Blood of the Lamb

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.👋

P 2837 What we do with what God tells us daily, matters.

/ DVH

I know that many people, past and present, have had a great deal to say about this parable, I personally love the clarification the Lord Himself gave, which comes directly after it in Matthew 13:1-9:

“He (Jesus) taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said: “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.” Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Almighty God gives us seed to sow from His Word – hopefully… daily!! His book is a fantastic source of life-giving seeds. We need to take those seeds He has personally given to us, and share them with others. That seed that His Spirit kisses, especially for us, has His life in it. Its power lies in the fact that God revealed His truth to us.

It may have been something someone said when they were preaching, and it struck us in the heart like an arrow finds the target. Or it may have been something that stood out as we were reading the bible. It could even be when we were talking to the Lord and suddenly a scripture fell down from our thinking and meditating —- where we had hidden it while we were renewing our minds – and it sank down deep inside us, into our heart where growth can begin. Wherever or however it happened, that fresh seed is now ripe for planting. It can produce a crop.

The seeds of His Word that we sow into our lives – as we daily read the bible and act on it — can behave exactly like this parable describes. Sadly some seed doesn’t even make it past 2 seconds of thought, because it has fallen upon a well worn pathway of previous knowledge, and so it is whisked away by the birds of the air … those thoughts and words that are constantly flying past us, because of everything we are exposed to in a single day. It is so easy to think: “I know that already.” Now we have a seed immediately stolen by pride.

Also in our daily bible readings, if we take the time to treasure His voice, we can sometimes discover “rocky places” in our hearts. They are not like the well-worn pathways that we barely notice, these are hard places that we try to skim over and ignore with thoughts like this: ‘The truth is, I don’t think I have to change, I think the other person should.’ The scorching heat of that bad attitude kills off the power of His precious seed, and it is killed off by negligence. Always remember that true forgiveness doesn’t keep accounts, be-ca-use … hallelujah!!… fortunately for us, Jesus doesn’t keep them either.

“The thorny ground” seeds are the places in our hearts we haven’t bothered to weed and keep watch over our wrong thinking. ‘Weeds of unbelief, or discontent or disappointment’ have flourished there. What we haven’t realised is that, spiritually speaking, any one rotten attitude can take over our thinking. So the possibility of a harvest from any seeds that are sown into the weed-filled patch, is negated. These spiritual seeds won’t receive their share of nourishment from any water and good soil, because the weeds of our wrong thinking are crowding them out, and soon the whole plant of His word, becomes sterile and unproductive.

Now let’s look at “good soil,” the stuff we are to cultivate and watch over in our hearts. Good soil not only gladly receives the seed of God’s Word;  as we act on it, that seed begins to flourish, and grow into a healthy plant. The increase in our seed production, is always up to the Lord, our part is to cultivate the soil of our hearts with humility and love. And take the time to prayerfully water and feed these His seeds with tears of repentance, and acts of sacrifice as the healthy plants begin to grow. Now we have seeds that will bear fruit and can be harvested.

As you can see, there are four different results from exactly the same seed. The seed does not change, but how it is received does. Even if we sometimes feel unsure about what we think the Lord is saying – it is our responsibility to watch over His seed and act on it accordingly. What we do with what God tells us daily, matters. How we receive it matters. Preparing our hearts to be open to change and transformation matters. A huge harvest can come from our dedication and our willingness to yield to His Ways, even to the death. Bye.  👋“They triumphed over him (satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Revelation 12:11.

P 2457 There is no system.

/ DVH

“But give reverent honour in your hearts to the Anointed One and treat Him as the holy Master of your lives. And if anyone asks about the hope living within you, always be ready to explain your faith.” 1 Peter 3:15 TPT

The truth is, it is your faith, and no-one else can explain it. One of the marvellous things about living for Jesus is that your own personal story has worth. It doesn’t matter if your life was changed when were sitting about at your house, glancing through the bible and some verse or other struck you as truth … or you were pole-axed by God in the middle of a service. Whatever you have to say about how you came to know Christ is what someone else needs to hear.

That is the marvellous thing about following Jesus, your story, is your shared story … with Him! And no-one else can negate it. After all our God is so incredibly complexly big that He can hand-pick the people who need to hear that story from you – at any time He wants it to happen. Meanwhile, we cannot afford to make the Gospel anything else but personal. It’s very personal. It changed our lives.

In our churches there have been many systems, that may have started with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but they’ve wandered off into the land of ‘this is what we think and what suits us.’ Maybe the Lord isn’t kissing that sort of outreach the way He kissed it in the beginning. That, BTW, does not mean the systems are bad, they are just not what He is saying and doing today. This can also mean that our testimonies etc. are forced, or memorised, instead of being natural and relaxed. 

Talking about Jesus to a stranger, or even a family member, should not be a tremendous strain, or even a bit terrifying. They.Will.Notice.That! … And then there is a distinct possibility whatever you say can be dismissed as doctrine or brain-washing, instead of the new life you have inside your heart.

In Jeremiah chapter 2, verse 13 there is this scripture: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” I think that this scripture holds just as true today, as it did back in the time of Jeremiah. We have made systems (cisterns) to hold the water of the Holy Spirit and because the systems are not good containers … they are after all, man-made …they’ve become broken and less effective. When we talk to others it needs to be natural, not choreographed.

The bible says: “…open your mouth wide and I will fill it.” Psalm 81:10. My point is this, as we relax and simply share what He has done in our lives — we will get to know the Holy Spirit so much better, and we will become familiar with His ways. Especially as we lean our faith on Him to help us talk to others. The best prayer ever if we are stuck, is: “Help!” Then you simply start to tell that other person what you’ve seen and known of Jesus personally in your own life. Whether you talk about healing, or how much the bible has meant to you, or how your life has been changed.

Just be yourself. Lean on the fact that He loves you with an immeasurable, unchanging eternal love and simply talk about Him. Whatever you say is up to you, it can be long or short. It doesn’t matter. However, if the person’s eyes glaze over then it’s time to bail out… quickly! 😂 Like I said, be yourself. Talk about Jesus like He lives at your house and you know Him – because He does live at your house and you do know Him! Nobody can argue with the man with a personal experience. They might think you are nuts, but worse things have happened. Move on …

We honour Jesus when we talk about Him and what He is doing, or has done, in our lives. Even using His lovely Name with reverence is exalting Him. Some people ignorantly use His Name as a swear word, imagine how blessed He is to hear His Name on our lips praising His goodness! 

Be like the blind man in John 9:25“He answered and said, Whether He be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” That’s a testimony! We‘overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.” This man had a simple testimony and he gave it when he was asked a question.

We all have a testimony, and our testimonies cannot be refuted. The thing is, these testimonies have power in them. The Grace of God has kissed our lives, and when we talk about it to someone else, that Grace is released all over again to touch them. They may punch us on the nose, or walk away muttering, OR throw up their hands and say: “I want that!” Meh! The results are always up to Him. There is no system. Bye. 👋🏻