Battlefield

P 3191 Find reverse!

/ DVH

The wonderful thing about walking with Jesus is that when I apply His attitudes to my own life, with His help, I can daily learn from the Holy Spirit, how to die to self. I can always chuck my car/my life into reverse and change direction. Why would any of us want to remain in a pig pen, when God Himself has given us access to the Kingdom of His love – through His Grace?

Initially, I learnt that it is much easier to push dying to self aside, than it is to tackle it. In my own strength, I cannot do it. The reality is, I need to use my faith in His goodness, and start doing what He said in the book, using my own power of choice. There are no short-cuts. This life is our battlefield and our enemy is relentless. So if we get knocked down, we pick ourselves up and go again.

Let’s humbly confess our utter poverty of spirit to the Lord — “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3. The bible says being poor in my own ability to conquer the things that pop up in me – is a blessing! Now, I need to ask the Holy Spirit to lead me through the maze of thoughts and feelings that I have constructed internally. I’ve picked up attitudes and ways of thinking that are not from Him. So I need to come out of denial, into the reality that … without Him I’m sunk. Jesus Christ is truth personified. I was saved by Him, for Him. This means those things that drag me about can be conquered —I can change! I can live as His child right here, right now, in this world. God gets all the glory when I trust Him!

However inside my thoughts and emotions, I may have been already set up by my previous circumstances to become a seething mess of anguish, frustration and disappointment in myself and others. So my best choice is to pray fervently for relief and I have put the prayer “Please help me Lord” on repeat, minute by minute day by day! What if things don’t change? Should I assume I am the one exception to the rule? Of course not. I choose  to accept postponement, and allow my faith in Him be stretched.  Accepting NO, not now, is still a faith step.

We were not saved by Him to fail. The Lord Jesus and all He did, made this new life of ours, goof proof. Meanwhile – freedom from sin, is not permission to sin!  We cannot live as over-comers if we try to find the means of overcoming inside ourselves. Our permanent choice is to believe In HIS power within us.  When we discover somewhere in our lives where we are not using our faith, we ask for His help to tackle it. The Holy Spirit has a road-map out of anything. If you are sick you could end up taking pills because He told you to do it.

Sin is not just our actions, it also comes from our own inward cultivated attitudes. Jesus said this:“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” Matthew 5:30. Sometimes these attitudes and thoughts are so entrenched within our beings it will feel like cutting off a hand! But because of what Jesus did for us, we do not have to sin or make excuses for it. We have been given His power to walk away. He walked away, we can too.

We simply have to relearn how to live. That’s what the bible is for, to teach us how God Himself wants us to live. 1 John 1:9 says: “IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Jesus is utterly faithful – He can be relied upon to carry out His Word, because He is the Living Word! And now He is alive, in us! Every interaction with the Lord, is an interaction with His Word – here and now. We are writing our own stories of victories in Christ! Our lives will be transformed when we take whatever God Himself says, as truth and act on it, despite how we feel.

His love toward all of us is well and truly established in the bible. It was established before time began, and it will continue on into eternity.  When I choose to follow Jesus: “…the blood of Jesus continually cleanses me of all unrighteousness” – see 1 John 1:7. Lemme say that another way…AS I confess my sin and choose to follow Him, and not my feelings, I will be continually cleansed of my unrighteousness before God. This is how Jesus lived!

“But IF we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”  Keep living in the light of His Word, and His blood will cleanse us. Sin has been dealt with. It has no power over us. That stuff that niggles and nags at us, is our old nature. Our feelings can lie to us and tell us some things are too hard and we can’t do it. Don’t you believe them!

Let’s take steps of faith, and put our feelings to one side, and do what He told us to do in the book. The way to get rid of a muddied view of this life is to live humbly, admitting our faults to one another and not excusing them. Let’s choose to forgive, and put aside the fact that so-and-so was bad to me when I was little.  Leave the past in the past. At the same time, I will have to capture those intrusive thoughts that have been sent to remind me of what they did, and conquer the feeling that I can’t help what I am doing.

Our new-life-focus is about staying attached to the Holy Spirit, doing things HIS way, This life is a series of choices, often made on the hop –  IF we stuff up and make the wrong choices, we throw ‘our car…our lives’ into reverse, repent and restore the Lord to the driver’s seat and drive on! Bye. 👋

P 3039 You gotta dig to find gold.

/ DVH

“How enriched are they who find their strength in the Lord; within their hearts are the highways of holiness! Even when their paths wind through the dark valley of tears, they dig deep to find a pleasant pool where others find only pain. He gives to them a brook of blessing filled from the rain of an outpouring. They grow stronger and stronger with every step forward, and the God of all gods will appear before them in Zion.” Psalms 84:5-7 TPT.

I find the Psalms are such an enormous comfort in this life! There are times that I simply cannot cope with some stuff. I need Jesus, and the precious Holy Spirit. And if you think that sounds pious or something …you would be wrong! The Holy Spirit’s Presence comforts me, and whispers things I need to hear into my heart, when I am angry. Like:“Why not suffer wrong?….” Jesus can say that to me because He lived His life that way long before I was ever born! 

When things get difficult, or I’m tired, or I have had a series of unlovely events that were not my fault — that is when I can get tetchy. Suddenly I can’t hear Him clearly. And yes, there are also times when I can hear Him fine — but I still get cranky anyway. That’s the time I know I made a choice … it was the wrong one …but I know I definitely made a choice! 

This life to me, is a battlefield, and there are seasons when we end up in the firing line. The thing is, it is not good to beat yourself up when you fall off the wagon, and you end up needing to deal with your own temper – as well as whatever caused it to flare up! Sadly, that response can add to an already difficult situation. Rules don’t help me then, they are too easily discarded. Instead I pray:  “Please help me Holy Spirit!” I have found He is so utterly dependable –  He always answers that prayer. Take a pause and a deep breath, so you can let Him help you through whatever is happening. 

The bible says this in Proverbs 25:28: “A man (a person) without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” It is way too easy to put self-control right down the bottom of the list of things that we know we are going to need. Other spiritual graces sound so much sweeter …but self control is an important key to everything else. This is the digging part of Psalm 84:5-7. We have to dig down into what we already know about Him, to help us withstand what is going on externally. 

After a while, like the Psalmist says, we also need to cultivate and develop a habit of going to Him first. Even when all you have is a desperate cry for help! That choice is ours. We have to choose to believe He will answer us. But whether we feel His Presence in those moments or not, He is always with us – that is where He promised to be!  It’s in the book. Sooner or later we all hit the very difficult wall that says — “do we believe our experiences, or lack of them — or do we believe in Him because of Who He is, and what He said?’

That’s what Lordship is. It is the place where the rubber hits the road and we choose to go His way instead of ours. That’s also the place where we will need to start digging deeper. Eventually our tears and heartache will create a pool that can comfort others. Finding our strength in Him takes perseverance. And when that Grace is cultivated within us, it will produce His fruit, in its season. Holiness isn’t what we eat or drink or do – holiness is in Him.The more we trust in Him and put our faith on the line, the more we will end up walking like a child of the King. The Spirit of God within us, rises up to help us.

Some people think of Grace as something that comes upon them. That is not true. We stir it up from within us, we don’t pray it down. Listen to this:  “Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He replied to them by saying, The kingdom of God does not come with signs to be observed or with visible display, Nor will people say, Look! Here [it is]! or, See, [it is] there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you [in your hearts] and among you [surrounding you].” Luke 17:20-21.

You and I, together with entire Body of Christ, are the display case of the kingdom of God for the rest of this world. Yeah, that’s kind of a bit daunting isn’t it? We will allow this kingdom to grow within us as we choose His ways over ours. And let me tell you, in  my experiences, those opportunities will always come at the most inopportune times!  

Maybe somebody just jumped all over your feelings, or a pet theory and then …watch out … what you can potentially display is either His kingdom, or your own bad temper! Yes, you have a reason to be angry, yes you may want to strangle the offender, but if … at that moment … you ask for His help, and pause, and pray, and then you will be empowered to give a kingdom response.

That’s what grows that fruit we are always on about. Growing fruit is vastly underrated. However to grow a fruit tree, like a lemon tree, or a cherry tree – you will have to dig deep. You have to make enough room for the roots to expand and grow. We have to dig to produce His fruit! It  is eternal, it’s golden, it’s forever. So we gotta dig out the weeds of our old life and let the tree He plants in us grow!  Bye. 👋.

P 2560 We are in a war and we must learn to fight.

/ DVH

2 Samuel 2: 1-7, 8-9. 12-17 plus 3:1. “So “David went up there with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal of Carmel.David also took the men who were with him, each with his family, and they settled in Hebron and its towns Then the men of Judah came to Hebron, and there they anointed David king over the tribe of Judah. … … …

Abner son of Ner, together with the men of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, left Mahanaim and went to Gibeon. Joab son of Zeruiah and David’s men went out and met them at the pool of Gibeon. One group sat down on one side of the pool and one group on the other side.Then Abner said to Joab, “Let’s have some of the young men get up and fight hand to hand in front of us. “All right, let them do it,” Joab said… …

So they stood up and were counted off—twelve men for Benjamin and Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, and twelve for David. Then each man grabbed his opponent by the head and thrust his dagger into his opponent’s side, and they fell down together…The battle that day was very fierce, and Abner and the Israelites were defeated by David’s men. … …

3:1 The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.”

Saul and David had a ‘history’ which consisted of King Saul trying at every opportunity to kill David. At one stage this king even took David’s wife, Michal, Saul’s own daughter! … and gave her to someone else to marry! satan does not fight fair either! I personally see these battles between Saul and David as a parallel to the battle we fight every single day, between the flesh and the spirit. David only ever did this jealous King good, because His ultimate loyalty was to the Ways of God and Saul was the anointed king..That’s also the way the Spirit of God works for us – He only does us good. No matter how things look – He wants to bless us.

In this life, thanks to everything Jesus did for us — just like David, we’ve already won. Our Hero, our mighty Warrior Jesus Christ, fought for us and won. And one day He will fight the last battle and dispose of that enemy forever. But even though we know that Jesus has already won on mankind’s behalf, yet we are still destined to have to fight for what is ours while we are here, because our enemy refuses to let go of this battle. Just like Saul – he will cheat and fight ’til the end.

However we can daily defeat our enemy by the way we choose to live!  We are the peace bringers and peace-keepers. We are called to rout out the enemy’s damage in people’s lives and usher in God’s kingdom – by the way we treat others. Our weapons aren’t ordinary – they operate in the Holy Spirit’s power. They are the Word of God plus our humility, yieldedness to the Lord, and Love is our greatest weapon of all! Even when our enemy tries to take us out – the key to winning is being prepared to die for Jesus’ sake. However, if or when we do not choose to enter the battlefield, we will still be battered and bashed by this life’s sorrows and suffering, and our flesh will lose every battle by default!

Sometimes the enemy’s strongholds are inside us – which means we must choose to fight our natural inclinations to be snarky and nasty and grab at things by force or manipulation. We do this by asking the Holy Spirit to help us. The devil will also twist our perceptions and our emotions to trick us into fighting over the things that don’t matter eternally. That means we will waste our energy and get weary in the battle. Our flesh will always be at war with the Spirit, because the Spirit has a much higher aim … to glorify God … Dying daily is the only way to learn to fight and WIN.

It is interesting to note that David had been selected as King, by God Himself – but not everyone in the kingdom accepted God’s edict. A whole lot of people still followed Saul! Which is why popularity is never our aim! This story shows me that there are many people who are not discerning. Spiritual discernment is one of the treasures I talked about yesterday, it keeps us from falling into sin’s snares. However, at the same time, any difficulties in our day-to-day lives need to be used as opportunities to be transformed in our POV, attitudes and actions with the Lord’s guidance and help. We should never ever forget that we are in a war, and let the stuff that rushes at us, take us by surprise, and change our aims. Our aim is not comfort – it is Christ proclaimed – we are to bring His kingdom here, now.

Sometimes I think that the Body of Christ is like a bunch of small children at a Bazaar. They run from this shiny new thing, to another tasty thing …without any thought at all. They chase after easy answers that will give them what they think they want. Immediate gratification. We are in a war, we MUST learn to fight. Even our own flesh only wants what it can see. However, the Spirit wants what only God can see, so we can see it too! Now that’s a good place to praise God! 🙌 

P 2228 What ministry is really about.

/ DVH

No it’s not surfing – but it could be!  All ministry must come out of our own personal walk with Jesus, and any kind of ministry is hard work. Actually, it is a whole lot of unseen, hard work. This current adventure we are on, started even before we left home. We had 20 brand new blankets, so we called around to find somewhere we could take them. We found a great group in Tweed Heads who look after the poor as a ministry. Unfortunately, 😂 there were so many complications to organise our delivery of said blankets that in the end, we just gave it all to the Lord and gave up trying to make it work.

The lady who wanted these blankets, promised to ring us the next day if she could arrange a pick-up on our forward journey and we didn’t hear, so we went into the Lord’s rest, and packed them into the car anyway. She called like 15 minutes before we left..😶 Ya just gotta be fluid if you wanna work for Jesus. We delivered said blankets after a very large detour. Convenience is a luxury God’s kids can’t afford. It’s about Who we are living for.

This made me think a great deal about the idea of having “a ministry.” It may seem like fun to others, and innocent people often ask us – ‘how was our holiday?’ The truth is we haven’t had what this world thinks is a holiday, in over 17 years! But I also know we’ve had more fun than anyone on holidays could ever expect. The Lord sometimes sends us miles out of our way – for just one person. We are more like Phillip with the Ethiopian man, than Peter on the day of Pentecost. At the same time we have had people turn down bibles … but most people don’t. There have been maybe two times, when they were not-so-polite about it!  

As Christians we need to know that living our lives His way IS ministry. However, simply living for Him also means that you don’t have a nice natty, spiritual label. There is only one Person we need to recognise whatever we do. Jesus. At the same time we do have a responsibility to anyone who chooses to support us – prayerfully, or with funds, or both. This is not how hubby and I earn our living, we are pensioners, so all the money God gives us through faithful people, goes into these trips and bibles etc.

I also need to say that with any kind of ministry there will be opposition. Whether it is living for Jesus or having a title. You enter the battlefield instead of sitting in the stands. Because when you do what Jesus says, the other guy doesn’t like it. The week before we left, we discovered hubby’s elderly mum is not doing very well, and my mum was also quite ill last night. She’s 95. Just what you need to hear when you are going off out of the state on a bible run. Plus yesterday, hubby couldn’t lock the front door, or the back door – the key refused to turn in either one of them. 🙄

We also had to change one booking at the last minute, mainly because there were quite a lot of outside stairs. That is not good for people with disabilities. Stairs and I have come to an agreement that we will probably never get along again! Hubby’s hand is still sore from the operation he had on it, so he is one-handed and it’s the wrong hand! None of that is good for moving luggage every second day. So he is driving with one hand in a plastic cast – the doc says it is OK for him to do it, BTW. 

My point is this: we all have troubles, and feel inadequate, but with Christ we can do all things because He strengthens us. If you want to live for Jesus then learn to be a stealth bomber – fly under the radar, don’t go after a ministry or a title –  just be someone who loves and obeys Jesus, all the time instead! There were 120 people in that upper room when the Holy Spirit fell on them – we don’t know all their names because they didn’t write stuff that ended up in the bible, they were too busy living and dying for Jesus’ sake!

We met a whole lot of lovely people today, and gave away 74 things about the Lord including 44 bibles – plus those blankets for the homeless. Hubby had a nice friendly chat with someone who loves to surf. The man looked almost exactly like the above picture that hubby painted, and this man knew surfing terms so he knew all about “the blue room.”  ‘Bob’ thought it was a miracle hubby could paint with his non-dominant hand! Everybody we talked to today was thrilled that we came, and they were so glad to receive anything we wanted to give them.

What the church regards as ministry can be highly romanticised. It might seem to be filled with importance, and have a high profile, but don’t be fooled – visibility ain’t all it’s cracked up to be! I believe that the Lord is looking for His army of believers to rise up and do whatever He gives them to do as individuals, as part of their every day lives. Hubby and I give prophetic words – we constantly give words of knowledge etc. to people who don’t know the Lord. They are astonished. First of all by the fact that God knows their names. and circumstances, and secondly that ordinary people like us are His messengers. Our anonymity is our greatest strength in terms of ministry. 👋🏻

“I refuse to be ashamed of the wonderful message of God’s liberating power unleashed in us through Christ! For I am thrilled to preach that everyone who believes is saved—the Jew first, and then people everywhere!” Romans 1:16 TPT

P 2179 No more weight-lifting…

/ DVH

…unless it is part of our fitness regime!  “…let us lay aside every weight and sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 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 has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2 says that sin, and the things we try to ignore, plus the semi-forgotten stuff – weighs us down spiritually. We need to decide to deal with it with the Lord. It can get tangled up around our feet if we do not deal with it. It will cause us to spend our time in the land of condemnation and regret. Spend time in His Presence being grateful, instead! “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …”  SomeBody else paid – Jesus carried that weight. 

Things like idolatry, murder, lying, etc. are really obvious sins, however, I think Paul makes a fantastic point: “… but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead …”  Philippians 3:13. Our point of faith looks like this: we pray over whatever we’ve done that is weighing us down and ask Him to show us if there is anything we need to act on to repair things. First, we ask for His forgiveness, then we thank the Holy Spirit, and ask Him for His insight and wisdom. Now if I’ve hurt someone I need to go and ask their forgiveness. I don’t make excuses, I just confess my fault. If something needs to be done about my sin then I go and do whatever is necessary. Why? Because I value His Presence more than my pride or embarrassment. 

After that, I give every single bit of it back to Him a-n-d … I leave it there. If I get emotional, worried or distraught about that subject, it is important to go back the Lord and ask and thank Him for His comfort, a-n-d then … put it down AGAIN. Don’t skip repentance and confession. Sin is a barrier to freedom in the spirit – it renders us deaf and more easily deceived. The critical thing is to deal with things but leave the weight of them on Jesus, instead of lumping it about weighing down our hearts. I’ve learnt, from experience, that heavy hearts can’t pray easily.

Laying aside weights is an ordinary part of Christian living, but that does not mean that we have a free pass to walk away from our responsibility to fix things. There are too many scriptures that make it clear we need to fix whatever we have broken. Meanwhile after we’ve done all He tells us to do, it can be incredibly valuable, to take our hands off things. ”Having done ALL, STAND!” Ephesians 6:13. Having repented etc. standing is essential. The enemy is not about to let go of areas in our minds and emotions easily – we will probably need to insist. Guilt over something we’ve confessed, repented about, and changed our ways with His help – is false guilt – it is a shadow cast by the enemy into our heart to weigh us down.

We all know that sin is the poison that pollutes our faith. And I am not talking about tolerating sin – when we do that, we can easily start explaining what God said in the book away – by making excuses for ourselves etc. The aim is to do everything we can, then roll the care over onto Him. With any stubborn sin I’ve also learnt that it is valuable to confess my fault to someone else, and ask them to pray with me, and for me. Humility releases more Grace to overcome. It goes without saying that I avoid any situations that might lead me back into sin again …  It goes without saying that we need to take our sin seriously. Our sin killed Christ. We cannot be blase about something so serious. 

It is also good to remember that sin is also not just what we do, it is also what we don’t do. It is unfortunately much too easy to ignore the poor, or even the needs of our own immediate families because our lives are busy. In Isaiah 58:7 it says: “…is it not to divide your bread with the hungry. And bring the homeless poor into the house; When you see the naked, to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh.” Jesus Himself told us to remember the poor, and so did the Apostle Paul. It’s in the book. And the Lord Jesus was extremely respectful to His mother and brothers even when they did not understand what He was doing.

The minute we decide to change our sinful ways, the weight of sin becomes easy because Jesus already carried it. We don’t have to be ashamed, because SomeBody else already bore that shame.The past is now the past  – we need to put it down.  And because Jesus has taken our sin for us, we must resist going back to pick it up again. This area is the battlefield … but this battle belongs to the Lord so we can always ask for His help. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9. Father God wants to give all of us the total freedom to be with Him and not be ashamed. Jesus paid the cost – He took the weight, the shame, the regret, the damage of sin, and He redeemed it. 

That very act shows us the lengths that our God will go to, to have His kids walking with Him. What is of primary importance is our response. Is it gratitude, honouring Him, and a life of service with the Holy Spirit guiding us? The consequences of our sin fell on Christ, but we need to remember to ask for His help to let go of the weight of it. 👋🏻