Colossians 3:23

P3406 Living like the bible is true.

/ DVH

Every single day, many people reading this blog get on public transport, or maybe they walk or get into a car, and head off to their place of employment. Before they go, they don’t check out how many accidents have occurred to their type of bus or train or car – they just get in the vehicle and GO. They have put their faith in arriving on time, and in one piece. We all need this kind of faith in God’s Word. What if we treat His Word the same way we treat ordinary things like public transport? What if instead of this life being clouded by stuff, we responded to Jesus’ teaching like He is in the room with us?

Instead of remembering those things that we think didn’t work, our thoughts need to be continually drawn back toward what Jesus has said and already done. Then all of the focus goes off me and my efforts, and over onto His finished ministry. His ministry benefitted every single one of us. Let’s live like we believe that.  Instead of living this life randomly, remembering Jesus at oddly choreographed moments — or perhaps when the roof falls in —- He needs to become the centre of everything we give our lives to.

So when we go to work, raise our kids, interact with others …  even our leisure time … is now lived for Jesus. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.” Colossians 3:23.  As we choose to live this way, we will be transformed daily, because living this way means we are using our faith. Over time, our thinking will change— it shifts to what Jesus wants from me and what He did for me. Now I read the bible listening for Him to speak to me. 

There is no need for a debate about whether I should forgive or not. That’s a done deal. I give freely and love others without thinking up good reasons why I shouldn’t!  There is no longer a debate going on inside me. Nothing is about  who is right and who is wrong— our new life in Christ is about knowing what He says and living my life the way Jesus would. Every choice, every step we make to do things His way, is a step or choice toward total transformation. So we choose to respond to things the way He would, because we can be like Him. And in this process our own ideas, plans and programs fall away. He becomes the central pivotal point – not what Sister-always-has-an-opinion thinks, or Brother-if-you-don’t-believe-what-I-believe-you-are-going-straight-to-hell thinks! Our thoughts centre on what does the bible say, and what would Jesus do?? 

It seems to me that we’ve mistaken authority for dictatorship, and they are not the same. Nor are we ruled by a consequences consensus. That’s what gave us all these denominations in the first place. Is Christ divided? 1 Corinthians 1:13 says otherwise. The Apostle Paul was utterly brilliant — until God Himself blasted him and threw him off his horse — then he also had to learn to think about absolutely everything he had already known from Christ’s perspective. Meeting Jesus didn’t just change this man’s mind, it changed his life! God must have given Paul a huge dose of humility on that trip to heaven!

The way to be transformed is to make the same choices Jesus made. He chose to die to what He wanted, or thought he needed, to live for the will of His Heavenly Father. By the way, it is one thing to metaphorically die to self — it is totally another to lay there and let someone else do it for you. That spouse, that neighbour, that boss, that child who drives you mad, is God’s grinding wheel to transform your life. And if it seems like it is killing us … that is what it is supposed to do! It is part of the process of dying to ourselves and daily learning to live for Jesus. It is as real as those nails and that cross were. Let’s use our faith to step out of the boat of this world’s opinions and start moving into our Heavenly Father’s ways. What if what we know about the Lord was more real than the things around us?

We learn grace when we choose to act like Jesus would  toward people who are not treating us well. Have you noticed that today many people have the most amazing energy to persecute others? It goes on and on – like most TV soapies. We can choose to default on our God-given new life arrangement, and many Christians do. It is so much easier to explain away the bits we feel we can’t do. But it is far better to seek out what He says in the bible, particularly in the New Testament. It’s not difficult to think like Jesus does, it is just very hard on our flesh. 

When we live, day by day, moment by moment choosing to follow the Lord, we are choosing LIFE. ABUNDANT LIFE.  We have yet to see fully what that means, we simply know that Jesus Himself lived like this. Heaven comes down, because heaven is attracted to the smell of sacrificial living, when it is done for Jesus’ sake. Let’s keep this fact before our eyes, Father God sacrificed His Son to redeem anyone who wants to be saved. That shows us that what we run away from, the Lord goes toward. 

As we live like His Way of thinking, doing and being is true, and it is — that’s when our faith-filled actions lead to His truth totally saturating and inhabiting our lives. Faith is the pathway into this new way of life God has given us. We don’t just live this way to raise the dead, we also live that way to raise our hopes when all seems lost.That faith that saved us, will transform our lives as we use it day by day. It all starts with what we SAY or choose not to SAY.

Living the way Jesus Himself did, day by day, by loving others and choosing to obey Him – means we are living like the bible is true. IT IS. We will continue to have only a little of the power of God, while we choose to put our faith into simply being saved. I believe that power is released through walking by faith in love, humility, daily releasing His grace to others, and following Him. Bye. 👋. 

P 2697 Half-heartedness. (Matthew 6:24)

/ DVH

“Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind and with ALL your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31.

“Put your heart and soul into every activity you do, as though you are doing it for the Lord Himself and not merely for others. For we know that we will receive a reward, an inheritance from the Lord, as we serve the Lord Yahweh, the Anointed One!” Colossians 3:23-24 TPT.

It is easy to see why we might want to avoid confronting ourselves with verses like these, because they cut us to the core. Some verses are clearly directional, challenging and costly. Here’s free advice from me — don’t ask yourself IF these verses apply to you. ASK THE HOLY SPIRIT – He’s our personal Resident Expert. In my experience we can excuse ourselves from the hard bits in the bible much too quickly. That is when we will totally miss the greater blessing that is contained in HIS ANSWER. Obedience brings its own reward.

On a good day I can kind of wrangle up loving support for my neighbour, but loving God with all of me often defeats me. When I’m worshipping God in church maybe I have feelings like that, but living this out, all day, every day —  I know, for sure, in my own strength I can’t do that. I believe with all my heart that half-heartedness flourishes simply because we do not know the Lord intimately. We need to know His Ways. Time after time the Lord accused the Israelites of not knowing His ways. That happened when they stopped obeying Him and did what was right in their own eyes.

We know that what Christ said in Mark 12 above, was in the context of some sort of open forum. Jesus was engaging with the leaders who were the religious experts of His day. In a previous verse, V24, the Lord says this: “Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?“  These Jewish leaders had lost the power of God because they kept choosing to define Who He is to suit themselves. The result was that they had a spiritual veil over their eyes. They kept the letter of the law but missed His Spiritual direction behind it. Meanwhile the scriptures and the power of God are meant to go together. They are an arrow pointing us to a new way to live — IN CHRIST. He is God’s Answer to salvation, transformation and our sin.

You and I cannot raise this kind of passion for God, all by ourselves. But we were given it! … Christ died to give me His passion for His Father, as well as a love for His Father’s Ways. This was clearly demonstrated by Jesus’ hard fought victory on the cross. Christ not only loved this world, HE LOVED HIS FATHER so much that He died to bring about His Father’s dearest desire – mankind’s restitution and reconciliation with Him. This means I can see Almighty God through new eyes – His! Christ died to give this to me. I use those new eyes when I read the bible, I hear it like it is God Himself speaking to me.

So I let go of my old life, including who I think I am, as well as any religious formulas, and I choose to lean on and follow the Holy Spirit instead. I allow the bible to renew/change my mind/thinking by co-operating with what it says. To live in the new I simply have to let go of the old. We cannot love God with all our hearts when our hearts have a divided loyalty. Christ gave us all of Him, so now we live this life giving Him ALL of us! Our whole heart needs to commit to this new way to live. Because of what Jesus did for me, now I am free to do it. To love God with all I am, and serve Him in everything I do. I show God this, by being obedient. 

“I have been crucified with Christ. it’s no longer I that lives, but Christ Who lives in me. And the life I now lead, I lead by faith in the Son of God Who died for me.” Galatians 2:20. This verse means I leave my old manipulative, self-seeking way of life behind and I minute by minute, choosing to follow Jesus. Christ died to save me and give me the same power He had to overcome when He walked the earth. Now I choose to live my life the way He lived His.

If I temporarily lose focus, then I need to repent, repair and move on. Father God has good plans for my life. Things I could never imagine or dream about. However, my new choices may sometimes seem costly, simply because I am not a zombie! Instead I am a wilful human being, who is voluntarily laying down my own plans. But I have been given His power to obey and follow Jesus, and I use my FAITH in His goodness, His faithfulness to do it. I read what it says and I do it. Living like Jesus did is not a mystery! I simply read, listen to the Holy Spirit, and obey however He tells me to do it. Jesus died to give us His connection with the Holy Spirit. John 16:7.

When I daily see and discover our heavenly Father – and His loving help and concern for me – through the Holy Spirit’s eyes — my desire to love God with all of me, becomes a process of ongoing surrender. However, I don’t have to carry the weight of getting things right any more. I simply follow the Holy Spirit’s prompts and OBEY Him. I leave half-heartedness behind me and now I’m learning obedience – God’s love language.👋

Ref: Matthew 6:24; Revelation 3:16&17;  Deuteronomy 28:1-14;  1 John 2:3-6; and Romans 8:1-39.