fact — right here, right now. In all our failings and rotten attitudes, we have perfect love pouring down upon us, day after day after day. Not just when we pray. All day, all night, and when we finally open our little eyeballs in the morning again.

He isn’t just praying for us to be delivered from evil either … the Holy Spirit knows how to pray for everything and anything we need. Courage. A new pair of shoes. Someone who is flesh and blood to love us for who we are. In every need we have, He prays for us to be aware of, and strengthened, and helped by God Himself. He even sends out His angels to minister to us. Many times those angels are other people. Listening people. Are you the kind of person who listens carefully to Him, so you can bless others with a word, or an action, or kindness? That’s what He is like. Oh, I am such a fan of the Holy Spirit, the One Who loves to remain unseen.

All sorts of people tell me they are following Jesus, sometimes they are great speakers, or they can prophesy … but until I see a heart that is generous, unobtrusive, and wants to bless others—to physically bless them…I remain unimpressed. I want fruit. You want and need fruit too. Words are not fruit. Actions are. And the Person Who prompts all those actions is the Holy Spirit. Whispering… “why don’t you just go and do this or that …” He hardly ever shouts. That’s why we need learn to listen to Him. 

The Holy Spirit is the only Person I know, Who can take terrible situations, and awful people, plus a rotten personal  attitude and weave it into something so beautiful it will glorify God Himself! I have no idea how He does it – but I love watching Him work. One of the reasons you and I don’t always see the fruit of our prayers is that we cannot see God’s bigger picture. I’ve learnt to look for the good in any situation.  Where God is, there is good! Drag your eyes away from the obvious failures and disasters all around us, and ask the Holy Spirit to show you the good in it. 

I am learning to live with the expectation that there will be good, I will find His good no matter how it looks. God calls that faith … I call it knowing Him, just a little. We have the dearest Friend ever, He knows how to look through any storm and see Jesus walking towards us on the water. Hold on dear friends, the Perfect One is right there … can you see Him? Bye 🕊️.

P 2969 Hope maintenance.

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“Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energises you. Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ—and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity. Amen!”Ephesians 3:20-21 TPT. Jesus is our steadfast anchor and hope, and the bible is hope’s back-up and proof that what we know is true. Finally, our praise and prayers mirror what we hope for! 

You and I need to take the time to protect our own hope. We can’t always just jump in and start out with faith, because our faith can be weakened by circumstances, emotions and trouble. Christ’s birth, life, and death have established HOPE on the earth, permanently.”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.“ Colossians 1:27.This is not a transitory thing, it is an eternal thing. It is an established, firm, foundational fact. We cling to His incredible goodness. Faith will spring up in us, as we continually maintain our hope in Who He is and what He did for us.

We need to remind ourselves about what the Bible says, instead of focussing on what is going on around us or inside us. We ask the Holy Spirit to remind us of the incredible things the Lord has already done in our lives that are good, filled with hope, grace and truth. Verses like those two above, are so helpful, they remind us that God has dominion over everything else that is going on, and He doesn’t just want to answer our prayers — He wants to bless us while He is doing it! He has our best interests firmly established in His heart.

Here is another well known verse that show us ‘hope’s purpose.’“May Your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in You.” Psalm 33:22. Our hope is an investment in God’s greatness, not in our ability to believe! There are times when we hope for things that are bigger than our faith seems to be. However, God is always good, He will get us there, He will turn our hearts toward Him! Just be honest with Him and ask for His help. When we asked Jesus to save us He made our heart His home. We could be bad at living like that is a reality, or good at it, none of that makes any difference at all to HIS goodness.

Things happen all the time in this life, stuff like —- a loved one is desperately sick, or the job we want to be available isn’t. Maybe we need somewhere safe to live. Of course we pray about such desperate things, but our hope needs to be in WHO He is, not just the answer to our prayers. If our hope is in the answer to our prayers then our hopes can be shattered if things don’t turn out the way we think they should. We must start with the known, the reality, the substance of Who Jesus is — His character, and His attitude toward people like me, we are the people He loves. All of that is in the bible.

Sometimes we desperately hope for things that are beyond our immediate scope of belief. Pray and ask Him to walk you through your failing hope and faith, until you are again standing on His goodness. Things like these are a place for us to continue to stretch our faith IN HIM. Here is an example: it is one thing to believe God can get you to work on time when the trains are late — and totally another to believe He can heal someone who is severely depressed! He can! But we can drive ourselves batty struggling and striving to stretch our hope and make our faith into something it isn’t … yet. When you find a weak place, let Him be your strength.

You and I might have a mustard seed size of faith, and still grow a big tree that will shelter others. The important factor in that sentence is time. We never arrive, we are always in transit in this life – that’s part of the adventure. We need to invest our hope in His goodness, like we invest in breathing or having enough water — not in our ability, or inability to pray. Let His goodness be a fixed point. Then hope will not disappoint you. HE never changes. But our ability to hope in Him answering our prayers might easily be swayed or changed with adverse  circumstances. 

That’s why our hope must be in Who He is. Our thoughts aren’t about things like – did He answer my prayer this week, last month, last year? Our prayer needs to be fixed to the only true fixed point – is Jesus God or not? Can God do anything or not? Anything else leaves us open to being knee-capped by the other guy when we get overwhelmed by whatever is going on. God is good. He gives good answers. No matter how things look now, He’s got this. He’s with you in what is going on. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.” Hebrews 11:1. We hang onto our hope in Him, until we hit faith and we return to the certainty of Who He is … now we have substance … we aren’t trying to push faith out, we know that we know Who He is.

Silence from heaven is never final … it means it is faith-stretching time – during that time we need to dig into our hope chest and remind ourselves of Who He is and what He has done for us. Hope maintenance facilitates growing and strengthening OUR faith. We stop using other people’s experiences to push us along, and start developing our own history, our own stories of His grace in action. Then we can’t be stopped. Remember:  “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12 . I believe that hoping in God’s goodness is the key that breathes life into overwhelmed struggling, sad hearts. Bye. 👋

P 2957 Be fruitful not just productive.

/ DVH

After all, Jesus Christ Himself answered to SomeOne else – His Father! John 9:1-4: “While He was passing by, He noticed a man [who had been] blind from birth. His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi (Teacher), who   sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but it was so that the works of God might be displayed and illustrated in him. We must work the works of Him Who sent Me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.”

Sin is common to man, the bible tells us that, but isn’t it astonishing how quickly human beings go into blame, even right in front of Jesus? They say things like: ‘Whose fault is this, Jesus – him or his parents?’ Religion always wants a reason to blame, and sometimes it wants to excuse itself. ‘It’s not my fault my parents beat me, neglected me, spoiled me as a child I can’t help it.’ Right. So it seems to me that you are having trouble putting childish things away?? Read I Corinthians 13:11. How about you study the power of CHOICE?

I love 💕the way that Jesus sorts these things out… because this stuff really IS a waste of time! His disciples noticed that blind man and they wanted a religious reason for his ailment, but …  but… Jesus just healed him!  I mean I’m on the Lord’s team about that … just do something about whatever is wrong!  Love on the guy, restore his life, and throw blame out of the window. Don’t analyse it. Deal with it. Pray over it. After all we’ve been given His authority!

Not only that, then the Lord says something here we don’t even dare to discuss ……this incredible Being, Almighty God, Who ‘wraps Himself in unapproachable light and has no darkness in Him at all’ ALLOWED that blind man to be born blind so He could illustrate His glory! Ya might want to think about that for 3 months or so, ‘cos it kind of stomps all over all kinds of theology … like right … there. Our God is not the ‘when you wish upon a star, pretty blue fairy.’  When He came down upon the mountain in front of the Israelites they shoved Moses up the front and said “We are too scared of Him, YOU GO!” Let’s always remember that He’s the Mighty God Who rules heaven and earth, and — you’d better believe it buddy!

When Jesus took off His earthly human form, and He was revealed as God’s Son before 3 of His disciples – nobody had anything to say except Peter  — and that poor guy made an ass of himself… again. I always feel sorry for Peter, he says dumb stuff right out loud. Those things we might kind of whisper in corners to each other but we wouldn’t dare say any of it out loud at church. People might stop thinking we are holy if we did that. 

John 9:39: “Then Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment [to separate those who believe in Me from those who reject Me—to declare judgment on those who choose to be separated from God], so that the sightless would see, and those who see would become blind.”That sounds pretty clear and ‘user friendly’ to me. When the Lord was confronted with a blind man — He healed him. He didn’t form a committee to discuss what they should do next  didn’t care about the guy’s theology – or anyone else’s theology for that matter! He was simply fulfilling His God-given mandate. Is this a good time to mention that we have that mandate too?? Too soon??? Not ready??? Hmmm… I seem to recall the Lord said: “Live ready.” Matthew 24:42-51.

Moving on … Jesus knew that there was going to be a time when He couldn’t work anymore, so He did not waste a minute of the time He had at His disposal. That needs to be our blueprint for this life too. It is also worth noting that praying for the sick is a work that God has told all of us to do. Whether we feel spiritual or not, it’s our job now. I’ve prayed for the sick and they got worse and died, and I’ve prayed for the sick and they got better. And I can’t tell you why either one turned out either way! I simply know He said pray for the sick, so I did.

Whatever Jesus did, praying for the sick, deliverance, personal instruction – He totally did everything He did for the glory of God. He never justified big meetings by saying He had a ministry or some special gift … and yet He had ALL the gifts … better than we ever could. Instead He preached whatever He heard His Father saying to those who came. Whether it was two people or five thousand. He left everything to God and did what His Father told Him, and whatever He saw His Father doing. John 5:19. 

That verse in John 5 has always fascinated me. Jesus was not proud, He was humble, submitted to His Father.  The words “I do nothing by Myself” are pure gold to me. The Lord Jesus had no other agenda. I pray God will remove every one of my agendas and give me HIS! Amen. Now there’s a heart worth asking for! I wanna be with the people who only do what He’s doing and only say what He’s saying. The church has done enough advertising, talking and big mouthing, we need to learn to listen to the Holy Spirit and do what He says. It seems to me that sometimes we talk to cover up our lack. Did I say that out loud? Yikes… yes I did!! 

My current theory, (yeah, I freely admit it is a theory,) is that we need the Word of God to work on us, within us. Transformation will follow as we admit our lack and go after the Answer. Then we will freely flow in love, compassion and kindness. Jesus Himself never lacked those qualities, and we need to go after them, not just the gifts. We are meant to be fruit bearing vines, not libraries, or fun fairs. We desperately need the love and devotion that never fails. Sadly, in my personal experience, my human love can fail all over the place! I am especially convicted when I read I Corinthians 13:7. “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 

We will gain compassion and kindness by simply walking with the Lord, and seeing others through His eyes. Plus steadfastly walking through difficulties, sorrow and suffering, without losing any of our LOVE for Him, and others. I pray for everyone reading this blog today that they too would aim at Love over everything else because Love is the best glue known to mankind. As we too work the works of Him Who sent US, we must remember that unless we have Love, HIS love, we can end up clanging away like a fire bell.

We need to get our minds renewed to think like His, and “get our head in the game!” Fruitfulness is life-changing, not just productive. Bye 👋