Father God

P 2641 Here’s something chunky to chew on:

/ DVH

“The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him – (Jehoiakim ) – to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by His servants the prophets. Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.” 2 Kings 24:2-4.

In this passage we are told that Almighty God punished all of Judah for something a previous king had done. Good place to stop and think! Meanwhile Jehoiakim, the current king, was a bad king as well. However, the Lord’s punishment came 90 years later! Think about it. People who weren’t even born under Manasseh’s reign were still part of the Lord’s punishment! Everyone was carted off to Babylon. But the king who actually did all that bad stuff was already dead!! That puts a whole lot of things in a different light. Father God’s plan was for restoration for that whole nation – their plan was to keep on doing what they wanted to do. Guess Who won?

This scripture also shows us that God may WAIT to do whatever He said is going to do, but … He WILL do it!! He was standing up for His prophets who kept telling everyone – “Wrong way go back!” His long pause was about waiting for the people of Judah to repent. In the book of 2 Kings, as the prophets foretold, the whole of Judah was carried off as captives to Babylon. I’m guessing “I didn’t vote for that guy Manasseh, He wasn’t a good leader” didn’t cut much mustard with the Lord!! They ALL went off to Babylon. They were given time to turn around, and they didn’t. ‘That’s not fair’ isn’t part of His thinking – it’s the way WE think. It seems to me that our idea of good and His idea of good – are two different things.

We weigh up this and that, and forget that God has a plan! There are times that He might tell us about it … but just because whatever He said hasn’t happened yet, that doesn’t mean He’s gone to sleep at the wheel. Acknowledging His sovereignty means we trust Him no matter what is going on. We are told in the New Testament that we can appeal His decisions, but that still doesn’t guarantee we will change things. Interacting with the Lord over things that we would like to see changed, or even people we wish would change – may not always seem fruitful because His plan is for everyone’s good – not just ours.The secret is to ask Him what He is doing, instead of asking Him to rubber-stamp what we think is good for us. 

The bit that often irritates us is we don’t like to think we don’t have any power. We know that Jesus is King, we know the King – what’s the hold up?? Here’s a revelation I’d like to offer: We will always have power to perform whatever He tells us to do! ← ya might want to Selah that for a while.  In other words, we are not given power to show off, make friends, avoid trouble, get big churches or to demonstrate our own personal POV. Beware, sometimes the Lord has a very different purpose and destiny for us in our stupidity. 😳 That thing that seems OK with us can lead to us wondering why we fell off a cliff. (Proverbs 14:12.)

Human beings like to make their own plans. Sometimes they are even founded on something that the Lord told us to do, and so we merrily go off and start to do it. Then something happens, and we can end up wondering: ‘where did He  go?’ It’s time to remember, that Almighty God loves relationship. Relationship is not about one person organising another – it is about two people finding common ground and moving forward. Our God is happy to negotiate but because He is wiser than we are, there will be many many times when He gets the final say! His way has benefits for everyone, not just ME.

However, we can always ask Him what His plan is in this situation, or that, or that person’s circumstances or that. and then pray accordingly. What am I saying is this: WHY NOT LET GOD BE GOD?!Human beings are wonderful at taking something dodgy and dressing it up in fine clothes and phrasing it so it sounds like it will benefit everyone. But the subtext often is it that it will benefit ME. Like Yoda says in Star Wars: “See through you we do.” We are no longer living in a democracy – we have been born again into a Theocracy.

Yes, we can always negotiate, and put in our two cents worth, but at the same time, we need to remember, the Lord has all the information! And He is looking for us to have faith in Him and trust Him. People who have little faith in God make their own plans! But He knows the plans He has for us, plans for our good, plans to give us hope and a future. We need to trust HIS PLANS instead of tweaking this and that so it suits us better. The best part of His plan is that He will come with us when we want to do things His Way. 

Is He a God of mercy and grace? Of course He is! It says so in the book. But He is looking for a people who are happy for Him to be God, and at the same time they are happy to be His people. Read the bible! His disappointment with the Israelites, over and over again, makes me want to weep. The Israelites wanted a token god, one they could put on a shelf and forget about until they needed help or some victory, or deliverance. He’s NEVER been that! But this is a good time to reflect on the fact that God’s overall plan included letting us kill His Son so we can be utterly restored – from sins we never should have committed in the first place!  Selah.

Sadly we can still make that mistake today. Ask yourself, do I talk to the Lord to get to know Him, or do I do it to get my prayers answered? The way to flow with the Lord, is to run things by Him, then take the time to wait to get an answer. Ask Him for His mercy and grace, because He will always give it – and then watch and see what He will do with your trust in Him. I can’t even begin to say how many times I’ve run past doing stuff His way, in my enthusiasm to get things done. However, there was always an unforeseen cost.

We want pain and suffering to go away, but God can use it to transform us and our motivations – as well as touch the people around us.  And that’s something else chunky to chew on! 👋

P 2620 Our choices to change matters …

/ DVH

… and we will always need the Holy Spirit’s help.“Now may the Lord Jesus Christ and our Father God, Who loved us and in His wonderful grace gave us eternal comfort and a beautiful hope that cannot fail, encourage your hearts and inspire you with strength to always do and speak what is good and beautiful in His eyes.” 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17.

Our personal choice to be obedient, in spite of our circumstances, is incredibly valuable. Those things matter more than we can ever imagine. Choosing to love like the Lord loves, as well as making reconciliatory choices, and remaining humble … those things are our way forward. We need to let the blood of Jesus cover your faults AND my faults, no matter how often either of us falls over!

Let’s be inspired by what Christ willingly chose to do for us, so that living this life, His Way every single day, becomes our first and primary choice. Without the Holy Spirit’s help, 24/7, we cannot live a supernatural life.  Human beings have been trying and failing to overcome their own faults for centuries. In the end, many simply decided to give in to temptation, do their best, and walk on regardless of the consequences. Christians have thrown themselves against the wall of their own personal penchant toward sinfulness – hoping somehow, some way to impress God enough, simply because ‘they tried.’ ˆHowzatworkin’forya??” Me neither.

However, in contrast, the Holy Spirit is always in the here and now. The glorious thing is, He is with you reading this blog, and He is with me while I am writing it! His longing for our total transformation is far greater than we can ever imagine, and He will use any and all circumstances, as we yield them to Him, to transform our lives. His end game is LOVE. The kind that is patient, kind, suffers long, hopes all things, believes all things …  

Those things are part of our destiny, not just for other special anointed people. We simply believe we can change and live our lives the way the bible says, with His help. Prayerfully. Then, from day to ordinary day, we will end up destroying the enemy’s works in our lives and in the lives of others. Growth equals faith in action. Faith that continually stretches and is stretched. Faith that makes room for more.

“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.] Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”1 John 3:8. 

When we give our lives to Christ, He takes them! God’s seed is sown into our heart and lives. Now, we have the potential within us to grow into Christ’s likeness. It is up to us, how quickly, and how strongly that spiritual seed will flourish inside us. If we treat Christianity like a club, then His seed will mostly lie dormant. Instead we must water and fertilise His seed in us, with our faith and obedience. Taking deliberate faith steps, and putting what Christ wants, first. 

Personally, I think we all experience moments of what I call “growth spurts” and at other times there seems to be no activity whatsoever! That’s a good time to remember that in any plant, the root systems form underground, where we can’t see them. In these seemingly empty moments we need to just keep on obeying and practising the things we have already learnt. Things like reading the Word, praying over everything, and keeping all our relationships covered by love. Not just in word, or agreement, but in our daily actions – we choose to love. 

His kingdom comes out of us and is manifested, when we choose to make hard choices. Particularly in those moments when those things are the very last thing we want to do! That’s what dying to self is. It hurts. And most of the time, we want the other person to make that choice … not me!  Selfishness flourishes in the absence of our commitment to obey Christ. Many people think obedience is about doing something extreme, like standing on a street corner to preach the gospel. Actually, I think obedience is far more about saying no to me, and what I think I want and need, and yes to God! It is about choosing His Word, His way, over my feelings.

Very few people leave this world like my step-pop did. Painlessly! He was dancing away one minute and gone the next. In contrast, a person’s normal death process is usually a long messy thing that nobody wants to go through. Death to self is a series of deliberate, hard, unpleasant choices and then we hold fast to what is good, right and lovely. It is not something we would ordinarily want to volunteer for — which makes what Christ deliberately did for us even more remarkable!  We owe Him everything, including our choice to change. Bye 👋

P 2544 Surprise!🥳

/ DVH

Isaiah 55:11 …“So shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void,but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

First of all, I love the fact that God says so clearly and so positively: “when I speak – stuff happens!” You might want to think on that like …for the rest of your life! Hmmm. In my mind, people often look at verses through the filter of brother or sister you-don’t-have-to-study-the-bible-deeply-I’ll-do-that-for-you-and-tell-YOU-what-God-told-me! That action keeps people immature.

You see, when we accept that what God Himself says is truth, then we actually have a fantastic diagnostic tool for our lives. Now, let’s think about that verse above for a moment… or nine! Does that mean that if nothing happens when I pray – HE DIDN’T SAY IT? Jesus Himself said,“I only do what I see the Father doing … I only say what I hear the Father saying…”  He was fulfilling that scripture in Isaiah. He understood that God’s word is never void.

When I read that verse again, what He actually says is: ‘My Word won’t just do what I sent it to do, My Word will THRIVE.” PLUS !! The Only One He intends to please is HIMSELF.Take a big breath alright? Almighty God is not your mother, who loved to spoil you. It seems if we take whatever the Lord says seriously, and pray about it, then we may need to revise whatever happens afterwards. There are times I wonder why things aren’t working out so well, and I hope like mad that it isn’t my faith or my theology that’s at fault. But, sadly, it probably is, because there isn’t anything wrong with what the Lord said!  His aim is to accomplish what HE intends. The bible says this:“He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He.” Deuteronomy 32:4. 

Here’s a completely useless rabbit trail: I know a song from way back in the ark about that verse in Deuteronomy, which means now I’ll have it stuck in my head! 😱 Maybe that means I am now praying without ceasing …!!  Meanwhile, we had some pretty old fashioned music way back then. But I’m pretty sure most people had no clue what they were singing, they just liked joining in. The good bit is … we all got to memorise scripture. The bad bit is … it was in King James English. Someone ought to have a word with that guy, you can’t understand a word King James says!!

Meanwhile, I think it is time to take a teeny tiny look at what we say, and work out if it is in line with what He says and the way we are living. When God speaks, He means what He says – and we are to behave the same way because we all follow Jesus. This stuff is in the book for activation not just contemplation. There are times that I think none of us know what to do with what we believe, because what we say we believe seems to only work in somebody else’s life! We kind of shove all that mess under a rock and hope nobody notices. Some really brave souls may ask “what did I do wrong?” But most of us dumb sheep—BAA! We don’t have a clue what happened or why, and we are either too scared to ask the Lord “why”… because He might not answer us. OR … because He just might answer us!

At this point, I was hoping the trouble I had just might be the language, so I looked it up in another version – a more manageable one. Well the New International Version actually kind of stuck to the KJV, using a few less unto-s and goeth forths. So I went on to see what the Message bible says. The main trouble with the MSG bible as I see it is this, it really does say what it says in English, but it takes so darn long to say it you need to take a cut lunch. Have a read of this …

“I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” God’s Decree. “For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth. Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.” Verses 8-11.

You may have noticed that I included w-a-y more than verse 11. That’s because the Message bible says things in clumps like daffodils, and you have to take them apart and look at each piece separately to get the meaning. That’s great for repotting plants, but a bit hard on the old concentration. 

So what IS my point today? Perhaps we need to be way more careful when we use the words…”God said…” unless we intend to follow it up with …”and this is what happened!” Always remembering that He already HAS plans.  …”to give us a hope and a future ..”   I think this entire verse explains itself in the first sentence of the Message bible version… “I don’t think the way you think ..” That seemed pretty easy to understand to me!  He knows how I think, but most of the time I know bupkis about what He is thinking or doing. BTW, I’m not talking about tacking on “if it be Your will” to our prayers – I’m talking about knowing Him well enough to see what He is doing, or trusting Him if we don’t!

Father God is perfectly capable of making Himself clear. He’s God — I’m not. We think we need proof, but that’s not actually faith. If I don’t think like He does then He’s going to “surprise” me — a LOT… 👋

P 2540 Our new life is OURS – right now!

/ DVH

Learning to walk in the Spirit is not like learning French! There will never be a better time to begin than … right here right now. We cannot achieve unity with Christ Himself in our own flesh, which is why we must choose to die daily. This means that we need to get used to saying NO to our flesh and YES to His ways, and those choices are often minute by minute. His new life in us = the Holy Spirit + our choices + follow through.

That new life will be activated inside our own personal relationship with Him – the daily, moment by moment fellowship we share together … Every day we need to break bread with Christ. That means we take His Word, pray over it, ask for help to understand it personally, and then we deliberately go and obey Him.

Other people can’t give us this, it is something that we must choose to prioritise for ourselves, with the Lord’s help. Today our world concentrates on getting what it wants by its own means. Remember, mankind was organised and clever enough to build the tower of Babel. I urge you not to give into being hurried, or pushed when it comes to reading His book. The church itself has wanted to push God’s people into a pure devotion to God that can only be gained by personal spiritual investment.

Father God reveals Himself through His word, intimately and personally. This is because our new life in Christ is about faith… and our relationship with Him, our obedience, is the stepping out in faith place! The only person who can walk that way IS ME. The way it works can be explained to us, but if we do not personally start taking faith steps, as He leads us, then we will end up back in the flesh. And sadly, the flesh will not profit us. Our flesh’s end-game is the glorifying of MAN. We will stop enjoying God and start ticking boxes.

The Lord gives us revelations because these interactions are part of intimacy – that’s why your revelation may not benefit me at some particular moment in my life. Because … He’s speaking to you! Whenever God shares His secrets with us, He is sharing Himself! Not every prophecy spoken in church is for the whole church – first and foremost it is for the speaker to digest and gain fresh insight and understanding for themselves. Otherwise it can be just another fresh load of instructions loaded onto backs that are already breaking!

Father God has always meant for us to discover Him afresh, every single morning, it is like the manna the Israelites gathered every day. In that time when we shut out the world, and listen to the things He speaks to us through His Word as if He were speaking them to us personally. Otherwise we simply end up following rules and hoping that will do. The flesh cannot give birth to the things of the Spirit. We need to seek Him, and go after the things He is revealing to us. It is meant to be a happy engagement between us and Him as He patiently teaches us His Ways.  

At the same time, we cannot tack Him onto, or into, our already established lives – He is now our life. ‘For me to live IS Christ to die is gain.’ Just as the Lord chose us, and called us to be His people, in the same manner we need to choose, prefer, and defer to Him. This means we will deliberately eliminate the things He points out to us – with the Holy Spirit’s help. Our flesh will lie to us. It will tell us we can’t do thus or thus because … we are too weak, too sick, too busy, too preoccupied with the business/busyness of this world. Sadly, if we are not aware, we can get so busy maintaining our little lives, and our own agendas, that we leave the Lord out and relegate Him as an add-on.

However, whatever our attitudes or thoughts, the truth is — we are now dead. So we have no other agenda but His. This is why we need to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. That personal cross is illustrated by the things in this life that will pull at us and demand our attention to the point where Christ becomes secondary – instead of primary. It can be people, or occupations, or leisure past-times. To walk by faith we will have to fight fear, guilt or blame to prioritise Christ. “But the]Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counsellor, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will help you remember everything that I have told you.” John 14:26. He is always on STANDBY!

Sometimes I think, we have what we believe backwards. We fight for healing, or freedom in order to better serve Christ, but if the Lord is not building that house, then we are labouring in vain. It is not that God wants us to be sick, or infirm or in prison! It is that He does not want sickness etc to occupy all our thoughts. We can end up wasting our allotted time chasing answers to human problems when Jesus Christ Himself proved that HIS PRESENCE IS THE ANSWER. Wherever He went sickness, demons, infirmity left. EVERY SINGLE TIME. His new life is now ours, right here, right now.🙌

P 2527 It can be hard to change …

/ DVH

“And never let ugly or hateful words come from your mouth, but instead let your words become beautiful gifts that encourage others; do this by speaking words of grace to help them.”Ephesians 4:29 TPT.

I think I was almost born talking – a born communicator. Evidently I could sing every song on the radio at 12 months old, and I said the usual stuff long before that!. But after I started talking, it was apparently quite difficult to shut me up.  I was labelled a chatterbox, and it seems to me, that I also arrived here somewhat opinionated! 

An-y-way … words are very important to me. I’ve always loved to read and I enjoy writing as well, so my vocabulary is regularly stretched. However, when words are used badly – it irritates the living daylights out of me!  In my generation, good handwriting, spelling and grammar were … everything. I am sure you can imagine how well I have taken to this age of texting and abbreviations! 😳 I have had to make myself to adapt, but there are still days that I don’t like it much…

This penchant for accuracy has been a thorn in my side for years. Back in the ark I can remember saying to my kids: “You can do such and such …but you may not!” It seems that I may have been a bit of a pestilential mother. But the world kept turning, and then everything I knew, or I thought I knew, turned upside down. We entered the Year 2000 and some things that used to matter in our society didn’t matter any more. Colour me somewhat unimpressed!

Some days I think the Lord might be falling off His chair laughing at me, because now words are the very things I can easily forget from day to day! I can forget what I was going to say right in the middle of a sentence. Boy is that humbling for the grammar queen!  Have you ever noticed how the Lord loves to take the things we think we know, and use His Word to puncture that fat little balloon we have inflated inside us — permanently?  Well, some of us probably deserve that shiny little pin-popping exercise, because we were being snobbish fatheads in the first place. 

One of the biggest problems was that I could, most of the time, out-talk my enemies. Now that sounds good … but it is totally unscriptural!  Unfortunately, in those days I kind of knew how to go for the jugular too. Then the Lord began dealing with me on how I was avoiding facing my own mess, but blabbing away about other people’s sins. Matthew 5:29: “Let’s not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here’s what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly…”  I have learnt one thing through this life-time adventure – there IS no out-talking Almighty God! He is the Living Word and He has the last word, and there is no doubt He is always right. 

It has been a huge challenge for me to only let beautiful words come out of my mouth. BUT … here’s the kicker folks … Father God sometimes very graciously lets His power come through my words when I am talking to others. All those years of tormenting myself because I knew I talked too much, and I was way too sharp with other people in some situations … and the Holy Spirit took the very thing I thought I could never change and … CHANGED IT… and now He is using it. 🙌 Please do not misunderstand me, I really did try to keep my mouth shut, because I knew I could do a lot of mischief with it … but most of the time, until He helped me — I failed miserably. 

Eventually I chose to surrender, and I learnt to yield. At the same time, I confessed my faults, even to my enemies, and I went to the altar, where I cried buckets …But the solution was dead simple. I just had to learn to stick my hand over my mouth, repent, and at the same time cry out to the Holy Spirit to help me. I also had to learn to say the words “I was wrong to say that, I am so sorry…” … repeatedly! Of course, I choked on that lot as it was coming out. It was  humbling! You know how it says in the bible that “God gives Grace to the humble and He resists the proud?”  Hmmm. Almighty God knows exactly HOW to humble each of us! He’s great at it!  My advice is take your faults seriously –early!

So today, I want to encourage others to pray over the very thing that they have anguished over, and spent their life feeling like it can’t possibly change … and, instead, give it to God and ask for a practical solution. It can be hard to do, but it could be as easy as taking the your hand and putting it over your mouth. It was for me! 👋🏻

P 2503 What to do when the roof falls in …

/ DVH

First of all, let’s be totally clear … I’ve had way-too-many-roof-fallen-in adventures. The following are a series of helpful hints I have found that are useful. They have helped me, and sometimes they have even stopped me from laying on the floor sobbing. However, there are definitely times to lay on the floor and sob;  so give yourself room to weep over any catastrophe, loss, or injury of any sort! Don’t be so spiritually stoic you bury your feelings.  “There’s a time for every purpose under heaven … … a time to weep.”Ecclesiastes 3:4a.

Pray. Yeah I know, most of the time we start out by trying to minimise whatever the damage is – but we actually need the King of all Glory running disasters – not us. Plus we should call someone else asap, and rally the troops …the praying people we trust. The bible says:“From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee – when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Psalm 61:2. Amen.

Basically that verse is saying, no matter where I am, no matter what has happened to me, He is my ever-present help. Call on His Name. Yell, ‘help help Jesus!’  There is a place, right beside our precious Saviour, that is so much higher than whatever it is that has just happened to you. Do take a blanket, you may need to intentionally live there a while! We want to stand right next to Him, right next to His heart, so close we can hear Him breathe. There is peace in the middle of a storm next to Him. This is a good time to not pray once, and then quit – “…pray without ceasing!!”Amen.

And let people pray for you. This means saying yes to anybody who asks you, ‘can I pray for you?’ When we are overwhelmed with trouble, we need all the prayer we can get. This is not the time to avoid Sister Susie who prays two hour-long prayers! Let SS have at it. Also, when the problem is way to big for you to handle, and that includes fielding all the caring, multiple phone calls, I suggest you appoint a ‘point person.’ Someone you trust, who can organise food, help, rides, baby-sitting, give-out limited updates, and whatever else you need. 

Keep saying to yourself, “God loves me. He’s got this, it hasn’t surprised Him…”“For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that is far beyond comparison. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’”2 Corinthians 4:17. “Please fix my eyes on you Lord!” Amen.

Next I recommend reading the Psalms. Seriously, reading the Psalms and listening to spiritual songs, is like sweet clear water in a desert place. It’s a place where somebody else had words that were spoken out of great pain – as well as worship. In times of trouble we may run out!  At the same time, we need His Word to inspire, revive and refresh us … not instruct us. That’s a big tip for anyone who is trying to help someone else when that person’s life has just imploded. The idea is this: the wounded person is almost drowning, they need someone else to offer them a life-preserver, not a life lesson! And I really don’t care whose fault it is that their ceiling fell in! 

Let’s just get them to the hospital … to Jesus, first! Pray in tongues if you don’t know how to pray, and you are able to do it. The overwhelmed parties are also going to need people to help them, practically. I have seen mighty gifts of the Holy Spirit manifest themselves in my own terrible times. Some of us have no idea that practical help is also spiritual. Stephen and Co in the book of Acts chapter 6, show us that practical help is spiritually beneficial. 

Now to things that don’t help at all. If the wounded saint doesn’t want to talk, then don’t push them. Privacy can become very important when you already feel incredibly vulnerable, because your life just fell on its head. As their friend we need to simply pray as the Lord leads us, and if we get any insight – don’t share it, write it down instead. If they do want to share, just listen. Don’t problem solve unless the person asks you to. 

Sometimes a difficult matter can become much clearer after the event. But blame, or supposed fault, will not help at the point of impact. Love looks like support, not a lecture. If you don’t know what to say, then say nothing, or …“Weep with those who weep.” Romans 12:15. Someone’s life, or family disaster is not an appropriate place to be wise … it is a place to be supportive. 

Please note:  these things work inside the church and outside it. I pray the Body of Christ realises our greatest gift to the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet is to treat them like we would like to be treated. Pray for anyone who needs it, love on them, help them! Father God does not see two categories — those who are saved and those who are not. He sees His kids! Some of them are lost, and some have come home, but they are all HIS. Bye. 👋 

P 2501 Keep in step with the Holy Spirit.

/ DVH

There is one sort-of-kind-of good thing about making mistakes – it is a great leveller. I can’t look down on you, you can’t look down on me, be-cau-se … we are actually in the same boat!  “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to ALL who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and ALL are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”Romans 3:22-24. I am utterly crazy about that word ‘ALL.’ 🥳 I don’t have to compare myself with you, I simply need to pour my love and energies into walking with the One Who saved me. What we have now, praise you Jesus … is the fellowship – the friendship of the Holy Spirit to help us. Don’t leave home without HIM!

Every single human being is included by that little word “all.” The idea is not to waste your energy over what you have done wrong – repent, and then repair – and then go on to focus on walking with Him, by staying in the light. When you wake up, ask Him to walk with you today. Ask Him to check you if you wander out of His light. Our God loves our obedience. Personally, I have observed He is so sweet and kind, He loves it even when we try – failure is not the issue – continuity is. Even when you are falling asleep at the end of the day – repent and repair, and then embrace Him.

I think the Christian life is hardest for perfectionists. When you give these dear people a list of stuff they could or should do or be, or even not be, they drive themselves batty trying to hit the mark every single time. And they beat themselves up when they don’t. I wanna grab them by the shoulders, and say: “Mate, where’s your faith? Just stay in the light. Confess your sin, let Him wash you and stay in the light of the Holy Spirit. He’s perfect – YOU ain’t …”  Striving produces either defeat or pride.

There are works that James mentions in chapter 2 of his book. These kinds of works begin and end in faith – not our own effort. So we ask ourselves, what we are focussing on right now? If the only thing we are focussing on is getting things right, then we’ve missed the point. Our focus is to be on following the Holy Spirit everywhere, prayerfully discerning what Jesus wants. Living this life with an unreachably high standard cannot eliminate us from God’s love – it will just make our lives appallingly hard – and then we will give up on ourselves, and walking with Him, too soon.

Surrendering to Him is the key. When I live this life surrendered to His will, I give up my will and place it under the direction of SomeOne else – Jesus Christ! He proved how much He loved me when He died in my place. At the same time I am believing, despite my circumstances, that the Person I have surrendered everything to – is trustworthy. That’s the daily battle we fight. DO WE TRUST HIM to do what He said He will do?“Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please Him …” we need to stop hoping faith will fall on us, or God will give us a sign, and simply act on our faith. Faith will give what we do substance.

Because Jesus has already been punished for my sins I do not have to be afraid of being wrong. Our Lord is a Redeemer – He works miracles with very little!  He can take 5 fish and 2 little loaves of bread and feed thousands.   Instead I want the Holy Spirit to make His word personal to me, while I am reading it. That’s why I talk so much about reading the bible. We need to have the Word of God flowing in and out of our lives. To do that, it needs to be present in our minds and hearts. The Holy Spirit will use His word to check us when we move away from what He wants.

Finally, I want to remind you that this is what Father God says in the book about any flaws in us. ““You are altogether beautiful, my love;there is no flaw in you.“- Song of Solomon 4:7. That’s what we look like now, because of the blood of Jesus over our lives. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:8–9. Well there’s a hallelujah!

OH, if we would only let go of our preconceived, or even badly taught notions, that our God is limited by who we are and what we do, and use our energy to learn to walk with the Holy Spirit instead!  The bible says: “Ah Lord God! Behold, Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great power and outstretched arm; and there is nothing too hard for Thee.” Did you get that? Nothing!!  You and I are not too hard for God – He has already dealt with our sin. 

Meanwhile comparing ourselves with ourselves, and others, is a waste of time.  Let the Word of God live in you, by acting on it. And remember our destiny is to keep in step with the Holy Spirit! 👋🏻

P 2495 Let God disarm you …

/ DVH

“Now, please listen, for I need to address an issue. I’m making this personal appeal to you by the gentleness and self-forgetfulness of Christ… … Now I plead with you that when I come, don’t force me to take a hard line with you (which I’m willing to do) by daring to confront those who mistakenly believe that we are living by the standards of the world, not by the Spirit’s wisdom and power. For although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons, using manipulation to achieve our aims. Instead,our spiritual weapons are energised with divine power to effectively dismantle the defences behind which people hide…” 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 (with omissions.)TPT.

Paul talks about this greater wisdom in the verses from 2 Corinthians above. This wisdom relies upon God’s power not man’s clever plans, or great counselling … or even avoidance. Instead it exposes lies, and disarms the sorts of excuses that men and women often make in order to stay the same and feel good about themselves. Paul is quite severe in this edict, as he first establishes the essence of this lie – there is no power of God in it … therefore … it won’t accomplish anything lasting!

He is explaining that the Lord’s spiritual wisdom goes beyond the stuff we understand with our minds, into the very heart of what is actually going on. It leads to complete exposure of the desire that human beings have to justify themselves, and hide our true selves, for one reason or another. That hiding gig started in the garden of Eden, the first thing Adam and Eve did after they sinned was HIDE. Hiding is not good because that action denies the power of the cross. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness…”1John 1:8&9. Confessing sin means we own it!

Meanwhile, we don’t have to tell every single person every single thing about ourselves! But we do need to be ready to have the Lord uncover the things we have hidden …  sometimes … even from ourselves. I have found hatred in the weirdest circumstances in my life. If you asked me I would have said: “I don’t hate anyone, its a waste of time.” Actually what I was really saying was: “I hide my hatred under another name.”

But the Lord had my number, and He showed me what I called hurt was actually hatred, and I avoided looking at it because I did not want to know. It was like my own private warning system that flashed a sign that said: ‘this person is dangerous,’ when I looked at certain people, and that was my excuse for not loving them. These are the lengths we go to to justify ourselves! When all we need to do is confess our sin. 

Unfortunately, in reality, I think I sadly felt quite OK about having that attitude – the people I was scared of, and concerned about were very mean! Hiding was a way to avoid their meanness – but it also cleverly disguised my real feelings! None of these thoughts were allowed to prevail in my conscious mind, because I had become really adept at concealing this stuff from myself.  I would have noticed things like that in a heartbeat. So instead, I gave it another name. HURT. But as I chased after loving like He loves, things kept floating up into my conscious mind. Like gritting my teeth when that person spoke to me – a big clue right there!! 

That’s when I realised that I actually went out of my way to reward those who were good to me, and secretly avoided those who weren’t. I pretty quickly figured out that loving like the Lord loves, means my opinion, or experiences no longer matter. He does not love us based on our behaviour. He took that aspect of our lives out of the equation, when He died on the cross. Indeed, our bad experiences and attitudes actually need to be confronted because they create greater potential for His Grace to be released! 

He wants us to treat everybody the same way – we are to love them enough to die for them. And if we truly want to changed to be like Him – then that’s the standard! Here’s a red hot tip, taken from my own experience: you and I can’t do that all by ourselves – we need supernatural help. This is the place, mentioned in the bible, that is designed by God, for His power to be made manifest through us. His strength is made perfect in weak people.  And along the way we will gain, bonus buy …  self-control.

If we choose to hide our weakness – the result is we will miss out on that perfect strength. Father God is not interested in the appearance of good.  He wants His goodness to be immediately evident even when someone else takes a nasty big fat bite out of us. Boy is that’s going to cost us! It cost Jesus to save us, and we are following Him now on the road to total transformation. Praise God! Right now we have His power available to us, so we can overcome anything that paralyses us, by leaning on Him and following His ways – instead of pretending we are A-OK.  

We simply must let/allow the Lord to disarm us. This new life in Christ comes with honest transparency, not deceit, shame or guilt. Embracing transparency will, over time, help us to know that we are truly loved by Him – especially when His love reaches into the hidden corners of our hearts.  👋🏻

P 2493 Are we fruitful?

/ DVH

The Lord God told Adam and Eve in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply, and I do not believe that  He has taken that directive back. We have sometimes translated that phrase into meaning we should have children. Here’s what I want to talk about today, what if that was also a spiritual directive as well as a physical one? Ya might want to think about that! 🧐 BTW, fruit-ful means full of fruit!

Jesus once cursed a fig-tree for not being fruitful. What that shows me is that fruit is extremely important to Him! The Lord also talked at length about remaining in the Vine, so WE can produce fruit. His fruit in our lives is an exhibition of His life in us, it shows us, and others, that we are abiding – we are living in Him; His ways; His life-giving light – by choice.

The Lord Jesus has a different way for you and I to live, but I think sometimes we would rather fit that new life in and around all the things we like to do, or maybe even feel we have to do. We sing and say that ‘He is our comfort, and joy,’ but do we take away that comfort and joy from being with Him, when we have a quiet time? Being close to, and attached to Him, produces fruit – stuff we have for ourselves and stuff that prompts us to think of others.

It cost Father God everything He cherished to buy us back. Our response is to live this life by presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. A sacrifice actually involves loss – of time, control, people, or things. We own NOTHING. Owning stuff is an illusion. Sadly I think we are often missing our true mandate — the opportunity to use our time to be fruitful for His kingdom, by sharing material things with others.

Jesus didn’t play racquet ball or golf, or have a boat, and I’m pretty sure the only book He studied was the bible. He liked to spend His downtime with people. He knew how to live this life here on earth and be fruitful while He was doing it. Meanwhile, if He was in a boat then somebody else owned it and He was using it to reach out to … other people! 

Pursuing the growth of real fruit in our lives, by learning His Ways, and living the way He would – transforms us. We need to remember the King of all glory, is lowly and gentle in His heart. He demonstrated those traits by caring for those who were suffering for any reason. Many times at the bottom of our pitiful, less-than generous response to the poor all over this world, is entitlement, greed, and laziness. If we are not careful we will end up constantly exhibiting a distinct lack of love for our fellow man. No demonstrated love = no fruit! The sap of the Lord’s vine is LOVE.

FYI, nobody likes suffering or pain – no matter where we were born! It seems as if we Christians have laid aside our responsibility to care for our fellow man. Jesus warns us about that stuff in the book of Revelation 3:17.“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” People who do not give freely lack love! That’s why the Lord said we need to be cheerful givers. That cheer is the sap!

Those of us who can work, need to find ways to provide for those who can’t work, or have nothing. It’s simple. Help people who need help. Deciding whether people deserve it or not is a sign of entitlement. We simply must stop thinking that the privilege of wealth is a right and if we earn stuff then it is ours.  We have been blessed with material things to be a blessing. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,”Matthew 6:21. In my opinion, the line indicating that we have enough, which means maybe now we can share,  is always moving away from us. We need to be chasing His fruit – it lasts!

Paul said in Acts 20:32-35 “You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus Himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”The Apostle Paul worked hard to supply his own needs, as well as for the needs of those who went with Him. That sharing is a sign of living this life being fruitful!  He was showing all of us that it is NORMAL to think about, and supply the needs of others. It is not an optional extra, sharing and giving are signs of the life of the Kingdom within. 👋🏻

P 2483 Let’s go on a treasure hunt, every day!

/ DVH

Father God hides clues about what He likes, and what He doesn’t like, right throughout the bible. Sometimes it seems so understated it is easy to breeze on by it all and start to read, blah blah blah. As I said yesterday, we need to pay attention to the words used, just like the words – “present your body as a living sacrifice, that is our true acceptable spiritual worship…”  (Romans 12:1) …  are a new way to think about living this life we have.

Hidden in those words is what God really wants from us. He wants US! ALL of us. That stuff is not there so we can just ‘get by,’ it is there as a clue to what is really going on. He wants us to worship Him the way Christ did. With all of us. You know, Jesus didn’t stop half-way through His sacrificial offering on the cross and say: “Well, that will DO!” 😱 He hung there until everything … the past, present and future redemption of mankind… was finished. Our response to the Lord cannot be half-hearted, or temporary… depending on how busy we are. Or even once in a blue moon — we all know how trouble flies about like pollen on a high wind day! 

The Holy Spirit has promised to help us to achieve whatever goal He puts before us – we have that in writing! That includes very difficult things like loving people who totally drive us crazy! Go after the kingdom, and let knowledge take second place … because it puffs up! Most people expect to be able to easily do what He asks them to do – and so they look to their own talents. Things like they can sing well, so they are going to ‘sing for Jesus!’  Hmmm…. He’s got choirs in heaven that would blow our minds … He asks us to do impossible things so we will need His help to do them!

I don’t care how good you are … it doesn’t take faith to do something you KNOW you can already do. Let’s start with where we are, and let us let Him expand us. This is the new life, a new kingdom. HIS. The kingdom is life-changing, and transformative stuff. It’s like dynamite. When you use dynamite the landscape around you changes.  By all means surrender your talents, but get bigger than that. In the bible a talent can be buried in the ground. But His kingdom is meant to be dug up! His kingdom will feed thousands.

Now, here’s the same verse again from Romans 12:1-2 MSG. “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”  The important part of this verse is “God helping you.”

Here’s a really good idea to brighten up your bible reading, start reading the bible in a new version. However, even loving the word is not the same as doing it. We need His individual daily comprehension to do that and the Holy Spirit is ready, willing and MORE THAN able to help us. If we really want to know the Lord, we need to be serious about looking for Him and His Ways in the book. Every day should bring us new discoveries about Who He is and what He likes and what He is looking for from us.

To me, reading the bible is like a treasure hunt that happens every single day. You don’t find treasures lying about on the surface, you have to DIG for them. That means effort. It is not something we can do quickly and then close the book and think we are finished. The bible is our daily bread – we have to chew on it to extract the goodness out of the meat in there. We simply must stop seeing His Word as pretty comforting suggestions, and use our faith to expand it into a new way to live.

Here’s my last juicy bit of steak for today:“I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” This scripture shows me that no matter how difficult stuff is … I have His personal assurance that I can get through it with His strength. I love to put what He says into my own words to extract even more meaning … like this:… ‘Because I know He will help and strengthen me, I can do anything He asks me to do.’ We don’t need strength before we do something… if we already have it, then we don’t need to ask for it!! Do more than read the words, dig for the treasure of MORE.… Bye. 👋🏻

PS – from the bible app. Someone who reads the bible four or more times a week is:

  • 59% less likely to view pornography
  • 74% less likely to gamble
  • 407% more likely to memorise Scripture
  • 228% more likely to share their faith with others
  • 231% more likely to disciple others

     *  30% less likely to be lonely