Born again

P 3331 In but not of …

/ DVH

“Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.” Romans 12:2 TPT.  That’s pretty plain isn’t it? Not much to explain there. And here’s another one, where Jesus Himself is praying for us… “My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.” John 17:15-16. 

The thing is, without inward transformation, we are wasting our time and effort trying to capture the-people-who-don’t-know-Him’s attention with our own clever ideas and plans. We need to have the Lord’s guidance, His way to reach out to people. We serve the One Who took people out onto a hillside and they were so captured by what Jesus said, they didn’t even think about eating.

The point made in this scripture is that the Lord knows how to go straight to the heart of the matter, and we don’t. Let’s ask for His help! The bonus is we get to know God’s will for our lives. We no longer live by this world’s standards. The ‘latest thing’ is the ‘last thing’ on our minds! Unless the Holy Spirit kisses what we are doing and tears off the roof, our plans are limited, His are not.

Jesus isn’t praying for us to live detached from this world, like somehow what’s out there can stop what’s inside us from flourishing!  Our choices do that for us, they are what influence us. We don’t need to separate ourselves from the lives we are here to touch when we’ve decide to make Him our priority. Instead Jesus is praying that we will be protected from the devices of our enemy – who is all around us. Here’s my litmus test for in not of …  Ask yourself what occupies most of your thoughts? 

I have been to churches in many places, that are pale imitations of what this world can produce all by itself. In the end, the productions become more important than the God we worship or the people we are here to reach. Let’s realise that when it comes to production – this world is waa-aa-aa-ay better at it than we are! They’ve got great gizmos to help them make fake things look real.

I think that’s because whatever IS represented by this world is fake. In our churches we want to produce the real thing — but you can’t produce the real thing, from fake roots. Entertainment is by its very nature, anti-what-Jesus-stands-for. He wants to glorify His Father, by what He says and does. He can use entertainment, but He doesn’t need it. We can say we want to glorify God, but I’ve been involved in the production of a number of things in the past and this world does not easily let go of the idea that being bigger, better, brighter, more clever is the way to go! 

Human beings think that doing something well, is going to impress the world and help them to believe in what they are selling. They don’t need to be impressed with us, these people need the King, not our clever, glamorous well-produced rhetoric. Our message doesn’t need any help! It’s in the book and God Himself wrote it. Our God is the God of the Universe, He doesn’t want or need our advertising, He  wants to reach the people around us, with healing, deliverance, salvation and the Good News.

We have been asked to make disciples, followers of Jesus Christ – not groupies. Changing someone’s heart is His job. Ours is to co-operate with the Holy Spirit and make a permanent place for the Lord in our hearts and our churches – then we follow the Holy Spirit’s instructions regarding how we approach others. Our churches are where we meet to glorify Him and give Him the praise He so richly deserves. And all our gifts are to be surrendered and used to glorify Him — our fellowship is sweeter because of Him. 

Our meetings cannot be about “the atmosphere’ either – an atmosphere is easily created and easily broken. What we do is about Him, done for His sake, for His pleasure. We can’t substitute special effects for the anointing – it is far better to get on our faces and find out where we’ve missed Him, than to plough on competing with this world’s idea of a good time.  

To be in not of  means we are totally aware of our surroundings, and we can see and hear the people around us. Their needs, their hopes, their squashed broken lives. It is so easy to segregate ourselves away from the very people the Lord saved us to reach — simply because they do this and that, and that stuff might corrupt us. The hard times that have fallen upon everyone has disproved that theory. People are dying inside – they have no hope.  And guess what we have – HOPE! 

We have the incorruptible One living inside us!1 Peter 1:23 says: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” 1 John 4:4: “Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” In but not of is about singular focus, not just distraction. I would rather spend 5 minutes with a Spirit-filled person than 5 seconds with someone else’s clever ideas. Bye for now, 👋

P 3303 Tongues.

/ DVH

Before you freak out, because people do … I just want to say I think the subject of tongues have been bashed up a bit. Between some denominations who stay well away from this blessing, to others that insist we are not born again Christians without it – tongues have been misunderstood. However, I think about this subject like Paul does – I pray in tongues, and I pray in English. But I’m eternally grateful that when I run out of words, the Holy Spirit always knows exactly how to pray – for me, and through me, and for others. The bible says: tongues edify us, they build us up personally in the Holy Spirit, because speaking in tongues needs us to use our faith.

Today I want to look at what the bible says about it. Paul seems to be the most instructive and vocal person, but I want to start with the book of Acts chapter 2:1-13, where it all began. I think we are emphasising the wrong bit –what happens to us! And we seem to fly right over the fact that the Holy Spirit visibly arrived here on earth! A whole lot of incredibly unusual things happened. The Breath of God became seeable, hearable and people experienced Him. It was awe inspiring and terrifying all at the same time. The power of God was tangible.

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Indeed! What DID it mean? I think Almighty God, the Holy Spirit, arrived in Jerusalem, at the Lord’s appointed time, and the same Spirit that helps people speak in tongues —- helped people from so many different places understand what was spoken! No prayer, no urging, no force at all, no stress – God Himself just showed up!And people who could not understand each other suddenly understood what He said. When Father God did that He made it clear what happened was for everyone. The barriers we all carefully erect between each other, were gone. This means Almighty God speaks your language!

This wasn’t a ‘choice’ moment, it was a ‘sovereign’ one. Ordinary fishermen, started to speak languages they had not learned, and God’s message was broadcast aloud through the streets of Jerusalem by nobodies. People physically saw the tongues of fire, they heard the rushing wind, they felt the buildings shake. It was momentous. Jesus Christ came here as a little baby, but the Holy Spirit arrived with a huge blast of glory from heaven! Imagine it. The disciples start speaking words they don’t understand and perfect strangers are convinced and convicted that Jesus is the Messiah. And they repent!

Peter stands up and explains. How does an ordinary fisherman know what happened? Well, he had walked with Jesus for three and a half years, suffered through Christ’s death and burial and resurrection, and at the end of all that, all the disciples had to cling to was the word Jesus gave them. WAIT. Then suddenly the living Word stashed inside Peter’s heart, was ignited with a roar. He and the rest of the disciples had been with Jesus, day after day, listening, learning, making mistakes, seeing things they never thought they would see, and then suddenly the word of God came alive in each one of them. They were so impacted by the Holy Spirit that His Words burst out of their mouths and reached everyone around them. Nobody cared who the preacher was – all the listeners knew was Almighty God was speaking to each one of them personally. 

For me this is the essence of speaking in tongues. The enlivening of the listener’s spirit to the point where they see God Himself, and Jesus Christ His Son, more clearly than they ever have before. This gift is meant to impact our hearts. It goes right past our thinking and bursts straight into our spirits. This is what speaking in tongues is for – it helps us when we are stuck, or dismayed, or bereft or lost. It rescues us with God’s Words spoken through us or someone else, and our spirit jumps up and down and says: “I know that voice!” 

It’s not some sort of fairground party trick. God Himself speaks through us. I have prayed in tongues with tears pouring down my cheeks because the Holy Spirit gave me the interpretation as I was speaking. My ears didn’t understand a word I said, but my heart jumped up and down and said: “That’s it! There’s the answer.” 

We were made by the Holy Spirit in our mother’s womb, we know His voice. When He comes and breathes upon us, we recognise His breath. Tongues are a sign and a wonder, but they are a supernatural sign and a God initiated wonder. It is not just babbling. It’s the Lord!  The power of God, His wisdom, His authority and His never-ending passion for mankind, speaking into and kissing someone’s heart, spirit and soul. Impacting them with pure unadulterated love! Not man’s thoughts, HIS!  Bye. 👋

P 3161 Offences and snares.

/ DVH

Opportunities for taking offence seem to be thundering around everywhere, lately. That trait is causing chaos in relationships, and in our thoughts about other people. It is interfering with us receiving and sharing God’s unconditional love. Then guilt grabs us by the throat, and we sit silently by, because we feel we haven’t got a leg to stand on. Please remember, Jesus paid for all our guilt and shame – but actions speak louder than words. 

Meanwhile offence can come at us through many things, including the media: which isn’t just TV, newspapers, or radio anymore. Today we carry the media around in our pockets so we can read it at the press of a button. If we are not alert to that snare, we can become like jackals, feeding off someone else’s kill, adding to the pile of nasty things said. We dare not sit in the background, passing judgment on things we know nothing about, while we continue to justify getting offended at others.

It is so easy to misunderstand what someone else said, and then become offended. By the time the other person tries to explain what they really said, nobody but the speaker cares anymore. And the offended person is too busy chewing on their own offence. All the while, satan stands by providing us with things from the past, as fuel for the fire of our anger and angst. It occurs to me that when we forgive someone’s sin against us, the point is to forget the injury. We hold things against people, and then use their past to clobber them into submission to make our own point. Scoring points off each other is no way to lovingly relate. “Why not suffer wrong?”

Offence is a trap – the bible calls it a snare. We can easily lose our way and fall or step into it. This subject is is mentioned about 90 times, all over the bible, so we need to pay attention to it. Very few people start out thinking: ‘Oh, I think I will just get snotty and leave this church.’ Most of the time offence grabs them first. That’s why we need to be always on the alert, so we can pay attention and act and avoid the snare. But this kind of wisdom will only happen if we value God’s ways more than our own. If we keep making what I call self-decisions – ‘looking after me, and who cares about you?’ Then we will stay offended.

The thing is, in our churches — we try to be sweet, but we hide stuff. So we don’t actually use nasty words. Instead we use words like; ‘my spouse doesn’t understand me,’ OR ‘I need a church that meets my needs.’  We try so hard to maintain a ‘nice’ image that we use polite words to undergird and excuse our own responses. However, finding out what is at the bottom of our offences can help us discover where we are letting ourselves down. I’ve learnt to ask myself: ‘why am I thinking like that?’  Sometimes I ask: ‘what the heck is that attitude standing on?’ Instead of constantly promoting the kind of self-awareness that favours little old me – why don’t we choose to remember that we died when we gave our lives to Christ? 

Today I want to look at something that is quite commonly used as a measuring stick, and I think it can hurt, offend and alienate others. The idea that Christians have to be ‘born again’ – experientially. That remark has been used to qualify whether people are Christians – or not. It is interesting to note that this subject is only mentioned 3 times in the bible, John 3:3; John 3:7; 1 Peter 1:23! It seems to me that sometimes we elevate some verses over others – but I believe they are ALL important. The Holy Spirit is not a badge we wear to show we belong to the club!  He’s a wonderful Person. I was born again, experientially, 53 years ago, but nevertheless, I still think growing fruit plus a changed life is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in anyone. 

Elevating some verses over others, can be dangerous. There was a whole movement, a while ago, about asking for anything we wanted and God would give it to us – if we had enough faith. It was based on a couple of verses. It led to error, because it put US in charge instead of the Lord!  Meanwhile, in the gospels, there was once one guy who was told by Jesus to sell everything he had! … Any takers??? … Like I’ve said many times we can’t afford to pick and choose. Otherwise we send people off, trundling about looking for experiences, and neglect to help them to see the Saviour in His Word ... Can you see what I just did there? I gave you an opportunity to be offended with me. It’s now up to you what you do about it. 

Snares can easily become offences. Here are some verses on this subject: “And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” 2 Timothy 2:26. We can be tricked into a  snare! “Be sober-minded;be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8. It is up to US to be watchful, not just the pastor. ”The wicked have laid a snare for me, Yet I have not gone astray from Your precepts.” Offence and snares come upon us whether we are ready, or not, so it’s best to just live ready!! The whole bible was written to profit us. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus, He’s the Author and Finisher of our faith. That will help to keep us out of offence. Bye. 👋

P 3139 We make life way too complicated.

/ DVH

Hubby and I love to pray for the-people-who-don’t-appear-to-know-Him-yet. We ask them if they need prayer, and if they say yes, then we pray simple, clear, un-preachy prayers about whatever is going on in their lives. People cry all over the place.This means we need to totally focus on the Lord coming with us wherever we go.”We can’t do anything without Him,’ it says so in the book! 

So let’s get that big fat lumpy bit of our personal pride out of the way, so we can be a channel of His love into the lives of the needy people around us. We need to live under His watchful care. We don’t have to be obsessive, but it is also important to make sure we haven’t bungled something or other, or offended anyone. In this current climate that is easy to do. People get offended, and hurt each other all over the place. Nobody wants to give anybody the benefit of the doubt. Here’s an interesting thought:  people aren’t necessarily doing things against you – instead they are doing those things for themselves! Sadly suspicion is rampant, and blaming someone else is the name of the game.

The truth is, we won’t even know if the Holy Spirit is with us, if we insist on pretending to be something we are not. We can’t hear Him properly when we live like that. We are not meant to be experts, we are FOLLOWERS of Jesus! Please remember the disciples bungled things too! In my opinion we should all be still learning, even when we are nearly dead! Jesus IS truth – He doesn’t like deception – too much yukky stuff hides in deception. He is and always was, totally and absolutely real, and that means we don’t have to lie about our life with Him at all, because we are not trying to sell anything! Get used to being humble and not knowing the answer to everything.

Instead, our desire is to do our best to announce Him – not pretend to BE Him.  Acting ‘holier than thou’ puts people off. Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that Christians can be so scared of making a mistake they don’t do anything at all!. You know it is not a good thing to give ourselves permission to be two people, depending upon where we are. The person who lives at our house, needs to be the one who interacts with everyone else! All that deceitful, hiding stuff will shoot anyone down in flames. We are all saved by GRACE – so what’s the big deal if you are an argumentative fathead and I am a nasty big mouth? Pray for me, and I’ll pray for you! 

I hate being politically correct OK? I call that sort of stuff lying. I’ve found that political correctness means I am being so careful not to press any buttons in you – I end up not wanting to love you and I will avoid you. But if we want the Holy Spirit to come everywhere with us, then we need to be the same born again, still-being-transformed-person we always were. Leave the fancy-schmancy acting performances on the stage …  be yourself. 

Ask Him to help you see and overcome those things that pull you into mindless silly games. And then… ‘ask and keep on asking…!!’ Especially if you know you have weaknesses, then pray for His strength to be strong in those weaknesses. There are no incurable diseases in Christ – He always has the last word – physically and spiritually!  “There’s a time to die…” remember? We’ve learnt that talking to anyone, and staying filled with His Grace, draws people to Him. You stay filled with Grace by acknowledging you need it. The bible tells us HE will separate the sheep from the goats, I have no idea why we would ever think that should be our responsibility.

Those people all around us are just human beings like us, and often we have no idea how that person arrived at all those nasty, ugly attitudes. Nor do we know what the Presence of Jesus will do, if we take the time to take HIM with us, wherever we go. The Body of Christ has lost its focus — we are like Esau, going for the immediate thing that suits us, but to get that, we have to give up our inheritance for no good reason except that living and walking with the Holy Spirit seems too hard. Actually, it’s easy. We just need to point our hearts toward that aim and get ready to be wrong and acknowledge it – OFTEN.

We already have a perfect example of how to live like our Father’s children. Here’s the VERY best advice on being yourself in the whole New Testament. “Then He (Jesus)said: I promise you this. If you don’t change and become like a child, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3. ‘Become like a child’ … remember that little children happily went to Him. And babies felt safe in His arms. We need to be childlike, not childish.The Lord is not like other people – we can trust Him.

Life is much simpler when you live with a childlike attitude. This means you hand your broken toy/life to SomeOne bigger than you are, and then hang around Him watching and waiting to see what He will do with it.  Then you obey Him. I love living like that. Complications give me a headache! Jesus has invited us to enter into a relationship with Him that is pure, trusting and real. Nothing covered up or denied. Be yourself and uncomplicate your life. Human beings aren’t actors in a role – we are just ordinary people saved by His Grace. Bye. 👋

P 3032 Live this life mindfully.

/ DVH

How do we walk with the Holy Spirit? Mindfully. We pay attention to our responses in this life and live aware of Him. And if the world around you descends into chaos, and you still feel peace, then we choose to realise Who is helping us and we start thanking Him! We need to recognise when He has clearly inhabited our difficult situations because the Holy Spirit isn’t a brass band, big fuss kind of a Person – He will come and go and we can miss Him.

It is such a joy to know that the Holy Spirit understands our humanity. Romans 8:11 MSG explains this.“But if God Himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of Him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome Him, in whom He dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God Who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He’ll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”

Sin was dealt with, 2000+years ago, literally when Jesus died, we died. Dead people don’t worry about sin – they are dead. Dead people don’t have opinions… they are dead. You can’t hurt a dead person’s feelings be-ca-u-se … they don’t have any they are dead! All that stuff we accumulated throughout our lifetime is now dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead …ALL DEAD. We live a new, different life now, and the Holy Spirit will guide us daily into the Father’s Ways.

The Holy Spirit is the One Who made us alive in Christ – we call that being born again. It’s a biblical term for a spiritual reality and it focusses on our new life in Christ. Step by step, as we choose to follow His Ways, He will lead us away from everything that imprisoned us before, and those things will no longer have the same appeal. There are times the old self is so deeply imbedded within sinful ways, that we will need to walk closely with the Holy Spirit to walk away from that stuff. The bonus buy when we do that is that we get to know Him better! 

“Do two walk together except they make an appointment and have agreed?” Amos 3:3. That’s the secret … to walk with the Holy Spirit, we must learn to agree with Him. Sometimes we may even have to let go of things that we think we know about right and wrong, because the human being who taught us was teaching from their own experience. But God’s Ways are higher than ours. The Holy Spirit knows what the Father likes, and He is delighted to share those things with us now. 

This is how it works for me. I read the bible, it might just be one verse, it could be many chapters, but I am waiting for Him to highlight something for me. This morning He said to me: “Tell My people if they want to walk with Me they will need to choose to be mindful of my Presence in their lives.” We don’t have a series of rules we must follow and remember. We have a new Way to live. He has already prepared it for each one us, and because of that new way, we will grow closer and more in love with Jesus each day. It’s called the Way of Love.

When I read the bible, I try not to skip any bits that tell me things I don’t think I want to hear! Including the things I might need to change. This happens because I want the Holy Spirit and I  to walk together, in agreement. I ask Him questions and I remember to thank Him. His ways are now my focal point.  Even if I find something He does not like — I ask Him: “Do I do that?” Most of the time I get a very quick answer to that kind of prayer!

If you want to be humble, that will humble you! Especially if in your mind you have dismissed whatever it is as not being all that bad. I’ve found it is far too easy to think, “God won’t mind that,” – without even asking Him first. Bad plan. Let Him correct you with His eye on you. The bible is just great at pointing out stuff we would rather just gloss over. He knows how to stop something before it starts!

The glorious point of mindfulness, is that is not about digging around looking for SIN. There are simply times we can’t see through His eyes and He reveals to us what He can see. The sins are gone. It doesn’t mean we didn’t do whatever it was, it means Somebody Else paid the penalty for it! That sin was nailed to a cross all those years ago – when Jesus became our sin. What we need to watch out for is our own response to having the problem diagnosed by the bible. This response will show us where we have been hobbled by the enemy – then we do something about it. 

We can confess our sin to someone else, and He will help us change the way we think about it. The entire bible is a diagnostic heaven-sent tool. It doesn’t just teach us about the Trinity and sin, redemption and the past – it shows us how to bring that redemption into our own personal situations! So what we do now is bring His new life in us, into the darkness of this world. Starting with our own lives. We live now, today …mindfully! Be transformed – let Him change your mind about how to live each and every single day – living out the way of Love. Bye 👋.

P 2941 Ready or not.

/ DVH

You know, I think we need to scale back on preaching at people, and go out there and just be the bible. When I write this kind of stuff, I’m pretty sure a whole lot of people probably get mad at me! Boy, I hope so — mad is wa-a-a-y better than apathetic. Our faith is not meant to be private … real faith is going out into this world deliberately, on purpose, loving others, caring about their lives, while we are introducing them to His kingdom. Our challenge is to live that way – all the time. Laying down our lives so other people can learn how to find a new life with Jesus. 

Here’s one of my optional ‘make you think’ questions: what part of your new life in Christ makes your life look different than it did before you met Him? I know all the pat answers — we go to church. We pray. We read the bible. However, the reality is, because we choose to remain inactive, unfortunately sometimes guilt drags each one of us around by the nose — we know there is more, but we can’t seem to find it. To do that we need to give up our undercover, ordinary people disguises, and lay down this life we’ve planned for ourselves. Let’s stop running about looking for healing for us, and introduce others to the Healer of mankind. 

The body of Christ has unfortunately become engaged with what this world says we need. People who are DEAD don’t care what they need — actually, they don’t care about anything at all! But the people who know their God want to spend their life for Jesus’ sake. Will it hurt? PROBABLY!! But pain is an opportunity to wait on Him, and press in deeper. I have a theory, I believe that many people lead mediocre lives because they think this life is the only chance they will get to have what they want. But man was made for eternity.

We’ve been born again to do what He brought us here to do. That includes what the bible says …and then, after we do it, we leave the results to Him. We throw our miserable human excuses into the bin where they belong! Man has been making excuses for centuries. Many of those excuses some people made right to God’s face!! That thought makes me shake my head. I know I have been incredibly disobedient, and if God is not Who He says He is, then I’m sunk. I cling to His promises like a barnacle clings to the bottom of a ship.

Let’s just pause, and think about God’s patience with us. He has put up with mankind’s junk for centuries. Not in a mean, stand-offish unloving, uninvolved way, but in a proactive creative winsome way that calls us all up HIGHER. You can’t get more involved in humanity than He did, by coming here, living amongst us, and then letting people kill Him! The people in today’s world need to experience, personally, what the bible says:“Taste and see that the Lord is good.” We are meant to be someone else’s first taste of God in human form, and we are the only Christians some people are ever going to meet! If that doesn’t serve you up a big dollop of “Oh, my gosh!” I don’t know what will!

Sadly, other people are probably going to take a big chunk out of you and I, regularly. It’s a TEST. It is up to us to decide how we will respond to their actions. Jesus has left us in this world to be a people who not only know their God, we are now His interactive advertising. Just tell others the kingdom of God is near, because He lives in you! Like me, you may have been dreadful advertising even ten seconds ago  … so … REPENT. Pick yourself up, fix what you can, use your faith and keep on going. God is not finished with any of us yet. 

Get over the idea that this life is meant to be easy for us – ‘because we are so special’ – and realise that “a disciple when he is fully trained, will be just like His master.’ They treated Jesus disrespectfully and badly and then they viciously killed Him … so-oo-oo-oo … You do the sum.

Sometimes we become so obsessed with being comfortable and comforted, because this life is difficult, we forget what we are here for. If we want to know Him intimately, we will need to live our lives like He lived His. Unselfishly, altruistically! We are assured that His faithfulness under all kinds of circumstances, is out of this world! Nothing can, or will separate you and I from His love … because Almighty God promised.

It’s time for all of us to step up to the plate and take a swing at the ball! Never lower the standard just because you can’t meet it – Jesus Christ met it for us. Pick up your faith and go again. Our only job on this planet, is to RE-present Jesus Christ to the world around us … by living like He did. Let’s hope the next time someone takes a bite out of you or I, they bite into something sweet!

Jesus once told a parable about a rich man, who kept walking past a beggar at his gate. What that rich man did in this life eventually caught up with him. I implore you … don’t postpone change. We need to be ready for anything and He is always our ever-present help in time of need… whether we are ready or not. Bye. 🙏

P 2808 Love triumphs over everything.

/ DVH

The world we are living in today, has created a huge vacuum, by banning some things and not replacing them with better ones. Hubby and I were talking about this yesterday. There are so many rules about how you and I must interact with other people, with no thought to what we can do to replace the things we are told we must not do, except swallow the poison like it doesn’t matter.  It’s left a vacuum…

…so we can’t say this and we mustn’t say that. We dare not imply that someone else’s lifestyle is incorrect, we simply have to accept everything. These rules are pressed right up against our faces, every single day. They batter us through the news, and the TV. Plus there are images everywhere that you can’t UNSEE. And you must not comment on them either! 

These pagan, hedonistic attitudes are reinforced through our kindergartens, schools, and universities, as well as in the work force. We are told we must be tolerant, or we will be punished and penalised. We have to accept this thought and that idea, because we must be inclusive. Actually these thoughts are everything that true faith, by itself, can and will accomplish — but unfortunately now it’s law, not GRACE. Otherwise someone will sue us, or we will go to jail, and be shunned by society to boot! Fear of reprisal comes at us from every corner of the globe. So how can WE – the people whom the Son has made free, live this kind of life – when the-people-who-don’t-know-Jesus-yet demand that we obey things that would make normal Christians shudder?

Glad you asked that!! The bible teaches us to live this life, the only one we are going to get, loving others. That means our freedom lies within. We are told, in the book, by the King of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords that we need to pursue love. However, that does not mean we have to accept everything! So we cannot possibly go forward in this horrifying atmosphere of permissiveness – without His wisdom. We now need Jesus like He is our Air, He can no longer be an optional extra. We will need His guidance all the time. And yes, I know that some things are so repulsive to innocence it is hard to cope. But we need His eyes, His ears, His heart of love to guide us through, so we can continue to live and flourish in love.

I tell the Lord all the time: “I just plumb ran out of my kind of love, I definitely need Yours.” That may be simple but it is a great prayer and it works for me. He always helps me when I ask Him. My prayer is not fancy, but it is heart-felt, because I know I can’t do this stuff and live this way, without Him. I’m w-a-y to opinionated for my own good. Sigh. 

Back to my point today …God’s LOVE can fill any vacuum. He’s GOD He can do anything! Well, YAY! Today, we need to be so familiar with love, and so fluent in its language, that we are societally sweet, but pragmatically out of sync with this world’s ideas and ideals. Loving others does not mean we agree with their behaviour or ideals. Love is a higher law.  We don’t have to live this life down in the dirt staring at sin – we are to live a kingdom life, looking at Him.

Here’s an example of a conversation Jesus had when He met with Nicodemus. This man was a Pharisee. In reality he was in the religious rules camp. He was steeped in the law, because the law was part of his training. Yet Jesus did not dismiss him, or avoid him, the Lord met and talked with the man and gave him access to truth. 

John 3:1-8. “Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs You are doing if God were not with Him. Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at My saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

The Lord did not argue with this man’s theology, He simply replied with REALITY – the ACTUAL TRUTH. He was stating a fact. Jesus never ever separated our earthly life from spiritual reality  … like we sometimes do. Instead He spent His time teaching others that spiritual things can, and do actually govern earthly ones. He did not see mankind as fleshly people who need a spiritual reality – He sees us all as spiritual people who have LOST our spiritual reality!

When we live in love, for love’s own sake – we step into who we really are. What people do with their flesh may be utterly repulsive but it is not ALL they are. We don’t have to live inside this world’s vacuum, we live IN CHRIST. He is a spiritual reality that supersedes whatever happens to be in fashion currently.  Love will always triumph, it can take a bit longer, but it is permanent. Bye 👋

P 2551 Run after Him and He will catch you!

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P 2510 Striving to enter His rest.

/ DVH

I think about rest like this … I do whatever He tells me to do, and He will do the rest. Meanwhile, resting in God is not about doing nothing. Resting in Him means we are trusting Him to help us, and get us through whatever is happening to us, and around us. We need to remind ourselves constantly that He’s in charge, no matter how this life looks, and that will give us confidence.

At the same time, we will have to fight the devil to maintain our peace and our assurance that God is always good – in spite of the circumstances we can see around us. Every time I am tempted to pick up and worry over whatever it is that I am obsessing about, I remind myself that He is now in charge of my life. My life is no longer my own. SomeBody bought me! And for HIM, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, you and I weren’t cheap! We were definitely not on sale, nor last year’s reduced price model!

This world is so obsessed with surviving … it is pushing us to strive to make sure that we become rich, beautiful, skinny, empty … corpses. We are supposed to work incredibly hard to market ourselves, YET, the King of all glory loves us simply because we are His. Why would anyone do that stuff to themselves? Yet we take untold questionable pills, exercise until we drop, and pinch, punch and pummel our bodies to somehow make them last forever. That’s just nuts! We already have forever, HE gave it to us. Why would you work for a gift? You accept a gift, that’s part of rest! This life is temporary.

Dying to self is the only way to live like Jesus did on this planet. It helps us see this life from His perspective, and it gives us, freedom. We simply give up our right to say what we will do, or where we will go, or who we will love, or where we will live … and then live the way He tells us to live … plus … love all the people He sends our way. Meanwhile, if you can’t do that …neither can I! That’s why we need to strive to enter His rest. We have to fight against sin, this world, our flesh and our enemy. Almighty God’s love is the reason we are all still here, because His Grace has kept us here. Rest is about Who we trust. Who we want to be in charge of our lives.

It has become much too easy to forget how to really live this life we have been given. Busyness and business take over! But we are here to be other-centred. We’ve been born again and now we’ve become a part of ushering in God’s kingdom, here and now, into this world. The self-centred things of this life lose their charm, because when you walk with Christ, you can’t wait to see what He is going to do next! The bible says:“Taste and see that the Lord is good”You and I are meant to be this world’s Godly taste test. 

It is extremely sad when fear is allowed to rule His people. The fear of failing Him, the fear of loss, the fear of not being good enough, even the fear of dying! But NOW, right here, right NOW, today — we are to live this life, the only one we have from another kingdom. Jesus Christ’s death took mankind OUT of the kingdom of darkness and INTO the kingdom of His marvellous light. And our lives are now the light switch for so many people!

Like Esther said in His book, once long ago: “If I die I die!” That’s what His rest really looks like. The bible doesn’t say how Esther felt about it. She just fell back into the arms of the ‘God Who saves!’  She knew how to rest – she left it up to God to see if she was going to survive – because other people’s lives were at stake. In Christ, we are a dangerous people. That’s why our enemy throws stuff at us all the time. That ‘stuff’ is batting practice. We pick up the bat of His Word, plus our faith in our Coach, and do things the way He says to do them. Just like Esther did. It takes effort to walk in faith, that’s what striving is. When I feel like I can’t do this anymore, I ask Him to help me with my effort! 

Our belief system is not just nice and comforting — IT IS POWERFUL. That power written about in His book does not just apply to an anointed few … it is here for all of us. Access to that power comes alive when we choose to love others, exercise forgiveness, exhibit generosity, and treasure to-geth-er-ness. There is NO LAW against those things because they are so far above the things of this world. We will not learn to raise the dead, if we do not learn how to raise our hopes! Rest is not just about knowing we are going to heaven when we die. It is about us fighting the good fight, bringing His kingdom down to earth, right here, right now in our own lives.

God’s kingdom has a higher aim. A greater calling. It desires to impart His reality not just a theory. Our God is real and we carry Him with us, every single place we go. The point is, we need to let Him out!  Striving to rest is about allowing Him to do what He wants with our lives. Instead of us choosing what we feel like, or want to do. We get out of His way and let Him do what He does best… love and save people through us. Bye 👋

P 2413 Some thoughts about fatherhood.

/ DVH

“…This is your Father you are dealing with, and He knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: Our Father in heaven, Reveal who You are. Set the world right; Do what’s best— as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with You and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything You want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.” Matthew 6 MSG.

Today I want to talk about a place some people may have a lack. Those of us who have not had a present, engaged earthly father, may find the entire concept of a father is hard to grasp. Personally, I don’t remember my birth-father at all, I met him much later in life, and to be perfectly honest with you – I had no idea what to do with him! At that time he gave me a big bag of jelly-beans, because I loved them when I was 7, which was the last time he saw me … However I was 27 when I saw him again … and not much fussed about jelly beans! He died not long after that meeting, and he had another family by then, so we didn’t get a chance to mend bridges. 

I totally fell head over heels in love with Jesus when I met Him. His willingness to accept me and save me from myself plus His unrelenting kindness and goodness blew me away. But, a Heavenly Father … that was a whole other ballgame. Father God was more of a written concept than an actual father to me. I said all that to say this … my early lack meant that I have had a limited idea emotionally, about a father’s generosity. How a good man cares or watches out for his children’s well being. His strength and solidarity in a time of crisis. I virtually grew up fatherless in the real sense of the word.

But I had two stepfathers. One of them taught me how to forgive people who sin against you, because his form of government was extremely physical. Unfortunately, at the same time, he taught me to be afraid of men. This meant that a loving, engaged, and a totally-committed-to-my-welfare-father, like our Heavenly Father is to all of us … was right outside my childhood experience. A good father helps his kids with their identity. These wonderful men provide abiding security, so that their kids do not major on minor things like they are the end of the world..

This is why the above prayer from the Message bible blesses me. It says so clearly: “reveal Who You are….” I know that I need that kind of revelation from Him. Obedience comes easily to me – fear of consequences is a terrible motivator – but it also means I have a fear of God that isn’t biblical or healthy. This verse explains that our God loves to help us in the places we have a lack. My advice is to simply ask Him to supply that particular need. He isn’t just talking about somewhere to live, or a nice car!

BTW, we are not being disloyal to our earthly parents just because Father God can meet our needs and they didn’t – or can’t – or won’t. Even a good earthly father can mess up! And trust can be fragile at best when someone ill-equipped to be a godly father, turns out to be your parent. All told I had 3 fathers and none of them taught me anything about what a loving Father was like – they did however teach me to be scared of loud voices and angry men.

Enter my dear husband. In the past 35 years. He has patiently taught me more about what men and fathers are like, than I ever learnt in all the years before we were married. He is still teaching me about man-speak — because the way that men think, is a total enigma to me. Until he came along there were no men in my life to contribute any insight into the male psyche;  so whenever they got loud, I wanted to run! 

However, I also expected men to ignore me, because that’s what happened regularly too. To avoid the grumpy disinterested men in my life, I learnt to hide my personal self away. I came from a female dominated family line, and that means I don’t understand spontaneously, or naturally, how men think. Why they do and say what they do and say – puzzles me and I have very little insight. Sadly, some of the things that we do, even as adults, we do defensively, sometimes automatically.

The bible tells us that our God is a “Father to the fatherless.”  I want to encourage anyone with the same problem that I have had, to ask for this heavenly revelation. We were not just born again into God’s family, we have also been ADOPTED by Him. Adoption means choice! Father God can definitely supply this kind of need for validation and security etc. because He is everyone’s Father and He knows all our names. People like me need to pray over every verse that talks about the Fatherhood of Almighty God, and deliberately renew our minds – this is how we will change our thinking.  👋🏻