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P 2922 Help!

/ DVH

‘🎼Way out west where the rain don’t fall’ …🎶”. The people living out here, In Western Victoria, have been in drought for 6 years!! We discovered that on this trip. You won’t find it in the news, I looked. Because of overseas politics, or rampaging delinquent kids, plus people maliciously hurting each other – those things have pushed this kind of news off the front page. Instead we know more about what some movie star is doing!

These people have also had terrible bush-fires, which are a direct result of electrical storms and very dry foliage. Hubby and have driven for days and days on empty roads, past paddocks where farmers are desperately hand-feeding their stock off the back of their ute. Imagine an electricity bill for a farmer… when you pay your own bill next time.

These people, in our very own country, need help, and a loving caring acknowledgement of the fact that they are doing it tough. Money is a help but it is also a temporary solution. Maybe if we lived sacrificially we could be more help— why not store your money up in heaven like Jesus suggested and help the poor. You never know, the poor may live next door to you!

There are a number of passionate Christians who want to go on a mission trip to a much poorer country and be a blessing to the inhabitants, by joining in with some famous evangelist or other … They want to be a part of their team and see miracles…but … NOBODY comes to places like these! Jesus stopped for the one who was sitting beside the road, just as easily as He ministered the Word of God to thousands of people. 

We’ve just come through an extensive period in the church where we’ve had such incredible teaching – on the net, there are great bible schools, or through social media, on TV, even evangelists and healing ministries have come to town … But now, many churches are as dry as the paddocks hubby and I have seen — day after day after day. We all love going up the front and being prayed for, but it seems when those feelings went away … so did our passion for growth!

Instead we seem to have become more greedy for signs and wonders and not fruit. (John 4:48). The Lord spoke to me today and told me that in this life we sometimes think the majority must be right … “That is error,” He said. “I died for everyone. I want My children to bless that one right in front of them. You will find them under bridges, in doorways, huddled in bus shelters …  … winter is coming. Their homes have been repossessed, they can’t find a job, and they have nowhere to live.”

Helping others opens doors to all kinds of conversations. When you speak to a middle-aged woman about Jesus and the bible;  you could discover that she has no clue what you are talking about. And yes, hubby shared the gospel with that particular lady and gave her a bible … among other things!

Everywhere we have been for the past 14 days, we have discovered that there is a huge need for kindness and generosity. It seems many Christians have lost touch with the wonderful blessing of using what we have, to reach out to others who have so little. You know, it never hurts children to learn, firsthand, to freely share with those less fortunate than themselves. 

Hubby was telling me that he spoke to someone where we are right now. This man said electricity bills are bad in people’s houses, everywhere. But for a business like a country supermarket, for example, they pay up to $20,000 a month. Imagine that! Without even buying stock to fill their local store, these people out here have to find more money than I can imagine, every single month just to keep the doors open and their fridges cold. We shop locally wherever we go, to sow money back into the country towns.

We are used to travelling through the countryside now, so we never pass a dam, or a creek without looking for water in it. We know water is life out here. It is not a mistake that the bible is called living water. Maybe you could take bibles on your next holidays, and give them away. Don’t forget bibles and books for kids —or the next generation will know even less about the Lord Jesus than the last one does! The days of trusting other people to do this work are over — those of us who say we love Jesus, must pay much greater attention to what brother James said in his bit of God’s book.

James 2: 14-17.“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

Mankind is a family, a global family. The Holy Spirit loved and cherished each one of us enough to spend 9 months forming us inside our mothers!  We will serve our better selves when we help each other. People say to  me: ”Well you are always going on about listening to the Holy Spirit and He didn’t tell me anything, so it must not be my job.” This is my reply: “I’m sorry but you are wrong. Looking after the poor and helpless is mentioned over 2,000 times in the bible. He has never stopped speaking about it – you have just stopped listening. Loving one another is a strong theme.”

The people we’ve met out here every single day, need Help. They are not rich and they do not have ‘spare money!’ They need His help through us. He will become real to them, through you. Thinkabout it. Bye. 👋

P 2774 It’s time we started …

/ DVH

… to hear His Voice in someone else’s voice. Someone prayed for this at church the other day and it impacted me. We need to find and see Jesus in each other. How? Well, to start with – He lives there! We said: “Come into my life Lord Jesus, and take over.” And He did. How we feel from day to day is irrelevant. Emotions are fickle they change with our circumstances.

However, sometimes what we are really saying is: “You can come into the lounge Lord. It’s nice and tidy in there, I cleaned that up the other day. But please don’t go into the bedroom, that’s a mess. And definitely stay away from the kitchen and the bathroom, You won’t like what You find in there!” A “Keep out” sign is a warning bell, clanging away trying to get our attention. It is not good to have keep out signs in our lives. It usually means something is badly amiss. Something we don’t want to fix or even pay attention to, because we like it, and we know full well … HE WON’T. It also contaminates our relationships with others.

I had keep out signs practically everywhere, when I first started to follow Him. Life had greatly shattered my trust in humanity. I was afraid I might lose something I cared about. Like my snarky attitudes that I had previously cultivated before I met Him, so I could protect myself. Did you know that keeping a bad attitude toward someone else is like SUPER GLUE? We have the power to stick them there, right in a place where we don’t like them! Read the book. We have the power to forgive people … or not!  A bad attitude is like wearing coloured glasses.

The Lord is far more patient with any of us than we will ever deserve. Praise God, Jesus came here as a human being, so He gets … PEOPLE. If you don’t believe me then read the way He relates to the disciples when they’d lost their brain. Or they didn’t want to change their minds because they couldn’t see anything wrong with their thinking! Those keep out signs stop US from changing too. Meanwhile it’s a wonder, at the beginning of my relationship with the Lord that He had somewhere, at all, to put a toe on. 

But after it took me awhile to realise my error, here’s what I did instead. I’ve pulled out all the keep out signs, because they limit God and I don’t want to limit the Answer! And instead I put up a “proceed with caution, please Lord” one. That sign is for my benefit, not His. He has more loving kindness than I will ever experience anywhere else, but I need to say it, and He listens to me so patiently. I love Him for that.

I think this is part of the problem with our fellowship within the church. Some of us have been so badly bruised by the very people we thought were perfect when we were growing up spiritually, that we put up keep out signs everywhere. On the chimney, on the lawn, in the window, by the front gate… you name it! Now we are just plain scared of other people’s faces and responses, so we live guarded lives. Lives peppered with plastic fruit. Other people could hurt us … BUT …we won’t tell them about it, because that would give them an advantage over us. No faith there.

Here’s a not-so-wonderful revelation — keeping His kids out, limits our growth. The Lord will not limit His right leg, His elbow or His kidneys by seeing them as separate to Him. We are all part of His body. We do whatever we do on His behalf. Jesus has owned us, and become engaged to us, by choice. And He will do everything He can, without violating anyone’s free will, to keep us safe with Him.

Accepting any difficult or nasty people at church is part of loving Him… it’s in the book. Actually it’s often in the part of the book, we don’t much like reading so we avoid it. But the Lord is so gracious, and spiritually attuned, that He can look after us and our overwhelming feelings of fear and doubt, and still not hurt someone else who scares the life out of us. Boy is that a skill I really want!

So, here’s the answer to the church-is-the-place-where-everybody-pretends-to-love-everybody problem. I look for Jesus in that other person. Sometimes  we may need the Lord to install a huge love filter.  My filter is in Colossians 3:14: “Together with these things, the most important part of your new life is to love each other. Love is what holds everything together in perfect unity.“Let the Holy Spirit do this whole relationship thing between each of us – He’s brilliant at it… At the same time we need to prayerfully insist that now, today, we want to accept and love other people. The real deal can take time to grow .. keep pressing on. 

We may have to throw out a whole heap of our own prejudices and smelly attitudes to get there – but embracing love helps us all grow beyond platitudes. Honesty is great, but please don’t tell the other poor sod that you’ve always hated them – that’s counterproductive. Seeing love through His eyes, means we develop spiritual sight, which goes right along with spiritual hearing. We need to turn off that snarky voice inside our head that comments about other people’s sincerity – and aim at love.

My last clue to solving the problem of loving the brethren is pray. Pray, pray, pray pray pray. Then do something nice, like ask them about themselves. You can get a whole lot of insight into someone else’s attitudes by simply listening, it’s a greatly underestimated skill. It is time we started to hear His voice within other people’s voices. The spirit of isolation leads to error. Bye. 👋

P 2769 Be Gentle with people.

/ DVH

“Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.”  2 Timothy 2:22-26.

When people disagree with us theologically and we know they are wrong, we need to come alongside them, and go over the truth from the bible, mixed with great spiritual wisdom and kindness. There are many people today that would probably say nothing at all, because they feel somebody else’s error is none of their business and disagreement is not of God. But here, Paul is telling us not to fight about stuff, but we can’t ignore it either. Error flourishes when the truth is not explained, and error has a picnic when people stop reading their bibles!

Timothy is being instructed by Paul to dialogue with others about theological differences. The thing is, we don’t have to disagree about these things, but we do need to address them. It is part of our mandate to make the Lord’s ways, as written in His book, clear. In my own family there is someone who has some quite squirrelled-up ideas about God and what He will or won’t do. I remind myself often that love covers a multitude of sin – and love is not a feeling it is a choice. So love cares deeply if the other person is misinformed, but it doesn’t punish them for not knowing what the truth is, it demonstrates it, as well as corrects it.

However, please don’t overlook the fact that satan is the prince of the power of the air and he makes a lousy interpreter of what somebody else just said!! Clarification is imperative. Instead, no matter how either party feels, pray,  and release the Holy Spirit to bring about reconciliation and a deeper understanding. People can hear you better if you stand with them, not on the other side of some theological fence. We need to practise humility, and not blame. And if we are to correct others, we need to be humble and open to correction ourselves. Fighting doesn’t teach anyone anything, it just makes other people defensive.

Meanwhile, I think the Lord is on the move. The church at large, seems to think that God moving means ‘good times for ALL.’  Actually, I don’t think that. “…narrow is the gate, and few people find it…” I think this is the time to throw out erroneous theology and concentrate on what the bible says. We’ve been stuck on the “God wants to bless me and make my life great” turntable for way too long and many people were flung off it because it did not ring true in their own lives. The Holy Spirit is looking into our lives and asking each one us about what we believe and WHY. He’s levelling our theological roads to make a highway for our God. He knows how to fix everything. Meanwhile, in the Lord’s Presence, disagreements melt away. 

When God points out error it is not to condemn anyone.“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge and condemn the world … but that the world might be saved through Him.” John 3:17. So, I can say, unequivocally, that nobody should ever feel condemned, however, convicted works for me! Condemnation is not from God and it’s not why Jesus came! He came to save us from our sins, past, present and future. Jesus knows how to get through this stuff, He talked to the religious leaders in His ministry. He is truth. And He knows how anyone can escape from the enemy’s lies and traps. “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13.

Did ya get that? I had to read it a couple of times before I did. The word endure popped out. Sometimes the best answer is to lovingly endure someone else’s ignorance. Meanwhile this verse also means He won’t immediately fish us out of whatever is going on… remember – He promises to be WITH US in trouble!  And faith does not grow without str-etch-ing …. What we have at stake here is the mistaken perception that if God is good, why do good people suffer? That’s an easy one –  all have sinned! His compassion for other people won’t fall on us, we must become alive to it, and often experience will teach us more than a theory can.

We are told in 2 Timothy that we must not be quarrelsome. Speaking for myself, I hardly ever start out trying to be quarrelsome, I jump in when I can see someone else is hurting themselves with a false belief system. I have also observed that there are times when people seem argumentative, but they are simply trying to explain themselves. Sometimes, loudly and aggressively! But, listening carefully is the very best posture to take. Responding like this can let the angry hot air out of someone else’s bright red balloon and disarm the situation. We simply need to continue to live in love, no matter what is said … and agreement comes later. And conviction comes from the Lord Himself, not from our opinions, even if they are accidentally right.

It can be really hard to talk to someone we know about touchy issues. Stress is everywhere and people get defensive. Even nice people!  We can all feel anxious and attacked when somebody else points out our faults or mistakes. That is time to ask for the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and help. The world gently  stands out in 2 Timothy — that means we will need the Grace of God to help us to operate in all our conversations, ‘gently,’ and not get ticked off. The major thing in any argument is to remember that nobody likes to be misunderstood, or have their personhood maligned. Insulting the other person, and what they believe, is counterproductive.

We can’t change someone else’s behaviour, instead, we are looking to introduce God’s Love into the situation so both people stop focussing on the issue, and start to remember that even if they are wrong or misinformed that God already forgave them and He accepts them. We do not have to be held captive to any strategy of satan that has been sent to create pain, division and strife, instead we can choose to become God’s messengers of gentleness, accompanied by acceptance and love. Bye 👋

P 2749 Don’t settle for less than on fire!

/ DVH

I’ve been listening to a number of different things lately, all made possible by YouTube. I discovered Project of Love this morning. It consists of verses from the bible in spontaneous song. Featuring books like Isaiah, Psalms, Habakkuk, Mark, and many more – about 22 so far, and these Scriptures set to music are accompanied by the really powerful images. It was a breath of fresh air.  Xander, the guitar playing singer, heard the Lord tell Him to pick up his guitar and sing what He was reading from Isaiah.

At that time, Xander did not know God, and he had been deeply depressed, he was on suicide watch. He was saved on the spot! After watching this man’s joy in action it really convicted me that it is easy to get stuck in the ways of the past. In the days to come I think that the Lord will bring out some extraordinary gifts from ordinary people, in whatever He is going to do next. Meanwhile, maybe we’ve made worship or teaching about having musically experienced leaders, and competent musicians. In other words we look for the people with the best voices or those who have been trained. But we sing to help US focus and to bless His heart. Ephesians 5:19 – “Speaking to yourselves, in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” 

This thought meant that I asked myself some questions …  why should worship be about the sound, and not our hearts? The danger for all of us who know exactly what to say and do, is that worship can become a routine, and everything is left to the leader out the front. Yet I think we could see a day when the Lord might take members of society that the church would reject, or maybe pass over, because they don’t meet some sort of ‘ministry’ standard. He wants them contribute.

Personally, I believe God is going to gift some people in extraordinary ways, like our friend Xander! But because the people outside our churches are ‘unchurched’ they will not have the inbuilt agendas most of us cheerfully adhere to. 

Sometimes it seems that the church at large has accepted fear as a subtext, accidentally. It seems that we are afraid of wandering off into error. However, that’s when we can unfortunately trample on the very gifts God wants to raise up! It is much too easy for us to get stuck in the way that things have always worked in the past.

Here’s a thought: … muscles are developed when they are gently but regularly stretched. Maybe the Body of Christ needs to do some heavenly stretching! Is our collective faith big enough for what He wants to do next? Our trust in His ability to care for us in any circumstance, seems to have given way to the fear of making mistakes or being misled by enthusiasm. Are we settling for the known and the comfortable, the routine and predictable, because those things are regarded as being normal and controllable. Our God is bigger than that. When Jesus came into this world, He challenged the norm by His very Presence!

Does our preaching and teaching rely more on expertise and knowledge than passion? I heard someone preach the other day and they were all over the place like jam, and yet they still managed to challenge me! Is strict adherence to conformity the very reason the church has settled into separate denominations? In many churches we go along with the same old same old, because somebody more senior and knowledgeable in God sets the rules and now we just blindly follow them. Maybe this is why some people continually hop about changing churches like the pop-up moles in Whack-a-Mole? Perhaps we are shopping around for churches that make us comfortable? Who are we here for again?? HIM or us?

We all know that I’m not the biggest fan of jumping around between churches –  yet in my denomination that seems to be almost expected, as well as accepted. But it is extremely important to remember that the Lord will choose the setting He wants to place us in. A new church is not like choosing a new shirt – for us to reach our full potential we need to rub up against people who are going to annoy the living daylights out of us! If we choose our comfort over His opportunities for our growth – we will stay babies and toddlers. 

Growth occurs as we discover our own hearts have deceived us and we are convicted by our sinfulness. So, do we  avoid change because it is inconvenient or we don’t like it, or we don’t think it is necessary? Maybe we even know we are stuck but we keep waiting for the Lord to turn up and fix the mess we’ve made?  Our job is to repent, and work with the Holy Spirit — to challenge ourselves and face up to the things we don’t like. Then we need to prayerfully revise our attitudes. Change is not just agreeing with the bible, change is when we look like Jesus and act like He would.

As Christians we cannot afford to settle for anything less than being on fire! Let’s reject the comfortable same-old same-old status quo, and press in to make sure we please His heart as well as continually press in to expand our love for Him. Bye.👋

“Don’t you realize that together you have become God’s inner sanctuary and that the Spirit of God makes His permanent home in you?” 1Corinthians 3:16 TPT

P 2735 Who are you angry with?

/ DVH

If someone asked me that question I would probably say: “no-one.” Actually I might think about it for a bit, and maybe I would come up with one or two people that kinda irk me every now and then but my response would be: ‘… I’m not angry! No way!’ Now here’s a laugh for you … or you could cry. I’ve done both. Ask the Lord who you are mad at, and sit and wait for His answer. ps Don’t believe that little voice inside your head that says you are OK. That voice will tell you that you are a perfectly splendid person who never gets mad, it’s someone else’s fault for provoking you. That’s that liar – it’s not Jesus. 

At the same time it could also be you, making excuses for yourself. Err on the side of caution and press into the Lord about it anyway … and take a pen … because you are going to need one. Yeah, I know, I seem so sure of myself about this subject … that’s because I’ve been doing stuff like this for quite a while now. One time recently when I asked the Lord that question He said: ‘the postman!’  I’m like … ‘the POSTMAN Lord??? Really??? What on earth did HE do that gave me an opportunity to be angry at him?’ Then the Lord spoke this magic sentence “… remember when you were waiting impatiently for that important parcel … and it didn’t come?” … …

Aha! The Lord and I were about to have a teaching moment. I am dumb, but I have learnt not to talk over the top of Him! I’ve also learnt to agree with Him and let Him explain to me the error in my thinking. Plus I get a freebie – a way to deal with it. He gave me this picture and I kind of liked it – I hope you find it helpful. Suppose getting mad at someone else was represented with something concrete:  every time you get miffed at another person or situation because it doesn’t suit you – someone gives you an orange. Would you like to guess how many oranges you will have at the end of the day? Mine was 3 bags and still counting!  No wonder I am always tired!! I’m carrying around 3 kgs of oranges, voluntarily!!🍊

Meanwhile calling anger by another name does not change a thing. It just makes ME feel better and more in control. You know what I mean, calling it lesser things like – miffed, ticked off, irritated, cross, displeased, provoked and irked – those are just a few synonyms for angry, and there are lots more …!! 🙄 Just having kids can throw you headfirst into plenty of opportunities to be angry. Meanwhile if you actually stumble into rage, please count me out. I have no brilliant ideas for dealing with that one! Maybe take a cold shower??… Like I said … not a clue!

My very, very elderly parent forgets what she just said. And she also forgets what you said three seconds ago when you answered her. So she asks “How are you?”…   every three minutes. It seems like time stands still just being around her and you are caught in this time warp! You try to change the subject but the minute there is silence – off she goes again! That’s on ME, BTW, not her. I can, however, with the Lord’s help have compassion on her, my brain cells are slowly dying off too.

Another fav irritating thing that happens with astonishing regularity is caused by our dog!  She loves to bark at anyone who comes within a half a mile of our house. I mean they could be 4 houses down and just walking along, on the other side of the road, minding their own business … But she goes off her rocker explaining to us that there’s  a person! I roar at the dog, because I’m embarrassed at the noise she makes – but let’s not talk about me shouting at her, that’s another thing altogether!

Now over to a few solutions. Well there aren’t any. Just get over yourself and repent. My dear parent is going to continue to ask “how are you” because she’s stuck, and she’s polite and wants to contribute, and praise God she is still here to do it! And the dog is going to continue to announce every stranger who walks past our house. However, personally, I am getting so sick of collecting oranges! What to do? Here’s what the bible says: “Be angry but don’t sin, don’t let the sun go down on your anger.”Ephesians 4:26. Now that’s good advice … I need to take it … I often remember that scripture the day after I fall in!

Sadly, there are some things that we can let the sun go down on, and come up again, etc. etc. over and over. Here’s the only thing I can suggest. Forgive whoever it is on purpose. Go in person if you can and ask them for forgiveness, then every single time it comes up in your mind, or that person does whatever it is AGAIN, remind yourself you already forgave them, and repent for digging up dirt on somebody else. Next, deliberately take the time to ask the Holy Spirit if that irritation etc. is standing on something. Do I remember this advice all the time? Of course not!

Some things remind us of the past or someone else, and then we react badly because we are standing on a mound of hurt. Repent, forgive whoever it was and ask for healing. Other people’s sins should fade out of our lives – yes, even if they do continue to do the same thing over and over again. It is OUR sin we are concerned about … of course I am an abject failure at that one too!  My advice, don’t let anger ruin your days… and if you do! Repent quickly. Bye 👋

P 2687 The bible is huge – it just keeps getting bigger!

/ DVH

The bible is constantly revealing more about our Lord and Saviour, and His Ways – it is like the universe, still expanding. As our knowledge of Him grows so does the power and content of this book! Our corporate or personal experiences should never be used to negate what His book says, because we don’t know everything … despite the way we sometimes present ourselves to this world! We can easily misunderstand what this book says, or we can accept someone else’s POV and take it as our own without even personally investing in it. It is folly to say “God doesn’t do that” or “He won’t do this,” based on the fact that He has not done whatever it is for us, personally. We dare not judge the scriptures by our own experiences. Our experiences are limited and He is a limitless God! 

We — as part of the whole body of Christ, must stop thinking that our little denomination contains the only people who know the truth, so what our church thinks and says, is the only way. Actually only liking a church because you agree with its theology can be a dangerous thing. We just limited God to whatever our church believes. That won’t lead to transformation … it could lead to all kinds of false expectation – some of it very unrealistic! We need honest uncharismatic leaders who simply walk with the Holy Spirit.

Just because Joe Bloggs goes to a little church on top of a hill in the country, and you or I go to a mega church that meets in the city – that doesn’t make our doctrine more right than Joe’s – or Joe more right than us. It’s great if our really big church has an evangelist, pastor, prophet and teacher and lots of functioning helpers etc!  Perhaps Joe’s church has a pastor who only comes once a month!! What does it matter, if he bows his knee to Christ and so do we? We are family. Personally, I think that as ‘the Lord looks on the heart’ then that’s where we should learn to look too! 

If we want to find a good leader then we need to find an honest man who admits he’s not all that, and he’s not there yet … (wherever there is) … and that honest person continually shares his personal growing edges from the pulpit. Meanwhile it is daft to leave everything, including pressing in, to the pastor, or the prophet or someone-Who-knows Jesus better-than-I-do. Otherwise we are putting undue pressure on the top. Reaching the world belongs to all of us not just to the guy out in front. He’s the Leader. That means he is the one appointed to give us direction. He gives the Lord’s accent on things that God wants us to carefully look at, as a part of the whole body … and that includes Joe’s church!

We simply must stop seeing our own little corner of this world, and what we have learnt, as the whole answer. Jesus Christ is everyone’s Answer!! If Almighty God gave any of us His whole answer it would blow our minds! And then we would end up running about like headless chickens trying to make whatever He said happen … when none of us can accomplish anything lasting. We have more resources than the generations that went before us, yet reaching the world still escapes us! While we are fragmented we are losing the incredible power of agreement. We need humble, respectful unity.

There is spiritual power available for any individual who has been trained by obedience, and learnt love while they are following Him. In the Bible, we have our best example of the power of an obedient man! During the temptation in the wilderness – Jesus told our enemy: “man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” After resisting the enemy’s temptations, Jesus went out into the world and lived out what He just said. How hard can it be? it ain’t rocket science, even fishermen eventually managed to listen and do!

The Lord Jesus lived minute by minute giving us an example to follow. If we insist on simply adhering to our denominational rules there is a strong possibility that even more generations will miss out on the POWER that flows through corporate obedience. This life isn’t just about giving the right answers, it’s about living out what we know, and what we are becoming, in our own small way. We are the Word of God that people can see, so everyone around us can know that Jesus Christ is real. We don’t follow religious rules, we follow the same Holy Spirit Christ Himself followed.

So every single day, individually, we personally go to God to get instructions for ourselves, for our own life. We read the book, pray over it, and then go out and do whatever the bible told us to do! And that’s why I think it is not good to shop around and join a church that preaches the kind of stuff we think we want to hear. Personal growth comes from being stretched and challenged. We need the person who is our leader to LEAD, let’s forget the popularity contest.

In many churches today, we have allowed popularity and/or fear to rule us. Jesus did everything He did for ALL of us, so it is a crying shame for the body of Christ to be ruled by inactivity, social programs and fear of error. While we are back-slapping ourselves over all the programs we are running, we are missing the point. People don’t have to be taught to be obedient, obedience is normal for Christians. That’s what becoming a disciple of Jesus entails. 

This means we repent, quickly. We stop thinking we know it all and we are better than the church down the road who only have a congregation of fifty. We listen with our spiritual ears open so we can hear what the Spirit of God is saying to me, personally. We don’t just listen for praise – we listen to diagnose why we are not effectual and fix stuff with the Holy Spirit’s help. That’s where true humility starts. At the same time we refuse to pledge allegiance to anything or anyone other than Christ Himself. Plus we acknowledge that we don’t know everything and we could learn something from someone else’s church.

The bible is far bigger than we have allowed it to be. Our disobedience and lack of love is costing us generations. Let’s start by obeying Him as individuals to see where He leads us all, corporately.  Bye.👋

P 2514 Stuff we don’t like to think about.

/ DVH

I listened to someone preach the REAL gospel the other day and it made me realise how easy it has become to water down the foundation of our faith. Jesus didn’t make excuses for anyone in His book and He was especially tough on sin, but … He was always kind to the sinner. That kindness is meant to lead us into repentance. It is not permissiveness, BTW.  (Romans 2:4).

It seems we’ve managed to modify His words to the point that we’ve made the bible more, so-called, user-friendly. Hmmm. After watching that man’s sermon, I’m totally convinced we need to rectify that in a big fat hurry! Somehow we managed to gloss over dying to self, living our lives for Him now, and giving our life away for others so we can bring His kingdom to those around us. Those are kind of important points don’t you think?

I cried as I listened to the speaker. The title of his sermon was – “6 popular lies we believe.” And, to make things much worse, I couldn’t argue with even one of the man’s points! Here’s a thought — do you know nowadays we hardly ever talk about hell?  That is a definite destination for some people, and yet we don’t want to talk about it! But hell was made for the devil, not for human beings. Our God wants us with Him! Now isn’t that ← a marvellous sentence? 

Listen to this:“…The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance., But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:9-10.

And just in case you thought when you read those verses, what’s that in English??… Here’s a more modern version for you: “God isn’t late with His promise as some measure lateness. HE IS RESTRAINING HIMSELF ON ACCOUNT OF YOU, HOLDING BACK THE END BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WANT ANYONE LOST. HE’S GIVING EVERYONE SPACE AND TIME TO CHANGE. But when the Day of God’s Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief.…”

Jesus talked about this particular day a lot. As a matter of fact He actually talked about hell a lot more than anyone else in the entire book. He preached about it many many times in the Gospels. But …Praise God!! Christ also spoke about heaven nearly 3 times as much as hell. I think that shows us He was far more concerned about us understanding heaven … and how to get there … than He was about frightening people out of their sinful behaviour. Repentance includes understanding, and gratefulness – people need to make informed choices!

The Lord is not really interested in our particular version, or even our doctrine of those above events. He will do what He will do! Meanwhile we have watered those things down to the point of them being almost invisible. Nobody wants to embroider the verses in 2 Peter, on a sampler to hang on their wall so they don’t forget them! Right now we seem to prefer “my God shall supply all our needs according to His riches in glory…”  !!! That thought made me wonder – I wonder what else we have sort of, kind of, diluted? Maybe we have allowed our experiences … or the lack of them … to dictate our faith? Just saying is all … 

So, how about the rich man and Lazarus the beggar at his gate? (Luke 16:19-31.) Now there’s a bedtime story for all!  This bit stuck out at me: “In Hades, where he (the rich man) was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.” Luke 16:23. This rich man is in hell yet he can see, hear, feel torment, as well as speak, and he has a conversation with Abraham, who is far away in heaven. Side note: did you notice that story is all about ignoring the poor?  We know that Jesus Christ’s death bridged that chasm between heaven and hell.  Phew!!… But does your family? Does mine? Do your neighbours? Do mine? We seem to have minimised the reality of eternity without Christ! 

You and I are passing through this life going to a banquet at the other end … our job is to hand out free invitations to other people who have no idea what comes next. You know, if we were to ask people in war torn countries, I think that they can all tell us what torment looks like!!  … But the never-ending kind? … Only God knows what that looks like, and I pray none of us ever will! 

Here’s another verse to think on:  “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for Whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” Philippians 3:4-11.

Let’s aim higher, and include the stuff nobody wants to hear, the things we don’t like to think about! The current popular opinion that somehow “niceness” and “not hurting anybody” will get people into His kingdom is error!! 👋🏻

P 2455 Give up cherry-picking!

/ DVH

There is no point in faithfully reading the Bible every day if we are only going to cherry-pick the verses we like, and just obey them… and leave out the ones we don’t particularly like or understand … AND not even TRY to obey them! Prayer is the answer, not avoidance. The whole point about the verses we don’t understand is we need to take the time to find out what they mean – which means we will spend time with the Holy Spirit asking questions. 

I’ve been nagging the Lord, for years about some stuff I still don’t get. However, the Bible is best understood when you read it bearing in mind all the other things that are written in it! Otherwise it is far too easy to take stuff out of context. Misreading this particular book can lead to all kinds of nasty errors. One verse needs to be read in the light of others. Look for themes and principles not just verses: “I really like.” Maybe we ought to throw out all those comforting ‘gimme’ verses, and look for challenging ones instead! And my point was (?) – cherry-picking verses that benefit me is one way to stumble off into error! 

When we read inspirational books that explain this or that verse, or some big thought we’ve never seen before, we are eating someone else’s stale bread. It’s food, but there is nothing like the smell and the taste of fresh bread … especially if you are hungry. Stale bread is only good for puddings or toast! Our God is so gracious, He can take anything we read and make it into bread, even someone else’s leftovers. But that is not the optimum way to get bread from God. We really need the word from His mouth that was sent to help US get through THIS day!! 

On the other hand, our pastors produce fresh bread every single week, that’s why we need to be prayerful when we are listening to someone’s sermon. We pray that God will give us eyes to see and ears to hear to what He is saying to us. It is not about sermons being interesting or fun! … Tickling our ears is not what we are there for .. we go to church, because  “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Our pastors bring us that mouth-of-God-word every single week. That’s their job. 

In the light of our pastor’s effort and our own daily bible study, obedience has never ever been an optional response. Dying to self still means what I want is now dead …  And that includes my own comfort and sometimes even my safety. PS… I’m definitely SAFE when I’m dead! However, when we treat the Bible like any other book we are opening ourselves up to double-mindedness, and a double-minded man can’t get anything from God because that person is too busy trying to find the right angle to benefit HIM! It is far better to assume that there will be something in there that we need to take the time to find out about. Something that will help us grow to be like Jesus.

We don’t have to read reams of the Bible in order to be fed anymore than we need to sit down to an eight course dinner every meal, every single day! We simply need to trust the Holy Spirit when we sit down to read that He will give us what He has for us. Then when we get to the daily bread bit, suddenly something we couldn’t understand — even if we stood on our head and read it fifty times — becomes clear. The next step is that the word that jumped out at you – is actionable. That’s the Holy Spirit speaking – we cannot afford to ignore Him. So we apply what we’ve read to our hearts and minds etc., we pray over it, and then we go and do it. Well, you might want to skip being whale food … but you get my meaning!

When I share what the Lord gave me today, with you, it may not be pertinent to you. After all it is MY daily bread but it may not be yours. Perhaps this is why sometimes your friends and family do not cheer and get excited when you share something the Lord told you. Maybe that bread was not for them. While it is okay to share with others, it is far better to encourage other people, including your kids (!), to go after their own bread. To start with, if everyone became bread-seekers and gathered their own, we would have so much more of the “many-sided wisdom of God” to enjoy! (Does that sound like gathering ‘manna’ or what?)

There is no point in taking on board the value system of this world and fitting it in around what the Holy Spirit says in the Bible. The Bible needs to be our yardstick – our plumb-line – not this world or its customs. The hard chewy bits of this book are the best bits. If you don’t understand stuff, then start cheering. “Ask, and you shall receive, SEEK and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”  Please, give up cherry-picking and go looking for your own bread! 👋🏻

P 2445 Have you got the wrong driver?

/ DVH

“Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection.” 1 John 4:18 TPT. Now that’s what I am talking about … having the right driver! Pause and think on: ‘love never brings fear!’ 🧐 

Today I want to talk about allowing the Holy Spirit to drive the ‘car’ of our lives. It is good to stop and prayerfully assess what is behind some of our thought processes regularly, because all kinds of sneaky Pete things can hide in places that we cannot see. Unfortunately, sometimes we can take our thoughts very casually. The answer of course, is to run our thoughts by Him.

After we have given our situation to Him – the secret to overcoming those things, is to LEAVE THEM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. Refuse to pick stuff up again – unless He gives you specific instructions. Then you should carry them out! Tell yourself: “That’s that thing I gave to God and He is acting on my behalf.” Once you have handed stuff over, don’t start trying to figure it out. Leave it with Him. That’s what trust looks like. Make room for time with the Holy Spirit when you are reading the bible, that’s how we renew our minds. Simply reading the bible does not do that. Pray, wait for answers, and then act on what He says. If He says do nothing – then do nothing. 

You know, most of us learnt our thinking patterns before we met Jesus — little babies do not have filters that can keep out fear. Fear can also be handed down from one generation to the next. Things like over protective parents, absent parents, disinterested parents — all these things can create situations where fear will take advantage of us. Obviously parents try very hard to avoid those kinds of scenarios – I know I did! But kids pick up on the darndest things and what frightens one will make another one laugh. Fear is sneaky, it takes advantage of innocence and trust and our minds go spinning off into mental situations that actually don’t apply. 

Like the above scripture says: the antidote to fear is His LOVE. I cannot stress enough how important it is for His love to go from being a theory, or even a pretty thought, into being something we can cling to when the whole world is madly swinging and swaying and nothing seems to be where you want it to be. His love needs to undergird everything we know and do… because God’s love is always constant and He loves us consistently. The river of His love flowing toward us never ever alters. We must get rid of the idea that answers to prayer prove His love toward us. His love is established by what He did when He sent His Son Jesus to die. It is clearly documented for all to see in the bible.

Fear can be a paralysing emotion. For years, certain bodily symptoms would send me into fear. Fear of pain, fear that I would not be able to escape from it.  Even fear of being trundled off into hospital!  Sometimes fear can even be ruling our lives;  yet we can be totally unaware of it. Someone might say: “I am not afraid of heights” … But they don’t go anywhere near the edge when they are in high places, or look down. Another person might have more than enough money to manage their lives comfortably, but they live in severe restricted conditions and refuse to spend a penny unless they absolutely have to. That’s FEAR!

If we are afraid, and we know it, the antidote for that malady is to ask, and keep on asking, for a real revelation of the love of God. Make this subject for study, every time you read the words “God loves you” …highlight them. MAKE A LIST. Read it often. Keep deliberately adding to those revealed truths you have. We can never have enough insight into how powerful and all encompassing God’s love is.

Obey what He tells you to do. We can do nothing without Him, and fear will restrict us from stepping into this new life He died to give us. That includes fear of punishment, fear of loss, fear of error, fear of missing out , fear of being cheated or mistreated, fear of losing self… all of these things can rob us of the certainty that God loves us so dearly and nothing can separate us from His kind of love. 

We must not beat ourselves up when we are afraid – that’s called compounding the felony!! It is a huge mistake to tolerate fear, and hide from what it does to us internally. The verse above gives us the diagnosis of where we are with fear: “Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection.” Keep walking toward His love, and choose the right driver for your daily walk with Him. Bye. 👋🏻