Expect

P 3128 We need a sure measuring tape.

/ DVH

Imagine that you want to measure out the parameters of a house. You could use a dressmaker’s measuring tape, but it has limitations – to start with it isn’t big enough! It would be an arduous task that required strict concentration and somebody to help you hold that waxed cloth tape tightly at the other end. A dressmaker’s tape does not have enough substance to it to be really useful. You need special equipment, and at the very least a builder’s stiff zippy metal measuring tape. 

Reading God’s word using only your mind, or emotions is a little like that inadequate measuring tool. You may arrive at some form of understanding, but it will lack pin point accuracy. I cannot successfully and accurately hit a nail in by bashing at with a fork! I will need a hammer to complete the task. (The truth is I can’t bash a nail in with a hammer either, but that’s another revelation for another day!) You will do so much better as you walk with Him, if you ask the Holy Spirit to help you to read His book – and then wait for Him to speak to you. 

Expect Him to answer. Not necessarily out loud! We have been taught to pray by the Lord’s prayer, “give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus is talking about the food that God provides for us every single morning. It’s like His mercy, that is also new every morning! I don’t care what bone-head thing you did yesterday, today, when you woke up – God’s mercy was brand new toward you. Mercy doesn’t just give us a fresh start, it also helps us to deal with yesterday’s junk today! I urge you to quit carrying a load that doesn’t belong to you anymore – repent, repair and move on!

I know, I have mentioned this topic before, but without God’s Word dividing what is good,  right and pure, from what is pizza, bad temper, and our imagination – we will go precisely nowhere.  Instead of skipping over the harder bits, I’ve learnt to dig my heels in and ask Him to explain it to me. It is FAR more important to hear from Him than it is to add to my own personal knowledge, or fill up my daily bible quota. I could care less if He highlights something ten pages later, or it happens on the first line – I’m looking for“every word that proceeds out of His mouth.” Not just clarification or human understanding. I covet His Word to ME … God’s Word has power in it. The Word that comes out of His mouth has the power in it to accomplish whatever HE wants.

We are told to live by that kind of daily bread. And every single day, we deliberately go to Him, and ask for fresh bread. Otherwise we can end up with excuses, logic, or digging up previous knowledge – or someone else’s findings – and that stuff really IS stale bread. It can get maggots in it just like it did for the Israelites when they were chasing butterflies around in a desert that should have taken them just a few days to cross! Pretty soon a whole lotta doubt will start banging on our door, because we just went off the reservation chasing tumbleweed! 

We need God’s measuring stick. His Word, in us and on us. Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” We can sing, shout and quote psalms fit to beat the band, but if it does not come inside us and do us good then we are just spouting HOT AIR. Did you get the very first word in verse 16: LET!  Allow God’s word to be a part of you. Don’t just jump head first into teaching or leading worship or quoting Psalms – let God’s Word do what only IT can do! His word will change us, and others as we obey it.

“Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and every expression of evil, and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save your souls.” James 1:21. Good old James, he let the word of God dwell richly within him! And he didn’t mince words either. If’n ya didn’t like what this disciple said – bad luck! WEEDING is part of soul and spirit care. Let’s do it. We need to stop and look at that nasty stuff growing in sneaky places in our hearts, and identify the bits that are choking out the good seed, and then pull those weeds out. After that we replace all of it with what God says.

“But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);..” Romans 10:8. The Word of God is not just meant to be inactive in the pages of an old book – it is meant to be alive and well, and inside us. No matter what version you or I read, the primary task and motivation of His book is for it to be written on our hearts, minds, and spirits – so that other people can see His Word in action. We can’t just proclaim it, we must live it out. The bible is full of verbs!! A very old friend of mine used to call it the Manufacturer’s hand book – the thing you use to keep your life on track and help walk with the Lord.

“And in keeping with what is written, “I believed, therefore I have spoken,” we who have the same spirit of faith also believe and therefore speak, …” 2 Corinthians 4:13.  The bible increases our faith and enables us to speak. What I think isn’t worth anything, sadly what I think often depends on what happens to me on the day! I need a secure, specific, tried and tested measuring tape, that will go to any length to give me an accurate report and measurement. Something that is strong, durable, and in my heart while I go about whatever I want to do. The bible meets that need. Bye. 👋

P 2905 What will you leave behind for His sake?

/ DVH

Luke 18:22-30: “When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”Peter said to Him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”A kingdom life is not always meant to be easy!

We all need to take the time to carefully consider and discern what is keeping us from total surrender. Sometimes it can be people, or things, or even places. I try not to say: “I’ll never go to that place again” because IF I believed in gambling … and I don’t! — then the next trip is definitely going to be about going back to the place I just disavowed! Ages ago, I told hubby that we could not go on a plane anymore. Hah! I think I might have control issues – I’m still checking that out with the King. A-ny-wa-ay… next week we are flying off interstate, 2 hours each way. Never say never.

Father God loves to knock down man-made sandcastles. Why not? He’s God, He’s in charge of our lives. To my total astonishment – every single time, no matter what He does, it is always good! It hardly ever turns out the way I thought it would, because what He does is always better than I can think or imagine. I think this is why God allows us to be tested, He wants us to know that we know – from our own personal experience with Him – that He will always be there, helping us, guiding us, loving us. When you decide to trust Him, no matter how it looks – things may go more slowly – but in my experience, what God does, cannot be undone.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.”  That’s from Isaiah 43, verse 2. Our faith needs to learn to watch for, and expect His input – always remembering that Almighty God doesn’t do things the way we would do them!  By the way I like that word WHEN. Trouble is not optional, actually it seems to be quite normal as you follow Jesus and want to serve Him!

Just recently our daughter and her son were told that they would have to move. I actually spent sooooo much time thinking about how we could build something for them to live in our backyard, as well as repeatedly going on line to look up cheaper rentals … and then she came to me about a month ago with this huge testimony that had nothing whatsoever to do with all my efforts.

Father God had found the two of them somewhere marvellous, and she can afford the rent. It is so close to work she could walk there if she wanted to. Guess what? I wasted all that time trying to solve a problem, that was not mine. Our daughter gave it all to the Lord the minute she heard that their old house was going to be sold, and she left the whole thing with Him for Him to solve. Someone came to her about this other house… imagine that! I am learning that we need to leave the people we dearly love in His hands. Meanwhile, when you put whatever is disturbing your peace down you have to walk away at the same time.

The body of Christ has often been fascinated with the idea that brilliant preaching, miracles, supernatural happenings and healings somehow prove that whatever they are doing must be ‘right.’ It seems we think it means we definitely have God’s approval and, bonus buy, we are proving to other people that He exists. Well I believe, first of all, that we already have God’s favour because His Son died in our place! He chose us.  Miracles are a sign and a wonder, but they are not the point – Jesus is the point! 

A life laid down for His sake, makes itself available for whatever God Himself wants, whenever He says. If He says we are to love our enemies – that means we can do it! It is easy to feel like we can’t, but maybe we are bumping into fear or pride or ‘I don’t want to!’  However, bravely stepping out into the path of whatever Goliath is challenging us, while we are trusting in God’s guidance, means we’ve put the Lord in charge of whatever we are facing. Our faith is far away from any problems, because instead we believe in His goodness and we cling to our faith in HIM like a limpet to a rock. We literally shall not be moved.  

We need to give the Lord everything – our lives, our livelihoods, our kids, our health, our self-worth, our family and stuff etc to Him, and leave it all there – because  “… I (we) know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that Day.”2 Timothy 1:12. Maybe today is a good day to ask ourselves, what will we leave behind – for His sake? May God bless you, 👋.