Beaten

P 3257 It’s time to get the band back together.

/ DVH

Years and years ago, when I was a much younger Christian, I loved reading instructional Christian books, plus I listened to tapes, music, and videos, everything I could. I was trying to grow my faith. I desperately needed to belong, to feel like a part of the Body of Christ. You know, there’s a whole lotta of odd people out there who really really need Jesus – we all might want to think about that. Back to it … eventually, I realised I was reading the bible and understanding it through someone else’s filter!

The Holy Spirit truly is the very best Teacher, He explains things first-hand – personally! There’s nothing like getting your own revelation from His book. Back then, whenever I read 1 Corinthians 13, I read it through other people’s interpretations to help me understand it. My thoughts were ‘boy do I fail at that!’ No wonder I felt a failure, at that time I had no idea how complete the Lord’s redemption was on my behalf. Like Paul said in Galatians 3:3 MSG bible: 

“Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!”

I believed my sins were bigger than what Jesus did. So when I messed up … and I did, a lot … I was shattered. Yeah, I know, that makes no sense at all. The Lord has a whole new kingdom reality for all of us. Sadly, at that time, I just had too much luggage that I dragged along behind me! To top it all off I erroneously believed this kind of stuff was true Christianity, and I was just really really bad at it. 

You see, people in my family or the church still irritated me, and when they were unkind, I wanted to run away, or thump them. Eventually, I became ill. So getting healed became my new focus. I figured I had become sick because I was failing the Lord all the time. I just want to strongly insert the fact that Jesus is not like that! 

But at that time, I jumped into every single healing line I could find, simply because I badly wanted to be well! Instead I just got sicker, and that added a further burden. It seemed to me that I must be a terrible Christian because I was ill in a generation that thought if you were sick it was your own fault! For years I wandered around thinking God had given up on me. And getting divorced did not help that perception. 

I know there are verses that clearly talk about divorce, and yes, I accept them! God definitely says don’t do it! However, He’s also merciful – He explains WHY. Participating in a divorce makes our hearts hard. Even though I repented up one hill and down the other, I had hardened my heart against any sort of redemption by Him. Unbelief is still sin! Works will do that to you. They will cut you off from true redemption and also real gratitude. It’s hard to be grateful when living for Jesus is a whole lot of hard work, and you can’t do it.

I guess I saw Almighty God as SomeOne Who held a grudge, like most people I had met. And I thought I deserved to be rejected. In that process I lost the One Person Who dearly, eternally loved me. At that time, I had no comprehension of unconditional love. If you happen to feel like that, I would like to testify to you that the Lord Jesus is not keeping a score of our sins against us. He can’t, His blood wiped them out!! At the same time, I hadn’t properly personally digested 2 Corinthians 5:19: “…that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favour with God].”

It’s pretty hard to go out and tell others about the reconciliation that exists in Christ, when we aren’t living in it! Eventually, through the patience of a dear old minster, I came to see that the Lord Jesus is the One Who knelt beside a woman who was taken in adultery. and He also dealt with the people who wanted to stone her. Once He sat by a well and talked with a woman who had had five husbands … He didn’t give either of these women permission to live like that! However, the Lord altered the course of  both of their lives just by being Himself! The love and power of God is like that – it sets people free. 

I believe the church world-wide needs to go after the Lord’s lost sheep. The bible clearly tells us the Shepherd always does! Those broken, beaten sheep who have wandered away – or maybe they were even shoved out because the church didn’t want to be contaminated by their sin. Let’s ask the Lord to help us to win back our brothers and sisters – mothers, fathers, friends, rabbits and relations. The Body cannot function without ALL its parts. We need to be like Paul and participate in their reconciliation and restoration. So let’s love them OUT of their isolation. Maybe they are ready to repent and come back! 2 Corinthians 2:5-11.

How about we stop shooting the wounded, or leaving our broken-hearted members behind? And ask the Lord if we can be used by Him to restore them instead. Let’s get the band back together. Who knows what God will  do when we embrace others who have gotten lost along the way? Bye. 👋

P 3218 I may fail – but God WILL not.

/ DVH

Those of you who read this blog regularly will already know that Cyclone Alfred (Feb2025) caused a flood in one of our lower rooms. It quite literally washed away some of the floor. Our house is like ‘The House that Jack built,”and I’m sad to say that in my opinion – Jack was a lousy builder! God bless Jack if he is still among us, but very little in our downstairs area has been built up to spec. Parts of it are not legal, including the height of the roof, but the council doesn’t care, because it was like that when we bought it. Which means it was not our fault. Thank the Lord for that!

While the many builders we hired were analysing what needed to be done — they kind of smiled — then they looked at us with dollar signs in their eyes! I assume that’s because we are their idea of a windfall, and their magical dream of an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas seemed much closer than it did before they met us! And then they announced that all our building problems are insurmountable and we should pull the entire downstairs area down and start again. I guess we will have to live in our mango tree while that happens.

Around about the same time, the insurers agreed with the builders, and announced that we were not covered by insurance, despite our copious, regular expensive payments, because of paragraph 390 subset 4,251. Yay!  We don’t have a money tree or bush in our yard, so we both got on our faces, and asked the Lord, what’s next? Ya have to seize the adventure before you, that’s what I say… I have also been known to say ‘well that sucks,’ but talking about ‘seizing the adventure’ sounds wa-ay more spiritual. 

So, after much prayer, with God leading us — we met Ali, a person of another faith, and a brand new unemployed immigrant who had just arrived from another state. His English was limited, but he assured us in sign language and broken English, that he knew all about tiling floors and fixing the concrete underneath. He originally came from Iraq so we figured he wasn’t exaggerating about that! 

Ali, it transpired, truly was God’s choice! BTW, we found him through a reputable agent. He worked like a beaver, kept us up to date with what was going on, and we had many opportunities to encourage him, and talk about our faith, as well as put it into action in his life. When we said goodbye to him, we hugged all round. Our floor in the meantime looks like a palace! 

Moving on to December, 2025. This time the roof in our downstairs bedroom turned into a waterfall, and we had numerous tennis ball sized hail-strikes all over that part of the roof. It was leaking because the rain was so heavy and the hail broke the tin roof sheeting. So back we went to our insurers — however, we weren’t very surprised this time when we discovered that somehow paragraph 390 subset 4,251 also applied to leaking roofs! The insurers were polite … but because the downstairs does not conform to council standards they were not obligated to … blah blah blah blah. 

I tuned out. I had heard it all before. Naturally I responded with great Grace to the insurers. After HOURS of prayer and a whole lot of “gee I hope some tennis ball hail gets YOUR roof next time!” I eventually moved on. Yes, I repented! And right now I am laughing, but smiles were a bit thin on the ground back then! 

We had to move out of our bedroom, which was working on becoming an indoor lake, and jam ourselves back into a much smaller space upstairs. Not the best option given the daily disabilities we both face. Our family came to our rescue again, to help us move. In just a few months they had helped us move out of, and back into. our bedroom twice! That, BTW, includes the bed, wardrobes, etc. etc. More blah blah blah.

So we returned to our trusty agent again because Ali had been so brilliant last time, and this time we found a family of roofers. They too, were honest men who gave us a fair price, and they not only fixed the roof, they made it so it would not leak again. And then they gave us a written guarantee for 15 years!  As the Lord led us we were able to minister into their lives too. We paid for that privilege! Ministry will always cost you – it’s free to them.

I’ve written this today to assure others that they are not the only people whose lives sometimes are shaken by trouble and strife. Let’s look at Paul’s life. In the past Christians have tried to minimise trouble in our lives as if trouble is somehow a sign that we are not spiritual enough. However, Paul was somewhat of an expert about trouble. He shared some of it in: 2 Corinthians 6:4a-5:

“…in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; …” 2 Corinthians 11:25-26: “Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers …”

Our experiences at our house obviously do not compare with the Apostle Paul’s hardships! However, I’m not giving up on my own transformation – He’s doing something. Sometimes I may fail, but God will not! Hallelujah. Have a good one. Bye. 👋

P 2822 Remembering.

/ DVH

Mark 1:9-13 “At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, He saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, Whom I love; with You I am well pleased.” At once the Spirit sent Him out into the wilderness, and He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.”

My first thought when I read this scripture is this: isn’t Almighty God so wonderful to bless and reassure His beloved Son in this way… He owned Jesus as His Son right in front of His cousin, John. It was so personal! And then the Holy Spirit came and kissed Him. All that happened immediately before He had to wrangle with extreme fasting – and the kind of temptation that urged the Lord Jesus to accomplish what He came here for without any pain! satan tested Jesus at His weakest physical hour. And there would come another day, three+ years later, when satan would come at Jesus again, as He wrestled with God’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Here is something I have noticed over the years that can happen in our walk with the Lord. (I try not to make a rule out of anything, this is just an observation.) I’ve found that the Lord sometimes extravagantly blesses you or I and our families, with something quite wonderful and unexpected – and right after that – something happens that truly stretches and tests our faith. You will notice I offer no explanation for this – I don’t have one. I’ve just seen it happen.

My point today is that God is so good, and so kind, He gives us something substantial to hold onto as we slog through our own personal wilderness and testing time. A memory of good is a brilliant asset, it will hold you up in times of pain and sorrow and stress. Here’s my free advice — don’t be someone who is always looking for the next thing, the next blessing, the next breakthrough – take the time to savour everything He has ever done for you in your life-time, so far. 

Also, don’t ever wander so far away from your salvation that you can no longer see the cross anymore. To me blessings and trouble mean I had better pay close attention to whatever is going on, in me and around me. Otherwise I know I will  totally miss the blessing, and end up flailing about when the bad stuff hits me. I have a teenage grandson, he used to be little now he is taller than his mum! Growth stretches us and sometimes that is uncomfortable, the clothes we’ve grown so used to don’t fit anymore!

Jesus Himself did a reassuring thing with His disciples, right before He was betrayed. It says in 1 Corinthians 11:23b-25.”The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My Body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”We all know this litany by heart, but there are also times when God is doing something on many levels – we need to live looking for Him in everything that happens to us.

Right after this meal, the downward spiral toward Christ’s death starts. His betrayer and captors are almost at the door. Jesus knows these men, He loves them. They have been dependent upon Him, His leadership. They have seen His wisdom in action in every single moment. While He was eating, sleeping, and interacting with them and others. He has been their in-front-of-your-eyes example of how to live. He was with them for three and a half years, and He knows they are going to need something spiritually substantial to remember Him by — because right after this meal together, He will be brutally beaten, murdered, and resurrected. Soon after that He will go back to His Father in heaven. And then, for our sake, He sent back the Holy Spirit for us. The Holy Spirit has never left.

Christ lovingly gave His men something spiritual and physical to do that night – it will remind them in the dark days to come, that He is still with them – even though He is no longer physically present. This action is to be a continual visible reminder, a joining together, ‘a remembrance party’ that what He did will last, and be with all of them their whole lives. But like I often am, sometimes these men were clueless. Fortunately the Holy Spirit came and opened their eyes at Pentecost!

I love another story that is in the book. It also happens while all these devastating things were going on. Two of the Lord’s men walking along the road to Emmaus. And Jesus, the resurrected One, walks with them and joins Himself into their conversation. They have no clue Who He is!  The Lord gives these men an opportunity to remember and revise all the things that have happened to the Jews, as well as when He was with them. He is so kind even in the face of their heartbroken loss. Further, the Lord pretends He wants to keep on going with His journey, but they are so taken with Him, and the conversation, they beg Him to stay…

…AND THEN HE BREAKS THE BREAD. Those men knew that action!!!… They had seen Him do that very thing days before with their own eyes. Suddenly, He is gone again, but now, their hearts are are rejoicing. They gallop off to tell the others – because now they know that DEAD isn’t DEAD! 

In this life, of ours, our human ways are often like a little stream bubbling along, moving past this, bumping into that — but God’s ways are a river in full flood. Carefully moving this obstacle, watering that dry place, and teeming with life. I exhort you to keep daily jumping into His river! We have a river of life in us. Remembering is part of following Him.  Bye, 🙌.