Blind

P 3440 We need EYES.

/ DVH

Jesus gave us His power to impart His life, healing, deliverance into other people’s lives. We need His power, otherwise we will end up trying to love others without His input. We must be filled with His love over and over and over again. I’ve met many people who inadvertently get this concept around the wrong way. Maybe they think that being loving is meant to come from inside us. Well, they might have lots to give away – but I plumb run out – all the time! 

When we realise we’ve run out of love, we need to go back to the Source — or like a broken down car, we will be running on empty. Unfortunate things can sometimes happen when we do good for the wrong reasons. We must go to Jesus our Supplier, ask for His Grace, and then go and do whatever He tells us to do, using our faith. Our reliance is upon God’s POWER, not ours, that is a key factor, not an optional extra. We must lean on Him.

Love comes from God Himself. It can come in many forms but it always includes the grace to share it. The grace to even see other people and their needs comes from Him, and the grace to meet those needs also comes from Him.  We don’t have it and we can half kill ourselves trying to dredge it up. If we cannot be persuaded to engage with Him and then others, then we will expect someone else to do it and step back. 

But engaging with other people’s needs, requires prayer, then action. Meanwhile, we can be running toward something while we are praying, but please remember we need to PRAY. The Lord has so many miracles for us to share with others — we can’t do them, but He can. Let’s do things the way He tells us. We also can’t afford to postpone our participation in the works He has prepared for us for a time when we feel up to it. I know I fight that all the time, when I feel unwell, and I am tempted to withdraw.

 “We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.” 1 John 4:16 TPT.  The secret to our participation is to choose to live in love – then we can see other people’s needs. I’ve been reading a lot of written prayers recently – do you know that they all sound the same? “Please Lord help me with this, that, and the other. Please fix this and that about my life, please help my life.” Amen. It’s like we are ordering take-out! 

He is Almighty God, we serve Him and others. We cannot afford to allow any of our own needs, doubt, anger, disappointment, frustration, opinions to separate us from the Love of God. If we are not actively participating in His love then we are not truly living.  

Father God knows the end from the beginning – He knows LIFE wins! However, our faith will contain mystery – it can’t be faith without it. If a thing is a certainty then no faith is needed. But our little steps of faith responding to His love can move mountains. As we spread His steadfast love around us, we will help those who have never known or seen it before. And in the process we get blessed as well. That’s what God’s economy does – it blesses everyone it touches … we need eyes to see what is going on around us. 

We will also need to give up compromise. What do I mean by that? Perhaps we can see someone who needs help, or a bucketload of God’s love tipped over them, but we know them and they can be so grumpy, especially when it comes to the things of God. Nobody wants to run into the back of the truck of someone else’s prejudices, or hit the edge of their rage, because that person thinks the Lord didn’t do what they asked Him to do. Maybe rationalise away what we can SEE, by telling ourselves we don’t want to make things worse. We can’t afford to take that kind of risk, we could alienate someone we care about – so we don’t say anything.

We must look at others through His eyes of love and see them the WAY Jesus sees them. Which is impossible without the precious Holy Spirit’s help.  All we can see is the bluster or their external disguises on the outside, those things are put there to protect the person. Jesus can go right around the external and wave at them, and sometimes He says: “peek-a-boo.” 

Hubby and I have seen Him do it. We even had one person ask us: “What was that?” We explained it is a WHO not a what … and that led to an interesting conversation. Looking at this world through His eyes can give us a fresh perspective on the way this life was designed by God Himself to work. What we see as bad, our Heavenly Father has designed for our own good.

Let’s continually pray for love’s eyes to see what is really going on, because His eyes can see things we can’t. Otherwise our prejudices regarding what is good and what is bad … get in the way. I need more input from the Lord Himself and His eyes to see and understand what He wants from me, as He sends  me. Bye. 👋.

“And great crowds came to Him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at His feet, and He healed them,…” Matthew 15:30.

P 3424 His Love speaks to us through His actions.   

/ DVH

Our primary goal is to be so soaked in Father God’s love that it overflows onto anyone around us. Love is Who God is, it is His nature. We take in His all encompassing love for us, in the word, in our circumstances – good and bad – and then we let the redeemed good flow out of us toward other people around us. We become like overfilled little buckets that slosh His water everywhere we go. Let’s look at a few times from the bible where people were confronted by His love.

Many times the Lord spoke to Israel about their lack of obedience to what He told them, here’s one of those times in Judges 2:11-15. To the Lord a lack of obedience means a lack of loving respect toward Him. Their attitude toward Almighty God went badly for the Israelites. Here we see how His Love provided them with an opportunity to change their minds, by heeding His warnings.

“Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.  In His anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as He had sworn to them. They were in great distress.”

Let’s look at Paul and how his encounter with God turned him around. He already had a passionate, fervent active love for what he had studied and learnt – that’s why he killed off Christians, or prompted others to do it.  Almighty God, Who Paul claimed he was serving, knocked him to the ground and blinded him with a light brighter than any other. This is still a teaching experience. I don’t imagine Paul felt all that good, being blind and all! Right there is where his inward disposition, became an outward condition. He was struck blind by confronting God’s loving and living Truth. During that time Paul’s perspective was changed. Instead, Love handed Paul his destiny — and a revelation of God’s ways. It changed him, forever.

Now let’s look at God’s Love in Peter’s life. We all know that Peter denied Christ three times, and on a beach after supper, Jesus restored him again. Let’s pick that scripture up on the third time in John 21:17: “The third time He said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love Me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love You.” Jesus said, “Feed My sheep.” Right here Jesus speaks into Peter’s idea of love, which was a wobbly theory, that had failed under pressure! The Lord transforms it into something Peter, His appointed leader, can DO to build the kingdom. God’s Love restored him, and handed him, his destiny.

Onto two people who were bible-toting, Holy Ghost believers. They are also an example of God’s love in action. Ananias and Sapphira sold their property, but Real Estate.com sold it for more money than they expected … or something like that…!  This couple believed in giving, but they lied and conspired about how much. You can’t lie to Love Himself and keep the life of God in you! Meanwhile, please note that they were asked to verify the amount individually, so either one of them could have recanted their dead-end plot. That’s how love works! They weren’t lumped together, even though they had colluded together. We know this couple didn’t back down even though Love Himself gave them a chance to change their minds. He spoke, and then He acted. Their destiny was thwarted and the integrity of the remaining saints was preserved.

I want to also include Ruth. It’s dead easy to see what happened to Ruth. She knew what submission and commitment meant. She joined herself to Naomi and would not quit. The other young woman went back to her home and she missed out on the blessing. Almighty God opened a brand new door to Ruth, and gave her another life. Plus He gave Naomi grandkids into the bargain! Almighty God made Ruth an active part of our Saviour’s ancestors. Her dedication was astonishing. When Ruth’s loyalty decided to follow Naomi home, love stepped in and acted for her, and she found a better destiny.

Lastly I want to look at Peter once more, because he saw with his own eyes, the result of Love’s work. On this particular day, God’s Love included those who were automatically excluded. Peter was sent for, supernaturally. The very next day, he is headed toward Cornelius’ house and he is hungry. He goes into a trance, and sees a vision of all sorts of unclean animals and the Lord instructs him to kill and eat them. Peter refuses because his religious training forbids him. Then Love speaks to him in Acts 10:15b. Hoo boy I hope someone is listening right now!! … “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Peter sees this vision three times, and then the Spirit calls him to recommence his journey again to Cornelius’ house.

Acts 10:34,35. “Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” V44-46:“While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.”

The Spirit of God, took the time to show Peter with his own eyes, what the Holy Spirit wanted to do, and then He sovereignly carried it out in front of the man. I’m pretty sure by now you have my point – God also speaks through what happens to us – good and bad. That’s love. Bye 👋.

P3381 The Needy ones!   

/ DVH

“Jesus told them, “Go back and tell John what’s going on: The blind see, The lame walk, Lepers are cleansed, The deaf hear, The dead are raised, The wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side. “Is this what you were expecting? Then count yourselves most blessed!” Matthew 11:4-6. In the Good News version the last verse reads like this: ‘How happy are those who have no doubts about Me!”

I found this verse yesterday, when I was reading in Matthew. Jesus is reassuring John, who is nearly at the end of his ministry, that GOD HIMSELF IS NOW IN THE HOUSE!! Wow! You gotta love the sweetness of that. John can now go on into glory because his job is done. SomeOne else has come to totally fulfil and complete the foundation of repentance and transformation John laid. This man John had lived a solitary, straightened life and at the end of it, he pointed out and spoke about Jesus. Our Saviour has appeared, and He is preaching healing, deliverance, freedom and salvation for all. Even the most miserable among us. 

Jesus shows great compassion when He talks about the healing and restoration work that has already begun. Then He adds this wonderful sentence: “The wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side.”  That means so much to me. I love that the sick are healed, that is fantastic. Me too, please! But I’ve felt wretched, cast away, talked about behind my back, passed over, despised and ignored … even by members of my own family. It took me years to realise that I didn’t have to live with shame anymore. This verse reminds me that God is on the side of those people that the rest of the world would like to pretend don’t exist. 

I imagine that there are a lot of people reading this that have experienced incredibly difficult things, and for many of you it has been far worse than I can bear thinking about. But right now, let’s stop to look at John, who had been so brave, so heroic, so dedicated to God’s purpose that it affected the way he lived his life. Now, at the end of his time, he needed reassurance. It illustrates this man’s humanity, and God’s Grace toward him.

It is an interesting fact that no matter how spiritual someone looks, life can savagely kick them, and they don’t always deserve what they get. Some people have been severely persecuted for speaking truth, just like John! Some have called out sin where and when they saw it. What a blessing this little conversation is for all of us! Our Loving Heavenly Father overlooks no-one, even at the end of our earthly lives.

Meanwhile, for your information: wretched means … deeply afflicted, dejected, or distressed in body or mind: extremely or deplorably bad or distressing; in exile, a despised person. That sounds a bit like John’s life. Today, that’s what I briefly want to talk about. There are precious people all around us that this world wants to throw away. Plus the ones who have fallen so far down a hole they can no longer look up and see the light — they are too bowed down, and full of rejection and despair. Jesus dearly loves them, and God is on their side.

We are blessed to live on this side of Calvary and know that our sins were all thrashed into and onto Jesus’ body, soul and spirit, as He died a despised sinner’s death for us. He was our totally pure and innocent Saviour, Who practiced love wherever He went. Jesus didn’t deserve that punishment that was meted out on Him. But let’s never forget that Calvary was also a heavenly transaction. Everything Jesus did had an effect upon this world, and the next.

He didn’t just come to die for our sins … … thank God that He did that! He came to show us, in Person, what God’s Kingdom is supposed to look like. What it looks like right now where He is. We are His people. The people who re-present Him. A representative generally refers to something, or someone that acts on behalf of others, or serves as a typical example of a larger group. We are His people and we know our Saviour – we are here to do great exploits for His sake. That means we will see miracles, but it can also mean loving those who don’t, won’t, or can’t love us back!

You and I have been appointed by Jesus to be His hands and feet, and we have the honour of bringing our Father’s incredible love to one person at a time, as He leads us. We carry that love with us to the desperate, the lonely, the forsaken, the wretched ones of this world. Personally, I think we could find these people in the most peculiar places! In palaces, governments, offices, digging ditches, in prison, begging for food and water, stealing from others … many are in our schools. The people who have no hope. Some are quite obviously wretched, others have their pain and suffering well-hidden by bright fake smiles. Many people hide because otherwise their shame, or even their heartache can be seen.

Yet, like John, they are not only loved by our God, they are to be commended for surviving things we can’t even bear to think about. This world thinks it is terrible to be called wretched — but today I realised it is a beautiful thing. God dearly loves the wretched, the sick, the sinners, the lost, the unlovely, the silently suffering ones, THE NEEDY ONES … and He is on everyone’s side. Man is that a great sentence! Bye. 👋

P 3353 It’s worth a thought.

/ DVH

Philippians 4:4. “Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in Him!”

Psalm 65:1-13. “Silence is praise to you, Zion-dwelling God, And also obedience. You hear the prayer in it all. We all arrive at Your doorstep sooner or later, loaded with guilt,
Our sins too much for us—but You get rid of them once and for all.
Blessed are the chosen! Blessed the guest at home in Your place! We expect our fill of good things in Your house, Your heavenly manse. All Your salvation wonders are on display in Your trophy room.
Earth-Tamer, Ocean-Pourer, Mountain-Maker, Hill-Dresser,
Muzzler of sea storm and wave crash, of mobs in noisy riot—Far and wide they’ll come to a stop — they’ll stare in awe, in wonder. Dawn and dusk take turns calling, “Come and worship.”Oh, visit the earth, ask her to join the dance! Deck her out in spring showers, fill the God-River with living water. Paint the wheat fields golden. Creation was made for this! Drench the plowed fields, soak the dirt clods With rainfall as harrow and rake bring her to blossom and fruit.
Snow-crown the peaks with splendour, scatter rose petals down your paths, All through the wild meadows, rose petals. Set the hills to dancing, Dress the canyon walls with live sheep, a drape of flax across the valleys. Let them shout, and shout, and shout! Oh, oh, let them sing!”

I would like to start out this morning by remembering that King David in his heart, was first a worshipper; then he went on to be a great warrior and a Godly king. But he started out on the side of a hill, watching sheep, looking at clouds, and marvelling at God’s creation. Please note that not only does he admire the Lord’s handiwork – he worships Almighty God for Who He is, as well as what David can see! Hubby and I had opportunities to do that, on this latest trip while we were travelling.

It was autumn in most of the places we visited, and the hills and valleys were alive with colour, smells and movement. We stopped the car at one point, just to watch a little breeze stir some deep red, orange and green leaves into a delicate little dance. We saw lambs and heifers… and our personal favourite … birds of all kinds everywhere. Flocks of them. We haven’t seen some of these birds in years. Hubby took my photos today.

When I read this Psalm, it reminded me that in our cities, sometimes all we can see are buildings, cars, trucks, concrete and people — but in the country you can often see God’s creation, bubbling over with life. It’s like He decorated this world with every beautiful thing He could think of, just so we could see Him in another way. Father God is constantly revealing Himself, how glorious He is. We cannot afford to reduce Who He is into only words or language. no matter how revelatory language seems to be.

Sometimes the best thing to do, is to go outside and just take the time to look. What a pity it would be if all we know about Almighty God are some words that somebody else taught us. Instead, lets allow Him to reveal Himself to us, by what He has made.

We don’t have the season of autumn much where I live, it is semi-tropical. So all that happens is that the sun gets lower on the horizon, and the days seem shorter as it gets a bit colder. But when the sun is out, the rich golden daylight dances through leaves creating shadows. Every single time I look at it, I understand why the Impressionists thought that just painting representationally was not enough! 

Our God speaks so many languages, and one of them  — is visual, and exquisitely beautiful! I think what we call nature, is another one of our Father’s Heavenly languages. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” Psalm 19:1,2. 

It is interesting that David notes how important our obedience is to God. I think disobedience can render human beings a bit dumb and blind. Some people think we need entertaining to help us relax, but there was no TV, Media, books etc. in the Garden of Eden! Just God’s handiwork. Imagine the smells in that garden!

Then our sin put a tear into the perfect fabric of this picture. Human beings allowed disobedience and fear inside that glorious garden – and their inner silence was shattered. Sadly, I know I can do that myself by rushing past what really matters, to get to something that doesn’t – just so I can put a tick on a long list in my head! Sometimes I think mankind is almost a parody of who we are meant to be — instead of a glorious reflection of Who He is! We were created to look like Him – “Let us make man in Our image.”

If someone seems ugly to you, in the way they are acting or speaking, then ask the Lord to help you to see Jesus in them. There are so many angry, agitated, shattered people with so much fear in their eyes, that the light God put in them has almost gone out. Even our children have not been nurtured to appreciate the beauty around them. Their eyes are stuffed full of immersion in worthless stuff that ushers in distraction. That is so sad, children were made for wonder.

In my mind’s eye, I can see a tiny little two year old girl, hugging a small book to her chest, dancing with delight. She didn’t need the internet – which went off the day we left! She had a book. Who knows what sorrow her little eyes had seen before we met her that day? Today my thought is this — let’s never stop expecting to see the good things of God. Instead we need to treat what this world offers as a pale shadow of His life-giving realities. It’s worth a thought. Bye. 👋

P 3291 Here’s a part of the blueprint.

/ DVH

“Here’s how we can be sure that we’ve truly come to know God:  if we keep His commands. If someone claims, “I have come to know God by experience,” yet doesn’t keep God’s commands, he is a phoney and the truth finds no place in him. But the love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God’s Word. We can be sure that we’ve truly come to live in intimacy with God, not just by saying, “I am intimate with God,” but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.”  1 John 2:3-6.

A blueprint is a plan that reflects an intention to build something. God gave us His Word as a clear guideline of what He intends to build in us. As well as what He has built in many, many other people, who have gone before us. When I read what the Passion Translation says, I find my self wishing I had contributed to it. The clarity and personal application in that version is amazing. It contains the nuances that I have embraced over the last 50 years, and also the things I consistently pray for, and about. I hear the Holy Spirit’s voice very clearly showing me how to walk with Jesus. I also like two other versions:  the Good News bible, and the Amplified.

I love switching bible translations around because my desire is to understand, so I can put what I read into action. I want to know what the Holy Spirit is saying TO ME. When I’m puzzled, I often say to Him: “Lord, I just don’t get that!” This typically happens after I have read, and reread it, and then I access it in a couple of other versions. Then I wait. I’m waiting for the ‘aha’ moment when the Holy Spirit shows me what I am missing by tossing the words about in my mind. I don’t believe the individual Words are set in stone, I refuse to see the book as static. 

I believe the Holy Spirit is so brilliant He can give the same verse to billions of people, and they will each hear what He is saying to them for their lives. That’s the moment when the bible stops being black writing on a page, and it becomes real, living and transformative. Then I press in, because if I don’t “do” I know I will immediately forget what I saw… what I look like!’ (Thanks James.) Now I need to know from the Holy Spirit how to activate what I’ve just read. He tells me how to put it into action in my life. 

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that the thing the Lord loves the most … is time spent. I also know He loves acts of service and worship, we see those in the Gospels and Epistles. Like 1 Timothy 2:8 says: “Therefore I want men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger and disputing or quarrelling or about (in their mind.) ” And I know He loves gift-giving. Proverbs 19:17. “He who is gracious and lends a hand to the poor lends to the Lord. ” The bible supports and delights in our personal, every day interactions with Him. But I suspect the Lord values time spent with Him, not just in a ‘quiet time’  but during the day in the moment by moment remembrances of Who He is. He loves to be included. 

Let’s look at our relationships with others: “Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds. We know that the truth lives within us because we demonstrate love in action, which will reassure our hearts in His Presence.”1 John 3:18-19 TPT. In other words John is describing HOW we do it. “…not just by saying, I am intimate with God,” but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.”  We can’t walk like He did and still live our lives the way everyone else around us lives their life. What sets us apart is WHO we are following!

I laughed when I typed that, so many people ask nowadays – “Who do you follow? Facebook? Instagram? Tik Tok?” I just love that question because… you guess it… I say: “I follow Jesus! He’s got a book and everything.”  They smile, sometimes not all that sincerely, and move the subject away from my answer very quickly! But a few are curious about what I mean. 

Jesus Christ is the Pioneer of social media! People have been following Him for 2,000+ years. He started out with 12 followers, lost one, quickly went to 120, and then … wham! 3,000 followers in a heartbeat in Acts. This year, early 2026, there are 2.38 – 2.64 BILLION followers! These people don’t have to stare at their phones all day, they have a direct inner hook-up installed by the Holy Spirit. And you get born into that app!  We don’t have to stock-pile foodstuffs or petrol, God Himself supplies all our needs.

So if you want to know if you have truly come to know Almighty God, then this is what it looks like: We love God and each other. Jesus summed up the 10 commandments in 6 words. That works for me. I don’tcollect followers  … I ARE ONE.  I spend my time practising the love of God on everyone I meet. (I need the practice BTW.) We are never alone, and we don’t have to wander about aimlessly either. Because we’ve chosen to follow in the footsteps of our Master, Lord, Saviour and friend, Jesus! 

This means we have chosen to pray for the sick, speak deliverance to those who are held captive, as well as pray for blind and deaf people. We have chosen to love the unlovely the same way we love our friends and family. If we sin, we know exactly what to do about it. Repent, confess, repair. Like John said in 1 John 1:7-9 , “…knowing that the blood of Jesus will cleanse me from all unrighteousness…” It’s all in the blueprint. Bye. 👋

P 3254 It ain’t rocket science.

/ DVH

Hubby and I are blessed to attend a ‘missionary church.’ Our pastor is a missionary to this country, and his aim is to raise up missionaries for other countries, as well as right here … to go and preach the gospel. He is not concerned about numbers – our numbers can sometimes be few – but his aim is to get the gospel out there and encourage others to take it seriously and start living for Jesus. I think every church should have this aim. My question is today — where are our missionaries from the world-wide church?

I have a few observations to make about this subject. Most denominational, Pentecostal, and Charismatic churches have traditionally sent out missionaries to other countries. However, each group has their own individual slant on the bible. Who cares? As long as they preach the gospel – hallelujah! However, it is so easy to judge a missionary’s prowess by evident spiritual gifts as well as numbers, and a well-formed character comes second. My question is:  how will these people in strange environments respond to difficulties?

Meanwhile, people in the Western world leave their churches all the time and many start a new church to validate their version of doctrine. UM!! We weren’t saved to validate God’s doctrine! He can take care of it by Himself, thank you very much. We’ve been commanded/told to preach Jesus! I’m not trying to be critical because I know the aim is to make our churches grow – because each church wants to see people saved.Their purpose may well be pure, but they seem to think bigger, means better…  and I don’t! Bigger can mean more passengers, not participants.

It is tremendously sad for the world-wide church to be divided over individual interpretations of the bible. God’s wisdom is many-sided or faceted, it says that in Ephesians 3:10 AMP:“[The purpose is] that through the church the complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety and innumerable aspects might now be made known to the angelic rulers and authorities (principalities and powers) in the heavenly sphere.”  What we see depends on where we are standing. Our finite brains can’t contain ALL His truth, we simply get little revealing glimpses of it.

Here’s an odd example of how misinformation works. A few blind men, found an elephant by accident. They didn’t know what it was. One man found the tail, so he thought an elephant was like moving rope. Another felt the skin, he thought the elephant was like wrinkled paper, etc. My point is this, when it comes to the precepts of God we are all still blind and sometimes, sadly, arrogant with it! I am not more right than you and you are not more right than me. Only Jesus Himself is Truth. But we both have gleaned little snippets of His wisdom along the way. However, we are here to make HIS name great and I’m not sure that can happen easily, when we decide we are here to push our doctrines and agendas. 

Whenever I write this blog, my dearest hope is that the reader will fall in love with His Word and go and look things up in the bible for themselves. My words can only have power in them IF the Holy Spirit kisses them for your ears. Otherwise I am bonging away, doing my best ‘gong’ imitations, hoping someone can hear me. In other words — please don’t follow me, follow Jesus. Here is another version of the above scripture in Ephesians 3 MSG bible, the Apostle Paul is speaking: 

“This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.                                     

And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, Who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels.” 

Paul was a missionary. He and the other disciples set out to follow Jesus’ instructions, and make disciples, not converts. Simon the sorcerer was a convert! This is what real commitment looks like: hundreds of years ago, the 18th century Moravian church sent out missionaries to preach the gospel to leper colonies. These men knew they were never coming back, they would die there. They left behind their own little families, their homes, their churches, and sailed away never to return to their homeland. Such was their devotion to the gospel. At the last glimpse of them they were standing on the deck of the ships that would take them away forever, and cried out until they could no longer be heard: “May the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering!”  Personally, I find that very challenging. That’s character!!

Missionaries are sent into this world to preach the gospel into places where it is not preached. They need to be mature in their faith. Enthusiasm is great, but nothing beats a changed character. We don’t go out to grow our churches or push our doctrines, we go to preach Jesus and what He did for mankind. Doctrine confuses people,and the Lord Jesus died to unite us. As His disciples/missionaries we are instructed to tell everyone we know the good news — that Jesus Christ loved them so much, He came here to save them! It ain’t rocket science.🚀 Bye. 👋

P 3237 Always remember WHO He is.

/ DVH

“Look at the splendour of Your skies, Your creative genius glowing in the heavens. When I gaze at Your moon and Your stars, mounted like jewels in their settings, I know You are the fascinating artist who fashioned it all! But I have to ask this question: Why would You bother with puny, mortal man or care about human beings?”  Psalms 8:3-4 TPT. Because HE LOVES US! That’s why.

In John 13:23 we are told this: “One of His disciples, whom Jesus loved (esteemed), was leaning against Jesus’ chest.” I want to say this before I say anything else today … If safety is something that you treasure, then what John said shows us that being right here next to Him, is the safest place in all the world. The Lover of our souls, our Beloved, will keep us safe – in spite of whatever is going on around us. 

Resting in and on, the Lord Jesus, is our great privilege and quest. Forget ministries, or human importance, or platforms, or even other people’s admiration, this particular disciple picked the best place to be — listening to His heartbeat.  We will miss so much of Who He really is when we are too busy to listen to His heartbeat.

It is important that we understand that our God, our Heavenly Father, the Great and Wise Omnipotent, Omnipresent Everlasting God of all the ages – is to be listened to, and revered and obeyed, not just quickly passed over or ignored!  We must learn to put our easily influenced feelings aside, to stop and remember the God – Who made everything we can see – loves me! 

The fact that He loves all of us with a love that will never die, does not mean we can simply flick away our responsibility to pay attention to everything He has said. We can’t ever afford to cherry-pick our responses or use His beyond-our-ability-to-understand, Grace, against Him… by telling ourselves: ’God loves me, He understands, He won’t mind.’ That’s misusing the Grace He has given us. This ever-present, always living and loving Grace has been released into our, lives. Yours and mine, as a gift. It was incredibly costly.

I think that deceit has wrapped the Christian church in its blanket, and we are becoming hard of hearing and blind to what is actually going on around us. I urge us all to pray  —  and then go and do!  Don’t ever let the size of the task discount you from participating. The bigger the test, the greater the victory.  Instead be truthful and sincerely tell the Holy Spirit: “I can’t do this, please help me!”  Amen. 

We need to remember, that we are not dealing with a god made in our own image, we are dealing with the One Who placed the stars in the sky…with His fingers!!! And despite what we tell ourselves, or this world tells us, we are His people.  Whenever we are ill, or infirm in one way or another, we truly find out how frail we are, often helpless against the darkness that presses in against us without Him. The answer is simple —never do anything without Him!

Let’s stop our solitary focus on me, my situation, my health – or lack of it, my family, my poverty – and start gazing at Him. Gazing at Him is another form of worship. Worship is not just singing songs on Sunday—it is the way we live. When we know, from our own personal interaction and experience, that our God is bigger than anything we can think or imagine – we can more easily rest, be at peace, and let Him do the work. BTW, rest does not mean we sit on our hands and do nothing. It means that we know we can do a whole lotta somethings, because we are utterly relying upon Him! 

God can do anything, with anyone, no matter how inadequate they feel. The bible shows us that. It is filled with men and women who would never have made it without God helping them. Instead of wrongly using His Grace to excuse our non-participation in His kingdom, let’s choose to rely, rest and depend on that Grace to help us do the things we are here to do. Everything the Lord asks us to do, we simply cannot do without Him. 

You may not have my difficulties, Some days, I have to ask Him to help me get out of bed or go to the loo! But the reality is I have been blessed so many times because of the Way He loves and helps me. Over and over again the Lord Jesus surprises me with His goodness. Plus He never does the same thing twice. Bonus buy!

The daily opportunities to serve Him and others that the Lord puts before us, will always be bigger than we are. Stretching us is part of His plan. My advice is to start cheering right away!! Take it from me that this means we are going to see the goodness of God operating in a way we’ve never seen before. And that … is simply ev-ery-thing!!

Because our God is so big, and so mighty, plus His creativity is inexhaustible … routines or methods won’t pass this way of thinking on, it is a LIFESTYLE. We choose it, and then we hold fast to it, despite everything else that happens around us. Jesus gets all the glory because what happens is undeniably impossible. He is so much more glorious, caring, kind, creative and wonderful than we can ever imagine! Bye.👋 

“Yahweh, You are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness You’ve done for me?” Psalms 103:2 TPT. Amen. 🥰

P 3235 We give away what we have.

/ DVH

Now there’s a daunting thought!! Peter and John were off to a prayer meeting when a lame beggar asked for money. “When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” … … “Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”  Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk…” This story is in Acts 3:3,4,6-8a.

The thought that Peter knew what he had, blows my mind. ‘Lord, please help all of us to know what You have given us in these jars of clay!’ Amen. This kind of confidence in God’s investment in His children can motivate anyone into action. One of our major difficulties in the church at this moment, is we don’t know who we are. People who know who they are, have confidence, they do great exploits. 

Secondly, Peter knew what was really important for this man. It was healing, not money. I mean wow! I counted the gifts Peter used;  two words of knowledge, plus discernment, and healing. Plus let’s remember, that he and John were actually going somewhere else! Think about that. What would be your response if you saw a lame man begging at the side of the road, as you were going off to church? Yeah, I know, bring that up! Sadly I think we’ve turned into a people who gather info and form committees, rather than responding to need. Could it be because we doubt what He told us He has given us?

It was amazing in Acts. Nobody knew what was going to come next and God came to every meeting. He was their treasure. How He must have loved it!  But people also dropped dead when they lied to God. Someone else died because he spoke the truth and was stoned to death for it. One man, whose name we all know, was going about his business, finding Christians to kill, and God knocked him down, and blinded him. Then, the Lord very kindly revealed to him how truly blind he was. “Please Lord do that for us too!” Amen.

Have you ever asked yourself – what on earth has happened to us? Good. It’s good to ask questions. Even better to start with yourself, like —why aren’t I doing this? Then, we need to move past ‘me,’ to all of us, the church as a whole. But please remember, we can hide ourselves away from our own personal responsibility if we start out by blaming the church, or the pastor etc. In that state, we may never find the answer! But if I start with me, I’m pretty sure I will get plenty to go on with. I have so far!

We can always give away His kindness, mercy, joy, peace, faithfulness and goodness. Because He gives that to us every single day, “Resist revenge, and make sure that no one pays back evil in place of evil but always pursue doing what is beautiful to one another and to all the unbelievers.” 1 Thessalonians 5:15 TPT. 

Did you get that? Paul said PURSUE it.  It won’t fall on us … we will have to run after it. I want to do my best not to waste my time even thinking about revenge. Otherwise I will have no time or energy left to pursue giving other people beautiful things. The beautiful things we do should far outweigh any revenge etc. that we have or an attitude that someone has toward us. Meanwhile, sadly, we are way too smart in the church to call anything revenge—we call it “hurt feelings” instead. That sounds much better doesn’t it?

Except for one little thing the Lord Himself said ..“Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” Matthew 16:24-26. It is necessary to look at what is really at stake, if we decide to  give in to our hurt feelings — or vengeful attitudes. 

People who deliberately do mean-spirited things to us are the splinters in our new life in Him. Some of those splinters really are BIG ones. And we get stabbed purely because we have chosen to deny ourselves and follow Him. Some situations are little splinters that you can feel, but you can’t seem to get rid of  … and every now and then they poke you hard and hurt you again.  And some slivers remain invisible for virtually years, only to stab you in the heart at the least expected moment. One way or another we all pick up, and get stabbed by splinters.

The major difficulty we have is that we don’t yet fully understand Who lives inside us. The Person Who lives IN us is greater than any old splinter. Peter and John definitely KNEW what they had. They had been filled with the Holy Spirit and He brought a whole new way to think with Him. They didn’t form a prayer group, or phone around to find out what everyone else thought. They were both there on the spot, so Peter gave what he knew he had. That’s our issue right there…

We cannot give away what we do not think we have. It’s definitely time we did something about that. Bye. 👋

P 3180 There is no other way.

/ DVH

Mark 10:48-52 talks about Bartimaeus, a blind beggar from Jericho, who insistently called out to Jesus and was healed, and then he followed Jesus down the road. This man didn’t give up on what he wanted, easily. We shouldn’t either! It appears to me that unlike Bartimaeus – we don’t know that we too are blind and deaf.

Many Christians have stopped seeing, spiritually speaking, and we aren’t always great at hearing the Lord for ourselves either! Hearing and seeing spiritually are a part of God’s kingdom. They are a part of our birthright, and a key into intimacy with the Holy Spirit. There are times when we’ve all walked into a  place of unforgiveness because we listened to the enemy’s ‘poor you’ sympathy line. We all have a sad story – this is a fallen world.

Let’s listen to Matthew 13:13-15. Jesus Himself is speaking to His disciples: “This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

Spiritual eyes and ears are incredibly important to our walking with the Holy Spirit. Even as our everyday human sight and hearing are part of our interaction with the world around us – if we cannot see or hear with our normal eyes and ears, we will be shut out of God’s Ways. What is true in the natural, is also true spiritually. We will be shut off from seeing and hearing the glories and knowledge of His kingdom if we refuse to obey what He said.

Meanwhile the Lord Jesus is never silent, read the book – it’s chock full of what He said! Please stop worrying about discerning ‘voices’ and read the bible instead. A thorough knowledge of the Word of God is the best discerner on the planet! Jesus spent hours teaching His disciples. He was teaching them to see and hear what  was going on inside themselves, and all around them. Things aren’t always the way they look! 

At one stage of their walk with Jesus, two of the disciples – James and John in Luke 9:54 – want to burn down a tower in a Samaritan town that rejected the Lord. How could this awful attitude happen, when they were daily walking with Jesus? These two men had no spiritual sight. They obviously did not understand what Jesus was teaching them! Maybe they thought He was making suggestions, or perhaps what the Lord said was in opposition to what this world had taught them and they tried to marry the two things together. We cannot successfully live in two worlds. That’s like trying to stand still in the middle of a roaring flooded stream. The stream will carry you away. 

Now, let’s look at what blocks our spiritual sight and hearing. The bible says it is a calloused heart. That malady is fostered by sin, and it is definitely not helped when we stop sincerely forgiving others, from our hearts. If we harden our hearts against other people, and stop paying attention to the conviction of the Holy Spirit as He speaks to us,our problem is no longer that other person! We will end up grieving Him because He loves them too! 

The same thing goes for any other sin, we have a free will and our choices matter. We are only fooling ourselves if we excuse ourselves for one reason or another. The Holy Spirit wants us to walk with Him, and forgive others despite their sins against us. It is not about the other person — it is about what will happen to us in our relationship with Him. Meanwhile, He is not just our answer – He is their answer too! Grace flows out when we allow forgiveness in.

Jesus is always ‘other centred’- and therefore a calloused heart is a terrible state to cultivate. A calloused heart can be made unfeeling and numb by repeated actions. We will end up with an inner war, as the Spirit fights to free us as we fight to hold onto our anger and thoughts and feelings of revenge against the other person. Eventually such thoughts become habitual and we have a stronghold to deal with. We cannot fix the past by holding onto it—the way forward is to make the future different. The Holy Spirit is in our lives to help us with those things. 

The longer we allow ourselves to remain in that frozen hardened state, the more it becomes harder to escape. Hatred, revenge and murder begin to infiltrate our thoughts. “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?  But He turned and rebuked them [and He said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”  Luke 9:54-56. The Holy Spirit will help us with what we need to do, but we need to obey Him and disobedience hardens our hearts. If you have been praying about your sight and hearing and you aren’t doing very well, then perhaps you need to start by searching your heart, with His help. It is astonishing what we hide – even from ourselves.

We can close our spiritual ears and eyes because of our own choices. To be in Christ Jesus – we need to be doing what He would do. And He forgave us all as He was hanging from that tree. There is no other way. Bye. 👋

P 3175 Piece of cake!

/ DVH

“Christ is our message! We preach to awaken hearts and bring every person into the full understanding of truth. It has become my inspiration and passion in ministry to labor with a tireless intensity, with His power flowing through me, to present to every believer the revelation of being His perfect one in Jesus Christ.” Colossians 1:28-29 TPT. 

“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, honor, 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.” Colossians 3:1-2 TPT.

We can waste a lot of our God-given time reflecting on where we’ve missed it, and end up living in the land of regret. It is good to be aware of where you’ve fallen short of the mark, but not to the point where you can’t even see the mark anymore! That mark is this – Jesus’ sacrifice and His wonderful love for mankind. We have all been given a priceless gift …total reconciliation with God. Yes, He knows what we are like;  yes He knows we fail;  but our wonderful Father, God, is far greater than we can ever imagine. Right here. Right now. He sees us complete in Christ. That’s because of Who He is, His nature – not our spirituality.   

The best news ever, is this… Jesus did not fail. He was tempted in every aspect of this life, just like we are, He got tired, just like we do, He had responsibilities, just like we do. Listen to this particular responsibility!  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Luke 4:18&19. Howzat for hard? 

Yet Jesus quite naturally walked and lived with SomeOne that we need to learn to walk with, minute by minute, day by day — the precious Holy Spirit.The good news is this – I don’t have to be all that – Jesus already did it for me. Our hearts need to be awakened all the time, to the reality of His truth – by reading and acting on the stuff that is written down in His book.

For instance, the bible says: ‘agree with your adversary quickly.’  Matthew 5:25. We’ve been lied to by our enemy who told us: ‘There is no way you can ever be like Jesus. After all, you did this and that. And something much worse, yesterday!!’ So I agree with the enemy when he accuses me, but then I refer him to the bible, because that is what Jesus did when He was tempted.  I point to the cross because I know I have nothing else but His Grace to commend me.

Sometimes I think we’d rather hide in the wine press, like Gideon did, than be seen! The bible says the people recorded in the Old Testament are there ‘…as an example to us.’ 1 Corinthians 10:11. Let’s not hide like that young man did. Instead let’s remember God has a plan and we are already in it! Our problem is we need to maintain our faith in His goodness, His promises … not just focus on our sins. We have weak wobbly faith in a tiger-pouncing world! It’s time to get up off the mat and get back into doing what we’ve been destined to do …telling and showing everyone around us how much Jesus loves them! 

A lady came here yesterday and in the course of our conversation she mentioned that she didn’t go to church but she did talk to God. She said this like she thought it was a bad thing. Like somehow she was sneaking into a rock concert without a ticket! We assured her she didn’t need a ticket, because God heard every word she said. Then we went on to reassure her that Christianity is not a club you join, it’s a Person you meet, so we don’t have to shout out our number as we go through the door! She laughed, and said: “You should tell people that more often!”  We need to remember …’it is the kindness of God that leads people into repentance.’  Romans 2:4. The-people-who-haven’t-met-Him-yet are often more happy to hear the truth than we are to give it to them!

However, we all know that sometimes witnesses can be quite reluctant. Cop shows on TV taught me that!! There is no such thing as getting it right, there is only obeying Him, or not. He’s a Redeemer! He can take the mess we’ve made of our lives, and turn it into something more wonderful than we can imagine. At the same time the Holy Spirit knows our frame. He also knows our weaknesses …but when we give them to Him, He will give us His strength in exchange. We don’t have to give someone else a 20 course dinner about what the bible says, in our testimony – we just give them the fresh bread He gave us this morning when we read the bible! 

There is the saddest parable told by Jesus Himself, about a rich man and a beggar. Luke 16:19-31. As the beggar talks to the rich man he says: “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” Let’s choose to take the time to tell others that–SomeOne, God Himself!–came here and made Himself that bridge between what people think they know about Him and Who He really is. Tell them Jesus is everyone’s bridge back to God.  Our testimonies are powerful, because the Holy Spirit handpicks the people He sends us to.

Revelation 12:11 –“And they overcame him (satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”  You and I don’t have to be the whole band – but … you can be the banjo Jesus plays on… OK!… Let’s not be picky … you can be the flute instead! Piece of cake. Bye.👋