Author and Finisher

P 3222 Consider …

/ DVH

Over the years God has taught me that focussing on what I don’t have —or what I can’t do, or even who I am not— isn’t helpful. We can be tricked into thinking that we have good reasons for believing bad things, including the times when life came and sat on us and we were too tired to get up. In those moments it is imperative that we keep our eyes fixed on Him. Not just because He can change our situations, but because as we choose to focus on Him, we are lifting our eyes out of the immediate, into the eternal. 

Maybe one of your kids seems to have gone off the rails;  or your marriage isn’t all you would like it to be;  or you live your life alone. Or perhaps your job makes you dread getting out of bed every single morning. If we concentrate on our problems, that can make them seem bigger than everything else, and the difficulties can quickly become the centre of our focus. Particularly if whatever it is, is not resolved right away. The Lord told us to ‘Come to Him’ …because He wants us to live in His rest, and peace is part of our birthright.

When life turns into a dystopian fair ground ride, and it whirls and lurches from one bad thing to another – my personal answer goes like this. Go outside and look around you, or go and watch the ocean. Just SIT. Leave your worry beads behind, and let this world and its beauty minister to your heart. All that other junk will probably still be there, after you give yourself a time out, but doing that will help you see things differently. After a while I begin to notice everything else is still going on. The world is still turning, the bees are doing their thing, the ants theirs. This world hasn’t stopped just because something has stopped me in my tracks. Acceptance is a gift available to anyone – it just takes practice.

Father God and the Lord Jesus Himself said this many times in different ways: ‘consider the lilies…consider the great things the Lord has done for you … consider what He says … consider how short this life is … consider the generations that have gone before you.’ Father God spoke to Abraham and asked this man to consider the stars, because Abraham’s view was too small. Almighty God needed a man who would look beyond his own lifetime and believe in His goodness even in the future. Abraham became that man … God taught him, experientially, that His plans are perfect.

This kind of expanded viewpoint is our birthright. At Pentecost this kind of vision was planted in the heart of the disciples by the Holy Spirit Himself. Their expanded view of God’s plans drove those men out into the streets … and beyond. Yet, here and now, we seem to be living our lives looking down all the time, concentrating on our own little patch of this life. We must stop, and consider the world around us. Particularly in times of trouble. And then we need to look up. You and I are part of a greater thing than any religion – we are part of His heart and He is ALL of ours. 

The kingdom of God is the main thing. And if we allow ourselves to be distracted and dejected by the stuff that comes at us daily, we will lose our vision. We are not here to build our own little kingdoms, complete with house, car, happy kids and extended families. That’s called advertising. It’s a dream manufacturers sell us so we will spend our money… so they can have even bigger houses, fabulous holidays, cars and boats and fulfil their own dreams! They are selling us empty, useless dreams prompted by greed. I urge everyone reading this to step out of that filthy hedonistic self-absorbed stream, and head straight for the river of God and jump in.

There is peace, joy, love, and … yes …answers, solutions, resolution in His purposes. Consider what Jesus said in John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Our God loves us, He does not want us to live unhappy lives, or miserable existences, He knows that true joy in this life is IN JESUS … not people, situations or things. Somewhere, somehow, somebody(!?) looked at verses like this one and saw what the Lord said as gaining “ things“. It is not about things, it is about a new way to live. There is a different kind of life to be lived where Jesus is everything and this world is just the scenery.

Our abundant life begins when we stop considering this world from our POV, and start looking at it from HIS. Jesus had no material possessions, they divided up the few clothes He had at the foot of the cross. But Paul said this about our faith, and how it is designed to function: “Looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith; Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2. 

Jesus looked through His cross and saw you and I, and billions like us, perishing in our sin. We were all going to hell because of the way we were living. But He said: ‘Not on My watch you aren’t,’ and headed straight for the cross. Stop. Think about it. You and I are that JOY that was before Him. Imagine that! The Co-Creator of this world has that much love for us. This life is a blink, it’s nothing. It comes and goes in the daily drudgery of making it work. But we can live in His Kingdom, right here, right now. Consider that. Bye. 👋

P 3093 Think bigger.

/ DVH

“This is love: He loved us long before we loved Him. It was His love, not ours. He proved it by sending His Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if He loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life!” 1 John 4:10-11 TPT.

Does anyone remember that old joke? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I think I know that answer! The chicken! God would never leave a little helpless baby chick to raise itself! So what has that got to do with anything? God’s love and His loving provision came first, that’s what. We don’t have to prove ourselves worthy, because, quite simply, we ain’t worthy and without the blood of Jesus over our lives, we never will be! Our Almighty, Omniscient, Ever-present Father loved us first. 

Here is a verse in Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew  you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Our God isn’t just talking to Jeremiah — He is talking to each one of us. He’s saying to us all: “You were in My heart before you were in this world. I always had a plan for your life.”  None of us are an accident. Every single human being is precious to God and we all have a destiny – a place in His kingdom. There are no ‘big’ guys or ‘little’ guys – there’s only Jesus!! He not only knows our names, where we live, what He has for us, He is thinking about us daily, all of the time. Every single one of us was born into this world with a loving Father watching over us – whether we had an earthly father or not … Father God was there.

He is the Author and Finisher of our intimate development inside our mothers. Let’s look at Psalm 139:13-18 for a minute, it says: “For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with You.”

Only Father God Himself loved humanity enough to take a record of every single child ever born – He knows each baby’s name. This was my conclusion – you were a great idea God had! He was there when each of us struggled to take our first breath. See Ezekiel 16:6: “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood ‘LIVE!…”

We started this life with God pronouncing life into us, and Jesus Himself told us in John 10:10: “…I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”‘Life, life and MORE LIFE.’ Please don’t ever use your life experiences, the good or the bad or the mediocre ones, as a yardstick for how the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit feel about you. They are incredibly passionate about you. The bible itself clearly tells us we are destined to be filled with LIFE. His life. That kind of life is called Zoe. ‘Zoe’ life refers to the uncreated, eternal life of God, the divine life uniquely possessed by God Himself, and He shares that life with us.

We were designed to live our lives, here and now, filled with that life. This is blessing, this gift, is part of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to each one of us. We don’t just yield our lives to Him so we can be guided by His Will, His Way. When we actively live His Will, His Way we are partaking of Father God’s ‘Zoe’ life. Jesus lived on this earth like that. He was so full of life it was almost like sparks flew off Him everywhere He went. 

One time God lifted the curtain between Jesus and His disciples and 3 of them saw what that life in Him looked like – it made them almost speechless. Matthew 17:1-2:“After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.” It is time to think bigger than just the same old same old life that we plod through day after day. Life is so much more than the mundanities we’ve accepted. Jesus took ordinary fishermen and made them disciples, and those guys turned the known world upside down!

Our Father has so much more in His heart when He made each one of us. I have had this phrase running around in my Spirit for months now. “BIGGER STILL!!” I think it is important to refuse to put a lid on what you think the Lord can do with your life. He’s God! He made a man from dirt, and a woman from a rib, then He breathed His Zoe life into both of them. Everything we can see around us, was once a creative idea that came from within Who He is… But there’s MORE!!…

Here is another way to think about the troubles you face daily:  “Father God is bigger than this thing that keeps coming at me. He can show me the way through everything that is going on around me, as well as the stuff going on inside my head and heart. I’m just going to lay back and let Him be God, and I’ll be a wholly yielded lover of Jesus, on this ride called, life.” Bye. 🕊️