Christianity

P 3189 Love looks like something.

/ DVH

At this time of the year, we are reminded that God’s love looks like a baby in a food trough, surrounded by His parents, animals, smelly unwashed shepherds, (no showers out there!) — and glorious angels lighting the sky, celebrating and singing the new baby off to sleep. That was one heck of a birth announcement! The Lord Jesus’ life was ended far too soon by jealous religious people who esteemed rules over love. If that happened to Him, then why are we surprised if unforeseen unpleasant things happen to us? Pure love will be opposed, because it challenges self-centredness. But, at the same time, it goes right around religion and hits people in the heart!

I think God’s Love looks like RISK. Following Jesus is a risky business. Unlike Forrest Gump’s naive, often quoted wisdom – “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” I disagree with that thought – MY box of chocolates comes with a list of yummy contents — and so do the Lord’s blessings. My list of blessings are in His book! Mercy, for instance, turns up fresh and new every morning! We are going to have to stay spiritually alert to find His blessings in the middle of this life’s chaos. And we will have to risk what we think we know, to receive from the One Who knows everything. 

Love also looks like not getting what we want, or even like. I’ve met that one. And afterward I’ve given thanks because what I thought I needed, turned out to be a set-up, wickedly provided by the enemy. If anything distracts us from God’s purposes – it’s a trap! The bible calls such things a snare. Whatever it is called, sometimes not getting what we pray for is a blessing! No matter how good, right and just it seems to us. We can pray for more money ‘cos we need it, or a house, or a spouse, only to find that the picture in our mind looks nothing like the reality. Almighty God saves us from ourselves all the time. Praise Him! That’s what I call LOVE.

Love looks like not giving someone else a piece of our mind …especially when very few people care about what we think! This kind of stuff becomes clearer when other people have misunderstood us. Or, even worse, they have misinterpreted our actions. Love looks a lot more like putting a sock in it, than it looks like starting a war over who said what!  I’ve noticed that our lives today seem to be more about making ME understood – than it is about ME understanding YOU! That’s a swing and a miss… plus it flies in the face of everything Jesus said and did.

I really like this scripture: “You have worn out the LORD with your words. And yet, you ask, “How did we do that?” You did it by saying, “The LORD is pleased with evil and doesn’t care about justice.” Malachi 2:17. Even God Himself – the inexhaustible source of all real love, can get sick and tired of our irrational, petty excuses and miserable attitudes. Love can look like taking the blame, whether it is our fault or not, and then asking the Lord to make the difference – instead of pulling out our trusty broad sword and whacking other people over the head with it. The bible is the very best kind of sword, it will cut people free. But .. it doesn’t injure them on purpose for the sake of winning an argument.

Love does not look like compromise.Tell me one time Jesus compromised what He said to make someone else happy! JESUS the LIVING WORD – is the stone that other people stumble over!  “And another scripture says, “This is the stone that will make people stumble, the rock that will make them fall.” They stumbled because they did not believe in the word; such was God’s will for them.” 1 Peter 2:8. Sometimes we can end up striving so hard to make disgruntled people happy! We can’t upset this group because of this … We can’t afford to upset that other group, because we want something from them…  …but nobody says that bit out loud!  

Adapting the Lord’s’ Word to make others feel comfortable, can cause us to compromise all over the place. That is part of our enemy’s most potent strategies. We can call it love, or inclusion, or sharing, but if we compromise on the little things, without His guidance, then compromising on the big things will get so much easier. Love  always has an opinion – HIS!

Love looks like making hard choices – it is not about what we think we want, or need. How can God bless us when we are so busy grabbing stuff for ourselves? This kind of attitude shows us clearly the actual level of our faith. It means we don’t believe He cares for us enough to provide for our needs. So we finagle our way through things instead of sitting back and saying: “If You want me to have such and such Lord, You will provide it.” And then we let those desires go.

Years ago, when my kids were small, we got rid of the TV. Why? Because every single time I spoke to them, all I saw was the back of their heads! It was the Lord’s idea … so we sold it. We were the only people we knew, who had no TV! My kids found ways to amuse themselves, it was a win, win kind of thing. In our news right now we have an uproar about taking away some things that facilitate wrong attitudes in young children, exposing them to all kinds of danger and misadventure. Many parents are scared of not being popular with their kids, but popularity is not an adult’s priority, safety is!

Love looks like boundaries and it also looks like leadership. It looks like kind and firm responses that care about young lives because maturity can see what will happen down the road. Love could care less about popularity, it wants what He wants. Bye 👋

P 3186 Here comes the Bride.

/ DVH

Sometimes I think that we are praying for the wrong thing! Let me explain: we can spend so much time praying for our spouses, our kids, our friends, etc. to change, when the person who needs to change is ME! It’s a waste of our time trying to pin our grumpy responses and attitudes on someone else – our responses are our responses! Aren’t you glad I said that out loud?  

I think we may need to be reminded that salvation is an ongoing process and none of us are there yet! However, that does not mean we should throw up our hands and give up on the process. The Lord’s processes are part of the ensuing transformation. In order to be His bride, we must participate and do things His way.

I read something that someone or other wrote about seeing a butterfly struggling to exit from its cocoon. They decided to help the poor little critter out, and carefully used a pen-knife to cut the hole a little larger. The butterfly emerged quickly and flapped its wings in the sun. The ‘helper’ was ecstatic – he had helped the little creature to evolve! Then the butterfly keeled over dead. The struggle to emerge was part of a very necessary strength it needed to fly. 

We are like that butterfly! There is only so much help we can get for ourselves from others — or even give to someone else that will actually help them. The struggle to emerge is part of the process and there are no shortcuts. We can and must pray for each other, but in the end we all need to make those wise choices to learn for ourselves. (Matthew 25:2) This process of learning what I must and must not do, is part of all of us realising that we can’t achieve a thing without the Holy Spirit’s help.

We can spend so much time focussing on what’s wrong with other people, or society, or our uncontrollable difficulties, that we forget that we too are more than capable of making huge mistakes. Our everyday contribution to this world counts. The point isn’t just about trying to avoid mistakes – the real point is it that it is ME that needs prayer! There are no perfect people here! It is my actions or lack of them, and sometimes my reactions, that need to be changed. 

We can waste our whole lives blaming other people for the things we’ve chosen to embrace, and we can even call it ‘protecting ourselves.’ But the reality is protecting me is His chosen job! “The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my Saviour; my God is my rock, in Whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”  Psalm 18:2. Why do I need to defend myself against you, if He is my protector? The best course of action for me in the middle of trouble is to run to Him. It’s called personal responsibility.

I desperately need to get that particular verse in Psalm 18, out of my head into my heart, quickly! Most of us   need our minds daily renewed in an ongoing fashion. And sadly, sometimes I treat the Lord like He is ‘other people.’ Most of my life, other people were not fun to be around. I suspect I’ve had that situation in common with practically everyone who has ever lived on this planet! 

However, deep down, know I’m not some helpless little hurt one, who needs to be petted and patted and soothed, The bible says I’m Jesus’ chosen Bride. Right here, right now. Grey hair and wrinkles and all!! Imagine the honour of that! He wants to marry each of us. In His eyes, we are His beloved forever — and that’s exactly how He thinks about us! 

We must not let ongoing difficulties and pain hobble us away from choosing to grow. We need the pioneering spirit that led our forefathers through hardship – instead of an attitude straight out of the pit, that says: “I can’t” ... when HE specifically says we can!  (Philippians 4:13) This life is not our fight, SomeBody already won for us, now we need to practice following the Lord through the hardships and sins that oppose us. 

The Lord is so good to us! In His eyes we are not some kind of pests who give in to weakness and use that idea as an excuse to avoid transformation. His focus is on our future together. He quite simply can’t wait to marry His Bride! Read Song of Solomon! And while you are in the book, take a look at Matthew 23:27.

“How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would have none of it!” Jesus, our Bridegroom, wants to protect us! Let’s not be like those who gave up before they reached the goal and they ‘would not!’ Let’s choose to believe what He has said about HIM and US. And daily we are learning, and waiting for our bridegroom to come through for us. Full of the Holy Spirit and love for Him. 

Let’s not bail out on change! We need to LIVE READY to embrace it when it comes..You know, Esther spent 6 months in all kinds of smelly stuff to get her ready for her one night with the King. And we have eternity to look forward to!

Brides start out as ordinary girls, and hopefully they are transformed into a bride through the love of the man they are marrying. Getting married is a process and we can’t skip the process because we know that our King is more than worthy of a beautiful Bride! The bible clearly tells us we are not to have a spot or wrinkle in our wedding garments, and our preparation is under the supervision of the Holy Spirit, Himself. I refuse to be afraid even though fear and his cohorts regularly bash on my door. I know I have a bigger purpose than marking time until I die and go to be with Him. 

Our wedding garment is a garment that has been dipped in His blood and it is spotless. The love of our Heavenly Bridegroom did all that for us! “He did this to present the church to Himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5:27. We cannot dry-clean or wash ourselves – instead we need to live and act on the knowledge that the work has already been done for us – by SomeOne Who adores each and every one of us. 

Now we live this life, the only one we have, using our faith daily. Believing in Who He is, and What He says and what He has already done for us. We want to be ready for whatever comes our way, because we know we going to a wedding! Here comes His Bride and she’s no coward! Bye. 👋

P 3185 A road map for your day.

/ DVH

“Let every activity of your lives and every word that comes from your lips be drenched with the beauty of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One. And bring your constant praise to God the Father because of what Christ has done for you!” Colossians 3:17 TPT. “Walk in the wisdom of God as you live before the unbelievers, and make it your duty to make Him known. Let every word you speak be drenched with grace and tempered with truth and clarity. For then you will be prepared to give a respectful answer to anyone who asks about your faith.” Colossians 4:5-6 TPT.

After reading those two scriptures I felt a bit like a sheep! Drenching here and drenching there. Then I looked up the word ‘drenching’ and I found out that doing that to the sheep gets rid of internal parasites. Hmmm. Perhaps I need this drenching stuff, because it is beneficial to my new life in Christ. It is way too easy to pick up internal parasites. You just have to drive in peak traffic and all that internal stuff starts coming out of your mouth! For these two scriptures to have power in our lives we need to hone our focus, with the Holy Spirit’s help. I think about it like this– will what I am going to say help that person to feel loved? Love is my aim. 

Did you notice the conditions under which all of these lovely attitudes toward all kinds of other people transpires? Colossians 3 v17 is talking about those activities, plus our need to focus on the Lord Jesus and all He has done for us. And verses 5-6 of Chapter 4 is talking about walking in His wisdom, as well as letting the people around us know about Him … It also clearly mentions that we will need His grace to do it … I’ll say! 

I definitely need truck loads of grace, I ask for it all the time.

It is easy to see how conflict occurs – one person can have a different version of truth than someone else. This scenario will probably end up in collision. It means we need a common denominator, or we will end up arguing about our differences.Instead we need to find a place of agreement, so why don’t we agree with His VERSION of the truth. When we agree about our love for Jesus, that brings Him back into focus. It is not helpful to talk our different theologies or our behaviours. This why those two verses are good together – they show us where our focus needs to be.

OK. So HOW do we spread abroad the love of God into our family’s lives first of all? We do whatever we need to do, in a quiet way under His guidance – no matter what the job is, or how difficult or irrelevant it seems. Our lives belong to Him so we deliberately choose to follow the Holy Spirit!  We can get into a quandary when we try to live for us and for Jesus …all at the same time, because a divided heart won’t get us where we want to go. It seems to me that I need to be aware of every word that comes out of my mouth or I will end up circling the drain. Part of being daily transformed includes being careful what I say.

This life makes it blatantly obvious to me that I need a Saviour, and the Holy Spirit’s help. My own methods are broken. Praise God Jesus died to give me His methods so I am not powerless in the face of adversity! I can now, bless and praise God immediately for giving me a new nature simply. I just need to choose to live like He did, preferring others, and living aware of His Father’s Love for Him. Love is the oil that throws light into our everyday thoughts and actions.

Because I walk with Jesus, that means that the people closest to me will not get my worst behaviour! In fact, if I follow the Holy Spirit around in my own life and I can practise learning to process what I think, without even saying a word. His Grace flows more freely when we deliberately choose to take the lowest place. And the Lord Himself will guide me into activities that are His choice for me. And He will help me deal with the ones that bring up those pesky parasites we were talking about before.

We need to remember, that the scripture in Colossians 3 talks about letting. Letting means allowing! We allow the Holy Spirit to keep our focus on Jesus, and guide us into whatever He has for us to do today. Plus we allow Him to correct us as we go along. In reality, our focus has to stay on Him, because we can’t do a thing without Him! That’s when praise starts – when we become witnesses to what He is really doing. 

Our own little list of‘things I have to do’ will have to be surrendered to Him, simply because we are now letting Him guide us through each day. That’s what ‘dead to self’ means. I am no longer just a homemaker, or a mechanic, or a computer expert –now I am an ambassador for the King. That’s my title. That’s my Job! And it is by my own choice. That’s also when interruptions stop being a pest, and become His heaven-sent opportunities to change my responses. He can change me, or someone else – it doesn’t matter –because my focus in everything is on Him.

Now we are daily learning to rely upon Him and His Grace. I have a glorious Person Who is active, and helping me, and He knows exactly how to get me through the bumps of this life. I intentionally stand in His Grace and remember all this stuff that is going on around me, will never have the final say. Jesus does! However, if we choose to run with our own little lists … well, that’s when those pesky parasites come up, and they usually bring tanks and rockets with them! I need-to-be-drenched-with the Holy Spirit, continually, on purpose.

Who we are outside our house, depends on who we are inside our house. Part of overcoming daily difficulties is that we watch over our immediate focus, then it will become natural for our conversations to be about our faith in the One Who is helping us … minute by minute. That’s the road map from Colossians. Bye.👋

P 3183 It’s the relationship He wants!

/ DVH

Almighty God is not like us, we are like Him. However, we all know that He went to extraordinary lengths to become like us, with an act that impacted every single life that has ever been, or ever will be on this planet! Jesus Christ is God’s answer to a real relationship. Our heavenly Father did not have to send His Son …but He did! Let’s remind ourselves about how it all started. “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:8,9. .Part of love is loss, and God feels that loss too! I don’t care what you’ve done, Almighty God loves and misses you – He longs to have you back close to Him.

Think about it —He already knew what Adam and Eve had done, His cry back then was a rhetorical question – He wanted to know why they HID from Him. The very minute Adam and Eve hid, our God felt the loss of their fellowship. This is what Jesus Himself said just before He died: “About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”which means “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” ESV. Jesus instantly felt the loss of His Father’s Presence, even while He was weighed down by all our sin. The ties between the Father and the Son were so strong, when they broke, both of Them suffered. Can you see how important relationship is to both the Father and the Son?

God wanted Adam and Eve to come forward and be restored to fellowship, but they chose blame instead. Blame is a poor substitute for repentance. Repentance can open doors that appear to be welded shut. However, it is far better to talk about what I did, than feature someone else’s sins against me. Blaming others gives us a reason to stay separated from each other and God. Because satan intervened in human life … ever since then, Father God has missed the fellowship with the beloved men and women He created. He even carefully made us in a sheltered place, inside our mothers. In the bible, we are told that we’ve been made like Him. Genesis 1:26: Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, …” Just pause and think about that. We were originally made to BE like Him. He doesn’t want to change us, He wants to free us. He has done everything necessary to restore us to our original destiny!

Here’s something else to think on today —I don’t care who told you your life was worthless. A parent, or a sibling, or a professor with more degrees than a thermometer …they are lying to you. Other people cannot be the authority on how much  you are worth!  Let’s remember how much value God Himself has put on each one of us as individuals..Because He sent His Son to die for us, our worth is not in who we are, or what we do, it lies in what God Himself was prepared to pay to get us back. At the same time, even though we might need a microscope—we are all made to resemble Him—however, some of us may hide that fact better than others!

Our life’s great quest is to know Him, like Jesus knew Him! And for Him to know us. Our God is not a bully, He will not push His way into our lives, He wants to be invited. Let’s remind ourselves that He longs to reveal Himself to His very own children. The bible is filled with stories of His interactions between human beings and Himself. But many people seem to want to sideline the Way the Lord thinks and acts. Instead, we’ve made religious boxes to hold Him, because those boxes suit our beliefs. But boxes do not promote intimacy. 

Here’s an example of the difference between intimacy and knowledge — I don’t go to my husband when I need something simply because he knows how to do things – even though he does. That’s called service. I love being with my hubby because I enjoy who he is. He makes me laugh and he’s the smartest person I know. He encourages me and he enjoys my company. Father God loves our company, He enjoys us, every single one of us. No exceptions!  

We can’t possibly begin to understand Who the Lord is by simple, sheer, rigid, religious obedience. Obedience to His will His way, is only a door. That door opens up into a much wider place where … as the David exclaims in Psalm 40 … “I delight to do thy will O Lord…”  Let’s aim at being delighted to be with Him. Let’s not do this stuff just because we ‘have to! If we have to,  we are still walking in fear of discovery. Relationship is founded and flourishes on an exchange of love, not rules. 

Marriages fail because human beings don’t understand this. Marriage is not about taking, it is about giving. Please don’t get married if you aim is to get! You will be very disappointed!! Remember, the chances are you will be marrying someone just like YOU! The Lord Jesus Himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35. God Himself gave us His precious Son, so now we, as Jesus’ disciples, the undeserving recipients of that love, we choose to give others all around us love, whether they deserve it or not. Father God wants a relationship – DO YOU? Bye. 👋.

P 3182 Gold can be found by a smart seeker.

/ DVH

Here’s a fairly common family scenario – it’s early, you just got up, and you have 40 things to do before you leave for work, and suddenly the dog throws up in the lounge. When you’ve dealt with all that, plus getting kids off to school — you pray, and hope that somehow, something from reading the bible might fall into place. Meanwhile you are actively looking for encouragement, because you are already stressed!

The following parable gives us an example of adaptation, doing what we know realistically, we can do, rather than stuffing too much in, hoping we will somehow slide by. Remember, we are not reading for the sake of learning or understanding it, we are reading the bible trying to find something to DO. Our aim matters. I have sometimes read 3 words, and had enough food to keep me chewing on it all day. We are aiming at digesting truth so that our behaviour changes. Jesus is explaining that even a crook knows how to make the best of a difficult situation!

The following parable seems very puzzling, because it appears inconsistent with everything else Jesus teaches. This manager is a lazy crook and a bad servant, and yet the Lord is commending him. But this manager knew how to survive in difficult circumstances. I think sometimes we give up too soon, and so we adapt our aim to facilitate our TIME, instead of making HIM our priority. So we aren’t aiming for food—instead we are settling for soothing our conscience. 

In Luke 16:1-13 MSG Jesus said to His disciples, “There was once a rich man who had a manager. He got reports that the manager had been taking advantage of his position by running up huge personal expenses. So he called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? You’re fired. And I want a complete audit of your books.’“The manager said to himself, ‘What am I going to do? I’ve lost my job as manager. I’m not strong enough for a laboring job, and I’m too proud to beg. . . . Ah, I’ve got a plan. Here’s what I’ll do . . . then when I’m turned out into the street, people will take me into their houses.’

“Then he went at it. One after another, he called in the people who were in debt to his master. He said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’“He replied, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’“The manager said, ‘Here, take your bill, sit down here—quick now—write fifty.’“To the next he said, ‘And you, what do you owe?’“ He answered, ‘A hundred sacks of wheat.’“He said, ‘Take your bill, write in eighty.’“Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behaviour.”

This sneaky manager, found a way to gain something to benefit him despite his circumstances. He did what he could to survive. Reading paragraphs in the bible when you have no time may not help you survive spiritually. Why not read just one or two verses, and chew on them, and find something to do in them, and then do it. Fresh bread from heaven, doesn’t have to be a whole loaf, it can be a small slice instead! Valuing God is about looking for what He wants to say to you personally, rather than treating Him like a chore you must perform. I consider going over and over the things that I don’t really understand, extremely valuable. So I pray ‘please help me understand this Lord,’ and I keep on doing that until I get an answer. 

I was impacted by these two verses – V9-11:“I want you to be smart in the same way—but for what is right—using every adversity to stimulate you to CREATIVE SURVIVAL to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behaviour.” See what I mean? When you are having “a day’ and it is not a good one, doing something is better than doing nothing at all. Even though doing nothing is far more tempting! It is much easier to say: ‘I’ll catch up tomorrow,’ When we do this we’ve missed the point, it is not the amount of scripture we read that matters – it is the attention we give to it while we are reading it. It’s the chewing that matters.That plus the actions we deliberately choose to carry out, to bring what we’ve read to life in our lives.

This steward was lazy etc. but he did something and it saved him. He didn’t get his old job back, but at least two other men would have been quite happy to employ him because he helped them out! Meanwhile his old boss received a benefit as well. Before, when this manager did what he did – his old boss wasn’t going to receive any payment at all!  We all need to be smart and prioritise the right things. You don’t have to read 12 chapters, so long as you keep putting what it says into action!

Even a little bit of God’s Word, when you act on it to digest it, will keep you going spiritually. We make friends with unrighteous mammon when we are realistic about what we can actually do and still prioritise our relationship with Him. Jesus Himself said: ‘every word’ that comes out of God’s mouth has power in it.’  We are better off to take in the little we can digest, rather than bite off huge chunks that get relegated into never-never-land and simply add to what I call ‘overall knowledge!’ Stuff that lies about in our brains and doesn’t benefit us because we didn’t give it enough attention. Make your situation work for you. With reading comes digestion.

The Gospels and Epistles are great places where we can find stuff we can do. Read and reread and then insist in your prayers that you want more than lip-service. Gold can be found by a smart seeker. Bye  👋

P 3181 A new kind of knowledge.

/ DVH

“In this new creation life, your nationality makes no difference, nor your ethnicity, education, nor economic status—they matter nothing. For it is Christ that means everything as He lives in every one of us!” Colossians 3:11 TPT. Light years ago now, when I was doing my shopping in the supermarket, carefully picking out apples for my family. I looked up and there was a young woman about my age on the other side of the pile of apples doing the same thing. We smiled and then we both spoke at exactly the same time – “You’re a Christian too,” we said simultaneously. 

It was truly awesome and …pretty weird … all-at-the-same-time! We chatted about Jesus, and eventually she went off back into her world, and I went off into mine. Jesus in me, recognised Jesus in her. That’s because He is the same, yesterday, today and forever! The bible tells us other people will know we are Christians by our love— but in this instance, it seems to me the Lord went a little step further. I saw, for a brief moment, that there are no strangers in the realm of the Spirit.

The bible itself exhorts us to know one another after the Spirit:“So from now on we regard no one from a human point of view [according to worldly standards and values]. Though we have known Christ from a human point of view, now we no longer know Him in this way.”  2 Corinthians 5:16. Which brings me to my point today …

I have a question. Do we only know Jesus as the Man, the One Who walked upon the earth like we do now? Or do we also know Him as the risen resurrected Christ? Is He now the mighty One Who appeared to John in the book of Revelation? People make a great deal out of creating movies that bring an image of Jesus into this world. They retell His story with a human being playing Christ. Praise God for those who have come to know the Lord because of those films! But why must we reduce everything to movie land? What’s wrong with talking to people?

When is the last time somebody was healed because your shadow fell on them? Me neither! We sing ‘He is Lord’ and then go out of the meeting and do precisely whatever we want to do. Where did ”Live for Jesus” go? Are we excusing ourselves over and over again by saying, God understands? Does He? Or is that comforting voice that reassures us that we’ll be OK, not Him? Paul describes our society to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:2-5: It’s a warning!

“People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” Having nothing to do with people like that, could be a bit hard to carry out when the person you are looking at is in the mirror! Maybe that soothing voice is not the Holy Spirit after all, but someone else lulling us all back to sleep. 

During Jesus time on this earth, there were mixed reactions to the Man He was. Some of the people back then walked away from Him, and some actively opposed everything He said. These people were in the Presence of God Himself, and didn’t know it. Why not? I think their idea of religion blocked their spiritual sight. They saw Jesus as SomeOne Who was like everyone else but He had nice impossible ideals. Have we made religious decisions about the Lord, instead of being guided by the precious Holy Spirit?

Disobeying SomeOne we see as a man like us, probably won’t matter much, but disobeying our Almighty Ever-lasting Father, God will! Perception is a valuable thing.  We can let this world down when we do not make it clear that we will all one day stand before God Himself. Instead, it seems to me that we are hiding in holes, hoping this nasty, vicious, slimy world around us will wake up to itself. It won’t – not like that it won’t! What works in places like Africa with poor underprivileged people, may not work at all here in we have-pretty-much-everything-we-want-land.

Jesus is not merely a carpenter with dirty dusty feet, and good stories to tell. We dare not lose sight of the One we know as our Lord, because otherwise holy things can become common. Back in Israel in Jesus’ time some people immediately fell at His feet in worship. Those people saw more than just a man! We need to move on past our personal view of Jesus as a human being, and also see Him as God incarnate. Heaven and earth’s Darling, Who calls us brothers and sisters. What an honour!

What truly matters is Christ in us… and then our mandate is to release His love to anybody we meet, wherever we go. We can’t just live in our happy little Sunday clubs anymore – we need to take Him with us, out into the places of suffering and sorrow. And yes, we just might get our nice new blue skirt, or jeans dirty. A new kind of knowledge requires a new kind of response. Bye. 👋

“And so the Living Expression became a man and lived among us! We gazed upon His glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father overflowing with tender mercy and truth!” John 1:14 TPT.

P 3180 There is no other way.

/ DVH

Mark 10:48-52 talks about Bartimaeus, a blind beggar from Jericho, who insistently called out to Jesus and was healed, and then he followed Jesus down the road. This man didn’t give up on what he wanted, easily. We shouldn’t either! It appears to me that unlike Bartimaeus – we don’t know that we too are blind and deaf.

Many Christians have stopped seeing, spiritually speaking, and we aren’t always great at hearing the Lord for ourselves either! Hearing and seeing spiritually are a part of God’s kingdom. They are a part of our birthright, and a key into intimacy with the Holy Spirit. There are times when we’ve all walked into a  place of unforgiveness because we listened to the enemy’s ‘poor you’ sympathy line. We all have a sad story – this is a fallen world.

Let’s listen to Matthew 13:13-15. Jesus Himself is speaking to His disciples: “This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

Spiritual eyes and ears are incredibly important to our walking with the Holy Spirit. Even as our everyday human sight and hearing are part of our interaction with the world around us – if we cannot see or hear with our normal eyes and ears, we will be shut out of God’s Ways. What is true in the natural, is also true spiritually. We will be shut off from seeing and hearing the glories and knowledge of His kingdom if we refuse to obey what He said.

Meanwhile the Lord Jesus is never silent, read the book – it’s chock full of what He said! Please stop worrying about discerning ‘voices’ and read the bible instead. A thorough knowledge of the Word of God is the best discerner on the planet! Jesus spent hours teaching His disciples. He was teaching them to see and hear what  was going on inside themselves, and all around them. Things aren’t always the way they look! 

At one stage of their walk with Jesus, two of the disciples – James and John in Luke 9:54 – want to burn down a tower in a Samaritan town that rejected the Lord. How could this awful attitude happen, when they were daily walking with Jesus? These two men had no spiritual sight. They obviously did not understand what Jesus was teaching them! Maybe they thought He was making suggestions, or perhaps what the Lord said was in opposition to what this world had taught them and they tried to marry the two things together. We cannot successfully live in two worlds. That’s like trying to stand still in the middle of a roaring flooded stream. The stream will carry you away. 

Now, let’s look at what blocks our spiritual sight and hearing. The bible says it is a calloused heart. That malady is fostered by sin, and it is definitely not helped when we stop sincerely forgiving others, from our hearts. If we harden our hearts against other people, and stop paying attention to the conviction of the Holy Spirit as He speaks to us,our problem is no longer that other person! We will end up grieving Him because He loves them too! 

The same thing goes for any other sin, we have a free will and our choices matter. We are only fooling ourselves if we excuse ourselves for one reason or another. The Holy Spirit wants us to walk with Him, and forgive others despite their sins against us. It is not about the other person — it is about what will happen to us in our relationship with Him. Meanwhile, He is not just our answer – He is their answer too! Grace flows out when we allow forgiveness in.

Jesus is always ‘other centred’- and therefore a calloused heart is a terrible state to cultivate. A calloused heart can be made unfeeling and numb by repeated actions. We will end up with an inner war, as the Spirit fights to free us as we fight to hold onto our anger and thoughts and feelings of revenge against the other person. Eventually such thoughts become habitual and we have a stronghold to deal with. We cannot fix the past by holding onto it—the way forward is to make the future different. The Holy Spirit is in our lives to help us with those things. 

The longer we allow ourselves to remain in that frozen hardened state, the more it becomes harder to escape. Hatred, revenge and murder begin to infiltrate our thoughts. “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?  But He turned and rebuked them [and He said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”  Luke 9:54-56. The Holy Spirit will help us with what we need to do, but we need to obey Him and disobedience hardens our hearts. If you have been praying about your sight and hearing and you aren’t doing very well, then perhaps you need to start by searching your heart, with His help. It is astonishing what we hide – even from ourselves.

We can close our spiritual ears and eyes because of our own choices. To be in Christ Jesus – we need to be doing what He would do. And He forgave us all as He was hanging from that tree. There is no other way. Bye. 👋

P 3179 What does love look like?

/ DVH

If you have been reading this blog on and off for a while you will already know my answer to that question. Real love looks like an innocent man hanging from a cross – suffering willingly and terribly, for every rotten, evil thought and deed humanity has accidentally and purposefully perpetrated against themselves and others.

At the same time love looks like 1 Corinthians 13, 1 John 4:18, 1 Peter 4:8, 1 Corinthians 16:14, Colossians 3:14 just to name after few verses. Every single time I read that chapter in Corinthians, I know I do not have it in me to be that person – I’m going to need truckloads of supernatural help! But God Himself wants to transform my own personal experience into His kingdom experiences, as I learn to walk in His Love. However, I will need to remember that His love is not permission to do whatever I want. It has aims for my life. But the Holy Spirit will always help me.

God’s kind of love does not in any way resemble our modern world, which shouts and jumps up and down at everyone else and says:‘ If you love me you will give me what I want!’ God’s love is founded on, and maintained, through sacrifice. His love is so real, deep and comprehensive it will not rest until it brings out the very best in His beloved. Read the book. Start with the Old Testament and watch our Heavenly Father work with a rebellious, cantankerous, wilful people. The Israelites wanted a god who would smite their enemies, and leave them alone to do absolutely anything they wanted to do, and who cares about the consequences?

Now listen to what the Lord God Almighty says about Himself: “I am the LORD, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed.” Malachi 3:6. Did you get that bit? He does not change – you and I might have wanted to do some smiting and biting because of the Israelites horrible attitudes, but our God does not change – His Holiness is fixed. Self-centredness has nothing in common with God’s pure and holy love. Amazingly, Father God does not want to destroy the man He made, that’s why Jesus came. “But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:8.

If God had not sent His Son to die for us then the devil would have destroyed all of us. We were sitting ducks! Jesus thwarted our enemy’s attempt to subvert the ways of God so we can walk with Him ourselves. Jesus not only saved us all from hell – He saved us from our own choices. Then He took us out of satan’s kingdom, paid our debt, so we can live in His Father’s kingdom – LOVE’S KINGDOM. Love’s kingdom has parameters.

“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light.”  1 Peter 2:9. It is way too easy to skip over some bits of verses, and just kind of go for the sweet bits we like, that are often in the middle.”The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by EVERY word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:4. Let’s go back to the words we often don’t see …1 Peter 2:9 …”As a result you can show others the goodness of God… OR “…you are not like that …” 

If we are not careful we can easily skip right by those few words, to the ones that tell us what we want to hear.… You are ‘a royal priesthood, a chosen people, God’s very own possession’…those bits. But if we are to live this life as the Father’s royal priests. We are not meant to be the Levites or Pharisees – there is a new order of priests – we are priests who live like Jesus did! We cannot afford to live like everyone else around us. Jesus is ultimate royalty and His life and teaching are our example. God’s Love corrects us and disciplines us, to transform us into royalty.

Human beings don’t think of love as correction, however, correction and discipline are definitely a part of His love! God Himself allowed US to punish HIS SON for OUR own ultimate good. That’s how much He loves us and that’s what love looks like to Him! The devil will quibble, question and defer to our so-called right to be indulged, on the basis of “poor me’ until we are DEAD! However, our Father guides and corrects us because He utterly and unreservedly loves us. Our Father does not discipline us because He wants to spoil our fun… He does so because the stuff we wander into is like treacle or quick-sand – we wander in and we can’t get out!

Trapped in sin is a very bad look for human beings! We were made to worship the Lord, and enjoy Him all the days of our lives… and beyond! But sin, when it is embraced, colours everything around it. Colour goes out of this world when we leave God out. However, living for Jesus and others, as He leads us, is the most delightful thing anyone can aim at. It brings out God’s purpose in our lives, and we learn to live aware of Him. Living a life of faith means we know who we are, and why we are here. That changes the way we see everything else around us.

Let’s briefly go back to the Israelites. They could not see LOVE leading them, and so they felt deprived when they couldn’t do what they wanted to do. Love Himself was talking to them and they couldn’t hear a word He said, because all their complaining and whining blocked His words out! But living this life as a totally surrendered lover of Jesus will transform us to look like Him. It isn’t always FUN, but ‘afterward we reap the peaceable fruits of righteousness.’ Hebrews 12:11. Love looks like Jesus. Bye. 👋

P 3178 Our thoughts.

/ DVH

Most despairing attitudes start in our thought-life. However when we take the time to pay attention to what we are thinking, we can exchange those thoughts for Who He is and how much He loves us! His love is the only constant thing this world has! It is a matter of choice, not a matter of proof. Do we believe what He says or how we feel. The more we know what the truth is — the bigger our opportunity is to be blessed, because we have come to know personally, intimately, a greater reality. 

These two seemingly opposite things, like hardship and blessings can co-exist. Pain, heartache, and sorrow, can be present at the same time as our knowledge of Who He is and how much we are loved by Him. Open the bible and find a scripture that helps, and then hold fast to it.  His love is always greater than the circumstances. When these things fall upon us, we need to learn to insist, purely for our own good. The Lord Jesus outweighs the things that come against us to try to drown us in our problems. He is bigger than anything we might face. Yelling ‘help,’ helps me! And no, I don’t always do that out loud!!

When we are under any sort of duress, we need to deliberately read the bible to remind ourselves of His kind of love. At the moment when you feel you can’t – you must! His love is so good, so faithful, so steadfast, that as we read, we will come to a place where we feel the darkness recede … don’t stop there, keep going. The enemy is pushing you, push back! If we fall into something testing or tormenting we know that He will help us. He says so! The Holy Spirit, the One Who comes alongside us, will kiss us back to life again. This is when our faith in God’s goodness has an opportunity to grow. Jesus died to give us that choice!

Faith needs to be tested otherwise it will not have depth. There is a stronger kind of faith that has been tried and tested and come through all kinds of difficulties with even more gratitude and worship. I know people who have this kind of faith. All kinds of hardship are actually fertile ground, fertilised by our surrender and our active faith that He is bigger than anything else. Being tested, and pushing on, can only deepen what we already know about Him! We cannot trust the Lord completely until what we believe has had our beliefs tested and shaken, so that all the unbelief falls off. Then we’ll discover that He is more than able to keep us.

If we choose to continue to follow and submit to Him even when we feel we cannot find our way—we will get through whatever is shaking our world, and come out of the other side – whether the situation changes or not.. Let’s make the immediate choice to look up and see that dear face of His so close to us. He knows all about pain and suffering and sorrow – personally. He understands it is hard – personally! At the same time the Holy Spirit will comfort us, and teach us that we can rely upon the very real fact that He will never leave us or forsake us. 

The Lord is closest to us whenever we feel devastated and alone. We have His promises. The question is, do we believe what He says, over and above what we can see with our own eyes or hear with our own ears? Hebrews 13:5b,6. “Never will I leave you;  never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my Helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” Did you see what that verse says? ‘So we SAY with confidence …’  At this point I start speaking to my soul, like the Psalmist told us: I tell my soul to ”… hope in God!” (Psalm 42:11.)

Now let’s look at James 1:2-4 – “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colours. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” James says that the thing we often desperately want to wriggle out of, is a GIFT. Because under pressure we are forced to face what we lack! When you know what you don’t have, you can target it with repentance and scriptures. Start by identifying what you are feeling: ‘I’m angry;  I’m afraid;  I’m jealous;  I am in despair.’  We no longer need to be afraid to diagnose the places in our hearts that lack — Jesus died for that lack. All we are doing is working with the One Who was sent to help us through!

Finally, we begin to realise that there is even something greater at stake than our immediate sense of comfort or peace of mind. That is God’s Kingdom blooming and blossoming in us. Hebrews 10:35-36 “Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”  Don’t choke in the hard bits – press through – grab hold of Jesus and hang on!

His kingdom will begin to be revealed through your life, simply because it is our destiny to bring the kingdom with us. The gospels are not some sort of fairy story with a happily ever-after ending. They end in the death of the HERO. But – His resurrection ushered us into a whole new kind of world. His world has love in its centre and it is filled with hope and faith. OUR world has things in it that can be stolen or broken, but His kingdom is an incredible storage unit, we can deposit our precious families etc. with the Lord, where this world can’t get at them.

Our thoughts are so important, they can turn the ship of our lives into the wind, to be moved by our beloved Holy Spirit – HE knows where we are going and what we will need to get there!  Bye. 👋

P 3176 Sounds like a laser to me!

/ DVH

“For we have the living Word of God, which is full of energy, like a two-mouthed sword. It will even penetrate to the very core of our being where soul and spirit, bone and marrow meet! It interprets and reveals the true thoughts and secret motives of our hearts.”  Hebrews 4:12 TPT.

Yeah, that last bit is a bit of a doozie! The writer is talking about those inside, hidden-in-our-heart bits we sort of kind of know about, but we do our best to hide them from ourselves, and others! You know what I mean, the things that we suddenly glimpse, and we try really hard to instantly forget them because they look like the Great Wall of China and it’s all too hard! We all know a Godly life is a priority. We must remember that stuff like this is a distraction. The thing is, those hidden things I’ve mentioned, flavour our lives and our points of view …to the extent that we end up seeing bad motivation where there is none. Then we end up trying to escape or debate over the issues of the very things that can transform us.

We know that God’s Word will go straight to the heart of any matter and, at the same time it lays our phoney, self-serving excuses bare. So there we are … uncovered and exposed, feeling lower than a snake’s belly in a wheel rut. Guess what? In those self-discovery moments we must remember that Jesus died for every stinky evasive attitude we have as well. We will lose our way when we stop listening to the cues that the Holy Spirit gives us. He wants to lead us back into true fellowship with Jesus and our Heavenly Father. That’s the only safe place for us. Our God is always for us.

When we choose to allow His Word to work on our hearts, it will do the kind of surgery that will affect our minds emotions and bodies. It can expose errors between what the Lord says, and what we think. It often shows us the way we think is shooting us in the foot spiritually, especially when we choose to take it seriously! His Word takes the doubt out of what we believe because it reveals to us the Way the Lord thinks, and what He wants from us. Plus it separates our way of thinking away from the world’s way of thinking. All that happens because this morning we decided to prioritise His Word – reading it until something strikes us in the heart. Then we choose to go out and act on what we read. 

The acting on it bit is incredibly important. James 1:19-27 exhorts us to not just hear what the Lord says but go out and do it. “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 

For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

Looking into God’s word and persisting with it, until we identify how to act on it, means we are moving away from being a hearer, into being a doer. We will begin to walk with the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God never theorises – He acts! It is in His nature to be active for us and others. The people who choose to follow Him, act like Him. They know they need His help, because they know themselves clearly enough to realise that they can be deceived so easily.

These people are not driven by emotion, instead they manifest what righteousness before the Lord, looks like. The Word working in them and on them changes the way they react! They truly love the Lord, because they have discovered His love is a love that is like no other. ‘Listening and doing’ people deliberately set aside anything that remotely looks like it might hold them captive. They know that Godly actions bless them and others, as they participate by working with Him. His kids understand Who the Lord is, who they are, and they are realistic about this life. They constantly remind themselves that Jesus died for their inadequacies.

These people James is talking about are never self-deceived because they don’t trust their own opinions – instead they use the bible as their permanent reference book. They are well-aware that life and death is expressed through what they say, so they pray and watch over the way they use their words. Their desire is to bless others and if what is said won’t bless anyone, then they refuse to say it. His kids love to honour the Lord in everything they do, simply because He has revealed His heart to them and they’ve fallen in love with Jesus and the Way He does things. They can never forget that the poor, hungry, homeless among us are our responsibility. 

The Holy Spirit’s leading and freely given understanding are just like a laser, cutting through our wishes and wants, to expose who we really are, but without any fear or shame. Bye. 👋