Bread

P 2883 Don’t stop pressing in.

/ DVH

This scripture appears right after the Lord’s prayer. It is so important to read things in context – it really does matter. These verses aren’t taken from the next day, it is the same day and the Lord is continuing to expound His thoughts about prayer to the disciples. He goes straight from the Lord’s prayer into this little story. 

Luke 11:5-13 “Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.“

So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

The Lord is teaching us that perseverance in prayer matters. It would be a mistake to think what we have heard is all there is! I’ve heard a lot of sermons about this passage, so, today I got down to business and started asking the Holy Spirit questions about it. I can see, on the surface of what is said, that Jesus is telling us our Heavenly Father is not against audacity – He actually commends it. Lemme put that another way – we can be pushy and we won’t send Him away. We won’t offend Him, He might even surprise us. 

Fortunately, with His help, I began to see something about this passage I hadn’t seen before. This is not about me, or you, or even the guy who needs bread! It is an example Jesus gave us to illustrate God’s goodness, His loving kindness, His provision… and an acceptable response is unashamed perseverance. The Lord is explaining to us that His Father’s Ways are impartial. He will help anyone. Including annoying people … now there’s a BIG thought.

In the previous verses, Jesus has been talking about Father God giving us our daily bread … and these verses continue the theme of bread. Whether it’s spiritual bread or not, it doesn’t seem to matter.  He is saying we need to be like this man, and keep on banging on God’s door insisting that we want to know what He has to say to us. We must not take NO! for an answer because a bigger prize awaits us.

We would all agree that we desperately want and need the Holy Spirit, more than we need anything or anyone else. Walking with Him means we must be motivated by this kind of FAITH and perseverance. We are to go after Him – and not give up! I wonder how many people have prayed to receive His precious Presence and they thought they did not get an answer because they didn’t end up speaking in tongues!  

Jesus is telling us His Father is a good God Who wants to answer this kind of prayer. We have simply made speaking in tongues our point of faith instead of His reliability. Every single day, I urge us all to ask and keep on asking to be filled. Ask for that every single day. Then we need to go on to walk with the Holy Spirit, obediently.  God will give Him to us simply because He is a good, good Father, who doesn’t want to frustrate anybody. .

Jesus is teaching us that His Father will definitely answer this kind of prayer. Tongues are purely a sign, not the answer. His Presence is the Answer. Pressing into God will always leave US with a benefit. I pray you will take the time to press in for yourself. Bye for now. 👋

P 2862 Are we an explosion, or a pop?!

/ DVH

You can put that title on the back-burner for a bit, and let’s look at Colossians 2:11b-14 …“Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, GOD MADE YOU ALIVE IN CHRIST. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

Our faith is in what Christ did, not in who or what we are! I think we need to stop seeing ourselves as ordinary people, who happen to have faith. The bible clearly tells us not to live ordinary lives anymore, instead we need to remind ourselves that we are dead to this world, and constantly alive to Him. When we live that way — every single day – every encounter with someone else becomes an opportunity to share His love. His love is not meant to live on that ‘back burner.’ It is the fire that sends us out every single morning!

The only thing dead people can successfully do, is to become worm food! Yeah. Right now I am hoping you aren’t  eating your breakfast and reading this … but I ain’t taking it back!! Our Heavenly Father God, did it all, He provided Jesus as the sacrifice for us – and then Jesus chose to die in our place. Now we continually make a choice to die to this life and live for Him. Our resurrection comes moment by moment as we live by faith in the brand new life He has already given us. That’s our bit ← and it’s past tense! Jesus Christ gave us a life do-over. We can still live our lives as worm food if we choose to, but the truth is — the sky is the limit!! It always was around Jesus! 

That’s why people followed Him around. It didn’t matter if He spoke for hours and hours, because His very words were filled with Holy Spirit life. Have you ever thought of asking yourself what are your words filled with? 😳People were enthralled by whatever Jesus said. So much so, they forgot about ordinary stuff like eating! Imagine that! God’s Words are filled to the top with His life, and it is satisfying. Plus what the Lord Jesus said was often explosive!

His preaching was like a geyser, it flowed out and up and over everyone who heard Him – every single time He did it! Thats why people got mad – they were convicted! Others kept talking about what He had said all the way home! God’s word, when it is preached in the flow of the Holy Spirit, fills us and satisfies us like ordinary food never will. Jesus said it much better than I can: “Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  Matthew 4:4.

I know many many Christians are incredibly sincere, they love the Lord and they want to serve Him … but maybe they are shy, and they don’t want to intrude on other people. So if someone else wants to know something – they will have to ask them. These people have forgotten they’ve been made brand new, we don’t live like other people anymore – the old has passed away – the new has come. They are living like they are the can of fizzy drink in the picture above, it bounces and fizzes when shaken, then… … it settles down again. All the fizz will eventually go out of it when it is opened. The “POP” becomes a trickle. Many of us live our lives in that place.

Others live their lives going from conference to conference to conference, hoping to regain their ‘fizz.’ I’ve personally been to a lot of conferences, but let me tell you a secret … the very best way to become a geyser, is to develop a relationship with Him. Then you become far more than you can personally contain! Instead of fizzing up and calming down, you become a part of the Giver of Life – you and He flow together. If He turns, you turn, and His happiness inside you explodes like a geyser! 

God’s Words have eternal life in them, but sadly most of the people in this world have never ever heard the real Gospel. They may have heard about this religion or that one – they may have even tasted a bit of the fizzy drink, but they haven’t heard the Good News that they can be reconciled instantly back to God FOREVER! That’s where the geyser comes from! Are you a can of pop or a force of His nature? Bye for today. 👋.

“They were amazed at His teaching, because His words had authority.” Luke 4:32.

P 2784 They are not just stories.

/ DVH

The whole time the Lord Jesus was preaching, He was demonstrating, teaching, and living out a kingdom life in front of everyone around Him. Praise God that people wrote this stuff down! These things are illustrations of how God’s kingdom works. He preached about what the people in God’s kingdom look like. And He talked about what the kingdom looks like —  check out what I mean for yourself. There’s plenty of stuff to do in there! All of the Gospels show us what a life laid down for others looks like. It is an error to think that only Jesus was meant to live that way. He’s the Person we imitate with the Holy Spirit’s divine help.

Our Lord went out and did God’s will, every single day He was on this earth. Doesn’t that blow your mind? Think on this: our glorious Savior was forgiving, saving and inspiring someone while He was dying. He didn’t stop even when He was taking His last breath! He was still leading the people around Him into a greater knowledge of God’s ways from the place of His enormous pain. WOW! And we think talking to Mrs Kerfoops next door is hard! Jesus was struggling to breathe, and He still witnessed to His Father’s great love and passion for people. And if you are short on words for witnessing, that’s OK – Jesus didn’t use many ‘cos it was too hard for Him to speak! 

In the New Testament, the Gospels are a visual illustration, an aid, they show us HOW God’s kingdom functions. They are not just ‘stories’ about the things Jesus did and said, they are Jesus’ demonstrating and explaining to us how God’s kingdom WORKS. He taught, then He did, and sometimes He did, then He taught!  And at other times both things happened simultaneously. To be quite honest with you, I could get stuck on the Gospels for the rest of my life. There is just so much richness in there. 

You and I are adults, we aren’t little kids going off to Kid’s Church hearing stories about Jonah and the whale, or Jesus expanding some little boy’s lunch anymore. Everything the Lord Jesus says and does in the Gospels is a life lesson.  It is not just some fairy tale like Jack and the bean stalk! These things are instructions. Through Jonah, God is saying to us, no matter what big thing swallows you up, even if it is your own fault – He still has a plan for your life. And the boy with the his little lunch teaches us that even the little we have, can grow in His hands and feed others, if we will just give it to Him. 

There’s a way to read the book and it is not the same way you read a novel. It is too easy to read God’s book as simply words on a page. This book is God’s carefully preserved and chosen Manufacturer’s Handbook and it has been written down and kept safe for us. The Jewish people are trustworthy, they memorised their own history by word of mouth passing these stories down from generation to generation. We have what we have today because of those stories passed down. Even the New Testament, although written down, was also passed down by word of mouth. That’s what preaching is! The miracle is that it doesn’t matter which version of the bible you read personally, because the Holy Spirit kisses those things that are important to US, with His wonderful Presence. 

Then revelation comes. After that comes repentance – I guarantee that bit! You can’t read the book without finding places where you’ve fallen short of the mark. Don’t be condemned. Getting it wrong is not the end of the world. It’s a place where we can learn to trust in His faithfulness. We must do more than just sing: “Great is thy faithfulness … 🎶” – we need to live believing it! This life is not about our performance, good or bad, it is about His faithfulness to honour His word! People all over this world are living and dying without any knowledge of the One Who loves us all.

Take your little lunch, your little life, and give it to Jesus. Then go and do what He says to you. Read this scripture with that in your mind:

“When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”He asked this only to test him, for He already had in mind what He was going to do. Philip answered Him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Another of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.” John 6:5-11.

This kid didn’t have anything worthwhile to feed so many people, yet he shows us that our spiritual poverty is not the end. In Christ’s hands that is always the beginning of something extraordinary. Anything that is given to Jesus will multiply. These are not just stories, they are a living history of how God can use ordinary lives and bring forth His kingdom. Bye. 👋

P 2674 Yeast.

/ DVH

“Then He (Jesus) taught them another parable: “Heaven’s kingdom can be compared to yeast that a woman takes and blends into three measures of flour and then waits until all the dough rises.””Matthew 13:33 TPT.

“Later, as Jesus and His disciples crossed over to the other side of Lake Galilee, the disciples realised they had forgotten to bring any loaves of bread. Jesus spoke up and said, “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” Thinking Jesus was scolding them over not bringing bread, they began to discuss it among themselves. 

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said to them, “You have such little faith! Why are you arguing with one another about having no bread? Are you so slow to understand? Have you forgotten the miracle of feeding the five thousand families and how each of you ended up with a basket full of fragments? And how seven loaves of bread fed four thousand families with baskets left over? Don’t you understand? I’m not talking about bread, but I’m warning you to avoid the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” Then finally they realized He wasn’t talking about yeast found in bread, but the error of the teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” Matthew 16:5-12 TPT.

Years and years ago, when I was in my late twenties, I decided to make my own bread. In those days bread making was not popular, nor was it an easy task! No bread making machines back then …the baker was the bread making machine!!  Like most mothers of three young kids, I was looking to save money anyway I could, and so I had the brilliant idea that if I made my own bread it would be healthier and save money – all at the same time. Win, win!

Boy was that a growing edge! Back then dried yeast was not what it has since become … it had only just arrived on the market. So I spent a whole lot of time writing back and forth to the manufacturers and distributors, explaining my struggle with their recipes, because their product was not all that good or even greatly effective. 

Bread making occupied an extremely tiny niche back then, but I am convinced my perseverance in complaining about that yeast product, made all the difference … eventually! Thank the Lord. My poor kids daily ate all sorts of not wonderful bread – which they privately called “lead bread.” (The little darlings!) And they longed to return to the days of eating unhealthy white bread like everyone else! After a day of struggling to make said bread — one of my kids – I forget which one … it might even have been my ex … remarked that yesterday’s bread would have made a particularly great door-stop! I was not enchanted. 

Bread making involved a whole of of kneading and proving and it took absolutely ages. Eventually, I got better at making it … OR …maybe the manufacturer finally improved the product!! But I know how hard I worked to give that manufacturer feedback! I ground up Vitamin C to improve the rising, plus I purchased bread improvers and generally worked like a navvy … all to save a few pennies. Eventually I even graduated to making fancy bread like croissants and bagels. Meanwhile my mind was consumed with bread making for years. Over time I decided fresh yeast was best … it worked a treat.

After reading these two scriptures the other day, I must confess that I totally understand why the disciples were side-tracked when Jesus began to talk about yeast. It’s easy to get side-tracked when you know a lot about the subject, especially if it is food! Food is so ordinary – you don’t expect spiritual illustrations about it. If I had been there when the Lord was talking about the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees I would definitely have been a dumb bunny like they were, thinking totally irrelevant material thoughts about that subject, as well as utterly missing His point!

Human beings often look for immediate results, and gratification … but Jesus Christ spent His entire life glorifying God. He had spent His time on earth allowing the ‘good yeast of God’s Word’ to infiltrate every corner of His Being. I think this is the essence of our faith, so I was motivated enough to ask myself: “Are my prayers about my own comfort – something immediate, like food!  Or am I looking to see what God will do for His kingdom with what is actually going on?” Unless the yeast of His word transforms me, I have nothing to offer others. Reflectively, I wonder  if the “yeast” In our daily lives could be the digested Word of God? As we add it into our days, it will permeate every single bit of our lives, causing us to become palatable to others.

Then it hit me — Jesus always saw God in ordinary things, those things we confront day by day. We need to see Him that way too! We must allow the yeast of His Word to rise within us so that other people can “taste and see that the Lord is good.” Bye for now, 🍞😊.

P 2660 Our everyday bread …

/ DVH

Romans 10: 8-11 MSG:”The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth, as close as the heart in your chest. It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what He did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting Him to do it for you. That’s salvation.”

We are all currently engaged in our God’s eternal processes. That means God is working in us, just like He did when He raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Salvation is not a one stop shop – it is a process … which started when He saved us and continues to this day! The Holy Spirit is working in each one of us, day by day, to deliver us from the things that made us dead in the first place! Now we have to the power to turn away! He transforms our minds so we don’t think dead thoughts. He gives life to our mortal bodies so we can worship and serve Him in Spirit and in truth.

He also releases us to do eternal things, so we can carry His kingdom all over this world. V14: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” Look at your feet. In God’s eyes they are beautiful – He gave those feet an assignment … to go everywhere and tell everyone we meet that He is not mad at people any more. SomeBody Else, a perfect human being who did not deserve punishment, stepped up to the plate and took our place of punishment. You and I should have been nailed to that cross – NOT HIM.

Now, because of the power that was released when He was raised from the dead – we can come out of the dead patterns and thoughts that have haunted us all our lives, and really live. Jesus Christ loved people. He saw restoration happening everywhere He went. People’s lives were restored, hearts blossomed. Their hearts were withering and dying under the very strict laws that were enforced upon them. However, those laws were designed to bring the Jews back to God. Sometimes we are more interested in Jesus Christ the Healer, than we are in Jesus Christ the Author of our ongoing salvation. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

The Lord is also God’s living Word – He’s more than just a human illustration – He is God’s Word per-son-ified. That’s our destiny too. To be daily transformed so that our lives are saturated in the Word of God. We obey it, soak it in and give it out to anyone … the good, the bad, the ugly. And as we press in to learn this kind of obedience, we will kill off the very things we’ve adopted and adapted as protective garments. So now we stand before the Lord and others, just like Jesus was on the cross. Naked. We must be naked to be fully clothed! We are unashamed of this nakedness, because He died to clothe us in HIS righteousness, peace, grace, love, faithfulness …

To enter into this new life we must choose to come out of the grave of our old life, just like Lazarus came out of the grave he was in. Now we let God Himself, and others … strip off the grave clothes that are still binding us into death. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is now alive and working in all of us. That dead life we led before cannot be in charge now – we’ve MOVED. We don’t live there anymore. We moved out of that darkness and now we stand blameless in His marvellous light because of what He did. 

However, it is totally unrealistic to expect our new life to look just like that old one! It can’t, because light and dark cannot co-exist together. One excludes the other, so you can’t have both. This is where the outworking of our faith lies. Not in raising the dead, or healing the sick, or saying Godly stuff – it lies in choosing to live in the place we’ve been given. That’s why our minute by minute choices matter. 

Our old enemies have convinced us that we are still bound to that old life, because those old choices can still appeal to us. But, the Truth IS, those things no longer have any power or control  – they are shadows, not reality. We left that stuff behind us, and now … we are living to follow Jesus day by day. Daily reclaiming the land that was ours from the moment we were born again. We have our own promised land. Christ IN us – our hope of glory. This new land He died to give us flows with milk and honey because HE LIVES HERE.

Today, and tomorrow, and all our tomorrows! … We must realise that we need to choose to fight the giants that we have let occupy that old land – our old life. The things we have allowed that have no place in this new life. We don’t choose which things have to go, the Word of God every single day divides between our thoughts and emotions and releases His truth so we can see it. We simply practice obedience and submit to what He says, every single day. That’s why we read the bible – to get our every day bread and marching orders. 👋

P 2586 Stars and grains.

/ DVH

Genesis 15:4-6 “Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.”

Genesis 22:17: ”I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies,…”

If I were to give this blog an alternative title I would call it — “Dust off your prayers, hopes and dreams … and start thanking Me.” 

We have all been through some incredibly hard times spiritually speaking, and not just recently — some of us have been stuck in hardship for a prolonged period of time. The Lord spoke the above word to me last Sunday, and I’m sitting here at 2.30 AM today, typing this because He told me to do it. You may be on the other side of the world to where I live, it makes no difference. The above verses from Genesis show us that God always has plans bigger than we can imagine. We all know, from experience, that His ways are past finding out – but we will see Him working with our own eyes – start looking.

When we pray, we often think about a truckload of blessings, but in these passages from Genesis the Lord shows us a SKY full of them. Abraham had his mind blown twice, and I sincerely believe we are about to see the Lord do what seems to be the impossible, again. Our part is to watch and give thanks, knowing only HE can do these things – we can’t.

There are relationships and the enmities between people that seem hopeless and broken, and I believe that they will start to turn and mend. Thank Him for every single one you hear about, whether it is at your house or somewhere else. The financial situations that seem doomed to worsen will see a trickle of help turn into a stream … People are going to listen and be touched by Him when you share His love and tell them about the Jesus you know, personally and intimately.

I want to be clear, I am not talking about some huge explosive revival, I am talking about a groundswell that starts small and builds over time. Breakthroughs are upon us, and our job is to thank Him for every single little tiny change and keep on thanking Him. Our God loves a grateful people so we need to be alert and thank Him, for everything no matter how small it seems. We need to thank Him for Who He is and what He is doing.  We need to stay alert and pray we will be awake and aware to see every little detail coming to pass.He’s looking for a groundswell of thanksgiving … even for the tiniest things, that seem almost insignificant.

Now, more than ever, we are to be grateful to be one of those tiny little grains of sand – one of those billions of unnamed stars. These are the days of the nobodies and God has been waiting for you and I to step up to the plate. We don’t have to be perfect, or gifted, JUST WILLING. The big rock stars of baseball or cricket have come and gone, and it’s just us now, the tail end … the guys who are lucky if they can see the ball, let alone hit it! 

We may well be a people with not a lot of talent, but we know that Jesus is so big, He can break 5 loaves and 2 fishes and feed thousands. He can multiply anything. He has been breaking our lives and our hearts so He can begin this multiplication process. Give the mess that is in your little life to Him and start thanking Him for every detail that changes, no matter how small.

God spoke to Abraham and He told him that WE, you and I, are the answer to his prayers for a child. And no I have not lost my tiny mind! He told that man that His descendants would be like the stars in the sky …and Abraham did something amazing, he believed God. Something spiritually is turning that will not turn back again and we need to be alert and thank Him for everything He is doing. Every bit of hopeful news, every smile from someone who has forgotten how to smile. Every teeny tiny prayer that seemed to fall to the ground dead, is going to be resurrected. Watch and see what He will do with your little life.

Jesus broke bread the night before He was betrayed and gave thanks. We are that bread and He has been breaking us. As a result now we know that we cannot do anything without Him, and we’ve learnt, from experience, that we don’t want to, either. Now we can watch as He takes the broken crumbs of our lives and feeds the people around us. Just keep thanking Him for every single detail you see that changes. No matter how small –  we are going to start looking for the good. Stars that are without number … fill the sky. Grains of sand that cannot be counted make up the seashore. 

We are the nameless, faceless ones, who only care that people remember HIS NAME, not ours. Bless you. 🙌 👋

P 2435 You don’t have to be clever to serve Jesus.

/ DVH

1 Corinthians 2:4&5, 9&10TPT “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power… … However, as it is written:“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— these are things God has prepared for those who love Him—these are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit.”

Some people say that the Apostle Paul had a really big brain — they say that about Einstein too. Apparently Einstein’s brain was 15% bigger in some areas than ours is. But in these scriptures above, Paul carefully explains that it is NOT his brain that comes up with the stuff he wrote! Those words came from the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and wisdom. And then Paul said something truly amazing – his words were a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. The Holy Spirit’s words are extraordinarily powerful. They heal, release, and open spiritually blind eyes, instantly.

The bible is not just there to comfort our soul when we are sad, mad or under the weather – the bible is a spiritual thermometer and diagnostician. The next time you read it, highlight the bits that really annoy you or puzzle you … The comforting stuff is great, but if we read just to gain comfort we will not grow.

There are often times when the way to get past something awful that you feel stuck in, is to persevere, and keep on reading the bible. Then go find something you don’t like, and you don’t want to do, and then go and do what it says. If you want a breakthrough this will give you one. This book can teach us about our real selves … if we let it. Human beings don’t just hide from others, we hide from God — and ourselves. Sometimes, WE don’t want to know what we don’t know!

The bible shows us our errors and missteps, as well as comforting us with God’s everlasting eternal unshakeable love – not just NICE thoughts that tickle our ears. Our God’s love is passionately fierce – He will not turn a blind eye to something that damages or is destroying His children … … even if they choose it.

We must be careful about what we let our faith REST ON. Seriously, keep that thought in the forefront of your mind as you read His book. We cannot rest our faith on what someone else said. We need to rest it on what the Lord says to us, personally. This is why it is good to read until the Lord speaks to your heart. Anybody can take 3 different scriptures and make them say 200 different things. Just read this blog every day, I take a stab at that with what I write all the time! 😂 

You and I need the Holy Spirit’s personal attention in our own personal lives, hearts and minds, so He can apply what we read into our own situations. Principles are great, but principles are an overriding umbrella, an impersonal thought, that can and will shelter you and I. But we need our own little Holy Spirit-given raincoat and wellies when we are struggling along against the wind and rain. We need to hear from Him, for ourselves. 

Remember what Jesus said: “Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” The bible is our daily bread – our daily bread is not toast, coffee or weeties! It’s His word. Every single day we need a personal glimpse into His glory, to keep our faith alive and vibrant. We cannot do that without the Holy Spirit’s input. What we read when we read what Paul, or Peter, or John wrote, is the insight and wisdom they got from day to day as they too studied and thought about the bible as they knew it. 

We can only read the Epistles etc. with the Holy Spirit’s help – otherwise some concepts seem old-fashioned and irrelevant. The Holy Spirit knows what will settle our hearts when we are disturbed or afraid. We cannot possibly imagine what God will say … yet, when He speaks, that changes everything. He even speaks to little children who are not apparently, fully developed yet! But little children can come up with the most profound things. I think that’s because their childish faith doesn’t put what they know up against what He said!

Our wonderful heavenly Father has so much more He wants to give us. We must never leave His table, the one He has prepared for us in the presence of our enemies, feeling hungry or in despair. Stay there until you are full! Those times are the exact time to put aside what this world has said about our own ability to study or think, and go on to pick up the love, advice, comfort and wisdom of the One Who was here before this world began. It takes listening obedience to serve Jesus, not just a clever mind. Bye. 👋🏻

P 2362 Practical issues – Walking like Jesus …

/ DVH

The bible uses both practical and pictorial language, so it can be hard to go beyond the metaphorical and find the practical outworking. But this is why we are exhorted to study the bible. Today we are looking at: “Walk in the light as He is in the light.” 1 John 1:7.


When I’m reading the bible I say out loud … ‘What the heck does that mean??’ Or … here’s one of my favourites … “Why is that there?!” Let’s be clear, there is no audible voice from heaven that explains stuff like that to me, but often another verse pops into my head, and when I take the time to look it up, I’ve found that now I’m looking at everything from a totally different angle.

If we want to take what the Lord says out of the theory area, where we nod and agree, and go on to to change our ways with His help, then we will need to get further wisdom. That’s where the study to be an approved workman part comes in. You study so you can do what it says – that’s what workmen do! Here’s today’s 2nd verse. Jesus says this same thing quite a bit, and it varies each time – so when you study the subject of Jesus being light you will start to see the many-sided wisdom of God. 

In the Passion Translation: John 8:12  it says: “Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows Me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.” So when I read that I think:  ‘I have kind of stumbled over whatever I am meant to DO about this verse.’  So I repent, on the spot. It’s obviously me with the problem and a lack of interest, or …I’ve somehow wandered away from walking with Him be-cau-se . … ‘HE provides plenty of light to walk in …!’ If we take the scripture as a fixed point it changes the way we read it – make the bible your absolute!

At this point I need to say that I am rarely interested in yesterday’s bread –  I love fresh bread. And I want fresh bread from His word every single day. So I go after it. I may chew on stuff all day waiting for His light to illuminate me – but He and I know that I want to change, to be transformed – so I am more than willing to renew my mind and change my behaviour, with His help. The bible promises us daily bread, we just gotta ask for it. (Check out the Lord’s prayer.)

Here’s some of the stuff I realised while I was doing that about these two verses. Following Jesus means I am walking in the same light He had. He thought studying the bible (the Torah) was important. The Lord Jesus always had way more light than everyone around Him. I can see that because, when He talked about scriptures He didn’t just see instructions – He saw His Father’s heart and revealed it.  So here’s another great question to ask the Holy Spirit when reading the bible. ‘What do you want to say to ME, Lord?’  “What do you want to show me about my Father’s heart toward me and others?’ 

I know that our Father wants to protect us from stumbling. It says so over and over again in the book. In all those verses about walking, living, and staying in the light He is showing me a way I can live underneath that protection. There is more than I will ever need in His light, so, if I follow Jesus, consciously – not in a haphazard way, I am choosing to stay in His light. This means I need to hone my focus and let what Jesus already said be a light to me, a lamp underneath my feet. I need to fix my attention on it by walking it out.

If I don’t know what to do or say in a given situation I need to stop and ask Him: ‘What would YOU do Lord?’  I must put aside my own natural wisdom and the conventional wisdom of our day, and seek His kingdom first. I am asking the Lord for His light –  so His wisdom probably may not appeal to me.  EG: I would much rather have somebody else come to me and ask for forgiveness, than I would like going to you and asking for yours! That attitude means that Jesus and I are not on the same page, and we need to be if I am to walk in the light AS He is the light! Somebody is standing in the wrong spot – and it isn’t Jesus!  

However! I also know a great short-cut!! Ask yourself: “Is this LOVE? Am I hoping all things, believing all things, being patient and kind etc?” So long as I don’t fudge my answer to make ME feel good – this short cut works. Love doesn’t ask what is that other guy doing – instead it asks what the heck am I doing?? And it doesn’t excuse itself either – it doesn’t have to my ‘self’ knows that I have a Saviour.

When I think like this world does I am leaving HIS light behind and wandering off into the dark imaginings of my own mind. BUT …!!! Because I have His book, I don’t have to lack LIGHT – I just have to be humble enough to ask for His help and ACT on what He says. 👋🏻

P 2341 His Word needs to become flesh IN US.

/ DVH

’“But the hope of God’s kingdom kept spreading and multiplying everywhere!” Acts 12:24 TPT. That hope kept spreading everywhere back then, after the Holy Spirit came… because God’s people wouldn’t shut up! We need to look deeply at the effect the Holy Spirit had on ordinary human beings …  They were so confident in WHO they had met, that they were not afraid of death.  

In other words, they were suddenly fearless. We can analyse these words up one hill and down the other, but the truth IS, these people met SomeOne so extraordinary He utterly changed them, not by His doctrine, but by Who He was! What Christ had taught them came alive in their hearts. In those moments everything Jesus said to them was instantly digested and made part of them. It became flesh.

Being born again takes what God said in His book and makes it into a living word, in our lives. It stops being what we have to DO and becomes who we ARE! We simply must not settle for how many hands are raised when there is a call to come and meet Jesus! He is beyond extraordinary, and if meeting Him does not utterly change our POV on this life and the next … then we didn’t meet Him yet, we just heard about Him. 

That is not a bad beginning place BTW, we simply need to understand that the Holy Spirit did more than change mindsets – He totally changed people’s hearts, their inner lives. I exhort you strongly, don’t settle for the smaller portion! Meeting the risen Christ is meant to have an irreversible impact – He is to be sought because meeting Him changes our view of the world around us and Who He is.

The kind of wishy-washy half-hearted faith many of us settle for, is a pale shadow of really knowing Him. With Jesus there is always more – more to love, more to learn about, more to worship. Christianity is not a passive  belief. It demands everything. But He gave us His all too – without hesitation – that’s what keeps us going!

I think that many people are not living a life worthy of what He did for us, because they have not met the Man Who is God in human form. If this is how you feel, then I strongly urge you to study the gospels over and over again. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you see beyond the words and doctrines of this world, and pray for an ever increasing revelation of Who HE IS. (Read the bits in red!) That means read what Jesus Christ Himself SAID. 

Sometimes we get way too clever and so we stop listening with the heart of a child, and listen with our heads instead. One word of heart revelation is worth a billion words of clever ploys and well-written words. WE MUST SEE HIM FOR WHO HE IS, FOR OURSELVES! His Word needs to BECOME ‘flesh’ for all of us. Our brains cannot possibly comprehend just Who we are dealing with. We need that place inside us that has been dead in sin all our lives to come alive. The Holy Spirit will do that for us. First He captures our attention then He captures our hearts. He came to lead us into greater things.

I love His book because it reveals Him to me. That kind of mind-blowing view of Who He is, is my daily bread! If what I believe elevates me and what I think I know, if it elevates knowledge over truth … then I’ve missed His whole message. Jesus Christ did not come here so we could be clever or famous – HE CAME TO EARTH TO REVEAL GOD’S HEART OF LOVE TO MANKIND. He did not come just to teach us the new covenant – He WAS that covenant in human flesh. If you want to know about how much God loves you, look at Christ.

Sadly we cannot spread abroad a HOPE we do not have! We’ve been doing that for 2,000 + years and we have gotten nowhere. Let the Holy Spirit take your hand and let Him lead you into a deeper, wider, more intimate place where all you can see is how beautiful Jesus is. How generous He is, how precious He is, how much we need Him. We need to comprehend what mankind has been given before we try to give it away. We are to be His living illustrations.

However, don’t stop reaching out to others with what you know already, and don’t stop going after knowing the One Who loved YOU more than life itself.  I bless us all with fresh revelation of Who He truly is, and what He did for all of us. AMEN. 🙏

P 2182 On the matter of active faith.

/ DVH

Over the years I’ve learnt that if I want to love others the way Jesus loved them – then I’m going to need a whole lot more faith than I currently have! 😶 “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God…” Romans 10:17. If I don’t actually live my life listening to, and acting on what He says – it is no wonder when my faith is wobbly and weak. Our faith is extremely valuable to the Lord, everything Jesus talked about required us to use our faith. Galatians 5:6b “… all that matters now is living in the faith that works and expresses itself through love.”

It seems to me that we need to stop thinking that – talking about faith, writing about faith, and singing about faith is the same as living by faith. We must start living out our faith every day, so we can do those great exploits Jesus talked about. I agree with James: “faith without works is dead.” If we say we have faith and we have nothing more to show for it than the fact that we read the bible today, and we prayed, or we fasted, plus we went to church last Sunday – our faith is mostly inactive. Yeah I know, that’s not a great thought eh?

For years I thought doing the above stuff every day was enough. I literally had two lives. One was for Jesus – and I did my duty to Him as best I could, but I felt guilty if I forgot … Then I did what I wanted to and hoped He would bless it. In effect I expected God to join in with my life –  I had no clue that I was supposed to join in WITH HIS! Of course I prayed every day and told the Lord I was happy to do what He wanted me to do … but when I had no leading to do much of anything – I had to remain satisfied with doing whatever came up. 

After all, I had kids and a home that kept me busy. Friendships to maintain, family to care for. You know things like reading the bible, praying etc. are great, but truly using our faith is an active thing – not just a good habit! It is supposed to change our daily lives. This new life we lead is meant to touch other people, as well as reveal our hearts to us. And we will need to use our faith to do both. So we will have to face our fears. Using my faith is the very best way I know to find out what I’m afraid of and I learn about who I really am – inside. And it all comes from doing that thing I don’t really want to do! 

Of course we need faith to even read the bible, but we can come away from that reading as empty as we went into it! Jesus said: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” To get that kind of feed-your-spirit-bread/word every single morning takes faith … as well as commitment. But ‘hearing without doing’ means a few minutes later we can forget what we just read! Reading the bible is an active thing – we read looking to change our behaviour with His help and use our faith to do things differently.

Look at these two verses as an example: “wives respect, revere, honour your husbands …” or … “husbands, live with your wife the way you know is right. Respect her because she is a woman…In this way, you will not stop God from doing what you ask Him to do. “ 1 Peter 3:7. Unless each married person applies this scripture personally, spouses can end up fighting. BTW did you see that fighting with your spouse hinders your prayers??

There are times when I do not agree with my hubby and he does not agree with me – but I listen to the Holy Spirit, and do whatever I can to end the disagreement. “Whatever you do work at it with all your heart as though you are doing it for the Lord.” Colossians 3:23. I surrender for Jesus’ sake and I let the Lord fight for me. The bible is meant to be the substance of who we are, not just knowledge we agree with. This means I sincerely make up with my husband because I love Jesus – not because I particularly like the process of humbling myself. Especially if I happen to know hubby is wrong. 😂 I definitely will die daily because I won’t want to do it! And it gives me the pip that hubby is often the first one to apologise!!

Our God reveals His word fresh every single day to release His hope into our hearts, even if we already know what it says. His mercy is new every morning because HE is faithful. Me? Not so much!  If we don’t eat food regularly, we will fall down. If we don’t EAT in the spirit we will have no power. No power or faith to fight the enemy when he sends a neighbour to complain at us, or the school rings and says little Johnnie is failing at maths. We need His power daily to overcome the ordinary irritating things that niggle at our lives. This life in Him, is not a little dab will do ya thing. It is a way of life. 

There is a list of people in Hebrews 11 who used their faith: Verse 13 “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” Did you get that? They didn’t ever SEE the answers to the things they prayed for in this life? Those things that God promised them! Now that’s what faith really looks like.

This the way Christ lived. He died knowing that only the Holy Spirit could bring Him out of that grave. Jesus had to leave this life so the promised Holy Spirit would come to all of us. That would have been so hard for the Lord. Faith shapes us into His likeness. Without it ‘we cannot please God.’ (Hebrews 11) “We must wear faith and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet.” 1 Thessalonians 5:8b. Because faith protects our hearts. 👋🏻