Christianity

P 3253 Be an invisible servant.

/ DVH

My dear hubby shared this with me recently. I think it is good advice: “Rule with the heart of a servant. Serve with the heart of a King.” Now there’s something to chew over! Jesus is our King, and He came quietly as a servant of all mankind. A good King knows His power and uses it, discreetly and wisely. At the same time, this thought also forced me ask myself some hard questions. How do you get a servant’s heart? I believe our King and how He lived, is my example. We are here on earth, at our King’s pleasure. And a King lives to serve those around Him, for their benefit, not His.

“When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.” Matthew 6:3

For me that means I have to let go of any sense of entitlement. BTW, that word entitlement means:  ‘the belief that one inherently deserves special privileges, treatment or rights.’ In today’s world we seem to have the sort of thinking that pops up and says:“That’s not right, they ought not to treat me like this. Blah blah blah.” Everybody today is running about boo-hoo-ing about being treated badly! Perhaps if you don’t understand what privilege means, it can hurt to willingly put these things down. People killed the King of glory, why should our lives be easy? 

Some of the sweetest saints I have ever known – you wouldn’t even know their names. They weren’t rich, but they were born givers. My husband’s Grandmother – Mama – was a beautiful servant, through and through. Love poured out of her eyes toward others. In her eighties she used to go and visit old people who didn’t know Jesus on the bus! She moved in a Word of knowledge and had no clue she was doing it! The world is poorer now she is no longer in it. Another Chinese saint I’ve known, would never hesitate to find a way to bless somebody else. He blessed people he didn’t even know, and he took wonderful care of his family. He too is with Jesus now. 

The fact is this world owes you and I nothing. It certainly doesn’t owe us a huge house, a fancy schmancy boat, four cars in the garage, and a holiday in the Maldives or skiing holidays in St Moritz! I was born into a society where these things are available to a third of the population, I didn’t earn this benefit, I was simply born in a blessed country. So that means I can share with others. 

It helps to reflect on the fact that every one of us here arrived in this world the same way — helpless and naked! 

Sadly, right after we arrived in this world, we began to learn its arrogant ways. We craved recognition, appreciation, power, so-called beauty and position while so many other people can’t find food, water, safety or shelter. People stumble over money all the time. Money is a tool, not an end product. 

The thing is, our Saviour came here as a servant, and He has graciously given us a choice to be His obedient servants too. So our faith needs to be demonstrated as well as preached! We need more Christians with Jesus’ servant Kingly heart — some powerful Christians who will stand up for the oppressed. All this worldly stuff is unnecessary trimmings. Nice to have but easily lost – and BTW, that actually includes other people’s good opinions of us. The only opinion that matters the most  is HIS.

We must never reign as Kings despotically – doling out favours, rather than blessing anyone who crosses our path. We are told to have the same heart in us that He had in Him. That means we don’t mind getting our hands dirty or going without. Christians need to joyfully, willingly, bow their lives to His glory, and demonstrate His love for others everywhere they go. It helps other people to see Who He is! In our great quest to serve Him, the lower we go, the better we serve. Christians aren’t all that! Jesus is all that! And more! Much more! I’ve heard so many odd proclamations from enthusiastic people who think the bible grants us special privileges. We have been given the privilege to die for our Saviour’s sake, if necessary – everything else is fleeting, or cheap, crass, unfruitful advertising. 

We are only powerful people because we have been GIVEN His totally undeserved Grace – and we were given that to GIVE IT AWAY. Reverence and respect are a by-product of love and submission. We are blessed, we will always have the ear of our King Jesus. You and I don’t have to make an appointment and have to wait to speak with Him – He has promised us He will always answer us.  Not because we are all that, but because HE is so faithful! He keeps His word! 

To serve with the heart of a King means we know and partake in the power that has been given to us by the Lord and we use it for the benefit of others, without prejudice. As Christians let’s choose to do what the Lord wants, because He is trusting us to have His best interests at heart. His best interests aren’t in the stock exchange – it’s PEOPLE that He loves. We choose to live this way to glorify His Name. When we see something wrong, we know we have the power to stand up for good, and intervene without violence or name-calling. When a King knows He is right, He serves His office with humility. 

Our dearest aim is to be an invisible servant, serving the Lord Jesus, our brothers and sisters, and everyone around us. So that He will receive all the glory! Amen. 🙏 

P 3251 Learn to see like He does.

/ DVH

We can easily think ‘knowing’ others is about hanging around them, or watching their faces and actions. Often we take note of what they do or don’t do, or pay attention to the results of their decisions – or even what they say about themselves. In the natural, that could be true … but spiritually speaking it’s not. The reality is here and now we can no longer afford to only use our physical eyes to see others, anymore. We must learn from the Holy Spirit, how to see others the Way He sees them. And He longs to help us do it. How others appear on the surface is often learned or adaptive behaviour, it does not always bear a resemblance of their true, God-designed selves.

“Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at Him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and Him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with Himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what He is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ Himself now: Become friends with God; He’s already a friend with you.”  2 Corinthians 5:16. MSG. 

The church at large has spent so long focussing on sin … by avoiding it, plus making sure we are not polluted by it, that we forget that people are the primary reason we are still here!  This verse says we (mankind) have ALL misjudged Christ. His goodness is all over the bible, so I’m thinking that it is entirely possible, based on that One Witness (Jesus), that we all utterly misjudge other people and their motives! 

Let’s pray, and storm heaven about having spiritual sight, and ask Him to help us see others through His eyes of Love. Almighty God does not look at this world and its inhabitants the way we do. We often assess people based on fear, experience or what someone else says about them. Father God has a lot to say about people in general in His book – the mistake we often make is we hear His words with someone else in mind!  It is so easy use His book as an accusation to suit our own agendas. Let’s avoid that mistake by reading the Word like He is speaking to you, not the guy standing behind in church, or your family, or any other people you don’t like.

The Lord doesn’t assess this world into people who love Him and those who don’t! He sees us all as His kids, the ones He loves – the Holy Spirit Himself formed each one of us inside our mothers. He knows our names, our history, our passions, our needs – He even knows how much hair we have on our heads. Does this sound like SomeOne Who is watching us to see if we sin? Jesus paid for everybody’s sins – murderous attitudes, thievish lying ways etc., but He is not motivated, nor does He react to, what He sees – because Love looks at things differently! 

It looks for the good in others. Our God isn’t partisan. Right now, He doesn’t divide any of us into groups – the good guys and bad guys … that’s MEDIA, not God! One day Jesus will sort out the sheep from the goats, but that’s not our job! He may not favour what we think, just because our POV seems right to us and everybody we like to hang around with!! God is love and love looks like 1 Corinthians 13! And Love always wants to capture the heart of His kids! God’s love, despite modern society’s ridiculous ideas — is not permissive, or soppy, or prejudicially flavoured – or only in favour of our little group. His love is all over His book. The things we like, as well as the things we don’t.

Jesus loves because Love is Who He is – it is not a changeable attitude affected by whims. Read the book! In order to see others the Way the Lord sees them we will need to look at others as precious to Him, despite their dreadful actions and our personal prejudices. Every single human being on this planet is undone without His Presence. That thing you hate in others, or your supposed enemy, is just a lack of the Presence of God, first of all in you, and then in them.

We choose to forget that He died so we can all live differently. We’ve attached ourselves to all manner of creeds and attitudes, because we think we need power over others to straighten them out. And some people we just plain HATE, because they are breathing! At the same time, we like to hang around with people who believe in the same things we do.

Seeing through His eyes means that nobody is left out – every single human being was saved 2000+ years ago. Now we treat others like we would treat the Lord, when it suits us or even when it doesn’t. We live our lives in the reality of His kingdom, where we can do nothing without Him, His insight, His loving kindness, His love. So His people look for the good, and highlight that, because that’s the way we’ve chosen to see. Bye. 👋

P 3250 Stay poor in Spirit.

/ DVH

“Strong to overcome. From Prayers on Fire, written by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez.                                                     “Every trial is a divine opportunity for our character to grow. It’s a chance for us to discover how truly faithful Jesus is and how strong we are when we’re fastened to His love. When our faith is tested and fear looms in the shadows, we can reach for the Light and He will come.

Trials are a launching pad for our glorious transformation. Though the enemy creates them to take us out, Jesus shakes things up and turns things around. Ironically, trials become things we can be thankful for. If it weren’t for them, we’d never know how faithful He is. If our love was never tested, we’d never truly know how devoted to Jesus we are. To discover His power, there must first be a need for it. To relish the joy of laughing in the face of adversity, there must be an enemy to laugh at.”

“Jesus, teach me to fight my battles from the posture of confident trust and perfect peace. Help me to remember that the safest place to be is in the warmth of Your glory, where the flames of praise are ignited by Your nearness. Your love casts out every fear and fills me with confidence.” Amen.

My thoughts: some Christians have such beautiful insights it blows my mind. I don’t often read this particular site, but hubby receives regular input from “Encounter God” The Passion Translation. As you know, I’m not big on including things, but this particular piece really challenged and spoke to me personally. Boy there is nothing like the truth to sort out your motivation. In this case my trials can show me how faithful Jesus is. 

Sometimes difficult things continue for a while. Unfortunately, they don’t just disappear on command! Aligning our hearts is one thing, steadfastness under pressure is entirely another.  And we never know which way anything is going to go, so we must be prepared to hold fast under pressure. That takes practice. I must say, I am learning that the Lord is not only stretching our faith to grow our faith, He is also revealing His goodness to us through the tough times. He knows better than we do, how far we can go. That’s called trust. 

The following scripture tells me who Jesus is —it comforts me better than someone else’s words can … Isaiah 42:2-4a “He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow weak or discouraged before He has established His justice on the earth….”

Instant comfort! Our part is to believe what He says and hold onto it, by reminding ourselves that He’s good and He’s looking after us. Then we deliberately give the whole situation to Him, and only do whatever He tells us to do. The we leave it with Him. Don’t try to figure out an answer or oppress or berate yourself for being human and hurting, instead allow yourself to rest in Him. He already won that battle you are fighting! Learn to rest.

Matthew 11:28-30 says: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  We are bathed in His comfort, as we read and believe His book. The Old Testament or the New Testament – it doesn’t matter! If we actively listen to what the bible is saying, and act on it, treating the scripture as instructions, we will begin to learn His Ways.

So first step – we need His Rest. Our own rest can be kind of seasonal, it comes and goes with whatever is currently going on. Taking up HIS yoke means we are choosing to learn how to respond, from Him, our Personal Counsellor. We don’t ignore trials, we face them leaning on His understanding and we follow what Jesus said or did. We can do this without fear because of Who He is and What He has already done for us. I put what I think aside. This is not the time to figure out someone else’s POV, it is the time to let go. Our ways are complicated, His are EASY.  So, if it is complicated it is not His Way! If what is happening is heavy and it is burdening me, I haven’t entered into His rest yet.

I only do whatever He tells me to do – if He says fight, I fight. If He says rest, I rest. We are not fighting against other people! Our warfare is against principalities and powers and Jesus already beat them. He has a plan for you and I to get through things. So I pick up my frayed feelings and mentally walk away, and continue to thank Him for helping me. His desire is to reshape my thinking so I trust Him more. I love the line in the “Encounter God” inclusion that says: ‘To discover His power, there must first be a need for it.’  It’s OK to be needy! 

Our God always cares about the needy no matter what the need is! My best advice comes from the Beatitudes:“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3. I am learning to stay poor in Spirit!  And I refuse to be satisfied with the things I think I know — otherwise I know I will stop moving. I just keep going back and back to Him. There are people who fall over and can’t get up again, because their ‘system’ isn’t working anymore. I don’t have a system, I just rely on Him! 

Many of us have gone from trusting Him, into trusting what we’ve learnt about Him – we’ve stopped being poor in spirit and became satisfied. And yes, there IS actually a difference. Bye. 👋

P 3249 He says we can.

/ DVH

Hey, you can argue with the King all you want, but … He’s gunna win… in the end! Living in and for the kingdom of God is like an investment. What we decide to do today, influences tomorrow. Unfortunately, bad decisions can often lead to worse ones. We are constantly faced with choices — will we invest in His Ways, His kingdom, or in our own needs and wishes? One of those things provides instant gratification, and the other builds trust in God’s Word. Plus it proves its reliability peace and joy in our personal experiences. Daily we are faced with choices, some of them easy and others are puzzling, that’s why we need our Helper, the Holy Spirit. 

My point for today is this — nobody feels equipped to do and say what the Lord asks us to do and say all the time. And if someone tells you something different wait for it… just like Pinocchio their nose will grow!  So let’s add  to that the idea that we all have stuff at the back of our spiritual closets, that we hope nobody else knows about! We can easily pile all the good stuff up in front, and hope that it’s all that is seen. But the point is –the Holy Spirit knows and sees, and He can clearly see what will make us stumble. That’s why He allows difficulties into our lives — under pressure who we really are comes OUT and e-ve-ry-bod-y can see it. Here’s what I’ve learnt along the way… the stuff you hide, from others and yourself, ends up leaking out, anyway!!

So that’s why I like to keep things simple and deal with nasty things as they happen. BTW, SIN is not a personality trait!  I’ve mentioned before – that I can’t remember details easily anymore – like what I wrote yesterday!! Sorry ‘bout that!  Sadly if I panic about it, it gets a whole lot worse! Hasn’t the Lord got the most hilarious, funny and amazing sense of humour to pick an old lady to write a blog – and she can’t remember what she said ten minutes ago! That’s why I need my editor.

Here’s the thing that helps keep me humble. My short-term memory has been affected by minor explosions in my brain. All of this happened without my permission, more’s the pity! All the positive speak didn’t fix it, so I just roll with the punches. However…my spouse remembers the stuff I wrote, because’s he’s the editor. Well, I can sometimes end up cranky at him because I am sure that “I never said that!”  And he is sure I did, and off we go… … to places we’d both better avoid. Getting older is really good for humbling yourself because you need help with almost everything…which is why I recommend that we learn to humble ourselves before we get there. Too late for me – sadly, I’m learning on the job! 

Here’s a helpful hint when it comes to living with other people. I love this particular scripture in 1st Corinthians 6:7. It says this: “These court cases are a black eye on your community. Wouldn’t it be far better to just take it, to let yourselves be wronged and forget it? All you’re doing is providing fuel for more wrong, more injustice, bringing more hurt to the people of your own spiritual family.” What is Paul saying? I think you can end up in even more trouble and strife, when you try to defend yourself, and you set out to prove it. Legally or not! It is far better to take a big breath, and just let things go. Boy, do you find out how much PRIDE … yeah, that’s it, the ‘P” word… when you try to let things go that have really irritated and irked you! That’s when logic tries to take over … and logic makes a terrible commander-in-chief.

The reason Jesus is a great leader is that He beat our enemy once and for all, and then He died for us to set us free from compulsively serving satan. We don’t have to do, or react, or entertain those nasty things anymore. Investing in God’s kingdom is like putting things on lay-by, the gratification usually comes later.  We  continue to invest in Him by our actions. We remind ourselves that in His kingdom there are ongoing costs – things we will have to let go of – but we walk with the King. Nuthin’ beats that! Here’s the bad bit, investing in this world’s kingdom is like putting stuff on your maxed-out credit card when you just got fired! There’s no way you are going to pay that debt off in a hurry!

The kindness of God is that He will never make us choose His Ways, that choice is always ours. Here’s another verse I love, it is a hard one. 1st Corinthians 12:31b says: “And yet I will show you a still more excellent way [one of the choicest graces and the highest of them all: unselfish love].”  We can find many ways to serve God and others, but Paul tells us this is the BEST way. This isn’t hard to remember! Big plus for me – absentminded Annie! I simply ask myself: “Is this love?”  If I am in doubt about what love would do, I refer to His book, and I ask Him to help me find an appropriate scripture. 

Don’t despair if you lose your way, or maybe your will seems like it is acting independently! This can happen when we stop regularly meditating on His love for us. Remind yourself that nothing can separate from His Love and go back to what you were doing in the first place. Putting Him first. The joy of belonging to Jesus is that our debt has already been paid, and with Him we are safe and saved. We have His power in us to overcome our own selfish ways, and we can let other people’s selfishness go, plus we look in our own back yard to see if we are growing the right fruit! Love is always the right fruit. 

Our first and most important ministry is to love others the way He loved us. We may not feel like we can, but because HE says we can, we can. We simply need to choose to believe His Word, over whatever we think we know about ourselves. PS When I read stuff like the Beatitudes I ask the Lord to show me what He thinks, I don’t excuse myself. Bye. 🥰

P 3248 Let joy REMAIN.

/ DVH

“Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness You’ve done for me?” Psalms 103:2 TPT. “When You speak to me, I devour every word. Your word brings me such boundless joy. The endless delight of my heart is in knowing that Your beautiful name is attached to me, O  Yahweh, Commander of Angel Armies.” Jeremiah 15:16 TPT. ‘I have told you these things, that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing.” John 15:11. First of all we let JOY remain by remembering Jesus has chosen to walk with us here and now – and the Holy Spirit is here to lead us.

Joy is like peace, don’t lose it! If you lose it I urge you to go and find it again. His joy, in us, makes this life worth living. It is precious and costly – it cost Jesus His life. Let’s treat our lives like an operating room. Nobody operates on a patient without first thoroughly scrubbing themselves clean, so we must make sure we ask Him to help us look after our hearts. This means if and when, we get angry etc., we need repent quickly. Nurturing anger and feeding irritation, facilitates letting our hearts harden against that other person. Sorrow and suffering are joy murderers, unless our joy is permanently in the One Who saved us. Then circumstances can’t rule us.

Our enemy comes at us with whispers about this and that, and before you know it, there is no joy, no peace, no reconciliation – there is only RAGE and SORROW left. To let JOY remain, we need to guard our hearts against pride, self-satisfaction, revenge, bitterness, self-pity etc. And deliberately repent and remove any reason to justify ourselves, our actions and words. Take all that ugliness to the cross and leave it there. Humble yourself and fix things with others. We can’t serve two Masters … we will end up with divided hearts. Let’s choose Who we will serve and permanently settle it inside us. 

Then we need to deal with the state of our hearts, and the all pervading feeling that we are entitled to be angry, because the other person did or said this and that! Rehearsing other people’s sins is not only a dead end road, it’s a disaster! When we go to the cross we leave our entitlement, our judgment, our need for retribution there – my best advice is this – don’t go back and dig it up!  

Baptism isn’t just a ritual, some people go under the water and come up exactly the same! That means the water of the Word has not washed them clean of this world’s attitudes and systems. Instead this life continues to feed them entitlement and anger – over and over again. There are others who like to think of themselves as wounded beings, and they feel the rest of the world owes them something, because this life has wounded them. Here’s a big revelation for all of us, we are all wounded one way or another. Hurt is not a reason to indulge ourselves.

Thankfulness in the face of adversity is one of the biggest keys to allowing our joy to remain. Meditating on what someone else did or said, feeds the wrong spirit. Eventually that becomes a defensive way to think, and the habit of not seeing the good in things, will drag us under. But God is bigger than the spirit of stupid we can so easily succumb to – cry out for help, and He will rescue us, over and over again. Consider this life to be a journey, and point yourself in His direction and don’t allow detours. 

This is what the Lord said in Matthew 26:53 when people were deliberately murderous, vicious and cruel to Him.“Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”Right there, is the well-spring of our joy. The Lord didn’t try to save Himself, instead He chose to rescue us. Our choices are also powerful! We can help each other immeasurably if we simply stop putting our expectations onto other people. Other people cannot hold us up, that’s like putting your expectations on a badly broken chair. You’ll hurt yourself when you fall down! 

There’s real joy in what Jesus did. JOY is one of God’s glorious traits. Jesus didn’t sail through His earthly life without conflict and confrontation, He walked carefully, prayerfully through it, sometimes one step at time. And every single time He did that with that with US in mind. Our focus matters! “Keep your eyes on Jesus, Who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how He did it. Because He never lost sight of where He was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—He could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now He’s there, in the place of honour, right alongside God.” Hebrews 12:2.

The joy we experience here and now, when we see what Jesus can do with one ordinary little changed life, that is our way through to the finish line. Where incredible eternal joy awaits us. We need to put immediate gratification, or instant relief from annoyance and irritation down … In favour of the greater good. Jesus looked through the pain of the cross, the separation from His Father and the Holy Spirit, and He saw us —- all of us together, in His Father’s house – forever. It is HIS joy we are learning so we need to learn it HIS way.  The Lord Jesus is the best reason of all to choose to learn to let joy remain. Bye. 👋

P 3245 Press on and find His heart.

/ DVH

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, Who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us again. ON HIM we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us.” 2 Corinthians 1:8-10. 

The Apostle Paul lived his life totally filled with the Holy Spirit. The bible tells us that the Spirit of God personally took Paul into the Lord’s confidence — he was in Heavenly revelation school for three years, and then he took another expanded course, outside of the other apostles. That lasted for fourteen years. During that time he watched God do amazing things.This verse shows us that Paul knew that everything that happened in his life was a possibility for change and transformation. He knew God IS in charge.

In the above scripture Paul uses words like – pressures, ability to endure, despaired of life itself, and we thought we might die. However, in spite of those emotive words, he can still see the benefit in all that hardship and trouble. Those things were allowed by God Himself, to teach them that they couldn’t rely on themselves, but only on the Lord … What a way to look at the twists and turns in this life!  Even if death threatens me, I still know that God has a plan! That’s a good thing to remember.

Learning to stand when stuff happens all around you, is a God-given, God-directed, God-supported skill. We are n-e-v-e-r alone, Jesus won’t leave us. So we grab our faith with both hands, give everything about our circumstances to Him, then HANG ON!! Like a limpet clings to a rock in the face of the endless pounding waves, we need to let the enemy’s constant nagging pounding at us, strengthen our grip on the Lord. And if you feel you can’t even hold on … and we’ve all been there! Remember JESUS is the rock we cling to. Nobody can pry us free from Him, we can ask for His help. No matter how dire the situation is, attach your faith to His goodness.

Many people believe for the answer to their prayers. I prefer to believe that I am going to see His goodness in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13). I have found two things happen when I do that – one is that I get to peace quickly now I’ve put Father God in charge of my situation. And the second is this, no matter what happens, I know I will see His goodness in my circumstances. This is to my advantage. If I pray about what I want, I will  receive – because He is good! But when I pray to understand and see His goodness, I will learn more about my Saviour. The active/action form of belief is trusting Him.

This is how we learn to stand in the face of trouble. I was watching a Christian video on Youtube, the other day, and part of it was about the great fire of San Fransisco. In the foreground there was an open bible on the ground, with flames all around it – it was singed at the edges. A stiff breeze was fanning the terrible flames, but at the same time, that breeze turned a page in the bible. It hit me so hard in my spirit, that when everything crumbles around us, we need to do whatever God tells us to do, and then we turn the page. 

That’s what ‘having done all stand ’ means. It doesn’t mean we stand about like statues, it means we proactively stand, listening, and we do whatever He tells us to do. But we keep on believing to see His goodness in the land of the living. That’s a great focus – we focus on the One Who knows everything and nothing is impossible to Him. Then, whenever fear, or anger, or anything else tries to distract or disrupt our assurance that He loves and wants what is best for us, we can cast it aside.

Ask the Holy Spirit for a scripture to stand on, and then hang on … the ride could be longer than we hope, or even bumpy – but God’s got you, He won’t let you down or let you go. Let’s look at this kind of faith in Matthew 8:8-10.“The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have You come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, He was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. “

We can’t afford to miss what Jesus wants to teach us, by focussing on immediate responses, answers or actions. Yes, the pain is awful. Yes, we aren’t even sure we can bear it – but underneath everything else is always the Everlasting Arms. At the very least our sense of failure or panic shows where our faith is not helping us.At worst, we have been robbed by the thief. Go get those things back, and don’t ask – demand. 

We’ve all been given ‘a measure of faith.’ That means you and I have ENOUGH for whatever we have to face.Hold tight to this knowledge. This centurion recognised who Jesus was, and instantly understood that this was a Man he could trust. He called Jesus “Lord” on sight. Don’t just settle for the answer you want, press on to capture His heart. Bye. 👋

P 3244 Father God is for us!

/ DVH

Isaiah 64:4,5a AMP. “For from days of old no one has heard, nor has ear perceived, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who works and acts in behalf of the one who [gladly] waits for Him. You meet him who rejoices in doing that which is morally right, Who remembers You in Your ways.”

Our Heavenly Father, clearly wants us to know His will – that’s why He gave us a book! In this book the Lord has put so many incredible testimonies of His activities – plus His interactions with very different people. We have a record of His people’s glorious victories, plus their ignominious defeats. Some people burst across the sky like a shooting star, others fizzled out like dying fireworks. At the same time we have a clear and comprehensive record of what Jesus is like, and what He valued most – His Father’s Presence and His Father’s will.

The part of this scripture I want to accentuate today is the bit that says: …”a God like You Who works for those who wait for Him.”  In every other world religion human beings have to do the work to achieve some sort of spirituality. But our God works for us, as we wait for Him… Let’s pause and reflect about that…the God of the Universe also waits for us to choose Him.. We can now see how important waiting is! Jesus has already done all the work for us – however, that does not mean we can coast along blowing smoke rings, drinking like a fish and doing whatever we like! Faith isn’t presumption, it is a deliberate interaction between a Holy God and His people. He has earned the right to tell us what to do – but He won’t make us. 

The bible tells us that the Jewish people waited several centuries for their Messiah — they were longing for Him to come, because He was the One prophesied Who would set all things right for them. But when Jesus came they didn’t recognise Him! His words and miracles caused a stir, but His only recognisable parade consisted of Him, sitting on a donkey. Perhaps the Israelites expected grandeur and excitement — but the Lord arrived without pomp or ceremony and He left the same way. That thought ought to teach us something about Almighty God. He is not averse to doing things in secret.… a-n-d … ya might want to think about that!

The church today desperately needs eyes to see Him, or we can totally miss whatever He is doing. Our fallibility to distraction is legendary! Only people with active faith, who are looking, waiting, and wanting Him, will notice whatever He does. Here’s a little bit of advice … be very wary of anyone who tells you they know what’s coming next. The bible tells us that no-one knows the time or the hour of things like the Second Coming. The first time around, Jesus came and went and many people did not even identify Him. Like I said, our God is great at keeping things secret! 

Back in His time, ordinary people saw those miracles, they probably even ate the multiplied bread and fish … but what happened did not touch their hearts. We have to leave our hearts open to hear from Him – continually hitting the refresh button, even when it comes to reading the bible. One of Jesus’ twelve disciples did not appear to understand His ministry and purpose, despite the fact that this man walked around with Him for over three years! Our biggest danger as Christians is that we read in the bible about what He wants us to do, but then we go out and continue to live our lives thinking we can postpone our response, without applying these truths to ourselves! That is not how you get to know Him.

Our God loves loyal people, and at the same time, He cherishes each personal relationship with every one of us. It isn’t about praying at Him – it is about enjoying the time we spend with Him. Awareness of His goodness needs to be present with us in the everyday hustle and bustle we face. As we honour His wishes, by living the Way He has asked us to live, we will keep His Presence before our eyes. Everyday life gets bigger when we choose to make Him a part of it! Even the fact that the Lord has given us a choice in these things, is such an incredible privilege. Think about it. He made us, He quite obviously could have used force, yet He didn’t. Instead, He woos us with His loving kindness. Our choices reflect how much we take Him seriously as our Lord and Saviour.

Other so-called gods threaten people or lull them into a false sense of security. They appeal to physicality, or mental gymnastics – concepts and words that seem to have truth in them, manageable stuff!  But God’s truth always leaves me astonished. His way of looking at other people goes right round my brain! Some of the things that are done in the name of other gods are meaningless, even brutal, or vicious, self-serving and demanding. Eventually those things impinge upon the person’s freedom, not to mention scaring people half to death with their reprisal threats!  Father God cherishes our freedom to choose – He respects our choices even when they are not good for us. 

Let’s live like this: “And so, dear brothers and sisters, you are now made holy, and each of you is invited to the feast of your heavenly calling. So fasten your thoughts fully onto Jesus, Whom we embrace as our Apostle and King-Priest.” Hebrews 3:1 TPT. Our God is not like any other – our Heavenly Father is for us. What other god would die in place of His followers so they can have the freedom to choose Him …or not? Bye. 👋

P 3243 Using our faith can be scary.

/ DVH

Are you cheered up yet? Seriously — Jesus told us: “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33. He has a way to overcome whatever is going on in our lives. The Lord may not take the trouble away. Believe it or not, faith grows when we hang on to His goodness, even if it is by our fingernails. I think the Lord means that whatever it is coming at us, He’s already conquered it through the cross. We need a way through, more often than we need a way out!

In the past, I’ve wanted to throw my hands in the air and give up too easily. The giving UP part is not all bad —if you THROW yourself upon HIM—- but sadly, my own impatience, together with fear and negative responses, were keeping my faith under a lid. Faith is not meant to be suffocated – it needs to act and breathe Holy Spirit air. Now I just give everything to Jesus and leave it with Him. That can be a bit hair-raising, because the Lord always has His own timetable, however His kindness toward my growing faith In Him is always lovingly constant. 

The thing is, our Father’s plan is for us to grow up into the fullness of Jesus. “So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip His people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:11-13.

That prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher up the front of your church week by week is not simply there to become famous, or have a big church. That person is there to help you, as an individual, to grow to be like Jesus. The criteria for a great leader isn’t whether we like what they preach for not – it’s whether they challenge us week by week into using our own faith! Jesus learnt obedience through suffering. (Hebrews 5:8)  Yet He lived to do His Father’s Will! If that’s not what is happening to us, then we may have stepped into error and stopped listening or reading carefully. We can be deceived into thinking that  we are always supposed to like what the leader says. Phooey. That’s called tickling our ears. 

These things are a tests, and they can prevent us from living by faith. It’s an attitude of submissiveness that matters. We’ve been pampered for way too long. I think we need to learn how to be transformed by our circumstances, and become humble like Jesus was humble. He learnt from His earthly mother, father and teachers. Let’s remember …at the same time …He only made the Universe! His Mum once told Him ‘these people need a miracle please Son … ‘ and He did it.The fact that Jesus wasn’t keen on the idea helps me to realise that doing it is more important than liking it!  The Living Word submitted to earthly parents. Need I say more?

I don’t know why others go gaga over this subject, truly I don’t! For me this is a no-brainer. Sometimes people get into little groups, and then they prophesy criticism and doom over their leaders. You know, our God’s arms aren’t short! (Isaiah 59:1.) He’s still in charge, so unless the leader tells you to throw your kid into the mouth of Molech, or some other idiotic thing – remember, our God can teach us in a wilderness!  We could be amazed if we choose to let His love prevail, instead of our opinions. We gotta stop using the bible as a club to whack people who don’t happen to agree with us, upside-the-head.

Yesterday, we talked about swimming. Today I urge you to think about running, Even when we think we can go no further, our faith is destined for growth. Look at a long distance runner. They train their bodies, stretching them, so that they can go the distance. Hopefully, we are stretching our faith daily, training it to go further than we’ve ever gone before. Meanwhile, there are times when I can feel like I don’t have enough faith to blow my hat off! Let’s be logical for a second – how can I raise the dead when I can’t raise my own hopes? God already knows how to grow our faith, we need to simply take the next step, and that’s in the book. 

The next step might be telling someone you can’t stand that you are sorry that you haven’t been the sister/brother/mother/father/child/friend/believer you could have been! Repentance opens doors that are normally nailed shut. It even opens doors for that other person too! Our whole church society has become risk-averse. The people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet have an excuse, they have reprobate hearts. So they often blame the people who raised them for making them that way! Blame is a waste of energy and good health and it ought not to be so. In God’s world …we run on faith.

Let’s take some responsibility for our own actions. Nobody can change our past, but it is a great pity to let our past decisions run our future actions! The Bride-of-Christ simply must learn to take risks, by following our Bridegroom into the hard places. Following Jesus can be scary – you never know what He might ask you to do next! Bye. 👋

P 3242 Let’s go swimming.

/ DVH

Have you ever watched people as they enter the water to swim? Some jump in …Cowabunga! Some throw themselves in from a standing position. There are others who use a rope or a diving board – but either way, it all ends up in a big splash. Yet others e-a-s-e themselves in, bit by bit, they usually end up in the water up to their waist, but … just don’t splash them…  they are not ready for all-over water yet! Then they slowly descend, inch by inch, into water like a sinking city being overtaken by the ocean.  

I’m a descender…and I don’t go any deeper than my knees nowadays, because this old body can’t fight with moving water anymore. And don’t you dare splash me – because we will cease to be friends if you splash me! My dear hubby dives in, head first, then he comes up grinning like there is a magical secret on the bottom that I am missing out on. ‘But I don’t care. This is as far as I go!’ 

So what’s with the water allegory? Today I want to talk  about the River of God. This river is our spiritual life blood, it is our multi-directional ride further and further into His kingdom. Some people choose to jump into that river, or … maybe Jesus gives them a bit of a nudge … either way they are ruined for life! They took a risk, and  went out the front, and now they keep splashing and moving along in their little plastic brightly coloured lifebuoys. They are the noisy fun-makers. Others of us quietly ease ourselves into it, we don’t want to get out of our depth too quickly. Some of us opt to jump — but the splash never-sort-of-kind-of happens. I call that faith-stretching.

Father God doesn’t give tuppence about how we choose to get into the River, He just wants us all in it! We are safer in the Living Water of the Holy Spirit, than we are on dry land. On dry land we will become exhausted more easily, and we can forget that we belong in the river of life. We can also forget to drink! In the river of God the waves may splash you in the face and you end up with water on the inside as well as the outside… However, the Holy Spirit can’t carry us through life’s rapids if we choose to stay out of the river … and let’s not even mention negotiating waterfalls! 

The saddest thing of all, is that fear can stop us from moving forward. I’ve been scared of any body of water except the stuff that comes out of the tap! I nearly physically drowned once as a very young child, and it put me off the deeper channels where carefreeness adds to the person’s enjoyment. I’d love to ride down the river on a rubber ring, but that bad experience has diminished and drowned my desire to try. 

Maybe a lot of people are little like me when it comes to the River of God. Once, long ago, they bravely plucked up their courage and stuck their toe in, or maybe they even went in up to their knees — but then a speed boat rushed by knocking them off their feet and sending them under. Under is not good. Ask a surfer. Under means you may not know where UP is. This person’s trust has been damaged. 

Our God is so faithful. He will repair our trust in Him, even though we may secretly blame Him for whatever happened to us, He patiently waits for us to realise we were born for the River. ‘HELP!’ Is such a useful word. It applies to drowning, as well as the fear of losing control. I probably overuse that word a lot!  But I know that the Lord wants to help each one of us with those things that have frightened us, so that we can learn to trust Him. 

When I feel like I am drowning, even a little bit! – I call out to Him. Just like Peter in the next scripture. Then peace slowly descends upon my soul, and I can move on. Most of what I’ve managed to learn about the Lord, came this way – through His quiet, gentle and thorough patience with me. I’ve learnt if I let Him help me calm the storm inside, I can more easily walk through the storm raging on the outside. Jesus called to Peter to come and walk on the water with Him, but the Lord was already there, ON the water – He won’t make us do this alone! Matthew 4:25-32.

“Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw Him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s You,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to You on the water.”“Come,” He said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” He said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.”

Jesus can stand with us in any circumstance – I don’t care how stormy or windy it looks – He’s there! He is saying: “Come to ME.” We know that Peter faltered, but our Lord is so faithful – He did not let Him drown. God will not take His Word back. When He says “Come,” we are not walking toward our doom, we are walking toward Life Himself. Walking toward Him helps us trust Him. The secret is to get off the banks of the river and start to get into the water! Trust will grow as we keep our eyes on Him.

That other guy may send speed boats, or crocodiles or alligators by to scare us, but they can’t stop us. The next step is to begin to enter the water — Jesus is right there with you … you will hear Him calling you. “COME!!”Now throw your legs out of the boat and trust Him – you are about to have an adventure. Let’s go swimming.   Bye  🏊🏼‍♀️!