Bible

P 3435 All is not lost.

/ DVH

“With tender humility and quiet patience, always demonstrate gentleness and generous love toward one another, especially toward those who may try your patience.” Ephesians 4:2 TPT.  Years ago, it was my children that tried my patience, nowadays … I think I try theirs! Time is a funny thing, it has a way of turning stuff around. With His help, we are all going to need humility, as well as quiet patience, gentleness and generous love, because the situations we end up in, may not necessarily be sweet or easy! 

This morning as I concentrated on the context of this verse, I decided to go and look at the scriptures around it, to get some clarity. The first thing I noticed was so interesting I am writing this blog about it! Ephesians 4:1 … “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” There have been times when I’ve read the beginning and the ending of Paul’s letters like it is advertising. You know what I mean, ‘Dear So and so, I hope you are well …. blah blah blah … the important part of the letter — and then send my love to Auntie Jane and Uncle Fred.’ Stuff we could call, politeness, or niceties.’ … Not this time.

This time, I looked hard at what Paul had actually said and it jumped out at me: “As a prisoner … FOR THE LORD!” Big clue there. Paul’s in jail that’s why he is writing a letter, because he can’t be there in Ephesus in person. Yet he sees himself as the Lord’s prisoner, not a Roman prisoner. He’s living under house-arrest in Rome but in his mind he is still God’s servant in that prison. Just bear with me I am getting to my point. 

There are people reading this today, who have been prisoners. Locked in by so many different, sometimes difficult, circumstances. Things like ill-health, unemployment, a crummy job, being married to a difficult person, having trouble with money, or kids. So many things can lock us IN. But Paul casually points out that he knows that the Lord is in charge. We need to see what happens to us, from God’s point of view. The Lord always has a purpose – He’s doing something else.

He has allowed our circumstances to prevail for a reason. Now we are ‘in Christ,’ we need to put aside the idea of going the wrong way. Or getting into trouble way over our heads, and feeling like we can’t make it etc. God Himself put each one of us where we are right now. And He has a purpose in it! Even if we sinned and walked away from Him to get there. He is bigger than we think! The Apostle Paul is in jail, because he insisted that he be judged, as a Roman citizen, by Caesar. Was that a good plan or a bad plan? It seemed like a very bad plan – because if you carefully read his writings, he is always planning to get out!  He simply had no idea what was coming next. US!

So he appealed to Rome, and ended up side-lined under house arrest because he was falsely accused of riots etc. in Judea. In the natural, Paul should be out there preaching the gospel, giving birth to churches, because that’s what his office in the Spirit does. An apostle gives birth to church-es …plural. But he’s not. And because of this seemingly unprofitable time, when he is stuck waiting for his turn to talk to Caesar – he wrote the Epistles! He had to, he couldn’t go to some of those places in person – he was in jail!

Here’s my thought for today: you may be somewhere that does not make sense to you … but God has got you! You haven’t fallen off His radar!! He’s not surprised by this postponement, or side-lining of your gift or ministry, it is part of a plan to extend the boundaries of your tent. Paul ‘fathered’ so many innumerable churches because he was stuck in that situation, unable to go out and go where he wanted to go. We know Paul has encouraged generations of people to press on. He thought he was just writing to the people of Ephesus and Philippi. If that can happen to Paul it can happen to us. Maybe your ‘stuck’ problem isn’t about YOU!

Don’t let the enemy lie, and cheat you out of the joy and expectation of what Almighty God is going to do next in your life. We don’t know that stuff, but that does not mean we have to throw our hands in the air and live in misery. Our job is to be faithful wherever we are. We can certainly ask the Lord about it, but even if He answers us in ways we don’t understand, we can still trust Him to work it out. Paul did! That’s called st-re-tch-ing our faith.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unfathomable (inscrutable, unsearchable) are His judgments (His decisions)! And how untraceable (mysterious, undiscoverable) are His ways (His methods, His paths)!” Romans 11:33.  I’ll say! He blew my mind over six words at the beginning of Ephesians!  I never saw it before. It was like the Lord took His little highlighter and swiped it over those words. 

God has us in His heart and hands. Read Psalm 139:8 . We gave Him our lives and He took them. It will take loads of quiet patience, humility, and reliance upon His generous love filling us, to cope with just waiting. Waiting seems like we are doing nothing useful. Waiting can lead to doubting ourselves, others and Him. But Isaiah tells us in Chapter 40:31 that it also ‘… renews our strength! We will mount up with wings like eagles.’ Have you ever watched an eagle fly? It is effortless. Give everything to Him, put down your effort, and wait – all is not lost! You are going to come out of this stronger. Bye. 👋

P 3434 A quality decision.  

/ DVH

“Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour, and authority! Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm. Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ.” Colossians 3:1-3 TPT.

There is a way we all need to go … Proverbs 22:6, I think a description of that way appears in Colossians 3:1-3. That way means we don’t just die to self – we live this life resurrected, striding into a brand new life, where Jesus rules – right here, right now. This happened to each one of us when we gave our lives to Christ. He has kept His part of this covenant, and now it is up to us to keep our part.  Our part is an assignment. We choose to take Him with us wherever we go. 

His part will stand forever, whether people acknowledge it or not. Ours depends upon us believing what He said and acting accordingly – using our faith. Everything we read in the bible points to this brand new life that is ours for the taking – Jesus gave it to us when He died in our place. Why live in the defeated ruins of an old life, when the new life He died to give us is ours for the taking?

Our daily need for His help, and His freely-given input, turns into a yearning that encourages and motivates our faith to keep on pressing on, and in. We want Him. Not rules, not religion, but Him. Anything else pales into insignificance. There can be times we feel listless, plagued by an unwillingness to yield to Him, and we sometimes give into it. That stuff isn’t just disobedience — it comes from a lack of real focus about what is actually going on... God Himself is wooing us! This is the next part of our chosen adventure with Christ. He stands at the window, oil dripping from His nail-scarred hands, waiting to be asked into each and every moment.

We cannot afford to ignore the things Jesus said, they are our life-blood. Our spiritual life and health depends entirely on what He did for us, and our choice to believe the things written in His book are true. Otherwise we will pick and choose what we want to believe, and be led about by all sorts of distractions that will tickle our ears, and continually lead us nowhere. We might even become faddish, and look ridiculous to the world around us. 

Whenever God is truly present, conviction has to follow because His holiness challenges our humanity. Conviction is not about yelling at people for being sinful, and threatening them with a ghastly final destination – it also not just about going the wrong way — conviction means we are wrong! We can’t be right without His input. Deep down most people already know that their way of life is broken – they either don’t care, or don’t want to change, or they don’t know how to change. 

The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin. As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach the Christ-like goal. The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin.

As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach this Christ-like goal.

The Holy Spirit revives our faith as He leads us. Our faith was not design to drag along behind – always waiting for a sign, or proof, or some sort of approval. What matters in this process is the room we give Him in our lives. Some people can spend 60 minutes quality time with the Lord day by day, and it is enough to fuel their ministry. Others progressively fall in Love with A PERSON and they refuse to let Him out of their sight! The Holy Spirit longs to draw us into the same sort of depth we see in the Apostles in Acts.

We are all in the same battle. We daily fight to let Christ be everything to us, instead of simply our back-up in times of trouble. Freely loving Him is our reward – we don’t care what this world offers us, or what we think we might gain in the next. Jesus wants to reside/live/inhabit our lives, today. Imagine the honour! The King of glory quietly calls us to walk with Him. His Presence is not a merit badge tribute to our spirituality, He is our beloved Lord and Saviour – Who is closer to us than our heartbeat.

But we must deal with our own pride, our need for autonomy and self-importance. And make a quality decision to live in His resurrection life, listening to Him and loving others. Bye 👋.

P 3433 Entitlement.  

/ DVH

Entitlement. Now there’s a buzz word in today’s world. A  lot has been said about the younger generations who are responding to this life differently than we did. Many older people think these young people live entitled lives. Here is my idea of balance:  they are facing a different world to the one we grew up in. I can’t afford to assess their responses by my own experiences or standards, they don’t apply. 

I didn’t have an Xbox, or TV the size of a wall, or Co-Vid, bird flu, or trolls on social media facing me. It was quite safe for me to leave my house after dark, and I could leave my front door open and people would still knock. Life whizzes by, and many many things are changing at an incredible rate — the impact of those changes cannot be judged by yesterday’s standards — and yet they can affect the way we view this world and the people in it, today.

Actually, they shouldn’t be judged at all, that’s not our role – it’s HIS. But let’s move past that obvious fact, onto today’s  point. Entitlement isn’t just a problem for our youth. People my age have unrealistic expectations too. The thing is we simply cannot afford to look at this life through our own eyes. We need a filter – the bible is that ever-present active filter. I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is for Christians to know the bible. This book needs to be written inside us. We are simply fooling ourselves if we are not coming from the Lord’s perspective.

It is much too easy to become selective about what parts of His book, we choose to read, or even believe. In 2 Timothy 3:1-5&7 there is a prophetic prediction, that seems to be becoming more and more accurate in our world today:  “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people … … always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 

It is important to realise when we read verses like these, we must not excuse ourselves, by explaining away our own behaviour. Instead we need to ask ourselves: ‘Am I always learning but I haven’t arrived at practising my knowledge of the truth? Am I satisfied with theories, not spiritual life-skills?’ Unfortunately that one attitude can be quite easy to hold onto. So can an entitled attitude: “Jesus wants to make my life happy.” He will, but not necessarily in the way we imagined!

“But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.” 2 Corinthians 10:12b. Jesus is always the only standard, not us. He will judge this world, not us. We aren’t qualified to do it. Only the One Who paid the ultimate price on our behalf can judge mankind. The sad truth is we are often way too busy excusing ourselves, to be in a fit state to judge anything. The way to read verses like these, is line by line, asking the Holy Spirit to show us where we have missed His mark. Dismissing or overlooking stuff arbitrarily, is a huge mistake.  

So let’s take a really quick look at Timothy.: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.”  Sadly, it is not too hard to put a tick on that one, I just need to look around me at the way people treat each other. “Lovers of themselves” … every time I choose me, my ideas, my feelings above His or yours, I am not choosing to do things His way. “Lovers of money …” There is this crazy theory that if you don’t have money this doesn’t affect you. Rhubarb. It’s when you don’t have it that you desperately chase after it. The people who love money don’t have to be rich! On we go: “…boastful, proud, abusive …”  

… Let’s look at Matthew 5:22: “You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.” FYI, Jesus said that. The bible will assist us to read itself, let’s just be open to its correction. He makes these things impossible without the Holy Spirit’s help… that’s the point!

I haven’t got room to talk about all 6 verses, but I would like to end on this note and highlight one more verse. Verse 5: “…having a form of godliness but denying its power…” That’s self-explanatory and it dismisses the whole: “I can’t live like that. I’m too hurt, sad, mad, bad, indifferent to do it.” We can’t afford to excuse ourselves from obedience. Like I said, these may not be not our favourite verses… but they are necessary, for godliness, life and healing. The power of God has been given to us, at great cost — it is here to help us with our inner thoughts and attitudes.

What Paul says to Timothy brings us quickly back down to earth again. We stop judging and feeling entitled – pity wells up inside us, and suddenly we find that we have compassion for other people who aren’t perfect either. Our sense of entitlement, that me first, last, and always attitude—bites the dust and what comes out is: “Please forgive me Lord.” Bye.🙏.

P 3432 Let’s pay attention to who He says I am. 

/ DVH

“Nor to give importance to or occupy themselves with legends (fables, myths) and endless genealogies, which foster and promote useless speculations and questionings rather than acceptance IN FAITH of GOD’S administration and the divine training that is in faith in that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence)—Whereas the object and purpose of our instruction and charge is love, which springs from a pure heart and a good (clear) conscience and sincere (unfeigned) faith.“ 

1 Timothy 1:4&5: Let’s look at this bit: “…the divine training that is in faith in that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence).” Love comes out of allowing God to train us in Christ’s Ways using our circumstances and we respond with our faith. Now let’s ask one of those pesky questions: what, or who do I lean on when life gets uncertain and unstable?

Today I want to encourage you to think about leaning your entire human personality on Him and, at the same time, aim toward trusting and having confidence in His Way of doing things. Leaning on Him means if He moves we fall over! This can be one of those great things that stays a theory. In our minds, we say: “Yes Lord!!” But when He asks us to actually ‘do good to those who despitefully use us’ … well, that’s a whole other ballgame. All that we are must lean on Him!

At the same time we can easily have a skewed opinion of what it looks like to be in ministry. We don’t have to be on a platform to be used – His grace works anywhere! But whatever we do, we need to have His fruit bursting out of it. His fruit is the proof that we are learning to love with His love – not just what we think. There needs to be an accompanying harvest to those theories in our lives. 

This is how faith expresses itself. Theories don’t change lives, actions do. I’ve been in places and situations that looked impossible, but Jesus saved us and helped us to get out. I’m not saying I liked it when that stuff happened, I’m saying that bad things give us opportunities to stand still and watch Father God do what He does best – love everyone, all at once! I’ve had to learn it is OK to be a person who doesn’t know everything. I know I can’t do anything in my own strength, it never goes the way I planned it – I found that out by figuratively falling on my head.

For instance:  the possibility of me learning to weight-lift, or run, skip, hop, kayak, or bicycle in a 100 kms marathon is now remote. Even suggesting that I jump out of a perfectly good aircraft (why would you!) — is well beyond my scope these days. That’s not laziness, btw, that’s just disability, age and a certain amount of respect for gravity! I watch people older than I am do these things and I don’t feel bad. I think: ‘I am stretching myself in a whole other direction … spiritually.‘ Trust me, that is just as intense and difficult as the physical stuff.

If I am going to train for something, then I want to train myself to walk in holiness and righteousness before the Lord. I already know anyone can have access to these things because Jesus gave us HIS righteousness etc – BUT! … those things can be easier said than done. Which is why we need to use our faith, especially as we live in everyday land! He really did give me these things and I need to act accordingly. If you are going to aim at something, aim high … … but I’m still not going to leap out of a plane, parachute or not!!

Here’s another verse. Hold onto your hat! “For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems sad and painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness [right standing with God and a lifestyle and attitude that seeks conformity to God’s will and purpose].” Hebrews 12:11. This is how we get righteousness, holiness, and conformity to what He wants. God’s love, the fruit of the Spirit, etc. these things have already been given to us. Done deal! Now we need to walk with Him and submit to the discipline those things will bring into our lives. Think of those things as being like my parcel at the post office. It’s already here within reach, all I need to do is go and claim it using my faith that the PO hasn’t lied to me. 

The Lord’s kind of discipline teaches us His Ways. We can read about those things in the book, but sooner or later we have to respond to them. That’s the discipline part. We pray, and then we do the very thing that seems alien to us. Sometimes it can even seem ill-advised! We turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, love those who won’t ever love us back, and obediently follow Jesus, and the path He took before us. Here’s a little clue that will help us on our journey. When we do things His Way, we leave our ways behind.  

We are not all the same. Your idea of love might not look like my idea of love, which can lead to conflict between us. Try asking your spouse or your kid what their idea of love looks like – it’s mind-blowing. But HIS LOVE is the standard, not mine or yours. Let’s aim at loving others with His Love. The bible clearly tells me what that love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13. And Colossians 3:14-17 tells me what I need to put on, in order to wear it. However, I have to start with my faith! It takes a great deal of faith to shut-up when you want to shred the person who is attacking you.

Let’s choose what Jesus bought for us at Calvary, and put those seemingly impossible qualities on, using our faith to do it. I step into WHO HE SAYS I AM. Final thought: How am I going to move mountains if I cannot change my behaviour and let Him transform my character? I need the Holy Spirit’s help! By the way, when the bible says trained by discipline, it isn’t a suggestion. Bye 👋. 

P 3431 For the Father and others.  

/ DVH
It is good to remember that no matter what people look like, they need Him.

The more we ask the Holy Spirit for His help in our daily lives, the more we will experience intimacy with God and others. Father God can’t be an afterthought – He must be our only thought. By the way, big long repetitive prayers don’t matter! Just speak your heart to Him, not your head. Intimacy comes from being real with Him and myself. When we read Psalms 86 and 114, we see David, the man and the king, being real. 

We often hang onto the sins other people commit against us, to protect ourselves. Those things can easily hide or even sometimes eclipse, what Jesus did for me. The thing is I can’t afford to be distracted – I desperately need His help. This life chases me with bad news. Even other people’s attitudes can distract me from Him, and my immediate needs can overcome my eternal aims. Let’s deliberately ask Him to help us focus on Him, and what He has done – first. Otherwise I can become blinded by self-interest or someone else’s sins against me. 

Calvary was an incredibly intimate, personal event — Jesus’ life-blood poured out onto the ground! You and I are the people who choose to live knowing that we are not worthy of so much mercy, forgiveness, grace and love, but we have it, because He gave it. Now we live for Him … His way. It is a useful thing to remind ourselves of our King’s freely-given investment in our lives when we are under great stress. It adds to our intimacy with Him. Instead of toughing it out — ask Jesus INTO whatever is going on.

The Lord has shown me what I do to protect myself – is far worse than any perceived slights that the other person has perpetrated against me. Mainly because I am collecting their faults, words and attitudes like stamps! Hugging them to me to protect myself from what these people might do next. You can’t have true intimacy with someone you are hiding from. The things I chew on to protect myself, create a barrier. It is harder to hear the Lord, as well as hear them!

What we fail to understand is that whatever we cling to, to protect us, will actually bind us. The best Person to cling is Jesus. Let’s pick up our own cross – of unrepentant spouses, relatives, friends, and bosses, etc. – and lay aside their sins with over-the-top forgiveness. But don’t just leave a vacuum — say something kind to them instead. “A soft answer turns away wrath.” “We might just win our brother …” When we are tempted to reply in a negative fashion – in the face of extreme pain, lies, cursing, betrayal and spite – our faith is under pressure. Let’s allow the truth of God’s love for us to be our shield.

The Lord Jesus saved the guy hanging next to Him while He was being crucified. He WAS kind of busy at the time … dying from suffocation, and the injuries we inflicted upon Him! … But LOVE WON. When we make love our aim, our quest, and we choose to chase it, anything that is not love begins to stand out.

Perhaps our churches aren’t producing the things that are worthwhile in a way that this world can see them. The people around us can’t see our faith in action. Our voluntary demonstration of the fruit of the Spirit, when we are under pressure, can provide other people with the spiritual substance they hope for. Good works are great, but faith stands up and votes for His way – every single time. Many times, other people can’t see Jesus in what we are doing, because what we are doing fits into our happy little churchified routines. Let’s begin by telling them that the sky may well be falling, but we know a safe place to live.

Maybe we have forgotten how to live this life displaying our faith, day by day, minute by minute! Faith is more than saying to a random mountain: “Go over there!” Faith tells my bad temper, criticism, suspicion, or complete lack of God’s fruit in my every day life —-“you will not rule the way I think or act.” Instead, we say: “I give it all to you, Lord.” Jesus knows firsthand how hard this life is, He can be trusted to be there for me. He will show me the way out of any holes I have dug for myself.

Nobody knows the Father and Son better than the Holy Spirit. Their relationship is what true intimacy looks like. Their incredible fellowship and love for each other is our example. Intimacy fosters any and all circumstances to bring about the best in others. The Lord Jesus faced His destiny wrestling through what was to come, with prayer, courage, kindness, and a concern for His Father’s will and this world’s future. Instead of His excruciating pain producing murder, anger and rage — He chose God’s Way. He could have cursed us but He saved us.

Love grows when we choose to see the best in someone else. Not just what they do, but who they are. Just like Jesus did. If we need to confront them, we choose to do it in love, quietly, rationally! Don’t do a private opinion poll with other people about whether they were right to do whatever they did.  PRAY – for them, plus everyone else involved, as well as yourself. The body of Christ needs His kind of real love that allows others to learn. Our aim is not to make that other person do things the way we do it, it is to assist others to think like He does.

We want to produce devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. With every single member, big and small, old and young, all of them functioning in their appointed gifts. That’s not just the pastor’s job, it is also ours. Jesus summed it up well, when He explained to His disciples: ‘I only do and say what I see My Father doing and saying.’ He knew the best way to live, was for the Father, and for others. Bye 👋.

P 3430 Choosing Him over me.  

/ DVH

“Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvellous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God to be His sacred, LIVING sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights His heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.” Romans 12:1 TPT. And the Amplified version: “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [dedicating all of yourselves, set apart] as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your rational (logical, intelligent) act of worship.” It is the only intelligent, rational thing to do.

Singing, dancing, psalms, hymns all flow from that place of true surrender— where we daily choose to give God our all and then live that decision out, minute by minute. But what people often settle for as true worship, can be a happy exercise in cheering US up! God has angels that can sing more enthusiastically and joyfully than we can. He has beings we can’t even imagine, and their sole purpose is to fly around the throne proclaiming … “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Three choruses of “Lord I give you my heart” ain’t gunna cut it unless we go away and act like we sing.

Let’s look at Ephesians 5:19: “Speak out to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, offering praise with voices [and instruments] and making melody with all your heart to the Lord, …” Singing is a way to worship Him, but true worship begins with surrender. Listen to Jesus worshipping His Father by presenting His Body: “Saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but [always] Yours be done.”” Luke 22:42. And then Jesus allowed Himself to be manhandled and brutalised by thugs. Living for Jesus in everything we do and say, plus presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice is total and true worship. Let’s just remember that when we sing, we also get a benefit, we feel better! But, when we present our bodies without any reservations, we are truly worshipping Him.

If we only focus on our vocal participation in worship we have missed the best bit, which is … laying our lives willingly down for His sake, not just on Sunday morning, but every single hour of every single day. BTW, this is not something we can fudge. Father God knows our hearts, and He knows what our intentions are. How do I know that? Well … I’ve been tested on it. It doesn’t take that much trouble in my life to reduce my enthusiasm for His Ways. This is why we need the Word of God to slice between the way we think, and what we intend to do. I can’t speak for you, but I know I can say all sorts of stuff when I feel good! To truly worship Him, we need Him to enlighten us and reveal the things we hide from ourselves. Trouble does that beautifully.

However, because of His great mercy, wanting to do it, preparing to do it, is the same as doing it, in His eyes. Abraham was totally prepared to sacrifice Isaac – he raised the knife to kill his son on that altar. And the Lord said: “Stay your hand …” This is what our Father is like, He understands we are dust, however our faith needs to mature. The safest place in all the world is in the centre of God’s will. The thing we don’t like about that sentence is that the centre of His will can be a place we don’t want to go, because we know what is waiting for us there! We get to die. To choose His way above our own and leave behind our excuses. Let’s remember that He calls living like this ‘living sacrifices.’ Just like Jacob, we could walk away with a limp! 

Worship is about what it says in Song of Songs … “I am my Beloved’s [garden] and my Beloved is mine! He feeds among the lilies [which grow there].” It’s intimate, sacrificial, joy-filled and personal. Our wonderful Heavenly Father is so worthy of our total surrender and worship! Meanwhile, the centre of God’s will probably won’t be the centre of this world’s attention! Good thing to know.

HE planned for us to be here – right here, right now. For some people, who have faced years of rejection, you may need to write that down and stick it somewhere where you can read it, often. Almighty God not only accepts you, He wanted you so much He provided for you to be with Him forever, and it cost Him everything He held dear! I love a whole lot of people … but forever is a huge amount of time! HE is so good, He has provided us with the consistency of His ETERNAL love, in an inconsistent world. Our current world-view declares people are IN one day and OUT, later that afternoon.

The Lord doesn’t change, despite how inconsistent we are. Listen to what He says to the Israelites who cleared off and left Him! “I am God—yes, I Am. I haven’t changed. And because I haven’t changed, you, the descendants of Jacob, haven’t been destroyed. You have a long history of ignoring My commands. You haven’t done a thing I’ve told you. Return to Me so I can return to you,” says God-of-the-Angel-Armies.” Malachi 3:6,7. Because He is true to His own nature, He did not destroy them – He withdrew His Presence. What a tragic thought – to be asked to live in His Presence and chose to walk away like they did!

True worship is about us doing more than singing or saying we are living for Jesus, it’s choosing Him over me. Bye. 👋

P 3429 GRACE is not an optional extra.

/ DVH

It is often so easy to focus on our needs. The need to be well, or have enough money, or a job, or a house, or even the right spouse to serve Him. When what we actually need is His Grace for wherever we are – right here, right now! Jesus Himself didn’t have any of those physical things and it didn’t bother Him — His food and drink was to do the will of His Father. Paul wasn’t impressed by the fripperies of this world either, and if you look at all the disciples, they didn’t think they needed anything BUT JESUS.

I know about a number of missionaries who don’t have most of the kind of things that we take for granted. However, they don’t feel poor. Actually they’d rather walk with Him, than rely upon stuff. The Lord Jesus gave us His grace when He died for us, now, Grace is the vehicle we step into, and we never ever step out of again!  Because our aim is to follow Him, we choose to apply ourselves to learn this truth. We literally cannot do anything without Him. Salvation is not just asking Him into our lives and walking away, clutching our free ticket to heaven. Grace is the ticket that takes us all the way there. That ‘ticket’ cost our loving Saviour His life.

By now we have learnt that choosing to love anyone is incredibly powerful, and it is even more powerful when we begin to understand the cost of that kind of choice. Our choice to follow Him blesses the Lord Jesus’ heart. We, and millions of other people, who have gone before us, are His reward for all His suffering. I don’t think human beings have the capacity to live the way Jesus did, and maintain it, without the Grace of God freely flowing through their lives.

It takes Grace to love someone who feels so entitled to focus on their own happiness than anything else around them – they see this world in a childish fashion. “What’s in it for me?’ It can be remarkably easy to give up leaning on the Lord, because the spiritual things seem too hard. That’s the point. They were always going to be too hard. Our quest is to choose to learn to love, live, move and have our being in Him, and His Grace helps us achieve that, one step at a time.

‘Grace needs to be viewed not just as a one-time pardon, but as an ongoing spiritual strength, that helps people change and serve others.’ (Google) Loving others in our own strength will eventually produce a conflict of interests, and most of the time, it’s likely that my own interests will win! That’s when Grace Himself leaves, and we are left with ‘me’ in all my selfish glory. Conversely, I can easily get puffed up by how sacrificial I am, even when you clearly don’t deserve it. I can also probably be misled by hardship — but His Grace is God’s gift to me, to lead me into His Ways.

It is, unfortunately, comparatively simple to keep trying to control the world around us, without being a good steward of what lies within. I am of the opinion that we can’t do anything lasting, or eternal, without His Grace. True grace is eternity that has already come, or been invited, into the here and now. Let us not  forget the first few lines of that well known passage in 1 Corinthians 13, “The fruit of the SPIRIT …”   We will fail in our quest if we fail to realise that it’s HIS fruit that will be manifested in our lives. As we learn to co-operate with Him and ask Him to grow it – we will need His Grace to endure and keep on loving others.  

That fruit will be automatically and systematically nurtured as we choose, minute by minute, to stay attached to the vine. Jesus’ Grace holds us there – on that sometimes uncomfortable spot that challenges us to die to what we want. That takes these things out of the realm of what I can do, and puts them squarely into the Kingdom reality of what Jesus has already done. You can’t have both – self interest is not the same His interest, no matter how carefully we use pretty, spiritual words to make it sound better. In those moments, let’s choose to remember that Jesus didn’t care if He impressed anyone with His spirituality or not. Most of His praying was done in secret! 

We don’t need to explain Grace to participate in it. After all, His Grace saved us when we were already sinners. His Grace came and found us. Our job is to give grace a HOME. We were too stupid to ask for it, we definitely didn’t deserve it, so we won’t always recognise it when it comes our way. Nevertheless it is there. Our ignorance, or wilful disobedience, does not negate what God freely gave us. His Grace is the sap that facilitates the fruit of His Spirit to grow in our lives. I can try to change myself until I am blue in the face, and I might even outwardly change my behaviour. But I cannot change my heart. It will deceive me. 

The Grace released by what the Lord Jesus Christ did is far more powerful than we can imagine. Because of it, we need to live our lives gratefully. Grace saved us and it sustains us. We cannot outgrow our need for His Grace in our lives. Grace acts as a moving vehicle, it runs on our faith, and carries us past our perceived limits, into a new way of living. It is an unearned gift that holds us steady, moves us forward, and changes how we see our flaws. The bible shows us what to do and Grace helps us do it.

His Grace runs to meet us when we mess up. It lifts us up from the dirt and grime into a bigger place where we see how much He loves us, far more clearly. It gently washes us clean – again – and it holds us fast in His love even when life tosses us around like a leaf in a storm. We need His Word, plus His Grace, to help us apply it in our lives, all the time. God’s Grace is not an optional extra it is an essential oil, perfuming our lives. Bye. 👋

P 3428 A soldier does what he is trained to do.

/ DVH

“Since Christ, though innocent, suffered in His flesh for you, now you also must be a prepared soldier, having the same mind-set, for whoever has died in his body is done with sin. So live the rest of your earthly life no longer concerned with human desires but consumed with what brings pleasure to God.” 1 Peter 4:1-2 TPT. These kinds of choices are part of our suffering for His sake. We deliberately choose to give up what we want to do, and we yield to what He sent us here to do. It’s a total change of focus. But we can’t live like this by ourselves – we are wrestling against principalities and powers, we need our Commander-in-chief leading us, giving us His Grace every step of the way.

This verse is a magnificent thought, but a terrifying one as well. It is like a spotlight showing up the places where what we think – is different from what we do. In other words, it is easy to say we do this stuff, but can we actually live it? My only answer is “yes” we can — simply because Jesus did it first … but … we cannot do it alone! We’ve been empowered, by Christ’s death into living this life a new way. After the Lord Jesus died, even the disciples wrangled with their feelings of loss, and yet they went back to what they knew … fishing! Human beings without the influence and leading of the Holy Spirit can be loveable, but dumb as a rock when it comes to spiritual things. Those things won’t fall on us, we must go after them. His grace will help us. 

When I was a young Christian, I noticed that there was a level of commitment in a few people that I didn’t seem to have. It was as if there were some sort of line in my mind that I would walk up to, then I’d look over into the other side of it and it all looked too hard for me. So then, I’d walk back to where I came from. That line was called — a total commitment to Christ. I wanted His life in me, but I wanted my own ideas for my life too. I wanted to  ‘make my own choices’ – to be a Christian when it suited me, and walk away when it didn’t. My perception of His benefits  was all about me, instead of Him. Maybe that’s why Psalm 103:2 tells us not to forget His benefits!

I had plenty of friends, rabbits and relations who were quite happy to explain to me that my ideas about Christianity were nice .. but surely I didn’t have to take the whole thing quite so seriously!  And that was the beginning of an odd period in my life where I did the hokey pokey. I put one foot over the line, then took it back, then the other foot  … if you have ever done the hokey pokey … you get it. In the end I became double-minded. I got to the stage where I finally agreed with others. that I should coast along, do nice things when I felt like it – yet I could still be angry with the people who were mean to me, because I couldn’t help it. After all they’d been truly awful and they should know better! I succumbed to ‘poor little old me!’ Self-pity will wreck our faith in a heart beat.

At the same time I was told I had a “virus,” year after year and a lot of people prayed for it to be healed. But it wasn’t healed … because it wasn’t actually a virus! It turned out I needed a liver transplant. Meanwhile, I was in every healing line I could get into, and yet I still got sicker. Then something else unthinkable happened, I was divorced. I knew what the bible said, and I knew what Jesus said … and yet it happened anyway. The ambition to die for Jesus’ sake, fell in the dirt, I couldn’t do it. If I stayed inside that marriage, I would die.

I totally knew I had broken ‘the rules.’ I loved Jesus, but trying harder became impossible, I was too ill. I knew nothing about walking by faith, not by sight. Even though I had carefully memorised the verse! I didn’t actually understand what the New Covenant meant, except in vague terms that definitely didn’t apply to me anymore – because now I thought I was doomed to hell. Folks, religion kills. It murders your faith and it will take your life. Put it down. I exhort everyone reading this to ask the Lord to teach you to walk by faith, otherwise our common enemy will use your circumstances against you.

Even after the transplant, they couldn’t tell me why my liver was so damaged. It just was! Eventually I learnt that a simple very common blood test would have diagnosed what was wrong with me. I didn’t drink alcohol etc. so the medical profession didn’t think to give me the blood test. However, God in His great mercy, didn’t let go of me, just because I let go of Him. He’s like that! This advice in 1 Peter 4 is so incredibly important. Living our lives for Jesus is not an alternate way … it is the only way. God has given us a totally new way to live, step by step, little by little … He calls us to fall in love with His goodness and follow Him. He paid dearly to give us His grace to do it.

I think sometimes, we’ve had our eyes fixed on the wrong application of His principles. In the following verse from Hebrews the Lord is telling us about HIMSELF – not how to get what we want from Him!  “But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (11:6) We’ve used our faith for years hoping to make our lives more comfortable, telling ourselves God wants us to be healthy and happy. But it actually says … He rewards those who chase after Him and the result is … WE WILL PLEASE HIM … He doesn’t have to please us … He’s GOD!

Take my advice and decide to live your life as good soldier of Christ – don’t wander in and out like I did. Leave behind the ‘stuff’ you’ve picked up along the way. Make that choice. Bitterness, anxiety, and disappointment doesn’t belong in our brand new heart. Neither does lying, hating others, abusing or hurting people. Whatever your excuse is for staying the same – it’s a lie.

A good soldier does exactly what he is told to do, no more, no less. We have been given a wonderful Companion in our daily journeys, He knows how to strategically get us through our battles – don’t leave home without Him.  We need the Word of God, plus GRACE. Bye. 👋

P 3426 Dead is the new way to live. 

/ DVH

In Galatians 2:20, Jesus reminds us what this life is really all about. Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

This getting-dead process can be challenging sometimes. So the reality is, I choose to die to what I want, over and over again. Here’s what that means practically. Someone says something I think is provocative, so I ask for the Holy Spirit’s help, and I say nothing. Despite how provoked I feel, the Lord Himself will give me that soft answer He talks about from Proverbs. I’m just doing what Jesus told me to do, ‘turning the other cheek.’ If people cheat me and they lie to me, I pray a blessing over them until I mean it. In other words, I let the Lord Jesus fight my battles for me. It’s up to Him what happens to people who behave like that, He knows more about them than I ever could.   

This means I have deliberately chosen to live this life dead to what I want, and alive to what He wants. Let’s be clear, I am not talking about being mostly dead, or I wish I was … dead. What I mean is – I’ve chosen to die to the way I used to think about, relate to, and treat other people. Now, I owe them LOVE and I use my faith to trust Father God to help me with that. He clearly told me “that vengeance is His.”  Here is the Good News part of the gospel. Because of Jesus’ resurrection I don’t have to stay dead — now I have a new way to live, right here, right now. TODAY – and the power to do it.

Of course I will need the Holy Spirit’s help to live that way. But He won’t do it for me. I’m not a puppet, I’m a person who makes a choice.. I take a step of faith, and the Holy Spirit helps me to move forward. When I refuse to be angry back at someone else, He gives me something sweet to say to them, that helps to diffuse their anger. Meanwhile, you can’t pick a fight with a dead person, because they won’t say anything back. You could yell at them, if you want to, but … you’d be wasting your time. You’d be better off shouting into a black hole.

Each one of us has to choose to die to what we want, and come alive to the reason Jesus brought us here. But once we do, our thinking begins to change and we start to think like He does. Then the Holy Spirit helps us to use our God-given faith and hope in His goodness, to live a brand new way. It’s the way Jesus lived. We all know His plans are good for us, that’s also in the book! I’ve decided to trust what He said more than I trust what I can see going on around me. We choose to come alive to Christ and His Way of living and leave our past behind us, when we die to self and live for Him.

It is not humility when I say on this blog that Jesus helped me with this and that – it’s a fact. If I try really really hard to be what He has already given me for free, well — that’s when the trouble starts! I begin to lose my sense of His Presence with me, because my excuses for my own bad behaviour fill the air around me! The only Person Who can resurrect a dead person is Jesus. When He does that He makes them sweeter. Trying to resurrecting yourself and hold on tightly to being right, is a waste of time and energy. Whatever we try to do by ourselves doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. We will just wear ourselves out doing it, as well as becoming jaded, and losing hope. Give up. Die to self.

It is easy to tell when I have wandered off and given up living for Him – I want my own way. Day by day living His way is always a choice. Sadly, I can get offended before the poor schmuck with their foot in their mouth has finished their sentence. I am not at all nice to be around, especially if I try to change myself. I get mad at other people because they annoy me and they want their way. The safest, sweetest place to live, is to live this life using the faith He gave me. Then my priorities change. My focus needs to be on what He did. Not what I have or haven’t done. Like I said yesterday, “nothing can ever separate us from God’s love” — we have proof of that. Jesus died to make that statement eternal.

Many Christians cheerfully sing 🎵 “We are here for You, Jesus…”🎵and then everyone goes home and lives this life we have been given, for themselves again – often using heaps of energy to be ‘nice’ to people who aren’t ‘nice’ to them. Day by day, we are so focussed on our plans, our lives, our ideas, our success, our happiness, our money … plus our wellbeing. That isn’t the deal… not the one in His book! The deal is — He died for us — so now we live for Him. Meanwhile dead people don’t have aims, or opinions.

We don’t have to sit around, impassively, waiting for this stuff to fall on us. We need to aggressively choose to live this life of LOVE He provided for us and act it out. We take faith steps, and take up this new life He has given us. Let’s run, and choose to use our faith to do things His Way, for His kingdom’s sake. And read and re-read His book, daily refreshing our memory about what He has already said.

Choose to live a life of Love, it’s the outworking of our inward faith. Dead is the new way to live – because the Lord’s kind of new life can only blossom and bear fruit in dead people, who choose to live this life, His way. Bye. 👋

P 3425 THINK Bigger!   

/ DVH

At 4.00am I was instantly awake and stuff started downloading into my heart. Then the Holy Spirit said to me: “Tell My people they need to LET ME be bigger.” Then He gave me some examples from His Word to stir our courage.

When Jesus said in Mark 4:39 : “Peace be still” to the ocean, as it tried to drown the disciples … that ocean heard the same VOICE that said: “ Let there be light! “ … so it obeyed. Everything that lived inside the sea came from the Lord speaking, including the sea itself. This world knows His voice. I think there’s a lesson for us in there … if even the SEA is obedient to Almighty God, then what excuse do we have?

We need to think bigger than getting a car park when we need one! This world is in turmoil. The people around us need the peace that passes all understanding and we have it … it is ours. The Lord gave it to us. Give it away! You can always take it back if people don’t appreciate it. That’s in the book too!

When Moses held up his staff at the Red Sea — the same staff that God had transformed from a lump of wood into a snake before his eyes — the bible says: the sea SAW it. “The sea saw it, and fled! “ Then a mighty east wind blew, and the ocean parted. Moses’ staff was nothing, just a bit of hard wood. A shepherd’s staff, used to whack wolves and bears on the head. It was ordinary. Please listen carefully to this bit .. Almighty God took what Moses already had and made it powerful. Ya might want to selah that for a minute or ten. 

After Moses told the sea to part, and all the Israelites were safe, Moses held that staff up again and two walls of water came crashing down on Pharaoh and his army. They drowned. But don’t feel sorry for them, God gave the Egyptians ten plagues to warn them about what was coming. It wasn’t the staff that controlled the sea, and it wasn’t Moses’ power that did it either. When the man of God obeyed what God told him to do, that staff in his hand became a symbol of God’s authority. Now we have His authority too.

When we act upon His Word, day by day as He leads us, it is as if God Himself is standing there with us, backing up our obedience with His power. Let’s look at another scripture in Luke 10:20: “But don’t rejoice because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered in heaven.” Jesus was explaining to the disciples their true priorities. Our priority is not power – but power comes from our relationship and the Lord’s recognition of an individual. The people who do things with God, STAND UP!

When His disciples went out and raised the dead, healed the sick, and delivered people from demons … they got very excited. “Jesus called His twelve disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.… “ Do you see that? JESUS gave them HIS authority. This is why He says: ‘Don’t rejoice about that stuff, rejoice that your names are in My book of life.’  Jesus knows your Name and He has written it down in His book. it doesn’t matter two hoop-de-doos what that other guy knows. 

However, when the Holy Spirit arrived at Pentecost the disciples were supernaturally given their own authority, by God’s Spirit. Holy Fire hit them! That’s purifying fire. I don’t care if you like tongues, or you don’t … we should just get over ourselves. Tongues is a way to refresh our weary souls when we get overwhelmed. But don’t chase that, or any other thing — chase after being filled, and staying filled with the Holy Spirit. He will tell us where to go and what to do.

Another time some dumb-bunnies ran about using the Name of Jesus, and they threw Paul’s name around too. But the demon said in Acts 19:15: “Jesus I know and Paul I know … BUT WHO ARE YOU?’ Demons recognise the real voice of authority because that Voice threw them out of heaven! Those seven sons of Sceva had no authority at all to throw out the devil. BUT WE DO, because we are His kids and our names are in His book.

Seek His kingdom, first. Chase after loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength! Ask yourself, are you happy with what you have, spiritually? If not, then remember Jesus promised to give us His idea of an abundant life. That doesn’t mean fancy houses, planes, jewellery, cars, or mountains of money — remember how He lived — that’s the yardstick. An abundant life is filled to the top with the love of God. It  has more than enough to give away, because He is a more than enough God!

One day, long ago, Almighty God humbled Himself and came here and became a man. He made Himself just like us. Then He humbled Himself even further and became a helpless infant! He understands what human beings face. When Jesus delivered that demonic man, stuck in the cemetary of Gederah, the demons in the pigs heard the same Voice that cast them out of heaven. Boy, did they leave! As we live our lives in His Presence, we will begin to understand what we’ve been given. We have the same authority Christ did. 

No wonder Jesus said ‘speak to the mountain and it will be moved’ …He made that mountain – of course it will obey Him. Now, the Lord lives in us. So, unless we work for a mining firm and we intend to whimsically move the local mountains around like pieces on a chessboard — we can ask for whatever we need. Otherwise we don’t have the authority of a banana!

Please don’t settle for an encounter with God – capture His heart and walk with Him! Think bigger. Start thinking about what your life will be like with Jesus showing you daily what to do next … Bye 👋. “… but the people who know their God shall prove themselves strong and shall stand firm and do exploits [for God].” Daniel 11:32b.