Change

P 3478 Participation and dedication.

/ DVH

“Trust in the Lord completely, and do not rely on your own opinions. With all your heart rely on Him to guide you, and He will lead you in every decision you make. Become intimate with Him in whatever you do, and He will lead you wherever you go.” Proverbs 3:5-6 TPT.

Living like this scripture says needs dedication. However, to be honest with you, when the Lord first brought this subject up with me, I kind of avoided it. I thought living like Jesus did was for the special people – the ones who had spiritual gifts and titles. I was just a bod. A nobody. Someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s daughter. Jesus didn’t buy that little story when I kept trotting it out, BTW.

Due to circumstances totally beyond my control – prior to meeting the Lord, I had never had a life of my own that came from my own choices. I literally went from parental oversight to my ex-husband’s plans, and my own preferences didn’t come into it. My personal choices were framed by a threat of rejection, and that influenced me regarding total surrender. I did not want to give up my choices to SomeOne Else.

Inner rebellion grabbed me – plus I didn’t know how to change. I’d go up the front when the pastor called for the congregation to make a deeper commitment to Christ, and I’d cry my eyes out, then go home and  … wait for God to do His bit.  I had no thought that I would have to change my responses, and attitudes with His help. Or that I had to see my old life through His eyes, and TOGETHER we were going to walk away from the things I did, thought and said before.

I asked Him to help me, because at that time, I thought transformation relied upon what He did. Eventually I came to the erroneous conclusion that because He hadn’t changed this or that in my behaviour, then the things I did must not bother Him. I had blinded my eyes to the scripture and by doing so, I lost my hearing as well — mainly because I kept choosing to excuse myself from any participation! God is so kind, I reasoned – I knew He would understand that my life had not prepared me for this. Well, He is kind and He did forgive me  – but the reality was that I stayed in the same place because of those choices. I was not growing, or maturing – instead it was hard work not to go backwards!

Despite my squirrelled up thinking, Father God never rejected me. Not even once. At one stage I walked away thinking He could not possibly want me now, and I hid. I stopped going to church. Well we all know how hiding from God turns out … thank you Gideon and Jonah! However, the Lord, in His incredible Grace came after me. Father God is so much more faithful than we understand — He does not give up on us. He did not give up on me, and He won’t give up on you either!  

I had no comprehension of how faith works, so when the pastor preached that we were to ‘love others’ I automatically thought of someone I didn’t get along with at all, and I tried my best to love them. I did it using my own strength. Of course the Holy Spirit wanted to help me do what God asked of me, but without His help I failed. All that other person had to do was snarl at me, or be mean, and I would immediately run away like a scared rabbit – and then I went back to complaining about them behind their back. I felt imprisoned by other people’s attitudes which did not change – I had no sense of freedom.

The truth is, I didn’t know what was in my own heart – and I wasn’t sure I wanted to either! It takes pressure to show us what is really in our hearts. Our reaction to pressure is not a whoopsie, or a little error, it is a diagnostic tool. It shows us what’s really in there … hiding away amongst the pleasant smiles and happy little testimonies. Things like judgment can hover away in the background influencing the way we think. Plus, when bad things happen it can be far too easy to complain. Complaining seems normal, because we are human. I had no idea, at all, about how faith works and I took no responsibility for my responses to difficulties. Instead I made excuses for myself. James talks about the real issue, our lack of ability to change ourselves: chapter 3, verses 7-16. 

“This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women He made in His image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you? Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts.” 

When we choose to merely tackle the outcome of the things we do, we are not tackling the root of these issues in our lives. The truth is, we don’t have to be afraid or ashamed of owning our faults because Jesus took all of that to the cross. Everything. Not some of it … all of it. Now we need to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness and learn to rely upon Him, and use our faith. Jesus forgave us unreservedly … so we have more than enough Grace to give away, which will flow on, to others.

The only claim to fame you and I have ever had is that we know Jesus Christ personally. The thing is — we aren’t  just meant to ‘know’ Him or say that we ‘follow’ Him. Jesus learned obedience through suffering … and SO DO WE. The same Spirit Who was in the Lord Jesus, is now in us, He wants to  teach us personally, how to follow the Lord, step by step. But that will require participation and dedication. Bye. 👋

P3477 Moving house.

/ DVH

“We cross the threshold of true knowledge when we live in obedient devotion to God. Stubborn know-it-alls will never stop to do this, for they scorn true wisdom and knowledge.” Proverbs 1:7 TPT. The bible says all kinds of incredible things that we can barely take in, let alone remember day by day. That’s cause for a pause, right there! Many people like to focus on the negative – sadly the daily news proves that point. Even the words used by the people writing these articles are evocative and negative, all at the same time. However, God’s kingdom is always GOOD NEWS.

The thing is, we were born again to WALK with God – not just sit down comfortably inside the door! The bible was not written as a list of the things we are no longer allowed to do or participate in – it is about how dear we are to Him, and how important it is to Him that we choose to live like His kids. Father God does not have subtexts like we do – His aim is LOVE. When He asks us to obey Him, it is so that we can live in that love and freely give it away. That place is the safest place on this earth. 

Stuff will still happen, but we need to remember, a yielded soul is a catalyst. That soul changes everything around it.  When I choose to cling to what God Himself says, I am not denying reality — I am yielding to SomeOne, greater than I am. He is a far far greater reality. Almighty God made this world, so He knows our place in it. Let’s trust what He says over what I think, or you think, or even what Brother-I-know-everything thinks. We need to forgive him … and move on.

In years gone by, we used to sing a song called “Come and go with me to my Father’s house.” I loved the idea of living in my Father’s house … but sadly, after I went home, it seemed to me that I was leaving behind the loving fellowship, and prayers, plus power of the Word preached. It seemed like I was leaving that behind until next week. Then one day, it dawned on me that I could go to my Father’s house and STAY. What’s more I could choose to live FROM that Kingdom, not the one all around  me. Jesus came here to usher in the Father’s kingdom. Now I follow Him along the narrow way, and I live by faith, in His kingdom, here and now.  

When God told us to seek His kingdom first, it’s because the things we do are meant to come from our place in His kingdom. We live there now – we never have to leave. What’s more, we take His kingdom with US wherever we go! It all depends on the way we look at what was said, and our personal decisions to obey Him. And the Holy Spirit helps us with that too! I think we’ve been looking at many scriptures from a negative reinforcement point of view – instead of seeing these things as a glorious statement of our new position. 

120 people were transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit came upon them, then they went on to live IN and FROM, God’s Kingdom. Their lives were now framed by it, and it occupied their thoughts, their actions. Everything they did was with God’s kingdom in mind. “Silver and gold have I none but such as I HAVE give I Thee.” (Acts 3:6) Peter was already living in that kingdom – so he could give the things of God’s kingdom away! All disciples now had it, and they took His kingdom wherever they went. Jesus Himself said: ‘…the Kingdom of God is among you.’ His kingdom is motivated and supervised by the Holy Spirit. 

What I want to say today is that we need to move away from the kind of thinking that God’s Kingdom is unavailable to us, unless we meet certain requirements. Jesus did that for us. So now we use our faith to live in the reality that God’s Kingdom is already here. It’s already IN you, and me. When we were born again, we left the kingdoms of this world behind, now we are in His kingdom seeking more and more of it. We’ve been taken out of the kingdom of darkness and transferred  into the Kingdom of His marvellous light. 

However a negative bias on any number of verses can change the way we apply them. What I’m talking about means we choose to walk away from vague possibilities into reality – we need to do whatever we can to use our faith. This is why using our power in His kingdom to try to get what WE want is a travesty! Aim at living in His kingdom where love prevails.

Most of us already have so much information about His kingdom, but just like the sensational headlines in the news, we are limited by another agenda. That agenda says, “I can’t change.” The question I want to ask today is: ‘Then why do we have the Epistles in our bible, if we can’t be changed, here and now. Why did Jesus preach change if it was unavailable until we die?’ Like Paul I want to say, “Not that I have l already attained this, but I press on toward the mark..” (Philippians 3:12) Our aims matter. When we surrender them to despair, or destruction we will be the losers.

Some things may seem to be difficult to us, but they are definitely not unattainable. “…Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26) Let’s learn to live from God’s kingdom. What does He say? What does He want from you and I right here, right now? We need to choose to move house and live our lives, from His kingdom, and see for ourselves what that looks like in real life. It’s all in the book. Bye. 👋

P 3470 Entitlement can shoot us in the foot.

/ DVH

Denying ourselves can be really hard. Since birth we have had to negotiate our way between what’s OK to do, and what isn’t — and that pretty much depended on who you were talking to! Maybe your Grandparents thought you could do no wrong, while your parents experienced a totally different reality. But now, because we have chosen to follow Jesus, the responsibility for denying ourselves, falls on us – not on other people’s rules. We can choose to change our ways, or we can continue to take the same entitled, childish attitudes we had way back then … into adulthood.

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].” Matthew 16:24. 

You don’t see many people writing songs about that verse! When things don’t go our way, first of all our flesh gets antsy, we can get really grumpy, and before you know it, we are in the middle of a gigantic pity party. That thought pattern is a satanic plot to undermine the way we live our lives. And it happens simply because we feel entitled to better treatment from this life, and other people. When we give our lives to Jesus, that idea goes out of the window, forever, and we need to get used to it. We gave our lives away!

I want to dismiss the theory that this life owes us something. I had a pretty hard childhood, and bleating about it didn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference to the cosmos – it simply ignored me. And then it threw even more guff at me to make sure I knew who was boss …  and with my lightning fast mind, I eventually figured out that was definitely not going to be me! For some people this means a fully-fledged battle with this world at every opportunity, all of their lives. And for others? Well they just lay down because they know from experience that they are going to end up on the floor anyway — no matter what they do or say. Resignation is not our destination either. Paul found out he was ill-equipped to fight against God – the Lord knows where our “off” button is! 

The only true alternative is to allow the Holy Spirit to teach each one of us how to fight, who to fight, and how to engage in the everyday battle to lay down our lives for others. It involves a process nobody likes, especially initially. This means I ask the Holy Spirit for His help and I lay aside that snappy, snide reply.

Sadly the only thing that seems to impact many human beings to change anything is the thought that they might die if they don’t! The thing to remember is that change means Jesus is not just doing a ‘make-over’ … He’s ‘remodelling’ us from the inside out to look like He does, but then we become more like our true selves, designed in God’s image. What we lose is irrelevant in the presence of what we will gain. 

“Then Jesus went to work on His disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with Me has to let Me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow Me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, My way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?” Matthew 16:25. GNB. 

I am not even remotely trying to make this process sound easy, because that would be lying to you. You and I have spent a lot of years practicing living our lives, one way, and then the Lord interrupts our excuses, subterfuges, and manipulations with a clear directive like the one above. We can’t afford to ignore it. The truth is we no longer have a life – we gave it away. So we can know Jesus here and now, and live with Him forever!

“All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honourably with personal integrity and moral courage]; …” 2 Timothy 3:16. 

Is there a plus side to this less-than-materially-motivated or unappealing deal? YES. “His truth makes us truly free …” in this life and the next. I have no idea why anyone wouldn’t want to co-operate with the One Who made you, He knows far more about what we can and can’t do, and He is generous and kind. When satan cried out for my blood, I knew I deserved what was coming to me, but Jesus gave him HIS BLOOD instead and He definitely didn’t! The more I read about the Lord and His plans, the more I emphasise that God’s processes can be difficult. It’s hard at the beginning to say no to yourself when you feel entitled to a better deal. However, what we walk away from is temporal – what we walk toward is eternal. You do the math.

The sense of entitlement we have had since we were born is in direct opposition to everything Jesus stood for – so when we choose to follow Him, we need to understand that this part of our journey ends in a grave. Entitlement is a fairy story we tell ourselves so we can cope with hardships. Ask Jesus to help you cope instead! The truth is, without Jesus Christ’s sacrifice we are all entitled to hell. Bye. 👋.

P3460 Trying is out, doing is in.

/ DVH

Following Christ is not about trying hard to find the will to do what He said … it is about doing it. I hear so many sincere people telling me that they are trying to please the Lord but it’s too hard. Trying means you are simply attempting to do something — in other words — trying includes the possibility of failure. To DO something means you launch yourself out into the action hoping God Himself will catch you. Don’t try — DO.  Don’t try for instance, not to gossip, or criticise others, close your mouth! Let’s not let any immediate feelings of impossibility or failure discount your ability to do what He said.

So we don’t try not to watch movies that create anger, or access sensuality in us – turn them off.  It’s dumb to allow the wrong kind of thoughts to sit in your head. Those things are leading you down an inevitable pathway, to all kinds of stuff that will steal your peace and make you hate yourself for failing. We can’t fail – Jesus did all the work for us! He conquered sin and death. That’s love. Let’s remind ourselves daily, how much the Lord loves us. Did you wake up today? 🤪 That means God believes in you. You have another opportunity to choose to change – some people didn’t wake up. Make the time to sit with Him and let His endless unconditional love minister to you, then go out and do what He tells you to do.

Let’s look at Matthew 14, and what happened to Peter, as he learnt that God can and will make a way! Verses 18-30:  “As soon as the meal was finished, He insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while He dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, He climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night. Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up against them and they were battered by the waves. At about four o’clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared to death. “A ghost!” they said, crying out in terror. But Jesus was quick to comfort them. “Courage, it’s Me. Don’t be afraid.” Peter, suddenly bold, said, “Master, if it’s really You, call me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come ahead.” 

Peter didn’t just ASK for help … you and I can’t just stand there waiting for Jesus to come and fix things – there’s no active faith in that! Faith has substance, in other words you can see it. Instead, Peter acted on what the Lord said! Jesus said, “Come,” and Peter actually had to climb over the edge of a perfectly good boat, and start walking on the water. That’s faith! That’s what it looks like. Faith is obedience in action. Peter kept his eyes on Jesus and kept right on walking. He only failed when he took his eyes off the Lord. Keep your eyes on Jesus! … BTW, failure is not the end of the world because Jesus took that to Calvary too.

Here’s my advice: find out what the Lord says about that thing that you are struggling with, and act on it! Do something. We are only failing in some areas because we are leaving the things we need to do ourselves, to Him. We are not puppets, He will not make us. He will show us the way and help us, but we will have to decide to act differently, and then do something about it, using our faith. If you have trouble with swearing, stop. Seriously. Don’t believe that voice in your head that tells you, you can’t. YOU … “can do all things through Christ Who strengthens YOU.” So when you feel weak, ask Him for strength, and … whack your hand over your mouth!

I’ve learnt to do stuff like that all the time. If the Holy Spirit tells me to do something, then I start moving – despite the fact that I know I can’t do most things easily – it has now become an automatic response. Especially when I get grumpy. We all get angry sometimes, but the thing is … don’t stay there, ask the Lord to help you. Our faith is meant to be operating all the time. It is not just an emergency stop button on a runaway train. It’s the way we live now. ”For in Him we live and move and have our being.’  As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’” Acts 17:28. 

We are wrestling with our own will when we feel like we can’t do this or that. Jesus died so we don’t have to do anything anymore. Now we have the freedom to choose. Just because we don’t like some choice or other, that does not invalidate the fact that we actually have one! Let’s turn that around, when we want to do something we know is bad for us, other people can’t stop us. That’s what our will looks like in operation. We simply can’t live a life of faith, and indulge ourselves at the same time. Nor can we say to the Lord: “Thy will be done …” in our prayers, when we know full well that we only do what He wants, when and if, we feel like it! … Did you notice that word ‘feel?’ 

The real struggle is against our own flesh. Our will has survived thus far because we gratify it through the stuff we’ve done that we ought not to have done – so stopping it is bound to be a wrestling match. Let me put that another way — neither of us will probably want to participate in this wrestling match. It is so-oo much easier to just give in to our feelings. Plus this sort of scenario is usually accompanied by loads of angst and temptation. After all, we don’t live in a blameless holy society! Someone else will have done something to set us off. The point is … Jesus is bigger than anything we face, so we put Him in charge, and step out onto the water of change even though it seems like it will not be pleasant and we don’t feel like it.

BTW, this does not mean we are not supposed to have any feelings, it just means our feelings are not supposed to be in charge of us anymore — Jesus is now. How do you think the Lord endured the cross? “Saying, Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but [always] Yours be done.” Luke 22:42. Faith is not faith if we only believe things in our heads. Faith is faith when we let it change our behaviour. That will mean some wrestling matches. The upside is we will stop blaming other people for what we do, and start to take responsibility for our own choices. We don’t want to be the bad people, we want other people to be in that role. The truth is we are ALL bad, and … “It’s by Grace we have been saved, not because of works lest any man should boast.” 

The glory of Jesus and what He did for us, is that He gave us the Holy Spirit Who wants to help us to obey. Obedience is a wonderful smell to God, it is better than a sacrifice. Along with the Holy Spirit – Who gave us the power to obey our Father – we also have in writing, what the Lord likes and what He doesn’t. Feelings don’t come into it. I never feel like saying sorry when I am angry and I know I am wrong – how about you? Let’s ignore how we feel, and obey what He said. Nobody is making you or I choose to indulge ourselves — those feelings of helplessness and powerlessness are simply not true. The bars on the jail you have painted yourself into are not there anymore. Take a step of faith – you will walk right through them.

What I think I know about myself is not all there is to know, there’s more. Father God made me, and He knows me, and what I can do, I can choose to trust Him over my feelings. We will fail to use our faith when we don’t believe what He said, instead of what we think about ourselves. Trying is out, doing is in. Bye. 👋.

P 3434 A quality decision.  

/ DVH

“Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour, and authority! Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm. Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ.” Colossians 3:1-3 TPT.

There is a way we all need to go … Proverbs 22:6, I think a description of that way appears in Colossians 3:1-3. That way means we don’t just die to self – we live this life resurrected, striding into a brand new life, where Jesus rules – right here, right now. This happened to each one of us when we gave our lives to Christ. He has kept His part of this covenant, and now it is up to us to keep our part.  Our part is an assignment. We choose to take Him with us wherever we go. 

His part will stand forever, whether people acknowledge it or not. Ours depends upon us believing what He said and acting accordingly – using our faith. Everything we read in the bible points to this brand new life that is ours for the taking – Jesus gave it to us when He died in our place. Why live in the defeated ruins of an old life, when the new life He died to give us is ours for the taking?

Our daily need for His help, and His freely-given input, turns into a yearning that encourages and motivates our faith to keep on pressing on, and in. We want Him. Not rules, not religion, but Him. Anything else pales into insignificance. There can be times we feel listless, plagued by an unwillingness to yield to Him, and we sometimes give into it. That stuff isn’t just disobedience — it comes from a lack of real focus about what is actually going on... God Himself is wooing us! This is the next part of our chosen adventure with Christ. He stands at the window, oil dripping from His nail-scarred hands, waiting to be asked into each and every moment.

We cannot afford to ignore the things Jesus said, they are our life-blood. Our spiritual life and health depends entirely on what He did for us, and our choice to believe the things written in His book are true. Otherwise we will pick and choose what we want to believe, and be led about by all sorts of distractions that will tickle our ears, and continually lead us nowhere. We might even become faddish, and look ridiculous to the world around us. 

Whenever God is truly present, conviction has to follow because His holiness challenges our humanity. Conviction is not about yelling at people for being sinful, and threatening them with a ghastly final destination – it also not just about going the wrong way — conviction means we are wrong! We can’t be right without His input. Deep down most people already know that their way of life is broken – they either don’t care, or don’t want to change, or they don’t know how to change. 

The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin. As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach the Christ-like goal. The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin.

As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach this Christ-like goal.

The Holy Spirit revives our faith as He leads us. Our faith was not design to drag along behind – always waiting for a sign, or proof, or some sort of approval. What matters in this process is the room we give Him in our lives. Some people can spend 60 minutes quality time with the Lord day by day, and it is enough to fuel their ministry. Others progressively fall in Love with A PERSON and they refuse to let Him out of their sight! The Holy Spirit longs to draw us into the same sort of depth we see in the Apostles in Acts.

We are all in the same battle. We daily fight to let Christ be everything to us, instead of simply our back-up in times of trouble. Freely loving Him is our reward – we don’t care what this world offers us, or what we think we might gain in the next. Jesus wants to reside/live/inhabit our lives, today. Imagine the honour! The King of glory quietly calls us to walk with Him. His Presence is not a merit badge tribute to our spirituality, He is our beloved Lord and Saviour – Who is closer to us than our heartbeat.

But we must deal with our own pride, our need for autonomy and self-importance. And make a quality decision to live in His resurrection life, listening to Him and loving others. Bye 👋.

P 3426 Dead is the new way to live. 

/ DVH

In Galatians 2:20, Jesus reminds us what this life is really all about. Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

This getting-dead process can be challenging sometimes. So the reality is, I choose to die to what I want, over and over again. Here’s what that means practically. Someone says something I think is provocative, so I ask for the Holy Spirit’s help, and I say nothing. Despite how provoked I feel, the Lord Himself will give me that soft answer He talks about from Proverbs. I’m just doing what Jesus told me to do, ‘turning the other cheek.’ If people cheat me and they lie to me, I pray a blessing over them until I mean it. In other words, I let the Lord Jesus fight my battles for me. It’s up to Him what happens to people who behave like that, He knows more about them than I ever could.   

This means I have deliberately chosen to live this life dead to what I want, and alive to what He wants. Let’s be clear, I am not talking about being mostly dead, or I wish I was … dead. What I mean is – I’ve chosen to die to the way I used to think about, relate to, and treat other people. Now, I owe them LOVE and I use my faith to trust Father God to help me with that. He clearly told me “that vengeance is His.”  Here is the Good News part of the gospel. Because of Jesus’ resurrection I don’t have to stay dead — now I have a new way to live, right here, right now. TODAY – and the power to do it.

Of course I will need the Holy Spirit’s help to live that way. But He won’t do it for me. I’m not a puppet, I’m a person who makes a choice.. I take a step of faith, and the Holy Spirit helps me to move forward. When I refuse to be angry back at someone else, He gives me something sweet to say to them, that helps to diffuse their anger. Meanwhile, you can’t pick a fight with a dead person, because they won’t say anything back. You could yell at them, if you want to, but … you’d be wasting your time. You’d be better off shouting into a black hole.

Each one of us has to choose to die to what we want, and come alive to the reason Jesus brought us here. But once we do, our thinking begins to change and we start to think like He does. Then the Holy Spirit helps us to use our God-given faith and hope in His goodness, to live a brand new way. It’s the way Jesus lived. We all know His plans are good for us, that’s also in the book! I’ve decided to trust what He said more than I trust what I can see going on around me. We choose to come alive to Christ and His Way of living and leave our past behind us, when we die to self and live for Him.

It is not humility when I say on this blog that Jesus helped me with this and that – it’s a fact. If I try really really hard to be what He has already given me for free, well — that’s when the trouble starts! I begin to lose my sense of His Presence with me, because my excuses for my own bad behaviour fill the air around me! The only Person Who can resurrect a dead person is Jesus. When He does that He makes them sweeter. Trying to resurrecting yourself and hold on tightly to being right, is a waste of time and energy. Whatever we try to do by ourselves doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. We will just wear ourselves out doing it, as well as becoming jaded, and losing hope. Give up. Die to self.

It is easy to tell when I have wandered off and given up living for Him – I want my own way. Day by day living His way is always a choice. Sadly, I can get offended before the poor schmuck with their foot in their mouth has finished their sentence. I am not at all nice to be around, especially if I try to change myself. I get mad at other people because they annoy me and they want their way. The safest, sweetest place to live, is to live this life using the faith He gave me. Then my priorities change. My focus needs to be on what He did. Not what I have or haven’t done. Like I said yesterday, “nothing can ever separate us from God’s love” — we have proof of that. Jesus died to make that statement eternal.

Many Christians cheerfully sing 🎵 “We are here for You, Jesus…”🎵and then everyone goes home and lives this life we have been given, for themselves again – often using heaps of energy to be ‘nice’ to people who aren’t ‘nice’ to them. Day by day, we are so focussed on our plans, our lives, our ideas, our success, our happiness, our money … plus our wellbeing. That isn’t the deal… not the one in His book! The deal is — He died for us — so now we live for Him. Meanwhile dead people don’t have aims, or opinions.

We don’t have to sit around, impassively, waiting for this stuff to fall on us. We need to aggressively choose to live this life of LOVE He provided for us and act it out. We take faith steps, and take up this new life He has given us. Let’s run, and choose to use our faith to do things His Way, for His kingdom’s sake. And read and re-read His book, daily refreshing our memory about what He has already said.

Choose to live a life of Love, it’s the outworking of our inward faith. Dead is the new way to live – because the Lord’s kind of new life can only blossom and bear fruit in dead people, who choose to live this life, His way. Bye. 👋

P 3390 Without Jesus we can do NOTHING…

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… ergo … Jesus must become the central focus of our lives. He talked about a way to live – not just a life-style with optional extras. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5. Nothing eternal can happen without Jesus, and what He has already done for all of us. Nothing. He died, rose again and sent us back the Holy Spirit to help us, and now we dare not do anything without that guidance. After all the Holy Spirit is the Spirit Who helped Christ live and die, for His Father’s glory.

Let’s chew on this next scripture a bit: “If I give all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:3. If we can do nothing without Him, (and the scriptures make that clear), then why would we get up every single day and try very hard to do the things that we think or hope will please God? Instead let’s make His kind of love our priority, and stop striving our way through each day. Love has to be our starting place not an add-on. Every time we listen to the Holy Spirit and do things Father God’s way, we are glorifying the Father.

Jesus deliberately sent the Holy Spirit back to help us.“I will not leave you alone, I will come to you.” John 14:18. Listening to the Holy Spirit means we are listening to Father God’s will. In another version it says: “I will not leave you as orphans.” Because of God’s great love for each one of us, we are not orphans, because we are never alone. He has promised to be with us. If we want to live this life in fellowship with Him, we need to learn how to speak His language of love and remember that everything He does comes from that love. Here is something to think on:  it is utterly impossible to speak ‘love,’ and go out and live and act like everyone else does. That’s why we’ve been called ‘vessels set apart, fit for the Master’s use.‘

So, I need to do more than just memorise the scriptures, although: ‘…hiding His Word in our hearts, so we may not sin against Him”… is not a bad thing. However, as we learn and experience what the bible says about the way God Himself sees love, then we will begin to understand how to speak His language. Love sent Jesus to the cross — first of all it was His all-encompassing love for His Father, plus His overwhelming love for all of mankind. Love for us caused His Father to send Him here in the first place! If the Lord Jesus could do nothing without the Holy Spirit’s help, then neither can we.

Let’s look at the way Jesus faced death: “And going a little farther He (Jesus) fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Matthew 36:29. The Lord prayed for relief … for rescue … for a way out … but there was none. The next time it appears as if you are stuck in something or other, then try praying the prayer Jesus Himself prayed when He was faced with the unthinkable. “Not what I want, but what You want Father.”

The major difficulty we face daily, is that we want an easy answer to everything, so we can continue to live our lives uncluttered by complications. But that is not how God loves – He sees trouble and difficulties as normal – as opportunities for change . (John 16:33) His love looks for the best in us because He can already see the results! I think, for Almighty God, cost is a part of expressed love and the results are often long term! We can’t afford to do this living day-to-day stuff – without His ongoing guidance. And He has not left us alone.

It can be easy to ask: “why won’t God answer my prayers? Well, maybe neither you nor I know what’s good for us! Perhaps the Lord has entirely different plans for our specific situation … ask Him! “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11. I’m sure you can see from that verse that the Lord has our future in mind, not just the immediate present. The nation of Israel became Jesus Christ’s own people – God’s plans for Israel were already in place.

There is more than one way to look at the things we think that God is saying. I think this is why we shouldn’t use the scriptures to hurt one another, because the bible can say more than one thing at a time. It’s in layers. Have you ever read a verse and gone back 6 months later and seen something brand new in it, something you had never seen before? Maybe that’s why brother-such-and-such doggedly says: ‘this verse only means that’ … and sister I’ll-always-argue-with-you says: ‘no it doesn’t, it means this.’ It may well be that both people are just looking at the same thing from a different direction!

We can’t understand what the Lord is saying, if we already have a pre-conceived idea what the answer should look like. Let’s live this brand new way of life with bigger thoughts. His. We can do nothing without Him. 1 Corinthians 13:12  “We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing Him directly just as He knows us!” Bye. 👋

P 3358 More of Jesus.    

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Colossians 1:3-8.“Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can’t quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you! We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians. The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope. The Message is as true among you today as when you first heard it. It doesn’t diminish or weaken over time. It’s the same all over the world. The Message bears fruit and gets larger and stronger, just as it has in you. From the very first day you heard and recognized the truth of what God is doing, you’ve been hungry for more.”

Have you eaten too much of something you like, but you kind of still kept on going? Yeah me too. Maybe you’ve binge-watched something on Streaming? Yeah me too. Well today have I got news for you! I found something you can indulge yourself in that isn’t fattening or mind numbing – the quest for more of Jesus! 

People say this all the time, and we might easily feel like an inferior Christian, because that thought never even crossed our minds. My question today is: what does it actually mean?  We can say a whole lot of Christian-ese words sometimes, without any bible verses or experiences to back them up. So what does wanting more of Him look like? 

I can remember being so in love with my hubby that I would go long distances to spend five minutes in his company. Hmm. I would still do that, but I might need some personal assistance nowadays! He’s still the nicest person I know …  well, most of the time. I think more of Jesus means, at the very least, that I will want to spend more time with Him getting to know Him. I actively ask and look for the Lord in my day. When I see Him, I thank Him!

I’m just going to let that sit there while we both think about it. That’s because spending more time with Him means we need less time for us to do the things we have cultivated in our lives to relieve stress, and fear, and help us to cope. Yeah. I’m just going to leave that one there too …

I think more of Jesus is like falling in love. Ad when life gets difficult, we approach those things with Him as our Saviour, Lord and Friend. Then we choose to appropriate what He said He has given us, using our faith. That means WE DO SOMETHING. It’s an exercise of our will, and we accept whatever comes at us, because the bible tells us He filters that stuff.  If I need something, He will provide it – if we don’t, then He won’t. We live to make love our aim, because Love is His language, and that means we are looking at life through His eyes.

More of Jesus also means our value systems will become  like His, and our hearts will break for the things that break His heart. Because Jesus lived to please His Father, and we like being around Him, so we will choose to live that way too. Our needs and wants become secondary; we pray, ask, then we leave it with Him. He’s God He can do anything. If someone provokes us or pokes us in the ego – what will come out of us automatically is a help prayer.

All of those things are great aims!! But like the Psalmist says: “Such knowledge is too lofty for me to attain…” Psalm139:6. My translation to that bit of this Psalm is — we can’t possibly do this stuff and not exercise our faith. We need His help, because change happens one step at a time, but we begin with the firm knowledge that what Jesus did is already complete.

We no longer have to live like other people, the Lord has given us His word that He won’t leave us. He will also provide us with a way to get out of whatever dumb thing we’ve gotten into. Our minds and emotions, become secondary to His Word, because they can fool us into thinking that reacting the same way we always did, means we have not been changed. It’s a lie. Jesus did everything that ever needed doing on the cross. So we choose to use our faith to apply what He did, once and for all, into our own lives, now. 

There are times we can get stuck because our convenience wins over what Jesus said, but we know that repentance restores our relationship with Him. There can also be times we haven’t done the things we know He asked us to do. How can we learn to trust in Jesus, and want Him and His ways more, when we choose to be a slave to convenience and time?

This is the real point of today’s blog. I think we fail because we live in a fast-paced society where time is a thing to be used … … not savoured. So let’s look briefly at the consequences of not using our time well. We will probably stay in the same place spiritually, going up and down, always waiting for God to make the difference, when He already did! We allow His truth to be merely a reminder, instead of a prompt for change.

According to Colossians Chapter one, more of Him also contains a whole lot of thanksgiving! Actually, the bible says we shouldn’t stop giving thanks, no matter how we feel. So we need to practice thanking Him that He is in charge, even when it looks like He’s not! Now there’s something to go on with. Remember that’s not lying, it is lining ourselves up with His Word, instead of being led around by circumstances.

Paul thanks God for the growth of the faith of the Church in Colossae. He can see it because it is seeable. We go on and on about answered prayer, but what about Jesus’ prayers?? Paul himself has heard about the things that are happening in that church. God’s Word grows spiritual fruits, and that fruit is visible, not a euphemism. Wanting more of Jesus means we recognise the difference between what God says, and what is seeable and actually true in our lives. Visible fruit is proof of more of Jesus in our lives.

The believers in Colossae used their faith that what Jesus said He did, He did. They staked their lives on it. We need a whole lot less of ‘spooky filter’ Christianity and more fruit! More of Jesus signifies that we choose to obey what He asked us to do, and we get to see the results and so do other people. Bye.  👋

P 3354 Let your Friend Jesus, help you.

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Getting older has convinced me that I am not as smart as I always thought I was! I like to tell other people nowadays:  “I don’t know … but I have a Best Friend, I’ll ask Him …!!” It is good for us to remember that the Lord Jesus is even more wonderful than we can imagine – the truth is that He is our Saviour, Creator of the World, Redeemer, Healer, Deliverer, Brother, Prince of Peace, Counsellor, Mighty God. He is wonderful – praise Him! But… there’s… more … !!!

Jesus is our Friend Who sticks closer than a brother. He is our ‘heart’ Friend, who will never let us down. The Lord Jesus is a wonderful Person Who dearly loves us and enjoys our company. You know, when Jesus chose His disciples, He was also choosing potential friends, and they were kind of a motley group. I think this detail means that there is already a precedent that makes room for each one of us. No matter how different we seem, we all have a Friend in common. HIM.

There is nothing nicer than belting out a good old hymn. Who could possibly beat Charles Wesley’s hymn, “And can it be …?”  Or another oldie but goodie: “Be thou my vision..?” That one was written in the 6th Century would you believe… by a blind Irish monk. Now there’s a poignant thought. If only we realised how blind WE can be. But when I sing an older hymn like: ”What a Friend we have in Jesus” it reminds me of the beginning of my faith.  Sunday by Sunday, in my old church, our men would belt out these glorious old songs in a rich baritone, or tenor, and the women sang alto, or mezzo soprano. Some of the ladies tried for soprano, but they were awful at it — actually, it was kind of eye-watering… 😂  

But those saints, most of whom have since gone home to glory, taught me about the Lord Jesus as our Friend, in day-to-day situations. It was expected that Jesus was now your forever Friend, so He would go with you everywhere. However, that also meant that if someone had a penchant for the pub – well, we all knew that Jesus wouldn’t go there!  Our theology was pretty rigid! Those people were adorable, even though sometimes … they were not so scripturally sound. They conveniently forgot the religious men of the Lord’s day called the Lord a drunkard.

Now to my point: whether we are wrong or right, Jesus loves us for who we are. He sees past our insecurities, our need to belong, and our past misdeeds and the events that have shaped us so far — He can see the person He made. THAT person was made in His image. So here we all are, each of us is a unique person, but we are a little like those proofs professional photographers have. The proofs are very small, yet they seem to have potential, but the photographer takes his magnifying glass to check out the flaws. The real picture is there it just needs to be brought out. This life is about letting our Friend Jesus cut away stuff we don’t need, and allowing Him to develop every single gift He has for us, in us. 

It is a waste of our time trying to bam ourselves into a better, more popular, and far more appreciated shape, so others will like us. Some things that I thought made me a nuisance, were actually things born in me that needed to be there. I simply couldn’t see the whole picture – I had my own magnifying glass running all over the flaws, and to me, those flaws needed transformation. 

And so I grudgingly entered the do-it-yourself movement. I knew I needed fixing, so I tried to fix myself. I failed. Our new life in Christ doesn’t work that way. Like the lovely, would-be, slightly sharp and off-key sopranos in my old church – I was aiming far too high and hating myself when I got it wrong! I had a whole lot of flaws, which meant when I joined that church those things showed up all over the place! Back then, church was about what I went there to get out of it; then Jesus pointed out to me that church is about Him, and what He gets out of it!  

I got stuck because my needs dictated my view of the church. I thought it was a place where you would be welcome, because we all followed the same Jesus. I did not know that everyone else there had as many flaws as I did! Meanwhile our difficulties actually became extremely apparent when we got together. Other people’s flaws bumped into mine, so to speak  … and nobody was edified! I tried to ask questions, but most people looked at me like I just arrived from Mars, so I stopped asking them. Eventually my need to fit in, overwhelmed my need for authenticity. Here’s a riotous truth — it is so much harder to change the things we won’t acknowledge. Humility helps.

However, our friendship with Jesus helps diagnose where we are missing the mark, especially when we treat His book as if He were speaking to US, and go away and apply what He said. That’s when we step out the boat of sameness (let’s remember that eleven other disciples stayed in that boat!) — and we start using our faith to do whatever He asks us do, out of love for Him and others. That action changes us.

We will get nowhere by comparing ourselves with each other … but when we look steadily at Him, the Lord of all, Who dearly loves us – WE WILL BE CHANGED. Bye. 👋 Let’s look through His cross to see who we are now!

P 3315 A monument to a dead past.

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“We LOOK AWAY from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus Who birthed faith within us and Who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this:  Because His heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be His, He endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!”  Hebrews 12:2 TPT.

Jesus, because of His love and passion for us, endured the kind of things that make us shudder when we read about them,  Now HE is our example of what we are aiming at in this life. Let me put that this way: ‘Because our hearts are focussed on knowing He is ours, now WE are learning to endure like He did…’  God wants us to leave behind those things that cripple us, and choose to refocus. We have focussed too much on other people, it’s time to put our focus solely on Him!

When we are hanging around with Him, we are relating to SomeOne Who is so perfect, and so beautiful, His Presence promotes a desire for personal change. Especially when Who He is begins to saturate us. I think I am a nicer and totally different person than I was before I met the Lord – simply because I met Him and He has impacted my whole life.

Before I met Jesus I held grudges. I could only see someone else’s faults. I didn’t even bother to look for their good side. Back then I could be cynical at the drop of a hat and make it sound funny, but there was a sting in the tale of that scorpion. Leaving that behind me was a hard attitude to break, because it had become a defensive weapon. The Lord and His Word have helped me leave that kind of past behind me. But first I had to learn TO LOOK AWAY FROM the things that I had adopted to define myself, and look toward Him instead. I had to see ‘ME” through HIS eyes. 

That junk I had picked up to protect myself, was like a pile of filthy laundry sitting in my heart. It came from my own rotten attitudes and other people’s sins against me. Their actions against me continually weighed me down. Plus I kept going back and digging around in the ugly stuff other people did, and concentrating on how bad it was back then, and my own revulsion of what ‘they’ had done. This meant that I could not see beyond that pile of dirty laundry. 

That stuff grew and grew until it filled my vision. The people involved became evil in my eyes – they did bad things to me and somebody needed to pay, so I picked them!! I had no clue SomeOne else had already paid before I was ever born. I focussed on the BAD and it influenced me and I happily excused my own abhorrent behaviour. I used my own knowledge of their flaws to influence other people against them … and told anyone else who would listen to me about their abuse. “Love covers a multitude of sin …”

I couldn’t see the Lord, yet He was always there, standing behind that giant pile of dirty laundry. However when He wanted to talk to me about the person I was furious at, I wanted Him to take my side— agree with me, and authenticate my rotten attitude. Why didn’t He punish these people for doing such terrible things to me and ruining my life? The incredible truth is, He never gave up on me. Eventually, I understood that the people who hurt me were as trapped as I was. Their behaviour had tainted their personhood, and as the years went on, they became defensively stuck too.

That’s when I realised that the Lord didn’t approve of what had happened at all — Instead He was asking me to forgive others and move past it. My new life in Him, was going to be so much bigger than that pile of dirty laundry I kept staring at — and He wanted to lead me out of captivity into a much bigger place. The more I edged around the horrible pile of ‘aughts against any,’ by randomly throwing forgiveness on the top — the clearer the world beyond other people’s sins against me, became. I am an adult, so it was time for the wounded child within me to grow past anger and revenge and step into a brand new mature life. My new life was worth much more than a pile of dirty laundry! 

If I continued to let that stuff torment me it meant I was losing the life I had NOW – today. These people were broken, and I had let grief and anger drag me from the past into the present. It tormented me. I had to learn to say: ”I’m not going to let those things torment me anymore.” In the end the other people didn’t actually change — I DID! I walked out of that prison of bad focus. However, if I even accidentally looked back, the pain would rush toward me like a river. So I regularly asked the Lord for healing and kept right on looking straight ahead, doggedly forgiving others as this stuff came up.

Just like Lot’s wife I had to turn away from the things that dragged me down, or I too would turn into a pillar of salt! A monument to a dead past. Other people’s attitudes were their business and not mine. This stuff still pops up unexpectedly on my radar occasionally, and I take my feelings to the cross and leave them there – I do it because Jesus told us to do it. The benefit is peace in my own life. I left regret, self-pity, sorrow and suffering behind me when I realised the only person I was hurting when I kept on going over what had happened …was me! I had been rubbing salt in a raw wound wondering why it would’t heal, but Jesus healed me when I wasn’t looking as I moved on following Him.

Let’s all look away from the past and leave it where it belongs – behind us. Destroy those monuments of your past! Or perhaps you are currently listening to the Lord Jesus and daily choosing to leaving your past behind you too. God bless you … and WELL DONE!!  Bye 👋.