Eat

P 3314 Galatians 5:16-26.

/ DVH

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.      The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.        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. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

Let’s reflect on this scripture for a little bit — the Holy Spirit is always moving. This means we will need to keep in step with Him. He is always doing something, going somewhere, reaching out, calling out and blessing someone. He can’t help it, it’s His nature. He is so saturated and filled to overflowing with the Love of God for each and every human being on the planet – that He simply oozes love, compassion, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness etc.… everywhere He goes. 

The Holy Spirit is a beautiful Companion. He is compassionate, impartial, non-biased, and non-discriminatory toward each one of us – individually. He knows how to teach us to avoid sin, by staying close to Jesus. The Lord Jesus beautifully illustrated incredible qualities in the Gospels. His teaching was very clear, the people who choose to follow Him, walk, sit, stand, laugh, eat, pray with the same heart He had. A lover’s heart. SomeOne Who can tell us how to walk through the mire of this life without getting soiled.

Like the scripture above says: bad things aren’t hard to see, most of the time they stand out like a sore thumb! And before you and I start excusing ourselves by saying ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ My advice is to ask His opinion and then take a closer look in the mirror of the Word. Some of that icky stuff presents with other symptoms. Like sneaking looks at some chick or guy in the train …and wondering stuff we shouldn’t be wondering. Of course nobody who says they are a ‘Christian’ ever does that stuff – do they? These thoughts fly through everyone’s heads, you just don’t have to throw them a party! 

Hubby told me that he had to look at the ground for years, because so many women today were so poorly dressed. His problem with skimpy outer wear, that was more like underwear, got easier after he began to see everyone through the Lord’s eyes instead of his own. That’s the secret to staying in the river. Walking with the Holy Spirit changes the way we see other people, things, and situations. Allow Him to correct your path with His eye upon you. Simply give Him permission to interrupt you. He never, ever, takes His eyes off us – that’s because YOU and I are ‘the apple of His eye.’

We treat the Lord’s book like a precious Friend Who sits with us, showing us daily who He is, and how to walk with Him. We need this ongoing course correction and the Holy Spirit provides it. God’s book is a book of wonder — things you thought you knew one day, suddenly open up like a beautiful flower and we find ourselves glimpsing Who He is in a new way, through the same words we read yesterday! His book is like a kaleidoscope, the slightest movement changes the view. 

‘Walking with the Holy Spirit’ means we are choosing to walk with Him aware of His Presence, all the time. Whether things are busy or not. If He calls, then we stop and listen, because we know His voice in our lives is a great privilege. If we can’t find Him, then we go and look for Him in the book. Because, just like the Shulammite in Song of Songs — lovers of God feel His absence very keenly. Walking with the Holy Spirit means walking through this life seeing everything that happens through His eyes, doing things the way He wants them done. And we have purposed in our hearts to learn to love other people like He does. 

Being with Him is the pleasure of pleasing SomeOne so dear to our hearts …we live for His joy-filled responses! They are even greater than we can imagine. Falling in love with SomeOne does that to you.  It has nothing to do with us being perfect people — instead we know and love SomeOne Whose POV is so precious, we don’t want to go anywhere, or do anything without HIM. We like listening to His voice.  

The result of the Lord’s sacrificial death is that we now own His legacy. All the Godly qualities He gave to His vast family. Now our inheritance is the ability to live in this world like He did, walking in fellowship with the Holy Spirit.  And Galatians 5:16-26 sums it up!  Bye 👋.

P 3081 Priorities.

/ DVH

My title today seems to be the catch cry of this world we live in, people are practically lining up to take over our priorities: “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think He’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do His best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way He works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how He works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.”Matthew 6:33 MSG.

Isn’t this a lovely version of this scripture? Here’s another version of the same scripture, from the Good News bible: “Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what He requires of you, and He will provide you with all these other things.” This verse reminds us that priorities are important. It is my belief that we have accidentally let our own personal human priorities take precedent over God’s Kingdom business. Now here is my third version of the same verse from Matthew: “So above all, constantly seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness, then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly.”

The secret to this verse is highlighted for me with the words “less important.” Which leads me into assessing how important God Himself is in my life. Is He more important than whether the sun is shining or not? Is He more important than what’s for breakfast? Is He more important than my job? Giving God first priority means we will discover a whole other way to look at everything around us. I think Jesus picked flowers etc. as an illustration because that stuff is beautiful, but fleeting.   

God is a giver, He gives us … Himself, His Son and …time. Time to worship the Lord. Time to say that thing you always meant to tell your spouse. Time to say I love you, you are my friend. Time to be glad to have somewhere to sleep and something to eat. Did you wake up today? Me too! 🤣 That means that God has given us another day. Some people didn’t wake up this morning, but we did! What are we going to do with this day? I truly believe the focus we choose is the thing that steers us from day to day. Our God is not thundering from Mount Sinai — He is whispering inside our hearts. When He is our focus He tells us clearly that we don’t have to worry about anything else. Well, there’s a blessing! “This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

I am learning not to project my time into tomorrow, otherwise I start to worry what I will do about this and that, and usually those worries are fears, not real things. My point is this:  I don’t have tomorrow … I may leave here and wake up there overnight! I think that’s why the Lord told us: “so do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34. Lately some of my days appear to have a fair share of difficulties, so that means that I will deliberately have to choose to put all those worrisome things down, simply because He told me to do it.

God made flowers, plants, trees etc and we know that He looks after them, but the book says —He loves US MORE!! Let that sink in a bit. He called you, by your name, you are not a minor member of the faceless crowd to Him. You are special to Him simply because you are you. His heart is sooo big it is more than big enough to take ALL of us IN. When we worry about tomorrow or what might happen, it means we’ve forgotten that His thoughts are always toward us. It’s kind of insulting really. We often lose our time to something that is not worthy of our attention. He made everything around us, and He will not forget us. We need to actively remember WHO HE IS and how much He cares for us.

Our earthly father may have been absent, busy, or just absent minded. He may have been switched on most of the time – or off. Those sad facts cannot override the fact that God is always ON and He is always interested in every single detail of our lives. When He mentions flowers which are transitory things, He is saying that nothing is too small for Him to care about. If it happens to YOU — He cares about it. I’ve found it is healthy to live each day I am given with eternity in mind. I think that’s what Matthew 6:33 is about.

However, God is not our head housekeeper, or a concierge, He isn’t with us to facilitate our lives and run them like clockwork! Emmanuel means God with us, so we are never alone. Maybe nobody else knows that we spend our days weeping over our heartaches. Or maybe soldiering on regardless – numbing our senses to cope with the pain that this life continually produces — but He knows. He does not want His precious people starved of love and meaning in their lives. That’s why He came here. 

Taking care of our day to day priorities can squeeze out the very life of God within us. Before we know it we are treating Him like an obligation, or, even worse … SomeBody Who is too hard to relate to. If that happens, go back to reading the Gospels and watch the way Jesus treats people, how He interacts with them. He is our priority because God made us His priority. Bye.👋

P 2699 Nothing happens by chance.

/ DVH

I read this yesterday, and I thought it might be a blessing for others. It’s an exhortation from the translators of the Passion bible written by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez: It’s a great word, it lifted my spirit and I hope it does you good as well. We’ve been blessing people all week, and today it’s your turn! The Lord says to YOU –

“Come into the secret place and find encouragement that waters your thirsty soul. I have words of life to share with you today and living-understanding to strengthen you. Run into the shelter of My presence and let My love wash over you in a fresh way. I don’t offer stale bread to My hungry lovers. Eat of My now word. Tune your ear to My Voice.

Give Me the heavy weight of the burden of fear you are carrying. There may be uncertainty in your life, but I see everything clearly. There are no mysteries to Me, and I won’t let the tides of confusion sweep you away. See how My hand holds you steady. You cannot escape the grip of My glorious grace, child. 

What wondrous plans I have for you. What a future you have in Me. Let Me guide you further into My goodness as you follow My leading. I promise never to let you go or get too far ahead. I give you eyes to see from My perspective. Look to Me, and nothing will ever shatter your hope.”

Praise God for their gift of exhortation! Moving on to some real life testimonies … … we had a brief break last week and it seemed to us that the Lord is much more ready for us to speak to people than we are to do it! Any time we go anywhere, we find that there are suddenly numerous opportunities to talk to strangers. In the shops, or even to tradesmen in our home.

At our house, we have had some things break down and afterward we realised what happened wasn’t about the broken item … it was about us talking to the person who came to fix it!  We’ve seen this over and over again, Father God will bring people to us. He really is looking for His kids to share the wealth of heart knowledge He has given all of us. We need to freely talk about Him! This past week we have had all kinds of opportunities to encourage strangers..

While we were away, the internet in our rented holiday unit fell over, so a tech guy turned up to fix it. We were chatting away to each other, and we just included this guy in our conversation. After about five minutes, told us he had been very sick recently and he was very scared because he thought he might have had cancer. Now that is definitely God! People rarely go that deep that quickly with strangers!!

This young man went on to say they discovered it was coeliac’s disease. So hubby prayed for him. Meanwhile, the silly internet still kept blanking out…!!  You know, God isn’t interested in our comfort, but He IS always interested in people. Like I’ve said before, knowing His Ways helps a lot!

On Tuesday this week, a carer came to our house to clean the floors for us. To be truthful, I was a bit annoyed because I found out that our usual lady wasn’t coming …again! I never do these spiritual sums until afterward – I guess I’m a slow learner!! It has taken me four weeks to work out that we’ve not had our usual helper each time because the Lord wanted us to talk to other helpers about Him! 🙄 

This particular young woman was delightful and we very much enjoyed her company. She did a great job too. We had a very profitable time talking about her life, our lives, and the Lord. So much so she said; “I could stay here all day!” She also kept saying, over and over again: “There is so much joy in this house, I’ve never been in a home with this much joy before.”  You know, sometimes I’m so dumb I don’t notice things, unless the Holy Spirit sticks a great big “look here, dummy” sign on it! Hmm… you might think I’m joking … I’m NOT!

Hubby decided to call ahead to a place we are going to be staying at next week, as we make our way up north to give away bibles. He spoke about bringing blankets, toiletries and food for the poor. The young lady on the phone nearly came through the phone she was so excited. Apparently most small towns are quite overlooked when it comes to government aid. However the Holy Spirit personally picked that town. Who knew they had a homeless problem there? He did. 

I just want to finish today by saying that the Lord’s plans for us, to bless us, include everyone around us. Nothing happens by chance. It is good to see even inconvenient interruptions as opportunities for His kingdom. Bye 👋

1 Peter 2:9 ESV“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.”

P 2616 AS …

/ DVH

The bible says in Matthew, we are to love one another AS we love ourselves. It’s part of a conversation Jesus had with a guy who seemed to be looking for boundaries, or, at the very least, guidelines in how to please God. Jesus said this to him in Matthew 22:37-39:  …“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour AS yourself.”

The Cambridge dictionary explains the word AS, like this —“used in comparisons to refer to the degree of something.”

It means this: to the same degree that I love me, I need to love you. Yeah, people have been stuck on that merry-go-round for years. I think we’ve all been sucked into trying to love ourselves first, SO we could love others. Rhubarb. That’s NOT what the bible says. As and so are not the same thing. So means I already need to be full, and then I can look at your need.

The reality is this: if I have an idea that maybe I don’t love myself enough, then it can’t be my fault if I can’t love you! And I will probably set out on an endless, fruitless, not-to-mention distracting quest, trying to love me! Well, there’s a waste of time. Think about it … how can I die to self if I am busy trying to love me – so I can eventually love you? The thing is, that verse has been used to make a nice little hidey-hole. If I get focussed on loving and being nice to me, then the real truth is I probably won’t have enough time for YOU!  

‘So I can love you’ means I will be way too busy trying to find and fill the hole in my heart for approval and love that this earthly life has left me with … to even look your way. Please understand, I do not mean to imply that the Lord was on a grammar kick – I’m sure He said what He meant. Human beings sadly … notsomuch! God could care less if you have some large amount of money in the bank or not — He cares how you use your money because it indicates where you are spiritually. Do you use what you have for the good of others, or do you give away whatever you can afford or whatever is spare? If so you are missing the blessing. AS means we do it the same way HE would do it.

Self-love is a new age concept and it has snuck into the church.

The key word in this scripture is the word AS. It is extremely simple to discern if we love ourselves, we simply need to ask ourselves: “do I feed me, do I have somewhere to sleep, do I have clothes to cover me….??”  The next question then, must be …in comparison to me, ‘what does my neighbour have? Somewhere to sleep? Something to eat? Clothes they can wear?’ If the answer is no, then I have missed the mark as well as the point. Jesus cleared up the whole “who is my neighbour” question when He told the story of the Good Samaritan!

Anyway …the point is not to increase my love for ME it is to increase my love for OTHERS. The right response to that question is this: am I loving others in the same way I love myself? Do I care enough about them to make sure they have what they need? I do hope you can see the difference, because it is a big one. I am not indulging in semantics with these two little words. Those two little words and their interpretations make a huge difference to my whole giving behaviour.

This is where the blessing lives:”And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” Hebrews 13:16. “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 22:33. “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?” I John 3:17. (Yeah I know! Bring that up!!)

Loving one another in God’s eyes means we look after one another. Why do you think Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead? Read the book. “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” Acts 4:33-35.

The Grace of God in our lives causes us to be generous in the same way God Himself is generous – He’s the same Holy Spirit. Here’s a further laugh-riot to contemplate. Those givers in Acts, had no choice on how the money they gave was to be used – the apostles distributed it! Ananias and Sapphire agreed to defraud God. They used the power of agreement to try to lie the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ. Loving others the way we love ourselves is about living a Grace-filled shared life. The result is, we become givers in every area! Bye 👋

P 2318 Keep His sap flowing!

/ DVH

… We are the love of His!

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness etc. Another way to say that  is this — the visible fruit of OUR connection with the Holy Spirit is patience, kindness, goodness etc. IF you don’t got the fruit then guess what? YOU’VE LOST YOUR CONNECTION! 

Jesus taught about abiding in and staying in the vine;  which means that the sap of the vine is constantly available to grow fruit. Love joy peace etc. all these things come from that connection.  The connection produces the fruit – it is not who we are, but Who He is! Staying connected to Him, means I will die daily. It’s automatic. Disconnection means I’ve chosen my own comfort, my way, my control … over what Jesus wants!

How do we stay connected to the vine? At the very moment that we want to give in to suffering or despair or anger or retaliation, we ask for His help and choose Jesus and connection with Him, over self expression. Then we shut-up and wait to see what He will do. When we choose His ways we are choosing to let the sap of the Holy Spirit keep flowing into us and through us in an ongoing fashion. His sap does us good. Fruit comes as a result of that connection to the vine. Self-control is one of His fruit – this means we choose to do things His way, asking for His help — which means we are controlling ourselves.

Ordinary FRUIT like apples, need work. It needs tending, Every time you give in to your feelings, your anger, your need to be vindicated, you’re short-circuiting the fruit cycle, you are stopping the fruit from ‘setting.’ Good fruit needs that constant supply of sap. This is why sometimes the fruit in the supermarket can be bad in the middle or taste terrible, — it hasn’t been connected to the tree for a VERY long time and it is starting to rot from the inside out. No sap = no fresh fruit.

We also know this from our own experience if we’ve ever tried to grow tomatoes and we have compared them to the ones in the supermarket, the ones in the supermarket have little to no flavour. This by the way, is why they are now selling tomatoes there for more money as ‘on the vine,’ so any residue of sap in the stalk will help to keep the tomato fresh. 

Sap needs to flow. Any obstruction to the passage of sap simply needs to be cleared away. Spiritually speaking, here’s what I do: I acknowledge my fault to the Lord, and whoever else is involved, then I repent, and because I have no confidence than I’m not going to do the same the dumb thing again 10 minutes later, I ask for help. 

Asking for help does not mean that God will take over. We are not glove puppets with someone else’s hand controlling us. We are real life, wilful, opinionated human beings, who like control more than submission and yielding. Humility is needed.Tell the other person/s that you are having a hard time holding your tongue and ask the other person to pray for you. That’ll fix it immediately! 

We ask for His help and then step out in the right direction. The right direction = what Jesus said, what the bible says. And then act USING YOUR FAITH. It is way too easy to ask for help and then go on to blame God when you are still the same nasty grump 10 minutes later. Intentions matter, but they are not everything. Our intentions need to be turned into actions.  Keep looking at Jesus, keep on walking – keep doing what He would do.

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Expecting the other person to make the difference is just plain stupid. It is way better to ask the Lord, “What do I do now?” I can’t tell you how many times He’s told me, “Shut up and listen.” By the way, listen doesn’t just mean understanding the words, it means hearing the other person’s heart, and their anguish. 

Please note you will hardly EVER feel like letting go of your comments and opinions – especially if the other person is still going on at you … OR even WORSE, GLOATING over you.  Other people’s actions and reactions are on them. That single fact has taught me heaps about CHOICE. We are the Lord’s great love … everything else fades away when we look at that …our fruit makes His heart glad 👋🏻

“May my Beloved come into His garden And eat its choice fruits!” Song of Songs 4:16b