Elusive

P 3223 Joy cometh …

/ DVH

I spoke briefly about joy, yesterday. I think this blessing can be kind of elusive, because many people chase after pleasure as a substitute for it. We need God’s JOY – it’s our STRENGTH! Pleasure, however, is a bit like sand, it falls through your fingers and disappears into the void! The bible tells us in Psalm 30:5 that JOY “comes in the morning.”  I have experienced that! Joy is an expression of our God’s own nature. However, joy comes into focus as we continue to notice Who He is and what He is doing – no matter what time of day it actually is! 

Loving and knowing Jesus means knowing and loving and living in … JOY! I want to exhort you to grab hold of His Joy when it comes on you. Seize those times when pure joy floods your thoughts, because this is an exquisite part of our Lord’s Grace toward us and He is strengthening you for what lies ahead. We need to let Christ’s Joy re-energise us when we are feeling flat, motivate us forward when we are tired, and just plain make us laugh at ourselves and this crazy old world. That’s the secret of living with joy – it doesn’t care about appearances, it values the nearness of Jesus instead. 

Another of the secrets to finding the Lord in whatever is going on in your life, is to believe and revise what He has already told you. Jesus Himself said: ‘Don’t be afraid, I will be with you always, even unto the end of this world.’ Don’t just nod your little head and smile at that scripture. Yes it is a nice scripture, yes it seems comforting, but it can’t comfort you unless you apply it. I read it, reread it and then I go out and believe He is with me, even if I don’t feel a blooming thing. His word is more solid than the earth beneath my feet. Let’s stick a big flashing sign over our hearts that says: “Welcome here Lord Jesus!”

God’s Word does not flourish in our lives because of our feelings, it flourishes in an atmosphere of faith. And we get faith by hearing what He is saying to US, personally, as we read it. So grab your bible when you feel flat, and read a Psalm. I read until I find something that cheers me up! To be fair, sometimes I might read quite a few Psalms, but that won’t kill me. “The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.” Psalm 119:130. Hey look at that! I qualify! I figure that I will definitely need His light to be able to see His joy! 

Knowing Jesus loves us, should constantly usher in joy. We can waste the time we have been given trying desperately to find joy in other things – people, places, situations – but this world’s joy is situated in things that are temporary and hollow. Many people are so addicted to feeling happy they never actually find real joy! Real joy lasts. We can seek outward distractions instead of His Presence, but He is inside us, because we belong to Him. “But what does it say? The Word (God’s message in Christ) is near you, on your lips and in your heart; that is, the Word (the message, the basis and object) of faith which we preach,…”  Romans 10:8. Deuteronomy 30:4.

Joy can most certainly make us laugh, but it isn’t just laughter. I think joy can be limited by us. For instance, joy will break out when we talk about Him to people who-don’t-know-Him-yet. Our joy is a living companionship with a Person, not just a feeling. And we can’t lose Jesus quite simply because – glory of glories – He refuses to leave or give up on us! Stop for a moment and ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you through joy. Ask Him to help you to recognise it when He answers you. 

We can miss answers to prayer, when what happens doesn’t look like we think it should. “So keep being alert and ready at all times. For I promise you that the Son of Man will surprise you and appear when you don’t expect Him.” Luke 12:40 TPT. I know this verse is about the second coming, but because it’s in the book it can also be speaking to each one of us, today! 

True Joy has freedom for us in it, even if the person experiencing it is in jail. Paul said—from jail!—“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” Philippians 4:4. Joy crosses man-made boundaries and laughs at them as it skips merrily on its way. Joy contains the pleasure of God’s love for us, even when it is face to face with pure evil. Stephen’s face was radiant as they were stoning him to death in Acts. He wasn’t just happy, he was —-JOYFUL.He was looking right at his Heavenly Father, and His Son, Jesus.

My advice is this, don’t try to put a lid on spontaneous joy, because it will break your lid and move away to where it is welcome and free to do what God sent it to do! Sometimes people try to organise the Lord, and create a joyous atmosphere. Let’s let Him take care of stuff like that – I’ve read Genesis 1 … the Holy Spirit is good at atmosphere, trust me! I ask Him for more and more joy, because the bible says His joy is my strength, and who doesn’t need strength every day?

Parts of Isaiah 61 say this about who we are and what we are here to do: “The Spirit of God has sent me …to care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename them “Oaks of Righteousness” planted by God to display His glory. They’ll rebuild the old ruins, raise a new city out of the wreckage. They’ll start over on the ruined cities, take the rubble left behind and make it new…” Lord let “… Your joy go on forever.” 

Do yourself a favour, and chase after JOY, it is such an important part of our daily lives – it’s a reality, not a feeling, a gift not a chore. Bye.  👋

P 2986 Nothing can stop us.

/ DVH

The Lord made a way to love every single one of us:  nice or not nice, loveable or evil, ignorant or wise, and His love is not wishy washy mush. It is triumphant in its power! God’s love goes beyond our comprehension. Love is not what I say or agree with, it is the way I choose to live. It is not a tap, that can be turned on or off, it is a flow of His love through me to you. I’m the conduit not the producer.

Having only known human, limited love as a child, the idea of perfect love can seem glorious, but elusive. So when I hear someone express doubt about God’s love for them or someone else, I begin to understand from my own personal experience, how they got there. They saw love as a feeling, as comfort when they needed it, as provision when they lacked something. So for these people, no good feelings, or experiencing bad feelings = no love. Love is what Paul is talking about in Romans 8:38-39 TPT.

“So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that His love will triumph over death, life’s troubles, fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken His love. There is no power above us or beneath us—no power that could ever be found in the universe that can distance us from God’s passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One!”

Paul had total confidence in the Love of God toward him. He went through all kinds of terrible trials and testings, but His assurance of God’s never-ending love did not change — despite the circumstances in his life. I have to remind myself all through the day that love is a choice I need to make over and over again and I cannot get there alone. I desperately need the Holy Spirit’s help and guidance. It is way beyond a human being’s comprehension to understand the magnitude of God’s love toward each one of us because most of us have been raised to believe that love is conditional. 

Jesus came here, on purpose to make that kind of love available to you and I, and the Holy Spirit was sent back to us, after He left to pour and spread God’s love all over us, around us and in us. The baptism in the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, is not just a baptism of fire —even though the disciples saw fire;  love IS fire, it burns away anything that does not let it in or out. Perfect love came and expelled all their fear. Love ignites a passion in the recipient that lasts a lifetime.

Pentecost was a fiery baptism of LOVE. His love burnt away every trace of fear in them. Those men and women left the place where they been had hidden away in fear from their fellow citizens, and they burst out into the public market place proclaiming Christ and all He had done. God’s love for the people pushed them out of their hiding place. It compelled them.

“For the love of Christ controls and compels us, because we have concluded this, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that all those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for their sake. So from now on we regard no one from a human point of view [according to worldly standards and values].”2 Corinthians 5:14-16a.

As we begin to discern how much we are loved by Him, we will automatically overflow with His love toward the people all around us who have not earned it, nor do they deserve it. The well of His love inside us bubbles up and overflows, but we have a part to play in this kind of outward looking love. It begins with obedience to our Saviour’s Words, and culminates daily in sacrificial ACTIONS toward other people. Things that can be seen and experienced by others. That kind of Love cannot be stopped, because its focus is on the One it loves, not on the effort that needs to be made to love other people.  

This kind of transformation will only be seen through us when we decide to make love a CHOICE and take deliberate action. From my own point of view, when I decided to make love a choice, I finally found out just how unloving I was!  Most human beings live this life in a series of trade-offs …I’ll be nice to you if you will be nice to me. then one day, all that ‘nice’ begins to wear off and we start keeping score of the bad things people do to us. We forget that every human being that has lived, or is living now, or ever will live — is dearly loved by God Himself. When we choose to misuse love or withhold it – we are fighting against the very nature of God.

His love simply will not wear out – it is holding the entire universe together. Read Colossians 3:14. Right now His love bonds this universe together. It is the perfect glue. And when we read 1 Corinthians 13 we discover its unique characteristics, it is not materialistic or self-serving. Jesus is God’s perfect love personified and personalised. He didn’t only come here as an expression of God’s love. He came to earth to demonstrate to each one of us the extent God was willing to go to, so we can be His children. Nothing can stop us from living a life filled with love, but our ill-informed belief system. Bye 👋.

P 2793 Learn to value peace above everything else …

/ DVH

…including toilet paper!More on that in a minute! … Peace can become quite elusive in this world today. My best advice to help maintain your peace is to make every effort to get along with others. I’ve learnt over the years that our emotions and wrong thinking can led us onto a slippery path where tempers flare and little things drive us insane. The bible tells us to “pursue peace.” We will have to run after it, it rarely falls on you, and it will take some pretty specific choices to avoid quarrelling. Loving others despite their behaviour, can stop any reciprocal attitudes. My rule of thumb to disengage from crankiness is this – what would love do? Then say something nice instead. 

Here’s a laugh… back when Covid was ruining everyone’s world. In my country there was absolutely no toilet paper in our supermarkets. It was all over the news. People were panic buying toilet paper … rolls and rolls. Why? I dunno! 😳 They tore about like demented loons chasing toilet paper. Peace went out of the window! Obviously some people can’t live without it. How hilarious! When I was a kid, our toilet paper consisted of torn up newspapers hanging on a hook. It totally blows my mind that at the same time in my history, fish and chips came wrapped up in newspaper too! 

The thing to remember, in times of unrest – the Lord’s peace often seems elusive and it doesn’t seem to make any sense. We want to defend ourselves. I am talking about internal peace – external peace is another story. That takes humility and a willingness to forgive. Our world around us can be exploding and/or falling apart and yet when we have His peace, we are internally, supernaturally removed from whatever is going on. We become spectators, not participants. (Psalm 91) So we can totally see what’s is going on, but we’re watching things happen from the outside. We cannot afford to leave that place of His peace to participate with the bad stuff – because we will lose what the Lord has given us.

Peace disappears, slowly … one bad decision at a time. We give it away when we start using our minds and emotions to analyse trouble or other people’s actions. That’s when we begin to participate. It helps to remember that dead people have no rights! If we talk, talk, talk about how I feel about this or that, or I choose to have an opinion on why someone else is behaving the way they are – I am giving away my God-given right to live in HIS PEACE in those moments of agitation, I become enmeshed within the perceived problem.  Even if I allow myself to become secretly angry with someone else’s behaviour, I will slowly lose His peace. We need to learn to value peace more than self-expression.

God’s kingdom is a PEACEFUL KINGDOM. There are no enemies there. No battles to fight. It’s a real place where everybody’s aim is to glorify the Trinity! We can also be faced with the same choices to overcome that Jesus had in Matthew 4:1-11. The Lord used the scriptures against our enemy. We too have the power to overcome sin, the world and the devil, the same way He did, but we need to choose to allow the Holy Spirit to show us the Way He wants to do it. There were times when Christ was silent in the face of His accusers. The value of saying nothing is often greatly underestimated. At the same time, the Holy Spirit will hand us the scriptures, (the sword) we need to fight with – we just need to calm down enough to hear Him. Spectators do not participate, they WATCH.

God’s peace is not fragile, it is robust when it is established, but it needs to be treasured and respected.  It was given to us for free, because of what Christ did for us. When Jesus suffered for our sins He became our new identity. He shows us the way to cultivate this peace in the following scripture. ““I leave the gift of peace with you—My peace. Not the kind of fragile peace given by the world, but My perfect peace.Don’t yield to fear or be troubled in your hearts—instead, be courageous!” John 14:27 TPT. 

Fear, anger, and worry will always come knocking in times of trouble, but we don’t have to answer the door, we can use our courage to fight those things off. And refuse entry to our hearts and minds through the enemy’s ghastly thoughts, painted scenarios and hideous suggestions. Our enemy is always there, like he was when Christ was tempted – he will hand us the next nasty line to throw at the other person. There is no winning in a war –  even the guy fighting with you has an eternal soul. At the same time, we need to remind ourselves, through bible verses —who we really are. We simply tell the enemy that we are not going to accept his nonsense – God’s in charge here! 

The way to keep His peace with us all the time, is to die daily to what suits us, and live for Jesus. He will help us but we must ask, and in some stressful moments we may need to keep on asking, because God stretches our faith. However, the Lord is never demanding – so if a demanding thought comes into your mind it is not Him. Jesus is kind, gentle and lowly in His heart, He simply wants to help us, the same way He was helped when His life seemed so bleak.  He sent us the Holy Spirit so we can learn to live with His peace prevailing. We need to learn to value that peace. Bye 👋

“You are always and dearly loved by God! So robe yourself with virtues of God, since you have been divinely chosen to be holy. Be merciful as you endeavour to understand others, and be compassionate, showing kindness toward all. Be gentle and humble, unoffendable in your patience with others.” Colossians 3:12 TPT