Awe

P 3303 Tongues.

/ DVH

Before you freak out, because people do … I just want to say I think the subject of tongues have been bashed up a bit. Between some denominations who stay well away from this blessing, to others that insist we are not born again Christians without it – tongues have been misunderstood. However, I think about this subject like Paul does – I pray in tongues, and I pray in English. But I’m eternally grateful that when I run out of words, the Holy Spirit always knows exactly how to pray – for me, and through me, and for others. The bible says: tongues edify us, they build us up personally in the Holy Spirit, because speaking in tongues needs us to use our faith.

Today I want to look at what the bible says about it. Paul seems to be the most instructive and vocal person, but I want to start with the book of Acts chapter 2:1-13, where it all began. I think we are emphasising the wrong bit –what happens to us! And we seem to fly right over the fact that the Holy Spirit visibly arrived here on earth! A whole lot of incredibly unusual things happened. The Breath of God became seeable, hearable and people experienced Him. It was awe inspiring and terrifying all at the same time. The power of God was tangible.

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Indeed! What DID it mean? I think Almighty God, the Holy Spirit, arrived in Jerusalem, at the Lord’s appointed time, and the same Spirit that helps people speak in tongues —- helped people from so many different places understand what was spoken! No prayer, no urging, no force at all, no stress – God Himself just showed up!And people who could not understand each other suddenly understood what He said. When Father God did that He made it clear what happened was for everyone. The barriers we all carefully erect between each other, were gone. This means Almighty God speaks your language!

This wasn’t a ‘choice’ moment, it was a ‘sovereign’ one. Ordinary fishermen, started to speak languages they had not learned, and God’s message was broadcast aloud through the streets of Jerusalem by nobodies. People physically saw the tongues of fire, they heard the rushing wind, they felt the buildings shake. It was momentous. Jesus Christ came here as a little baby, but the Holy Spirit arrived with a huge blast of glory from heaven! Imagine it. The disciples start speaking words they don’t understand and perfect strangers are convinced and convicted that Jesus is the Messiah. And they repent!

Peter stands up and explains. How does an ordinary fisherman know what happened? Well, he had walked with Jesus for three and a half years, suffered through Christ’s death and burial and resurrection, and at the end of all that, all the disciples had to cling to was the word Jesus gave them. WAIT. Then suddenly the living Word stashed inside Peter’s heart, was ignited with a roar. He and the rest of the disciples had been with Jesus, day after day, listening, learning, making mistakes, seeing things they never thought they would see, and then suddenly the word of God came alive in each one of them. They were so impacted by the Holy Spirit that His Words burst out of their mouths and reached everyone around them. Nobody cared who the preacher was – all the listeners knew was Almighty God was speaking to each one of them personally. 

For me this is the essence of speaking in tongues. The enlivening of the listener’s spirit to the point where they see God Himself, and Jesus Christ His Son, more clearly than they ever have before. This gift is meant to impact our hearts. It goes right past our thinking and bursts straight into our spirits. This is what speaking in tongues is for – it helps us when we are stuck, or dismayed, or bereft or lost. It rescues us with God’s Words spoken through us or someone else, and our spirit jumps up and down and says: “I know that voice!” 

It’s not some sort of fairground party trick. God Himself speaks through us. I have prayed in tongues with tears pouring down my cheeks because the Holy Spirit gave me the interpretation as I was speaking. My ears didn’t understand a word I said, but my heart jumped up and down and said: “That’s it! There’s the answer.” 

We were made by the Holy Spirit in our mother’s womb, we know His voice. When He comes and breathes upon us, we recognise His breath. Tongues are a sign and a wonder, but they are a supernatural sign and a God initiated wonder. It is not just babbling. It’s the Lord!  The power of God, His wisdom, His authority and His never-ending passion for mankind, speaking into and kissing someone’s heart, spirit and soul. Impacting them with pure unadulterated love! Not man’s thoughts, HIS!  Bye. 👋

P 3229 YOU are His House.

/ DVH

“Here’s the one thing I crave from Yahweh, the one thing I seek above all else: I want to live with Him every moment in His house, beholding the marvellous beauty of Yahweh, filled with awe, delighting in His glory and grace. I want to contemplate in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 TPT.

It is so easy to read lovely scriptures like this one and think of God’s house as being somewhere else. Like in  heaven, or at church, or bible study, or in our worship times. Let’s look carefully at this next scripture, which I’m sure we all know very well, however, I’m not positive we are actually applying ourselves to live it out. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is IN you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” I Corinthians 6:20.

Yeah! Sobering thought. We, you and I … are now HIS house! If we want Jesus to ‘hang with’ us, we need to make His house a place He would like to inhabit. And we’ve gone about doing this the wrong way in the past. God loves the things that last. “Faith, hope and love,’ that’s what we are aiming at. His temple is not just some hypothetical glorious ideal, far, far away from us. This verse clearly shows us we are individually responsible for the state of His house. Knowing this is the beginning of change, but it won’t actually change the way we think, until we digest it and grab hold of it and act on it. Holy-Spirit guided action can, and it will. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” 1 Corinthians 4:20.

I can’t tell you what that will mean to you, but I can tell you a few of the kind of things that have affected me, and none of them are about what I eat, or what I watch on TV, or read etc! The first one is something that I call: “feeding the doubt.” FAITH! Doubt happens when I start ruminating over anything that isn’t working out the way I thought. The thing is, God’s temple is dedicated to Him and what He wants, so what I think I need or want, pales into insignificance. His Will His Way needs to be my permanent motto. And our God loves faith. So I repent. 

I may not think I have done anything wrong, but I choose to actively trust the Holy Spirit to know what HE likes. It’s His house, so I want His desires. I need to stir up my faith and talk to the Lord about His goodness to me. Then I ask for His help to remember those times when I have trusted Him, and I’ve seen Him graciously do the miraculous in my life. All those little things that don’t matter to anyone else, but they have impacted me greatly. Remembering His goodness is a great active sword. Whenever my faith falters, I need to stop, and reestablish the fact that He is good.

The next is to actively keep my HOPE in His goodness alive, in a primary place in my heart. Because without that hope, I will start trying to solve my problems by myself. His hope is my anchor. Hope anchors me into the bedrock solidity of His never-ending-always-present love. Otherwise I can float about being affected by the wash of someone else carelessly speeding past me. Now I keep on doing whatever my day brings up, I go over everything good in my life that He has given me, and thank Him for those things. I can also thank Him for saving me, and continually washing me with His Word.

This last thing that affects me is equally important – loving other people extravagantly. This bit is where we counteract what other people do. If I do good things for a return, I am expecting a benefit from this world. My hope will be shattered. When I do the things, He asks me to, as He leads me, especially for people who don’t deserve it – It becomes extravagant LOVE. This can sound impossible, especially if the person/s involved aren’t super-duper sweet guys. In other words, we aren’t exaggerating when we say we can’t love them, because they are, humanly speaking, not nice folks.  

Actually, loving not-so-nice people extravagantly is actually easier than loving the people that you deeply love, who have treated you badly. The more invested we are in the person, the harder it gets to be obedient. We can think up lots of excuses to opt out of obedience, when someone we love mistreats us. Things like thinking they should know us better, or give us their best behaviour all the time.  How realistic is that?? 

The reality is, people are human beings. Some things – even if they seem easy to you – can be hard for others. This is the time we need to remember that people will let us down, but the Lord never ever will. We have to switch our focus off them, onto Him. They can’t do everything we need – but Jesus already did!  Loving extravagantly means we lavish love on others, even when it is undeserved. This is the kind of love that blows people away. It’s not just nice, or kind, it is over-the-top love, the kind Jesus gave away all the time. 

Loving others extravagantly reaps a harvest. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9. I call this kind of verse, the kind of verse we try not to memorise because it seems too difficult to practice! The bible has loads of those. The ones we skip and hope God isn’t looking. Because we are His house – we actually don’t have that luxury. Remember, right here, right now – you are His house. Bye. 👋

P 3159 He will inhabit our lives.

/ DVH

“My beloved ones, just like you’ve always listened to everything I’ve taught you in the past, I’m asking you now to keep following My instructions as though I were right there with you. Now you must continue to make this new life fully manifested as you live in the holy awe of God—which brings you trembling into His Presence. God will continually revitalise you, implanting within you the passion to do what pleases Him.” Philippians 2:12-13 TPT.

We cannot afford to postpone following His instructions, they are life and health to our bones! (Proverbs 3:7-8.) This is not just about our bones, BTW, it is about us living daily in His standing-up-in-the-middle-of-difficulties strength! It is our responsibility to allow His life to be fully manifested in us. Jesus did not save us so we could hide away in religious activities and tell ourselves: “that will do.” He saved us to be His ambassadors to this world. To start with, we need to redefine what real love looks like, the people around us think love looks like getting my own way!

God Himself knows the best way for any of us to live our lives. We can think we know, but we cannot foresee the future –  it is outside our control. Even Christians rumble along, listening to this instruction the Lord has given us, and ignoring that one because it’s ‘too hard and God won’t mind.’ We cannot afford to cherry-pick the verses we want to obey and the ones we don’t. Jesus died for us, and we died with Him, and this new life we have now is His.

Jesus Himself knew the secret of being ‘in’ the world, but not ‘of’ the world. His FOCUS was always on His Father’s kingdom. He did not treat a KING any differently than a peasant! He simply spent His time ministering to  people, displaying His Father’s love to them, meeting their needs. The Lord Jesus lived to love others, and obey His Father in all things. He didn’t save His life – He spent it!

Jesus’ life and death shows us that living like He did can be done. But it is painfully obvious we will need help — our love is not as hot as it should be. When God is an add-on, or merely SomeOne we run to, to fix things, passion will not be a part of our love for Him. However, the Holy Spirit knows both passion and devotion. That’s why Jesus sent back Him back to us. The Spirit of God helps us see and live in God’s perspective about the things happening in our lives. Jesus does not have to prove He loves us by answering our prayers – His life, death and resurrection are all the proof we need.

And what’s more the Lord’s life shows us that there is a better life than we can ever imagine when we learn to walk with Him in His Ways!  We have been blessed, we can bring heaven here, right here, right now — when we live His Way for His purposes. Whether we can see or hear Him or not – we can live in joy, loving others the way He loved us. Obedience opens doors. Day after day I hear people talking about fulfilment in this life. Maybe they don’t feel fulfilled because they were made for a purpose, and believe it or not that purpose wasn’t just to live in comfort, or annoy the living daylights out of someone else! 

The Lord may be temporarily absent from us, but He is oh so close and present, in the bible. We can always find Him in His book. Jesus Himself is called the LIVING WORD! And I need a living word every single day. I am daily learning to put my feelings to one side. Now the only thing I care about is His peace in me. When I have His peace, I can do anything. Believe it or not I am as scared of other people as you are!  But …the Holy Spirit is so faithful. He can’t help Himself – it’s His nature.

“Let’s not get weary in the well doing…”  Galatians 6:9. Pressing in and on, can seem daunting. As you get older, like I have, you just want to sit down somewhere comfy, with a cup of tea, and watch the world go by. I like life in the slow-lane. But I love to see the faces of the people who have no idea how much they are loved by God Himself so much MORE than my own comfort. This life is a series of choices. It is not so much about making good or bad choices, as it is about making ‘A’ choice, any choice. It is very hard to move a stationary vehicle. 

My advice is to do something… anything. Be generous, share with others, mow someone’s lawn, talk to some elderly shut-in. And watch the Lord turn up and love on people just because you reached out to them. They will be attracted to Jesus-in-you. It’s not us – it’s never us! It’s because HE is altogether lovely!! We don’t have to market Him, advertise Him, or explain Him — we just turn up with Him … with the King in residence here → ❤️ in our hearts. He promised to never leave us or forsake us or give us up – so He’s with us, whether we feel Him or not. Why not just believe Him? 

The way to fill up your heart is in Matthew 7:7-8, and Jeremiah 29:13 – look it up. Choose to believe what He says and not your feelings.“Here’s what Yahweh says to you: “I know all about the marvellous destiny I have in store for you, a future planned out in detail. My intention is not to harm you but to surround you with peace and prosperity and to give you a beautiful future, glistening with hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 TPT. Jesus will inhabit our lives as we step out and use our faith that what He said, He meant. Bye. 👋

PS. Don’t wait for a sign! Do it anyway… faith ACTS.

P 3130 The beginning of Wisdom.

/ DVH

“If you consider yourself to be wise and one who understands the ways of God, advertise it with a beautiful, fruitful life guided by wisdom’s gentleness. Never brag or boast about what you’ve done and you’ll prove that you’re truly wise.” James 3:13 TPT. “To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit,…”1 Corinthians 12:8. “Those who are wise will shine radiantly as the sky at midday. And those who turn many to the way of righteousness will shine brightly as stars for all eternity.” Daniel 12:3 TPT.“The beginning of wisdom is: Get [skilful and godly] wisdom [it is preeminent]! And with all your acquiring, get understanding [actively seek spiritual discernment, mature comprehension, and logical interpretation].” Proverbs 4:7.”The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Proverbs 9:10.

Proverbs shows us the importance of having the Lord’s wisdom, and when it says “fear’ it means reverence and awe. A deep respect for Our Holy righteous Father, puts us on the road to understanding His ways. Proverbs also states to get His wisdom you need to make it your first priority and realise you need it. Human resources and information feature a lot in this world we live in, accumulated knowledge is the big deal thing today. And of course, now we have the internet and Google! Not to mention Wikipedia. Ho hum.  

But the bible tells us that even though Godly wisdom is the thing to have, without understanding and mature comprehension we won’t know what to do with it. Boy, I could have saved myself a heap of angst if I had taken that concept seriously! I kept trying to teach my kids wisdom when they didn’t understand a thing I was saying, and most of the time they didn’t care to either. Wisdom has to be sought, and earthly knowledge is not the same as God’s wisdom.

God’s wisdom is prompted by the Holy Spirit. Kids learn to parrot off all kinds of stuff at school, but they have no idea what to do with it. They need spiritual application to make use of their knowledge. That’s why they need parents to help them to put theory into transformative actions. Knowledge without application looks great on a resume, but it won’t help you balance your budget!

Wisdom identifies what to do and a word of knowledge shows us how to do it. They are both God-given GIFTS—Proverbs makes this clear, so that means we can, and should ask for these gifts. “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.” Matthew 13:43. “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear.” Proverbs 25:11-13. Wisdom corrects our course and reveals the Holy Spirit within us to others.

Wisdom will give us ears to hear what Jesus is saying, when others can’t even hear Him. It is like a spiritual hearing aid – it takes the unclear and makes it clear. In Matthew, did you get the subtle reference to choice? If you have spiritual hearing …then make sure you use it! These spiritual gifts diagnose an anticipated outcome and wisdom knows the right way to go about it. Remember, Almighty God knows the beginning right through to the end. Knowledge identifies and wisdom applies.

We ALL need His wisdom. This world is too dark and too tricky to live our lives without it. Wisdom can see the lie hidden between two truths. At the same time, knowledge and insight will often know where God’s truth applies. When I need it, the Holy Spirit gives me part of a verse, but it is up to me to look it up and follow that thread. ‘Knowledge is about knowing facts, whereas wisdom is about having the insight and discernment to apply that knowledge correctly, often revealing what action to take or how to respond.’  Google.

I have found that wisdom means you know something that you cannot possibly know with your intellect. It is not cleverness that figures things out—this God-given gift is something that drops into our heart or mind, often unbidden. Before it happens you may not even be concentrating on the problem. Suddenly the answer is in front of you, and then His wisdom says: ‘Do it like this.” It helps us avoid error. 

Many times we were about to go somewhere and the Lord said to us: “Wait!” When it came to the time when we would have been elsewhere, much too far away to help — a text came through and we were asked to help someone, because an emergency situation had come up. The word of Wisdom was ‘wait.’ I have also found wisdom can help me discern when things are a bit ‘off.’ I’m pretty naive in my personality and so the Holy Spirit often kindly protects me with His Wisdom.

Recently somebody called us and used the conversation to  clone our voice. They asked for this and that, but my spirit rose up and said – quite violently – “Hang up and phone the bank.”  The person on my end of the phone was not thrilled, but they trust the Lord, so they politely hung up. And lo and behold, somebody had tried to access our funds. Because the Holy Spirit helped us, we were recompensed immediately. We changed our passwords on the same day! I found reading the bible asking the Holy Spirit to help me, led me to these three gifts. I began to know His voice. I went out and obeyed what He taught me at that time.

Don’t rush – wait for your Teacher. Learn to listen and you’ll grow patience along the way, and then do your best to obey – because Christians need HIS WISDOM. ‘Ask and keep on asking, go after it, you will find it!’ Bye. 👋

P 2545 Living this life revitalised.

/ DVH

Read this like the Lord Himself is speaking to YOU! —“My beloved ones, just like you’ve always listened to everything I’ve taught you in the past, I’m asking you now to keep following my instructions as though I were right there with you. Now you must continue to make this new life fully manifested as you live in the holy awe of God—which brings you trembling into His Presence. God will continually revitalise you, implanting within you the passion to do what pleases Him. Live a cheerful life, without complaining or division among yourselves. For then you will be seen as innocent, faultless, and pure children of God, even though you live in the midst of a brutal and perverse culture.For you will appear among them as shining lights in the universe, holding out the words of eternal life.”Philippians 2:12-16 TPT.

Our wonderful Father has not asked us to do those things that are impossible, without Him walking with us. He has simply asked us to follow Christ, and live like Jesus lived. For others. Jesus paved the way by His death and resurrection, for us to be so sold out to God, and everything He wants, that everything else fades away … Instead of using our faith to make our own lives better all the time, we need to begin to use our faith to allow the Holy Spirit to transform us to be like Christ – one faith step at a time. It really is that simple!

As we begin to aim at what Father God wants, we will continually be revitalised. Doing what His Father told Him to do, even when He was exhausted, revitalised Jesus! (The Woman at the well.) Obedience is the key. The Body of Christ must stop listening and merely agreeing with what we read, and start obeying it. So what if we mess up? JESUS IS A REDEEMER. Let’s choose to live our lives dead to what we think we want, and alive to what He wants, as He reveals it to us through His word. All that takes is total commitment. He totally committed to us, now we need to be totally committed to Him.

I have lived this way for many years. I literally cannot “do” my life. Last night I counted myself fortunate to sleep 5 hours. I can’t possibly ‘go on the road’ for Jesus in 6 weeks! It actually got much harder for both of us, when I broke my arm. However, right now, my only aim is to get in that car on the day we leave —- the rest is up to HIM. For all of us to live this way, and go deeper, we will need to value our relationship with Jesus more than we value our own comfort, plans and agendas. Peter, James, John, and Paul had ordinary stuff to deal with too! So did a whole lot of other people whose names we hardly know. We are the generation who are laying the foundations for the people coming after us.

You and I can pray our kids will follow Jesus, but when we set an example by the way we live, that is part of the answer to our own prayers. These young people will need to know Him personally in their own lives to help them through their darkest days, and their hardest choices. They need to see us survive and still thrive under very difficult circumstances … because this world is not getting any easier. People everywhere are daily facing harder stuff than we can imagine. We can’t do any of this without the Holy Spirit’s help … we need Him like we need air. He gives us HIS life. That’s what revitalises means. 

For nineteen years hubby and I have followed the Holy Spirit’s leading. It was sometimes right, sometimes wrong – sometimes fun and some times not!  And we went wherever He said to go. Which means we’ve been some scary places! Places with bars on windows, gangs roaming the street, people hiding from bikies. That is kind of scary stuff for an old lady. I’d rather be sitting knitting in my nice chair, in my nice little house, thank you. We’ve tried to quit, but His love for people will not let us quit. Yet, after I broke my arm last year, we still managed three trips! So many things have happened to us that should have stopped us, but … He simply will not let us quit. Always, always — He says to us; “Who will tell them that I love them?”  

That question breaks my heart. The people who do not know Him are a vast OCEAN. I’m just a little strangely bent teaspoon! I know hubby and I cannot make a dent in those numbers. We can’t afford to look at numbers. Instead hubby and I look back at the faces of those people we’ve already met, who actually heard His voice through what was said. The point of this new life we have been given isn’t just to save US. It is to be a light in the darkness to everyone around us. To do that we have to go, and in go-ing we are always revitalised.

Hubby and I have been privileged to see the light of Jesus dawn on the faces of so many people we’ve spoken to. Suddenly, they know Jesus is REAL. He’s alive – no tomb could hold Him! Our Heavenly Father is their DAD and people know LOVE when they see Him and hear Him. They don’t need platitudes, or rules — they need HIM.  👋

P 2474 His Presence is our PRESENT.

/ DVH

Christmas is a time when we think about the giving and receiving of presents. This is one of my favourite things in the whole world to do – I just love giving presents. I always invest a great deal of time, prayer and thought into this process because I want the people I am giving stuff to, to know that they are cherished and special. 

However, over time, I have discovered there is something that I love much more than blessing others. His Presence. Please understand I am not talking about feelings because I don’t approve of them – I rarely get them! But whenever I open the pages of the bible, I am always blessed. HE’S right there. Which is why I recommend doing that, all the time, when I write this blog. When you love the bible, the Holy Spirit loves you back, because its His book, He wrote it!

I’m writing about this today because so many people miss the blessing of knowing Him, and His Ways, through His book. They do the obligatory half hour etc. with the bible, reading more info, and absorbing more knowledge, but they miss the opportunity to meet with Him. Jesus loved the Word of God – He is called, in the bible, ‘the Living Word.’ The Holy Spirit brings Him to life every single time you open its pages. 

Jesus quoted the bible He had, everywhere He went. And, even better … He unfolded it in so many ways, in front of the people He was sent to help. When I say unfolded it, I mean that this book is an incredible book, unlike any other. The meaning in it is layered. It will teach you one thing one day, and something else entirely new the next!! I believe this book won’t ever come to an end. 

“and He (Jesus) will reign over the house of Jacob (Israel) forever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” Luke 1:33.”Your Word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens” Psalm 119:89. “Jesus Himself said … “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away” Matthew 24:35.

When we read the bible we are reading something eternal!! Ya, might want to ‘selah’ that for a minute or ten! 🧐 People can drive themselves nuts, chasing around trying to find Christian services or conferences, where they can feel His Presence … because being in His Presence is just beautiful beyond words. BUT … there is absolutely nothing like finding His Presence in His book! It’s real, it’s personal, and its free – you don’t even have to leave your chair!!

Most of us have lots of bibles at our house, and if we don’t … well there is always the internet. I read the bible online all the time. I want to know Him … just as much as my little heart can while I am in this world.  I freely admit I am easily distracted. But sometimes when I am reading His book I’ve just read 3 words and I’m like … “WOW! Who put that in there??” I dearly love this book. It is like a trillion pathways to other things I’ve never even thought about … then He tells me something else, and my mind is blown again.

I’m reading in Ruth at the moment and I will share some stuff from that book in a little while. Look, I too have soldiered through the Old Testament, skipping whole passages in Numbers, Genesis and Chronicles. Yawn! 🥱 I complained to the Lord about how boring they were, full of weird names I can’t pronounce, and He told me this: “Genealogies show that I am very interested in families, and family lines.”

That tells me that Father God knows all our names and He gave us our families. He even knows how many hairs are on each head. Meanwhile, if you are bald that info won’t matter much!! We need to stop being clever all the time, and stand in awe of what He reveals about Himself! God loves families. His Precious Son was born into one! So much so, in the books mentioned above, He wrote down all their names. And meanwhile, they weren’t all ‘good guys!’ Well, there’s a place of worship right there!! 

Cherish the book, and you will end up cherishing the Author. I am not talking about the leather bound, scritta papered physical item, I am talking about the Person Who spoke it into being. 66 different people wrote these books, but the One Who called them to write stuff down, is the real revelation that runs all through each one of them. Read the book looking for the Author and read it like you never read that portion before. Always ask questions and keep badgering Him until you understand … don’t give up too quickly.

His Presence is always in His book. We can cherish His word spoken to us, personally, just for us, just for this day. What kind of daily bread has He got for you today? His Presence in His book, is our PRESENT. Bye 👋🏻

P 2469 “I was sitting around … minding my own business …”

/ DVH

This morning I was thinking about those shepherds who were sitting in a the field, long ago, simply watching over their sheep. You know who I mean … Jo and Mo (Joseph and Moses) and …  Fred and Barney … These men were sitting about keeping an eye on their sheep, and watching out for sneaky Pete the wolf and his pack, plus the odd lion or bear. I can’t imagine what they were actually talking about the minute before the sky exploded… maybe the low price of sheep at the market?  Or where’s the best pasture to go next??

Then BOOM! The sky lit up, an angel appeared and the world exploded with sound. It’s just as well the angels told them to “be not afraid!” You know if they hadn’t said that word straight from the throne of God — Jo, Mo, Fred and Barney would have had a heart attack … on the spot. “Mighty dread will do that to ya!”

Mo-oving on … back to these ordinary men, who were doing an ordinary job, day after day, after day. The same thing their fathers did and their fathers before them —- and their fathers before them. And nothing ever happened … until it did! Their whole world changed in a heartbeat when these heavenly beings appeared out of nowhere!!

Look at the faith of these men, once they got over being stunned, amazed and blessed … all at the same time! … Then they left their sheep mooching about, and hurried off looking for a baby in a manger. You and I might say: “What’s a manger?” But these shepherds knew what that was, and where to find one. They entered into the greatest miracle of all time, on a seemingly ordinary night … with the only fanfare provided by heavenly beings.

Father God chose a dirty stable as the site for His most precious Son’s birth. Jesus Christ was not elevated in any way! And those ordinary shepherds found out about His arrival first… Are we feeling the Vibe yet? Like where would the greatest SHEPHERD ever born … BE born? ….Among shepherds.

Isn’t it just like Jesus, to reveal Himself to people like you and I? That’s why the Good News IS the good news, it’s for everyone and anyone. You know the current King at that time, (Herod), heard about this extraordinary baby second-hand from travelling wisemen. So right from the beginning, Christ was destined to be revealed to this world through the poorest of the poor, ordinary workers… first.  And that set the scene for the rest of Jesus’ short life. He would always reach out to the people who were not rich, those who had no hope, and needed Him the most.

Maybe there were animals restlessly moving about in that tiny shelter, all around this new little family – we don’t really know. Let’s hope all that animal breathing kept them a little warmer in the cold clear night air! Meanwhile, there was no air freshener … no sterile hospital… no antibiotics!!  And no family helpers to assist Mary … just some straw, the floor, her inexperienced husband, and the inevitability of this baby coming … right now. 

What a totally scary place to give birth! There was no indoor plumbing either!! Ya might want to think about that. Christ was not born into a house … right from the beginning He had no home. Maybe Mary hoped He would be born where she had come from, with helpers all around her – but she and Joseph obeyed the law of the land and trotted off to a place far away to take part in a census. They took their chances … and then Almighty God said: “It’s time.”

Joseph himself had an enormous amount of trust.  I often talk about faith on this blog, and boy was his faith alive! He married Mary because of a dream. Sadly he could not give her and their new baby, the King of all Kings … a better place to stay! Such a huge responsibility for such a humble man. He was destined to protect this infant and remain obedient to what God had told him. How devoted to God’s purposes he was. This honourable young man, whose wife is going to give birth … to SomeOne else’s baby! He’s almost a footnote in this amazing story. Yet he was chosen to father God’s Son, when Jesus was a child.

The world was silent that night, and the only players in this little play were overwhelmed with awe and wonder. How could that be Almighty God Himself lying in a food trough? What could it possibly all mean? At that moment, He was just another newborn infant  … they are born every day.  Only those heavenly announcements made Him special. God made Himself known in an ordinary place, to ordinary people who were sitting around minding their own business. But when He speaks, this world gets turned right-side up!  Bless you! 👋🏻

P 2447 We need to learn His Ways –

/ DVH

He already knows ours!!Judges 7:1-7 “Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against Me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.  But the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men.

Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink. The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.”

The first thing I want to say, is that it is extremely important to:  a/ make sure you don’t miss any of the details when reading scripture;  and b/ today, take particular note of the fact that Gideon eyeballed every single man as he drank and there were 10,000 men! There were 22,000 cowardly custards BTW! Our God is always in the detail! Human beings love to run on and start planning how to make what God says work.

Maybe like this? … “Oh so the lappers stay, and the cupped hands guys go? Hands up all the lappers.” But Gideon had to listen to God for each individual man’s involvement. All 10,000 of them! God’s answer to prayer and Him helping us, doesn’t look like we think it will. I cannot begin to count how many times that has been my experience. My advice is this – don’t get ahead of Him – you’ll miss the blessing. HE’S THE BLESSING. 

When you are about to fight an army that is called, by reputation, ‘without number’ … eliminating fighting men does not seem all that clever. And that’s the bit I want you to take away today – the Lord does not do things the way we do them. HIS WAYS ARE NOT OUR WAYS – HIS WAYS ARE PAST FINDING OUT. I often wonder why people drive themselves nuts trying to figure out and plot the way that the Lord is going to do something or other, in the light of a story like this one. He exhorts us to wait for Him.

His ways are so far above ours! I urge us all to read the book looking carefully at the details, He reveals Himself there. Otherwise, it can seem out of touch and pretty weird … that He would even think of saving a whole city with an evangelist who spent his entire preparatory time for preaching, in the belly of a whale! Maybe getting swallowed up, helped with repentance and obedience.  

Let’s look at the New Testament to see if things like this are any different from the stuff in the Old… sh-a-ll we? How about feeding thousands of people from 5 loaves and 2 fishes … Now you and I don’t see that every other Friday at the fish shop do we? Or how about making a brand new eyeball out of spit and dirt? Granted, it was Jesus’ own spit, but … … you get my drift. You know I figure the Lord was there when Father God made man in the first place, so He knew all about how to make people’s spare parts out of dirt! 

What about walking past a pool, which was specially set up for sick people to congregate around, and yet the Lord went there and healed just one man! Where did ‘He healed them all’go?? We need to learn to laugh at ourselves and our pitiful attempts to understand what He is doing and WHY! To know Him better, and stand in awe of His awesomeness, we must begin to notice the details in the book. We can’t just cherry pick and choose the bits that suit us and our own understanding – which, BTW, we are not supposed to lean on (!) … when we read the bible.

You know, the bible says God Himself laughs!! Psalm 2:4 “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision.” I thank God that I have an Advocate standing right by my Heavenly Father’s right hand explaining the way human beings think. No wonder the Lord laughs! We make such hard work out of everything!

Finally, have you ever reflected upon why the Lord God chooses such unusual methods of operation? Why was that snake allowed in the garden? What can I learn from that?? Why stick Jonah in a whale? Why take trumpets and lamps into a battle, or march round the city for 7 days in silence, and then shout!  Why pour gallons of water over an altar that is meant to be set on fire? God’s ways are past finding out … we need to stop trying to finagle Him into bringing about the results that we think are going to be great, AND instead start listening to Him. Let’s follow His implicit instructions, obey what He says and learn how to trust Him instead. Learning to listen… another great key.  Bye👋🏻

P 2424 This is His way.

/ DVH

“So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth. And I pray that He would unveil within you the unlimited riches of His glory and favour until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with His divine might and explosive power.Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of His love will become the very source and root of your life. 

Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is His love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!” Ephesians 3:14-19 TPT.

We don’t do the things that Jesus did or the things He asks us to do simply because He needs our hands and feet. We are not His robots, or even His portable advertising!  Christians do what they do to be obedient and their obedience expresses their loving devotion to Him. But at the same time the more we walk with Him in that obedience, the more we will see and experience His incredible Love for us. This is the very heart of these wonderful verses in Ephesians 3.

His love for us, as well as in us, these things are the riches we’ve been promised. Forget gold, silver and precious stones, His love is beyond price! And His Loving heart is toward us. He is like that King, Ahasuerus, who adored his wife, so he held out his sceptre toward Esther even when she  disobeyed the rules of his kingdom. God’s heart reaches toward us, to relieve us of our burdens and to help us with life’s difficulties. There are days when others do not like me or my company, but those days, those feelings, don’t reflect Him. Nothing will alter His love toward me. That is a huge gift. In those moments, I simply must believe what He says, not how I feel.

Years ago on ancient TV in the 1950s, we had an ad in this country for a man’s hair product, called Brylcreem. Its motto was “a little dab’ll do ya.” Father God’s love is NOT like Brylcreem! It is not mingy, or space-saving or economical! Christ’s sacrificial love sustains this universe and beyond. Despite what the scientists say, if God withdrew His loving favour from mankind the stars would fall out of the sky. Read the book of Revelation! You will see written there what happens when His boundless Love is withdrawn from the earth. His love is the incredibly powerful force that holds this world, including us, together.

The more we use our faith by being obedient, the more His love expands within us, until it becomes the very centre of our lives. Slowly His love transforms and replaces any imperfect human love we have that may have done damage to our hearts. Some of our responses are not sin – pain causes reactions too. However, the knowledge of His love is expanded in our hearts as we watch Him touch other people’s lives through us. 

While we were away this time, because of a series of God-ordained events, we managed to give an older cleaning lady a keychain. Her face seemed hardened by age and life, she was tiny but she looked tough. Scary even! But the Lord said to bless her, so we did. And the most amazing thing happened. Her face cracked open, and she looked just like a happy little child. Transformation happened right in front of our eyes. She danced up and down on the spot. This keychain was the most delicate one I have ever made. I probably would not have given her that particular one – my own judgment of how she looked would have gotten in the way! 

None of us know how hardened anyone else can become inside and out, because this life can deal each one of us terrible blows. In order to go on, human beings put on protective armour. That armour often changes our outward appearance, and at the same time it can alter what comes out of our mouths! Just like a barking dog that is scared of a stranger – we can become vicious and mean. But Father God’s love goes right around our disguises and touches hearts. Then we have the privilege of seeing someone else the way He designed them, that utterly transforms both parties, and opens their eyes to new possibilities. 

The bible says:  “perfect love casts out all fear…” The reality is, if we are afraid, it is not enough to just know this verse, that’s simply words. We need to know the heart of the One Who is speaking love over us. Watching Him work in the lives of the people around us opens our eyes to how incredible His love is. It seems upside down to think that in order to get love, we will have to give away Love. But that is His Way. It’s the way of faith. His way forward is for us to learn LOVE. 👋🏻