Cost

P 2736 Do something different.

/ DVH

2 Timothy 1:7: “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” I read this recently and I realised I had not been reading this verse correctly for years!! I missed the bit at the end … “and self-discipline.” In spite of our feelings, the bible says we already have the power to discipline ourselves, we were g-i-v-e-n it the moment we said yes to Him. I strongly suspect that we all like the thought that: “God doesn’t make us timid – He gives us power and love …” bit!  ”But the self-discipline … meh! Not-so-much.

I could spend a week on this subject mainly because very few people seem to be enthusiastic about dying to self. I can count on one hand the number of people I know personally who know how to discipline themselves. Most people I know have an unusual response when they read verses like this. They expect that they would be the exception, because they have legitimate excuses. Good luck with that one! We are dealing with Almighty God – the Person Who knows everything … if that doesn’t make your knees knock together … there’s something wrong somewhere!

People say things to me like: ‘I had a terrible childhood ‘ – We have been  blessed. We do not have to get stuck back there. So forgive, move on! Or they say something like …’you are just being mean, my life is full of difficulties and I’m very vulnerable right now.’  Mature Christians learn to take the rough with the smooth because they understand they are not living for themselves anymore! Let’s remember that Jesus hung on the cross with no clothes on. That’s vulnerable!! Lastly, here’s my all time fav excuse…’It’s too ha-ard, I can’t.’  Whoever said Christianity is easy, should be smacked upside their head every day for a year! Oh my, I think I just found some of that anger I rattled on about yesterday. Moo-ving on … rapidly! Of course we will have to pray to enter into this process of change, otherwise our flesh will rise up and cry ‘uncle’ way too soon.

It is bound to hurt when we stop ourselves from doing and saying things that have become part of the fabric of our old lives. If someone else points this stuff out, it is highly likely that we will probably get snarky at them. I have no clue who said this particular saying but it sure sounds good — they said: “Along with great power comes great responsibility.” If we truly want to be over-comers we will have to seek His help to deal with the stuff in our own personal lives that can take us away from walking with Him. That will not be fun. It isn’t easy either. But it is not impossible – I just need His strength, not mine. I know I will quit far too soon and pronounce the situation untenable rather than deal with it and persevere.

The bible says that the Holy Spirit does not make us timid. And that means if we are think we are timid it’s not HIM! It’s our flesh jumping up and down demanding to be fed or kept hidden. Unless we are planning on joining the undead it’s best not to feed our flesh anything, or hide it anywhere. Just saying …!! Here’s a great tip BTW, it’s a bad plan to feed your old man sympathy and pity – that stuff will turn into self-pity in a heartbeat. Treat these things like a surgeon, cut whatever it is out, cauterise it, put a nice bandage on it and start exercising the new YOU. The more we walk in our new identity, the more it becomes who we are.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this process can feel strange, a bit like you are betraying yourself. Because we’ve spent most of our life giving in to timidity, and calling it shyness – but it is really fear, and God doesn’t give us that! He gave us power, love and a sound mind/self-discipline. I like that it says self-discipline in the Passion Translation, it makes it do-able. A sound mind just sounds like something most people already have – we hope! But self-discipline sounds like work – and it is. 

And yes, I know that Jesus told us that: “His yoke is easy, His burden is light.”  Yeah it is. After we put that yoke ON and pick up that burden. We can’t go with what we can see, because this stuff is never going to LOOK easy. Christianity involves cost. Avoidance goes entirely in the other direction and it creates chaos. That means we are not in-step with the Master. His yoke, is not only easy – it’s REAL. Being yoked together with Him means we fall into step with Him, so we go where He’s going. His strength as our Leader holds us up.

Self-discipline is not just about admitting our own faults, and kind of laughing over it like we care … but we are mostly powerless to change. It is about engaging in His processes and doing something about them. We already have the power to change. We exercise that power when we pray for His help and step out in faith. Let’s do something different! 👋

P 2626 What are we investing in?

/ DVH

If we actually happen to have any spare money today, what do we do with it? Some people like to invest it in stuff like blue chip bonds or some such. Me? Not-so-much! I do, however believe in banking, but that’s because I was in the ark!! (I was one of those two donkeys, in case you were wondering.) 

Seriously, 65 years ago I had a Comm Bank tin kid’s bank, (It was an ugly thing!) which they eventually replaced with an ever-so-slightly more aesthetic yellow plastic piggy bank. This meant that we learnt about banking at school. Some of us took money to school, and the Comm bank representative came around to collect it and mark it in our little passbooks. That was useful stuff to learn. Mo-ving on …

Matthew 13:44,45,46 says: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.”

Just to make sure we are all on the same page, I would like to start out by saying that, yes, we did talk about this scripture a couple of days ago. But then I read it again… and saw something else! So here we go again … hang in there with me please? 😊

What I noticed first of all was that this man was observant. He wasn’t just wandering about not paying attention to what went on around him. He saw something nobody else saw, and he went after it.  After he saw an item he truly wanted, he invested physically in it. He actually went and dug up the treasure … which was no small feat. That means, he assessed the treasure’s value and decided it was worth all that effort. You know, sometimes this life turns on a pin! For this guy it turned on how observant he was, and whether he was prepared to do more than look. 

After he discovered what he had, he physically covered it up again, and then he deliberately went bought the field. Ya might want to think on that… 🤔  And finally, he went back and dug the treasure up again. The last thing this guy did was he invested in what he found, financially … The bible says ‘he sold everything he had.’ That’s a big deal! Imagine selling everything you have for just ONE THING. This guy did! He invested emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually — and the bible said it gave the man JOY to do it!

We both know, that Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God, so this parable is not just about an exciting treasure- hunting story. The important part was that this man invested everything in what he found, not just his money. Obviously he thought it was worth it all. That concept made me think too. I came up with a few questions for all of us, to think about today.

Has the kingdom of God cost you and I everything? Yeah, bring that up!! 🙄 Seriously, what has changed in, and about our lives because we have invested in His kingdom? That man’s life radically changed. He made a commitment to what he found. So much so, if that treasure wasn’t what he thought it was, then he had just ruined his entire life. That thought should stop all of us in our tracks. How have our lives changed since we entered the kingdom of God?

How have I responded to it? What kind of investment have I made in it? Was there a big fuss initially, but then that subsided into a routine? Things like bible study Tuesday, prayer group Wednesday, Church on Sunday, joining the choir, fellowship suppers… etc. You know, that doesn’t sound much like what this man did. This does not sound like a hobby, or club to me. This man knew treasure when he found it and he did not hesitate, instead he gave it everything he had! How much is the kingdom of God worth to me? Do I go out of my way to participate in it? Do I give to it, so it can prosper? Is it my first thought in the morning and my last one at night?

Am I so devoted to it that my thoughts go to it during the day?  What are we actually investing our day to day lives IN?  We can easily think of investments as being about money, financial deals etc. But our investment into the Pearl of Great Price, is not meant to be a passing fad or a funding exercise… Or maybe a free ticket to heaven…. or even a promise of better days to come!  Jesus is telling us through this parable that our investment in God’s kingdom will cost us everything. That’s the way His kingdom works. Sooner or later we need to realise, it is a mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual investment and commitment. 

“… if you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, then come, follow Me.”Matthew 19:22. SEE… it’s costly! Bye 👋

P 2621 Responding rather than reacting.

/ DVH

Reactions are easy-peasy. Somebody does or says something daft or provocative … or maybe we are having a bad day — and bingo bongo! — our response is not exactly excellent. Sadly that dratted ball starts rolling down the hill and the other person says or does something that gets under our skin. And then the bad stuff … the stuff we sorta kinda hoped wasn’t in there, inside us, starts bubbling out … e-v-e-r-y-where. Sigh. After that, maybe we are a tiny bit ashamed, because we feel that we ought to do better. But then that thought quickly flies out of the window. and we slam the window shut behind it … so it can’t get back in and stop us, as we settle in to dissect someone else’s life and attitudes!

OR … we half-apologise for bagging some poor schmuck who has no idea what they just did! But then, a little while later, because we are not done with feeling offended yet … and now they are looking at us funny ..  we pick it up where we left it and keep right on going …!! This sometimes means that we have made a decision that we need sympathy or understanding, more than spiritual growth. Suddenly we are dragging out every single thing this person ever said or did that hurt us, to add to the glorious bonfire of ‘poor me,’ we just built. Afterward, we can’t for the life of us figure out where that roaring blaze came from! … while we are sitting in the smouldering ruins of REGRET.

OR … maybe we FEEL JUSTIFIED be-cau-se of the way we’ve been treated. After all, ‘they said this and they did that! And what are we supposed to do after they were so mean to us? After all we are only human!’ ….even bigger sigh. Justifying ourselves is the first step down the slipperiest slide in the world. The thing is, to continue the ride down that slide we will probably have to give examples of their badness – usually to someone else who has ears the size of Dumbo the elephant. Someone who knows how to make sympathetic noises, because they too have their own bad people who don’t understand them either!

If we are particularly miffed at someone we may even talk to several different people about the offender, collecting ‘votes’ for or against the other person’s behaviour! That’s a really dumb idea that leads to self-justification. Of course I know that nobody reading this has never bin there and dun any of that!! Me neither! However, if I were Pinocchio, my nose would be out of the house and down the street by now.  My point is this, we opt for sympathy and ‘oh you poor dear,‘  rather than clinging to Christ and what He did for us, and doing what He would do. Psalm 31:1-4.

Jesus said NOTHING. He did NOTHING. He gave his back to those tormentors… Isaiah 53:7,8a. ”He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away….” …If we want to follow Jesus Christ, our precious Master and beloved Friend, then we will need to take the road He chose. His road had a huge cost and it ended up on a cross.

Mean, critical, spiteful people are our personal cross to bear. And most of us have a few of them, hanging about. Time for the dance of joy! 🥳 🎉 Remaining silent in the face of criticism and someone else’s miserable … or even accurate … opinions of us and our behaviour, seems impossible. But Christ did it. That means He knows how to do it and the Holy Spirit can get us through it. We can learn to respond instead of reacting. He died to give us the same power He used.

How? Well, I recommend saying nothing, and praying “help help” over and over again, until we begin to feel His peace … ‘which passes all our understanding!’  Then we wait until we feel it starting to settle down over our hearts, and then we cling to it like a limpet. Philippians 4:7. His peace makes no sense to my mind but it is the most blessed thing E-V-E-R. Anger disappears. It goes away even more when I apologise for getting angry with the other person … even if they started in on me first. It actually grows as I fix my mind on Him. However, I can be tempted back into my reactionary attitude if the other person hasn’t got the same script I am reading from, and they start being unpleasant again! I need to pray that His peace will be more valuable to me than making my point or feelings known. 

I must conclude by saying that I am still learning this process, and I fail a lot… I’ve always been a last-word-Lana kind of gal. (Apologies to anyone out there who is called Lana – I don’t mean you … I just liked the alliteration! 🤪) Which means once I am wound up, unwinding me becomes difficult. But nothing is too hard for the Holy Spirit – including me. I have realised that my faith in His ability needs to be greater, than my own faith in my bad attitudes!

Responding to the Holy Spirit is way better than reacting to someone else, because it can change the outcome … and on some occasions, it even changes the outcome on both sides. Bye. 👋

P 2579 Faith that is alive!

/ DVH

Here’s something I have learned over the years –  faith grows when we use it. If we hoard it, or sit about in little groups talking about our faith, without doing anything with it – that faith will rapidly become head knowledge. This type of thing is a major problem in our churches. Many churches have stopped PROCLAIMING THE GOOD NEWS … and that’s what we are here to do. At the same time, faith also gives generously – it never just meets requirements, or gives whatever is left over. That’s what our faith in action looks like. Plus we live to love the people who are mean to us or actively hate and abuse us – that’s also faith in action. And we help those who need help be-cau-se … our faith is seeable.

We are here, today, in 2024, to proclaim and demonstrate to other people what God’s unconditional love and favour looks like. And if anyone thinks that they can do that kind of stuff, by themselves, in their own strength, day in, and day out—- then, please … think again. We all need the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and help. Praise God, He is more than willing to help us! At the same time any time we use our faith, I can practically guarantee you, it will cost us. Sometimes it costs us more than we are willing to pay, but let’s just gird up our loins … so we don’t fall over our own feet  … and have at it! 

Here is another precious secret — KIND EYES ARE POWERFUL. When God’s love stops being a concept and it becomes a reality in our lives, the bonus is this:  we will have our Father’s eyes. Kind eyes. My hubby does this so well. He is so good at it I’d be jealous if it weren’t so beautiful. Me? Hmmm … glad you asked that … I’m still a work in progress. Father God and I are working on it. I’ve learnt that you can’t give away something if you haven’t got it, so now I go after His love every single time I think about it! “Let me see these people through Your eyes Lord. And let them see YOU through me.” Amen. Our Father’s eyes never condemn, judge or compare.  

So here’s my suggestion for today – find a way … your way, under the Holy Spirit’s leadership … to love others. Look, we can be on our best behaviour and look and sound like the nicest person in the world, but; “faith without works is dead!” (James 2.) We are here to demonstrate God’s love to others, just like Jesus did when He was here. So that means we will engage in something called: ‘Risky Living.’ That title comes from a book, sadly now out of print, by Jamie Buckingham. I’d loan you mine but the pages are all falling out. It is one of my great treasures.

This ordinary American journalist is one of my all time heroes in the faith. Nobody has ever made me laugh or cry as hard as Jamie. EG:  “The problem with Christians today is that no one wants to kill them anymore.” … …“A lot of my theology got all fouled up when I started reading the Bible.” … … “The real work of the kingdom of God is not carried on by miracle workers or high profile preachers. The real work of the kingdom is carried on by people like you and me as we go about our daily lives.” … ‘Every place we put our foot God wants us to leave a spring in the desert for others to benefit from”… … “He wants us to trust Him at all times and to carry on regardless of our particular wilderness situations.” See? That stuff is impossible and risky without the Holy Spirit’s help!

First we pray, then we DO.  Being selective about what we will or won’t do, will pull us into disobedience quicker than you or I can say: “Oh dear!” This world is crazy about boundaries, I believe boundaries are useful. BUT, we can’t afford to have boundaries with the Lord!! We need to be like those guys who jump off mountains in a flight suit and let the wind take them wherever it goes. It looks absolutely terrifying, but that’s actually using faith. It’s stupid faith, in my personal opinion, but it IS faith! 

Sometimes Christians remind me of a secret society huddled together behind closed doors. If some poor schmuck or other finds their way to that door and staggers in … not dressed properly, or smelling like a rubbish dump, or confused about their sex, or drunk, or stoned out of their gourds …we can be absolutely guaranteed to find a nice way to shuffle them back outside again … and use the bible to do it! Sigh. The trouble is we want the people who get saved to be nice, neat and well-mannered — we are not thrilled when zombies, or Frankenstein lurches through our doors!

“While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Him and His disciples, for there were many who followed Him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw Him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked His disciples: “Why does He eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:15-17.

We need a faith that stands up when other people want to leave the room. A faith that is bigger than the things this world around us spews out. Instead of hiding from ghastly things, we must learn to confront stuff and face it down, armed only with His love, and guided by His book. Using our faith makes us way more alive than simply living from day to day. 👋 

“What’s the use of living if you don’t attempt the impossible?” (Risky Living, 1976) J. Buckingham.

P 2385 Read this at your own peril.

/ DVH

This is apparently what you need to do when a patient seems to be unconscious – you shake and shout!  This world needs YOU. Your family needs you, your neighbour needs you, the people at your work need you. This world needs His Love walking all over it to meet with them. THEY ARE LOST.

Now to my point. There is a god we’ve sort of kind of … made up. This god supports both good and bad – it’s a god in our own image. That’s because we hope that some bad isn’t really that bad! 😳 This god, the one we made up, is kind of a bit ambivalent about sin, and that’s because He understands we are only human and we can’t help it. 😱 After all we know He loves us the bible says so, over and over again.

However, we seem to have created, in some of our popular theology, a kind of heavenly, extremely tolerant Daddy Who is everything our earthly Dad wasn’t … A consequence of a fatherless generation perhaps? But we’ve totally forgotten about the very REAL God of Heaven and Earth Who is featured page after page in His book. He clearly told us the way forward, but sadly, today, we don’t seem to have time for things like that! So what we do have, will have to do. If you grab us round the neck and demand to know who Jesus is – we’ll probably tell you … but … we kind of … hope …you won’t. 😶

Let’s be clear, Jesus Christ did not tolerate sin. Instead He forgave it …and He paid an incredible price to redeem us from it … and that is definitely not the same thing. Jesus didn’t throw the law away – He completed it for our sake. God Himself put that law in place. We can’t just jump over it because it is tough – we need to be transformed from the inside out. Because of Christ’s sacrifice our mission has changed. Sub-mission is a term that means that other missions come secondary to the primary mission. 

Christianity is not about getting stuff right – it is about acknowledging we are wrong, and living HIS Way instead of our way. It isn’t about rules. It’s about WHO WE SERVE and how we serve Him. And tragically, today, for most people, it means that they ‘serve the man,’ they work hard so they can enjoy doing what they like on the weekends. And God comes in around about third.

Jesus actively taught the people around Him to obey what His Heavenly Father said. To be honest with you, I think Christ made what God said, much harder. Check some of it out for yourself. Matthew 5: 21-22 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” 

Now if that doesn’t rattle us nothing will! (Yeah, I’m tempted to skip those verses too, especially if I just yelled at somebody and I’m not sorry – yet.)  God IS good, but He ain’t gunna put up with our stuff just because we think we can’t change, or it’s too hard, or maybe even … I’m too old to change now! Especially when Christ died and was resurrected to give us, for free, the POWER to change. Transformation is the only way, and the people around us who drive us all nuts are His treasures sent to reveal who we really are, in the light of His Word. Hold onto your socks … God calls THAT love. Are you still breathing?

In my opinion we need to spend a great deal more time thanking Jesus over and over again for fulfilling those laws on our behalf. He deliberately came to save us from ourselves. However, we also need to ask Him to keep on saving us! Salvation is not just a one stop shop – it is an ongoing transformation process – with deliberate, conscious, engaged yielding, and increasing passionate devotion. Almighty God deserves nothing less.

Christ saved us from ourselves, to bring us to Himself – not to create an elite people who can have and DO whatever they want in this life but to live for HIM now. My time is not my own now – He bought and paid for it. We need to desperately seek after the kind of Godly love Jesus displayed. It was selfless, and it motivated every single one of His choices and redeeming actions. He paid so much attention to His Father’s wishes –  He simply lived to represent them. I think we got lost along the way because we really don’t understand that kInd of selfless love. 

Yes, God loves us so much He sent His Son to die for us … but the value we have to our Heavenly Father, is shown by the price He paid. Our Heavenly Father reveals HIMSELF when He shows us what He was willing to pay. It has never been about US, it is all about Him! His actions show us His incredible passion and loving kindness.  Let’s just step back and look at it. Only a passionate Father Who has a bigger plan – would have done what He did.

We need to give Him nothing less than the same kind of devotion back. The Lord’s absolutes are not some sort of request to be ignored at will or convenience. Repentance is a normal way of life … it is not an optional extra that we can ignore, because we feel embarrassed and we can’t express ourselves! We can’t live His Way WITHOUT the Holy Spirit – we need Him to help us! Transformation comes by submitting to the process.

This life is temporary.  Great men and women have gone before us, giving all for His sake. People whose names are recorded in His book, but nobody wrote about them, or featured them on TV. They just lived their little lives for His sake, and many died dreadful deaths, also for His sake – simply because He was worth so much to them. I don’t want a god after my own image, I want the only wise God our Heavenly Father – whatever the cost. He provided all of us with a Saviour, because His loving heart is that big. Let’s live for Him.👋🏻

P 2355 Meekness is not weakness.

/ DVH

I believe the body of Christ has yet to discover the true value of meekness. The One Who rules the world and also made it, was led away by wicked, jealous men and yet He said nothing. He also said nothing when they beat Him mercilessly, and shoved a cruel crown of thorns into His head. He even gave His hands to the men who nailed them to the cross. God’s will was more important to the Lord than His own, even when it involved torture.

These things are Christ’s life illustrations, they show us we need the Holy Spirit’s help all the time, because He knows the way through whatever this life throws at us. There will always be a temptation to retaliate strongly to injustice and cruelty. And … there are also times we respond passively, underhandedly, by trying to control things. That’s not meekness. A meek person accepts God’s will and His timing – no matter the personal cost.  

The word MEEK means “quiet, gentle, and easily imposed on. It is a companion to submission and having a submissive heart.” Bad things are going to happen to all of us, we can’t avoid them, but to have a heart like Christ has, that means everything to a meek person. Bill Mounce, who is a biblical Greek expert, defines the Greek word praus – translated meek or gentle – as: “the positive moral quality of dealing with people in a kind manner, with humility and consideration.”

At the same time meekness doesn’t see someone else’s sins, mainly because it isn’t even looking for them! The whole purpose of this grace is to find out what the King wants, and do that! Anything else is white noise. A meek person will deal with themselves no matter what the other guy is up to, because they take what Jesus said personally, so they remain humble and always available for change. 

Meekness starts and is perfected in our relationship with the Lord, first of all. Accepting His will for my life helps me accept whatever He does with yours. Our God totally believes in each one of us because He sees us one of us through the filter of the cross, but we must not abuse that filter for our own purposes. Instead a meek person is grateful – that Jesus would stoop so low to make us acceptable – that provokes submission, and service to others in them. 

I decided that this would be a good time to say that meekness is a fruit of the Spirit!! In the bible in 1 Corinthians 13 it is called “long-suffering.” In today’s society meekness is the total opposite of what we are being taught is … our rights!!  We discard this particular Grace at our own peril.  When meekness is rejected as weakness people become narcissistic. They say thing like: “My rights and needs must be met so I will take them by force if necessary!” A person Who is meek is more likely to care about your rights than their own.

However meek people are not passive people, they have simply made a decision that walking with the Holy Spirit is more important than anything else – including their so-called rights. A submissive meek heart can be cultivated under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, leading and correction. “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5.

There are times we can mistakenly think that those niggly little seemingly incidental, unimportant disobedient things we do, have gone away. But in reality they’ve actually turned us inch by inch away from the path He’s put in front of us UNTIL WE CAN NO LONGER SEE THAT PATH AT ALL. It is up to us to keep our relationship trimmed, full of oil and ready to ‘go” when the bridegroom calls for us. Meekness lies down that pathway of clarity, humility and obedience. Independence is a luxury we simply cannot afford. We need Him and we need each other.

Jesus Himself said – in the Beatitudes: Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Meek people have great faith. They believe that life can be changed by utterly surrendering to the King, because they have learnt there is NOTHING this King cannot do with totally submitted yielded vessels.  👋🏻

P 2333 Be planted in the place He chose for you.

/ DVH

Psalm 1:1-3 “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on His law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.”

These first three verses sound impossible, especially in the dim, spiritually nasty light of the world we live in. “Get thee to a nunnery” springs to mind. Maybe we all need a cloistered place to hide in, filled with like-minded people. Oh that’s right, that’s called church! 😳So should we all go and find a desert island??

My point is this – is the Psalmist saying avoid this world? I don’t think so. Walking in step with the ungodly;  standing still in a spiritually dark place;  or sitting down with people who think being a Christian is a load of stupid bunkum is dangerous, because doing these things involves influence and choice. We ignore what this Psalmist says at our own peril. 

This kind of careless living leaves us open to our own reasoning and logic, not to mention loads of people-who-seem-to-be-much-smarter-than-me. Most followers who walk away from Jesus do not reject Christianity overnight, they just kind of slowly drift away. Sometimes they feel let down by the church, or they lack the ability to fit in. They have not grasped the reality of what Christ actually did for us… or maybe they were never told in the first place.

Instead they’ve ended up with a hybrid gospel — ‘Jesus saved me, but … now I have to work hard to meet a standard that seems impossible to me.’ The Grace that Christ’s death and resurrection released has not been fully explained to them, so it cannot be appropriated by faith and action. He died to give us His Grace to successfully change the way we live – one step at a time.

I am of the opinion that simply telling people Jesus died to save them is not enough information. When they come to know what Christ did for us, if we are not careful we leave out an important part of the whole Gospel. In our anxiety and enthusiasm to ‘get people saved,’ we don’t talk about COST. Jesus died to save us and all that is absolutely totally free … BUT … it will COST us everything. We will have to die to ourselves, our hopes, our dreams, etc and live for Him now! 

Our old way to live is now gone – it went to the cross with Jesus. WE LEFT IT THERE WHEN WE LAID DOWN OUR SIN, once and for all.  His death released the power for us to live this life differently .. now we live using our faith! The day we are born again is the beginning of a whole new life and it is up to us to choose to live this new life from now on – every single day. 

Dying to self is not an optional extra. It is essential —because we cannot participate in this new life, without daily shedding the old one by dying to self. We must actively get rid of the old one, our old way of thinking, being, doing and living. We have entered a process. The Gospels and the Epistles are full of explanations about how this process works. Our new, born again, spiritually alive man rises from the dead.

Now we choose, with the Holy Spirit’s constant help, about WHERE we are to walk, stand and sit. And what we will do in response to other people’s sin against us. The result of this new life is a blessing, because it is our true identity now, our destiny. Because of our total life change, His word in the bible is essential, so it becomes our delight. Now, daily, minute by minute, it provides us with our Master’s voice. What HE thinks. In this book, He tells us how He sees thievery, murder, coveting, lying, idolatry, cheating, etc. etc. He knows that those things take us away from our pure devotion to Him. They rob us, because they possess us and our thoughts. 

They are traps and snares that steal away our love for the One Who gave up everything to save us. When we cherish what He said, above what we think, or feel, or think we need, we are planted by a stream that supports us in our daily lives. The Holy Spirit is that never-ending stream. Fruit naturally occurs, because we’ve been planted somewhere that is conducive to growing fruit.

JESUS CAME HERE TO SHOW MANKIND THERE IS A BETTER WAY TO LIVE and He lived that way in front of our eyes to prove it can be done. We need to allow the Lord to plant us in a place of His choosing – that is where we will prosper. 👋🏻

P 2328 Tenacity.

/ DVH

The bit that is actually easy in the Christian life is doing what He wants with the help of our ever present Helper. ‘His YOKE is easy, His burden is light.’ If it is hard then maybe we have wandered away from His yoke. However, sometimes we can get so caught up in trying to find ‘comfortable’ when things assail us …we can forget we are in a battle. We live in enemy territory, not the garden of Eden. STUFF is gunna happen. After a while when that stuff keeps on coming, and coming at you, you can feel you are permanently under siege. Time for a time out with Jesus.

At our house right now, we are two people with only two good useful hands between us … and both of them are left-hands. 😂 You’d be amazed how much you need both hands – maybe that’s why the Lord gave us two in the first place! Whatever. 🙄 For the past 9 weeks I have typed this blog with my left index finger. Boy has that been interesting! I am not, BTW, looking for sympathy, other people have their own problems. I simply think the Lord is currently making the Western world uncomfortable … HE wants to be our reason to live — not just an optional add-on.

So hubby and I have started to pray together that the Lord Himself will be our strong right arm … because our own arms are letting us down big time. There is nothing like running out of your own strength to remind us that we can’t do this stuff by ourselves! We never could. Some days I can be seen mumbling to myself – ‘Its OK – our side wins in the end.”

I am writing about these types of situations today to put forward the idea that we all have these blooming awful, hard-to-find-anything-good-about-them, times. This Christian life is not always some sort of ongoing party – where we all cheer for our side, because we won! Hallelujah! We DID win! Thanks to our precious Saviour – but now you and I have to walk out that victory minute by minute, day by day, week by week… …. And it will cost us.

It’s officially a fight – the man of God said so in 2 Corinthians 1:8.“We were so utterly burdened we despaired of life itself.” You and I are not failing just because we are struggling. It just so happens we are struggling to keep the faith!  Meanwhile the Lord is filling us with His endurance and stamina so we can run our race well. Paul also said this: 2 Timothy 4:7:“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith…”

We are winning, because even though we might despair and fall down, eventually we get up and go again. Sometimes we may crawl, but that’s ok – that will humble anyone pretty quickly! Tenacity is invaluable. Perseverance the bible calls it, I call it refusing to quit. And don’t be fooled by that seemingly positive statement, it sometimes takes all you have to even get up off the floor, but remember the Holy Spirit will not break bruised reeds. 

In the Western world we are often vastly under prepared for life’s storms. But Christians can survive any storm because Jesus is in our little boat with us. HE can calm the stormy sea of anxiety, sorrow and suffering inside us. Creating an awareness of His Presence and help can be our most daunting task … and our greatest asset. Mainly because life happens and it ain’t like the TV ads.

Sometimes I think I’m like Peter on one of his earlier incredible revelation/dumb days… John 6:66-69.“After this many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God.”That was the great revelation bit…

A-N-D … here comes the dumb …’”Peter took him aside and began to rebuke Him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to You!” Matthew 16:22. Poor guy, he so totally went the wrong way – into his flesh. One minute in the Spirit … the next, not-so-much. I have a theory about that BTW, sometimes we go the wrong way to learn about ourselves. It sure helps to keep me humble!  

Tenacity is not about getting it right. It’s about not giving up when you get it wrong. It’s about facing your fears and failings and clinging to the Lord. It’s about repentance and humility and clambering up from the floor when you’ve fallen on your face. You know sometimes this life is not about making great strides… its about taking the next step. 👋🏻 

P 2153 The Lord says tough stuff.

/ DVH

John 20:24-27 “…Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves Me must follow Me; and where I am, My servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves Me. “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.”

Jesus said a whole lot of tough stuff that needs our immediate attention. After all. so many people alive today do not know Him – and they know nothing of His Salvation plan for mankind. And WE, you and I, are the ones who need to tell them. Here’s a couple more similar verses: “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me.” Matthew 16:24. That cross can be our circumstances, or even a difficult person. Good time to stop and think… Mo-ving on again… “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” John 3:36. 

You probably never heard anyone preach on those scriptures lately. They definitely wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice for verses to comfort us! At first glance they don’t seem very people friendly. But our faith is not a soft faith – it is an all inclusive, who-so-ever-will, may-come faith, which also means everybody is meant to  participate. Jesus Christ set the high standard we all must follow and He showed us by His example, that we must die, take up our cross, and follow Him. Hmmm… today’s blog is not much of a cheery one!

The Lord never ever spoke frivolously about death, He took that matter seriously. But, He also saw death as a doorway through to something bigger. I’m not sure we comprehend that completely until we have to face it for ourselves, or someone we love dearly, dies. This means we don’t talk about the backbone of our faith much … except perhaps at funerals. In all the years I have been a Christian I don’t think I have heard all that many sermons about this kind of exceptionally serious subject. We mainly talk about sin, repentance,  ministries, God’s love, benefits, and spiritual gifts. The stuff we GET, not the stuff we GIVE UP.

I personally think sin actually starts here, with what Jesus said about the way we live our lives. We are either all IN, or we are all OUT, but we must be learning, daily, to count the cost. In truth there are no part-time Christians in the bible, and there is no room for paddling in the shallows. I believe we have divided Christianity into two separate categories in the Western world – being born again, and … hopefully, one day, ev-en-tu-ally ….getting around to … dying daily. But … maybe not too quickly!

Basically, I think Christians see this dying daily stuff as an optional extra. And it isn’t. Jesus didn’t see this subject that way … read the book! Paul had quite a bit to say about it as well. It seems to me that sometimes we try to get away with as much as we ‘legally’ can, and then eventually we have to repent to ‘fix things’. Plus we make excuses about not having any power to change … so we can’t help it. Like the cross Jesus died on was devoid of power! Having said all that, there are a select few people that I know personally, who really do actively try to follow the Lord’s teachings. And boy do they have a hard time of it!  Most of their problems come from the paddlers at the edge of the pool, throwing rocks at them.

Let’s pretend for a minute. Let’s pretend that we ALL live to die daily, simply because the Lord told us to do it.  Let’s imagine that we have to practice these skills in order to understand what Grace and faith really are. I think that if all of us live the way Jesus did, following His instructions, satan is going to be a whole lot busier than he is when we treat these scriptures as optional extras. We belong to the majority. Jesus and me are a majority. So why don’t we live like we are the majority? Um … we like our own way too much? 

Like I said, this blog is not cheery or comforting unless you have dealt with, or are dealing with your old life minute by minute, day by day. If that is the case then right about now, you are nodding your head at what you are reading! The problem we have created, is that we tell people they must be born again … and we omit to tell them that this new free life Christ died to give us, actually has a cost. The cost is our old life for His new life. Now, I could list all the benefits of this new life in Christ here today, but Christianity seems to be pretty good at finding the benefits all by itself. It’s the cost we get stuck on.

There is only one way to heaven. The blood of Jesus. Now, we exchange our old life for His and live for Him. Ya might want to think on that while you are earning your daily bread … which actually comes from Him! That’s tough stuff. 👋🏻