Decision

P 3481 Our greatest treasure.

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Today I want to talk about love – Our Father’s love, and ours. First of all, we are not qualified to decide what love looks like. Almighty God already did that … with the Ten commandments and the subsequent birth of Christ Himself, His example, plus some truly awesome scriptures in 1 Corinthians 13 and Colossians 3!

However, living in, and for His Love, does not always mean we will end up feeling fantastic. Living a life of love sometimes means we will have to back down when we don’t want to, and shut up when we want to defend ourselves. Aren’t you glad I said that?… Me neither! … God’s Love is not like that feeling of floating-around well-being that we get when we think about someone special to us. It is a decision made and carried out using our faith. In other words, even if the other person drives us nuts, the bible tells us in Romans 13:8, that we owe them love. That’s the response, there is no other.

God’s Way of love requires us to live aware of the fruit of self-control, despite our circumstances. Plus we are told to give away grace, mercy and kindness. Let’s remember that self-control won’t just fall on us! It has to be worked in us as we learn to co-operate with the Holy Spirit. Living in God’s kind of love is costly, and I strongly suspect that is why some of us do not want to do it! Let’s look at someone who loved Jesus beautifully and well – this is described in Luke 7: 37&38. Just pause please and notice who is loving Him commendably.

“A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind Him at His feet weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.” 

It would be a huge mistake to simply read the above scriptures as a lovely story about one woman’s attitude to Christ. Because it is in the book, then it is in there to show US something about ourselves. The first thing I can ‘see’ is that this woman took the lowest place in the room. Nobody needed to explain to her that she had been living her life badly …she already knew that … but she did something extraordinary about it. Instead of hiding from the Lord’s pure gaze, she overcame her fear of exposure and sought to minister to Him, out of her love for Him. She had no other motivation in her dear little head other than blessing Jesus!

We need to look closely at any people we know who have a heart like hers, because we can learn so much from them. People like this woman do not think much about themselves, their aim is to bless and minister love and honour to others. They are just grateful to be included! Unfortunately, like the other guests at this party, we can easily be distracted by this woman’s sin, and forget about our own. If you or I were in that room where would WE be? Sitting at the table talking to Jesus? Asking questions? Discussing this scripture or that? Or crawling along the floor trying not to be seen at all, because you want to wash Jesus’ dirt-laden feet and honour Him?

Let’s move down to verse 37, where Jesus says: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Um! That’s one heck of a sentence! Jesus is using this woman as an illustration of what great love looks like. It is so easy to quote: “Love is patient and kind etc.” or “Clothe yourselves in love.” The theory is easy – however, practicing this kind of humility and Grace, shows up all the dents and dings in our character. Those things we hope nobody else knows. This woman had nothing to lose, nobody respected her anyway – but she did stand to lose big time if Jesus reviled or rejected her.  And that thought would probably keep many of us from crawling along the floor to wash and kiss His feet.

Instead we prefer to say: “I’m this and that – the bible says so. I don’t have to crawl along the floor, Jesus died for me and I’m a new person” …Sigh.  Sadly, for a new person, we can still have a very old, unpleasant attitude! Great love is expressed at great cost. For people with a fear of rejection, it is almost a death threat. Loving others when they hurt you, could leave you battered and beaten down by their treatment of you. But Jesus sees this kind of love and He kindly and gently elevated this woman’s heart attitude by what He said. He recognised her actions, because her actions spoke louder than any words. It brought her forgiveness and a brand new start.

I’ve heard many sermons on how much the perfume she used cost, how precious it was to her, etc. etc. But I prefer to see how much the Lord Himself valued what she did as she humbled herself before Him, and the surrounding company. It’s time we began to realistically contemplate our own hearts – instead of excusing stuff. This woman clearly gives us hope that sinful or not – we will be received! When we humble ourselves, we will not get rejection, but Love Himself will see us in our clumsy efforts to bless Him.

His love for us and through us is now our greatest treasure. Jesus is the prize, all we will ever need. In the Presence of His glory, none of us qualify to stand with Him. Whatever we have, has been given to us, gratitude is our only response. Bye. 👋

P 3478 Participation and dedication.

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“Trust in the Lord completely, and do not rely on your own opinions. With all your heart rely on Him to guide you, and He will lead you in every decision you make. Become intimate with Him in whatever you do, and He will lead you wherever you go.” Proverbs 3:5-6 TPT.

Living like this scripture says needs dedication. However, to be honest with you, when the Lord first brought this subject up with me, I kind of avoided it. I thought living like Jesus did was for the special people – the ones who had spiritual gifts and titles. I was just a bod. A nobody. Someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s daughter. Jesus didn’t buy that little story when I kept trotting it out, BTW.

Due to circumstances totally beyond my control – prior to meeting the Lord, I had never had a life of my own that came from my own choices. I literally went from parental oversight to my ex-husband’s plans, and my own preferences didn’t come into it. My personal choices were framed by a threat of rejection, and that influenced me regarding total surrender. I did not want to give up my choices to SomeOne Else.

Inner rebellion grabbed me – plus I didn’t know how to change. I’d go up the front when the pastor called for the congregation to make a deeper commitment to Christ, and I’d cry my eyes out, then go home and  … wait for God to do His bit.  I had no thought that I would have to change my responses, and attitudes with His help. Or that I had to see my old life through His eyes, and TOGETHER we were going to walk away from the things I did, thought and said before.

I asked Him to help me, because at that time, I thought transformation relied upon what He did. Eventually I came to the erroneous conclusion that because He hadn’t changed this or that in my behaviour, then the things I did must not bother Him. I had blinded my eyes to the scripture and by doing so, I lost my hearing as well — mainly because I kept choosing to excuse myself from any participation! God is so kind, I reasoned – I knew He would understand that my life had not prepared me for this. Well, He is kind and He did forgive me  – but the reality was that I stayed in the same place because of those choices. I was not growing, or maturing – instead it was hard work not to go backwards!

Despite my squirrelled up thinking, Father God never rejected me. Not even once. At one stage I walked away thinking He could not possibly want me now, and I hid. I stopped going to church. Well we all know how hiding from God turns out … thank you Gideon and Jonah! However, the Lord, in His incredible Grace came after me. Father God is so much more faithful than we understand — He does not give up on us. He did not give up on me, and He won’t give up on you either!  

I had no comprehension of how faith works, so when the pastor preached that we were to ‘love others’ I automatically thought of someone I didn’t get along with at all, and I tried my best to love them. I did it using my own strength. Of course the Holy Spirit wanted to help me do what God asked of me, but without His help I failed. All that other person had to do was snarl at me, or be mean, and I would immediately run away like a scared rabbit – and then I went back to complaining about them behind their back. I felt imprisoned by other people’s attitudes which did not change – I had no sense of freedom.

The truth is, I didn’t know what was in my own heart – and I wasn’t sure I wanted to either! It takes pressure to show us what is really in our hearts. Our reaction to pressure is not a whoopsie, or a little error, it is a diagnostic tool. It shows us what’s really in there … hiding away amongst the pleasant smiles and happy little testimonies. Things like judgment can hover away in the background influencing the way we think. Plus, when bad things happen it can be far too easy to complain. Complaining seems normal, because we are human. I had no idea, at all, about how faith works and I took no responsibility for my responses to difficulties. Instead I made excuses for myself. James talks about the real issue, our lack of ability to change ourselves: chapter 3, verses 7-16. 

“This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women He made in His image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you? Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts.” 

When we choose to merely tackle the outcome of the things we do, we are not tackling the root of these issues in our lives. The truth is, we don’t have to be afraid or ashamed of owning our faults because Jesus took all of that to the cross. Everything. Not some of it … all of it. Now we need to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness and learn to rely upon Him, and use our faith. Jesus forgave us unreservedly … so we have more than enough Grace to give away, which will flow on, to others.

The only claim to fame you and I have ever had is that we know Jesus Christ personally. The thing is — we aren’t  just meant to ‘know’ Him or say that we ‘follow’ Him. Jesus learned obedience through suffering … and SO DO WE. The same Spirit Who was in the Lord Jesus, is now in us, He wants to  teach us personally, how to follow the Lord, step by step. But that will require participation and dedication. Bye. 👋

P 3434 A quality decision.  

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“Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour, and authority! Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm. Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ.” Colossians 3:1-3 TPT.

There is a way we all need to go … Proverbs 22:6, I think a description of that way appears in Colossians 3:1-3. That way means we don’t just die to self – we live this life resurrected, striding into a brand new life, where Jesus rules – right here, right now. This happened to each one of us when we gave our lives to Christ. He has kept His part of this covenant, and now it is up to us to keep our part.  Our part is an assignment. We choose to take Him with us wherever we go. 

His part will stand forever, whether people acknowledge it or not. Ours depends upon us believing what He said and acting accordingly – using our faith. Everything we read in the bible points to this brand new life that is ours for the taking – Jesus gave it to us when He died in our place. Why live in the defeated ruins of an old life, when the new life He died to give us is ours for the taking?

Our daily need for His help, and His freely-given input, turns into a yearning that encourages and motivates our faith to keep on pressing on, and in. We want Him. Not rules, not religion, but Him. Anything else pales into insignificance. There can be times we feel listless, plagued by an unwillingness to yield to Him, and we sometimes give into it. That stuff isn’t just disobedience — it comes from a lack of real focus about what is actually going on... God Himself is wooing us! This is the next part of our chosen adventure with Christ. He stands at the window, oil dripping from His nail-scarred hands, waiting to be asked into each and every moment.

We cannot afford to ignore the things Jesus said, they are our life-blood. Our spiritual life and health depends entirely on what He did for us, and our choice to believe the things written in His book are true. Otherwise we will pick and choose what we want to believe, and be led about by all sorts of distractions that will tickle our ears, and continually lead us nowhere. We might even become faddish, and look ridiculous to the world around us. 

Whenever God is truly present, conviction has to follow because His holiness challenges our humanity. Conviction is not about yelling at people for being sinful, and threatening them with a ghastly final destination – it also not just about going the wrong way — conviction means we are wrong! We can’t be right without His input. Deep down most people already know that their way of life is broken – they either don’t care, or don’t want to change, or they don’t know how to change. 

The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin. As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach the Christ-like goal. The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin.

As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach this Christ-like goal.

The Holy Spirit revives our faith as He leads us. Our faith was not design to drag along behind – always waiting for a sign, or proof, or some sort of approval. What matters in this process is the room we give Him in our lives. Some people can spend 60 minutes quality time with the Lord day by day, and it is enough to fuel their ministry. Others progressively fall in Love with A PERSON and they refuse to let Him out of their sight! The Holy Spirit longs to draw us into the same sort of depth we see in the Apostles in Acts.

We are all in the same battle. We daily fight to let Christ be everything to us, instead of simply our back-up in times of trouble. Freely loving Him is our reward – we don’t care what this world offers us, or what we think we might gain in the next. Jesus wants to reside/live/inhabit our lives, today. Imagine the honour! The King of glory quietly calls us to walk with Him. His Presence is not a merit badge tribute to our spirituality, He is our beloved Lord and Saviour – Who is closer to us than our heartbeat.

But we must deal with our own pride, our need for autonomy and self-importance. And make a quality decision to live in His resurrection life, listening to Him and loving others. Bye 👋.

P 3256 Make a decision to be thankful.

/ DVH

Obviously after yesterday, you can see I have so much to be thankful for! But I want to talk about the reason I   made this decision… Life has a way of whizzing by us, day by day by day. In fact, bad things or good things are often an interruption to the ordinariness of life. The problem with living an ordinary life is that you think you are ordinary, and you don’t matter… we become passive, not active.

Almighty God has made us His house! Whether we feel like it or not. That’s not ordinary. It seems to me that we think like this because we have come to believe there is another breed of Christians, a special, elite, gifted group. Super saints, people who have ministries and gifts and hoopla surrounding them. Spiritual gifts are not just for a selective group. We all have them!  Maybe you just haven’t found yours yet? 

In Ephesians 4:8: “Therefore it says,“When HE ascended on high, HE led captivity captive, And HE bestowed gifts on men.” and in Ephesians 4:11-13: “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.”

Spiritual gifts are given to build up the body. We have often put an emphasis on this kind of verse in the wrong place. GOD has given gifts to men, so we will become mature in Christ. It is the Giver that matters, not the gifts or the men or women! These gifts have His purposes on them. It is never good to elevate the people God has given them to. Because of these gifts in our own lives, we can see the Lord’s incredible generosity toward all of us and be thankful!.He knows maturity is beyond human beings, so He has given people all over the Body of Christ supernatural gifts to help us move from the natural, to the supernatural, and from the mundane, into the heavenly realms.

Almighty God gave and we receive. Who is greater? The Giver or the receiver? You do the sum. The Body of Christ seems firmly stuck on the gifts, or the ‘ministry.’ He gives gifts to ordinary people to showcase His own extraordinariness! Once He made a donkey talk, and the donkey made good sense! We are not all that — HE is all that! That’s the POV we need to cling to. Mankind is not equipped to handle the kind of fame that can be slathered all over those who are famous. 

By elevating the gift over the Lord, we have put undue attention and pressure on those people who do have a gift. All Peter did when he prayed for the lame man was give what he had, He didn’t say “I have the gift of healing and a word of knowledge for you” He gave what he already had. It came from His relationship with Jesus! When we give thanks we put God back into His rightful place in our lives. He’s our King, brother, Saviour. (James 1:17)

It’’s the Lord that we need to thank, not the men and women who He has gifted! When I hear someone or other did something incredibly dumb, and they are famous, I feel compassion and pity for them. Fame goes to people’s heads – only God can bear it. That’s why the bible tells us: “to make HIS Name famous!” (Psalm 45:17) Anything else can cause chaos, God is always our first thought, not man. Thank HIM for HIS gift, and praise Him for helping us through others.

Thankfulness is a way of life – we can learn it. Step by step. The way into that life is to acknowledge that “without Him we can do nothing permanent.” (John 15:5)  Jesus Himself said that! At the same time we need to live with the reality that we too have been given gifts to benefit the Body, so whatever happens to us has His hand on it. We know we have been blessed because He is a generous God. Giving up the right to approval by man, comes under the heading of complete submission to God, and it won’t always give us a happy ride. There are so many things we can learn through difficulties and hardship, including the fact that the Lord Himself is not fazed by them! That’s why we give thanks.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” We are told to give thanks in every thing…if we want to know God’s will for us, here is a big fat clue… GIVE THANKS to Him, no matter what happens. Yeah, I know, it sounds upside down, but ‘God’s ways aren’t our ways…’  (Isaiah 55:8-9.) And faith would not be faith if it was something we could be certain about! Giving thanks changes gears. We stop looking at the problem, and start wondering how the Lord is going to get us out of this one! Sometimes hard things just fade away … sometimes we see a clear solution … that bit doesn’t matter. Giving thanks for all He is and what He is doing right now … changes gears.

It shifts our perspective from earth to heaven because the bible says: “we are seated in heavenly places with Christ.” Ephesians 2:6. Again, this scripture is something the Body of Christ has seen as a bragging point, rather than seeing it as a gift! When what Jesus did for us, was so complete, it seated us with Him! We didn’t climb up there, or earn that place, it was given to us, no matter how spiritual we seem to others. If we continue to read the bible with the accent only on what’s in it to benefit me – we won’t comprehend what He has given us, that we don’t deserve.  We will overlook the opportunity we have to make a decision to be thankful. Bye. 👋

P 3151 Good fruit.

/ DVH

The Lord wants me to talk about this particular subject one more time… so here we go …it seems to me that all those things I have been talking about in the past few days, are actually tied together. So IF we find we are reluctant to forgive someone else, it definitely means something, and we need to look at that particular situation very carefully. To begin with it means Jesus just slipped out of our focus!

We need to understand that the people who love Jesus know when they are wrong, because the Holy Spirit whispers to them! Plus the scriptures jump out at us and convict us. At the same time, any one of us can feel beaten up by negative circumstances. I think it is about vulnerability — we don’t want to make ourselves vulnerable to anyone we feel we can’t trust. 

That, BTW, is why it is a good plan to give difficult people to the Lord and leave them with Him. We can be so incredibly disappointed or hurt by someone else’s actions, that it seems like we can’t let things go. Especially when the other person has not acknowledged our pain, or asked for forgiveness. Or they keep on doing the thing that started the mess in the first place! That’s when our decisions need to kick in.

This kind of negative reaction shows the importance of redemptive power in all our lives. If you can get stuck on how you feel about what someone else did — then imagine how stuck they are in your mind, when we constantly see them through the filter of their past deeds/misdeeds! Here is something I use to check on my forgiveness metre. If someone’s name causes me to grind my teeth, either inwardly or outwardly, this means I have something that I need to get alone with the Lord to fix.

Seeing anyone through that kind filter can lead to a highly volatile situation — where our bad history with a person outweighs anything good, and everything they say and do has another meaning to us! The result is we are distracted and we don’t have to look at that list we are silently compiling against them. At the same time holding on to that list can be oh, so useful to prove our point about how mean they are!

All of us can easily find reasons, or excuses for our behaviour… whilst analysing someone else’s attitudes or what they have said. Meanwhile, our enemy is delighted to drag all kinds of stuff out periodically, to ?help? us remember when that other person does something we don’t like again. 

This is why forgiveness needs to be based on choice. We need to make a quality permanent decision that following Jesus is the way we have chosen to live, and then we must choose to protect that decision! In a nutshell becoming a Christian means we have given up the right to make lists! If we end up avoiding people, then we probably have a list somewhere – tucked away in our psyche. It took me a long time to realise that keeping a list of other people’s sins is not true protection. It’s a trap!

The worst thing about keeping lists, is that this trait can start in childhood, as a result of imperfect parenting. Childish assessments are not accurate, because they come from a brain that is not completely developed or matured! When we hold something against someone from our past — I’ve noticed that anybody else who even remotely sounds like the people we are offended with — ends up thrown into the same pile. Pretty soon that pile gets so high, we can’t see or hear God over it. 

Let’s remind ourselves that our stated aim as followers of Jesus, is to be the people who forgive and release others on the spot .Otherwise that little niggle in the background of our thoughts quickly becomes a whirlpool. Then we have no idea why we are going round and round instead of moving forward. Our God is incredibly kind, He won’t let us move forward while we are dragging stuff behind us like the tail on a comet.

Let’s realise we cannot afford to relinquish our God-given right to be free from captivity – simply because we want to choose to be angry at someone else! Being mad at someone is still captivity! Almighty God is more than able to protect us, we don’t need to protect ourselves anymore. Let’s not fall into the trap of holding a grudge to keep ourselves supposedly safe. “My God is my protection and with Him I am safe.” Psalm 18:2.

Meanwhile there can be a gap between believing, and living that way – it’s time to close those gaps. There are times when we end up chasing healing, which is another subject altogether. Healing can be another little side eddy to get stuck in — it can become an excuse we use to hide from God and others. Our healing is in our proximity to Jesus, stay with Him and watch what He will do with you. To be perfectly honest with you, sometimes I look at people and think:“Aren’t you sick of going round and round yet?” Now I need to repent!!

The belief that Father God is always for us must stay at the forefront of our minds. Even when it seems that everything we hoped for and loved is facing extinction. That’s what dying to self is like. “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.” John 12:24. Dying to self opens us up to the things we can’t see.

Our God is devoted to His harvest coming out of our lives. Namely – FRUIT.  And we can’t hang on to grudges and stuff and still produce good fruit. Instead we will bring forth diseased produce, in our own lives and in the lives of others. Bye 👋.

P 3090 Trust.

/ DVH

“May the Lord answer you when you are in distress;  may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May He send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion. May He remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings. May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. May we shout for joy over your victory and lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Now this I know: The Lord gives victory to His anointed. He answers him from His heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of His right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Psalm 20:1-7. “Before you do anything, put your trust totally in God and not in yourself. Then every plan you make will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3 TPT

Most of people barely trust each other nowadays, so I often wonder how Christians are doing with regard to trusting in the Lord? The bible tells us to trust in Him with all our heart and forget about what we think we know. I’ve commended David many times on this blog, he sets a wonderful example of someone who knew how to trust God. This man remembered what God had done for him in the past and it gave him momentum to push forward into the next challenge.

So where does that leave us today — when we want to learn how to trust in the Lord, but our society oozes mistrust and bitterness? Every single day we will simply have to choose to use our faith! Our only option is to follow Him, and believe His Word, over the rubbish our eyes and ears take in. We can be influenced for good by God’s Good News, or we can soak in the filth and stench of sin that saturates this world. In my opinion, our enemy has infiltrated our thinking so deeply, sometimes our first thought is not: “What would Jesus want me to do in this situation?” It’s often: “How does this affect me?”

Let’s make the Lord our first priority, because that’s a fixed mindset not an optional extra! I think the lack of faith we end up exhibiting daily has affected the temperature of the world around us. I am not trying to be negative here, I have had to face my own fears, and I didn’t do so well every single time. But I try to remember this: we learn to trust the Lord in the trenches and the ditches and dirt of this life – when we know full well if we poke our head up, some clown is going to shoot at us or we can wind up in jail for some misplaced remark! Trusting the Lord does not always mean we are in a peachy-keen rainbow situation, with milk and honey constantly flowing down the mountain …the Israelites are proof of that!

It’s called having the courage of our convictions. Sadly, for those amongst us that do try to stand up and speak out, a great deal of negative comments can sometimes come from… wait for it … other Christians. We are quite good at shooting our own wounded! I have known great men and women of God that have been constantly smashed against the side of someone else’s convictions, and left battered and bleeding because of it. I know this might shatter somebody else’s theology, but Almighty God is capable of contrasting opinions! WE are the limited ones – we need clarification, not competition. 

Trusting God with internal opposition going on can seem almost impossible – He promises to help us! But if His people have no grace at all, even for their brothers and sisters, then it seems highly improbable that the world is going to do all that well either. However, with God ALL things are possible. That’s in the book! We must not forget the power of the Holy Spirit to help, guide, lead, comfort, and transform our ways of thinking, doing and being – daily!  Sometimes we can be so busy being reformers, we forget we are merely grace carriers. Just because we don’t always understand what others are saying, that doesn’t make them wrong. As a matter of fact, that kind of attitude can make us look intolerant, and that is not a good look!

Over the years, I’ve learnt that I can’t trust myself under pressure, I will probably try to look after myself. I’ll make excuses for me, and blame you. Without His GRACE we are sunk. Thank God an incredible endless amount of His grace was released at Calvary — now nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That means the only thing that can pull us this way and that, is our perception of the truth of His Word. However, at the same time, we dare not forget Jesus Himself is called – the Living Word! That’s how important it is to take note of the way Jesus lived.

God’s Grace is always available, when we let go of our opinions and bad attitudes and step into the place Jesus bought for us. “Before you do anything, put your trust totally in God and not in yourself. Then every plan you make will succeed.”  He is not with us so we can ‘win’ some ridiculous theological point! We all have a part of the many-sided wisdom of God available to us. However, He is with us, because HE IS GOOD not because we are smarter than someone else. Daily we have to make a quality decision. Do we want to be right, or walk with Him?

Walking with Him means we can change our minds – press the refresh button! That’s part of walking and learning to trust and walking by faith means trusting Him. We trust Him every single day, to get us out of whatever fool thing we just fell into. And at the same time, we choose to hold fast to the fact that He will bless everyone else as well! He’s God He can do anything. Bye👋

P 3072 Make yours a life well lived.

/ DVH

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16 MSG.

The person we need to be is the one Almighty God planned for us to be when He created us. Did you know there’s a big difference between the person you’ve become – because life’s bashed you up a bit – and the person God intended when He created you? That difference is our learning curve. I’m older, I’ve bumped into a lot of learning curves. 

You know, old age is not always the drag everybody thinks it is. Old people are way less threatening to young ones when their hair gets white and they kind of hobble about. Old people don’t constitute a threat. If you are really fortunate and your family is kind, now you can tell the same stories over and over again, and not realise you are doing it. While they all listen politely. Now there’s a perk! Meanwhile you might look a bit addlepated. Oh well. 

However! The bible has a whole other idea about who we ALL are! You and I, we are the light. When we walk into a room, that whole room is flooded with His light, because He goes with us. This means that we can tell the difference between this life’s fake stuff and the real. God’s light bulb inside us, is so bright, all the hollow useless stuff shows up instantly. We can waste the time He gave us striving to look cool, or clever, or wise … or we can enjoy Him. You can’t do both. What a great pity it is when God’s people stumble around in the dark when we were made to shine, and give Him glory by doing it.

That verse above tells us the very best and only way to keep our faith alive. We must use it. I can guarantee using it will be extremely inconvenient, and pride will probably fall on its head as we learn to do what the Lord wants. For so many years, I tried hard to be kind and caring – but – people would annoy me and then I’d have to avoid them. In that process I picked up awful attitudes toward other people! Trying is out – doing it anyway is in. 

Hubby and I have been doing peculiar things for years, as the Lord guides us – we don’t think of them as outrageous, we think of them adventures with the Holy Spirit and Jesus. The bible tells us in 1 Peter 2:9 that we have been chosen to be ‘a peculiar people.’  We try to live up to that. So we’ve done things that people said would never work, and sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t – but every single time we had to use our faith. I keep telling you, eleven good Godly men sat in that boat watching Peter walk on the water. They were safe, but they didn’t stretch their faith!

I walked around for 2 years, about 45 years ago, claiming God had healed my eyesight. I was taught that I could have whatever I wanted, and I wanted to see without glasses. A-n-d … He didn’t heal my eyes. Instead I became stuck down the hole of my own proclamation of healing when I was actually as blind as a bat. Sadly I was far stupider than bats are – they have radar! I crossed busy roads, went on trains, did all the usual stuff, claiming I was healed. Would you like to know the miracle in all that dumb? I was never in danger for a second, not one. Isn’t He amazing??!! My Heavenly Father took care of me in all my stupidity. I repented and went and got glasses again, but I learnt you can huff and puff, but you cannot twist God’s arm.

However, I did learn something else that is very important – God is wa-ay bigger than our mistakes.The smart thing is to jump into His river and let Him steer your little boat. My life, thus far, has not been boring — and neither is the Lord! Bringing out ‘the God-colours’ in this world involves innovation and creativity and a positive attitude. We are the most blessed people on earth – we can’t DIE. When we leave here, we go to heaven. Win, win! Many times we are clinging to the things that cannot last, and ignoring the things that DO. Desperately trying to distract ourselves from who we’ve become in the meantime.

We say stupid things like: “IF God heals me, I will serve Him. Or if God fixes my kid, my marriage, my relationships, my job, then I will serve Him.” Who said we have that option? We serve Him because He is Almighty God! The bible is not an either/or book. Have you read the Old Testament lately? God is incredibly good, but it’s HIS way or the highway. The people who are alive in these times need hope. HOPE is Jesus’ middle Name! Well, it’s one of them, the Lord has a lot of middle Names. (Prince of peace, Mighty God…) !!

“Sing God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing! Sing to God—worship God! Shout the news of His victory from sea to sea, Take the news of His glory to the lost, News of His wonders to one and all!” Psalm 96:3 MSG. The God of all the Universe made you to shine. Make a decision to make your life a life that is well-lived, and not just a safe one! Bye. 👋 

P 2967 God knows how to choose a leader.

/ DVH

The Lord chooses someone who is honest, loves Jesus and knows that they truly need redemption!! Someone who will acknowledge their own mistakes readily and repent. God does not choose perfect people. Almighty God loves the person who has learnt to rely upon the Holy Spirit. Human beings, on the other hand, often look for the charismatic, the shiny people, the one who we think has His ear. Hmmm…

Think about this: John was supposedly the Lord Jesus’ favourite disciple. Why didn’t Jesus pick John to be their leader? The Apostle John is recorded as being “the one Jesus loved…” … so why didn’t the Lord put John in charge?? That man had plenty of faith, he did not mess up like Peter. Why did God pick Peter?? Peter was a man of action – he dared to believe – he knew how to take a rebuke!

The reality was, the person Jesus chose to be the leader was the guy who messed up publicly, the most! Peter fell over his big mouth all the time. He constantly, and consistently said inappropriate things – even in deeply spiritual situations. There were other times when he tried to save face, as well as his neck. After all, he nearly drowned himself with his own ambition!

By the way it was Peter who objected to having his feet washed, but later agreed. (John 13:6-10). It was Peter who cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. (John 18:10). Peter noticed the withered fig tree. (Mark 11:21). And Peter was one of the three who witnessed the transfiguration of Christ. (Mark 9:2-6). Plus it was Peter who denied Christ under pressure, despite his sincere vows to the contrary.

Maybe Peter is an object lesson to show us that our mistakes aren’t forever and the Holy Spirit’s help and transformation in a life makes all the difference. However, Peter’s mistakes highlight the kindness, forgiveness, compassion, and the ongoing willingness of our God to understand our humanity.  Perhaps the Lord has a different criteria when HE looks for a leader. 

Here is another interesting thing to note about Peter – he didn’t defend himself, or make excuses. Not once. Instead he was the willing beneficiary of the Lord’s undeserved Grace. He was prepared to learn. However, when it seems Jesus gave this man a chance to repent, he responded with hurt feelings.  

John 21:15-17.“When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these?”“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”Jesus said, “Feed My lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love Me? He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of My sheep.” The third time He said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love Me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Peter’s response to the Lord’s questions here are surprising. He seems blissfully unaware of what he has previously done. It seems he did not feel that he had to re-affirm his loyalty. The thing is he had already repented for what he did… ON THE SPOT! (Matthew 26:69-75.) His faith is in their established relationship.

I think that’s why he climbed out of a perfectly good boat in a storm! Fear only hit that man when he saw the wind and the waves. It seems that he had already comprehended the Lord’s faithfulness to forgive, because he had experienced it. I think he understood that God allows us to learn and he clearly shows us the difference the Holy Spirit makes in one man’s life! The Lord showed us all of that, through Peter.

The scriptures show us that leaders are best chosen by God, not by people. Saul is a perfect example of this thought, he was a bad choice by the people based on looks, not character. However God hand picked David, yet he sinned with Bathsheba and murdered, Uriah;  Moses was a murderer too;  Abraham left his parents behind, and put his wife in moral danger twice; Gideon and Elijah were both found to be cowards on occasion;  and Jonah was just plain wilful and petulant! 

The person who knows and will admit they are wrong, and learn from their error, has a distinct advantage over the person who covers up, or ignores it. I don’t actually think that people fall into sin all that easily – I think they step into it one bad decision at a time. God knows how to choose a leader, and it isn’t always who we think it should be. Bye.👋

P 2925 The truth should change our lives.

/ DVH

“If the Spirit is the source of our life, we must also allow the Spirit to direct every aspect of our lives.”Galatians 5:25 TPT.“My true life is the Anointed One, and dying means gaining more of Him.”Philippians 1:21 TPT. I had put these two verses away for further meditation a while ago, because they seem to be seamlessly interwoven. They were written by the same man, Paul, at different times, to different churches.

Moving on …that verse in Galatians totally hinges on that first word. IF. That word is a word that is often overlooked, but it actually gives us immediate context. IF the Holy Spirit is our source then HE needs to be in charge … of … everything. Over the years people have baulked at what I’ve just said when I said it — in their opinion God gave us a brain and He expects us to use it. My problem with that line of thinking is this – something is wrong with our brain … it needs to be constantly refreshed! 

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it…”  Genesis 3:6. Eve made a judgment call. She used her own opinion, her eyes, and her brain, to decide what was good. Now God had already told her it would not be good for them to eat it — BUT EVE—this is a really important point—discarded what God said in favour of what she thought. 

That point is important because you and I do this every day. The Lord speaks to us. He doesn’t shout or have a brass band, or angels flying about the room, so we dismiss what we hear because we are unsure if it is Him or not! The way to be sure of what you hear is to know what the bible says, and then obey it, even when it seems too hard. We cannot digest the word by simply reading it, we must participate in God’s processes, voluntarily.

God clearly said to both Adam and Eve: “… but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:17. And because of their disobedience, Adam and Eve both died on the spot … even though they didn’t actually fall down DEAD! They died in their relationship with Him, and slowly but surely mankind walked away from Almighty God, by allowing distance to give us the freedom to do whatever we wanted.

Disobedience ushers in death. It won’t physically kill us, in fact we may go for a very long time without even realising we are dying! But eventually, because the Holy Spirit is gracious and He continually strives with us – we will realise we have walked further and further away from Him. That’s a dumb move!! HE’S THE SOURCE OF ALL LIFE. The further away we walk, the dead-er we will get, until we don’t care anymore what He thinks. That’s very dead.

The way we fix this dilemma is clearly shown to us in that second verse, Philippians 1:21. We must live this life choosing to die to ourselves, voluntarily, otherwise we will slowly lose sight of our heavenly calling and we will be dragged away by our own lusts and need for comfort. If we choose to die to what we think, and obey Him in the face of our fears, temptations, unbelief, antagonism, anger etc. – that means we are choosing to die to self. Self is the bit that needs to die. SELF ate from that tree!

At the right time, Jesus was born into this world. God came to earth Himself, as a MAN. Jesus Christ accepted the dreadful fate that awaited Him. He knew what came next and, despite the cost, He still made that choice to continue on that road. Now, we follow His example every single day.The Lord Jesus was separated from His Father when He became sin, He was separated so we don’t have to be. Intimacy with God is now our portion.

Jesus chose to die knowing that His Father would raise Him from the dead. Now the fear of death, and death itself no longer had a hold over Him – it could not keep Him in the grave. He knew the pain had a bigger purpose. Jesus died for us, so SIN will no longer have a hold over us, either. We don’t have to fail – we have been given the freedom to choose His Will, His Way. He gave us the power to overcome sin and our enemies..

We can live like Jesus Himself did – by living for the will of our Father. The secret is to make the hard choices, like this: “But I will do it, I will go to that person I cannot get along with and ask for forgiveness and then I will die daily as I apply that decision into my everyday life, no matter what it costs me.” The Holy Spirit will lead us, day by day, to die to ourselves, and live a brand new life. He knows the Way through every pitfall, every temptation, every grief stricken moment. 

Now we can go beyond the veil of ignorance about our own sin and unbelief, into the Holy of Holies, where God is. Jesus paved the way for us. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to lead us, and reveal to us what God wants from each one us. We have a reference book that is alive, this book is used by our Helper, to convict and convince us about where we need to change. The truth should change our lives. Bye. 👋

P 2898 Wot’s in YOUR way?

/ DVH

As you know, we go away regularly on the road, to give away bibles and other Christian materials. This time, as we’ve been preparing, it seemed that my health was going to be more of a problem than it has been in the past. Yet hubby strongly felt that God wanted us to go to Robe SA, plus a few places along the way. That town is over 2067 kms one way, 4,134 kms there and back! That’s a whole  lot of driving and traveling.  

In the end our only option seemed to be to travel down the inland road, which would take us 10 days –  nearly 20, there and back.  We can only do about 300 kms each day because we both have health issues, plus we always want to allow time to go to talk to people along the way. We had already eliminated flying because neither of us were sure if either of us could manage the long flight. However, we weren’t very concerned about any of it until the time got a lot closer, and by then, it became apparent that physically neither of us would be able to cope with such a large journey. 

Plus, our middle daughter, Kylee, and her son Jed, suddenly had to move house. The house they’d lived in for 11 years is going to be sold in June/July. She is a single mother of a 14 year old teenager, and she is homeschooling him, plus working 3 jobs. Fortunately recently she cut those jobs down to 2 – otherwise we might have to clone her!! Like a lot of other people today, she has to work very hard just to pay the rent, and put food on the table. And right at the time she had to move, and one part of her back-up team was about to trot off and leave her! She also can’t afford time off, she will still have to work as well. That’s the trouble with money trees, you over-pick them or they die!

Parents like to fix things. To be completely honest I personally probably jump in and ‘fix things’ without always praying first! Ho-hum. Because we want to help our daughter, it seemed that we couldn’t go on this journey at all, unless we went at some other time. Fortunately hubby hadn’t booked anything yet, so we prayed and the Lord confirmed our choice – March. Meanwhile, while we weren’t looking God had already taken care of ‘what concerns us’, as He promised He would in the bible! Our daughter and grandson have found somewhere to live, praise Him! I think, that when we make arrangements in our own strength, driven by worry and concern, God laughs. 

However, it seemed to us like we were between a rock and a hard place at the time! Over to my point: After this complication I gave it all up – my plans, plus all the bits and consequences to the Lord, and shut the door between me and the whole thing, very quickly. Then I left it alone. The next morning I continued to read the bible in my normal place, Mark – about the Lord’s death:

Mark 16:1-3“When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” …

Did you get that? It is easy to miss. These dear women had not planned ahead, they were already on their way to do what they set out to do. It was their final act of Love for the Lord. And it suddenly occurred to them they were not going to be able to GET IN. Now let’s read verse 3.

“… But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away!”  The pressure on these precious women had immediately come off. God removed the impediment, right out of the way, and they didn’t even pray or ask for it … because they didn’t even think about it until they were nearly there! How good is God?!

Boy, that scripture hit me so hard … right between the eyes…. I realised that I had to use my faith and step out, despite the impediments. Yeah, can you believe it? After all I’ve written here! Then He spoke to me in my heart: “You can go on the plane, I have removed that stone.” That stone was unbelief I’m thinking!! The Lord patiently explained to me that travelling by plane actually meant only 2 hours of discomfort, against 10 days of tiring, uncomfortable car travel.

When you look at it like that — it’s an easy peasy choice! The minute we heard from the Lord: “Go by plane” — every single thing fell into place. We had favour everywhere we booked – especially with the plane bookings! People bent over backwards to help us, because God Himself was working on our behalf.  

I want to finish today by saying this — there will always be a stone, a rock, a canyon, a river, an ocean, a boulder the size of Uluru in our way, when we decide to choose to obey Him! Whether we remember to ask for His help or not, God is still faithful. Stuff happens …all of the time. We can choose to do things with Him, or without Him – but with Him is so much better! And sometimes, because Jesus is GRACE personified, as we make a decision, He takes the impediments out of our way.

He is waiting for our ‘yes’ … …so wot’s in your way? Bye. 👋