Enlarge

P 2832 Get ready to be stretched.

/ DVH

Years ago, a young fellow who had no family and would have been all alone for Christmas, joined us for Christmas lunch.  And when he started in on his third helping of a heaped plate, we started to suspect something was amiss. In those days we didn’t know a lot about the munchies, but the evidence spoke for itself, so we sort of kind of figured it out. The sad part was his everyday behaviour was often all over the place, even though he was part of the leadership team, yet nobody had ever noticed that this poor kid was hooked on Marijuana!

Did you know that in Proverbs 11:25, it says: “A generous person will prosper; Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” Today I want to present what I think could be an interesting idea. Ask someone who lives a lonely life, to Christmas lunch. Have you ever prayed: “Lord please show me something I can do for You?” Well, asking someone you don’t know very well to join you and your family for lunch at this time of the year could open a door to deeper relationships and possibilities, and it just might stretch you … all at the same time. Plus, bonus buy, everyone could make a new friend.

Over the years our family has learnt to have an elastic house. One year a young person slept on a fold-away-bed in our lounge, because his family had chucked him out. This dear young man could break things better than a compactor, but he was the most sweetly natured person. Eventually, after he left us, he matured, he married and now he is a plumber. Only heaven knows why his folks chucked him out – he was a great kid! Having him live with us was totally inconvenient, we lived in a tiny cottage, and we had to move his bed whenever we wanted to watch TV!  Plus at that time I was as sick as I could be. The immediate years post-liver transplant were not fun. But helping out people who were virtually homeless brightened up all our lives. Living an extra-ordinary life is challenging, but the rewards outweigh the negative bits. Especially retrospectively. 🤣

The thing we’ve noticed is that we can’t afford to let our own circumstances, govern our generosity. Back then, our lives were made so much richer by the people who came to live with us … even at the worst of physical and financial times – by God’s Grace we all managed. Father God is not trying to interrupt our carefully planned existence … He wants to enrich us. Other people and their unusual ways of thinking, being, and doing, will stretch us and bring us out into that bigger place mentioned in Isaiah 54:2.“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.”

We can pray that scripture for ourselves, and then wait for Him to do it for us until we are blue in the face, but the truth is, WE must learn to stretch our tents open and take risks… It is blatantly obvious that this kind of stuff is supernaturally natural, because Jesus Himself told us that when we do these things:“…for the least of these…”we are doing them for Him! Hands up anyone who wants to minister to the Lord? OK, you have your instructions. 

Just settle in your heart that it will be inconvenient, and put stuff away if you don’t want it broken! Actually, the surest way to discover the things that we are unreasonably attached to, is to have someone else break them! I learnt that the hard way!!  BUT … no matter what, we cannot lose, because of what we win… “Everything … everything … EVERYTHING … works together for our good, … for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.”

His purpose is to find willing vessels to fill with the Holy Spirit’s love and power! He doesn’t need experts — Jesus Himself chose ordinary  fishermen, a taxman, a former prostitute to be His followers  I mean, did you ever ask yourself Who taught Peter to speak like he did  in the book of Acts? The Holy Spirit did! The Lord is not looking for perfection – He doesn’t have to, He already is!

Like I said before, we will have to stretch ourselves to find His purpose for our lives. Remember, Jesus was homeless,  because there was no room at the inn. To me that means that you will never know who you could be taking in! Maybe a homeless angel, or a lost kid whose life was so painful he had to smoke his way through it. 

I think the poor are so poor, they have no time or energy for pretending, they are simply trying to survive. From a distance, it is easy to be put off by how they look … but God sees people clearly, He knows exactly who they are. We’ve found that poor people don’t need to be convicted of sin, when they are confronted with His Loving holiness, they know. The poor are easier to save than middle class people who think they are mostly pretty OK. 

Christianity is neither a hobby or a part-time job … it’s a life well lived. It’s a life lived the way Jesus would live it. I exhort you to begin to stretch your home and take in someone who might have Christmas dinner alone – or maybe even a bed for somebody who needs a safe place to sleep. That’s the way to get elastic houses. Bye. 👋 

P 2743 HE is our Hope …

/ DVH

… our ever present help in time of need! “Here’s what I’ve learned through it all: Don’t give up; don’t be impatient; be entwined as one with the Lord. Be brave and courageous, and never lose hope. Yes, keep on waiting—for He will never disappoint you!” Psalms 27:14 TPT  Today, I want to exhort everyone to embrace the hope that we have because of what Jesus Christ did for us!  When we dredge up or try to conjure up hope based on our circumstances, we can get disappointed in God, others, or ourselves. The bible makes it clear —if we have become disappointed, then we’ve lost our hope. God’s hope does not disappoint!  And Christ is that HOPE.

.

It seems to me that we often want the Lord’s help, but we don’t want to live our lives looking to Him all the time. Maybe we are a bit scared that God’s idea of what is good for us, will not match up with what we think it is! Philippians 2:21 says: “For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.”  We must take the time, even if it is just a few minutes every day, to stop, and specifically remember what Jesus did for us and thank Him. This pushes the refresh button in our hearts spiritually.

If we simply take the cross for granted, seeing it as a past accomplished event, there is a strong chance that eventually we will run out of hope, because the world around us is continually creating false finishing lines. I’m talking about running after those transitory things that really aren’t worth it when you get there! But Christ’s work and intercession on our behalf will create amazing things from our ordinary little lives. What Jesus did perfectly for us, is our best point of reference. His sacrifice is the hope that keeps us going, His POV is the lens we deliberately choose to look through.

Here’s what Paul said. It really sharpened my view of HOPE: Colossians 1:22,23a  “But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.”

We choose to stay with the reality of the Gospel because we can’t afford to move. We can’t wander off into theology land. Our hope cannot come from there, owing to the fact that theology land creates debate and uncertainty. Our hope comes from what Jesus did, and it’s in the book! It is very important that we don’t use up our energies running toward false finishing lines. I’ve found there is a huge blessing after I realised that hope actually comes from somewhere else – actually, it comes from SomeOne Else! I learnt that if I’ve lost hope, then I’ve moved away from my real life in Him.  It means I’ve wandered off and gone over into my own agendas.

Christ is always our only hope – not our circumstances, not the possibilities tomorrow presents, or something material we are striving for. He is our HOPE source, and He will stretch and enlarge us as we choose to walk with Him. Our hope isn’t IN what we think we believe, or what our favourite preacher said – but Jesus Christ Himself! That’s what building your life upon the Rock, looks like. The sand in our lives is the stuff in that shifts and moves, it gets stolen away, fades, or falls away and it can’t last! Hope is now our leader, it takes us, day by day, further into what the cross did for us. We choose to trust in Christ because of that cross.

Paul finishes his thoughts a few verses further on:  “I have become its (the church’s) servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ IN you, the hope of glory.”(V25-27).

Real hope now lives inside of us. We all received that hope when we said yes to Jesus – at the same time we gave away our old life and began to learn how to live the way the bible says.  Our task is to keep feeding and watering our hope with an ever expanding knowledge of what the cross of Christ did, in us and for us. I add to that  whatever the bible has spoken to me today, together with my obedience. We can’t afford to get our hope from our circumstances … practically everything around us can change in a heartbeat. 

The way to get through the times when it seems like our hope is fading, is to look at the cross and revisit what Christ did on it, for us. Because of what He did for us  – we changed kingdoms. Our sins were ever-so-real to us and others, before, but now they are gone! When our Heavenly Father looks at us – He sees Christ. Our bit is to co-operate with the Holy Spirit so that what Father God sees, becomes who we really are!  We need to daily remember Christ is IN us. He is our reference point. He is our hope of glory. 👋