Calvary

P 2204 We all need our brains scrubbed sometimes.

/ DVH

Sometimes reading another version of the bible just kind of blows your mind. Here’s something fantastic that will, hopefully, make your day – from verse 4 of the 23rd Psalm TPT. “Even when Your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for You already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of Your love takes away my fear. I’ll never be lonely, for You are near.”

Oh! The clarity of what this translation says. It makes me fall in love with Jesus all over again! It’s like all my Christian life I’ve seen Him through this gorgeous multicoloured rainbow, and suddenly another new colour flashes into view. Wow! 🤯 Sometimes I just wanna sit down and make camp around a new concept like: 

“…fear will never conquer me, for YOU already have…” When I read that verse I realise how much more I need to be conquered by His love. Please do it Lord! Amen.

That’s what I mean when I go on and on about asking Him to help us read the bible. Otherwise we can easily go into the whole – ‘yeah yeah, I got that part – what’s next?’ … and miss the blessing and the food from our daily bread. Praise the Lord for people who have taken the time to unwrap the Word for us in so many great bible versions. Because some days unwrapping what He is saying to me, personally, can be hard work!

For a little while, just imagine living in a place where fear does not grab you by the throat. The awful fear of losing loved-ones. Fear of illness. Fear of losing our home, job, or even our own lives. Man, I SO want and need to live in the place where Christ has conquered me with His love, so perfectly, that fear can’t touch me. Knowing Christ, is our invitation into places we’ve never even dreamed about – so let’s not just settle for the promises – let’s go after HIM. 

The fact that Jesus Christ came to earth to save us, is a fantastic thing to think about, every single day. And of course, as we approach Easter, our thoughts turn to Calvary and that incredible sacrifice that was made there. Plus the Lord personally proved – Himself – once and for all, that death is never to be feared. What Christ did then opened the flood-gates of heaven. It would be an incredible shame if we rushed in to just grab the diamonds, gold and pearls … and missed Him!  I’ve met so many people whose focus is on gaining this world’s riches – health, happiness, praying troubles away, the sort of fairy-tale stuff that kids read when they were little. Happy. Ever. After.

There are also some well meaning, loving folks, who can’t wait to tell you you shouldn’t be sick, and so obviously your faith is too small! And they want to pray for you. If you stay sick, then it seems that you have some sin or other in your life and that’s not their fault. I call that kind of thinking shallow theology. My faith is big enough to make room for the stuff that makes no sense to me …yet. I totally believe in healing. I’ve laid these liver-spotted hands on other people and they got well. But I also know that the Lord Jesus said … “In this world you will have trouble…” And sometimes the greatest gift we can give Christ in return for all He did for us, is to love Him passionately, no matter what is going on in our lives.

Jesus Christ came to earth to conquer mankind with His love. Now there’s a headline! Just stop and think on that for a moment. 🧐 He came here and lived like us, to conquer you and I with the kind of love that we have only ever dreamt about. And it’s free. He lived His life as a human being to show us we can live this life we have here and now, and win. He was tired, cold, sad, had nowhere to sleep, skipped meals, and was reviled and rejected by the very people He came to reach. Maybe we need to remember that, the next time we try to tell Old Aunt Minnie the story of the greatest love of all … and she keeps interrupting you to talk about what she did when she was a girl! Please don’t give up on Aunt Minnie!!

This verse from the 23rd Psalm reminds me that I need to concentrate even more on being conquered by His love – daily. It’s a priority. “I will always need a fresh revelation of your love Lord.” Amen.  👋🏻

P 2197 Sometimes my biggest enemy is ME!

/ DVH

It’s really easy to blame satan for this and that thing that happened to us, he makes a great scapegoat when I’m too lazy to do stuff for myself or I want to make excuses. I’m not talking about feeling sorry for the devil – forget that! What a waste of time. So what do I mean by what I said? There is an old saying; ‘the devil made me do it’ – well that excuse is wearing a bit thin when it comes to Christianity. 

The reality is that human beings make poor choices – read the book. What the bible teaches us is the reality! You and I are who we are in our worst moments … so let’s thank God for Calvary. The devil can’t MAKE US DO anything anymore – now we have a choice. SomeOne died to give us the victorious power to make those choices. Because of Jesus Christ and what He did, we have another option, we can live in another kingdom now. So, LET’S LIVE THERE.

The problem seems to me to be that we wanna live in that kingdom AFTER we die – but for here and now, we just wanna paddle about in the mud and play in the stuff that the enemy has spread around here on earth. Pigs play in mud, not people – especially not our King’s Kids! And compromise is a deadly enemy of the truth. Compromise takes our eyes away from what we can do here and now – and renders us useless in this world spiritually speaking. satan is overjoyed to distract us from our real purpose until we are dead. And getting DEAD is something human beings have very little control over.

It is also incredibly useful to remember that participating in sin makes us deaf, and it takes our God-given sight away. So-o-o-o … when we can’t hear or see … then our personal obedience guidance system is broken, and we did it to ourselves. It means we need a spiritual check-up. My advice is to pick up the bible and start reading – God Himself will speak to us as we read – we need our faith-bank in Him built up to full. Personally I think if we do not esteem and decide to participate in what we have been given by Him, we will end up living in the shadows of this life. Always striving for something we can’t find, and never being satisfied and content with what we actually have. We’ll eventually become pale replicas of the person-we-could-have-been. Imagine how much bigger we can be, when we simply walk with Him, minute by minute, day by day. 

Let’s look at something that I think illustrates my point. There are over 2.13 million species on this planet. Now how do you think they got their names? They didn’t come with name tags! The bible says Adam did it … ‘so God created all the animals and the birds and He brought them to Adam to see what he will call them and “whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”’(Gen. 2.19) I’ll bet that was a long, day, week, month, year! Maybe Adam actually had the use of 100% of his brain … instead of our mingy little 11%. We’ve been restored to a place higher than Adam’s place. We live in total fellowship with the God of the universe. He doesn’t have to visit us, anymore. We are now His temple!

However, that happened to Adam before he and Eve chose control and a snack, over God’s will. Humanity lost more than living in a fabulous garden! We lost the beginnings of a relationship that was normal, natural and part of Adam’s daily life. However, mankind’s total restoration from sin was incredibly expensive. Because of Christ and what He did for us, now, we have the privilege of spreading love, life and joy around everywhere we go instead of doing the everyday humdrum stuff that drives us all crazy. Hey! Your shadow just might heal the sick!! 

Human beings can contribute to this world in ways we have never even thought about. Forget going into space. We know the Maker of heaven and earth – the One Who made those stars.  And we’ve been chosen to carry His Presence into a world that has no purpose … except for a self-aggrandising one. We can introduce others to the meaning of life. What an honour. Count me in Lord!

My bones creak some days, and my ankles swell up from time to time, plus I lack energy, and I don’t always sleep well at night … BUT – I know that I carry Jesus’ Presence with me everywhere I go! So do you. It’s a choice. Unlike the old Testament, we don’t have to ‘blow smoke’ to hide ourselves so we can talk to God, and hopefully He will talk to us. Those days are gone! He wants to be in every part of our daily lives.

Sin is no longer a problem because now, we have an Advocate … a King’s Counsel, for the plaintiff, standing right beside the throne. Jesus Christ speaks PEOPLE. All He has to do is to point to His scars and we are completely restored. Ask yourself today, are you your own worst enemy? Nothing can keep us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus … nothing but our own choices. 👋🏻

P 2192 Activating my own faith.

/ DVH

The amazing thing about this new life of ours is that God Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, does all the work in our hearts as we yield to His will, His way. We must deliberately choose to learn to live co-operatively with Him. Disobedience drove mankind away from the Garden in the first place, but our obedience – our “yes” … our own personal choices – takes us into the kind of relationship Jesus Himself had with His Heavenly Father. And our loving Father heals us over and over again, through the choices we make. Our faith, expressed by our personal works/actions done in faith, opens heaven’s doors toward us. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” James 5:16.

When I choose to deny myself for His sake, I am putting to death my old way of thinking, in favour of something God Himself said in the bible. At the same time this means I am deliberately yielding to the Holy Spirit, believing that He knows what is best for me, better than I know it for myself. I’ve learnt that my first response may not always be my best response… BUT I can trust what the Lord has said in the book – because He wrote it down. It’s in black and white, with some red thrown in!

I used to read a lot of other books to help me understand what the bible said, but I discovered that eventually other people’s interpretations actually coloured my POV. It meant I kept seeing verses, passages, themes through that particular teacher’s eyes. In the end, I stopped reading other books – because I wanted to know what He wanted to say to ME – right here, right now! What He says to someone else may not be what He wants to say to me. It is good to read testimonies about other people’s faith etc. and the revelations that the Lord has given them, but it is not good to substitute reading about their faith, to digging in and finding your own.

Meanwhile, I totally think we’ve beaten that verse in Acts: “God is no respecter of persons.” (10:28) almost to death! We’ve developed a tendency to major on, and quote from a few verses that support our own POV. In doing this we’ve reduced 66 books in the bible, to the size of a brochure! That verse in Acts is talking about humanity’s salvation – not God dividing up His love fairly! That is not something we should even begin to think about. 

I love to pray that the Lord will bless our pastors, because I know that they devote themselves to listening to God, for us. But nobody expects to eat just one meal a week! It will take me using my own personal faith learning to listen for myself – to grow. And at the same time I am strengthening my inner spirit man. The Body of Christ worldwide is struggling over the issue of faith – our faith is being tested everywhere we look. We all need to know that the God we love and serve wants to talk to each one of us, daily. He knows our names and He knows what we are going through and He deeply cares about each and everyone of our trials and tribulations.

However, unfortunately, most of the time we are not digesting what we read. Reading is not digestion. We must “taste and see that the Lord is good,” for ourselves, personally. When God Himself helps us change our stinky attitudes, our faith grows – we activate our own faith. If I am to … continually forgive others …  I can’t just say: “That doesn’t apply to me, I’m not mad at anyone.”  Instead I have to go to the King and ask Him – “Holy Spirit, who am I mad at?” Reading this way is a proactive process. We will have to put down passive agreementto pick up the shield of faith. We desperately need to look for ways to act on our faith in our ordinary everyday lives and consider how what we’ve read today, applies to us! 

It is way too easy to hinge our relationship with Him on perceived answers to our prayers – or even how we feel. Our God is incredibly gracious and generous to His kids. However, answers to our prayers are not signs of His favour. His favour was demonstrated, once and for all, at Calvary! When you or I say ‘I can’t change’ or even:  ‘they won’t ever change’ – you may as well say the sky is green! When we think like that we are scrunching up our faith and throwing it in the rubbish bin. Our God can do anything. That is an established fact. Just because He hasn’t done anything so far, that doesn’t mean He won’t. Timing is everything to Him.

It works like this: we ask for His Grace and help, then we purpose in our hearts to change our behaviour, and then we go ahead and step out in faith changing our behaviour. Activate your own faith – listen, apply, and DO.👋🏻

P 2149 We just gotta learn how to love like this….

/ DVH

… SO … I suggest we make love our aim, and daily pray for the Lord to give us His strength to live that way, because His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses. Plus we can use all the help we can get! The other day I was watching a non-Christian fictional story about a surfing manufacturer’s beginnings. I shan’t bother you with the plot, except it was set somewhere that hubby and I have been to, and we’ve seen those particular waves. Sooo cool and incredibly beautiful – just like jade jelly. 😊 

Anyhoo, back to the film. There were these two brothers who loved each other deeply … it took half the film to establish that fact. And one of them is out surfing in a surfing competition and the other is watching in the crowd on the beach. Man that surf is so-oo bad … it is like … out there!!  And the surfing brother gets dumped by this massive wave, and he does not come up. He is drowning. 

Instantly his older brother starts running. He strips off his outer clothes and he leaps into the incredibly dangerous surf to go and rescue his brother. A crowd of people are watching the surfers and someone yells at him -“What do you think you are doing man? You’ll die too. That’s nuts!” The older brother hits the water and yells back: “THAT’S MY BROTHER OUT THERE!”  …  … I cried! That whole scene hit me right in the spirit;  because that’s what God Himself did for all of us. Ya might want to stop and thank Him for it.

Meanwhile, back to the surfing saga, the older brother saved his sibling, of course … because it was fictional! And I started to think that it was a shame that lately, the only illustration of the power, strength and steadfastness of Love, the way God sees it, had to be fictional. Why are Christians settling for jovial, pleasant and nice, when there is more? One of the most deadly things we can do to our faith is to be comfortable and safe, and yet we all strive for that end. 🤔  

Lately I’ve been watching the rocks cry out in some of the story lines that have come up in whatever I’m reading or watching. I’ve come to the conclusion that this world’s rocks are now shouting at the top of their lungs, because we are very bad at communicating what love and faith look like to the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet! We are often all talk and no action. And so the Lord has to use the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet to teach and inspire US. Have we forgotten the story of the Good Samaritan already?? You know, Jews looked down on Samaritans, I think that’s why the Lord Jesus picked them for an illustration! Sadly, when we make Christian movies, we don’t seem to be able to produce stuff with strong, pithy story lines, so we end up looking weak, soft, soppy and wobbly. 

More’s the pity. We have the greatest story of all, and it’s true. As we both know, Calvary’s story is not about Jesus looking like some kind of a softie! Christ was a strong powerful man that strode into that temple with only a whip in His hands and scared the greed and avarice right out of those money lenders and closed down their miserable businesses. It was a real man who faced that cross, and bore all that pain, and still loved the people who did it to Him! We simply must stop thinking of the Lord Jesus as a nice man with blonde hair and blue eyes in an oversized nightie. He held His own with fishermen. Meanwhile I don’t know too many people who could have kept up with His schedule for three and a half years!

Back to my point! That surfing movie I watched illustrates the kind of love the Lord Jesus is looking for from us. The kind of love that would run unreservedly into danger, without thought, because our brother or sister in Christ is in danger. We just gotta learn to love each other like that. That’s the place where your problem becomes my problem – where I care about your soul, and your life, more than my own safety and reputation. We won’t be able to keep people out of our churches when we love like that. 

John 15:12-13. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 13:34&35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

Can you see that the way we love each another is the very best kind of advertising – ever! We cannot pretend this kind of love because it is HIS KIND OF LOVE. And we can’t skip over the process, either. Father God has been so generous to His family. Most of us have interesting  (??) immediate earthly family members we can practice on. Because if we can’t love our families of origin then the church family is in big trouble.

And yes, I know personally from my own experience, that most of us have origin family stories that would blow anyone’s mind. Moving on… we must always remember that He’s the God of the impossible. He simply loo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ves 💕 doing stuff we think He can’t do. 💕 Just to prove us wrong … teehee. 🤣 Let’s start each new day asking Him to be strong in us in the area of loving, because we are all weak there. 👋🏻

‘Lord, please give us all Your kind of love. A love that is willing to die for our brothers and sisters. We are not good at Your kind of love Lord and we need Your help, thank you. Amen.