Diagnosis

P 3110 Wars and rumours of wars!

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I have heard so many people lately who think it is the end of times. Is it? I dunno! All I know is that it seems to me that a whole lotta people have bunkered down, waiting for Jesus to come and get us, instead of growing up into the fullness of Christ. Meanwhile it’s just too bad about the poor sods who have no idea what He did for them. Let’s just leave them trying to tread water OUTSIDE the ark! 😱

I know I just mixed my metaphors, but you know what I mean. I can’t see how knowing that Jesus is … hypothetically, coming next Monday, is useful information! Ask yourself this question – what would YOU change about your life and your actions if you knew for sure that Jesus IS coming next Monday?! Now there’s a great diagnostic question if ever there was one! Here’s another one, have you been postponing obedience to a better, easier day? There’s a whole lot of other far more important stuff to go on with, than; “Is it the end of the world?” And that other stuff IS within our power to change.

The Lord Jesus is saying ‘always be ready’ — which is truly exceptional advice. I think He knows what we need to know, and what we don’t, and what’s the point of chasing unicorns when we have work to do? We need to live like Luke 21:36 says: “Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” This is important because our inner attitudes will no longer be hidden. Right now, the church we go to, may not know we are as sweet as pie when we are with them, and a pain in everyone’s heart at our house!!

Jesus specifically taught us to take note of the times – but He didn’t say write a thesis on it. Look it at this version of Matthew 16:3: “ ... …why can’t you read the signs of the times? An evil and wanton generation is always wanting signs and wonders. The only sign you’ll get is the Jonah sign.” Then He spun around and walked away.”Take note of what is going on and pray. We also need to apply God’s Word to our hearts faithfully, and make sure we let the Holy Spirit keep us humble. 

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.“ 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

Yeah, those verses read like the lead story of our news! If WE are any of those things let’s grow up and fix them quickly. There are some days that I would be better off avoiding myself!  Meanwhile I do need to start with me …because so far nobody else came up! BTW, these are fantastic verses to meditate on. It’s like a check-list of heartless, mean, dumb things to do. However, instead of putting a mental tick on each thing mentioned, we need to ask the Lord, ‘Do I do this?’ 

At the same time, don’t let yourself be condemned, because you and I are now “in Christ Jesus” and there is no condemnation in Him. Instead, we need to agree with the Holy Spirit’s diagnosis, and ask Him to help us repent and repair stuff, then go and do it, just do what you can do to fix things. Then, move on – none of us have a guaranteed tomorrow.

Back to my main point. Jesus gave this information to His disciples two thousand years ago. He talked a lot about the end times, but the Lord did it in conjunction with our own behaviour toward others. Yet we keep carrying on like we are supposed to know when this stuff will happen, when the bible clearly says:’No-one but the Father knows.’ See Matthew 24:36. And if the Father did not tell His precious, beloved, always-obedient-to-His-will-SON, Jesus Christ, then WE are not meant to know. Think again! Let’s pray and ask Him to forgive us all, for our arrogance.

However, the “signs” Jesus mentions in Timothy, in Matthew, and Luke – are a wake-up call for us to do something about our lives. We can pray for places where there is war. We can go out of our way to care for others. We can witness. And we can let this life teach us how to love the unlovely – after all, who needs to know the love of God more? I’m talking about those people nobody likes, so nobody wants to tell them anything— just in case they repent and get saved!

We all might want to think about that, while we are contemplating – wars and rumours of wars. Personally, I think we need to use our God-given time on earth well and participate willingly in our transformation. Do you want to be like Jesus and your heavenly Father?? Then …“Love your enemies, do good to those who despitefully use you …” Matthew 5:43-48. After all, that’s our Father’s business.  Bye. 👋

P 2976 The difference.

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There is a difference between who we really are, and who we think we are, and it is extremely useful to know the difference. Our self-perception is often based on self-deception. That is, we can’t bear to think badly about ourselves, so under pressure we hold ourselves away from the Lord and other people and frantically make excuses. We even revert to childish answers. Whenever you notice that – don’t excuse yourself, ask the Lord to show you what is actually happening. Go on to read the bible, wherever you are normally reading it and expect answers. Then act on what you read.

Let’s look at Peter, he very kindly shows us what a human being looks like! Jesus said in John 13:34 – “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” Simon Peter asked Him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow You now? I will lay down my life for You.”Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for Me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”

The Lord knows the true blueprint of who each one of us is in reality, and He has freedom for each one of us. As I see it, we get into enormous trouble the minute we decide that WE are old enough to know who we are. There is no transformation in that stance, only roadblocks. After that we stop praying about things, or won’t consider change. We are selling ourselves short of our Glorious Ideal.

Unless we are prepared to choose God‘s kingdom as our yard stick, and not our own opinion, we will become stuck. And every subsequent return of our childishness is like cement. When opportunities come up for change and we refuse them, or excuse ourselves, we are hardening our hearts against the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Change is scary but it means I choose to actively hold up everything in my life to the light and say: “is this what Jesus wants for me?” I stop excusing myself and I no longer tell myself that this is just who I am. 

I treat my personal preferences like I would treat sin — carefully and thoughtfully, specifically, without beating myself up about it. Repentance is not beating yourself UP – it is agreeing with the Holy Spirit’s diagnosis of our hearts and doing something about it. If my attitude involves other people then I go to them and confess my fault. The bible tells us we are to confess our faults to one another, and I have found that one question helps me do this. I ask myself ‘is this love’ the way it is explained in the bible.

My own idea of love will not do, because I will probably excuse myself and blame YOU!  So I don’t stop there, then I ask myself: ‘would Jesus think it’s love?’ In other words would He do it or say it? If the answer is no … then it is time to repent, like I said above. I think we excuse a great deal of aberrant behaviour because we think it’s a personality trait.

Somethings have been adopted as protective mechanisms from when we were too young to understand what we were doing. I call those things Button A —  sadly, our world explodes if some dumb schmuck presses Button A! If you try to tell the exploding person about this phenomenon, they will deny it exists. For them it has always existed. Only the Lord knows how and when to deal with stuff like that and we are always on His learning curve and timing. We also can’t stop participating in His processes simply because changing some traits about ourselves seems to be uncomfortable or impossible! This is the place where we must actively learn to press in – the plus side is we learn faith in the process. 

It is not good to make excuses for our behaviour and continually use the past and the way we’ve been treated, as an excuse. Everybody has a story – and our story isn’t going to be graded by helplessness and sincerity! Sadly, when we live like this, we are limiting God‘s capacity to be ALL He is in our lives. He won’t just barge in and take over — that’s what free will is all about!  Instead He will give us more and more opportunities to choose differently. I have found that if I get the same sort of situation occurring over and over again, in my life… God wants me to pay attention to it.

Jesus is the Limitless One, so He is our benchmark. Just because we are afraid of the unknown, or anxious or proud, that does not give us a reason to stay where we are. Our yielded life is our contribution to our heavenly calling. Our God is kind, loving, merciful, generous, He is not looking to punish us, instead He wants to teach us His Ways. So when things get hideously sticky and ugly, and I can’t stand it, I remember that Isaiah taught me that: “He will not break a bruised reed,’ (Isaiah 42:3). Then I reassure myself that things may seem hard but He will not break me — so I put my faith in that verse, by choice, and hang on. I know from experience it may get bumpy for a bit. 

Sin is not terminal for us, someone else paid for it, and it is part of our faith walk to believe He did. There is no longer punishment for our shortcomings – there are, however, limited opportunities for change. We need to put aside childish reactions even if I reacted that way yesterday! And put on the new self, and we live our lives always willing and ever ready to change. Because the difference between who we think we are, and who we really are… can only be truly resolved by the One Who knows us intimately, and chose to pay for our sins. Bye. 👋

P 2901 Walking in love means …

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… that I will probably never get my own way! According to 1 Corinthians 13, this kind of heart attitude is now my NEW priority… Now I will need to rely upon God to help me be patient in the middle of unpleasant circumstances. The Lord has promised He will help us. There is no reason to be envious of your fruit, because I’m way too busy growing my own! At the same time I will cultivate a caring concern for your well-being, while I’m putting my own needs on His altar. Also I no longer want to keep records of all the dumb things you’ve done!

Pardon me a minute, now I need to dash off and look in His mirror, (His Word) and see if there is any chance my reflection there backs up what I just said! Meanwhile, fake fruit looks a lot like the real deal nowadays, until you take a bite out of it! Here’s an interesting side note: fake fruit is too shiny. Just like those fake plastic smiles we slap on when somebody has stepped on our heart for the 15th time and we lie and tell them, “Oh I’m OK, really!” It’s a wonder that my nose isn’t longer than Pinnochio’s. Why do we do that? Here’s my answer … a lack of humility. An aversion to correction and connection, plus I’m deathly afraid you will continue to tell me the truth about myself … and… I don’t want to hear that, thank you!

Here is my point for today, this life is constantly taking bites out of us – our response to those bites is a much better thermometer or diagnosis, than even any reflection could be. Instead, now we want to make His Word flesh in our lives – that happens when we do it to obey Him. Living like Jesus’ told us to, means we learn to be quiet when someone else is utterly wrong and we can prove it to them but instead we choose not to do that. We won’t even brag about the fact that we’ve resisted temptation, because we know, that the Holy Spirit helped us through it. 

Let’s be clear — it is not our behaviour that is at fault – it’s our belief system. We use our experiences to validate what we believe, instead of His Word. This side of the cross we need to believe in His love IN US more than we believe the lies that flourish around us. I can’t do anything without Him, because I know I will dive straight back into looking after ME. I can make pretty good excuses for doing that. Sadly, sometimes we keep right on using our own understanding, instead of acknowledging Him in all our ways.

We must continually revisit truths from the bible. looking for things for us to apply into our lives. Jesus did all this work for us, all by Himself, at Calvary …once and for all! If I give you a brand new house with everything you ever personally wanted or needed in it, and you still chose to continue to live in falling down rented digs – because you are too proud to say “thank you” — whose fault is that? The Lord has already deposited everything we will ever need to be transformed, in our forever account.We just need to learn to live in forever, instead of the immediate. Otherwise the immediate takes over.

Romans 4:20–25: “Yet he (Abraham) did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for US, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” 

Those words: ‘fully persuaded that God had power’ …matter. We’ve met SomeOne Who is not like anyone else we’ve ever met. He doesn’t just tear up any record of our sins, at the same time, He deposits His love, righteousness, goodness, compassion, mercy, loving-kindness etc. inside of us. We already have whatever we need for this way of life. Jesus did not just empty out the bad, He is in the process, with our co-operation, of loading in the good. Abraham believed God and He acted on His belief, and God said: Now that’s righteous.”

Now we choose to stop doing things the way this world does them, and we ask Him how He wants us to handle everything that comes our way. Loving others is our permanent focus. Instead of asking the Lord to make you patient, (generic wish thought) you and I ask Him – ‘Who am I being impatient with, Lord?’  (Specific attitude check.) And we don’t argue with whatever He suggests, even if it happens to be someone we can’t stand! We go to them and humble ourselves. If we wait for that other person to deserve it … it will never happen! 

LOVE ACTS. It is unafraid of the consequences. Walking in love means my whole life changes! Bless ya 👋

P 2713 Learn to BOW low.

/ DVH

“IF you bow low in God’s awesome presence, He will eventually exalt you as you leave the timing in His hands.” 1 Peter 5:6 TPT. Now here’s the rub, we cannot ‘bow low’ and have a secret expectation that at the end of our so-called humility we will be exalted. I think we’ve been reading many, if not ALL scripture promises, with the expectation of ‘what’s in it for ME’ — and we can become disappointed when we think that God has not honoured His promises. Bowing low is not necessarily a physical position – it is the position of an undivided heart.

Those verses we grab for our own benefit are revealing something to us about Him – and we are missing it. Yeah. And aren’t you glad I pointed that out?! For instance, the verse: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you”tells us something about the Lord and what He is looking for from us – our participation. If we want to be close to the Lord we will have to go after Him first. I call this type of verse the “if” verses. If I do this then He will do that. And just who is in charge of that scenario?

In the past, many well-meaning people wanted to be seen and heard, perhaps because in their mind, it meant that others would hear or see what the Lord wanted to teach others.. They believed that meant that they would have a bigger stage to stand upon to speak His truth. Wrong! “For honour does not come from the east or the west or from the desert. But God is the One Who decides. He puts down one and brings respect to another.” Psalm 75:6,7. Recognition for us is God’s choice, not ours. We dare not manipulate others or even take advantage of situations, no matter how great the cause seems to be. Manipulation is not His Way.

Almighty God is interested in a great deal more than just our promotion and fame! Our new way of life is a spiritual way of life, it is not showy or competitive. Popularity or influence are not worth a hill of beans to the Lord. The Holy Spirit is the only influencer with a pure motivation, and we must learn to follow His Ways. It’s always our hearts that matter .. not popularity or influence. We can have thousands of followers on Instagram, or Facebook, and still have an impure ambitious, or even perhaps a needy heart. Philippians 4:19.

If I put one drop of poison into a glass of fresh, pure, spring water – would you still drink it? A pure heart wants what He wants and they are prepared to die to see that He gets it! That’s called devotion. But general applause, or even the size of any one congregation does not matter to the Lord. Jesus had hundreds of people who volunteered to be His disciples – yet Almighty God told Him to choose twelve. And one of them was not going to make the cut! 

Jesus trusted His Father and the Holy Spirit’s choices, that the men He chose would be the ones who spread the Word about God’s incredible love far and wide. And they did. Judas was the only one of those men with a divided heart. We are not told why he was like that, we are simply told that he handled the money somewhat carelessly. This is what I mean when I talk about having a divided heart – one of our regular prayers should be about not having one!

We cannot afford to let even little sin reign, even if it seems to be in a good cause … because sin will eventually drag us under and flavour everything around it. However, we always have a Way Out of sin. “You are my dear children, and I write these things to you so that you won’t sin. But if anyone does sin, we continually have a forgiving Redeemer who is face-to-face with the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One”. I John 2:1. Silently waiting for our spiritual abilities to be “discovered” is still an agenda! Our only aim needs to be to that others see Him.

‘Bowing low’ is our way of life. It means whether others think we are right or wrong – we bow down to the Lord’s wishes and let Him exonerate us when He thinks the time is right. People with a heart like this don’t care if our only service is putting out the chairs at church! We do what we do with all our hearts as though we were putting out chairs for Jesus Himself!

I have known totally devoted, utterly beautiful chair-putter-outer-ers! 😂 They did not see this task as a tiny task, and it was not menial to them. Instead they prayed over each chair that each person who sat on it would be blessed, healed, delivered and discover more about Christ. They treated that  task like the pastor treated His sermon – as devotion to Almighty God!“Whatsoever you do, do it with all your heart as though you were doing it for the Lord.” This BTW, is now one of my new all time favourite verses!

Let’s remember that pride took lucifer out of a realm of honour, and put him into the unenviable place of being a permanent enemy. And the best thing we can do when we discover any sort of pride is to humble ourselves before God, and others, as well as confess our faults. The true diagnosis of a proud heart is that they have secret agendas.  They have a desperate need to always be right, and other people’s needs are secondary to their own.

Bowing low is not just an outward action, it is an inner stance of our hearts. Bless you as you serve our King! 👑

P 2673 Who or what has your heart?

/ DVH

“When you pass through the deep, stormy sea, you can count on Me to be there with you. When you pass through raging rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through persecution like fiery flames, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you,” Isaiah 43:2 TPT.

The above verse is mentioned today to comfort to anyone who is in a very dark place. It promises us that God’s Presence is never absent despite our circumstances. The thing is, we must remember that this verse and others like it, are faith verses. Almighty God said it, and He means it, so we need to embrace it. However, in those hard times we may not feel a thing! We may dearly need to feel better, but our feelings have nothing whatsoever to do with His Grace in our lives! Even our disappointment could be seen as judgment against His ability to use everything to help us.

The lack of change can sometimes be the reason we are strongly tempted to think that He is not with us, because we have a great expectation that He will deliver us … but sometimes things can even get even worse!!  So what happened? Is it sin in our lives? No! Sin went on the cross. Does God not care that we feel overwhelmed by our circumstances? Of course He does, but we must remind ourselves that He says “I will be with you” — He does not say – you will FEEL Me with you! Yeah, I know, that seems to be splitting hairs, but let’s remember that now we are in His kingdom, where He is King. We chose to come under His rule, and we will need to trust Him to do what He has promised.

“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”Numbers 23:19. In our society today, people are judged or exalted or rewarded because of their actions. As Christians we need to remember that Almighty God does not do things to meet mankind’s expectations. He does not answer to us. In other words, our societal attitudes don’t feature in His decision making processes. Whatever His answer, action, or lack of! … the real point is – His ways are perfect. So, if there is no answer, or corresponding change of circumstances, then we need to remember that He is sovereign. We must always leave our heart with Him, that is the safest place for it.

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; He’ll always be there to help you come through it. So, my very dear friends, when you see people reducing God to something they can use or control, get out of their company as fast as you can.” 1 Corinthians 10:13-14. MSG.

Personally, I have discovered that I can set my pain and strife limits a bit too low – I can probably move and change much more than I think I can! I get side-tracked because I am not all that excited about stretching — old bones, etc. Everything creaks when I am stretched! In those moments, it is good to remember that this life is the only one I’m going to get, and it is about growth and change. That’s two more things older people don’t like much!! I have to remind myself over and over again, that the Lord is bigger than my circumstances, and if they remain the same, after I have prayed … then He has a purpose I can’t see yet! Good place to pray: “Teach me Your ways, Lord, so I can walk with You.” Amen.

“Even when Your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for You already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of Your love takes away my fear. I’ll never be lonely, for You are near.” Psalms 23:4 TPT.

This verse from the 23rd Psalm is a great clue to the solution to my problem and it diagnoses the heart of what is really going on. Who or what has my heart? Does fear rule me when the going gets tough, or does He? We must always remember that “there is no fear in love,” as well as,  “what time I am afraid I will trust in Thee.” When I finally catch on to the fact that I am feeling afraid, it can take a while, but eventually I have an ‘AHA!’ moment. That’s when I realise that I have let circumstances fill my vision, instead of WHO He is. Rookie mistake. I’m back thinking that He’s there to make my life better, I’ve totally forgotten I am here for His purposes.

After repenting, my next move is to ask the Lord, “Who can I bless?” ‘ That’s because ‘it is in giving that we receive!’  And in those difficult times, my receiver seems to have gone off-line. Sometimes doing that simple thing leads to a fresh revelation about Him. And sometimes it leads to a fresh revelation about me. I need both! I have found that taking my focus away from the difficulty, and caring for someone else, eventually gives me a chance to view things from another angle. As I bless others, I remember that my heart belongs to Him, I gave it to Him. 

He won’t ever ‘leave me or forsake me or give me up.’ Switching focus clarifies what really matters. 👋

P 2596 There is no hole too deep.

/ DVH

Psalm 16:1-11MSG: “Keep me safe, O God, I’ve run for dear life to You. I say to God, “Be my Lord!” Without You, nothing makes sense. And these God-chosen lives all around—what splendid friends they make! Don’t just go shopping for a god. Gods are not for sale. I swear I’ll never treat god-names like brand-names. My choice is You, God, first and only. And now I find I’m Your choice! You set me up with a house and yard. And then You made me your heir! 

The wise counsel God gives when I’m awake is confirmed by my sleeping heart. Day and night I’ll stick with God; I’ve got a good thing going and I’m not letting go. I’m happy from the inside out, and from the outside in, I’m firmly formed. You canceled my ticket to hell—that’s not my destination! Now You’ve got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of Your face. Ever since You took my hand, I’m on the right way.”

Isn’t this a terrific Psalm full of good advice? It is a testimony speaking about living life His way. When I read this today, it reminded me of a fantastic testimony hubby and I have from years ago, and today I thought I would share it. Many years ago my husband was working full-time as a clinical nurse. One day he was walking an older gentleman back from a procedure, when the old man slipped and started to fall. Hubby reflexly rotated to try and catch him before he fell and my dear fella badly injured his back. Thank the Lord the old man was unhurt.

Long story short, hubby went into months of agony with countless steroid injections, back braces, scans, X-rays, and saw many, many doctors and specialists. The diagnosis was grim, he had worn away the disc between L4 and L5 and the bone was rubbing on the bone, producing constant excruciating pain. The pain was never going to go away, plus he had to take pain killers for months and months… Meanwhile the pain killers messed with his head.

At the same time the hospital kept trying to prove there was nothing wrong with his back, and they were not at fault. Work Cover insurance ignored us. Eventually we were informed that because we had fallen far behind in our mortgage payments, the bank was going to take our house, within the month. It was an awful, awful time. Even back then I was not well, and we had no other resources to fall back on. This went on over eighteen months.

You know, in order to see a miracle, we must need a miracle – they are not just entertainment! … We loved our house and we were going to lose it through no fault of our own. The lady from work cover consistently said that hubby would NEVER receive a pay out – even though everybody knew that he had been injured through work – meanwhile we had endless rounds of appointments talking to people who continued to say: “no help for you!” We kept praying, sometimes complaining, and sometimes with little or NO faith.

Months later out of the blue, this lady called us again. She said: “I’ve got some news for you, I don’t agree with it, but they have taken your case to a higher power.😂 So they have agreed to pay out your superannuation.” Hubby was still on the phone with this lady he had talked to for months, but his knees hit the floor and he cried out: “Thank you Jesus!”  I heard him from the kitchen! Meanwhile, we knew who the ‘Higher Power” was!

The pay out was a bit more than we needed to get rid of the mortgage once and for all. But in order to get this payout we had to go for financial counselling, because it was hubby’s superannuation – so we agreed. The morning of the appointment a word from the Lord dropped into my heart. He said: “Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to Him.” OK, we didn’t know what that meant but … we took note of it. Everybody at the financial counsellor’s offices was lovely to us. ‘Would we like a cup of tea? The parking’s  free. How can we help you?’

So in we go to see the consultant. The nice man began explaining how he could save us even more money, with a bit of creative accounting we could avoid paying any taxes on the money we received. He said this earnestly, insisting that it was legal! God reminded us of what He’d said, and both of us knew immediately what that meant. No wriggling out of doing what was right. We had to pay the taxes, $18,000 – $20,000 … a fortune to us. And we thanked the man sincerely and explained we were Christians, so we wouldn’t be depriving the government of their tax.

It was hilarious. The mood in his office changed instantly. The nice man couldn’t get rid of us quickly enough, well we did give testimony about how we got the money in the first place! He probably thought we were going to preach at Him! Especially when we explained that we also needed to tithe on this money. So, we didn’t GET a cup of tea. Nobody gave us a voucher for the parking, In fact they couldn’t get rid of us fast enough. Meanwhile we laughed all the way down in the lifts!

When we arrived home that same day … true story! We had a letter in our letter box – it was a cheque for the exact amount of money we needed to pay the tax!  (We tithed on that too!) God is never any man’s debtor. Praise the Lord!! 🙌 There is no hole too deep that the Lord Jesus cannot find us, there is no difficulty He cannot get us out of.

ps Hubby had an operation shortly after all this … but that’s another testimony. Bye 👋

P 2164 Dealing with all kinds of pain.

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“God, I invite Your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares. See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to Your glorious, everlasting way— the path that brings me back to You.” Psalms 139:23-24 TPT

Wow. Talk about confronting the things we often want to avoid at all cost! Have you noticed how the Lord just loves to look in those dark hidden corners that we hope He doesn’t see? He does it to help us out of pain. Some places we go to in our minds and hearts, are not in line with His thinking, so we need to have Him examine us, and sort out what is behind them. We also need to recognise enemy attack. Obviously, we are told to resist satan, and press into the Lord instead. 

Any diagnosis needs some sort of treatment! The bible recommends humbling ourselves, and submitting to others, by inviting the Holy Spirit to search our hearts prayerfully with their help. We also need God’s help and wisdom to find the stuff we have hidden away, even from ourselves. Human beings are funny creatures, we don’t like to admit faults and failures, yet confessing that stuff is a pathway to a new place in Him. I’m not talking about getting so self-obsessed you turn yourself inside out, but there are the times to pray the search me prayer and submit yourself to Him … as well as someone else. We are not alone, anymore – let your Christian family comfort you.

It is also good, in those times, to ask someone to join you that you know will tell you the truth. None of this flattering, “Oh you’re OK, it’s just a bad day” junk! Other people can have a wider view than we do, they can see the results of our attitudes and actions. Unfortunately we sometimes only see or understand our own intentions. It is incredibly easy to confuse those two things. “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12. We need the bible to help us sort out what is motivating us.

Many arguments that occur in a Christian home have been about what was intended. We need to carefully examine with His help – what was the real-life result! Our intentions don’t nullify what actually happened to someone else. Learn to listen to your spouse, your kids, and/or any people close to you who know you – let them reflect the YOU they see. Don’t hide behind hurt feelings, or fear of change, but open yourself up, because this is a normal part of growth. Real change comes from confronting the corners of your heart and it isn’t all bad stuff. Pain has a pathway – let’s dig up the pathway!

In times of anguish we do need the body. Other people who are more mature. Or perhaps someone who has experienced the kind of pain you are going through, to help straighten out our perspective. I ask myself a couple of questions, when or if, I don’t like the other person’s answer: “Why would this person lie to me? What have they got to gain?” Heads up! Most other people usually have nothing to gain and they are also running a big risk of alienating you. In my experience, people who tell you what you want to hear aren’t helpful – they want something.

Here is some stuff I have observed from just living. Pain numbs our spiritual senses and clouds our view of Who He is. It forcibly shoves us over into our minds … logical answers, and problem-solving. Then thinking-our-way-through-pain takes over. But, in reality, PAIN doesn’t actually diagnose the cause of anything! … So doing that won’t help us. Pain is a symptom, not the cause – a result, not the initial issue. 

Always remember, we don’t have to deny or hide our faults and sins anymore, because we know we have a Saviour! Plus, most of our faults etc. have a way of showing up so clearly that the people around us are well aware of them anyway! The bible tells us to humble ourselves, God will exalt us when He is good and ready. (Paul did it – Galatians 2) Even my enemies have something to teach me about myself. My immediate response to being around them is a sign post to what lies within ME!  👋🏻