Doing good

P 3468 Check out of lukewarm!

/ DVH

“No soldier when in service gets entangled in the enterprises of [civilian] life; his aim is to satisfy and please the One who enlisted him.” 2 Timothy 2:4. 

“Sow seeds of righteousness for yourselves, and you will reap a harvest of God’s unending love. Break up the hard, fallow ground of your heart. For it is time to seek YAHWEH’s favour until He comes to pour out righteousness on you like falling rain.” Hosea 10:12 TPT.

We remain in His teaching when we live the way Jesus would. The bible tells us there is no room for lukewarmness, yet that very state is almost normal today. We have excuses for the way we live that are like the Tower of Babel … they reach up to the sky. But the only thing that is meant to reach that high is our praises! It seems we’ve chosen to forget that we died the day we came to Christ. Dead people have no reasonable excuses, they can’t defend themselves, or criticise others. They can’t do anything!

We can’t afford to wait for this kind of passion to overtake us – our new life in Christ relies upon us choosing to mature and taking every bit of what He said seriously. Nobody else can make us do that – we must do it voluntarily. The thing is, let’s be aware that we can maintain a perfectly even, cheerful outside attitude, while inside we are seething with anger and keeping count of other people’s supposed trespasses against us! Actors count on their ability to deceive their audience with their performance, but we are not actors.

It is up to us as individuals to find and break up the hard fallow ground inside us. Those things are — ‘areas that have become cold, unyielding, and closed off due to old habits, pride, emotional walls, or unresolved pain.’ (Google.) The Holy Spirit loves to help us identify areas where our hearts lack true Godly compassion and mercy. Let’s choose to remember that if the eye suffers, the whole body does. 1 Corinthians 12:26. We no longer have any claim to any kind of judgment, dead people don’t.

Here is a quick test to see if you have anyone in your life that you really can’t stand, and you want to avoid them like the plague. Check out your state of generosity and love levels toward that person. Generosity takes our ‘temperature,’ and we can often ignore it. We are told to ‘do good to those who despitefully use us …’ sadly, most of the time we can settle for appearances, or avoidance, or living our lives removed from others with token, spoken care. Many people have moved from one church to another because they felt lonely in the crowd. Husbands and wives end up treating each other like opposing forces, yet they appear fine on the outside.  

Because of what the bible says, I know that Jesus has redeemed the old me, and the new me would not dream of flinging bad stuff at you! A mature person knows that any differences  are present because that other person is unique … so they don’t withhold love, or doing good to whoever crosses their path. They don’t live with a level of deception that pretends all is well when it is not, and they don’t blame others for their own shortcomings. Instead they find places of agreement, and ‘lose’ the bad memories under the blood of Jesus, and deliberately choose to remember instances where love prevailed.

Breaking up hard ground starts with acknowledgement, repentance, plus reparation … We are even prepared to take the whole blame when it is obvious to you that you have done nothing. Humility thrives. These people care more about winning their brother than winning some squabble! They don’t justify their own behaviour, and blame someone else for what they have chosen to say or do. Humility hates separation and will do everything in its power to repair things. Here’s a great incentive – Jesus lives in each one of us, when we are unkind to each other we are being unkind to Him. Let’s not care about who did or said what to whom, and choose to care about unity instead.

“Your people (that’s God’s own people) will rebuild what has long been in ruins, building again on the old foundations. You will be known as the people who rebuilt the walls, who restored the ruined houses.” Isaiah 58:12. Did you get that? Rebuilding ruins … those things that have been broken for years. But then you, together with the Holy Spirit, choose to rebuild on the foundation of what Christ said and did. We’ve made the mistake of thinking that we must agree with others for relationships to be restored. Instead we agree that other people, whoever they are, are worth the effort because Jesus died for them too. 

We are now “in the service of our King.” That doesn’t ‘turn off’ when we are tired, fed up, or even ill. Let’s not forget what Jesus did for us, and GAVE to us. Otherwise we might forget the reason the Holy Spirit is here with us. He gives us the power to overcome in spite of our difficulties. He isn’t just with us so we can feel good, blessed or comfortable – His sole task is to make us, with our co-operation … like Christ. His goal is transformation, not petting us and patting us so we feel happy, vindicated and okay. 

Like soldiers who obey orders, now we live our lives in obedience to the Lord’s will, His way. There is no room for lukewarm when we daily choose to live like that. Bye. 👋. 

P3444 Eyes to see and ears to hear.

/ DVH

“But we are certainly not those who are held back by fear and perish; we are among those who have faith and experience true life!” Hebrews 10:39 TPT. Most of the time what I write on this blog is about my own learning curves. This one in Hebrews has been a real challenge to me, because fear smacks me upside-the-head quite a lot. I have had to discipline myself with His help, to put aside what I feel, or even the very real negative experiences I have had, and press on regardless. Trust me … I can come up with a lot of good reasons why I don’t have to do such and such! 

Here are a few: I have whiny ones …“but I’m s-i-c-k!! They will be mean to me, they are always mean to me. I might even get more sick!” Rebellious ones … “why should I help those people? They never did anything for me but hurt me. Why should I be nice to them?” A-n-d … a … complete lack of faith … “I’ve prayed and prayed for them and they are still the same grumpy nasty people they always were! I can’t see any possibility at all that they will change.” However, the Lord says this in Galatians 6:9 (ESV) “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.” 

OK that’s enough fault finding …  we both know I’ll get an inferiority complex! You get my drift. The author indicates in the verse in Hebrews, that we can be held back by fear and fear can easily take the form of excuses. Things that sound reasonable to other people, but what does Jesus think about them?

I am greatly comforted by the fact that God Himself sees us as ‘those who have faith … who experience true life.’ He’s like that, always positive. But what does it mean? I think it means this – what we know here and now, about this life, is extremely limited by our own way of looking at stuff. But people who use their faith, experience the depths this life in Christ can have. Here’s one of my merry metaphors!

Right here and now, without my glasses on I can see fairly well. Before I had cataract surgery my unaided vision was extremely limited. After that surgery my eyesight was vastly improved, and consequently I have better vision. But I still need glasses … just not the bottom-of-the-bottle-ones I needed before! … Before we chose to follow Jesus, we were all a bit like me before that cataract surgery. I saw men as trees walking – just like that guy Jesus prayed for twice! After the surgery, I can now see well enough to identify what is in front of me. But you probably wouldn’t want me to drive you anywhere, because I still have myopia. 🤣

My point is this …using our faith improves our spiritual eyesight. When we take that first giant leap of faith and ask Jesus to be Lord of our lives, it is as if a veil is lifted from our eyes, and the things we couldn’t see before are suddenly so much clearer. The bible makes sense. Faith makes sense. What Jesus did for me makes sense! And as I choose to walk with Him using my faith, day by day, my spiritual vision will become clearer and clearer. The key to seeing well, spiritually speaking, is to stay focussed on the bible, and go out and do what it says – using our faith to do it. The Holy Spirit gladly comes with us – whether we feel anything or not – and life becomes an adventure.

If we choose what to believe and what not to believe, we can end up with spiritual myopia. The bible is not a Pick and Pay … it is the Manufacturer’s handbook. Solomon agreed with me, he says this in Proverbs 14:12: “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” Our ideas can be so limited by our viewpoints we can end up dead! We need to be rewired, or in the case of my dumb illustration, we need those cataracts to be removed, otherwise things get cloudy and we can’t tell the truth from a tree stump. 

It is the same with our spiritual hearing. Someone I know had trouble with their day-by-day hearing, and it was becoming so evident it could no longer be ignored. I suggested a hearing test. They were not thrilled with that idea because the idea of hearing aids made them feel old. But then they went and had the test and lo and behold, they had wax in their ears impeding their hearing.

We too can get wax in our spiritual ears when we listen to stuff that is not “good right and profitable…” Paul tells us that. Have you ever deliberately blocked your ears when you didn’t want to hear some terrible sound or other? Ignoring what God says in the book, just because we don’t like it, blocks our ears. However, this is what faith can look like: right now, because of the way the economy is going, hubby and I can’t afford to buy a new car even if we need one. (We don’t.) But if the Lord told us to buy a new car we would take whatever money we have, and follow Jesus to the new car lot!  It is ‘impossible to please God’ if we don’t use our faith. 

Doing what we have always done, day after day, means we are not using our faith! Let’s be bold and courageous like our brother Joshua said in Joshua 1:9 – and start acting on the things we’ve been carefully avoiding. Don’t start with picking a marriage partner or buying a house! Let’s start with getting rid of every place in our lives where we are angry, or walking in unforgiveness, and begin to repair broken situations, and stop expecting other people to make the difference.

This is how we nurture eyes to see and ears to hear. If we ignore the things He has already told us in His book, how can we expect to hear Him in our everyday lives? Food for thought. Bye. 👋. PS. Simply praying about faith actions, and doing nothing, will give us nothing. This is not a time to wait on God, this is a time for action.

P 3229 YOU are His House.

/ DVH

“Here’s the one thing I crave from Yahweh, the one thing I seek above all else: I want to live with Him every moment in His house, beholding the marvellous beauty of Yahweh, filled with awe, delighting in His glory and grace. I want to contemplate in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 TPT.

It is so easy to read lovely scriptures like this one and think of God’s house as being somewhere else. Like in  heaven, or at church, or bible study, or in our worship times. Let’s look carefully at this next scripture, which I’m sure we all know very well, however, I’m not positive we are actually applying ourselves to live it out. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is IN you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” I Corinthians 6:20.

Yeah! Sobering thought. We, you and I … are now HIS house! If we want Jesus to ‘hang with’ us, we need to make His house a place He would like to inhabit. And we’ve gone about doing this the wrong way in the past. God loves the things that last. “Faith, hope and love,’ that’s what we are aiming at. His temple is not just some hypothetical glorious ideal, far, far away from us. This verse clearly shows us we are individually responsible for the state of His house. Knowing this is the beginning of change, but it won’t actually change the way we think, until we digest it and grab hold of it and act on it. Holy-Spirit guided action can, and it will. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” 1 Corinthians 4:20.

I can’t tell you what that will mean to you, but I can tell you a few of the kind of things that have affected me, and none of them are about what I eat, or what I watch on TV, or read etc! The first one is something that I call: “feeding the doubt.” FAITH! Doubt happens when I start ruminating over anything that isn’t working out the way I thought. The thing is, God’s temple is dedicated to Him and what He wants, so what I think I need or want, pales into insignificance. His Will His Way needs to be my permanent motto. And our God loves faith. So I repent. 

I may not think I have done anything wrong, but I choose to actively trust the Holy Spirit to know what HE likes. It’s His house, so I want His desires. I need to stir up my faith and talk to the Lord about His goodness to me. Then I ask for His help to remember those times when I have trusted Him, and I’ve seen Him graciously do the miraculous in my life. All those little things that don’t matter to anyone else, but they have impacted me greatly. Remembering His goodness is a great active sword. Whenever my faith falters, I need to stop, and reestablish the fact that He is good.

The next is to actively keep my HOPE in His goodness alive, in a primary place in my heart. Because without that hope, I will start trying to solve my problems by myself. His hope is my anchor. Hope anchors me into the bedrock solidity of His never-ending-always-present love. Otherwise I can float about being affected by the wash of someone else carelessly speeding past me. Now I keep on doing whatever my day brings up, I go over everything good in my life that He has given me, and thank Him for those things. I can also thank Him for saving me, and continually washing me with His Word.

This last thing that affects me is equally important – loving other people extravagantly. This bit is where we counteract what other people do. If I do good things for a return, I am expecting a benefit from this world. My hope will be shattered. When I do the things, He asks me to, as He leads me, especially for people who don’t deserve it – It becomes extravagant LOVE. This can sound impossible, especially if the person/s involved aren’t super-duper sweet guys. In other words, we aren’t exaggerating when we say we can’t love them, because they are, humanly speaking, not nice folks.  

Actually, loving not-so-nice people extravagantly is actually easier than loving the people that you deeply love, who have treated you badly. The more invested we are in the person, the harder it gets to be obedient. We can think up lots of excuses to opt out of obedience, when someone we love mistreats us. Things like thinking they should know us better, or give us their best behaviour all the time.  How realistic is that?? 

The reality is, people are human beings. Some things – even if they seem easy to you – can be hard for others. This is the time we need to remember that people will let us down, but the Lord never ever will. We have to switch our focus off them, onto Him. They can’t do everything we need – but Jesus already did!  Loving extravagantly means we lavish love on others, even when it is undeserved. This is the kind of love that blows people away. It’s not just nice, or kind, it is over-the-top love, the kind Jesus gave away all the time. 

Loving others extravagantly reaps a harvest. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9. I call this kind of verse, the kind of verse we try not to memorise because it seems too difficult to practice! The bible has loads of those. The ones we skip and hope God isn’t looking. Because we are His house – we actually don’t have that luxury. Remember, right here, right now – you are His house. Bye. 👋

P 3051 The meaning of Commitment.

/ DVH

The word commitment appears 127 times in the bible.“Overall, the Bible teaches that commitment to God is an all-encompassing devotion that requires both action and faith. It means dedicating our efforts, enduring through challenges, and holding steadfast to the promises of God, ultimately leading to a fulfilling and purposeful life aligned with His will.” (Would you believe it – that came from Google!)

When we talk about being committed to Christ what do we mean? Is it merely about the idea of SomeOne saving us from hell? That’s not a bad thing – but that’s not all commitment means, as you can see in 1 Kings 8:61 above.  Aren’t we blessed to live in a time where we don’t have to remember 600+ laws like others do? Galatians 5:22,23 states:“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” There’s no law against living this life like Jesus did, everything He did fulfilled the law perfectly.  

Icky question time. Ask yourself… are you kind and forbearing, can you put up with anything? Do you love others, in thought, and deeds? Are you filled with joy, and peace? That’s good, there are no laws broken there. Are you gentle with others? Can you control yourself ?… No law against that either. Do you like absolutes? Then 1 Corinthians 13:8 is just for you …“Love never fails”– everything else will one day fade away, but love will remain. Living a life of love positions us to be obedient. Now we have just one commandment! Loving Him and loving others.

More not-so-random questions. Psalm 37:5 says:“Commit your way to the Lord;  trust in Him and He will do this:…” Here’s a thought – do we remember to give our burdens to Jesus? That’s part of committing our way. Do we pray for the sick? Are we witnesses showing His love in the way we speak and act? Part of commitment is to acknowledge Him in ALL our ways. A divided aim means a double-minded life. The real problem is always our decision to commit to Him and obey His Word. This is how God showed His commitment to us – He gave us His Son while we were still sinners!

Colossians 1:29 says this: “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in Whom we have redemption.”  Did you notice that scripture from Colossians 1:—is in the past tense? It’s all done! Jesus Himself said:“It is finished.” Now we are to live using our faith to activate what we’ve been already given. If we are not doing that, then we are believing a lie and our faith is not active on our behalf.

Maybe someone has convinced you that you are not eligible. Perhaps you feel you cannot control the things you do and you live an out-of-control existence, and so you feel condemned all the time. But:“there is no condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus.” That means we need to stay connected to what Jesus already did for us. Self-control was deposited into our lives when we said “yes” to Jesus. Just like all the other fruits .. we don’t have to find them, or make them up — we simply need to live like what He said is true … BECAUSE IT IS. Trees produce fruit because it is in their DNA. Our spiritual DNA has changed. Don’t let the enemy trick you out of your legitimate inheritance.

‘Abiding in the Vine’ means living this life convinced and convicted that what Jesus said is the utter and absolute truth. It means I know, from experience that what He said is truer than how I feel, or what you do, or whatever is going on around me. The Vine does not have to pray the sap will keep it alive …the sap is already part of the Vine. He came in when we said “yes.”

Right here, right now, He’s IN you and me. We need to live this life using our faith that He WILL NOT break His Word – or that connection, EVER.. As we live a life of faith we are transformed. The Holy Spirit promises to direct, guide and help us with His Eye upon us and our circumstances.So when we fall over, we get up asap, and repent to Him and others. We repair whatever we did to hurt someone else and re-establish our connection with the Lord and … then … we go on again. 

In Galatians 6:9-10 it says: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” Don’t get tired in the hard bits … press IN. The secret to overcoming is to keep on keeping on. Persevere. This world may tell you that you must get this and that right, but God says:“Just keep trusting Me and treating others the way you want to be treated – let love be your aim.” LOVE IS THE SAP! Let it flow.

Commitment is about choosing to have our obedience to Him first in our lives, thoughts and actions. We refuse to do anything without Him because loving Him, has become our entire life. Bye. 👋

P 2790 Priorities.

/ DVH

The Holy Spirit loves to clarify and personalise His Word – that’s part of the joy of reading the book! One Sabbath day Jesus and His disciples were hungry so they picked some grain from a field they walked by, and ate it. The Pharisees – who were obviously spying on Him!… jumped up and down and accused them all of breaking the law. Jesus, ever gracious, tried to help them stretch their faith by pointing out that their ancestor David once ate the Shew bread and doing that was unlawful, according to their rabbinical rules. Plus, he mentioned that the priests on Sabbath duty break that law too, but they are declared innocent.

The Lord Jesus then says this: “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.” After this He moves on from that conversation into the synagogue – because there’s another lesson coming up! On that day there is a man with a shrivelled. withered hand in attendance. Meanwhile the Pharisees are still spying on Him, waiting for Him to do something illegal on the Sabbath. They know He will heal this man. Can you believe it? How SAD. They are waiting to catch Jesus out for doing good! So there they were again, pointing out religious rules. They seem to be unaware that they have faulty religious priorities.

So He asked the Pharisees if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath and reminds them that if one of their sheep falls down a hole on the Sabbath they will pull it out! Matthew 12:12: “How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” It is part of Jesus’ nature to always desire good for His Bride. He stumped these religious guys every time. Meanwhile, they have no idea that this is their opportunity to think differently. The Lord Jesus loves people completely. I think problems occur when we decide to define good, as things that work out the way I want them to, or by categorising whatever supposedly meets our religious standards.

God has His own WAYS. That means it is important for us to know what He wants, in any and all of our various situations. What His will is. Here’s some scripture to help us focus on the way He thinks: “In everything give thanks for this is the will of Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18. The idea is to start by giving thanks, because doingthat will help us focus. We need to thank Him for helping us to know what He wants from us, remembering we don’t need religion either!

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”Romans 12:2. I urge us all to be pliable, ready to expand what we think – we are allowed to learn. Always be big enough to renew your mind by acting on what the book says. I’ve found the best and quickest discernment comes to me when I actively let the Lord teach me His priorities in any situation. I ask myself all the time: “Is this love?” Then I ask Him to help me to be fair and not flavour any answer with my own POV, needs, or religious stuff.

At the same time, the Lord Himself chooses what He wants to change in our lives – not us!  The fact that He is so intimately involved in our lives and thinking must reassure us that He always has our good in mind. There are times when we try to avoid what the Holy Spirit wants to tell us because of fear. We’d rather focus on the little things than tackle the big hard ones. Like the Pharisees, we would rather stick with what we know because it feels safer. Often there are quite obvious things that we know need His transformation, yet we run away because of fear, or unbelief or a stronghold in our mind that says: “I can’t help this, everyone in my family is this way.” You and I are in a new family now – HIS. The old has passed away! We must prioritise His new kingdom now.

Romans 8:27 tells us that the Holy Spirit is already praying God’s will for us – how brilliant is that? Wow. To start with, the Holy Spirit totally knows the difference between the law and LOVE. Right here, right now. Today. There is no question about it we have a trustworthy Helper! Here are two more scriptures that will help us locate what the Lord wants to prioritise as we walk with Him:“For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.” 1 Peter 2:15. So I ask Him when I have doubt about any situation – is it doing good for someone else? Doing good is our priority. Our aim should always be for other people to tell us:  “I want to know the God you serve.”

Our Loving Heavenly Father;  His beautiful Son, the Lord Jesus;  and the precious ever-present Holy Spirit are our JOY! Let’s live celebrating Them!  There are times we can persecute other brothers and sisters with the law, by verbally beating them up, saying: “don’t do this and don’t do that “. And sadly, sometimes we say: “you did this AND that — so God won’t love YOU anymore.” But none of that stuff RE-presents Him truthfully. To know what is right on any occasion we must prioritise knowing Him. We have the book!

So we do good, give thanks, walk in Love and change our mindsets by reading His word. The Holy Spirit is continually praying for us to live an overcoming life filled with the Lord’s love for us. Walking with Him is our priority now. Bye. 👋

P 2779 Let the book change your mind.

/ DVH

The bible is filled with miraculous stories. And if you or I want to see miracles with our own eyes, then we need to believe the bible and be prepared to look out for them. I’ve noticed that miracles hardly ever happen in a rarified, solemn, silent atmosphere. Nor is there quiet background organ music, or angels in white nighties with huge flaming swords!

Jesus did all kinds of incredible miracles with big crowds all around Him. Some people missed them, and they were there! Most sick people didn’t stand quietly in a healing line! They pushed and shoved, and called out. Hungry people, sick people, smelly people, mentally unwell people, little kids shouting and screaming! It wasn’t quiet like church!!  Forget the postcard pictures of Jesus with a halo round His head … if the Lord had had a halo, everyone would have noticed!  Instead think about these things like this – what if someone famous from today’s world was trying to get through a crowd? That’s a more realistic picture. Wherever Jesus went, it was along dirty, dusty crowded streets with very little shade, or privacy. There was no pretty music!!

Yet our Lord loved it all – simply because He loved people. He never got angry or annoyed at all the people pushing and shoving and crying out. Speaking for myself I know I have seen quite a few miracles … but I wasn’t paying much attention at the time, and didn’t know they were miracles until much later when I thought about it. We aren’t half as smart as we think we are, trust me. I’ve seen some really brilliant things, and my first thoughts were: “Are they making that up?” “Is that real?” “Do you think it will last?”

The whole idea that the miraculous depends on us and our faith, is just plain silly. I know the skin I am in and it is not faith-filled. We need eyes to see what He is doing all around us. Our faith is in Him not in whatever is going on. My point is this: miracles occur all around us while this life keeps marching on – but do we stop to see them – have we let disappointment stop us? We need to let His book make miracles part of our thinking.

They often happen in messy situations – I had someone hand me a baby that was totally blue in the face and utterly lifeless and they begged me to fix it. It’s a long story… with a happy ending... I shook the kid and yelled at it: “Don’t you dare die on me.” Whereupon said baby opened it’s eyes and screamed its little head off. I gave it back to its mother and quickly went back inside my house. It was only afterward… when the mother insisted on thanking me over and over again… then I realised what God had done. We need Holy Spirit inspired eyes prompted by His book to see the miraculous.

Giving away bibles etc. means we’ve experienced all kinds of totally impossible things.. One of my favourite occurrences is when hubby says: “hello” and he smiles, and the person in front of him immediately bursts into tears and starts sharing their life story…   I dunno how that happens — maybe he’s got a crying anointing. Or maybe I’ve gotta stop him from wearing those Dracula fangs! (Only joking OK?) 🤣 … moving on … quickly.

Our pastor is ordinary, but heroic – what a champion! I saw this lovely man pray for a child who had broken a bone in his arm at church and after being checked by a doctor, by the end of the service the kid’s arm was fine. We need to look at this new life we have been given as a real thing. God’s loving passion is inside us, and it surrounds us, and then it flows over onto other people-who-have-not-met-Him-yet.

The secret to spiritual eyes, is to aim at love, and keep insisting that you need it. BE POOR IN SPIRIT. We give up on the kind of love that endures anything, far too quickly. I believe that loving others is the biggest key on our Kingdom keychain. We read His book to find all the ways He has loved us and to learn new ways to love others.

Our God is marvellous, He always wants to help us! Listen to this:“So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing Himself to the worst by sending His own Son, is there anything else He wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—Who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.”

“Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate You. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.” MSG bible.

I dare you to read the above scripture three times in a row. Now, let it change your mind and act accordingly. Let His love embolden you. Bye. 👋

P 2773 The place where intimacy starts.

/ DVH

Lately, it seems like every single person I talk with, is having an appalling time. It is as if the floodgates of trouble, irritation, strife and frustration have been flung open and bad stuff is flowing rapidly out into our lives. Boy! Have I got a great scripture for all of us! Isaiah 59:19-20: “So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.” 

A standard is described in the dictionary as: “…a baseline, a value about something that you just don’t go below.” This verse is not about our standard, or lack thereof — this verse is about God lifting up HIS OWN STANDARD. (Jesus!!) Every single word or phrase in our bible is a door into a bigger and better understanding of the Ways of our God. It doesn’t matter what version we read, because the Holy Spirit made the world, so He can translate and use whatever one we use! Even those little words we would normally skim across because in ordinary life they are not important. In the bible they are important!

We cannot afford to read the bible like a magazine or an ordinary novel, because these books are not a collection of ‘stories;” they are God showing Himself to mankind, revealing His Will, His Way. Whenever we pause, and ask Him questions, we open the door to wisdom. At the same time, what we read will start to become familiar to us. We begin to know Him through what He says and does. The people who think God is a softie who turns a blind eye to the daft, disobedient things we do, have not read His book properly. 

The God of the New Testament is the same God Who is in the Old! The New Testament changes who man is  … not God! HE is always the same‘ …yesterday, today, forever – He never changes.’ ˆ(Hebrews 13:8) God is so much bigger than we can ever understand, and He is incredibly and wonderfully, deep! We cannot afford to limit Him. However, we will grow spiritually when we stop blindly accepting everything somebody else says in a sermon – instead go after wisdom and understanding with the Holy Spirit’s help, for yourself under His guidance.  

Proverbs 4:3-6 MSG: “When I was a boy at my father’s knee, the pride and joy of my mother, He would sit me down and drill me:“Take this to heart. Do what I tell you—live! Sell everything and buy Wisdom! Forage for Understanding! Don’t forget one word! Don’t deviate an inch!  Never walk away from Wisdom—she guards your life; …” Wise parents!!

When we persevere, and press into God, by reading His Word, looking for things to do – in response to what we’ve read — we do it because we want to know Him and His ways. “Lord show me Your ways so I might walk with You.” By pressing in, wrestling with the bits we don’t understand — we are showing the Lord how much knowing and understanding Him and His ways means to us. That’s where intimacy starts. Intimacy means I know that other person well, no matter what sort of situation I am in with them – I know enough about them to know they are trustworthy.

And if there are spiritual delays sometimes, we learn that they have a purpose. …John 11:11-15: “After He (Jesus) had said this, He went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. So then He told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Some answers to prayer are delayed for reasons that only make sense much later!

Now let’s go back to today’s verse from Isaiah … What is God’s standard? Jesus Christ is God’s perfect standard. We have a visual illustration in the bible of what God wants, and WHY He wants it. Jesus perfectly represents our Heavenly Father and His Ways. Our question to the Holy Spirit in hard times needs to be like this: “What do I do now? How do I handle this flood coming at me? Do I fight like Jesus did, when He turned over the money changers’ tables and they were too astonished to stop Him? Or do I simply hand everything over to Him and lie down like a lamb, and go to sleep because He’s going to take care of it?” Amen.

When we ask Him questions we are carefully examining His standard. Anyone can read this way – you don’t have to be a scholar, but you do have to be a lover pursuing the One you love! Otherwise you will just come up with more rules, and not much revelation! Galatians 6:9 says: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Remember, God wants intimacy, but it will cost us time. We need to value what we have been given. We cannot afford to stop short of reaping the harvest that comes from perseverance. We have an onsite, always available Helper – Who also loves intimacy. Bye. 👋

P 2729 Jesus believes in us … isn’t He wonderful?

/ DVH

“I continue to pray for your love to grow and increase beyond measure, bringing you into the rich revelation of spiritual insight in all things. This will enable you to choose the most excellent way of all —becoming pure and without offense until the unveiling of Christ.”AMEN!!! Philippians 1:9-10 TPT.

I think that there are places in God that Christians have yet to discover, let alone explore. We have been prevented from even seeing them, or comprehending them, by our own lack of devotion to walking in grace and love toward each other as well as the rest of the people on this planet. It is an easy thing to dismiss walking this way as something that is too hard, or unattainable for ordinary people. By believing that, we are hobbling our own spiritual lives, because we are not actively pursuing love toward Him, and others. We need to let this thought spur us into action. Otherwise we are settling for the appearance of grace and love, instead of pressing on into the real deal. The real deal is the only thing that will change this world.

And if you’re wondering why I felt bold enough to write that first paragraph it’s because at this point in our history – it seems to me that the world around us is changing US, more than we are influencing them. And that is a tragedy. The people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet living around us, should know that we have chosen to love Jesus. Today I doubt most people know what any of us believe. We’ve lost our singularity of purpose because we are presenting so many differing faces to the world.

At the same time, I wonder if we have applied the dubious ointment of compromise much too liberally, everywhere we go. I don’t see Jesus Christ talking about compromise at all in the book. It never seemed to come up! I think we are missing the mark, because we have voluntarily become so bland and invisible, our salt has lost its savour. Instead we are applying this world’s methods of dealing with difficult things.

In rare circumstances someone does stand up and object to this, or they might speak out about that. However, the Bible clearly says they will know we are Christians by our love for one another, not by our protests. Our primary question and quest today, should be – how do we love the people around us the way He would? People are leaving this life daily, falling by the millions off the cliff of death. They follow one another simply because they don’t know there is another way to live and they think they can’t avoid the inevitable. Nobody has told them that underneath us ALL are the Everlasting Arms! How can they know if nobody tells them …??

Our commitment to Christ means we are to be committed to Him, and His mission, as much as He is to us. We must remember that He died for what He believed.Thank God Jesus made it past the Garden of Gethsemane and went on to face the cross and conquer it! Let’s not make any bones about the reality – it looked like He lost but He WON. He smashed it!  … Eternally! Sometimes our lives could look like His did  – full of sacrifice and pain – but Galatians 6:9-10 it says: “So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of ALL,, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.”

The church today, has inadvertently become all talk, and sadly, not much action!  I think the main reason this situation exists is because each one of us leaves the work of the ministry to a precious few — instead of ALL of us devoting our lives to the cause of Christ. That’s why we were saved, to lend a hand to the person next to us, who is probably  about to fall off that cliff. The thing is, we’ve been lied to, our enemy has whispered to us that ‘we can never change, it’s all too hard, it will be alright. God won’t mind, He understands we are weak  … and busy’ — and we believed him! Like Paul said better than I ever can – let’s not let Jesus have died for nothing! (Galatians 2:21.)

Jesus never intended for following Him and learning His Ways to be the only thing His disciples ever did.  Listen to His first words to the very first two disciples: “As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. Come, follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed Him.” Matthew 4:18-20. Can you see it? Right after they were called to follow, they were informed of their mission. Their mission was not just to follow – it was to lovingly reach out to others. Here’s a red hot tip folks – the mission hasn’t changed.

Sadly some people get saved at the altar, but they don’t make it past sitting back down on their seat again. Please … go out the door and bring others in. Talk to them, tell them what you know about God and His Love for us. We don’t need fancy illustrations or words, we just need to tell them what we know for ourselves, what happened to us. By all means pray, but then put your feet into your prayers. Jesus believes in us, He trusted His message into our hands and that’s what grace and love looks like. Bye 👋