Bible reading

P 3312 Staying in the river!

/ DVH

“Believe in ME so that rivers of living water will burst out from within you, flowing from your innermost being, just like the Scripture says!””  John 7:38 TPT. Great scripture! … I love to watch things on YouTube that many people might think are a bit boring. Every morning we put on one of those supposedly, sappy Christian music videos, that feature pretty pictures of nature. They can stream away for like 11 hours. And then I just let that stuff quietly run, so I can be engaged with my blog, bible reading, prayers and thoughts. You might like just plain silence!

I’ve personally found I’m far more likely to recognise His ‘rivers of living water’ when I am not distracted by other noises, or things that fly past on the TV screen trying to capture my attention! Meanwhile, I’m incredibly blessed and grateful that my time is my own, and how I spend it is up to me. Many people reading this don’t have that kind of freedom. But I think the secret to staying in the river of God begins with staying aware of Him and giving Him my attention. Have you ever watched a well trained sheep dog? The dog never takes its eyes off its Master. Meeting with Jesus is the place where we can ‘let it all hang out,’ because He knows our junk anyway!

Today, I want to talk about the importance of spiritual breathing. Living this new life the way God Himself has designed it, is a natural process with no striving involved. It’s just as natural as breathing IN and OUT. After all we do that without even thinking about it – unless we have some sort of disease or obstruction – we just do it!  “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:12-14. 

Jesus has taken hold of my life for a reason, He will help me find my real life in Him. I am greatly cheered up by the fact that the Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the Epistles — who was, some say, taken up into the 3rd heaven  — told us, he hadn’t arrived at that goal yet! This means that the best bits are still out in front of each one of us. However, just because this goal can seem unattainable, that doesn’t mean we should give up on aiming at it! It simply means we are in the best company, so I shouldn’t give up I should press on! He is now my focus.

Pressing on involves dogged dedication. So does finding out,  knowing and liking the same things the Lord likes! Plus doing whatever Jesus would do in any situation. All that takes focus, time and energy. To do this we need to sort out our priorities. Is it to be God – or the washing first? Jesus has to be more real to us than the people around us. Be assured that I don’t always get it right, that’s why I keep pressing on. However, I have learnt over the years that when my heart is pointed in His direction, the Lord is incredibly loving and tolerant of my muddles and misses, and ‘He makes my paths smooth.’ 

His infinite patience lovingly watches over us. He despatches angels to catch us when we fall, or fail. He can redeem everything and anything. “Who redeems your life from the pit and corruption, Who beautifies, dignifies, and crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercy;…” Psalm 103:4. In other words, to the Lord, human beings are not just a hobby, or a pastime – we are the focus of His attention and affections. Let’s not relegate Him to the back burner as SomeOne we call on when the ceiling falls in. He is our refuge, not our emergency standby. 

“But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9a. What does that scripture mean when we are talking about the River of God? I think we can often put an accent on one bit of scripture over another, and in this instance that means we will be skipping over the best bit. The River bit. The bit that says: ‘My grace is sufficient for you…’ that is the important bit. His Grace is always enough! We just need to return our focus to Him when distracted, and GRACE WILL BE THERE.  Instead of looking into our hearts and seeing our inner cupboards bare and bankrupt—choose to look into Jesus’ eyes and heart, and see the abundance He has for you. We dare not try to manage the weakness we see in ourselves without looking at the greatness of His Grace toward us. Despite our whimsical feelings, we are not poverty stricken!

His power is made perfect in our weakness, but we can’t afford to be distracted by those weaknesses! Instead,let’s pray that He will give us the Grace to comprehend the incredible POWER that was released through the cross.  Our weaknesses cannot stand in the face of that power. Let’s not focus on the negative, let’s focus on Jesus and what He already did. The only thing that can negate His power from releasing itself into our situations, is our decision, or choice, to believe that our badness can possibly be bigger than His goodness!

The Lord Jesus did not just emerge from that grave ‘alive’ like Lazarus did! He was filled with so much Grace and power, He instantly saved the world! That included those Who believed before He came and all those who came afterward. The Grace He gives us is without limit. We need to cherish it with every part of us. The river of God is always available to us, so let’s jump into His love and grace, and stay there on floating on our backs. If we fall out of the river, then we need to jump back in again. Bye.👋

P 3246 Watch the Holy Spirit at work.

/ DVH

For years now, three of my precious granddaughters have taken it in turns to go with their Dad to work for one whole day, every year. It was kind of a “bring your kid to work’ day – supported by his boss. The result was they knew why their Dad was late sometimes, and they understood what traffic did, and what working hard all day really means! Observation is a great way to learn.

I wanted to talk about the Holy Spirit working in us, because I think we are missing the things that He does for us, unseen, every single day. He is so good at working in secret – you have to want to see Him! But our current circumstances can distract or overwhelm us and we shut down, and stop being spiritually aware. That response will rob us of something so valuable. Look for the good! … that’s my catch cry. Find the good and focus on that. He’s IN THAT! We will always see Him at work when we look for the good. 

Unfortunately we can give credit to man, or circumstances, instead of seeing His hands in everything good that happens to us. Let’s stop crediting good things to ‘luck’ (a pagan god) and start looking in our own lives, for the Holy Spirit’s loving touch. This is part of the way we train ourselves in holy things. Sadly, most of the time, any one of us can get through a whole day without even acknowledging His Presence, except for daily bible reading and prayer. He is our heavenly air – we need to take Him with us. It’s good for us to know what He does, and see and appreciate it, so we can participate in it.

The Holy Spirit never takes credit for Himself. He is the silent One—the One Who is most easily overlooked. Maybe that is because a/ we are selfish and self involved and b/ we don’t know what He looks like when He is doing stuff! He looks just like Jesus would if He were here. Can you imagine being among the people who saw the Lord Jesus heal the lepers, feed thousands, and teach – yet they walked away thinking, or even saying: “Well, yeah, I dunno. I liked what that Man said but I can’t live like that. I think I believe what the synagogue teacher does. My Dad did, so did his Dad and they are nice people…“ Logic kills seeing Him stone dead.

Look, I don’t really know how to say this ‘nicely’ so I am just going to spit it out. The devil gets more air-play than the Holy Spirit does! That ought not to be so!! It’s an abomination. The Holy Spirit is the most Creative, Loving Being we will ever know this side of heaven. He is not secondary to our Heavenly Father or the Lord Jesus – He is part of the Trinity. Jesus sent Him back to us to help us, and told us that it was BEST for us that He went away. He’s God-with-us today and every single day we are here. Listening to Him is our new normal!

The problem seems to be that the enemy has snuck into our camp and made praying in tongues, or this or that spiritual gift, more important than HE is!  Big mistake! Huge!! He is a Person, not an activity! (I told you I didn’t know how to say it!) Pray for eyes to continually see Him at work. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if it is Godly, and good, it’s HIM!… Always look for His fruit in any kind of situation… If what happens helps you believe God, or it lovingly challenges your existing belief system… It’s HIM! 

But if it indulges your sense of self-importance, and implies you don’t need to pray, or read the word or repent and repair things … guess what? IT’S NOT HIM! Easy peasy. And if the bible doesn’t say it … it’s not Him. The bible is His reference book, and we have His personally signed copy of that book when we decide to choose to do what it says. The Spirit of God wants to get our attention! This is how we fall in love with our Heavenly Father – we watch and see Him work! Just like my granddaughters watched their earthly Dad. He wants to spend our lifetime with us, opening up new horizons, and new ways to praise God – plus a whole new ME. Bonus buy = transformation from within.

Take a few minutes to reflect, not on the bad things, but on the good ones.  Ask for His help to focus on the things that will last. Otherwise distraction will take away whatever time we have and waste it. Our God first sent the Holy Spirit to each one of us, in the form of a Saviour – His Name is Jesus. Then Jesus Himself sent us the Holy Spirit to be with us, every moment of every day, in any situation, to be our helper, comforter, guide, counsellor, advocate … live and in Person! He can be at your house inspiring you, while He is at my house comforting me. What’s not to love about that? Teach yourself to look at even bad things and find something good in them.

Here are some verses for all of us to chew on: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”  Romans 15:13. He’s the HOPE bringer. “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;…” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. We are His house! Take the time to put out the welcome mat! “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”Acts. 1:8. Most of us have no power because we are not co-operating with Him. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” John 4:26. 

We have an on-the-spot, resident Teacher. Let’s open our spiritual eyes and watch for Him quietly working in our lives – working all things together for our good. If it’s good – it’s Him! Bye. 🕊️

P 2920 Faith only.

/ DVH

“My beloved brothers and sisters, the passionate desire of my heart and constant prayer to God is for my fellow Israelites to experience salvation. For I know that although they are deeply devoted to God, they are unenlightened.And since they’ve ignored the righteousness God gives, wanting instead to be acceptable to God because of their own works, they’ve refused to submit to God’s faith-righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law. And because of Him, God has transferred His perfect righteousness to all who believe.”Romans 10:1-4 TPT

It is, unfortunately, a difficulty we all face, we can be deeply devoted to Jesus and still be living under the law and works. It is sadly quite easy to switch over from faith to works and not know you have done it. Engaging with works means you can almost immediately see something for your efforts, and it also gives us, as human beings, validation, because we want to take part in whatever the Lord is doing.

Engaging in works also means we can dismiss ‘spiritual-things’ as done for the day  — like when we tick off, prayer, bible reading and church. Actually that simply means we did what we ought to do. But is that all there is? Are we listening to, and paying attention to whatever the Lord is saying as we go through our day? Did we obey? Can we hear Him over this life’s cacophony of activities?? Have we wandered off into our own understanding?

Here’s an illustration from my life. When hubby and I go on the road, people financially support us, so we want to have results to show for the money they’ve generously donated. It becomes really easy to start counting things. Things like: we’ve had this many great conversations, or given away that many bibles, and bookmarks. It’s a very real temptation to try to account for spending other people’s money, whether they ask you about it, or not.

And to be utterly truthful, it is also a temptation to exaggerate what goes on out here … because sometimes, there ain’t nuthin’ happening here! Results don’t matter bupkis to the Lord. He simply loves to go on our journeys with us –  to work, or school, or on the road talking to people – that’s what matters to Him.

Jesus’ death paid the entire price for our sinful nature, and now we can talk to Him and we know we will be heard. Those are the things that need to matter more than anything else, to us too, if we want to walk with Him in the righteousness He died to give us. Enlightenment comes from trusting in what He did at Calvary, using our FAITH,  nothing more, nothing less. Automatic responses reduce Almighty God to a chore, a task, or yet another thing we need to remember. When all He wants is for us to be obedient to His ongoing instructions. As we keep acting in faith, He can and will correct and direct our course. He’s just that gracious.

Our minute by minute attitudes, are a whole other ballgame – those things are under our own personal control. That’s the place we learn to yield. We will all wrestle with walking in faith, because it is so much easier to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ’t’s and get validity from our actions and intentions instead. However, a truly authentic life rests on Him, and what He did, not on our actions. We are validated because what He did for us validated us! So on the road, we rest in the fact that He told us to do what we are doing, whether we see anything or not.  And sometimes, despite our best efforts … it’s …OR NOT! 

In that situation, hubby and I remind ourselves that planting seeds is a slow business. You gotta wait to see whether what you planted pops up after a while, plus harvest time can be a little while coming!! Even the disciples travelled all over the known world to spread the Gospel of God’s kingdom – and as they did it, they lived by faith, they were trusting Him to guide them.

At one time, Jesus Himself walked about 70kms, up and down tall mountains, for about 5 hours. He was going from one place to another. In this process the Lord met a Samaritan lady. Just in case you forgot, Jews don’t like Samaritans very much, but at the other end of the Lord’s enormous trek, HE FOUND A HARVEST. A whole bunch of Samaritans got saved. Whether the Lord knew what was going to happen or not, He perfectly illustrated what we have seen out here on the road. Unforeseen things happen! Stuff you could not possibly have planned.

Sadly, all of us can easily get lost in the every day ordinary things that need to be done. If you have a family then plenty of boring repetitive stuff daily has to happen. How do you do that kind of stuff in faith? I can only speak for myself – I GIVE UP a lot. When I find myself planning and using my own ideas, I repent and go back to trusting Him. Repentance is not just about moving away from sin – we also need to repent when we go back into works again. This truth has been the biggest blessing to us as we travel all over this country. We’ve put aside what we can do, and made it our priority to follow Him. We want His Presence more than we want results.

Continual enlightenment comes as we walk in what He already has done for us – it flows from our surrender, not from our own efforts. That’s what Paul is saying here. We don’t want our own righteousness, or our works, or our cleverly thought out activities – instead we want to live under, and give away to others the righteousness Jesus Himself totally paid for – for all of us. He voluntarily did what He did, to cover, direct, and comfort us. Every single bit of our lives needs to be lived in faith — waking, sleeping, walking, doing the washing up, servicing the car, playing with our kids…not legalistically … instead we simply include HIM in all things. 

 And if, or when, we run out of instructions, then we need to prayerfully go back to His book. Bye👋

P 2551 Run after Him and He will catch you!

/ DVH

When I am typing this blog the Lord will often drop a phrase or a few words from a scripture into my spirit, to start me off and help me. Sometimes it is a phrase for a title, and it floats through my mind unexpectedly. At that moment I know that this is what I call, a loose thread. If I pull on that thread and/or follow it as far as it goes, it will lead me into knowing Him better. 

So I take those few words I have, and type them into Google. Or I look the phrase up on Bible Gateway. It is always amazing to me how well Google knows the bible – especially as I am pretty sure they don’t believe in it!! 🤪 This stuff often happens outside of my normal bible time with Him – but He also inspires me in the same way, as I am reading the bible privately, for myself. 

I am sharing this because when I was first born again, I was given the traditional method of bible reading  — pray, read, take notes, then pray again. In the main, that did not work for me. I took copious notes, that I never ever referred to again (!) but taking notes did not result in building a relationship between the Lord and I. As time passed and I continued the routine I was taught, my faith eventually grew stale, because my appetite to know Him, decreased.

There is nothing like meeting Almighty God over the pages of the book He wrote! The bible is full of HIS stories, His interactions with mankind – they may feature Moses, Noah, Elisha, Amos and Habukkuk etc. but those stories are actually about the Lord, and what He did … and is still doing! Almighty God has not stopped doing stuff just because we regard the bible as a complete work! 

I cannot remember how many times I have read all the way through this book. Although, to be fair, the systems that people recommend to read it in a year have always let me down. I find myself caught up in the system, and ticking the box in my mind that says I did my duty.  Meanwhile I am pretty sure I was totally missing out on what He wanted to say to me! I don’t think dotting “i’s and crossing “t”s works for me. In years gone by, I was lousy at playing games like chasey or tag at school – I can’t run for toffee. But I love to chase the Holy Spirit … plus … I strongly suspect He loves to be chased!

Nowadays, I spend as long as it takes to research what I want to know. Sometimes that can take me quite a while. It seems to me a little like the Holy Spirit and I are playing “catch Me if you can!” … as I go all around the place, picking up stuff here and there. There are still times when I misremember a scripture, which means I’ve managed to get my theory wrong. But then I repent and ask Him to help me fix it and He never lets me down. I know this random method will not suit some people, but just for today, I wanted to offer an alternative way to get to know Him.

I’ve often thought about the fact that the disciples followed Jesus around for three and a half years – so this “follow the Leader” game isn’t completely weird! Today when I was prayerfully thinking about this subject, I was reminded of Moses and his personal encounter with the Lord. Moses was walking along minding his sheep, making sure none had fallen down a hole, or gotten stuck somewhere, when something unusual captured his attention. He saw a bush that was on fire but it did not burn up. 

“There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.So Moses said, “I must turn away [from the flock] and see this great sight—why the bush is not burned up.” Exodus 3:2,3. Moses’ innate curiosity drew him away from his work to something totally new, and that’s when God changed his life. He went from chasing sheep to standing up to Pharaoh … and we all know that outcome!

I believe that formality can have a place in our lives, but if it overwhelms spontaneity and true affection, then we are in danger of becoming religious. I want to be clear — there are days when I do not want to read the bible at all … but I read it anyway for my spiritual health. Sometimes I will read whole books … other days I only read three lines and His inspiration falls on me and I follow that instead. The bible is the only reference tool I use every single day.

What I have learnt is this: The Holy Spirit wants to be known. But He is not frivolous, or capricious, even though He is fun, He will always have a purpose for what He brings up in our lives.  It seems to me that He is more interested in our lives changing, than He is in us ticking the “I read the bible today” box. And that includes our prayer time as well. Christians desperately need His divine intervention into our bible reading times. I think if what we read is simply confirming what we already believe … we’ve missed Him. We cannot possibly know all there is to know about our God!

We can’t grow, if we are not challenged to think differently, behave differently, and do things differently. I say that mainly because whatever we are doing now IS NOT WORKING. The Body of Christ at large is vastly idle — it would rather go to a prayer meeting, or a bible study than witness! The Lord is not static – He has a plan. It is important that we join in with His plan, instead of fitting Him in around ours. Running after Him keeps us spiritually fit. Bye. 👋

P 2483 Let’s go on a treasure hunt, every day!

/ DVH

Father God hides clues about what He likes, and what He doesn’t like, right throughout the bible. Sometimes it seems so understated it is easy to breeze on by it all and start to read, blah blah blah. As I said yesterday, we need to pay attention to the words used, just like the words – “present your body as a living sacrifice, that is our true acceptable spiritual worship…”  (Romans 12:1) …  are a new way to think about living this life we have.

Hidden in those words is what God really wants from us. He wants US! ALL of us. That stuff is not there so we can just ‘get by,’ it is there as a clue to what is really going on. He wants us to worship Him the way Christ did. With all of us. You know, Jesus didn’t stop half-way through His sacrificial offering on the cross and say: “Well, that will DO!” 😱 He hung there until everything … the past, present and future redemption of mankind… was finished. Our response to the Lord cannot be half-hearted, or temporary… depending on how busy we are. Or even once in a blue moon — we all know how trouble flies about like pollen on a high wind day! 

The Holy Spirit has promised to help us to achieve whatever goal He puts before us – we have that in writing! That includes very difficult things like loving people who totally drive us crazy! Go after the kingdom, and let knowledge take second place … because it puffs up! Most people expect to be able to easily do what He asks them to do – and so they look to their own talents. Things like they can sing well, so they are going to ‘sing for Jesus!’  Hmmm…. He’s got choirs in heaven that would blow our minds … He asks us to do impossible things so we will need His help to do them!

I don’t care how good you are … it doesn’t take faith to do something you KNOW you can already do. Let’s start with where we are, and let us let Him expand us. This is the new life, a new kingdom. HIS. The kingdom is life-changing, and transformative stuff. It’s like dynamite. When you use dynamite the landscape around you changes.  By all means surrender your talents, but get bigger than that. In the bible a talent can be buried in the ground. But His kingdom is meant to be dug up! His kingdom will feed thousands.

Now, here’s the same verse again from Romans 12:1-2 MSG. “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”  The important part of this verse is “God helping you.”

Here’s a really good idea to brighten up your bible reading, start reading the bible in a new version. However, even loving the word is not the same as doing it. We need His individual daily comprehension to do that and the Holy Spirit is ready, willing and MORE THAN able to help us. If we really want to know the Lord, we need to be serious about looking for Him and His Ways in the book. Every day should bring us new discoveries about Who He is and what He likes and what He is looking for from us.

To me, reading the bible is like a treasure hunt that happens every single day. You don’t find treasures lying about on the surface, you have to DIG for them. That means effort. It is not something we can do quickly and then close the book and think we are finished. The bible is our daily bread – we have to chew on it to extract the goodness out of the meat in there. We simply must stop seeing His Word as pretty comforting suggestions, and use our faith to expand it into a new way to live.

Here’s my last juicy bit of steak for today:“I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” This scripture shows me that no matter how difficult stuff is … I have His personal assurance that I can get through it with His strength. I love to put what He says into my own words to extract even more meaning … like this:… ‘Because I know He will help and strengthen me, I can do anything He asks me to do.’ We don’t need strength before we do something… if we already have it, then we don’t need to ask for it!! Do more than read the words, dig for the treasure of MORE.… Bye. 👋🏻

PS – from the bible app. Someone who reads the bible four or more times a week is:

  • 59% less likely to view pornography
  • 74% less likely to gamble
  • 407% more likely to memorise Scripture
  • 228% more likely to share their faith with others
  • 231% more likely to disciple others

     *  30% less likely to be lonely