Cross

P 2708 Why would we limit the LIMITLESS ONE?

/ DVH

Let’s fervently pray for our understanding of Him and His ways to be stretched instead! Why would we settle for other people’s limited views when we can go after and know HIM personally. My best and only thought is kind of a small one – and most probably a big fat understatement! When someone asks me what God is like, I say: “He’s like Jesus!” That’s because Jesus clearly told us in John 5:19 that:‘He only did what He saw His Father doing, and only said what He heard His Father saying.’ 

Also Hebrews 1:3 it says: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”From those verses alone, I learn that Christ is indeed God stepping into time and limiting Himself to our ways. It blows my mind! At the same time, Jesus walked this earth and still lived within our normal human limitations, except HE lived a totally limitless life. Nothing stopped Him – nothing took Him by surprise. Read the book and keep on reading it. It will blow your mind, it always blows mine!

Our Heavenly Father speaks to us in many ways. He has so many more ways to speak than human beings realise. God speaks the languages of angels, as well as every human one – past, present and future! Even the sky shouts to us daily about Him. Plus the stars sing out His praises. Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” Job 38:7 “ …while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy …”

His Love speaks a language that doesn’t always have words, and His idea of faith reaches beyond mere human understanding into the supernatural. My point is – we are chasing after SomeOne unknowable, without help. We need revelation from His Word and the Holy Spirit. I think we can easily succumb to over-reaching if we think we can define Him without His help! Our finite beings are too small to understand the incredible complexity of Who He is..🙌

Today I want to talk about our limitless Heavenly Father, from this POV … we need to understand our side of this glorious endless relationship. There are times that we can think this prayer, or that question has remained unanswered and become disappointed with Him – although we probably wouldn’t say that out loud! It is imperative for us to understand that Almighty God always answers us … HE JUST DOESN’T ALWAYS USE WORDS! Continually pray for eyes to see and ears to comprehend His Answers – because even His silence has a purpose!

Sometimes our understanding of His Ways etc .can come later, perhaps retrospectively. But in order to walk with Him and grow, our faith in His goodness must conquer our doubts and disappointments. Otherwise we will impede our progress in our faith, and we may never reach our full potential. Jesus died to give us the capacity to be stretched and transformed, not because He finds us unacceptable, but because our personal and even learnt inclinations, limit our understanding of Who He is and How much He loves people.

The very best mutual language, the one that will always be understood, by Him and us, is LOVE. That’s why it is imperative that we learn how His kind of love works. How it functions  – what it produces. When we begin to uncover the mysteries of LOVE we will begin to understand Who He is.  I know I rattle on about that over and over again – but knowing His Ways is an important key to defining the way WE need to live.“How can two walk together unless they be agreed?”

We can’t walk with Him and be restored into the innocence and purity we were always meant to have – unless we put aside those things that weigh us down. Both personally and corporately, we are currently limiting ourselves. We allow a few men’s insight to rule many churches, at the cost of broadening our base by going after insight for ourselves. “In order that the many-sided (multi-faceted) wisdom of God might be made known now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places through the church,…”Ephesians 3:10. BTW innocence and purity were restored to us at the cross. It is time for us to fight this world’s definition of wisdom and freedom – and return to the simplicity and power of the cross. 

One of the things we will need to put down is accepting religious doctrine as representational of ALL of His truth. You and I are the only people who can limit the size and function of our faith. When we deliberately choose to learn to love as He loves, all sorts of barriers will blow away, our eyes will be opened;  and then we will look at others with the joyous word “brother” on our lips! 

This is when we will begin to “know one another after the Spirit”instead of eliminating others because of their beliefs. Only God Himself can take the muddle of our denominations and personal proclivities of faith in Him, and bring it into a cohesive whole. Defining God separately is a waste of our time … we must start learning what His love looks like and begin to fervently pray that we walk in it, toward each other. Why would we settle for a limited edition god when we can know the LIMITLESS ONE?  Bye. 🙏

P 2705 On being tested.

/ DVH

Jesus Christ, God’s precious Son, became a man. He respected and obeyed what His Father wanted above His own personal needs and ideas. He lived, and then He chose to die, in accordance with His Father’s will. He is our example of how to deal with temptations. Right at the very beginning of His ministry, the Lord Jesus was thoroughly tested, under extreme circumstances. FYI, that is recorded in Matthew 4:1-11, and Luke 4:1-13. Jesus came through it all, despite the incredible hardship He faced. But He met with the Holy Spirit and POWER on the other side of that test. This is a great place to stop, and think about what that means to ME. 🤔

The Lord personally demonstrated and proclaimed during this testing time, that the way for human beings to live – is primarily by the Word of God. He did this, under dire circumstances, live and in person, in front of His enemy. That is when He put a stamp on the scriptures as our primary source of spiritual food and defensive weapons..

After that, in the second temptation, His enemy offered Him physical well being, protection and personal safety – for the exorbitant fee of worshippinghim. Jesus refused to have anything to do with getting where He needed to go using His enemy’s help. He responded to this temptation with another scripture. Making it clear that He was not going to trust in anything but God’s Word to care for Him. The truth set Him free. Another good spot to stop and think about what that shows me! 🤔

The last and final temptation was that His enemy would give Him everything He came to do, without making the ultimate sacrifice. Our enemy tried to blind the Lord with success, which included the price tag of saving the world … without Him having to die. It looked like an easy answer, but it involved putting this world into satan’s hands permanently. 

I believe we all face temptations, often we face them daily. We are tempted to lose heart, and put our faith and hope down. Sometimes we are tempted to live by what Brother so and so says, and when we do that means we have put the Word of God second. We are taking another man’s interpretation of the scripture over what God wants to say to US, personally. The most valuable thing we have is our bible… obedience to what is commanded in that book is incredibly personally powerful. When we choose to live by His words — instead of our circumstances, or experiences, or what someone else thinks — we elevate Almighty God in our lives to His rightful place as GOD!

Secondly, there are times when we too are tempted and tested regarding our participation in whatever needs to be done in His kingdom, by methods other than FAITH. Things like clever marketing, slick presentations, and popularity without us having to make sacrifices. The Word of God is powerful all by itself, it does not need to be marketed! In the hands of someone who is obedient to the Holy Spirit, His Word will cut between human thoughts and intentions and go right into the heart of any matter. On that day in Christ’s life – it cut the enemy to pieces! When we rely upon our own skills and energies we are succumbing to the temptation to help God out, and so the accolades may go to a person, instead of the One Who made us and deserves our worship.

I think Father God is very particular about where our worship goes, because: a/ He is a jealous God. And: b/ our frame is not strong enough to be able to manage the kind of praise and worship that belongs to Him – alone. However, His power will flow quite naturally through our lives as we learn to resist temptation and live in obedience. There is always a way through whatever is going on, we just ask Him for His help! Christ was led into the wilderness, by the Holy Spirit — but He came out IN THE POWER of the Holy Spirit. Facing temptation and overcoming it, is part of our growth process – it is meant to test and stretch our faith and resolve to rely upon God and His Word. That means it will hurt!

The bible says this about being tested:“Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed.”1 Peter 4:12&13. And in James 1:2&3: “My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties, see it as a valuable opportunity to experience the greatest joy you can! For you know that when your faith is tested, it stirs in you the power of endurance.”

Let’s reflect for a minute – in Jesus, Father God finally had a man He could talk to and trust. Just imagine the depth and breadth of the Lord Jesus’ faith!! God’s will was His only aim! In this world we will face trials and tests, but we do not face them alone. Praise God, our knowledge of His Word is our personal shield of faith. Jesus Himself overcame our enemy, and because of what He did on the cross, we can too. Now we can walk forward like Sons and Daughters of the Most High God. Bye. 👋

“Let me emphasize this: As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life.”Galatians 5:16 TPT.

P 2700 Let’s keep our eyes on forever.

/ DVH

The bible tells us to “… above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.”Proverbs 4:23. When I watch over my heart I am watching over who I am and what I produce!

Sometimes the hardest thing to watch over is our own heart. From my limited experience, other people often tread on someone else’s heart unknowingly. However, whoever started whatever has happened, if someone is offended, it means that there is something we both need to look at..Sadly, we can mistake somebody else’s motivation for evil intent, when the truth is this:… a whole lotta people are just big dummies, (like me), and they talk without thinking.

It goes without saying that forgiveness is the key that opens the door to understanding and reconciliation, but we all have people in our lives who are repeat offenders. So today I want to talk to the offended as well as the offender. Have you noticed how easy it is today to take offence? My first bit of advice to the one who is offended, is that forgiveness will require resolve, it will take self-discipline. There’s a happy thought! However, this is how we mature, and grow the fruits of self-control and patience…  by hanging on firmly to the VINE – true forgiveness is in that vine.

So we: “…set our mind on the things above.’ Colossians 3:2. Most growing points in our lives are a matter of forgiveness. The thing is, people aren’t doing whatever they did AGAIN – if we really forgave them in the first place! There may be some times when we read this bible stuff and say to ourselves, “yeah, yeah, great thought, but how do I do that?” I wish I had some snappy whizz bang methodology, that took care of our instant responses – but I don’t.

Here’s my advice for the one offended. My experience in this area of forgiveness has come down to two words – DO IT.  Don’t expect to feel good about it – just do it. Deliberately, and with great resolve, take authority over all the mean, niggly things you want to say to that offender, and ZIP IT. 🤐 When Jesus hung there silently on that cross for us. He gave us the power, by what He did, to shut up when we desperately want to put someone else in their place or comment on their behaviour.. 

Seriously, don’t give into your feelings for a minute, because you will find yourself circling the plug-hole going down for the last time! The bible says SET your mind because sort of kind of hoping the conflict will magically go away, will not work! Let me clarify this – we are changing an internal mindset in our lives, and doing that is not easy. Mindsets change when we consistently ask Him for His help,  use our faith, and keep our anger to ourselves. I say to myself: “I wanna be like Jesus and this is the Way to get there.” People who have no self-control haven’t totally realised what He gave us when He died for us. We already have forgiveness – LEARN TO SHARE. Read Romans! The more we die to self the more we gain!

Transformation takes hold when we find we can say something positive to the person who is jumping all over our last nerve. The bible says: “Bless those who curse you, do good to those who despitefully use you.”  Look, we are not talking about a walk in the park, we are talking about pressing into God until you forget what you were mad about! It IS hard! Hullo!! I say to myself at this point: “Oh there’s that thing that I am not going to remember, because it is a trap sent to distract me!”  That scripture from Colossians is not just a nice thought – it is an essential part of victorious Christian living! Why would we hand our enemy a loaded gun to shoot us? Disarm the gun.

Now to look at the offender: If something is your fault. If you opened your big mouth and hurt someone else and they tell you what you did … then don’t make excuses, and don’t give endless explanations… simply APOLOGISE. Humble yourself. You are not the judge of what hurts someone else! Actually we are not the judge of anything — read the book. Ask what you can do to make amends. People can easily forget that “I’m sorry” is not what the bible says. It says repent. Repentance involves humbling yourself and taking responsibility for what you did. Hurting someone else IS a big deal, because we don’t live by this world’s standards, now we live by His! And He clearly tells us not to make each other stumble.

Offending people is a big deal! I’ve met many people who say they are sorry, but they don’t go that one step further to usher in reconciliation. The aim of repentance is reconciliation. We need to remember that in this Christian life our hearts belong to Him. Father God takes this stuff seriously – it cost Him His life!  When people are mean to you they are being mean to His child. This means we need to pray for them!  Christ’s ministry is all about love and reconciliation, and that is our ministry now too. To live this way, it will help us to keep our eyes on forever, instead of just the here and now. Bye. 👋

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

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P 2695 Loyalty matters to God.

/ DVH

Let’s not take Father God’s kindness toward us for granted, or we can end up walking in presumption. To start with, we can easily be distracted by the cares of this life and forget Who He actually is! That’s when we could end up focussing on our own greedy little agendas of what we need or want. The point of a relationship is not just about what the other person does for me, it is also about what I bring into that relationship! What do I do that benefits that other person? We must not use Him for our own ends, He needs to be our great treasure. 

Our God’s benefits are for always seeable, and available to be easily seen, when we are living our lives loyal to Him. And He loves 💕 loyalty! Read the book. In the Old Testament we can see that His people spent more time being disloyal to the Lord than they did being loyal. But, whenever they repented and turned back to Him – His loving provision and benefits were seen and recognised and appreciated. I believe in order to see the Lord’s benefits, we need insight into the way we regard Him. God is not wishy-washy, whimsical, or careless. His preference for our salvation is crystal clear, but the decision to accept that, with all it means, needs to be taken seriously.

This is a good time to ask ourselves, where do I, personally, stand on this loyalty issue? Am I ”on the Lord’s side?” …like Joshua was? Joshua was prepared to die for God’s will to be done. Or am I on my Saviour’s side purely for so-called benefits, “I’m saved, He answers my prayers.” Maybe I get disengaged or ticked off when I happen to get trouble or tears? Is my main desire to live in His Presence? Can I see past His hands to His face? In my observation, most of the time when the going gets tough for Christians – the not-so-tough bail out!

I want to briefly talk about the incredible value of the Lord’s benefits. We have such wealth. We are strongly exhorted in Psalm 126:3 to: “… forget not all His benefits…”. In this Psalm, it talks about restoration of fortunes, reaping in joy, carrying seed to sow, and bringing in sheaves. But all of that comes after a whole lotta shaking and hardship going on – including sowing in tears! The thought struck me that we all want the joy, and the restoration, and the seed plus the sheaves … but not-so-much with the tears. It’s a package deal.

Some Psalms contain lists of the benefits of our loyalty to God. In Psalm 119 there are a whole lot of stated benefits. However, I think seeing God’s benefits is linked to our loyalty – and if we do not value Who He is, we won’t SEE them. These things are way too costly to be treated carelessly, haphazardly or poorly. Anybody can participate in everything He has done for us, but our response needs to be a heart filled with loyalty to Him because He has been so gracious to us.

Let’s look quickly at Psalm 23:1. In the Living bible it says:“Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need!”  This shepherd was totally in charge of his sheep! While they were under his protection the sheep lacked nothing. Even if they wandered off he would go and seek them out. This is a fine example of Jesus’ loyalty to us! Outside the camp there are wolves etc. This shows me that our faith can easily be devoured by cares and worries of this life – the shepherd’s sheep knew the value of staying close.

Some times we merrily produce our largish lists of needs and wants, and post them off to the Lord without bearing in mind where our loyalties are currently lying. Are we paying lip service, or are we His devoted servants, looking to simply be His sheep? Meanwhile if we are that distracted, will we even see the answers He sends? In Philippians 4:19 it says: “I pray that God will take care of all your needs with the wonderful blessings that come from Christ Jesus!”

Our God is so much more than the supplier of our needs – He’s Almighty God. He made everything we can see!

Every blessing we’ve received was bought for us by Jesus Christ’s own suffering. This life is not about Him getting us a new car, or having a baby, or getting into a course we think we want!  It’s about belonging to SomeOne so incredible, so loving, so focussed on us, that we take the time to see His heart and love Him back. We need to carefully inspect the origins of some of the things we claim and ask for, because loyalty and gratitude matter – especially to Him.

GRACE IS FREE BUT IT WAS NOT CHEAP. This is why everything we do, or want, needs to be prayerfully requested with our eye firmly on the prize of honouring Jesus. Otherwise we can go from faith into presumption in a heartbeat. Let’s not rob the Lord of our loyalty … 👋

“Jesus said to all of His followers, “If you truly desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:23-24.

P 2694 Another kind of running.

/ DVH

“Isn’t it obvious that all runners on the racetrack keep on running to win, but only one receives the victor’s prize? Yet each one of you must run the race to be victorious. A true athlete will be disciplined in every respect, practicing constant self-control in order to win a laurel wreath that quickly withers. But we run our race to win a victor’s crown that will last forever.”1 Corinthians 9:24-25.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2.

Sadly, some sporting people can be so keen to win acclaim, they cheat. However, the kind of running which is mentioned in this scripture is not a place where cheating will work. In this case – the Judge is now our standard, and there are no rules. We simply co-operate so we can grow to be like Him. This means we follow in His footsteps, because He completed His ‘course’ perfectly. I will still be me, but I need to be motivated and activated by the Holy Spirit, while I am running my race and learning to love Him and others.

I find most people who preach or teach use illustrations, like Jesus did – He kind of set the precedent for us for that kind of story-telling. The thing is, because everything Jesus said are spiritual truths … they are like the Universe — BIG. They are consistently ever-expanding, and constantly revealing new aspects to this new way to live that we didn’t know were there! It is a mistake to just read the words on the page, without consulting the ever-present Author about them. We need to ask questions!  This picture of race-running produces images of fitness, endurance, and a love of running.

I often tell the Holy Spirit, when I am stumped and stalled, even when I am reading the bible: : “I have no idea what that means.”  I’ve found He is a fantastic teacher, He loves to help us with our understanding and application of God’s word. I have no problem admitting that I am incredibly dumb, as well as selfish as I go along,  because … I know the Coach and He loves to help. Plus … He knows the way through or around any obstacle I will encounter. Most of those obstacles come from inside me – because my endurance and will to learn hinder me running at times.

Simultaneously, I love the fact that while I am running this race, I don’t have to compete with you and you aren’t in competition with me either. I’m running in this race to get a crown, and we are not contending with each other over the same thing – because you get a crown too. Plus the people in the stands are on their feet cheering us on. This is a good time to remember that this hard fought crown is perfect for casting down in front of our precious King, Jesus, when we meet Him. 

The illustration in this scripture is talking about what we think of as running a race, but because it is heavenly “running” Paul mentions, it actually refers to the way we choose to live this life we have now, today. So, when I go to the shops, I am running the race. When I go to work I am running the race. When I do the washing, clean the house, look after the family, paint my toenails, watch TV, put out the rubbish, go to sleep … I am still running this race. This race is about how I run, why I run, and the Person I run with.

It is not even about accidental accomplishments along the way, it is far more about my personal aim to stay in step with Him. I have been given a brilliant Coach to help me maximise my potential while I am running. He knows this race, He knows me, He knows my faith, my level of trust, and my love for other people. He will coach me personally to help me rise above the person I was before I met Him. I know I will be transformed along the way. This means that the person who finishes this race, will not be the same person who started it. That’s a big thought.

Young people, old people and everyone in between those two age-benchmarks can run in this race because fitness is not a criteria. SomeBody died to make us fit. The only criteria needed to be a runner, is the desire to be closer to Him. And at the same time we need to stay open to being taught. We are choosing to do all that with humility and devotion to our King. Lastly, all the people running in this race are serious about growth and transformation – they do their best NOT to run haphazardly – because they are in another kind of race. 👋

PS In the interest of complete honesty – some days it feels more like I am plodding along, rather than running!

P 2683 We are here to be a blessing.

/ DVH

Our lives are God’s love gift to others. So today, here’s an extremely powerful way to see how surrendered we all are! Let’s say somebody has just deliberately hurt you or annoyed the life out of you – what is your immediate response? We are only as surrendered to the life of God within us, as we are in our weakest, crankiest, most vulnerable moments. Telling the Lord we surrender to Him isn’t worth a hill of beans, if that doesn’t have its roots firmly established in reality. The power to change this world around us grows, as we use His power to change ourselves, first.

What we say, sing about, or have carefully read about on the subject of surrender, is utterly pointless – if it doesn’t bear fruit that is seeable in our lives! God is looking for fruitfulness, not hot air or even wishful thinking. We can tell if we have any fruit or not when this life squishes us tightly, That’s when our true selves emerge. It is also when the fruit of the Spirit can appear and spread a blessing.

Jesus Christ showed humanity GRACE from the cross. He got that Grace the same way we get it. HE MADE CHOICES. He showed Grace to His captors when they came to arrest Him, and they nailed Him to the tree. If we want to let Grace flow out of us, like AIR, then we need to continually take it in by faith and keep releasing it. That means we don’t excuse ourselves when we react to someone else, instead we choose to repent. So we let that grace flow out of us, towards others who probably don’t deserve it. His Grace is THAT powerful. It will transform us while it reaches out to others. This life is not about acquiring graces, it is about becoming His GRACE to others.

We can daily facilitate our own walk with Him, simply by valuing Grace, staying humble, and participating in repentance. If we continually pay attention to our feelings, instead of acting on the Word of God, we are choosing to empower a place inside us that needs to die. It is not that we are not ‘allowed’ to have feelings – rather, those feelings don’t need to run our responses or our lives. We actively make a choice to stop empowering the things that don’t produce His life in us. However, if we are being real with ourselves we probably already know the kind of things that make us stumble. They are often the things we excuse and we say: “Well, that’s not all that bad!”

The greatest Grace of God, Love, includes self-control. For the sap of the vine to flow into the fruit of the vine and grow wonderful grapes, the branch must stay attached. When I choose my way instead of His way I am restricting the flow of His sap. That branch has no destiny of its own, its entire destiny is tied up IN the Vine. If we want to abide in His love, then we must to learn to operate daily using the Grace He has given us. It’s endless! We don’t need to consult our feelings to see if we have grace, we simply step out and act appropriately toward the other person using our faith. We submit to Grace, come under Grace and then release what we already have.

“Since we are approaching the end of all things, be intentional, purposeful, and self-controlled so that you can be given to prayer. Above all, constantly echo God’s intense love for one another, for love will be a canopy over a multitude of sins.… … For to Him belong the power and the glory forever throughout all ages! Amen.” 1 Peter 4:7-8, 10-11 TPT.

Christians have been saved to serve others. We are going to need loads of humility to do that. This means we choose to progressively, and intentionally, learn to live as Christ Himself lived. He lived entirely for His Father’s purposes, not just what suited Him. He didn’t pretend – He simply was that Person. However, we haven’t been redeemed to be Jesus clones either, stringently following a bunch of rules. Rather we are to be voluntary imitators of Christ. Choosing to lay down our lives like He did..

His Grace has given us gifts that we are to use for the benefit of others. They are not to call attention to ourselves or raise up some sort of following. When we actively, continually forgive those who trespass against us, we will learn humility. At the same time we are extending His love canopy over them as we share what we already have. We are here, right here, right now, to be a blessing to this world, just like He was. 👋

P 2680 Walking free.

/ DVH

“I waited and waited and waited some more, patiently, knowing God would come through for me. Then, at last, He bent down and listened to my cry. He stooped down to lift me out of danger from the desolate pit I was in, out of the muddy mess I had fallen into. Now He’s lifted me up into a firm, secure place and steadied me while I walk along His ascending path.” Psalms 40:1-2 TPT.

I have this theory … the things that we consciously walk into, we often need to walk out of. What do I mean by that? When we are careless and wander off His path for us, it is highly unlikely that the Lord will sovereignly transport us back to wherever we wandered off! Instead we have to turn around and make our way out of the mess we’ve made. He will always help us, but it is our responsibility to repent and repair. An-y-w-ay, this man in the above scripture fell in a hole! I like this guy already, I’ve been down more holes in my lifetime than a gopher! 

Did you get the ‘waiting waiting waiting’ part? Nobody likes that bit. Why do we have to WWW? Patience grows as we stretch our faith by firmly holding on to HIS faithfulness. The secret is to keep looking at Him — it won’t help us to constantly revise how stretched we feel! Our spiritual predecessors knew all about waiting. Some of them died … still waiting!! Hebrews 11 – the great faith testimony chapter. There’s a whole big clump of people – whose names we all know and recognise – on that list, and it says – ‘by faith’ in it 20 times! When God repeats Himself, I pay attention.

The important part of these two verses above in Psalms 40 is this: “knowing God would come through for me.” See… I actually think that most people would think “stooping down” and “lifting me up” etc. are the important bits. In other words …we all want to escape from trouble. But the longer we stand still and wait for Him, and look at how faithful He is, the stronger our faith gets. Human beings focus on deliverance, while Almighty God focusses on growth. I’m not saying it’s wrong to focus on getting out of the trouble we’ve landed in, but there’s not that much growth on that path. In the end, it seems to me that it’s the wait, wait, waiting that grows us. And yeah, I don’t like that thought either!

The Lord wants us to know our own limitations, so we can continually enjoy His limitlessness. Everything good comes to us and meets us on the path of waiting and believing in His faithfulness. Christians are not meant to stay immature. We were born again to grow, and mature people know how to wait! BTW, did you also get that word “danger?“ Yup. Another thought no-one likes. But we will be rescued and grow — all at the same time. And that path leads UP, afterwards. I won’t have wobbly weak faith anymore, because God Himself will steady me. So the path I am on now, HE put me on! He has a purpose for me, for my life  — it isn’t just to continually test me, it is to show Himself strong and mighty on my behalf. Now I will need to live using my faith so I can see what He is doing.

Almighty God should not have to prove His goodness to us day in and day out by making our lives easier. His Personhood should be an established fact in our lives. This is not something debatable – His faithfulness is a pillar in the inner house of our hearts.  We are so blessed. We are living our lives on the other side of that cross. We have the writings of the New Testament, His living active will, to refer to. It is our check-list of who we are and where we are going. Otherwise the winds of change and tribulation will keep blowing us over, like the fierce wind speed of a hurricane. 

Psalm 103:4 says: “Who redeems my life from the pit”… Redeem doesn’t just mean ESCAPE … redemption makes things better than they were. It means transformation. Jesus bought my life back from destruction and healed me, changed, and transformed everything. My old ways to live, things like – being frightened, overwhelmed, nasty, spiteful etc. have gone. All that was killed off when Jesus took my sin onto the cross. Now I don’t have to live like that anymore.

We are blessed. We get to leave behind our grave clothes just as surely as Lazarus got rid of his! Now we have a new way to live – calling us up, higher and higher. Any tests or trials along the way are not our God being whimsical … He is not testing our loyalty – He’s preparing a table before us in the presence of our enemies! Now we can enjoy walking free of that old way of living, where we lived in fear that help wouldn’t come. We have proof in the bible that help has already come. Bye. 👋

P 2671 Hip-hip-hooray!

/ DVH

“Jesus said to ALL of His followers, “If you truly desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:23-24.

Like the Lord said — we are not our own, we’ve been bought with a price, paid for with a preciousness that we can never truly understand this side of heaven. When we finally see Jesus, the junk this world throws at us will melt away like snow in the bright sunshine of His great Love for us. Living that truth out, is this life’s greatest quest. Forget raising the dead, or healing the sick — the single most difficult thing any of us can undertake is to learn to let go of the every day niggles and distractions that keep me focussed on ME, Myself, and I! 

Lots of people love the idea of their sins being taken away. Me too! But learning to exercise self-control to the point that our lives are totally changed, is another ball-game. As we get tired, we can end up looking at other people, even people we love, who follow the Lord too, and wonder … “why can’t YOU change??” I hear things like that in my head all the time … together with stuff like – “Must you make my life so difficult? Isn’t it difficult enough?” That’s when I am in danger of falling off the cliff of ‘poor me’ and ‘aren’t YOU mean?’ I call those thoughts the cliffs of doom.

Self-pity is a terrible trap, because it often has its roots in actual hardship. And we all have hardships one way or another! I’ve found that if I entertain thoughts like those long enough I can go from ‘thank you Jesus,’ to complaining at Him! That phrase … ‘disown your life completely …’  kind of stomps all over self-pity and self-gratification. We can claim a dreadful past – most of us have evidence!  Things like, ‘my parents never understood me!’ Well now, how could they? YOU’VE never been here before! There’s only one of you! Or we can hide behind … ‘I had a terrible childhood … ‘  Join the queue… one way or another our own personal selfishness has to be confronted with the reality of Christ. It’s undeniable that some things are hard. The point is … now you’ve been set free to be in charge of you, what will YOU do about all that?

Here’s some good advice from Paul: “So now, beloved ones, stand firm, stable, and enduring. Live your lives with an unshakable confidence. We know that we prosper and excel in every season by serving the Lord, because we are assured that our union with the Lord makes our labor productive with fruit that endures.” 1 Corinthians 15:58 TPT. The thing is, when we try to fix things that are broken, all by ourselves, we can’t manage it, because eventually our own selfishness kicks in! However, sin was eliminated and annihilated by the death of Christ, so now we have plenty of room for HIS LOVE. Trust me, overcoming what the enemy has done in our lives is His only theme now. He already did the work for us.

Sadly there can be times that we think our POV is the only right one. Here’s a revelation!! Almighty God is capable of out-of-this-world incredibly complex thoughts. Maybe both people are right, maybe both are wrong – the one thing I can personally guarantee is this …

Father God is far more interested in restoration and reconciliation than we are! We can often credit Him with being on our side, when the truth is …He doesn’t take sides. Our best question is this, who is on the Lord’s side? Always remembering that His side is the only right one. Sadly, self-pity is like shooting yourself in the foot and then wondering why your foot hurts! Let’s not get dragged off down every side-street of ‘poor me,’ ‘terrible you,’ ’nobody loves me,’ and ‘I try and I try but I can’t live any other way.’

Here’s my final sobering thought for today … either Jesus Christ was successful when He conquered sin and death — or we are all victims of a giant cosmic hoax! The same faith we use to believe we are saved, is the faith we use to walk away from the past and the person we used to be. We cannot believe that He saved us without believing He also delivered us. The same blood that saved us has also given us the power to overcome! Those  things go together. Now is the time to evict the squatters who are demanding that they remain hidden in our hearts, thoughts and lives. “And so say all of us … Hip-hip-HOORAY! Yay Jesus!’” 🥳

P 2668 Shame, the disqualifier.

/ DVH

Over the years in my Christian life I have observed that if I let shame in, then the result is I stop trying to hear God and avoid Him instead! Plus I leave off reading the bible and skip church. None of that stuff is good! I’ve disqualified myself because I am feeling bad about something I have done, or I am contemplating doing. Shame creates a need to hide. Adam and Eve did! It is a fact of life that every single person on this planet has down times. Times when our attitudes are not at their optimum, when life is not one glorious victory following another.

Shame is a tool of our enemy to send us spinning off in the wrong direction. We end up looking at ourselves, as well as how we feel about what we have done etc. – instead of looking at the Lord – Who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. The saddest thing is this – sometimes shame has its roots in real sin – sin that needs to be confessed and repented about. Confession clears away any reason the enemy has to accuse us and cause even more shame.

There are many people in our churches who go regularly week by week, and they are in all kinds of pain, because they are carrying shame, for things done in the present or the past. Perhaps they don’t want to do something that they keep on doing, but they just cannot find a way to stop. Or they are ashamed because they are not doing what they think they should be doing. Feelings demand a whole lot of work and energy. We can end up in an emotional washing machine, getting more and more agitated, drowning in our own despair.

Shame is a cloak. A substitute for conviction, which leads to repentance. Some times shame has been thrown over a person in the past, by someone they regard as an authority, and this other person gave the one who is ashamed, strong logical reasons why that cloak should be worn. That, BTW is a sign of control. Anybody who tries to control us is not on the Lord’s side, whether that person seems to have good motivations or not. Shame has its roots in fear. It can’t grow good fruit, its roots have not gone down deep into LOVE and acceptance.  

The bible tells us to ‘agree with our adversaries quickly’ –  that way we can also quickly repent, and instantly dismiss shame. When we come to Jesus we are given freedom, there is no control. However, shame may also do it’s best to separate us away from the very One Who came to redeem us. It will cause us to hide from Him. We can even end up living a life that is a lie, pretending we are fine when we are not, and hiding our true selves from everyone around us.The sad thing is;  we have no reason to be ashamed because we have His promises in writing!In 1 John 1:8-10 and 1 John 2:1-2 it says:

“If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—simply come clean about them—He won’t let us down; He’ll be true to Himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. ..”1 John 2:1-2 says this: “My little children, I am writing these things to you, so that you do not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

The most important thing about these few verses is the fact that forgiveness always rests on the Lord’s Character and His Character is perfect! It is in Christ’s Character to tell the truth – and the truth is, we have already been forgiven. The second most important thing in my opinion, is this: honesty and confession are the only way to go. It’s not the most comfortable approach, but it is the only one! When we let light pour into the darkness we no longer have to be ashamed, we simply need to be honest and confess our faults to Him, and to others. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is our God-sent, God-given Lawyer! He is our Defence Attorney before the throne of God. He won’t give us a character reference – instead, HE SIMPLY POINTS TO THE CROSS. You might want to sit and stew on that for a while. 

Our part in this process is to be honest with Him, and ourselves, and use our faith to believe that He does not lie and we are not some kind of mad-exception to His poured out love. Shame must never be our cloak – Christ’s BLOOD IS ALWAYS OUR CLOAK.  If we accidentally crawl out from underneath the Lord’s provision of forgiveness, then we need to repent quickly, make reparation where necessary and move on. Let’s not let shame disqualify us from living a brand new life, free from the past, and our own sinful stupid decisions. Bye. 👋