Demand

P 2855 He will give what we need to us.

/ DVH

You know, I hardly ever feel like forgiving people when they have hurt me. I’m usually too angry or wrestling with my  logical/illogical thoughts, plus my own personal justification. Our feelings are not the right resource for us to look at our reasons to choose to hold onto unforgiveness. Personal justification is anti-everything-that-Christ-died-to-give-us. 

By reading His word, and taking what I read as Him talking to me personally, I’ve learnt that deliberately cultivating forgiveness, plus responding with obedience, are two of the best ways we can keep our communication channel between us and the Lord, clear. In this new life as we live for His Kingdom – we definitely need to be able to hear Him.  I’ve also learnt that consistent choices to obey to what He has already said – opens our ears and eyes more and more. 

The Holy Spirit is far more willing to trust me, than I am willing to trust Him. He is incredibly generous, beyond what you and I can think or imagine. He will even take our heart effort to obey, and still steer us through every pitfall. Even if we fall off the wagon, He will help us back up! Because He is so generous and gentle-hearted, we must never misuse His generosity. Seriously, we must not treat such a precious Person carelessly. It isn’t that we simply respect Him and His wishes – we need to honour Him with our substance … which means all that we are, and do!

Deliberately planning on the Holy Spirit glossing over something we know that we intended to do, without being genuinely repentant, is not on. We are talking about SomeOne so special … He’s the One Who brooded over, and cared for this earth before it was ever formed, and then carefully designed each one us within our mother’s womb. We look the way He planned for us to look. He sees you and I as beautiful –  because we are people who have been made in God’s own image. The Holy Spirit is SomeOne Who knows and understands our weaknesses. He walked with Jesus, and He has an incredible depth of understanding of pain and suffering. 

I like to actively reflect upon what I read, and I know the bible says that our Heavenly Father could not look upon His dearest Son, Jesus, when He became sin.  We all know that when Jesus became our sin, that sin disfigured Him beyond our imagining. Yet our Heavenly Father IS a FATHER and that was His lovely Son, humanity deliberately and maliciously killed. Think about it, even if you knew one day your precious child would die for a good cause, right in front of you – do you think you could watch while He was being tortured? Our God has a bigger idea of good than we do! That’s why His goodness is the essence of all He does.

He needs to be more than a distant figure, too holy for the likes of us to look upon – even though that thought is true. He knows how to make hard, wise choices! He chose to enter into mankind’s existence. And in Isaiah 53:10 it says: “Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the LORD makes His life an offering for sin, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in His hand.” This shows us a great deal about God’s Ways. He can rejoice in things that are happening because they are for mankind’s greater good. We can get so wrapped up in our idea of what’s good – we can miss that our Heavenly Father has a bigger plan. We must learn to trust in His processes. 

When I choose to forgive you, I give my thoughts of who you are and what you do, and how I think you should treat me – back to Him. I put you under His Grace – a glory that is more powerful than anything this world has ever seen. This is not something I owe you because I am religious, it is my own hard choice to forgive you and that is what obedience looks like. We need an ever-deepening understanding of how His Grace works.

On a mountain long ago, when Jesus stood there with Moses, and Elijah – His glory was revealed to the disciples. His glory contained His chosen obedience to the Father and His will. Jesus only wrestled with being obedient once in His life and that was right before He went to the cross, and faced all that His death contained. But He did not flinch … He still went forward. He went forward ALONE and He did not defend Himself. The disciples lost their leader, their friend and teacher, but, it took the Holy Spirit’s intimate knowledge of what actually happened in those moments, to change their lives at Pentecost. They received a download of spiritual revelation that transformed them. 

Today, we continually need greater revelations of what was done for us, so that we will happily choose to live joyfully respecting and honouring Christ’s life and death. At this moment in time, it seems to me like, we are living like usurpers not children of the King. We never have to demand what we need, because if we truly need it, HE WILL GIVE IT TO US.  Bye.🕊️

P 2655 Reflections

/ DVH

I have recently come to the conclusion our society is no longer living our lives in a holistic, interactive, interpersonal way anymore. We seem to see sex as the same thing as intimacy, and we have contented ourselves with living this life voyeuristically. What I mean is people are watching other people live their fictional lives on TV or social media pages. 

Even if most of what is read is exaggerated or photoshopped – and whether it is true OR NOT — it is, unfortunately, way too easy to live our lives like peeping toms peeking through life’s windows, and occasionally making clever comments. That’s a very poor use of a beautiful God-given gift – insight. People can get so busy trying to impress each other, that they aren’t living the life they actually have, … enjoying the days God has given us, plus interacting with the people who live around us.  

Many years ago, hubby and I were blessed to travel to many other parts of this world. I became so obsessed with taking photos for our memories back home, that in the end … I was looking at all that glorious once-in-a-lifetime scenery through a view finder. The Lord whispered to my heart: “Look UP. You are really here. Enjoy the sun on your face, enjoy the people around you. Enjoy the atmosphere. You can’t live your life through a view finder!” Hilariously, that whole thing had a fascinating ending … we hardly ever looked at those photos when we got home! 

You and I only have now … even the next minute may not be ours. All over this world human beings have died while I am taking the time to type this. Humanity seems to have become quite shallow parodies of who we can really be. Only standing up to demand things, and complain about what we want. We protest, instead of finding ways to contribute! We were made for finer things.

But although we can now plumb the depths of our oceans with clever, specially made vehicles, we can’t plumb the depths of our own souls! Apparently hurting people aren’t very interesting or popular — so most of us have learnt to hide what is really happening inside, where we actually live — because we need to present a successful happy face to the world around us. We’ve stopped participating and now we live our lives spectating. The only thing that can tempt us to participate is MORE MONEY.

This faith life we have been given is to be lived, enjoyed, savoured – not dissected or commented upon. As Christians we will miss the best bits if we don’t appreciate what we have right now. It is in front of us. We all need to turn off our critical responses and start looking for what is good about things and how can I help? I don’t need to be famous to help, I just need to get off my butt and do something.

There are times when we spend our precious time discussing other people and their faults, and pulling them apart with words. If we are clever enough we can make you laugh, and feel bad, all at the same time!! We dissect other people like frogs in a laboratory … but our spiritual eyes are so blind that we cannot see that other people have pain that is beyond their words, and outward appearances. Thank God for our Saviour Who sees beyond our posturing and pretence, right into our hearts.  …“Then we cried out, “Lord, help us! Rescue us!” And He did! His light broke through the darkness and He led us out in freedom from death’s dark shadow and snapped every one of our chains.”  Psalms 107:13-14.

Thank God for Jesus! He specifically came here to show us another way to live. Despite this world’s cynicism, and the need for the next thing or fad to amuse us – we have the power to choose to change and BE changed. We can control our own destiny, by participating in what is good, right and profitable. We simply must deliberately choose to put down all that stuff that is often simply this life’s pollution, destroying the beauty of who we can be. You and I are the pinnacle of God’s creation! I don’t care if you have 5 billion dollars or I have one dollar to my name, we all have the capacity to grow and contribute to this world, even in our old age.  

However, we cannot help others if we present them with a specially crafted front – a parody of real faith. To witness to others, we need to be real. So if we aren’t coping, then we need to tell someone. Pray! Ask for the Lord’s help. Life is a process and nobody is perfected yet!  Lastly, as we live our lives, we cannot afford to live with a skewed reality. That’s the way this world currently lives.  Let’s live this life, the only one we have (!!) … knowing that even our scars can tell wonderful stories about our Saviour. Bye. 👋