answer

P 2430 How to live in HIS freedom!

/ DVH

“Now, the “Lord” I’m referring to is the Holy Spirit, and wherever HE IS LORD, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17 TPT. Great verse eh? Everybody say AMEN!! Now, what are we all going to do about it? Did we comprehend what that verse says? … It says if we truly want freedom then HE’S IN CHARGE NOW.  Ask yourself – is the Holy Spirit in charge of what you think, do and say? If not, that’s why there is confusion or angst. 

Let me be clear: even when we have chosen to go the wrong way — this is the same Spirit that was in Christ Jesus. He can redeem any dumb thing we do, intentional or not. Ask Him to redeem your mistakes. However, that is not my point for today, this is: — We can’t have a part-time Holy Spirit any more than we can have a part-time Saviour! You might need a minute to digest that bit of info, I know I did.🧐

Never get tied into the panic of ‘I don’t know what to do and the Holy Spirit hasn’t told me anything!’ That will paralyse you. Let’s listen to Luke, he wrote the consensus of the prayerful Apostles down – how they did it in Acts 15:28-30 “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:…”And Luke goes on to talk about dietary stuff. The point I am making is that they consulted the Holy Spirit … even about food and practical things… like … dare I say it ?…sex.

Moving on 😳 rapidly … because we will all turn into pumpkins if I hang around that word.😱 …  That simply means we ask Him for His input into everything. However, we also don’t sit about on a fence interminably waiting. Instead, we ask, then we wait for our spirits to become clear about the issue, then we proceed. I want to pause and explain the phrase ‘my spirit becoming clear.’ Sometimes when something difficult or unusual comes up I get confused, irritated, upset, fearful etc.… you get the idea. Inside I feel agitated and out of sorts. BUT, when my spirit seems clear, I feel quietly sure of going ahead in a certain way. The white noise in my heart and thoughts, disappears. I have peace.

But, if I continue to toss around thoughts, like: ‘will I?’ or ‘won’t I?’ I will quickly get muddled up again. That’s because a double- minded man doesn’t receive anything from the Lord. (Thank you James!) Instead, I hold fast to the place in my heart that remains un-conflicted about whatever it is and I give the whole issue back to Him again and leave it there. I have learnt that going over and over stuff, trying to figure out the right answer adds to confusion. And that double-minded gig James goes on about.

I pray about stuff as He leads me, while I am reading the bible. If nothing stands out to me, then I do nothing. Eventually a relevant verse, will just float through my brain and I accept it. He’s God, He’s bigger than me. I trust Him, so that’s where my faith is. My faith is in… His-never-ceasing-love-and-attention-to-even-the-smallest-details-in-my-life! Sometimes the situation that has had me in a flap-doodle just’ melts away like snow in the sunshine. 

The real issue is:  Who is Lord – you or Him?  This wrestling we do about the things in our lives, the “should I – or not” thought pattern — is not half as important as our loyalty to Him and wanting what He wants. Conflict looms in our lives when we are praying about something we think we need — that means I have an agenda. To deal with the Holy Spirit we must lay our agendas down, and tell Him we don’t care one way or the other, we want what He wants.

Then we need to give whatever it is to Him and leave it there, permanently. Move on and let His answer become Your answer. Thank Him for it – even if it doesn’t look the way you wanted it to, thank Him.  It’s WHO we have invested our faith IN that matters … not the answer to our prayer. Because… ‘we know that He works all things together for our good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.’  So we can’t lose when we trust Him to make our paths straight. That’s called freedom.

Meanwhile, what is His purpose? To be Lord! He’s good at it!! Let’s be clear. The Holy Spirit does things per-fect-ly.  There is no whoops in Him! And that’s because nothing… nothing … NOTHING!!! gets by HIM. So there is no point in hoping He won’t notice stuff, because He will! “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes, and He is the one to Whom we are accountable.” Hebrew 4:13. Check everything out with Him first, because He knows anyway. 😂 

There is no true freedom in trying to organise or control Almighty God, there is only truck loads of frustration. The result of our prayers, consultations, and yielding to the Holy Spirit is that we will get to know Him better. It is never about getting what I want … it is about getting to know Him and what He wants. Bye 👋🏻

P 2350 Jesus, our perfect example.

/ DVH

John 15:26 “I will send you the Helper from the Father. The Helper is the Spirit of truth Who comes from the Father. When He comes, He will tell about ME.”Whenever there is a problem, difficulty or hardship – God has an answer!  Let’s look more closely. The answer is always JESUS. 

Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit – His Helper! It is important to know that if the ‘voice’ you hear is not leading you to know Jesus better – then it is not the Holy Spirit. If that ‘voice’ tells you there is a short-cut or an easier way to go … guess what? That’s not the Holy Spirit. If that ‘voice’ tells you that you are going to be so-oo-oo important in God’s kingdom – that’s not the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t talk like that.

So Who IS important? JESUS is, that’s Who! Everything is all about Jesus. The Father has put everything we will need or we are going to need IN Him. That was the Father’s plan right from the beginning of this world. Jesus is the only way IN. He shows us the way forward, and we need to follow Him. Plus Jesus Christ is the way through whatever comes at you. Park on those promises.

Long before Christ was born Almighty God reached out to us through His prophets and leaders. Now in our time, God is telling us through the bible, that we can be strengthened against difficulties, instead of being bowled over by them. That’s what Jesus came here to give us – a God-sent way through hardship and difficulties. Christ knew that God does not leave us when things get hard and intense. Grabbing hold of that reality will stabilise and establish our hearts so we can hold steady in the middle of any storm.

In John 16:31-33 “Jesus answered them, “Do you finally believe? In fact, you’re about to make a run for it—saving your own skins and abandoning Me. But I’m not abandoned. The Father is with Me. I’ve told you all this so that trusting Me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” 

Now isn’t that fascinating? Jesus is giving His final instructions to His disciples and He says: ‘Guess what boys, it’s going to get HARD – but it is all good because I’M GOING TO WIN. You will all leave Me — BUT — He’s got this too!’ Faith is believing what Jesus Christ said, simply because He said it! The bible is not an opinion or a theory, it is a faithful recording of God’s interaction with other men and women who are just like us. Some things look disastrous but it is God working in our lives …He’s pruning!

Lastly, let’s quickly look at something Jesus said in – John15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” The Lord does not ‘prune’ us for nothing – He has a purpose. Pruning is God’s plan to develop more fruit, it is not punishment or desertion. We need to let Him prune away any stuff – even if it looks good to us. There are some things that will not add to our character and strength. This is when we need to use our faith in His goodness to hold fast to our beliefs. Pruning cuts away any extraneous junk that we’ve adopted to cope with this life. 

Who is going to be with us and hold us up while all this stuff is happening to us? The Holy Spirit will… He did it for Jesus and He will do it for us. He will bring what the bible says into our minds so we can hold on to Christ’s words when everything in our lives has gone utterly insane.  We can be at peace despite the chaos around us because Jesus knows the Way out … He IS the Way out. We must learn to recognise our Helper, He sounds just like Jesus did. Despite what is going on around us – or even TO us, our God doesn’t change.

This life is not meant to be an easy ride, because we are producing Godly fruit, and the people of this world have never seen or tasted that kind of heavenly fruit. So we need to live by faith that He is good no matter what kind of stuff flies about, in us and around us. This means that others can “taste and see that the Lord is good.”👋🏻

P 2309 Grab a cup of something you like and … enjoy what He is saying to you!

/ DVH

1 Thessalonians 1:3&4 “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.”

I figure if my life is difficult day by day, then perhaps your life is too! And then I read the above verses in 1 Thessalonians and the matter was confirmed. I thank God for you and your life laid down for His sake. It is good to read what the Lord has recorded in His book, and kept through the ages for all of us… and now, we need to personalise it! I urge you to read these verses like the Holy Spirit is speaking to you… because… He is! He is using Paul’s words to help each one of us with the hard bits of this life. These verses are a prophetic word of loving encouragement.

I have also included today, something I read recently from The Passion Translation blog called: “I Hear His Whisper.” Hubby passed it on to me. As I read it, I cried and cried. Life can be so very tough, and loving encouragement from our brothers and sisters in Christ is essential, so words like these mean a great deal in difficult times. Meanwhile, personally, physical therapy for a shoulder broken in 3 places can seem endless, plus typing this blog with one hand using my index finger for the past 7 weeks, is painfully SLOW! 😂

This lovely piece below has been written as if the Lord Himself is speaking to us. It is called – 

‘There is Beauty in your Pain.’

“Your pain has become the birthing ground for the beautiful.  In your greatest devastation, your worship has become a fertile, healthy womb.  From the seasons of sorrow now come glorious gifts for you to share.  Nothing has been overlooked.  Now you will see what I will do through you, because of what you endured while you bowed before Me in surrender.  In your place of your pain, I have poured out My beauty.

Heartbreaking tears of surrender have made you beautiful – so very beautiful to Me.  This is the most perfect offering of your yielded heart.  I haven’t forgotten one single prayer.  I have seen every movement of your heart toward Me in your suffering.  For every tear, I give you a seed to sow in someone’s life.  I have taken your sorrow.  I have cleansed your tears with My love.  Now I pour these tears back to you as rain upon dry soil – golden rain of a new season where flowers bloom and the air is clean and fresh.  Breathe deeply, My love.  The season has changed. “

(“I Hear His Whisper” by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez.)

You might want to just sit a while and let that sink in, it is worth meditating on. 😶 

Sometimes doing nothing and holding on tight to Who He is, is the best answer of all. In Genesis it tells us that the Lord Himself rested. I think there is a time when it is good for us to hold on to what we know, and just keep hanging on, and let His great Grace carry us. I can remember during my accident, sitting awkwardly at the bottom of our stairs … having just bumped my way all the way down to the bottom,… and marvelling that I had such great peace. If I didn’t move my shoulder about I could almost pretend I was OK…⚡️ … I did say … almost! 😂

So I exhort us all to take the time today to remind ourselves  that Almighty God knows what is going on … even when we don’t. Take the pressure off and just BE …   He knows what He is doing. 👋🏻 

P 2292 Disposing of myths…

/ DVH

There was a theory in Christianity like 30-40 years ago that ‘what you say is what you get.’  I’ve found that human beings are fascinating … we are always looking for the easy way, or the soft touch or an escape clause etc. etc. But actually I think we have all gone a bit soft. Not in the head, mind you, but emotionally speaking. When things get tough … sadly, ’the tough don’t get going’ … They are far more likely to squawk and complain their heads off and drive their poor pastor nuts.

God is not obliged to answer our prayers, He always hears us – but we are now living under His Grace. We can ASK – but then we trust. Unfortunately, I think we’ve become way too used to outsourcing our problems instead of getting alone with God and working things out with Him.

I can remember, years ago, way back in the Ark – metaphorically speaking – after some huge difficulty or other, crying my eyes bloodshot. I was surrounded by piles of soggy tissues, and I explained to God that I just couldn’t take any more, and could He please feel sorry for me and come and help me out of the mess I had somehow manage to get into? You know, I really don’t have experiences, or hear an audible voice – I’m a plodder… one foot after the other kind of thing … This one time I actually heard HIM LAUGH!

Well that was a tad discouraging! So I said so. But that didn’t seem to make a lot of difference. His reply was even more discouraging… “You don’t know what YOU can do,” He said. You know, He was right!  I’ve learnt the Lord God maker of heaven and earth – always IS. Since then I have been through far worse things, still crying, complaining and filling up our oceans and landfill with even more tissues. But I survived. Despite my heart and mind telling me I couldn’t possibly live through this kind of pain … I DID!

“But the love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God’s Word. We can be sure that we’ve truly come to live in intimacy with God, not just by saying, “I am intimate with God,” but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.” 1 John 2:5-6 TPT. 

As you can see, it isn’t, what you say is what you get … it’s what you get – YOU GET! 🤔 And then comes the joy of learning to live with whatever the problem is, while you are trying to grow through it, and at the same time straining forward to follow Jesus. That’s the real rubber, hitting the real road – impacting lives. I wish I could tell you after all these years that I have learnt the magic formula to managing hard things but … NOPE!!  However, I have learnt to give UP much quicker … but then again, that could be old age. Are you cheered up yet? 😂

Here’s my genuine advice. Go into His book and look for a reality rush. Try reading Hebrews 11. Particularly V13. “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” So are any of us better than Abraham or the guys in this list? No! Jesus Himself said:’In this life you will have trials … but cheer up, I have overcome the world.’ John 16:33.

Unrealistic expectations have killed off more faith than any of us will ever understand this side of heaven. Our faith must always be in God’s goodness, not in answers. Answers are simply the result of the outworking of His plans for all of us. We restrict the Lord when we try to explain or interpret His ways with our finite minds. We will always need the Holy Spirit to help us. ALWAYS! Otherwise we will start reducing Almighty God to SomeOne after our own image … and that is not good at all! 

What we say is definitely not always what we get – Father God always gives better than we ever imagined… in His timing. His timing is different from what we asked for or hoped, or thought, but it is always perfect. Let’s let God be God and we’ll just be us!  Deuteronomy 32:4 (KJV) “He is the Rock, His work is perfect: For all His ways are judgment: A God of truth and without iniquity, Just and right is He.” And that is definitely worth thinking about. 👋🏻