Circumstnaces

P 3296 Choose to Love.

/ DVH

“Those who are loved by God, let His love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of Him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love. The light of God’s love shined within us when He sent His matchless Son into the world so that we might live through Him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved Him. It was His love, not ours. He proved it by sending His Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if He loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life! No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendour. But if we love one another, God makes His permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in Him, and His love is brought to its full expression in us.”1 John 4:7-12 TPT.

Father God’s Love is not a theory or a lovely idea, it is the reason you and I are still here. Love can be voluntarily learned under the Holy Spirit’s tutelage – and we are here to learn to love those who treat us terribly, ignore us, hate us, or speak against us. Why? This very process is what forms Christ within us. As we co-operate with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God – we will learn to recognise what His love looks like. This means we are getting to know Him and His Ways. His love is not like this world’s love. God’s love is not indulgence, it is our pathway into holiness. 

So when we respond badly to our circumstances, we need to repent and repair things. However, every time we choose to follow the Holy Spirit, and we use our faith to respond differently — the Spirit of the Living God transforms us from the inside OUT. Suddenly we find we are walking with the Lord and it is easy. It is important to recognise that we are wasting our time fighting for our rights – dead people don’t have rights! The bible tells us to “RECKON ourselves DEAD to sin and ALIVE to righteousness.” Romans 6:11. 

This means that the way we regard the situations life flings at us, is what really matters. We can do what we’ve always done,  smile politely and say ‘that’s OK’ … but we know it isn’t!  We can avoid the person hurting us. Or we can sit about feeling sorry for ourselves and throw a pity party with our friends … OR … we can take His word and do what Jesus would do. 

The Lord Jesus saw satan for what he is – he’s a deceiver. A big bag of whispers, wheedles, half-truths and lies. he will tell us we can’t possibly do what God wants because that means we will be giving in. Then that other person will win. But we have the power within us to yield to love, not because of our own self-effort, but because of what Christ died to give us. This life is not about who wins and who loses – it is about learning to love like Jesus does. 

Let’s spend a moment thinking about all the people you have trouble loving — and see those people as neon highlighters. They highlight what is really inside us. Actually, that’s often why we get mad at them! We can all appear sweet and caring … until somebody pokes the bear!  BTW, we need to encourage each other into doing good works, not into losing our tempers. Love is not mushy, self-serving, or simply getting along with someone who is difficult. Love is an ACTION word. It’s a verb not a noun.  A noun is the name of something, a verb is something we do. We may not FEEL any love, but we choose to DO what love would do. 

Love is our first responder attitude to someone else’s hatred, fear, or rebellion. We start with love, we continue in love (Hebrews 13:1);  and we finish with love. (Proverbs 17:17). Love is not meant to be the default setting on our personal radar, it is a way to live. We need to go to love asap, and stay with it. Why?? Because LOVE always wins, it cannot fail! (1 Corinthians 13:8). Just don’t touch that dial in the middle of whatever is going on! Keep trusting Jesus. The Holy Spirit can walk us through any place of temptation, we don’t have to be afraid of it. (Psalm 23).

We didn’t just receive God’s acceptance and forgiveness, for all our sins, we also received an inheritance. Read the gospels and pay particular attention to the bits Jesus says. Conquering seemingly impossible things, is what our inheritance looks like! It’s what His kingdom looks like. If we could be like Jesus in our own strength, then He would not have had to die for us. When Jesus died, He didn’t leave us money, because we don’t need money – God Himself promises to supply our needs! 

So tell Him what you need, and if you need to love someone, ask for it! Then step out and act in faith like Peter did when he walked on the water.  We inherited the Lord Jesus’ propensity and desire to love the unlovely! Love can and will conquer all – just don’t let go of it and drift off into thoughts of spite, bitterness or revenge.

The Holy Spirit has a way through every difficult situation we find ourselves in. Our biggest trap is we have already learnt this world’s responses. Some of our responses are even automatic, because we’ve honed defensive weapons to protect ourselves—and when we feel threatened, we go straight to them. We’ve been deceived by our enemy into thinking we must work at it and solve things. But God promises to help and protect us. So in order to experience His help, we will need to lay our defensive devices down, and remind ourselves that here and now – “…our God is our protection and with Him we are safe, He protects me like a shield.” (Psalm 18:2.) 

We can learn, with His help, how to ‘identify the things that so easily trip us up‘ (Hebrews 12:1) and instead pay attention, and throw our lives into living like Christ did. The reality is, when we resort to sin, we aren’t trusting Him to look after us, and that’s when we need more of His love. Study His love. See for yourself what God’s love looks like, then choose to love with His love instead. Our choices rule our lives. Bye for now. 👋

P 3274 We already picked a side.

/ DVH

A while ago, you and I decided to be on the Lord’s side and the following scriptures are about what that looks like. Our lives are not meant to be the same now. Our God is the God of the angel armies —— it says so in the bible. So, let’s look at what being on God’s side looks like! Get ready to chew on a heap of scripture:

Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings 13:18…  “Go, find out where he  (Elisha) is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.” Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike this army with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.”

If you ever went to Sunday School as a child, you would know this story. I taught SS for many years, the kids loved this one. I picked it today because it clearly shows what faith does. First of all — faith can see what is unseen by human eyes.That’s no small thing. Elisha’s servant was full of fear, but Elisha’s faith in God meant he was not ruled by fear, or even what he could see in the natural world around him. He saw the kingdom reality. We all need spiritual eyes. Ask for them. Spiritual sight will help us defeat our enemies instead of flailing about getting nowhere. 

Now, let’s look at David’s life, when he kills Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:37… “The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine…” on to 1 Samuel 17: 45-47… “David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” 

This is what great faith looks like. It draws on its previous experiences with God’s goodness and grace and aims that knowledge at the mountain in faith’s way. We can read these accounts of God in action and His men and their obedience…  and enjoy them and rejoice …OR, we can go much further, we can use them to edify and build up our faith in the God Who did them! I think we aim too low,  because we do not want to face disappointment if things don’t work out the way we hope they will. We need to read these stories to build our faith up. Holding fast to things like:  if the Lord did that then what will He do now?

We are not here merely to preach the gospel, we are here to dem-on-strate the gospel. And if we are bad at doing that then we need to get on our faces and ask the Lord where we are missing His will. The bible says: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My Name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”  Mark 16:17. 

Jesus Himself said this in John 14:12: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” Please note, just because some stories are in the Old Testament that does not mean we should assume those miracles were only for then – our God, the God of the angel armies, is with us! 

Jesus Himself testified to His Father’s army of angels when He said in Matthew 26:53:  “Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”  That’s approximately 72,000 angels! Jesus also referred to His Heavenly Father as the “Lord of hosts!” And look at this scripture in James 5:4 …  “Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.” We have God’s ear, we need to pray for those who cannot pray for themselves.

Our God will fight for us even before we ask Him to do it. When what is coming against me is too much for me to cope with, I ask the Lord to fight for me. Sadly we can sometimes lack experience of God’s goodness because we have not purified our motives. Here’s James 4: 2&3. “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” 

James shows us what can be wrong with our motivation. Here’s a useful prayer: “Jesus, is this what YOU want or is it just something I think I need?” Amen. This scripture is a diagnostic tool. It explains where we can lose the blessing of progressively learning how good our God is! We shouldn’t give up or cede the ground to our enemy, our quest is to take back the ground from him. he has no right to stand anywhere in our lives. We need to pray, and check that our motives are pure. 

When we gave our lives to Christ – He took them. We’ve already picked a side! A position that we now stand in. The Lord God Almighty expects us to act like His kids and come confidently to the throne of Grace, to receive help in our time of need. That help is not just some sweet words we read in His book – that help is Divine Intervention into our circumstances. I pray for help all the time, because I need help … all the time! Bye. 👋

P 2842 Are people drawn to the light in us?

/ DVH

Mark 4:21-25: “He said to them, Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.”

I think the reason we sometimes hide from the light, skip church, don’t read the bible, and we don’t pray – is simple. We don’t want to be convicted or convinced of our stinky attitudes. Maybe whatever we are doing, we don’t want to be found out, so we pronounce church things as ‘boring’… when the reality is – what is said comes way too close for comfort. Where is His light in your life currently at? Is it tucked away, under the bed? Many people build walls to keep them safe, a coffin has walls – a coffin is made for dead things.

As you can see from the above verse, hiding His light within us is a waste of time and energy. One day, everything we’ve said and done quietly, perhaps even sneakily – concerning Mrs Kerfoops across the road – will be shouted from the housetops.BUT!… “IF we confess our sins, He will forgive our sins. We can trust God. He does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrongs we have done.”I LOVE 💕💕 THOSE LITTLE WORDS… BUT IF …!! This is a good time to praise God for His ongoing, always active, ever-forgiving love in our lives. 

The awful stuff we hide from others, and – even worse – from ourselves! … needs confession and healing. Why not wipe the slate clean, make reparation wherever necessary and move on …??  The point Jesus is making in these verses is that the light of God’s Word is meant to shine in us, and through us, not be hidden away … so we can save face. We are not undercover brothers – WE ARE THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. That’s why He said don’t put that light in a place where it can’t shine — the light of God is meant to be seen.

At the same time, the light and power of God within us, changes our perspective. It doesn’t just illuminate sin – it makes our surroundings clear and visible. There is way too much darkness all over this earth, because Christians look like everybody else. Being hidden doesn’t mean we are safe – it actually means the people around us can’t see our faith in action. Sadly, who we really are, is who we are when we are squeezed tightly by our circumstances. And no! I don’t much like that sentence either!! 

You and I live wherever we live, because we are to be His light. So the people who live around us can clearly see the dirt and squalor they are choosing to live in. We don’t have to be pompous and look down our noses at others either. The plain truth is this world is currently living in a majority rules situation — they don’t have any light, because we are hiding who we are! God’s Love is His Light! Everyone will know we are Christians by our love, and because LOVE is a verb not a noun, this is something that others can see and experience for themselves. We are Christians – We choose to live and die, loving others. 

You and I are the front-line of what Jesus wants to do on the earth today. Forget people focussing on the pastor, they are looking at us to see if what we say we believe, is real. And if that sentence doesn’t give you and I something to reflect on, we’d all better think again. We aren’t just here to stand up for what we are against – we are here to shine His light and love around, everywhere we go.  His love, needs to be in every dark corner of this world. Loving Jesus means we are for the people He came to save. People were drawn to Him – are they drawn to us? On that happy little note, bye for now! 👋

P 2788 A new way to think …

/ DVH

It has become way too easy to look at the things of this life from our own personal POV. What do I mean by that? Jesus died to give us a new way to think. Unfortunately, we can get stuck in our own needs, and thinking, wanting everything to happen for our own pleasure. That’s what happened to Solomon, he mistook God’s favour for His approval. Thinking like this, has led to many people into imagining that their success or failure in this life is a direct result of their spirituality, or lack of it.  

Let me explain my thoughts – I won’t unfortunately, be able to put everything in here, (read the book) …but let me try. 

Solomon was considered one of the richest and wisest men who ever lived. But he disobeyed God and married 700 women, plus he also had 300 concubines and many of these women worshipped other gods — yet Solomon had the favour of God over his finances. He was so rich, He made the billionaires of today look poor! However, those wives etc. that he chose, for his own benefit, led this King astray from the faith of his fathers. 

However, because God is so faithful, He prospered Solomon, as well as the nation of Israel during this time, for the sake of his father, David. The Lord declared David was a man after His own heart, and He promised that young man, that his son would be a predecessor to the Messiah. Remember, God “… is not a man that He should lie…” He absolutely keeps His promises – He just doesn’t always have our timetable.

There were about a thousand years between His promise to David, and its fruition. Which is why we need to learn to adopt the Lord’s timetable. My advice? Don’t take your prayers back or give up on your faith – leave it out there! Outwardly, it looked like Solomon was a very blessed man, but his character showed a lack of spiritual maturity and he had a propensity to think every sweetie in the sweet shop belonged to him. That led him astray.

God gave this man’s father a promise. He promised David that his son would one day be a predecessor to God’s own Son. Solomon, and eventually the Lord Jesus Himself, was the result of that promise. The fact that this king was immeasurably rich was because Solomon was aware of his own lack, so at the beginning of his reign, he asked for wisdom. And God said “Yes.” And gave him riches as a bonus buy.

We must stop seeing answers to prayer as a reward. They are the glorious Grace of God in action on our behalf, so let’s praise and thank Him for everything He gives us. You and I have the favour of God because His favour is on His Son, and when we accepted His Son, we came under Jesus’ covering shed blood — that ALONE gives us favour. We have not earned these things nor do we deserve them – love gifts are love gifts, they are not earned! There are many many wonderful promises in the bible, and I think one of the best things we can ever do is to check out what God Himself wants before we start rattling off lists of what we need — especially before we start trying to cash in our pile of ‘You promised’ vouchers! 

‘Unless the Lord is building that house we are aiming at, we will labour in vain.’ We can carefully explain to the Lord how important things are to us until we are blue in the face, even when some precious person we know deserves to live, and get well, or prosper etc. But our development spiritually is more important to Him than our comfort — He wants Sons and Daughters who value His Ways, not people who use Him!  This is why we need to be engaged in learning His Ways, so we can walk with Him.

Jesus didn’t die to give us spiritual vouchers that we can cash in whenever we like. He wants relationship. Relationships are intentional. We choose the same person over and over again, despite our circumstances and how things look! We need to invest in our relationship with Him more than any other. Sadly Solomon chose to invest in 1,000 women! How the heck he found the time and energy I have no idea – but that is beside the point. God still honoured Solomon because of His promise to David. He was not approving of Solomon’s lifestyle and marriage partner choices! Engaging with that many women who worshipped pagan gods, led this King astray.

You know, just because the Lord graciously healed Sister Susie’s ingrown toenail that does not make you or I eligible for the same grace. BUT, we are ALL eligible for a relationship with Him, on His terms.That’s why we need a new way to think. God Himself went before us to provide us with a Helper. He knew we would need the Holy Spirit. Let’s think on that. Bye. 👋

P 2731 I press on …

/ DVH

“Surely He will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge;  His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.  A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

IF you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent. For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;  they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. “Because he loves Me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges My name.  He will call on me, and I will answer him;  I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him My salvation.”  Psalm 91:3-16.

That’s quite a bit to think on. When I read this Psalm I wanted to take everything in it, as a personal promise – it’s filled with them! But, I thought if I used my faith and held the Lord to His promises, that meant He had to do HIS BIT. So much so that when I broke a bone in my foot – I was a bit miffed. It seemed to me that He had promised He would help me not to fall over and break bones! So I prayed that He would please show me why that stuff happened. And since then, I’ve been learning that the promises in His Word ARE unconditional, but we can’t just randomly claim stuff.

He needs to give those promises to us … personally. Jesus Christ is not an add-on to make whatever we choose, better. He promises to be ‘with us’ in trouble – He doesn’t promise to give us a life free from it! We can easily forget that we have an enemy, and we can be misled. Check the news out sometimes – Christians can do really weird stuff in His Name. 

Purity of thought goes right alongside renewing our minds, and renewing our minds leads to changing our behaviour. Changed behaviour helps us to become spectators. We learn to hide in Him.The bible tells us not to “forget all His benefits” and it seems that we thought that if we committed verses like that to memory that that would do it. However, a renewed mind, leads to a renewed life. We look like Jesus, not just indulged children with special favours.

Let’s look at Psalm 23. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” and … “Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” That doesn’t sound like a free ride does it? What with our enemies peering at us, while we are eating or death all around us as we are walking!! Even when we choose to live in the secret place that is not a guarantee that bad things won’t happen to us. What the Lord promises us, over and over again, is that “He will be WITH us in trouble…”  My advice is NEVER minimise His Presence with you.

Our loving Father will not leave us to muddle through on our own, like the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet often have to do. Instead we can expect His guidance on how to walk through these things. I am not saying that the Lord, in His great Grace, will never protect us – however, I am saying that our protection and grace to deal with difficult things, lies in that secret place where our lives are totally His — and we have no agendas or designs for our future, and no resentments about our past!

The idea that Jesus died to give us a happy carefree life, here on earth, is a MYTH! Father God is telling us that when we live this life sold out to Him:  what happens to us will not be BIGGER than our ability to stay close to Him in the middle of it! But He will not take our choices away – every single day, in every single situation, we need to choose to continually follow Him.

A year ago now, I fell up the stairs and sat at the bottom of them with a shattered humerus. Not funny BTW! I sat there stunned and then I became aware that I had a choice. I could choose to fuss and fret, or I could choose to let God walk me through it. There were many days I utterly failed. The pain, lack of sleep and discomfort got me, and I complained, instead of asking for Him for His Grace to help me with it. Yet the minute I asked Him, He gave me so much help. He is where Grace comes from. I learnt a lot about my own way of thinking, and how easy it is to twist things to suit myself, while I avoid being changed! 

Let us choose to yield to His will His way – despite how things look, in the good and the bad times. Those choices can lead us into maturity. In other words, we will need to use our faith, even when circumstances seem overwhelming. We can tell the Lord we want to live in the secret place of the most High God, but life itself will test us. Sometimes it seems I flunk more tests than I pass! But like Paul, I press on … bye. 👋

P 2629 Going from reading into transformation.

/ DVH

“He has rescued us completely from the tyrannical rule of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom realm of His beloved Son. For in the Son all our sins are canceled and we have the release of redemption through His very blood.” Colossians 1:13-14 TPT.

Lemme ask a curly question … if we need rescuing, and SomeBody has already done it …then what keeps going wrong?? This is the bit most of us get stuck on – mainly because we often don’t feel any different. Especially if we have been provoked by other people or circumstances. The change we need to make, is about the way we treat the Lord and other people, despite our circumstances— even when under pressure. I’m not talking about hiding the fact that painful, hard things things exist, I’m talking about finding out what the Lord says about any particular situation, and walking through them His Way.

Our finite brains are not the most reliable guides, especially if there is a barrel load of feelings tied to some thoughts! In the academic world E = mc². That’s called knowledge. Hilariously I had to ask hubby if I remembered that formula correctly because I learnt it like, 60 years ago! I also have learnt, from experience, that my knowledge has become faulty over time. So, what if I embark upon a new way to live and I exchange my old thoughts and reactions, FOR WHAT GOD HAS SAID? That’s when I enter what Christ has already given me – His kingdom. We must move on from the concepts into the reality of living HIS way.

If I replace what I’ve learnt, or what I think I know with scripture, plus relevant matching actions, then over time that means I will automatically start to reference things that float through my head, by what HE SAID in the book. I believe that’s what this scripture means:  “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2. By doing we end up testing out God’s will for ourselves. 

Here’s another verse:  “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:5. WE do it. He will help us but we do it! We refuse to entertain anything that contradicts what He has already told us in Person, through His word. Here’s yet another from Isaiah 26:3:“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” This is the kind of “work” we are engaged in now. We become vigilant to any thoughts that are contrary to the revealed will of God in the book. We live now to please Him. Here’s my last verse that explains this ongoing battle: Romans 7:23:“But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”

My body and its functions have a memory. For instance, when I think about some food, I can remember its taste. In some circumstances, I might remember fear, danger or disappointment. Those things can rule, cloud, and limit my faith if I am not prepared to put aside what I think I already know, in favour of what God has already said. The important bit is to wait upon God and find OUT what He says! We don’t just need to hear a Voice, we need to have what we hear validated by what we are reading, or have read in the bible previously. 

satan taunts us. he tells us we can’t be different because – we are still feeling, reacting, and responding the same way we always did. Feelings aren’t FAITH. We need to learn to defer to God’s opinion, not our own, and that will take time, patience and persistence. When we don’t act on what we believe, we are undermining the very thing God gave us for transformation – living faith. True faith has evidence – it has actions that match up with our belief system.  We are going to have to actively restore the balance we will need in this new life of faith … by knowing what God says even more than the data we’ve been collecting and collating all our lives. Then we go on to choose to ACT the way the bible says.

Jesus did everything that needed to be done to set us free at Calvary. Now we faithfully and progressively change our minds to think the way He thought. This means we don’t have to be ruled by our appetites and fears etc. anymore – we’ve moved away from our old location of fear etc. into a new place. We’ve been born into a new kingdom and it has a new way to live. Like that scripture above in Colossians says, we no longer have to live the way we used to. 

SomeBody paid our debt — and now we must clear out the closets of our old way of thinking and replace those things with Godly thinking. SomeBody – the Lord Jesus Christ! – freely gave us the power to go from reading the bible into doing what it says = transformation. Now we need to go out and act on what we read. Dying to self means we refuse to be led about by our appetites and needs, instead we live to serve and obey what our King says. Bye. 👋