Daniel 11:32

P 3126 Get rid of unrealistic expectations.

/ DVH

I lived the major part of my Christian life full of unrealistic expectations. This went on for a very long time. I thought I needed a  transforming touch from the Holy Spirit, but no matter where I went, nothing changed permanently. I always enjoyed the experience, but nothing changed for me until I took His Word seriously. It has taken me years to learn that a default approach to my relationship with the Lord was not part of God’s plan. 

I discovered that most Christians were like me – not like my favourite teachers, preachers and authors! The majority of the brethren were struggling too. That didn’t mean we were getting it wrong – it meant that our Precious Father wanted to be closer to US, personally. Getting a touch was wonderful, but in any relationship – the best solution to distance – is time and deliberate devotion. Finally, I realised that my future lay in whatever He wanted to personally say to me, day by day. 

Almighty God wants us to seek Him – that’s all over the book! And this will involve each one of us making an effort to prioritise Him, and contributing more than just a cursory nod to Who He is. When you have a busy life, it is so much easier to let someone else who has made all that effort, speak to you. However, it is so wonderful when we realise God really does know MY name, and He wants to personally interact with me, and speak to me, every day through His Word.

Inspiring podcasts are great, watch them. Christian books can encourage us, read them. However, we already have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’s guidance and Their promise to help us personally. Not to mention the bible itself! To be honest, I think that many authors only seem to write about the good bits in their lives. They write about successes and their own personal victories. The hard bits often only come up when they can show us how it brought them to victory! YOU are not a failure in God’s eyes – and His eyes are the only ones that count.

Let’s participate in, and praise Him for our very own personal victories. Those victories will be hard-fought but worth every second of our time! Someone else’s successes are no help at all when stuff is flying at us, and we feel like we are drowning. We need to see God at work in our own lives like David did. “But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.”1 Samuel 17: 34-36. David made a scary decision based on his own previous experiences – he had a personal victory to draw upon.

Our daily focus belongs to the Lord Himself. Who He is. What He has done. What He is still doing. What He will do. Other people’s testimonies can help to lift us up when we feel flatter than a cane toad hit by a lorry — but we too can get squashed in many ways, especially when other people appear to cope with their spiritual lives better than we do! Don’t lose heart, your faith is SO precious to Him. The Holy Spirit Himself has already provided us, in the bible, with all kinds of people whose stories and insights, have survived mankind’s whimsy and fashion’s dictates.  

Let’s look at Daniel 11:32. It is an interesting discourse about what happens to God’s people who like their ears tickled by foreign Kings with an agenda.“With smooth words [of flattery and praise] he will turn to godlessness those who [are willing to] disregard the [Mosaic] covenant, but the people who [are spiritually mature and] know their God will display strength and take action [to resist].” 

The way for us to be able to resist our enemy is to KNOW OUR GOD, for ourselves – like Daniel and David did. We must become single-minded. An archangel came to Daniel after an elongated period of prayer, in chapter 10, verse12. “Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.”This shows us that GOD HEARS OUR PRAYERS … but … we are all in a war! An archangel had come to encourage Daniel, and prophesy about the future. He tells Daniel that God has got the situation, the trouble will come to an end.

This mighty angel concludes by saying this 12:3-5: “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”  My last point today is this: troubles, trials and difficulties are part of following Jesus. (John 16:33) But we dare not allow other people to steal away our own personal hiding place. JESUS is that hiding place! We need to know and trust Him, so we can run to Him, in any disaster, pain or suffering that seems to want to drown us. 

These two men of God didn’t just have to deal with their situations, they had to learn to deal with themselves, then their responses led them into a deeper relationship with God Himself. To live like that we will have to prioritise what God says. The Lord does not always want to take us out of trouble, instead He wants us to learn how to go through it and come out the other side, unscathed! Bye. 👋

P 2816 Do great exploits.

/ DVH

Matthew 25:14-30 TPT: “It’s also like a man going off on an extended trip. He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities. To one he gave five thousand dollars, to another two thousand, to a third one thousand, depending on their abilities. Then he left. Right off, the first servant went to work and doubled his master’s investment. The second did the same. But the man with the single thousand dug a hole and carefully buried his master’s money.“After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: ‘Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.’ “The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master’s investment. His master commended him: ‘Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.’

“The servant given one thousand said, ‘Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.’“The master was furious. ‘That’s a terrible way to live! It’s criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.“‘Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this “play-it-safe” who won’t go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.’”

When I read this passage today some things stood out, so I have highlighted them. It always seems to be important to me to place the things the Lord highlights into context. So let’s look at this one the way it happened in the first scripture where it says: “…according to their abilities…”

The servants’ master had taken into account each man’s ability when he handed out the money to be invested. That would be so foreign in today’s society. Grading people into categories would be a no, no. It might even be considered demeaning, and in some instances it could be taken very personally. However, these few words show me that the Lord doesn’t ask us to do anything that we can’t actually do, as we operate in His grace.. And at the same time, He may not test you the same way He tests me, because He knows our frames, He knows how far we can stretch.

The second thing I noticed was this: that man who buried his portion of the money was capable of far more effort than he gave his master. I don’t know if he was lazy, or he underestimated himself, but the point is – he could have done better, if he had just overcome his fear. Instead he was underusing what he had been given.

If we translate this parable into what our part in God’s kingdom looks like  — which is what Jesus intended — then that third servant did as little as possible because of fear. Yeah, I know, that sort of clarity sucks doesn’t it? It’s actually so clear we cannot deny it. Jesus was pointing out to each one of us that fear is never an excuse. This master points out that living in fear and evasiveness is a terrible way to live …Like the man said, nobody else is limiting our capabilities – the reality is that we are doing it to ourselves! I thought about it like this: our next miracle may be right around the corner of us taking a risk, and being obedient to whatever He has told us to do. 

Jesus Himself once used the phrase: “the least of these…”  Not everybody is born with excess talent oozing out of their pores. Whatever we want to do with our lives for His kingdom — we will need a calling, some talent …PLUS .. a whole lotta hard work. Many people like to skip that last bit. Devotion to the task is part of the prerequisite for a kingdom person. Our devotion to Him translates into action on His behalf.

Jesus was God Himself, personified, but He still had to live this life like every other human being. The exchange with our enemy in the wilderness proves that He did not use the Holy Spirit’s power to get things for Himself. He refused to turn a stone to bread – even when He was hungry. What I mean is this – Jesus knows man’s limitations personally.

You know I would much rather try, and fail … than sit and hope heaven will fall on me and motivate me. It is easier to steer a moving vehicle than a stationary one. The Lord is a Redeemer – He can take all the bits of our lives that seem useless and make something glorious out of them.  God can take a man who was killing Christians and make the greatest Christian theologian this world has ever seen. Paul!

Redemption is transformation on steroids. It is outside the realm of our thinking, or our efforts, because our thinking is too small and our efforts cannot be sustained. In His kingdom, redemption is normal. If we are going to invest our lives for His sake, then we need to expect that we will continually undergo the process of redemption. That man who buried his master’s money needed his mind renewed!  So do we, because: “ … the people who do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” Daniel 11:32. Bye. 👋