Evangelise

P 3025 The three “C’s.”

/ DVH

“So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together for good, for we are His lovers who have been called to fulfil His designed purpose.” Romans 8:28 TPT. 

Paul was convinced about what he says here. He looked at his life – including the floggings, beating with sticks,  shipwrecks, and physical violence. The imprisonment, as well as the persecution by various groups of people – some of them supposedly Christian. Plus the people who ignored his good advice because they had a better idea…  and he came to a conclusion. His conclusion was that “everything works together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”

God wants to transform the difficulties we experience into something meaningful and good, for His kingdom’s sake. We simply need to hang on in there believing in His goodness.‘The trying of our faith produces patience but we have to LET patience have her perfect work in us.’James 1:3-4. There’s that little word that gives everyone the pip! LET. Allow. Permit…Yield! Allow patience to do a number on you. Permit it to stretch you, let it teach you, and allow it to transform the way you think and act. That is what yielding looks like. WE are the boss of our thoughts  … and just like we won’t permit pornographic thoughts to occupy our minds – we refuse to LET impatience take over. We ask for the Holy Spirit’s help and hang on.. to Him.!!!

The Apostle Paul was not only convinced, he was convinced continually! That is actually the only way we can be changed. We choose to hold onto the fact that God will work our present circumstances out for our good. Continually! This spiritual stand happens over and over and over again! Christianity is a progressive pushing forward into more of what we already have been given. And sometimes there is no ‘exit’ to be seen — there is only the minute by minute pushing through how we feel, to grab hold of what God has said. This creates trust in Who He is. We lean on Him, persevering with the situation, waiting for His patience, and seeking after the love that never alters.

Stuff happened to Paul over and over again. There was a whole lot of ugly stuff in 40+ years of ministry. That’s an average of 6 rotten testing events a year! He paid a high price to evangelise, as well as minister what God told him to write … Paul once wrote that he “despaired of life itself.” Well you would, wouldn’t you? His life was no picnic, but I bet he has never given it another thought since he arrived in heaven!!

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us,..” 2 Corinthians 1:8-10.

Paul knew how to suffer, but he did not do it lying down. He grabbed hold of the hope that God had what He needed and wanted to give it to Him. He believed in the goodness of God Himself. If we take the time to consult our feelings about this scripture in Romans, it might seem inaccurate, utterly impossible. Nobody feels like pushing against a seemingly immovable object. But what if I told you that if you press in just one more time that object will move? I think you’d convince yourself to take a big breath and push one more time! It’s just like birthing babies, but, with His help, we are birthing and raising good fruit!

That’s what continually convincing yourself of God’s supreme power and goodness does – it draws you into a conclusion! Almighty God can’t fail us, His goodness always wins! There are some unresolved things in my life that I may not see this month, or this year, but I know that He will do them – whether I am still here or not. I do not believe those things simply because I prayed —I believe it because HE SAID SO in the book. I’m always convinced of His goodness as I continually read His book. We ain’t seen nothing yet! The best place to be in a battle is on the front line. WHY? You get to be the first to see the enemy turn tail and run… that’s why!

 Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:12: “This is why I suffer as I do. Still, I am not ashamed; for I know Him [and I am personally acquainted with Him] whom I have believed [with absolute trust and confidence in Him and in the truth of His deity], and I am persuaded [beyond any doubt] that He is able to guard that which I have entrusted to Him until that day [when I stand before Him].”

I am learning to be convinced continually, and that exercise led me to this conclusion – the Lord is worth it all. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18. In order to be convinced, I need to continually revise my belief in His goodness every single time something unexpected occurs, and then I keep reinforcing my belief that God cannot fail me. That’s the best conclusion! Life surely does happen but God has a plan!! Bye. 👋

P 2732 God loves to love on people.

/ DVH

“He sends His rain on the just and unjust.”Matthew 5:45. This morning hubby and I were talking about the Lord and how kind He is, and all the things He did for so many people while we were away this time. Today I want to share some insight into what happens while we are out there. 

For many people in this country, we are their first contact with the Lord – most of them haven’t even been to Sunday School or Children’s church! So our population is vastly UN-churched. The good news is that this means that they have no preconceptions about God and what He is like. Hubby and I are blessed to be the people the Lord has asked to give them an opportunity to have their first spiritual encounter with Him. We’ve found He doesn’t want to barrage them with words, He just wants to love on them.

We are seed-sowers. But this morning I came to realise that we actually do more than that with His guidance. Sowing a seed can be impersonal, but like the Samaritan woman at the well, we’ve been used by Him to be the person who tells them: “…everything they ever did.” People are astonished when we appear to know stuff that we can’t know. We simply tell them that it is Jesus, and He sent us to tell them that He cares so much about them. Lucky us! There are no kudos for doing it BTW, we just follow His instructions. I have to say that we never know where this stuff will lead us, it is always a surprise to us too!

There are people who could be puzzled by the fact that we don’t go out there to EVANGELISE our fellow Aussies as they go about their lives – instead we just talk to them!! I capitalised that word ‘evangelise’ to give it emphasis. We simply go out there and do whatever He says to do. This means that we wait on Him, with our heart and hands open, and our ears and eyes, ready to go! Today I have chosen a young couple who hosted us on our journey this time to illustrate my point – I have given them other names for their privacy.

Sam and Jenny live in a small seaside community, you can get to the beach through a little grove of trees that they own. Hubby went to talk to them both, as the Lord led him. Before he toddled off, I felt to tell him to give them the gospel of John. I just need to say that that very rarely happens, hubby usually picks out the bibles. At the same time, the Lord indicated to him that he should take a picture he had painted just recently of an older man holding a tiny child’s hand. At this stage there was no indication that any of that was right, we just had to act in faith.And I felt we should give them a photo book of ours that is all about comfort. Off he went, and I stayed behind to pray.

Hubby loves to let people talk. He had told this couple we had presents for them, and during their conversation, Sam started to share that the place we were staying in, had been built for Jenny’s Dad. Her Dad had died very recently. Jenny began to share through her tears what the loss of her father meant to her. So hubby’s standing there with a book of comfort to give them, and a picture of an older man holding a child’s hand!! … It gets better…!! Hubby gave them the comfort book, more tears, then the picture, and both of them are openly crying because Jenny’s Dad had been like a father to Sam as well. 

Then he gave them both the gospel of John. Jenny gasped, and said “Look Sam! Look at the title.” It transpired that Jenny’s Dad’s name was … yeah … JOHN! More tears again. Hubby prayed for them both for the Lord to comfort them. Later on as we were leaving Sam asked us to stay on with them for FREE! Sadly, we couldn’t stay longer, the rest of our trip was already organised at that time, and we had many other places to go, but the man was so impacted by God, that was his response. 

I said all that to say that the Lord is reaching into the lives of the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet in profound ways. Over and over again, this happens to us. We have so many stories over the past 20 years, just like this one! This time we spoke personally to 60 people in 15 days and each encounter was a God appointment. In the time we have been going out we have gathered so much proof that God wants LOVE to be the vehicle that He rides in, not fear.

I want to conclude my explanation by pointing out that this particular encounter started with 3 words of knowledge and a whole lot of His love, toward that couple …long before we ever got there, He simply needed our participation. Actually, we never ever know what is going to happen – that’s part of the fun. Let me tell you, anyone with ears to hear can have a word of knowledge!  The ones He has given us, have no lights, bells and whistles attached to them. The Lord is not big on show or titles. That stuff doesn’t seem to matter to Him at all. So if you are looking for titles or spiritual brownie points, we don’t have any!  

Someone once said to us that we should write a book about these encounters – we just laughed and said: “we don’t have time, we are too busy doing it!”  We simply follow His prompts and then the Lord does what He does best – HE LOVES ON PEOPLE. My advice to anyone who wants to live this way is to make Love your aim, not imparting information! In conclusion I just want to quietly remind you that —“the fields are white!” 👋

P 2439 We are His children of the light!

/ DVH

“Once your life was full of sin’s darkness, but now you have the very light of our Lord shining through you because of your union with Him. Your mission is to live as children flooded with His revelation-light! And the supernatural fruits of His light will be seen in you—goodness, righteousness, and truth. Then you will learn to choose what is beautiful to our Lord.” Ephesians 5:8-10 TPT.

When I read this today, my first thought was this – we are His happy shiny people!  Everywhere we go we take His light with us … forget about long-life batteries … we have a source of light within us, that will last into infinity… and beyond!! Imagine that. This world has no comprehension of the treasure we have inside us. And ps … that’s very likely our own fault!  Moving on … because I don’t want to be a down-a-later… all the time!

What does it mean to be children of the light? Hmmm… I think it means, no matter what the problem is, no matter how hard things seem, we will always have an answer … because we know the Answer personally! He lives inside of us. Now some other people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet may not like His answer, but that ain’t our problem. We don’t even need to get together a bunch of people for us to shine, one of us and Jesus is a majority!  I’m pretty cheery about that thought too.

We have been re-designed to be optimistic people. No matter how big that problem is – our God is bigger. No glass half-empty here, we are totally overwhelmed and overjoyed to have His life-giving water inside us… Let.It.Out!  Because of this our catch cry toward others is: “How can we help you?” Jesus set that precedent in Mark 10:51-52: “What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.” There ya go — another way to evangelise!

You know, without Him we can do nothing. How-ev-er!! That means WITH HIM 💥 watch out!! The Body of Christ has left this stuff to the experts for way too long. It’s time to get in the game folks. Here’s a red hot tip … you too, can be an expert on all things godly. Think on this – if I asked you about your fav movie, you could probably give me a pretty good summation of the plot and what you liked about it. Our interest in the bible is our thermometer, we just need to take our temperature – regularly.

Like Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15: “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”Studying the bible IS preparation, then doing what it says aids digestion. Your digestion of His book clears the grit and grime off the outside of your INNER light bulb. And just like moths and mosquitoes like the light – lost people who are sick of walking about in the dark bumping into awful stuff, love His light too!  His light through us is all the light this world needs.

Our God is so wonderful. He doesn’t expect us to memorise great chunks of His book– His word just needs to be a flowing river … because He is GOD … He can save people in seconds. Don’t believe me? Think about Jesus talking to the thief next to Him on the cross. That was not a comfortable conversation! Do you know how you get ready to witness etc? VOLUNTEER. “Lord I will talk to anyone You send my way today, but I am going to need Your help, as always.” Amen.

You and I, we have His marvellous light inside us. It could be as simple as saying to someone who asks you a question like: “How do you manage those difficult circumstances you are in?” I don’t even say I’m a Christian. I just say: “Without Jesus I can’t.” It’s always up to Him. The beginning, the middle and the end, I just grab hold of His thread of Love and then I follow the Leader. He knows where He is going. The Holy Spirit rides on our obedience … and it doesn’t even matter if you are scared to bits either, because the Holy Spirit LOVES this gig. You be you and let Him be Him. 

Finally, think on this – any light-bulb needs a power source. We have the power source that created this world, light bulbs and all! … inside us. It doesn’t matter how we happen to feel, faith doesn’t require feelings, it requires actions. It’s a ‘doing’ word! You and I can never ever be who we used to be, despite those awful pictures the other guy keeps throwing up in our minds… we’ve moved! Permanently. Out of the darkness into the light. 👋🏻