bicycle

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 2473 Leaky inner tyre.

/ DVH

In 1946 some bright spark invented a rubber tubeless tyre, which was a big blessing for dedicated cyclists. If you were riding along on a bike  … there were times that you could hear this noise … thunk thunk thunk! That meant that the cyclist had a flat tyre. Even Blind Freddy could tell when a bicycle tyre was flat because the metal rim started to scrape along the ground. What an awful noise that was!

If the cyclist was wise, then they carried a tyre patch kit with them. And if they were really really dedicated, they carried a spare inner tube. The new tubeless system was a huge blessing. But if the cyclist didn’t have either one, then they’d have to wheel their bike home with it going thunk thunk thunk, all the way! Upon arriving home, then they went to the bath, or the laundry troughs, and fill either one with water. The water was for diagnosing the leak in that pesky inner tube!

I can remember seeing my stepbrother standing over the laundry trough rotating the inner tube of a tyre and squeezing it gently. What was he looking for? BUBBLES. Bubbles were a sure sign that you had finally found the hole. Then he would X mark the spot, and fish the tube out of the water and dry it carefully. Sometimes he would even lay it on the ground for the sun to dry it out thoroughly. Then he’d bring out his trusty repair kit and patch the hole. 

I gave you that semi-interesting walk down memory lane to say this …Christmas can be like that inner tube – we can get flattened like a tack by our lack of Spiritual Air. Picture this, we are sailing along, managing our own lives pr-et-ty well, following Jesus, being kind to little old ladies, living contentedly in love joy and peace. As well as buying nice presents for people hoping they will like them … and wham! Dear old Auntie Lillian, who apparently loves everything you give her — gives your own gift back to you this year with these words: “Somebody gave me that but I didn’t like it, and I can’t use it, so I thought you could use it.” … Glurg, glurg glurg  … sigh …you can just feel the love, joy and peace draining out of your feet!

So you take a big breath, paste on a smile at Auntie and say thank-you, and eventually you send the stupid thing off to St Vinnie’s – where it can do no more harm!! Or there is Uncle Martin, who always gets drunk as a skunk and thinks he is funny. Or Cousin Bob who tells endless risque jokes – because he collects them!  Of course, he expects everyone to laugh at them. Right in the middle of all that, the kids start screaming at each other and you end up with a roaring headache.

Suddenly, just like the unexpected puncture above, there is a big fat hole in your goodwill toward men! You can see the bubbles from that leak from outer space. It is all very well to add self-control to your list of the fruits of the Spirit, but if that isn’t accompanied by the Holy Spirit helping you when you are under pressure … like my proverbial puncture… eventually, you will start leaking out Grace all over the place. And soon you’ll be riding along on the metal rim. That’s the place where everything everyone says grates on you. And you end up trying to say nice things through gritted teeth.

At the same time, you keep hoping somehow you will be able to find all that wonderful Grace you had before – where did it go?? Here’s a revelation … Grace comes from God, so we can’t manufacture it. Most of the time we can’t even find out where it leaked it out from … BUT now, here’s the good news, we can repent. I highly recommend repentance toward the LORD first. Then, go to other people after talking to Him.  HE is the source of Grace and it always comes freely toward us when we repent. BTW, try not to turn your repentance into a complaint’s office – it doesn’t help! The more irritated we get, the more we will leak out His Grace and find extra anger.

My advice is head straight for His living water, it will diagnose where the problem is! Ask Him for His help to find the hole … IE …repent from all the stuff you know you did, plus present your body back to Him. Then begin again, brand new and sparkly clean. That is the way to turn things around. Don’t patch your life with promises you know you can’t keep, they won’t fix the problem. Go to the source of all Grace and repent. Then ask for more Grace and more living water.  Just like that leaky inner tyre, a new start works better than a patch. Bye 👋🏻

Hebrews 4:16: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Amen!