Equipped

P 3249 He says we can.

/ DVH

Hey, you can argue with the King all you want, but … He’s gunna win… in the end! Living in and for the kingdom of God is like an investment. What we decide to do today, influences tomorrow. Unfortunately, bad decisions can often lead to worse ones. We are constantly faced with choices — will we invest in His Ways, His kingdom, or in our own needs and wishes? One of those things provides instant gratification, and the other builds trust in God’s Word. Plus it proves its reliability peace and joy in our personal experiences. Daily we are faced with choices, some of them easy and others are puzzling, that’s why we need our Helper, the Holy Spirit. 

My point for today is this — nobody feels equipped to do and say what the Lord asks us to do and say all the time. And if someone tells you something different wait for it… just like Pinocchio their nose will grow!  So let’s add  to that the idea that we all have stuff at the back of our spiritual closets, that we hope nobody else knows about! We can easily pile all the good stuff up in front, and hope that it’s all that is seen. But the point is –the Holy Spirit knows and sees, and He can clearly see what will make us stumble. That’s why He allows difficulties into our lives — under pressure who we really are comes OUT and e-ve-ry-bod-y can see it. Here’s what I’ve learnt along the way… the stuff you hide, from others and yourself, ends up leaking out, anyway!!

So that’s why I like to keep things simple and deal with nasty things as they happen. BTW, SIN is not a personality trait!  I’ve mentioned before – that I can’t remember details easily anymore – like what I wrote yesterday!! Sorry ‘bout that!  Sadly if I panic about it, it gets a whole lot worse! Hasn’t the Lord got the most hilarious, funny and amazing sense of humour to pick an old lady to write a blog – and she can’t remember what she said ten minutes ago! That’s why I need my editor.

Here’s the thing that helps keep me humble. My short-term memory has been affected by minor explosions in my brain. All of this happened without my permission, more’s the pity! All the positive speak didn’t fix it, so I just roll with the punches. However…my spouse remembers the stuff I wrote, because’s he’s the editor. Well, I can sometimes end up cranky at him because I am sure that “I never said that!”  And he is sure I did, and off we go… … to places we’d both better avoid. Getting older is really good for humbling yourself because you need help with almost everything…which is why I recommend that we learn to humble ourselves before we get there. Too late for me – sadly, I’m learning on the job! 

Here’s a helpful hint when it comes to living with other people. I love this particular scripture in 1st Corinthians 6:7. It says this: “These court cases are a black eye on your community. Wouldn’t it be far better to just take it, to let yourselves be wronged and forget it? All you’re doing is providing fuel for more wrong, more injustice, bringing more hurt to the people of your own spiritual family.” What is Paul saying? I think you can end up in even more trouble and strife, when you try to defend yourself, and you set out to prove it. Legally or not! It is far better to take a big breath, and just let things go. Boy, do you find out how much PRIDE … yeah, that’s it, the ‘P” word… when you try to let things go that have really irritated and irked you! That’s when logic tries to take over … and logic makes a terrible commander-in-chief.

The reason Jesus is a great leader is that He beat our enemy once and for all, and then He died for us to set us free from compulsively serving satan. We don’t have to do, or react, or entertain those nasty things anymore. Investing in God’s kingdom is like putting things on lay-by, the gratification usually comes later.  We  continue to invest in Him by our actions. We remind ourselves that in His kingdom there are ongoing costs – things we will have to let go of – but we walk with the King. Nuthin’ beats that! Here’s the bad bit, investing in this world’s kingdom is like putting stuff on your maxed-out credit card when you just got fired! There’s no way you are going to pay that debt off in a hurry!

The kindness of God is that He will never make us choose His Ways, that choice is always ours. Here’s another verse I love, it is a hard one. 1st Corinthians 12:31b says: “And yet I will show you a still more excellent way [one of the choicest graces and the highest of them all: unselfish love].”  We can find many ways to serve God and others, but Paul tells us this is the BEST way. This isn’t hard to remember! Big plus for me – absentminded Annie! I simply ask myself: “Is this love?”  If I am in doubt about what love would do, I refer to His book, and I ask Him to help me find an appropriate scripture. 

Don’t despair if you lose your way, or maybe your will seems like it is acting independently! This can happen when we stop regularly meditating on His love for us. Remind yourself that nothing can separate from His Love and go back to what you were doing in the first place. Putting Him first. The joy of belonging to Jesus is that our debt has already been paid, and with Him we are safe and saved. We have His power in us to overcome our own selfish ways, and we can let other people’s selfishness go, plus we look in our own back yard to see if we are growing the right fruit! Love is always the right fruit. 

Our first and most important ministry is to love others the way He loved us. We may not feel like we can, but because HE says we can, we can. We simply need to choose to believe His Word, over whatever we think we know about ourselves. PS When I read stuff like the Beatitudes I ask the Lord to show me what He thinks, I don’t excuse myself. Bye. 🥰

P 2608 My final hidden gem.

/ DVH

This precious gem is about being honest with myself, as well as others. It is a gem that is hidden. Other people may notice inconsistencies, but what goes on in our own heads is only made clear when we speak or act … or both! Sadly, personal dishonesty is a big snare. It happens when we colour our own perceptions in with pretty colours, to hide any spiritual lack or laziness we have chosen to tolerate. Jesus is “…the Way, the Truth and the Life …”John 14:6. We cannot possibly follow Him and not be truthful with ourselves! John also said: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”3 John 1:4.

Let me explain. We can convince ourselves that in order to serve God we need to be a/ ready;  b/ equipped;  c/ doing really well spiritually. Rhubarb! It is not good to allow that kind of escapist thinking in our lives. Yes, I know that’s a bit harsh, but just like a child needs correction, or it will make up its own rules …  adults too use evasion far more than we realise – simply to escape from the very reason we were saved.

Now let’s look at a/ being ready. Have you read in the book that Jesus is coming back? To be accurate, actually, He’s ‘coming READY or NOT!’ Ya might wanna Selah that for a second or two. And here’s another nifty thought! The people who said they couldn’t come to the beyond-our-dreams wedding feast – missed out. (Matthew 22.) Just saying … 😶 …You know God doesn’t want you and I to be the whole ballgame, we are part of a team. But the people who don’t join in with the team usually end up on the bench.

On to – b/ equipped. Jesus sent His totally untrained, undisciplined, haven’t-got-a-clue disciples out to do what He did. (See Mark 6:7-13; Luke 9:1-2.) Um … now let’s see what He told them to do … He sent them to raise the dead, heal the sick, cast out demons and announce the kingdom of God has come! Without any training or anything!! Not even a conference! And guess what? They didn’t have the bible either! They simply took Jesus’ word and His Name and went out and did it. Training is only ever useful if we apply it.

And c/ our lack of spirituality. Christians give up their desire to truly embrace the Christian Way of life with the feeblest of excuses. We lack honesty … which is kind of criminal if you think about the fact that we pay incredible attention to appearances! We look at others as being more spiritual than we are, or more qualified, and use that as an excuse. “Oh, those people see angels. They prophesy. They are missionaries. That group over there pray in tongues.” Instead of finding excuses, why can’t we find reasons to try?! The short answer is – we don’t want to, it’s too hard, it is inconvenient. But the Jesus Christ that lives in those other more spiritual people, lives in you and me, and HE has never been, nor will He ever be … inadequate! There are things that we will never experience unless we’re prepared to take a risk. 

EG: there is no need to walk on water if you have a ferry standing by. We will need to walk on water when there is no other way to get to the other side! At the same time there is no need to trust God for food when the supermarket is down the road, and you have money in your pocket. We simply must understand that our lack of total honesty with ourselves is crippling our faith. We would be far better off to say: “I don’t want to,” than we are to say: “I can’t.”  “I don’t want to,” can be repented from! Let’s get that rebellion out in the open where it can be dealt with.

Other people tried evasion and it failed because God didn’t take any notice of their feeble excuses. (Moses, Gideon, Jonah, Jeremiah …I could go on!!) We have plenty of examples in the Bible of people who had huge excuses as to why they couldn’t possibly do what the Lord asked them to do and, you know what? He said … “Do it anyway.” 

Human beings have been making excuses since the garden of Eden! Every time the Lord Himself helped people do what they were asked to do, but there were also times when He said “Use your faith!”  And once or twice He said: “Where did your faith GO?” Why do we leave so much work to a half a dozen people, when what needs to be done needs an army?! An army functions because every man does the job he was given. And experience thrives when we simply turn up and get going! Experience is another way to know Almighty God for yourself.

Christianity was never designed by God to be a part time job. Jesus, Who is our Perfect Example, did not do the work God gave Him to do part-time. Jesus Christ was always ALL IN. He was always on. Honesty with ourselves and others is a hidden gem, it is a key to opening new doors in our faith that have remained firmly shut.  Bye. 👋

P 2327 The good fight happens in your head.

/ DVH

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” II Timothy 3:16-17 NKJV. 

After reading this scripture, I had this totally mad thought. Could this be the reason so many of us are stuck in the same place we’ve always been, with one foot nailed to the ground, going round and round? Mainly because we have not grown beyond the places of assent into action. Is this happening because we are not accepting the inspiration and discipline of scripture to correct us, reprove and instruct us in righteousness? And so we only read and accept the bits we like, rather than we actually read the book to find out where we need to be changed? Yikes! 

I know the bible says “…and forget not all His benefits…”BUT! That’s just one kind of verse. The bible has loads of other verses that are instructions, and it is time we started memorising scriptures that challenge our religious beliefs. Christianity is not a club, or a part-time occupation, it is a monarchy –  a theocracy.  A single Ruler …Christ.

That thought about scared the daylights out of me. Do we really think that simply agreeing with what it says, is the same as doing what it says?  Double yikes … and … an ‘oh my goodness’ thrown in! 😳 I know we can’t make every single change all at once, but we need to start somewhere. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is more willing to help us than we are to be helped. 

Pick something that comes up often in your life and start there. Maybe that could be traits that drive other people close to us nuts, YAY!! We need to be humble and open and pliable enough to go after change. Seek advice, don’t hide from the truth. “Confess your faults to one another that you may be healed.“ Otherwise we are easily diagnosed by James as double-minded. And we will get nowhere because we continue to ignore our own faults.

By all means be encouraged by the Lord from His book, but please don’t let the need for pastoral care overshadow, or eliminate the need to be transformed. We can spend so much time trying to make ourselves feel better over things that actually need forgiveness, or repentance, or reconciliation, or reparation… or all of them! 

We can end up so focussed on ourselves we forget our mandate…which is to love others, by sharing the gospel in all its power and authenticity. Plus living our lives the way Christ would – today. In our own homes, with our families, and the people who really know us – as well as other people we don’t know well. They can’t see through our pleasant exteriors. 

There is no lasting value or even any transformation in just admitting our faults and praying over them, and then leaving the transformation to Him. We simply must engage in the process. I’ve found that once the Lord highlights some fault of mine, opportunities to yield to Him and act in faith – pop up like daisies. I am not always thrilled by this, but I have also discovered that obedience and transformation leads to greater revelation and deeper commitment to the King.

I’ve also learnt that I need to actively, prayerfully, continually, revise my behaviour – especially when I find my thoughts start feeding me a diet of other people’s faults. Have you ever noticed, when someone is being provocative and contrary, how easy it is to remember the last time they offended you? Our enemy is delighted to run these things by us when we feel weak or vulnerable. Take heart — this means the Lord is giving us strength training.

I don’t know how we can ever think we can fight satan when we have difficulty fighting temptations. God sent us a round-the-clock, available at any second, Helper. Instead of denying the faults we have, we need to use these things as an opportunity to diagnose, repair and bring healing into our lives and the life of someone else. We are fighting for other people’s right to hear the good news for themselves. Of course our enemy wants to distract us at any turn, we have been given the power to usher in new beginnings for others. Ya might want to think on that. 🧐