Christians

P 2357 Love is about choices – not feelings.

/ DVH

Hubby and I just celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary a couple of months back. I still think he is the nicest and best man I ever met. But SOME DAYS … that’s a choice not a feeling!  And I’m pretty sure he shares that sentiment with me. 😂 Not as often, of course – ‘cos I’m MUCH nicer than he is! Okay. That’s a joke. Haha!!

What I mean is this – some days we have to choose to love each other, because we don’t always understand the other person’s POV. I so-o don’t man-speak and he has no clue how to speak female, so we collide. Because we are both quite passionate people, there are times we collide loudly. No fun is had either side in that collision. People make times like that about individual issues – points of differences – you won’t get anywhere that way, trust me. The real ‘issue’ that needs to matter in those moments IS THIS: who is gunna repent and ask for forgiveness first? Sigh. It is usually him not me – he’s way better at saying ‘sorry’ than I am. It’s mega-annoying. 😡

I said all that to say this:  just because we disagree and feel horribly abused, misunderstood, and uncomfortable – that does not mean we quit the marriage or give up on the relationship. It simply means we have temporarily lost our common ground – and one, or both of us, has dug their heels in and refused to compromise or even listen to the other one. My particular fault in these matters is that I always have a point, plus I absolutely loathe not being listened to! 

People often say sagely: “Marriage is about compromise.” Phooey!! Marriage is about CHOICES. I choose to forgive because it’s in the bible! That’s true wisdom. At that moment when I am no longer feeling like my precious hubby is the nicest man in the world – I still have a life-mandate to fulfil. I promised to follow Jesus and He is offering me a new opportunity to choose to follow Him and die to self. These moments are the little foxes that spoil the vineyards of a husband and wife’s love for each other – we need to seize those moments for the Lord’s sake. The power of agreement opens doors that will not open any other way – we need to cherish and protect it.

If I choose to stop fighting the current issue and instead ask the Holy Spirit to help me keep my mouth shut, I will accomplish two things. The first is establishing His Lordship and the second is an opportunity for the Lord’s wisdom to prevail instead of chaos. I may have to insist about these two choices … and, to be fair, I quite often fall into the trap of seeking to be understood – instead of working to see the other person’s POV. However, even if what is happening makes no sense to me – it makes sense to the Lord – I know He can guide me through it.

It is extremely difficult, but not impossible, to lay aside your claim to be right – when you do it for the Lord, and not just for the other person. When you lay down your arms for His sake, whether you are right and they are wrong, THAT IS WHEN JESUS’ LORDSHIP PREVAILS! In that moment I have yielded my control back to Jesus and the Holy Spirit because I love Them more than winning or being right. Meanwhile, do not be fooled – those moments are hard. The other person may not have the same view of Lordship you have.

Here’s what I have observed – it only takes one person to turn things around … but that Person needs to be Him! Get a load of this scripture: “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates (works against) his [Christian] brother he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) At this point you could be thinking that you don’t ‘hate’ your spouse – yeah! But at this moment you are not in the middle of some dumb argument that you both feel it is imperative to win!! You can hate anyone given enough provocation trust me. Plus spouses often know each other so well they can lean all over each other’s buttons. In the middle of an argument neither of you are working together!

One of our biggest faults as Christians is that we try to wiggle around what He said in the book so we come up with a hundred reasons about why this particular verse does not apply to me. We all hate to be wrong and in those moments we forget about the One Who hung on that tree for our sake, so we would have the power to resist temptation. Please remember this line: It is not about winning a point or an argument, it is about losing the Holy Spirit’s Presence and YOUR PEACE. We have a choice. Selah. 😶 👋🏻

P 2356 We are filled with fresh oil, to burn.

/ DVH

Exodus 40:9-15 “Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings, and it will be holy. Then anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils; consecrate the altar, and it will be most holy. Anoint the basin and its stand and consecrate them.

“Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the tent of meeting and wash them with water.  Then dress Aaron in the sacred garments, anoint him and consecrate him so he may serve me as priest. Bring his sons and dress them in tunics. Anoint them just as you anointed their father, so they may serve me as priests. Their anointing will be to a priesthood that will continue throughout their generations.’

Christians worship and serve our King in various ways, it is part of who we are now. Some of us have less seen roles —and others, just like Aaron’s oil-saturated garments, are more visible. It makes no difference – whether we are a utensil or a High priest’s tunic – like it was in the days of the Tabernacle – everything and everyone who serves Him needs His anointing. 

In the same way as the altar, the furnishings, utensils, Aaron, his clothes, and his sons;  WE need to learn how to live our lives in co-operation with His anointing. The oil mentioned here is a type or illustration of the Precious Holy Spirit – how He facilitates life and worship, repentance and celebration. We cannot possibly expect to live this new life God has given us, for free — without the Holy Spirit. 

The secret to living in His anointing is to live a life of totally yielded and surrendered love. There is no law against LOVE. You may need to read that last two sentences again – I know I did! That sounds and looks like this – ‘Wherever You want me to go, I will go, whatever You want me to do, Lord,  I WILL DO IT.’ But I won’t just accept every circumstance I find myself in, instead the Holy Spirit and I talk about everything together. Personally, I find that comforting not intrusive.

In Matthew 25:1-13 – in the parable of the Ten Virgins – we can see what happens when we treat the Holy Spirit carelessly. Some of those women did not value Him enough to be able to have continuous supply/fellowship with Him. What Jesus is highlighting here is our need to be ready whenever the Bridegroom calls us. – this parable is not just for the end times – we need to be ready day or night. That’s what it is saying. And to do that … we need to value Him more than our own convenience or comfort. 

The oil of the Spirit … how incredible is the fact that we can partake of such a wonderful Person! The same oil that flowed over Aaron and Co. plus all the utensils etc. in the tabernacle, is to be a part of our lives. And what a privilege we have to be able to know personally such a wonderful treasure. Because the Holy Spirit IS our ever-present treasure, He must not be taken for granted. That’s the point of that parable, the Bridegroom was so important to these five wise women they did whatever they could to be ready for Him.

Yet still every single one of those virgins also fell asleep. Where the foolish virgins fell down was that they did not allow for unforeseen circumstances. They had a shelf-life to their devotion. The wise virgins had the sense to understand that the Bridegroom will come whenever He comes! It was simply their responsibility to stay prepared.

Jesus is telling us here that we cannot make a last minute trip or effort to be in tune with the Holy Spirit, fellowship with HIM has to be our purpose. Staying ready and filled is our responsibility. Our hearts are meant to be looking for Him – no matter what time of the day or night. We need to do whatever it takes to keep our lamps burning with His fire and passion for Christ. Remember living in love with Him and others is the key to walking with Holy Spirit.

It is simplistic to say that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love each other with kind of a lovey-dovey hearts and flowers kind of love. Their love for each other is an overwhelming life-changing FIRE! And we’ve been asked to participate in that kind of relationship with all three of Them. Why would we ignore that kind of invitation? Don’t wait for tomorrow – our heart’s cry daily needs to be ‘fill me now, I need more! I need to burn!’ 👋🏻

P 2332 Our perceptions can limit our expansion.

/ DVH

Almighty God’s goodness, faithfulness, loving kindness, mercy, grace, love, joy and peace does not, and will not ever, depend on our perception. He IS all those things and more … simply because it is Who He is. Now there’s a good place to stop and cheer! 🥳 I have learnt during my life so far, that the ability to laugh at yourself is invaluable. Christians can be a bit ridiculous and intense, as well as ever-so-slightly pompous at times – if we are not careful we can suck all the spontaneous fun out of a room with a well placed raise of the eyebrows. 

We can also take ourselves way too seriously. I think we need to enjoy this life we’ve been given more. We can end up trying so hard to appear godly and pious, we give the impression that following Jesus is no fun at all. We should never be ashamed to share our faults and missteps with everyone around us, including our brothers and sisters – who knows what that kind of honest freedom could produce? 

How will others know what Christ did FOR US, if we are so busy trying so hard to look right all the time – without the Holy Spirit’s help. Trying to look good all the time, uses up way too much energy. No wonder we have no extra energy to witness and love on people. Keeping up that kind of appearance is exhausting. Conversely, some of us turn into undercover agents, and work on that sort of attitude so hard that the people around us don’t know we are Christians at all. We just ooze disapproval instead.

Today I decided to share some of the dumb things I have done in my lifetime. You know appearing to be the goods is exhausting, and when you get older you need all the energy you can find just to manage the stuff going on. Being changed from the inside out is the thing, it makes the supernatural normal!  

Hmm … back onto my point …I’ve done so many dumb things – it’s hard to pick. 😂 I once tipped a whole bottle of Shalimar perfume down the drain. I was utterly convinced that very expensive stuff was of the devil … so glub＄glub＄glub＄… down the drain it went. What was I thinking? I thought holiness was about being minutely careful over every little detail. I had no idea back then that holiness has already been imputed to us through our relationship with Christ. 

In other words holiness is about WHO we choose to hang out with, not just how paranoid we are about sin. How we look is mostly irrelevant, Who He is and what He has done for us is the main thing. Meanwhile down the plug hole went the Shalimar. Sigh. My drain smelled gorgeous for weeks! Retrospectively, my poor ex had heaps to put up with. 

Then there was the time I was utterly convinced that God was going to heal my severe short-sightedness. What a laugh-riot that was. I smashed my contact lenses convinced I needed to prove to God how serious I was in my belief that He heals today. You ain’t gunna believe the next bit … for two whole years I went about blind as a bat … doing all the normal things I always did. Fortunately, I didn’t drive back then! 

But I crossed roads, chopped stuff with big nasty knives, looked after my little kids and other people’s kids etc. caught buses, took trains, and carried on pretending that any minute now, praise God, I was going to be healed! Our wonderful Father protected and looked after this ding-bat and her kids, in spite of my theological blooper. I also told everyone else I was healed. Naturally, it was blatantly obvious to everyone around me I wasn’t. SO, what happened? A dear friend gently pointed out that not only wasn’t I healed … I was living dangerously. So, I cried heaps, swallowed my pride, confessed my fault and put my glasses back on. Then I apologised to everyone, and I put it all behind me.

I said all that to say this: at that time –  my perception of Who God is and what He will do, was skewed. I took the word of other people who had experienced His healing, and had actually been healed, followed their steps, and stood on that. Let me be clear, testimony from others can inspire and encourage us but we cannot stand on it. When we stand on things like that, we are trying to piggyback our faith on someone else’s belief – instead of using their faith to springboard us into a deeper relationship with Him, by praying over what the Bible says for ourselves. 

Our perception is incredibly important, it can limit our God-given expansion – we can waste the time we have, trying to be someone or something else! To get a bigger perception we must take His word seriously, wait for His personal input, and let Him expand our view of His kingdom. Be yourself – everyone else is taken!  👋🏻

P 2320 What illuminates our thinking?

/ DVH

There are many people in this world that regard the bible as a musty, dusty old book that has nothing much to say to them. They don’t see it as a series of stadium lights,  brighter than the sun, opening up new doors and possibilities. I think this is because Christians have inadvertently presented this book as a guide that God has given to them …kind of like ‘their own personal torch.’  We’ve become almost a secret society, with our own buzz words, and language. 

But, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” Psalms 119:105 NIV. However His book is totally personal, based on the fact that it is not only filled with info that explains the Way into relationship with God, but it is also available to anyone who is looking for Him. “… he who comes to God, must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6b

The bible was given to everyone, not just Christians. It is a book filled with revelations and light for everyone. Because most religions have a ‘book’ – a manifesto if you will –  the bible itself has been casually thrown upon a pile of those kind of, ancient tomes into a corner. It has been filed under the heading of ‘books about stuff I don’t want to know about.’ 

In today’s world we have books and books – podcasts, media, social media, magazines, etc… plus the news! We all know that we can’t trust the news to tell us what we need to know that will benefit us spiritually. Because they have an agenda. That agenda is motivated by sales, money, power and popularity. Even social media, is simply old fashioned gossiping on steroids. It lies, it postulates and it is manufactured in order to make someone else money, or  to give others power. But how will people ever understand the power of those lies if they have never seen the real thing!

If we don’t tell others the bible is a different kind of book, because you read it with the Author – how will they know? Sad to say, shallow thinking produces shallow greedy people. “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” Romans 15:4 NIV. That hope is not just for us – we are meant to share that hope with everyone!

These other modern things are often too filled with man’s worst nature to do good. But the bible is different, it has the breath and heartbeat of God in it. Meanwhile this wonderful book it does not explain anything – it actually poses more questions than it gives answers! It is not ashamed of its story, or its characters, or WHO GOD IS.

I believe this is why Jesus Christ came here to earth. Books can be misread and misinterpreted – but Jesus Christ came TO SHOW US what life looks like when God’s ways are followed. HIS STORY, HIS PERSONHOOD, HIS ATTITUDES TOWARD MANKIND ARE ALL IN THIS BOOK.

God’s great love for us all in the Person of Jesus Christ is the overriding redemptive theme in the bible. Colossians 1:19 “For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him,…”Colossians 2:9 “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,…” Revelation 19:12-13: “His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a name written, that no man knew, but He Himself. [And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God.”

Jesus Christ is our human visual aid. Our example. He shows us that it is possible for any one of us to live our lives obeying God. He made the things that seemed impossible – possible when He cancelled the power sin forever… By becoming our sin – Jesus totally identified with us. The best response to such a sacrifice is gratitude not permissiveness. We need to live this life questioning ourselves – what is illuminating our thinking?  👋🏻

P 2282 There are no undercover Christians.

/ DVH

There’s an old saying; “You can run but you can’t hide.” Hmmm … not from where I’m standing! It seems to me most Christians could audition for ‘The Invisible Man’ and get that part – easy-peasy. On a really good day, we can also get some unsolicited applause for being extremely nice people. BUT, unfortunately, nobody would ever know we are actually almost superheroes … ‘cos we often do what we do to look good. Plus we don’t want to bring His Name into disrepute.

Jesus gave up His right to have a good reputation when He freely, permanently, associated Himself with US. Now He wants every bit of us … not just a nice outward picture. Christians desperately need the Holy Spirit’s minute by minute guidance and input. Then when we modify our behaviour, it is under His supervision. This life has nothing to do with our power to mislead people, and has everything to do with who we really are inside. We need to have active faith to co-operate with Him. Always believing that what Jesus said He would do, He will. Sin needs God-power to overcome it. Otherwise we are deceiving ourselves. Jesus Christ is our proof that it works!

Speaking of impossible concepts … I always wondered what on earth was wrong with the people from the Comic city of Metropolis? I mean really, a guy takes off his glasses and suddenly he’s Superman and they didn’t notice? They should’ve gone to Specsavers. There were a whole lotta blind as a bat people în Metropolis! Moo-ving along quickly… but not entirely irrelevantly… we can fool a whole lotta people, until they discover we weren’t being REAL and that we sin too, we just hide it better! Our sin is not an issue to the Lord.

Jesus Himself got into trouble for hanging about with sinners, however that didn’t damage His ability to speak the truth, because He IS living truth. He lived the truth out in front of everyone.  Christ knows truth comes from the inside OUT. That’s the key, following, step-by-step, the Man Who did it first. Being honest with our failings and continuing to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading.

Our God loves people. Proud ones, hypocrites, religious ones, liars, thieves, murderers, gossips, prostitutes, cheats, sexual deviants etc.etc. Aha! I hear you say, how can He possibly love those people? Here’s the long and short answer – He took all our sins to the cross and the whole of the punishment and banishment that belongs to all of us – fell on Him. ’And the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” 

Wonder of wonders, Jesus chose to do what He did!! Complete purity became utter depravity for our sakes on that cross. Of course He understands sinners! All of our sin was put ON Him! “He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.” (Isaiah 53:3) We dare not skip on by any verses like this one, simply because they make us sad, or they seem to be beyond our comprehension. 

Jesus understands sin thoroughly, it landed on Him, the One Who had never sinned   … And then the unthinkable happened. Christ died and Father God turned His back on His Son Who had only ever known perfect love and unity. The Holy Spirit FLED from Him. We must aim so much higher than looking good. It’s like those apples you sometimes buy at the supermarket. They’re red and shiny, so they outwardly look delicious – but they are actually brown and going rotten inside …

Heaven forbid we should mimic goodness instead of using this life to be transformed! Our aim is to be as fresh as an apple that was pulled off a healthy tree 2 seconds ago. Then, the worst circumstances make us glow in the gathering darkness all around us. The meaner someone else gets the sweeter we become. We need to do more than pray, “Lord, change me from the inside out,” WE NEED TO LISTEN TO, AND CO-OPERATE WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT! SomeBody gave US the keys to HIS kingdom, and every asset from heaven that supported Christ, now supports US, as we draw on it by faith.

There is no need for us to live undercover anymore – instead our job is make the Holy Spirit welcome, and let Him chuck out anything He wants to – then goodness will flow from the inside of us OUT! Best advertising E-V-E-R.👋🏻

P 2270 Believe in the God Who saved you – and say so.

/ DVH

One of the ways we can take ourselves out of the flow of God’s Spirit – is by forgetting what He said in the book. It does not matter who we were, or who we even think we are now – giving our lives to Christ is the great equaliser. Christ is now our standard, and what He did, the only criteria. Forget about impressing God and others, the good news is – EVERYBODY FAILED! He gave us all a free pass – now we can breathe the free clean air of undeserved forgiveness.

Talent and merit, ability and appeal are the coins of this earthly realm. They are only supernatural when they are in in His hands. It is good to take our human talents and invest them in His kingdom, always bearing in mind that what you have invested may not come out with the dividend you had in mind! His plans are bigger than ours, His ways are bigger and wiser than ours. We simply need to obey, but the results are up to Him.

The Lord loves to take the people that nobody wants, nobody cares about, and use them to bring about His purposes. Why? Because “His strength is made perfect in our weakness.” This is the best news ever. The bible is living proof that He can take a nobody and use him to lead millions of people across the desert, when the guy was a registered murderer. He can make another adulterous murderer a king, and then tell the world that He loves this man’s heart. He can take deliberate disobedience and save a city, despite his own prophet’s motivation. We must never think we are too hard for God. 

I don’t care what people told you at school or wherever, about any other ability you have or what you think you lack – GOD WILL ALWAYS HAVE THE LAST AND FINAL WORD. Christians have let other people’s opinions and ideas about who they think we are, dictate our role in God’s plans. Our ability to rely upon Him is the only factor worthy of interest because that will increase our ability to serve Him. 

Unfortunately, over the years, we’ve each developed a hypothetical list of things we can and cannot do, plus things we should and shouldn’t do. The pity of this is we’ve learnt to discount whatever Almighty God says about us and what He has put in us, and measured it against the yardstick of consensus. Jesus said “the first will be last, and the last will be first..” That’s just a small example of how extremely different His criteria is! 

There were many potential kings in Israel, men who had the talent or the charisma to motivate and lead people … yet the Lord chose a young shepherd boy who had the mind- numbing task of looking after sheep.The thing was, David did that to the best of his ability. He took the task in front of him and gave it his all for God. And he used his spare time to write some of the most beautiful words in Christendom. 

Jesus Christ laid aside His own reputation for US – it is time for us to do the same for Him and let Him dictate what we can and can’t do. It’s not what we know, it’s Who we know. We each have a part to contribute in His incredible plan. I truly believe nobody can do your bit better than you can. Telling yourself ‘I don’t matter’ is discounting God’s ability to move through you.

When we oppose ourselves, we allow other people’s opinions, and even our own, to challenge what God has said about us. We are not failing because we lack ability, we are failing because we lack belief in HIS ability to hold onto us. Some of the time that is inverted pride. We don’t want to be embarrassed, instead we want to kind of glide along, in the shadows, hoping somebody out there, will ask us a question – rather than directly speaking to people from our hearts about what we know about Jesus, personally. 

We also cannot give somebody else’s witness. Seriously, what pastor Big-Bucks, and Elder Knows-Everything, says is not your witness. What He say is. What you’ve seen is. How do you know Him, what happened to you? Millions of people have gone to hell on our watch because we don’t like the way Brother Motormouth at our church gives his witness or testimony and we don’t want to even sound like that guy! He may just be seeking attention, but that’s not our business. It is the biblical content that matters. Remember, we have the best Helper ever – the Holy Spirit. 

We dare not discount ourselves by our lack of experience or eloquence, or the fact that we are a scaredy-cat. The whole of heaven is behind us, they believe in us. Despite our flaws – which seem like a very large boil on a very small nose … we need to start believing IN God in us, He’s the hope of glory, we are not… Everybody breathe a collective sigh of relief! Get rid of who you are not, and start on focusing on Who He is and who He says you are. 

Sometimes I truly think we have become so good at depreciating and discounting ourselves, and calling that humility … that our enemy stands back and  says to his cohorts: ‘nothing to do here boys, this one doesn’t need any help from us!’  Believe in the God Who saved you … He knows His plans for you! 👋🏻

P 2267 About worship.

/ DVH

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” This means what HE wants, trumps what I want, every single time. Romans 12:1. My body has been a real pest lately, it’s aching in all sorts of places, not to mention the place I know I hurt when I broke my upper arm. My thinking processes have also kind of wafted away into the ether, clouded by pain drugs. Just as an aside, taking drugs that fog your brain humbles you – trust me.

The above scripture from Romans talks about being ALIVE whilst you are being sacrificed. So far I am not liking my limited experience in this area very much! Worshipping God in this way is challenging, to say the least. And it seems to be catchy. Currently, my dear hubby hardly sits down, and as he is still recovering from surgery with his hand, we both bear a striking resemblance to a pair of muddle-headed wombats. Being a living sacrifice is not as romantic and golden, and gloriously other-worldly, as it’s cracked up to be. So what does all this have to do with worship? The point of being a living sacrifice is that you have lost control of not only what your destiny is, but what comes next.

And then I thought of something…if I’m dead, whilst I am still alive, then what happens to me NEXT is also not my responsibility, it’s His. So now I’m praying when some new unfounded joy turns up, that the Lord will please help me to discover some new revelation about Him. Meanwhile, if Jesus needs my bashed up body, then that’s OK too. At the moment I keep find new places I didn’t know hurt…bumping down the stairs frontwards will do that to ya. But now it isn’t hard at all to hand my body over to Jesus, cos I don’t feel all that precious about it any more …😂   …And I thought growing old was not fun.   

Back to my point … this particular process only hurts if you stop at partially dead, you have to go all the way to ALL dead. That’s when you don’t give a darn. Plus this kind of permanent worship is a series of decisions, sometimes made minute by minute. 

Nowhere in this blog today am I going to talk about lustily singing songs and waving of arms, dancing before the Lord – no smoke machines either! Instead, there’s a lot more, “Praise the Lord anyway … ow!” Worship is about giving Him the only thing I actually really have to give: ME. True worship means I show Him what He is worth to me. 

I have come to two conclusions: I can complain my head off and feel miserable and make everyone around me miserable, or I can present my body, such as it is, look at Him and say, “I have no idea how You are going to get me out of this, but You will, and I’ll get a testimony out of it while I’m at it.” People love testimonies, that’s because testimonies make this life sound easier. However smarter people than me have figured out that in order to have a testimony, first you have to have a test!

Worship is settling the matter of Who’s in charge here, and I found out that it’s NOT me! Don’t we all hate it when our tidy plans, neatly wrapped little lives start unravelling? But we can still worship by giving up our right to complain, whilst stuff like this is happening. Almighty God does not need us to tell Him how special He is, He’s got loads of beautiful beings around the throne doing it better than we ever could. But that tired, pained little voice crying out for the umpteenth time always turns His head. Read the book.

Somebody smarter than I once said, “Christians should be either coming out of trouble, crawling through trouble, or falling into it..”  At this stage if I could find ‘trouble’, I’d do the unthinkable – I’d throttle it! It’s funny how quickly we can go from “Praise you Jesus, welcome Holy Spirit, what a wonderful Father” to “Help! Still stuck Lord!” That’s because worship is about Him, not us. It always has been, it always will be. So if I want to truly worship it starts with “I surrender”, and “I give up,” and then rushes into the arms of a Saviour Who knows about pain and suffering, firsthand. Bye. 👋🏻

P 2264 Gratitude leads to surrender.

/ DVH

“Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.” 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (MSG) Loving other human beings the way that God loves us, not only seems impossible – I actually think it IS impossible. On the other hand, earthly Love promises the moon but rarely gives us anything as valuable in return. Earthly Love can often take everything from you. And sadly, sometimes, nothing comes back.

I think we’ve reduced loving God into a concept, rather than aiming at it becoming a reality. Some people might say, “I really love roses or I love chocolate, or I adore my car.”   Whilst all those kinds of things are legitimate, because we all have likes and preferences, sadly I think we have also reduced the word ‘love’ to just another adjective – like ‘blue sky’ or ‘pretty rainbow.’ However in reality, the kind of love God talks about in the bible, is not only interactive, it is see-able. After all His love came to earth to save us from ourselves.  

This kind of love often remains unseen, unheralded, and unappreciated, and because of it’s invisibility, many people try to escape from their own sacrificial response to God’s love –  because  they want to have their cake and eat it too. His Love does not have divided loyalties. My biggest concern is that Christians have adopted this word the way the world has adopted it, as an adjective, and it has become a description, using it as an adjective or noun. Those things are often tied to feelings. There is an unseen war in this world today over the word Love.  It has been watered down and used frivolously.  To understand love, and in particular God’s love, we must always look at Christ – He is our glorious illustration of inward affection being expressed outwardly and perfectly, by the way He lived and died. 

It seems to me that we are very happy to receive whatever Jesus died to give us – so we can go to heaven, but sadly, we are not nearly as happy to give up our idea of this life and all of its benefits, for His sake. We have forgotten Calvary was an exchange – His life for ours. There are no exceptions to this new way of life. We need to understand that we are not too young or too old or too infirm or preoccupied with making our own personal lives successful. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13 NIV. 

Jesus Christ was not a kissy huggy demonstrative person – yet He still absolutely demonstrated His love in a way we can see and copy. His love went beyond outward signs of affection into living His whole life for our benefit. We cannot, and dare not, ignore what He intentionally modelled it in front us. Despite popular opinions Christ did not die so we could have a better life here. He died to give us the power to live this life here and now for His sake. For the sake of His kingdom.

Jesus was not a part-time lover of God, He lived every second of every day He was given, for His Father’s sake.

It is true that He believes we are worth it, but we are taking advantage of His huge largesse when we do not live this life to the full.  What would it be like if our earthly friends only helped us when it suited them, or when it was convenient?  Does that seem like true friendship to you? Jesus told us in the above scripture that this is the pinnacle of love, to live a sacrificial life dedicated to Him, representing Him, with no thought of recompense.

I would go so far as to say if we think we are fulfilling this criteria by using our ministry gift, prayer, bible study, worship in a form of tokenism and hope He won’t notice the difference … this means, at the very least, we are terrible friends of His. Up until Jesus came, the lamb offering people brought for sacrifices for their sins had to be perfect.  Christ was our perfect sacrifice.  I don’t think He is looking for us to get it perfectly right, rather, I think He is looking for us to be so in-love with Him that the word, “No”, doesn’t even occur to us, our response to His love is our devotion.  I know I’m not there yet.  

All I want to do today is to challenge everyone about what needs to happen in our lives for US to love Him back the way He loved us.  It’s our heart attitude that matters. It doesn’t matter that we fail.  But just like a compass always points to true north, our hearts need to swing away from the distractions and troubles of this life back to the Saviour. And then gratitude will lead to surrender.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” 1 John 3:1 NIV. The way to behold Him is see Him for Who He really is – so we must go past His hands to His face which is filled with Love for us. He doesn’t want spoiled brats, He wants people who voluntarily choose to love Him right back. 👋🏻

P 2233 There is no light like His light.

/ DVH

The world we live in today does not like the light, so it has hidden and distracted itself away from it. Maybe they like to think it is more fun in the dark … but the real truth is, they don’t know any better. I am of the opinion that the church needs to stop throwing rocks and abuse at the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet, and begin to realise that we are also guilty of ignoring the light of God! What’s our excuse? We know the truth, and the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet don’t even know exactly WHO they are rejecting!

John 1:9-12 “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him.”

Just because we’ve been blessed by the Holy Spirit with spiritual insight that Jesus Christ IS Who He says He is – that does not mean we can skate merrily on by waiting for our turn to go to heaven one day. We act like salvation is the Lord’s final goal. His goal is transformation – which is a very b-i-g step beyond salvation. It’s called total surrender and it’s not just for the pastor or the evangelist.  Every single Christian has a purpose, a role in His plan. Let us recognise what we are here for and go and do it.

The power of recognition relies upon sight, and sight relies upon LIGHT. Sadly, the people of this world cannot see Christ, because the church is not being the LIGHT. Yet, the bible tells us clearly that we are to be the light of this world … Jesus said so: in Matthew 5:14:“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.”  However, being the light doesn’t mean we just run about constantly pointing out the dark – it means we shine with the reality of Christ IN us. We glow with His light and love, and that ushers in illumination and revelation. The people around us will see the darkness when we shine.. “But when Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Luke 5:8. Take the time to learn how to shine.

So, how does the Lord’s church in 2023 manage to remain hidden? By our personal, and denominational choices. We’ve said ‘yes’ over time to so many things that the Lord does not agree with, that this world hardly knows what we actually stand for. Sadly, when we do stand up and say: ‘Well, you can’t do that, that’s against our religion” … This world turns around and says – “Good gracious, are YOU still here?? I thought you’d all died off years ago.”

The world around us does not know Who Christ is because we’ve failed Him. Time to repent. We reduced the Living Word of Almighty God to images. A baby in a manger, a cross on a chain, a big black book. We are here to be His Word in this world, alive and visible to everyone around us. That’s what light does. It shows up what’s in the darkness by illuminating stuff.

In this current age, Christians would much rather tell this world where it is WRONG – than love them – we say: “it’s too hard to love them, they are impossible.” Instead of blaming them – it is time to examine ourselves! We need to live this life shining with His love for others. “They will know we are Christians by our love …”  For us that means ‘show’ as well as ‘tell.’  You know if we want to truly follow Jesus, like the disciples did, then we will have to walk down the same roads He walked on. Transformation into light happens on that journey. 

Christianity is not meant to be a walk in the park, or a trip to a fun fair – with lots of groovy rides. We are on a death march. Our reward is not in this life. We have watered down the gospel to make it somehow more palatable, and doing that has diminished what Christ died to do. We need to repent before it is too late, or we will never reach our full potential in this life. Sadly humanity habitually thinks that we all have more time.

Our times are always in His hands … however, let’s remember that it is always time to be about our Master’s business. Even when we are very busy walking down some dusty road and we see someone bruised and bleeding in the dirt. We are never too busy to serve humanity. Christ wasn’t ever too busy – and being His light means we don’t have that option either.  👋🏻

P 2232 How to witness.

/ DVH

When we go out to give away bibles etc. hubby often finds that people weep – even grown men and women. Then they get embarrassed about crying and say things like: “I don’t know why I’m crying.”  Here’s how we explain that to them: “Oh that’s Jesus. He’s just crazy in love with all of us. He came here 2000 years ago, and personally fell in love with mankind. Then people killed Him… but He didn’t stay dead. Now He lives inside me. He sent me here to show you His love and bless you, and the thing is, I just can’t stop Him – He loves us all so much, He can’t help Himself. He is always reaching out to people.”

I am not trying to give you some sort of a formula, instead I want to encourage you to put something that resembles this into your own words – as He leads you. Just allow the Holy Spirit to give you a way to talk about things like this, that is natural to you. I’ve only written the above words today, because so many Christians only speak Christian-ese. 

That’s the language in the church that we all understand, and use. It has words like faith, joy, grace, saved, redemption, salvation, sanctification, propitiation … in it. However, those words have complex meanings and they sound old-fashioned and out of touch with this world we live in. For most people the way we think in church is like a foreign language, filled with unmanageable incomprehensible concepts. Faith doesn’t make sense to people who don’t have any. 

And Jesus Christ sometimes isn’t an actual person to them, He’s an historical figure. So when He reaches out and touches someone through you, it is good to explain to them that it is not you – it’s Him. We understand a lot of what we’ve been taught as normal, but it is not normal to the people we meet in the street. Our aim is to make the Lord visible and accessible, and the more we mystify Him, the more we are making Jesus inaccessible. I am not speaking about being sacrilegious, far from it, we definitely need to be reverent and honour Him. But it is more about presenting Christ as a God-Man.  A Man Who came and died for all of us – on purpose.

This is why I really recommend that we need to know the four gospels really well – everything we will need to talk about the Lord is in there. The more well-rounded our thoughts and ideas are about Jesus Himself, the easier it will be to talk about Him to others.  In my opinion, talking about the Lord should be so natural, it flows out of us. That takes practice, it doesn’t just happen and we all have to start somewhere. It should flow the same way as it would if you were talking about your friend, mother, father, brother, cousin. Christianity needs to be much more accessible in this world, less intense, and more natural. Also talk about what Jesus has done, recently in your life – that’s your witness.

Hubby told the people we’ve spoken to on this trip, about the Lord helping him to paint with his non-dominant hand. He explained that he is right-handed and he rarely if ever uses his left hand, except in conjunction with His right one! People were astonished simply because it’s a miracle. And if I were talking to someone about what God has done in my life recently, I’d tell them about losing my earrings, as well as looking hard for them, and then finding them on the floor in plain sight! Our experiences with the Lord and His great Grace, need to be repeated and we should brag on Him! Tell them that when He touches them personally, that Jesus sent you there to pray for them and/or help them. So it’s not you – it’s Him … making Himself known.

Our greatest strength lies in the fact that we know that we ARE the same as the people we are talking to. The difference between us and the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet is what Jesus did for all of us. We know about what He did… and they don’t! This fact is Christianity’s best kept secret and it shouldn’t be. Jesus died to open the doors for everyone. At some time somebody told us that truth, and now we are telling others. Christians and non-Christians are not on opposing teams – we have our humanity in common. 

Some of us grew into understanding what we believe and some of us encountered Him in a remarkable way but we all live our lives for Him now. It isn’t the experience or lack of it that matters – it is the real live Person that we know personally. 👋🏻

“But in your hearts set Christ apart [as holy—acknowledging Him, giving Him first place in your lives] as Lord. Always be ready to give a [logical] defence to anyone who asks you to account for the hope and confident assurance [elicited by faith] that is within you, yet [do it] with gentleness and respect.”  1 Peter 3:15