Caring

P 2511 Keep an eye on your thinking.

/ DVH

Yes, I know, that title sounds dumb! However, our thoughts are actually far more powerful than we realise. They are the tugboats, or anchors leading to stuff that can sink, or drag our little ships off course. Things may seem harmless in our minds, but eventually big thoughts demand expression. Often we think about how angry we are, before we jump into telling the other person that we are mad at them. 

Perhaps we want to explain our POV to someone, and we are hoping that they will finally understand us. Fat chance. If you find yourself thinking up your own reply before the other person has finished explaining their POV – you’ve fallen down a big hole and stopped listening. Plus you may even become defensive. A peaceful mind is a huge blessing and Jesus gave us His peace.  His peace is part of our inheritance! It is ours by faith. It isn’t just a matter of somehow controlling our emotions, it is about cultivating our God-given ability to keep our minds focussed on His kingdom. We need to realise our responses are still our choices – even the ones that are made on the spot.

The bible says this: “As a man thinks, so shall he be.”Proverbs 23:7. Our own mindsets are gateways to either the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of darkness. Murder, coveting, stealing, adultery etc. etc. all happen in a person’s thoughts, long before they ever commit the crime. People do appalling things, and we are bombarded and saturated by their ugly actions even in social media. Personally, I agree with the bible, we can’t just get rid of grumpy nasty thoughts, we have to choose to replace them with better ones.(See 2 Corinthians 10:5.)

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”Philippians 4:8. Replacing thoughts with things that don’t lead you off a cliff, is a skill. You can learn it. I am currently learning from the Holy Spirit to ask Him – “What do You want me to understand about what just happened?” He has shown me it is easier to let your mind dwell on kingdom things when you find the good. Often what is good about these potentially explosive situations is this — I can learn something about my own inner responses that I didn’t know. Or I realise my frustration is coming from powerlessness and I yield to Him. He’s not powerless!

Here are some other things I’ve found useful. Refuse to watch things on TV that affect you. Some things on TV give me an opportunity to get sooooo mad, and for me the news is one of them. Personally, I think the news is biased and shaded to increase its appeal. It is also often so sensationalised it gives us an opportunity to become angry at other nameless strangers and their behaviour. 

It is extremely difficult to think loving caring thoughts toward people who deliberately hurt others! If you’ve ever found yourself shouting at the TV you will understand what I mean. It is far more helpful to pray for the people who are involved. Including the perpetrator.  Governing our thoughts is part of the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our lives. “And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:12-13.

Finding the good can become a way of thinking. Immediately you feel annoyance rising, that is a cue to submit yourself to the Lord. The Holy Spirit loves to help us obey the Word of God, that is why He is here! Even though this world often thinks and behaves badly, our lives do not have to be about these things that appear in front of our eyes every single day. Instead our focus can be fixed on thanking Him for helping us. He will share with us what He sees, so we can pray. Plus we can ask Him how we can be part of releasing His answers into this world. 

Our world is overwhelmed by sorrow, and obsessed with wickedness, and man’s idea of righteous indignation. We don’t have to subscribe to, or ingest that stuff to pray about it. Sometimes my prayers are really brief. “Dear Jesus please redeem that situation, thank You,” Amen.

“But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever]. [That is] because the mind of the flesh [with its carnal thoughts and purposes] is hostile to God, for it does not submit itself to God’s Law; indeed it cannot.” Romans 8:6. This verse is also part of our answer. If we expect mankind to rise up into higher attitudes and thoughts, without being changed. That is like expecting a heatwave in the middle of a snowstorm. It’s a great idea but it is not gunna happen! 

WE are His catalysts for good in this world. As His representatives it is imperative we keep our eyes on what we are idly thinking about. I repent all the time. I want to continually walk with the One Who loves the sinner, even though He hates the sin. Bye for now, 👋🏻.

P 2438 Please don’t give in to despair …

/ DVH

… just like the tide, money is designed by God, to flow in… and out. Many people in these difficult days are struggling with providing their family with ordinary things …they are trying to make sure that they have food, shelter, and they can pay their bills. Money has become a huge scary monster, gobbling everything in its path. But our God is God, IN season and OUT. We are in a difficult ‘out’ season right now, and so this means we are all in a testing time. Father God is watching over us to see how we prioritise our funds.

Today I want to talk about how easy it is to pull back away from giving when times are tough.  However, all kinds of giving is actually our mandate. Our God gave – so we, His followers give! Because we are continually and evidentially being transformed by Christ, we are free of material obsessions, so now we can freely give away all kinds of things, including money! Freedom doesn’t come from feeling free … freedom comes from acting in faith. The feelings come later!

Every single day we have a limitless supply of incredible things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control because there is no law against those things. What does that mean? It means giving goods, money, love, mercy and grace are never out of season. We are always available to do good to others. Personally, I think that our own hearts are revealed to us by the way we give. 

Of course, every parent wants to provide for their own family – that’s normal. But we can sometimes forget about the poorer families in our society who struggle, through no fault of their own, to provide for themselves. The bible exhorts us to look after “widows and orphans.” So much so, James calls these actions pure religion. James 1:27.“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  

So while we are carefully watching out for inappropriate intake from all kinds of sources;  at the same time, we need to make sure we help those people who cannot help themselves. God calls that pure religion – religion that is untarnished by this world’s agendas. I can tell you from personal experience, we cannot out-give God.

At the same time we are also encouraged in the bible to make sure our pastors and their families are cared for. The bible tells us that we should make sure those people who work hard in leading us and feeding us, are highly respected and well-paid. 1 Timothy 5:17-18: “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” 

Whatever you decide to do about your own financial matters is none of my business, but I would exhort everyone to take what the Lord says about finances, seriously. I am writing this today out of my own experiences in this area. Our Heavenly Father cares deeply about our leaders, as well as the helpless and the tormented. Remember Jesus Himself  said in Luke 6:38: “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Sometimes our inability to get free in some areas can be directly related to our ongoing generosity and attitude of gratitude. We can put a ceiling over our own heads by the way we bless, regard and treat others. Hubby and I have found that the more we give, love, kindness, money, things …the more we will live pressed down and running over!  We see our lives together as a channel, and just like the tide, stuff comes in, and it goes out again. We have also purposed that if we don’t got it then we don’t need it because:“my God shall supply all my needs according to His riches in glory..” Philippians 4:19. 

We live with our eyes on the benefits of His tide flowing over us, and we are totally aware that it sometimes goes out … but we know it will come in again.  I love giving of all kinds. Including loving people, giving gifts, money, help, you name it, this giving thing is my all time favourite thing to do! As Malachi 3:10-12 says, this man challenges that giving is a place we can prove God for ourselves. He tells us that we will see the results with our own eyes. 

The marvellous side-effect of all this giving, from my own POV, is that the more I do it, the more cheerful I get about doing it…“and the Lord loves a cheerful giver.”  Win, win!  Father God loves it when we share with each other. People can call that charity, but in my mind and heart it is simply sharing, caring for others. Please don’t despair about your own current financial situation – just keep looking for ways to give, no matter what is going on. The Holy Spirit will show you how. 👋🏻

p 2429 Bless others and be generous.

/ DVH

“Those who live to bless others will have blessings heaped upon them, and the one who pours out his life to pour out blessings will be saturated with favour.” Proverbs 11:25 TPT. Boy that verse paints a great picture, especially at a time like this, when things everywhere are so difficult. You know, when things are tough we can tend to look the other way, and hope any other people who are suffering, will look after themselves. There’s another way to look at tough times. “If it is this hard for US, what must it be like for THEM?” 

I want to be clear right at the very beginning of this blog – generosity is not just about money, or goods etc. or service. Being generous and blessing others, these are heart things. Things we voluntarily do to enrich someone else’s life. This life will never be about who has the most – it is about who loves the most. Jesus told us when we do this stuff we are doing it for HIM. This means anything we do for others is not related to their relationship to us. Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance we care deeply about what happens to strangers. It happens because His love wells up inside us, and we start praying He will show us how to help.

Sometimes living like this means we will text or phone someone just to see how they are doing. It means becoming involved in the day to day issues that many people face, but doing that…without taking over. Blessing others means offering support, and letting the other person know that they are not alone. It also means not storing up our wealth down here on earth, but instead we share it with those who are less fortunate – and Jesus says that is storing it up in heaven!

It also means spending time on our knees, as we hold up someone else’s plight before the throne of God like it is our own issue. God’s love in us does not stand back and wait to see what will happen next. Nor does it wait to see if it is going to be needed. That’s because His love is not afraid of rejection. Jesus was always incredibly generous with His time. He sought to bless others, simply because it is a part of His nature. As we follow Him our goal is to become a people whose generosity increases.  

We need to continually ask Him for His help so we can make practical and caring suggestions. We do that because in times of trouble people have enough to cope with, and thinking up something for you to do to help me, when I’m drowning, is too much work! Plus that isn’t actually helping!! The only thing that kind of action helps is our own conscience. “Well I tried to help them, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do.”  Suddenly it is their fault if they are going down for the third time, because they couldn’t think straight under pressure!

Suffering people need somebody to lift the rubble of this life off them, and stop their proverbial bleeding. Somebody who cares enough to take them into their hearts until that injured party can stand up again. Love looks like something. In things like this it looks like commitment! Generosity, and blessing others looks like something concrete.“Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds.” 1 John 3:18 TPT.

Blessing people is not just restricted to helping those who cannot help themselves or even people who have little or no resources. All kinds of people can be spiritually and emotionally poor. We can open doors for the spiritually hungry by loving them in spirit and action. In prayer, words, and also practical ways. Being generous toward other people is also about the way we view what we actually have. Is it ours … or is it HIS? Do we bless the people we know and like, or will we help anyone? A life poured out for others is a life well-lived. Jesus modelled that.

Sometimes our time given to someone else includes weeping with them. Then we pray. One by one we hand all the things that are concerning that person back to the Lord, without preaching at them, or imparting condemnation. Always remembering that we are there specifically to bless, and we want to bring forth “An apple of gold in a setting of silver” — not a baseball bat and a lump of coal! 

A generous person who blesses others is selfless. Their aim is to leave the other person better off than they found them – closer to God and each other. Our generosity with our time, and care, as well as our finances can utterly transform someone else’s life under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. It opens inner doors. 🤗

P 2425 We can walk like Christ did – using our faith.

/ DVH

“But the love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God’s Word. We can be sure that we’ve truly come to live in intimacy with God, not just by saying, “I am intimate with God,” but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.” 1 John 2:5-6 TPT.

And listen to this verse: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world know(s) us not, because it knew Him not.” 1 John 3:1. This world cannot understand Jesus Christ and His mission because most of them have never ever read the bible! They have no clue there is another way to live. It is up to us to tell them. This is one of our prime objectives – to fill the earth with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea!

Christians have the same problems other people do, but we are no longer alone. However, sometimes our hearts need to be awakened … and in some cases re-awakened, to the incredible power of Love, forgiveness, and transformation that was actually released at Calvary. To access that power we must live this life we’ve been given … His way … instead of living for ourselves. We cannot fit Jesus into the way we were living before we met Him.  Jesus Christ’s death gave us a new way to live this new life, as well as SomeOne to help us do it. Change is always in the air!

We can walk as Jesus did by walking with the same Person He did.The Holy Spirit. Now we’ve been given a brand new heart — the same heart Christ had for His Father’s will to be done. We’ve been remade … from the inside out! The bible says: ’The just shall live by faith…’ That verse means if we are not using our faith to live — we are not fully alive in Christ.

“This new plan I’m making… isn’t going to be written on paper, isn’t going to be chiseled in stone; This time I’m writing out the plan IN THEM, carving it on the lining of their hearts. I’ll be their God, they’ll be My people.They won’t go to school to learn about Me, or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons. They’ll all get to know Me firsthand, the little and the big, the small and the great.They’ll get to know Me by being kindly forgiven, with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.” Hebrews excerpt 8:6-13. MSG (Read Ezekiel 11:9; 36:26.) 

We cannot change our own hearts. Trust me, I’ve tried, and failed … and I’m guessing you have too!! The very minute we think we are getting it right … pride gets us. And if we get it wrong … shame gets us. 😱 This kind of transformation only comes about as we deliberately choose to obey what Jesus said. That stuff in the bible is not a whole lot of suggestions that we can ignore if we find those things too hard! It’s full of instructions to show us what this new way of life looks like – so we can live that way with the Helper in charge. 

The bible is not a magic book, full of spells and incantations that we can quote to make this life easier! It is a description of what the people who know their God and do great exploits look like! That’s why there are also people in it who messed up, big time. The bible has stories about all kinds of people in its pages. By reading it we can see that without Him — without listening to, and deliberately following Jesus — human beings are capable of horrific despicable things.

This new life that we have been given, does not mean we ignore the dumb sinful stuff we have accumulated in our lives over the years. Now we use this time we have been given, to walk out that new way to live – past and present. It means saying NO to some of our favourite things. It will mean repenting in front of people who’ve hurt us – because there are people we’ve barely tolerated. It will mean caring if we have lots, and other people have NONE.

A new heart means a totally different response. It’s not about pretending bad things didn’t happen and hoping that will do – this heart brings with it a Holy Spirit-filled new reaction. It releases HIS GRACE, everywhere. Now our responses to awful circumstances will sometimes even surprise US! Now, we actively remember, Jesus took everyone’s sin away …whether they believe in Him or not. The people who have hurt us have no more power to change than we do unless they follow Him too! After all, we had no power to change before we met Him, and we know we’ve hurt others, then and now.

SomeBody Else paid that debt we owed. He sent us the same Holy Spirit He walked with to help us to walk like He did. He forgave, so we forgive. He prayed for those who hurt Him, and now, we do that too. He was tolerant toward those who lived by religion, and so are we. We have the power to obey Him, because the Holy Spirit will help us.

This means we understand our mission: we are to use the faith God gave us to transform our lives, and enrich the lives of others … by loving, giving and serving. That’s going to mean we will use our faith – all the time! 🥰

P 2359 Psalm 3.

/ DVH

King David’s song when he was forced to flee from Absalom, his own son: “Lord, I have so many enemies, so many who are against me. Listen to how they whisper their slander against me, saying: “Look! He’s hopeless! Even God can’t save him from this!”  Pause in His Presence. But in the depths of my heart I truly know that You, Yahweh, have become my Shield; You take me and surround me with Yourself. Your glory covers me continually. You lift high my head. I have cried out to You, Yahweh, from Your holy presence You send me a Father’s help. Pause in His presence

So now I’ll lie down and sleep like a baby—then I’ll awake in safety, for You surround me with Your glory. Even though ten thousand dark powers prowl around me. I won’t be afraid. Rise up and help me, Yahweh! Come and save me, God! For You will slap them in the face, breaking the power of their words to harm me. FOR THE LORD ALONE IS MY SAVIOUR. What a feast of favour and bliss He gives His people! Pause in His presence.”

Some times the people we love dearly, the ones who are our family, can do the most damage. It doesn’t even have to be what they say – neglect and abandonment can devastate us. The first point I want to make today is that this kind of scenario is not a walk in the park. We can’t just click our heels and the bad bits will go away. These things severely test us and often challenge our belief systems.They test our resolve to follow Him no matter what happens. 

Some things are a choice, but when it comes to family, those things are the places where we find we are most vulnerable. Family is about history. They knew you when. You knew them from birth…. That kind of history tears at our hearts like very little else, and betrayal from those who are meant to protect and care for us brings deep wounds. My advice is this;  start this process with healing, not rebuking or blaming your self. Ask the Lord Himself to be your Father and help you with the places that are bleeding inside from all that betrayal you feel. 

Don’t make excuses for them, and don’t make excuses for you either. It is what it is. David’s son was trying to kill him to take the throne. It wasn’t a whoopsie, or an error of judgment, it was a deliberate act of betrayal for Absalom’s gain. If you read the story, (2 Samuel 13-37 -15-12), Absalom went about whispering in other people’s ears, trying to turn the people’s loyalty away from David. That is not a mistake, it is deliberate SIN. In Absalom’s case it was jealousy and pride. He was beautiful and popular and he knew it and then pride took over.

Sometimes our family member/s are not simply making a mistake, they have joined their allegiances with destruction. They may call it correction, or caring for you, but because you are maintaining some degree of freedom or other they do not have, they will try to stop you anyway they can. Jesus Himself said this about families in Matthew 10:36 –“Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over Me, you don’t deserve Me. If you prefer son or daughter over Me, you don’t deserve Me.”

Look, if Jesus Himself talked about it, then difficulties like this aren’t totally unexpected. My only advice is grieve for your loss and ask the Lord to heal your heart with His Grace and Love, and then, immediately go on to choosing forgiveness. Some family members will turn around, and others will see your forgiving heart as something that can be used against you. Then you will need grace, grace and more grace. Don’t leave home without it, because Grace can do the impossible. 

Don’t just content yourself with forgiving out of some kind of familial loyalty – ask and keep on asking for His Grace to truly forgive. INSIST. Meanwhile difficulties like this can take time to heal, so keep on believing God is helping you – and don’t quit. Take your focus off the family member/s that are persecuting you, and deliberately give those people as an act of your will, to Jesus. And then keep on doing that each time they come up in your mind – eventually Jesus in you will win.

At the same time it is good to go on into blessing these folks until you find you really mean it. It’s all a process and an extremely hard one at that. Your job is to watch over your heart and leave the work to the Holy Spirit. Let’s give thanks that we have a Parent Who never stops loving us, and He is totally devoted to the restoration of families. 👋🏻