Correction

P 3195 Respond.

/ DVH

“Faith, then, is birthed in a heart that responds to God’s anointed utterance of the Anointed One.” Romans 10:17 TPT. 

The important word in the above scripture is respond. This is how we grow our faith, by actively responding to what Jesus says. The meaning of respond is — “do something as a reaction to someone or something.” Hebrews 11:1 says:“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  The thing is we want evidence to help us believe, but the lack of evidence is the very thing that stimulates and grows faith. So if our faith lacks substance it means we are not doing anything about what we believe!

Our response is always optional because Jesus won’t make us do anything! However, it is imperative and essential that our faith produces something more substantial than words. Let’s look at this a bit more deeply. In Isaiah 29:13 the Lord has been angry with Israel and He talks about His anger, because His people say one thing, but do another. He calls that lip service, and that is not a good look for His people. “And the Lord said: “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honour Me with their lips, while their hearts are far from Me, and their fear of Me is a commandment taught by men,…”  

In the New Testament in 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…” These  scriptures are not just for our information. They are written to teach us how to live. Training in righteousness is about acceptance, repetition and practice, it is not just about learning the language so we can fit in or have an opinion. Training implies effort, and that effort is to help us take what we hear, and act on it. We are to do more than just agree with the sentiment or the language. Our task is to make the faith He has given us real in our everyday lives. 

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your Name, and cast out demons in Your Name, and do many mighty works in Your Name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23. 

Chunky stuff eh? Not to be trifled with, and yet it seems so harsh. It is amazing that Jesus would say something so direct and severe. It seems to me that there are two kinds of Lordship, the one that it is in name only, and someone who chooses to live like Jesus would – if He were here with us today, in Person. Whether we are at home, alone, at school, or in the middle of our work environment. Lordship is not something to be trifled with. It is clear Jesus takes it extremely seriously! So we need to take it seriously too. 

The next issue is how? How do we live in His Lordship, day after day and night after night? The only way I know  is to choose to make quality decisions, minute by minute, and stick by them. Well meaning, sincere declarations at an altar made in a moment of time, don’t always work! They must be followed up by training.  Eventually we will begin to exchange the habits of a lifetime through prayer and practice. I’ve found some habits, some ways of thinking, are harder to shift than others. I think the secret is in what David did. He took his reference point for using his faith, from his experiences of God’s Grace in the past. 

Living in and giving away Grace is essential to the Lord’s kind of inward transformation. We cannot maintain grudges etc. and keep moving. Think of your internal heartache as mountains that will not stand a chance, because Jesus is on the scene. Remind yourself and the enemy, that the Lord Jesus once cursed a tree and it was dead as a dodo the next day! Everything in the bible has a practical application. We will just have to look for, and seek those applications out for ourselves and then live them out.

Second-hand information can seem to profit our emotions temporarily, and even stir us – but it is our commitment to find out for ourselves that causes transformation. Daily the Lord says: ‘Will you walk with Me today?’ That’s when we will have to file all our past failures and disappointments away into His hands — under: “things I will understand one day in the future.’ Or …’maybe I won’t understand but I won’t give a darn by then.’

Job’s response to all kinds of pressure was this: “Even though He kills me, I’ll continue to hope in Him. At least I’ll be able to argue my case to His face!” Job 13:15. Letting go is the only way forward that will lead us into living in His peace. Remember, it’s His peace, so we must do it His way! The bible is crystal clear that our God’s ways are not our ways, so our lack of mental or emotional understanding is irrelevant. Unfortunately, the person who needs to make this kind of decision is always ME – you can’t do it for me, I can’t do it for you. 

Our responses matter. We have entered into a time where our training often happens under duress. That stretching and buffeting could cause us to doubt He will help us, but the way to learn that the Lord is utterly good and reliable, is to live like He is utterly reliable! Talking about it doesn’t make it real – acting on what He has said makes it real and gives it substance.. Our responses count. Bye 👋

P 3158 Red and yellow flags.

/ DVH

Sometimes in my daily life, I notice the same or similar situations, happening over and over again — so I asked the Lord to show me what and why. He explained to me that we need to stay on the alert for things that seem out of place, when they happen repeatedly. Especially if each time they are about about a similar subject. This repetition can indicate we are ignoring something important. For instance, if you suddenly get a whole lot of people who are rude to you, we can easily think it is enemy attack, but there are times when Lord allows these things because we need to practise forgiving those who trespass against us!

It is like the Holy Spirit is our lifeguard and we have wandered off and we are now swimming outside the flags. Things get difficult when you swim outside the red and yellow flags. Those flags, those interruptions to His flow in our lives, are there for a purpose. Father God loves us – He doesn’t want any of us to drown! Meanwhile if you ever see a double RED flag, then stay out of the water! That’s some useful free lifesaver advice. Even if whatever it is you are doing seems harmless, take notice of the Holy Spirit’s absence, or His kiss upon your day, and stop and ask Him why. When He isn’t kissing something we need to stop moving ahead.

We must recognise, with His help and guidance, to learn to value the kind of obedience through the suffering that denies itself. We deny ourselves, pick up our cross and keep right on following Him no matter how we feel! Father God has a reason for His discipline and chastening, and it is not about punishment. It is about His loving provision for whatever is coming next. He is training us. We need to yield and allow His fruit to grow in the middle of that difficulty. This is clearly spelled out in Hebrews 12:6-11.

“For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” 

Correction to any course of action is present in our lives to train us. I’ve found, in those times, that things seem to  go on repeat – because we haven’t fully embraced obedience yet. Our God is good He will not let us move on into the next part of our growth, unprepared. Meanwhile, even these things are not always about us, sometimes it is about the damage we will do to someone else if we continue down the wrong road. The Lord forgives us whenever we ask Him to, but we are not on a desert island, other people live around us! We must never forget we are His agents of unconditional love and peace to this crazy world. That means we will be tested on what we think we know, because other lives are tied to ours!

Testing times are about testing our faith in His goodness and compassion and care for us, despite our circumstances. 1 Corinthians 10:13&14 says this in the Passion translation: “We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature and timing of every test or trial you face that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust Him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously.” Our way through any test is to believe in His goodness, His personal oversight, no matter what is going on! And then we need to keep on thanking Him for loving us so much that He is teaching us with His eye on us.

I haven’t lost my mind, it’s in the book. Father God is not against us having a life, but He is against us wasting it on the stuff that will not last … and there are times when we all do that! If you read the story of Jonah you will see that God led that man step by step to the place of obedience – Jonah’s feelings about the subject did not matter. Father God had His own agenda – He wanted to save Nineveh! We must rest in the fact that He is wisdom itself, and we are just like Ruth, gleaning whatever wisdom we can around the edge of our own little paddock – looking at our circumstances without complete clarity. But if our purposes and sensibilities cross what He wants done, then I’ve learnt, our purposes and sensibilities will go straight out of the window!

Just like when we swim at the beach — there are yellow and red flags in this new life in the Holy Spirit, they are not threatening flags, they are protective flags. They tell you where it is safe to move forward. When we ignore the Holy Spirit’s red flags in our own individual lives, we are deliberately stepping out and away from His protection. He will wait for us to wake up to our error, repent and turn around. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to help us do everything the Lord brought us into this world to do. It’s incredibly dumb to step away from SomeOne Who only wants our good!

Our God disciplines and tests the people He loves, for their benefit. He wants us to share in His holiness. Those God-sent ‘flags’ are in our lives for a purpose. Things only get harder if we ignore them. The secret is to stop, wait, consult the Holy Spirit, and don’t proceed until the sea is calm again and the flags are green. Bye.👋

P 3095 Trust can be cultivated.

/ DVH

Proverbs 16:3:“BEFORE you do anything, put your trust totally in God and not in yourself. Then every plan you make will succeed.”TPT. “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans.” NIV.“Put God in charge of your work, then what you’ve planned will take place.” MSG. This is one of the very best ways I know that shows us how ‘to taste and see that the Lord is good.’

Please note the ‘before’ aspect of the first scripture! It makes it clear that the first place we need to go to is to Him. His ways are above ours, and He knows the future, so trusting Him is pure wisdom. We can tie ourselves in knots over something big like: ‘who should I marry? OR where shall I live?’ — But those things are not necessarily the best place to learn trust. A day-to-day experience of the Lord’s personal guidance, with His eye upon you and your life, is far better. Plus taking the time to notice what He has already done!

Trust is learnt through daily application, not just life-changing decisions! Our thirst to know what comes next can lead us astray. Our daily lives flow better as we learn to live guided by Him. Plus allowing the Lord to correct us and then deliberately acting on His correction, transforms our hearts and minds, because that too involves trust. It softens any hardness that may have calloused over our hearts in our relationship with Him, and others. Plus it introduces opportunities for humility. It’s hard to be proud when you know you need to  go to someone else and confess your faults!

My advice is this – start out the way you mean to finish. God can redeem anything, even our missteps, and He will — but, unfortunately, whatever we carelessly end up doing, can hurt other innocent people and their faith. There is so much wisdom in learning to trust Him and WAIT for what He wants. Let’s forget about taking a survey! By taking a survey, I mean asking six people to give you their feedback on something that totally affects the direction of your life. You could quite easily get six different answers! Or 3 for and 3 against! Neither of those options will grow anything but uncertainty. Trust is like a plant, it needs to be deliberately cultivated and nurtured and cared for, from day to day. 

We can misplace our trust, because we are not first honouring the One Who is always trustworthy with our actions. In order to cast all our cares upon Him so He can make our paths straight, we need to know Him, and His ways first! Regular prayer and reading the bible is a reliable way to expose us to the way the Lord thinks. Otherwise presumption will lure us away from the purposes of God Himself. The best way to cultivate trust is to be more prepared to hear ‘NO!’ or ‘wait,’ than ‘yes.’  Uncertainty is not postponement, it can be God saying wait. 

“There’s a time for every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1. King Solomon learnt this lesson the hard way. With so many wives etc., not to mention all the children who called the king ‘Dad’ – it’s a wonder he could cope at all! But God Himself personally told this king not to marry or take foreign wives who worshipped other gods. Unfortunately, He did not trust God’s judgment over his own needs and wants.The result was catastrophic. He let his appetites rule his obedience and he treated women like sweeties in a sweet shop – “I’ll have one of those, and one of those etc. …”  Many people today are searching, and searching for the kind of permanent, idealised love from others, that only God Himself can provide. 

Trusting the Lord when everything seems to get harder and harder can be exhausting. This is when we discover how much of our lives the Lord really has under His supervision. I’ve learnt, in those harassing times, to simply lay it all down and let everything go. Let Him be God, and you just be you – that sad little exhausted puddle in the corner. “I can’t do this” is a useful prayer. Just like “help, help.” My premise is this, if we want to follow Him all day every day, then we need to live yielded lives – all day every day! And don’t forget repentance, it clears away any cobwebs. 

Trusting God means I WILL choose to take His Word over mine and that means what I want will die a little. It means I learn to shut my mouth whenever my insides are shouting – “vindicate yourself, you are being misunderstood again!” Another way to learn trust is by letting Him vindicate you. The bible clearly tells me He will vindicate me in Psalm 37:6-8. “He will vindicate you in broad daylight, and publicly defend your just cause. Wait patiently for the Lord! Wait confidently for Him! Do not fret over the apparent success of a sinner, a man who carries out wicked schemes. Do not be angry and frustrated. Do not fret. That only leads to trouble.” 

It is far better to trust the Lord to vindicate you in any circumstance. Anything that tries to push or prod us along is not God. HE leads. If we misplace trust by trying to work things out, or we chase after someone else’s opinions, or we are guided by our own appetites, that will lead to further distrust and confusion. Trusting God is like stepping out of our little boat onto the sea – it is essential that we keep our eyes on Jesus — not on whatever is going on around us! Our Heavenly Father is utterly trustworthy, and learning trust is a hands-on experience. Bye. 👋

P 3048 Immaturity is not a bad word.

/ DVH

“Now, those who are mature in their faith can easily be recognized, for they don’t live to please themselves but have learned to patiently embrace others in their immaturity. Our goal must be to empower others to do what is right and good for them, and to bring them into spiritual maturity. For even Christ did not please Himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.””“Whatever was written beforehand is meant to instruct us in how to live. The Scriptures impart to us encouragement and inspiration so that we can live in hope and endure all things. May the God Who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 15:1-6TPT.

Encouragement is not just saying: “gee you are a great guy” no matter whatever a brother or sister-in-Christ is doing. It may make you popular but that’s called lying!. We must not deny the truth to save someone else’s feelings. We are not here to build up anyone’s ego, etc., rather we hold up the truth so we can all see our mistakes and adjust our course. Love demands that we persists for as long as the Lord says. 

Biblical encouragement consists of verbal, physical and emotional help others to walk away from whatever is holding them captive — without becoming their entire support system. We want Jesus holding them up – not you or I. We fall down too, remember? Keep pointing them toward Him, and stay humble! Love does not look down upon others.

Sometimes people have daft beliefs and they can’t see that there was anything wrong with what they just did. Simple stuff that slips by someone, but we can’t afford to put our stamp of approval on it. Situations like this one: “It’s OK, God understands that you’ve decided to keep the $10 extra change you were overpaid in that shop. We need to go back and return it.”

Meanwhile, if you are like me, then you might say something like: “What on earth are you thinking? That’s called stealing!” OK, I’m blunt, but nevertheless hinting around is not encouragement. But lovingly holding up what God says, IS. We dare not continue to try to weasel out of our personal responsibility to take ownership for our own actions. After all, Saul stood by and approved of people killing Stephen, and God held him accountable.

Biblical encouragement always has a point! It is a sign of love, and it can also be a correction for someone else’s course of action when they are going the wrong way. The truth is that there will be times we need to say the same thing 487 times before the other person gets a revelation. Initially, they may not even hear us clearly! However, if my family member-in-Christ needs spiritual hearing aids, that does not mean I am licensed to shout at them. But it could mean we will do a little bible study together, asap!  

Human beings can be proud because they don’t like to be wrong – and this sometimes means that people may not take course-correction well. This is a good place to pray without ceasing! There will be many times when you get to the maximum input with someone, and the Lord Himself will say to us: “stand back, this is not your assignment any longer – I will deal with this.” However, if what we do isn’t coming from love, then we need to go after love for ourselves and self-correct! Impatience isn’t love. Sigh. It has taken me a while to figure that one out! 

Sadly there are also times when we can lose our own hope, because we have misunderstood the meaning of the word encouragement and the other person failed to listen. We are not meant to be a generic cheer squad turning a blind eye, no matter what is going on. Encouragement means we will give someone else courage to keep going – His way. It also means ‘I will stand with you while you learn.’ 

Personally, when I can see someone is headed down the wrong path because of their own deliberate choices – I go away and pray for them. Next time it will probably be me down that hole. “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,…” Hebrews 12:12a. Maturity and encouragement mean that we stand in the gap until that person can stand with Him, by themselves. Love always looks for the good in others.

There have been many times I’ve suffered because I took someone else’s rejection and response to what I said, personally. There are things most of us don’t want to hear – and it is not personal at all, because the truth cuts right across our wrong theology. If someone else gets snippy at you because you held up His mirror, the Word of God – then that is their problem. It really isn’t personal. Even if it seems pretty personal when they tell you off!

Despite the fact that this whole area seems fraught with danger, true encouragement is actually His love-in-action, whether we like it or not. Immaturity is not a bad word, it is a place we all occupy from time to time as we follow Him. He is the Perfect One, we are His disciples, and some of us are on a giant learning curve. Let’s encourage one another with love and support in our hearts no matter what we need to say. Bye. 👋. 

For those of you who have been praying for me and the family about my mother’s illness, thank you. 🕊️I am so grateful. Your prayers were so powerful, they were tangible. My mother was finally released from this life last night, to go to be with the Lord. May God bless you for your loving intercession. 😢

P 3010 Who benefits? Us or His kingdom?

/ DVH

“We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.” 2 Corinthians 10:5 TPT. 

If we take what Paul has said to the Corinthian church seriously, we can see that the Christian life is not meant to be a walk in the park, whistling as we go! There’s a lot of demolition and active transformation that needs to happen in an ongoing, everyday fashion. I believe the New Testament shows us how we can change, what we need to change, and why we should change! The ‘when’ is easy — NOW! If you ignore some behaviour and hope it will go away, you are deceiving yourself. Whatever we hold onto holds us back!

Paul faced a lot of criticism along the way, even from the people he ministered to. Some times people who are very sure of what God has said to them, can appear to be arrogant. It is easy to mistake arrogance and enthusiasm for the anointing of God. Arrogance is when I talk to straighten you out because I already know. It puts me up and brings you down. Encouraging you as we journey together, means I stretch out my hand to you, whenever I might be a help. However, the speaker must always remember: 

“A word fitly spoken and in due season is like apples of gold in settings of silver. [Prov. 15:23; Isa. 50:4.] Like an earring or nose ring of gold or an ornament of fine gold is a wise reprover to an ear that listens and obeys. Like the cold of snow [brought from the mountains] in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to those who send him; for he refreshes the life of his masters.” 

Our God-given place is to continue to live in, and acknowledge our ever-present need for more of His Grace. And we cannot carry that out well if we choose to hide from the very people God sent to help us! Even if they are painful! Honesty with ourselves and others is paramount. I am not talking about being negative, I mean that we are all on the same journey, and none of us have arrived, so pretending we are doing well when we know we are not, is called deception. 

Most people are afraid of correction. They are afraid to admit they can’t perform well, and then they can quickly get caught up in self-effort. It’s a never-ending pattern — trying hard to meet the mark, and failing. The reason I gave that particular method up is because I was a total wash-out at changing myself, I had too many flaws and not enough hours in the day! I have learnt to suspect that my feelings are not a good guideline to where I want to go. However, whatever the Lord says will stand forever — what I feel can be changed by double chocolate ice cream and a piece of cake! 

If someone comes from the place of “I know and you don’t” then they are not yet in a place of humility. That’s a flaw just like any other, often born out of insecurity. As Jesus’ beloved fiancee we need to live in the place of humble surrender, permanently, simply to facilitate the right attitude when we speak to others. I am not just talking about lip-service … we can all say we surrender. But the reality occurs where the rubber of my life hits the road of obstacles and hardship. Or when this life squeezes us so tightly it actually exposes the truth. Life has a very bad habit of doing that! We are afraid to be real because we have not comprehended exactly what Jesus Christ did for us.

More mature people can share with others those things they have learnt along the way, but we had better make sure we are putting what we say into practice ourselves. Even if it looks to us like we will become vulnerable, because we often get it wrong! Like my favourite verse says: ‘Not that I always achieve that aim, but I sure am pressing on!’’…  “ ‘I can’t help it’ doesn’t cover anything … only the blood of Jesus does that!’

“If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just [true to His own nature and promises], and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness [our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose].”  Our new life doesn’t rely upon us, it relies upon Jesus and what He did. Our aim is to support one another, as we walk forward …together. There are no losers or winners in the Christian life – only participants. 

Sadly, there are many people who think they can still have this AND that error, or bad habit in their lives, and it doesn’t make any difference to their level of commitment. People can be deceived into thinking they can make excuses for ungodly attitudes, and still follow Jesus. As soon as self-deception enters the ring, human beings will be KO-ed out, because we have become double-minded. The point is we cannot abuse the blood of Jesus, which is an incredibly precious thing, to excuse our unwillingness to learn and be transformed. And that’s a life-time goal not a one time event! 

Whatever we say at the altar, needs to be followed up with prayer and deliberate choices. This life we have chosen is not easy. It has many things in it that we think we value – things, or even people we think we cannot live without. Those things need to be given to the Lord along the way, in order to keep walking after Him. These things don’t always have to be bad either, but we don’t want ‘that will do,’ we want everything laid down for His sake. The secret, as I see it, to knowing the difference between what is Godly or not is this – who benefits – US or His kingdom? Bye. 👋

P 2948 Times of refreshing …

/ DVH

“God will continually revitalise you, implanting within you the passion to do what pleases Him.” Philippians 2:13 TPT. This is one of the enormous benefits of living a transparent life before the Lord and others. We can actually hear Him whisper. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Years ago, the Lord said this to me: “If you will hear Me for correction, you will hear Me for direction.”  (Proverbs 3:5; Psalm 32:8)

I have taken that to mean that if I am prepared to throw myself into reverse, and own my faults – to Him and to others – it will help my spiritual hearing. The trouble with this thought for many people is that they kind of argue with what they hear. EG: “Did I make that up?” Like our imagination is somehow bigger than God Himself!  And then they start to cancel out their faith with doubt. We have the bible so we already have what the Lord thinks – in a book – check it out in the book!  I also spend a lot of time capturing my thoughts like butterflies in a net!

To do what God says we will need to be prepared to look dumb to other people. Think about Gideon, Noah, Joshua, Moses, Abraham – these men did the strangest things on God’s orders! The secret to walking in faith is to put your faith in His goodness, and don’t take it back. However, don’t put your faith in accomplishing what He told you to do – the action — because that will get you stuck quicker than superglue. A whole lot of great people fell down that hole! Put your faith in WHO HE IS, in His incredible character, His reliability, His kindness, His faithfulness etc. WHO GOD IS is our plumb line. 

Nowadays when He tells me something I just do it. If I look like a goose, that’s even better, because I can use all the humility I can get! My faith is in His goodness, and if I get it wrong, then I know, from the book, that He is a Redeemer, He can redeem anything! I’ve also learnt, the hard way, that nobody knows what they will do when they are under pressure!  Pride has to go.

The Lord regularly speaks to me through His word, and He also speaks to me in my head…my thoughts. It is extremely tempting to think, whenever that happens, that “I made it up.” However, when we make the effort to know the book, we are learning to know what He likes and wants, and what He doesn’t – so we can walk away from sin and unbelief. I also find it easy to follow a Leader, like the pastor or my husband, my faith is in GOD in them, not them. When we get into judgment of what other people are doing, we are walking away from following Him, and we start “Ieaning on our own understanding.”

We can also be tempted to take a poll, by asking a lot of other people what they think about the fault God pointed out in our lives. Polls don’t work! Big clue in the words: “what God Himself said to us!” That’s a neon sign moment. We need to trust Him. Otherwise everything becomes about us – how we feel, what someone else did to us etc. etc.…As soon as our own judgment, or man-made systems come into play, we will lose His wisdom and insight. He will just quietly disappear.

Here’s a question … why didn’t God STOP Adam and Eve? Because He had already given them instructions. It was up to them to obey what He said! The Lord wants willing obedience, and obedience involves an action. Nobody is going to like this next thought, but one of the best ways to start learning to trust the Lord is with giving. Generosity opens spiritual doors. In our Western world money rules everything, and Christians embrace “tokenism.” We need God to be in charge, NOT money, or this world’s riches. 

The point I want to make today is that God doesn’t just want to revitalise us, and rewire our thinking, He wants to go one step further than those two great things and give us a passion TO DO what pleases Him! That does not fall on most of us, we will have to go after it … because our Bridegroom loves to be pursued. In my experience of the faith life so far, this means God will be continually praised;  someone else will be blessed;  and I will be too, because I saw Him do something extraordinary! So I pray regularly for eyes to see Him at work, because what He does in our lives is so undercover, and subtle, it can be easy to miss Him. 

When the Holy Spirit does something only He can take the credit for what happens…it is always so quietly extraordinary! He never once takes a bow. Boy do I want a heart like His! John 3:8 “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”I too want to be the person that remains unseen. Sigh. But there are still times when my flesh squawks worse than Peter’s chicken!! Time to die, again!

I love the Holy Spirit’s nature, He is so selfless, and unassuming. Nobody can refresh us like He can. One word from Him and the colour of our day is suddenly brighter, and the world is full of possibilities again. That thing we didn’t understand is now clear, and we understand what He wants better than we did two seconds ago. Enter into times of refreshing with the Lord – by practising obedience. You will get to know Him better. Bye.👋

P 2901 Walking in love means …

/ DVH

… that I will probably never get my own way! According to 1 Corinthians 13, this kind of heart attitude is now my NEW priority… Now I will need to rely upon God to help me be patient in the middle of unpleasant circumstances. The Lord has promised He will help us. There is no reason to be envious of your fruit, because I’m way too busy growing my own! At the same time I will cultivate a caring concern for your well-being, while I’m putting my own needs on His altar. Also I no longer want to keep records of all the dumb things you’ve done!

Pardon me a minute, now I need to dash off and look in His mirror, (His Word) and see if there is any chance my reflection there backs up what I just said! Meanwhile, fake fruit looks a lot like the real deal nowadays, until you take a bite out of it! Here’s an interesting side note: fake fruit is too shiny. Just like those fake plastic smiles we slap on when somebody has stepped on our heart for the 15th time and we lie and tell them, “Oh I’m OK, really!” It’s a wonder that my nose isn’t longer than Pinnochio’s. Why do we do that? Here’s my answer … a lack of humility. An aversion to correction and connection, plus I’m deathly afraid you will continue to tell me the truth about myself … and… I don’t want to hear that, thank you!

Here is my point for today, this life is constantly taking bites out of us – our response to those bites is a much better thermometer or diagnosis, than even any reflection could be. Instead, now we want to make His Word flesh in our lives – that happens when we do it to obey Him. Living like Jesus’ told us to, means we learn to be quiet when someone else is utterly wrong and we can prove it to them but instead we choose not to do that. We won’t even brag about the fact that we’ve resisted temptation, because we know, that the Holy Spirit helped us through it. 

Let’s be clear — it is not our behaviour that is at fault – it’s our belief system. We use our experiences to validate what we believe, instead of His Word. This side of the cross we need to believe in His love IN US more than we believe the lies that flourish around us. I can’t do anything without Him, because I know I will dive straight back into looking after ME. I can make pretty good excuses for doing that. Sadly, sometimes we keep right on using our own understanding, instead of acknowledging Him in all our ways.

We must continually revisit truths from the bible. looking for things for us to apply into our lives. Jesus did all this work for us, all by Himself, at Calvary …once and for all! If I give you a brand new house with everything you ever personally wanted or needed in it, and you still chose to continue to live in falling down rented digs – because you are too proud to say “thank you” — whose fault is that? The Lord has already deposited everything we will ever need to be transformed, in our forever account.We just need to learn to live in forever, instead of the immediate. Otherwise the immediate takes over.

Romans 4:20–25: “Yet he (Abraham) did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for US, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” 

Those words: ‘fully persuaded that God had power’ …matter. We’ve met SomeOne Who is not like anyone else we’ve ever met. He doesn’t just tear up any record of our sins, at the same time, He deposits His love, righteousness, goodness, compassion, mercy, loving-kindness etc. inside of us. We already have whatever we need for this way of life. Jesus did not just empty out the bad, He is in the process, with our co-operation, of loading in the good. Abraham believed God and He acted on His belief, and God said: Now that’s righteous.”

Now we choose to stop doing things the way this world does them, and we ask Him how He wants us to handle everything that comes our way. Loving others is our permanent focus. Instead of asking the Lord to make you patient, (generic wish thought) you and I ask Him – ‘Who am I being impatient with, Lord?’  (Specific attitude check.) And we don’t argue with whatever He suggests, even if it happens to be someone we can’t stand! We go to them and humble ourselves. If we wait for that other person to deserve it … it will never happen! 

LOVE ACTS. It is unafraid of the consequences. Walking in love means my whole life changes! Bless ya 👋

P 2882 Footprints in the butter.

/ DVH

In Luke 11:2-4 Jesus says … “…When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your Name, Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’” We’ve all read the Lord’s prayer many times, and part of it says: “Give us each day our daily bread…” BTW, you know I’ve found that temptation sometimes means — ignore what I’ve read, make excuses, and beg off. 

However, lately, I have been captured by those words “each day.” We will get whatever we need from Him to face the day ahead of us, from whatever we’ve read from His Word … today. That’s what active faith looks like, it presses in every single day, until we find His wisdom for us … for that day. And sometimes He even brings us stuff out of storage!!

This daily bread is our time spent with the Trinity, in the secret place, praying, reading Their book – the four of us together. Doing this turns our hearts toward the things and plans of God. We must never forget the precious Holy Spirit is the Administrator of every single thing we have inherited. He constantly stands by, waiting to help and deliver us, whenever we cry out for help. He hears our hearts whenever our mouths or thoughts have no words.

My daily bread for today, was the realisation that the Trinity has carried me through so many things that I probably haven’t even seen!  Lately my knees have not been very friendly, and I had almost convinced myself that I did not have to go and visit someone who lives quite far away from us, simply because my knees were sore. In spite of my feelings, I prayed over it, left it with the Lord, and when I woke up today this phrase bubbled up from inside my heart. “I was in prison and you visited Me …”It seems I have my answer!! 

Oh the unknown, often unrecorded and unrecognised Grace, that continually pours out on you and I, every second, of every minute of every single day! Even when we try to run away from what the Lord wants, GRACE COMES AFTER US. There’s a good place to stop and praise Him! 🙌

Sometimes the things the Lord is doing in our lives can get lost in the ongoing, everyday argy-bargy world we live in. That’s when we need to remind ourselves that He has lovingly provided a store-house of His input every day, as we read His Word and digest it – making it a part of who we are. His word is our spiritual life-line, His blood, transfusing and filling everything else we will do that day. 

How do we know God is acting in our behalf? We notice His footprints! We live aware of Who He is in the middle of what is going on around us. Then when we faithfully study His Word and set our hearts to be obedient to it, His Word will guide us, comfort us, and it can even change our direction. We can let this world’s troubles and trials take over what we see, or we can ask Him to help us recognise His faithfulness.

The Lord’s often unrecognised footprints in our lives can give us direction, or correction or enlightenment. Imagine this scene. Instead of being rude or uncaring toward someone who has annoyed me, I find I have His grace to be kind, as I follow His leading. I call that following His footprints.

Here’s a final example: I suddenly realise that I have made it through something I thought was going to be tremendously hard. The idea of this difficult thing happening was constantly looming at me from the horizon, always coming toward me … and now, quite suddenly, it is in my rear-view mirror, and I have no idea how it happened!  But I survived!! And I suddenly begin to see His footprints in my life, again.

Dumb joke: How do we know there’s been an elephant in our refrigerator? … Footprints in the butter. Bye 👋

P 2813 Avoid stumbling blocks.

/ DVH

Matthew 23:1-3 “Now Jesus turned to address His disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. “The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behaviour. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.”

And onto  …Matthew 23:8-10: “Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let Him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and He’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—CHRIST.”

So, I have decided to comment on the second scripture Matthew 23:8-10 first — the Apostle Paul also very carefully addressed the issue of people choosing one person over another to follow —- because that situation happened to him. (1 Corinthians 1:10-17)  The point is, we follow Christ, and we remain open to correction. Meanwhile, we also do our best to remain in an attitude that is flooded and guided by love.

There are ordinary people who have extraordinary gifts and these were given to the Body, and made available for all of us. These supernatural gifts, are to lead, heal, and demonstrate His love to everybody around us. But please remember – HE is the Giver. Each one of our leaders is a gift. There is no room in Christianity for cult followers. Nobody is right all the time! We will always need each other.

And every single member has something to contribute. However, some people have quiet unobtrusive things to do and some don’t. Actually, I think the hidden people should rejoice. There is nothing like praise, notoriety and excitement to puff up somebody’s head. Walking in step with the Lord, unsung and unseen, is one of the safest places on earth – as long as other people can see Him through you. Sadly, Christianity today seems to have created an environment of Christian super-stars. We love people’s theology, their gifts, and the excitement that surrounds everything these people say and do. 

But, the truth is, each one of our own day-to-day lives needs to mirror and demonstrate the scriptures. Otherwise that is dangerous for us – and the people around us. There is only One Who is perfect and it is not Brother or Sister-everybody-knows-their-name!  It is the Lord. He alone is worthy of worship and praise. If we are not careful we can become quite faddish – suddenly, this preacher is IN and that one is OUT.

I love fresh insight, it means that I can see the Lord in a brand new way, and that’s good for my spiritual health – but we are not, nor should we ever be, an exclusive club, with human heroes in charge. Laziness on our behalf, has caused us to encourage others to hear for us. We all need the skill of personal hearing, otherwise we will not have the complete picture of the glory of Jesus Christ to present to this world.

The second stumbling block, is in Matthew 23:1-3. What the Lord mentions here is the precious fruit of a life lived for Him. It is not good to be a Pharisee, spouting this and explaining that – and not allowing the Word of life and hope to work IN us. I know from experience that whatever I write about in this blog, the Holy Spirit challenges me time and time again – “Are you living what you say?” I hate it when that happens but of course it is good for me. His people need to be especially careful because the utterances of God can be heady and so profound we can pretend that understanding stuff is the same as living it. IT ISN’T.

Let’s remember, the Pharisees, Sadducees and the Teachers of the law look like the bad guys in the gospels from our POV in time. But they were actually revered and esteemed in their own time by the people around them. Their mistake appears to be that they thought they were above the law – simply because they knew it so well. Anybody can fall into that trap. Knowing what the bible says and doing what it says are two very different things. 

One of those things has a huge cost. It means you choose to die, daily. Plus you get to deal with loads of stuff that other people merrily ignore, and the same people will probably jump all over you while you are doing it. That’s is not fun. I decided long ago, whatever He gave me to do, I would do it as He empowered me and led me. So my faith gets a good work-out every single day. But if or when He tells me to stop, then I will. None of us want to end up a stumbling block to the people Jesus dearly loves. Bye for today, 👋

P 2728 God’s surgery.

/ DVH

Unlike an ordinary doctor’s surgery – in the Lord’s surgery there is no pile of dusty, over-used magazines and books, reporting on useless supercilious things from ages ago. There is just one book and if it happens to be dusty… then we are all in big trouble. 

Christians can become quite used to thinking that our lives are separate – and that each life is only joined together on church occasions, like worship or a sermon! Maybe we’ve temporarily forgotten our destiny. The Lord describes us as a Body. That may seem just like a metaphor, but it is actually a reality! The Lord Jesus is not going to marry a metaphor! The Bride of Christ is described quite thoroughly across the scriptures. ps – it’s US! …you and me – we are His Bride. Pause and think on that one! 

When I was thinking and praying over today’s blog, a phrase from yesterday’s effort kept floating through my heart. ‘One of …our tasks is to personally prove that scripture is active and effective!’ So how do we do that? We let it surgically cut away and remove any stuff we are convicted and convinced isn’t a part of His plan for our lives. Heaps of that kind of surgical stuff is written down in His book. It’s not just the ‘don’t do this bits,’ BTW, it is also the ‘please do that’ ones! The Lord Jesus Himself, gives us lists of the ways we are to live. (Check out Matthew 5) 

So let’s look at some other scriptures. The first is from 2 Timothy 3:16. “All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honourably with personal integrity and moral courage]; …”And Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

The thing I want to make absolutely clear is that the bible is formulated to do more than just inform us. The bible is a book of instructions. Each instruction has a purpose. EG: it says don’t carry cares, so we must not carry cares! It says give all those cares to Jesus – so we give our cares to Jesus and we don’t take them back!

This book is our boot camp. Boot camp, BTW, is the place we send soldiers to, to learn how to discipline themselves and protect themselves, as well as fight! The bible we read daily, is for that purpose. Soldiers also go to boot camp to learn how to look after their equipment and find their place in the army. It’s a very physical place, it’s not cerebral. It is not just a library, although the armed forces have libraries – it’s a place where knowledge is learnt, and applied.

Hold onto your hat – it just might blow off… We dare not pick and choose which bible verses we like, and eliminate the ones we don’t. We have just come through a time in the history of the church where we were cherry-picking verses to suit the current theology. Not a good plan. All of God’s word is good for building up, instructing, tearing down, cutting off and getting rid of stuff. If we cherry-pick things we are in great danger of mishandling our sword. You can cut yourself really badly if you mishandle a sword!

Ya might want to pause and think on that as well! My best advice is to tell the Lord you are not confident you can carry out what He says and then ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. He’s our Helper, and He wrote the book- so He knows how to get us where He wants us. The Word of God comes from the Breath of God ...and … so do WE! Read Genesis. The bible is a fitting vehicle to build up, give us courage, challenge, change and correct us. It displays God’s Love perfectly, in every single book and chapter. Rightly used, it will remove stuff from our lives that can make us fall away, stumble, or be led off into lah lah land. It is not just a book with pretty sayings, it is a living book that lays out the way we need to live. 

It is used to give us confidence, and to build up Jesus’ Bride so she is worthy of His Love. He voluntarily gave His life for us, so it seems fitting to me that we will also voluntarily give up this world’s idea of what our lives will look like, for HIM! Because the bible is about far more than just information, we cannot afford to treat it like we would the dusty magazines in a doctor’s office. We must pay attention and allow it to work on us by applying it into our lives. It is designed to refresh and renew our minds so we will think like Jesus does.

We need to let the sword of God strengthen our arm and cut away any excess stuff that will hinder us from walking with Him. The bible is not given to us for us to agree with it – it is given to us so we will DO WHAT IT SAYS. God’s book leads us into His kind of surgery, so my advice is to read it like He is talking to YOU, because HE IS! 👋