Father

P 2217 We definitely need our minds transformed!

/ DVH

“…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19. AMEN!  There are some great prayers in Ephesians. I pray that stuff for myself – often. I know I definitely need the power to understand what HIS LOVE LOOKS LIKE – that’s why I read, study, and chew over whatever I read in the bible.

Here’s another scripture that was rolling about in my heart today along with the one from Ephesians.  “Behold what manner of love the Father gives that we might be called the sons of God…” 1 John 3:1. For me that translates into: ‘take a good look at what KIND of love the Father gives us.’ 

First of all I want to say that our human ideas of love, contrasted with the reality of His love, seem very different to me. Our idea of love is nobody ever says NO to us, we get EXACTLY what we want whenever we want it, and we are indulged and petted by others as being ‘special’ and ‘worthy.’ These peculiar thoughts come from our current civilisation’s idea that anyone can be rich, famous, and popular if they are prepared to work at it. Baloney! Many a talented human being is now in their grave unrecognised by the rest of us – it is God Who exalts people … and He hides others.

Reading the book carefully will stomp on all that human deceit!  We simply must stop cherry-picking out verses we like and claiming them … and start asking the Lord God what HE WANTS. The bible is a whole book, it is not just a collection of ‘gimme’ verses. Paul is praying for each of US that we would have the power to understand how comprehensively big God’s love is. Which means, BTW, that in our natural selves we don’t get it! Spiritual stuff cannot be understood by our natural minds. (1 Corinthians 2:14) In other words it doesn’t make any sense to us! 

He then goes on to explain what God’s kind of love looks like – how comprehensively overwhelming and all-encompassing it is. The reason I pray those verses over my life is because I don’t want my idea of love anymore – that stuff is based on meeting my own needs and plans… or avoidance, or anger, or retribution. At the very least – my idea is self-serving! Instead, I truly want to choose GOD’S IDEA OF LOVE. 

At this point I need to realise that God’s idea of love nailed His Only Precious one-of-a-kind Son to a tree! Ya might want to think on that one for the rest of your life. 🧐 

To the world around us, Father God’s action for our salvation looks merciless, graceless, and loveless, because the Lord Jesus was totally innocent of any wrong doing – He only did humanity good! Even the bystanders at the crucifixion questioned how Jesus could be Who He said He was, when God was allowing this to happen! Can you see how squirrelled-up man’s thinking is?

This shows me how ingrained self-centredness, self-preservation and self-satisfaction is in mankind’s psyche. The reality is that solitary act actually proves that God’s love will go to any lengths to rescue humanity. “He Who did not spare His only Son …” (Romans 8) Yet currently, at the bottom of mankind’s thoughts is something like this … ‘God is there for my benefit – if you are suffering you must have done something bad.‘ 😳 Here’s a big thought:  maybe “and forget not all His benefits” is more about us not going to hell than it is about us having a big house with all the trimmings, living a comfortable life, or having overseas holidays etc.etc.  

It seems to me that we’ve thrown God’s idea of love right out of the window! God’s love is a different KIND of love. We’ve lived for years on the premise that God saved us to spoil us rotten – giving us what we want, or what we think we need. The reality is – His Precious Son died for us so we would have the power to live for Him, and be that kind of love in action toward other people. It’s about multiplication, not gain. And that’s quite a contrast. We need our minds renewed – daily. 👋🏻

P 2210 Do this to remember Me.

/ DVH

We all know these verses and say them at communion. But there are times when I wonder if we understand what we are saying – maybe sometimes we say it without thought. I don’t think that eating and drinking communion regularly is the main thing in the Lord’s eyes – I think regularly and intentionally remembering Him and what He did for us, IS. 

Yeah, I know a whole lotta people dun got mad at me for what I just said. In some denominations communion is an extremely important sacrament. I am not trying to diminish the importance of obeying what Jesus said … far from it. But the accent should be on the Lord, not the bread, biscuit, grape juice or wine. It’s the remembering that counts – not the vehicle we use to do it. I think communion is a cue. Listen to this in Youversion:

“Let me go over with you again exactly what goes on in the Lord’s Supper and why it is so centrally important. I received my instructions from the Master Himself and passed them on to you. The Master, Jesus, on the night of His betrayal, took bread. Having given thanks, He broke it and said, This is My body, broken for you. Do this to remember Me. After supper, He did the same thing with the cup: This cup is My blood, My new covenant with you. Each time you drink this cup, remember Me. What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master.” 1 Corinthians 11:25,26. Communion is to remind us – it is not the most important thing – what Jesus DID is the most important thing!

If you would like a more familiar version here’s the KJV:“After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in My blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till He come.” I’m a big fan of reading more than one version – it opens our eyes to more than the words. I think it can help explain the meaning more clearly. Jesus is telling us that we are to remember Him and what He did, when we break the bread and drink the wine in communion. The sacrament of communion is not the holy thing – remembering Him and what He did, is.

The Lord Jesus never took His spiritual eyes off His Father – He only did what He saw His Father doing. Communion is a way to keep what Jesus DID for us in front of our eyes. When His Presence, His will, His Ways are more important than our own, we will begin to live the same way He did… mindful of our Father’s wishes, as well as other people.

Reading the bible is another way to remember Him. I went to sleep last night chewing on a verse, because it seemed to me that I had not seen what He wanted me to see … yet … and I’m still chewing!  It is a fatal error to think we already know stuff because we can parrot off what the bible says. We will never really know everything this side of heaven – and I strongly suspect we won’t know everything when we get there either! Our God is beyond our comprehension! Meanwhile, there is so much more in the bible than we currently understand. We can’t study it out, we need to live in the Lord’s Presence to give us eyes and ears – we need His revelation.

Remembering Jesus is not like sending your Grandma a card for her birthday! Maybe you’ve written the date of her birthday onto a calendar, or put it in event’s calendar on your cell phone and it merrily chimes to remind you. That’s not remembering … that’s being reminded! Put the word remember into the present tense – in these verses remember is a NOW word, not a special occasional one. It is not about doing something to remind us, it is about living daily that way. The Lord Jesus’ idea of remembering is more focussed. He threw away His own agenda and focussed on His Father’s agenda instead.

Like Paul said: “…for me TO LIVE is CHRIST!” That kind of remembering is current and powerful. When we cultivate an awareness of His Presence, His word, His loving kindness and goodness will be a gold thread running right through the very centre of our lives, all day, every day – not just when we take communion. And I know I ain’t there yet! Lemme put this another way – people who are promiscuous forget they are married. They left their awareness of their marriage vows behind, to do something else. Jesus needs to be in the forefront of our minds, He is never a PS!

In conclusion, it is good to realise that we don’t have to remember Him – we want to remember Him and what He did for us. That sort of focus will keep us humble and grateful. Let’s not let this life’s pressures take our focus away from why we are still here .. to serve Him and worship Him for all He did for us. Remembering is a key to opening our hearts wider than before. 👋🏻 

P 2200 Wisdom is a Person.

/ DVH

Wisdom is the Person of the Holy Spirit. If we will value His opinion above our own, He will share with us. HE LOVES TO SHARE. The Holy Spirit’s wisdom is not the same as ours. His POV is sin-free! Thank you Jesus! 👏 He only wants to see the Father and the Son glorified. HE HAS NO PERSONAL AGENDA. 

We need to understand that we won’t always comprehend what He says … because most of the time we are pre-occupied with our lives, and we definitely have agendas. Plus what the Holy Spirit says will often cut across our own way of thinking. Sometimes we could turn away His wisdom, because it doesn’t make sense to our minds. But when we choose to pause and listen and obey – then the whole world gets bigger. There is enormous value in PAUSING and WAITING.

We need to value the Holy Spirit’s Presence in our lives above everyone else. He’s here, right here right now. He’s there with you while you are reading this. His desire is for you to go from strength to strength – and He knows the Way through everything you are facing. Here’s something that helps me: just because He did something a particular way last time something happened to us, that doesn’t mean He will do it the same way this time. Stay open to change. Things get clearer and bigger when the Holy Spirit is around – He brings His light, His way of thinking, with Him. Be like the blind man in the bible who said to the Pharisees: “One thing I do know: I was blind but now I see.” John 9:25. We don’t have to know everything because we know SomeOne Who does …and how He lo-oves to share!! 🙌

Even when you are reading the book, never ever think you already know it! I’ve become fairly well acquainted with His book over the years. However, when I started out I had to use the index because I couldn’t find anything!  But from the very beginning of writing this blog – He cautioned me to look up every verse I put here  – even if I think I know what it says.  Why?  Because He expands those verses as I am rereading them for the umpteenth time and suddenly I see something I never saw before. I exhort us all to decide to be as dumb as the dust we all came from. To interact with the Holy Spirit and walk with Him we will need great humility – because He is not self-exalting. 

True humility never assumes – it leaves human knowledge at the door and goes for what is in the book. It asks “what would my Father say?” If that was good enough for Jesus then it is good enough for us! Seriously, don’t put all your hopes in this or that revelation, or some sort of insight, or voices, or dreams, or what someone else said. Ask for His wisdom for yourself. “Ask and keep on asking …” The Holy Spirit opens up His Ways to us as we read His book. Our own human psyche has an agenda, so we must deliberately leave our agendas behind, and focus on the desire to hear from Him, and ask for the patience to go after Him.

Our God doesn’t care about man’s logic. Man’s logic is easily influenced by greed and need. Remember what happened in the garden:  “…the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom … “ (Genesis 3). Eve sinned when she valued her opinion over what Father God said. Obedience matters. Think about every bible story you ever read, they don’t make sense to the human mind. 5 loaves and 2 fishes to feed thousands? Ridiculous! “Hey, let’s climb out of a perfectly good boat and walk on water???” I mean … the bible has loads of stories that are wa-ay out there … 😳 Almighty God does not think like we do. It’s not that He thinks bigger – He thinks in an incredibly comprehensively Way. He has everyone’s good in mind, not just yours. 

His wisdom needs to be esteemed – not only must we value it – we must not discard it just because it doesn’t initially make sense to us!  File the stuff you don’t yet understand under – “things I will understand one day” – and leave them there. I drag them out every now and then and ask again. We must learn to make His wisdom our treasure. I exhort everyone to read the bible like a treasure map. Humanity reads the stories in the book, and sees advantages, short cuts – “Oh, if I do this, then God will do that, because He did that for Fred and Mary. SO!! … if I do that, then He will do it for me too.”  

Beware of the ‘SOs’ – our God is incomprehensible. He rarely does the same thing twice. (Read the book!) There are no short cuts, but there is only always MORE. Ask for His wisdom. And please don’t just ask for wisdom when you’ve run out of your own ideas, instead walk with Him, be led by His wisdom, all the time! 👋🏻

“Wisdom cries aloud in the streets…” Proverbs 1:20; Proverbs 4:5-9; James 1:5; Luke 21:15; Ephesians 1:17.

P 2195 No time for a Nanna-nap!

/ DVH

“But you, beloved brothers and sisters, are not living in the dark, allowing that day to creep up on you like a thief coming to steal.For you are all children of the light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night nor to darkness. This is why we must not fall asleep, as the rest do, but keep wide awake and clearheaded.But since we belong to the day, we must stay alert and clearheaded by placing the breastplate of faith and love over our hearts, and a helmet of the hope of salvation over our thoughts. He gave His life for us so that we may share in resurrection life in union with Him—whether we’re awake or asleep.” 1 Thessalonians 5:4-6, 8, 10 TPT.

The bible says His word is ‘a lamp to our feet and a light unto our path.’ And the Message bible says this: “By your words I can see where I’m going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path.” Christians do not lack light – we actually can’t! Jesus is the light of this world and we are in Christ – it’s not EVER dark where He is. You will always have plenty of light when you hang around with Jesus.

Sadly, sometimes what we do lack is the will to go and sit in the light and learn from Him! We need the Holy Spirit’s help to stay awake and alert in these overwhelming times. Ignoring why we are here is sleeping. Unfortunately human beings are not inherently good, despite popular opinion  – they are often uncaring, self-centred, independent creatures who want what they want when they want it. And if you don’t believe me read a newspaper or look at social media. Those things will quickly convince you that without Christ we are all helpless and at the mercy of our own appetites!

But because we live in the light – living there means His light will convince us that darkness cannot oppose us. Turn a light switch on when it is pitch black – darkness doesn’t leave grumbling and complaining – it is simply gone. Part of the way we shine His light out there into the darkness is to actively engage in learning His ways from the Holy Spirit. How to love others – our family, the people at work or school, our neighbours, so it is incredibly important that we see other people through His eyes. We get our Father’s eyes through living in obedience. His eyes are full of compassion. Otherwise our eyes are full of our own needs and our problems. Living in the light means we are learning to unconditionally accept the person in front of us. We can’t ever do that without the Lord’s help.

As we go about in this world, it is easy to see that many people have become so used to the darkness – that the light in us, and coming from us, hurts their eyes or they are afraid of it so they hide from it. But there are others who are drawn toward the light because it resonates deep within them. In today’s careless self-centred world, we cannot afford to be asleep on the job because who we are is always on display. People watch us  simply because we are standing in His light. 

Alert people keep their faith going even when it is opposed on all sides. If they have to hang on by their fingernails, they hang on! They tell themselves, “God has got this. These circumstances did not surprise Him. He has a plan, His plans are for my good and my future. I cannot afford to see my circumstances through the white noise this world produces, even though it is all around me – I must look at this life through the Lord’s eyes not my own.” These people stop holding onto what they think they must have or need, and let everything go – other people’s sin, the absence of real love everywhere etc. simply because walking with Him is more important than anything else.

Our personal faith is far more incredibly valuable than we realise, and we access and use our faith when we choose to love others, no matter what is going on in us and around us. Faith is a belief that our God can and will only do all of us good whether we know it or not – because He is good. We need the kind of strong faith that protects our hearts. The kind of faith that covers our heart with the belief that He loves and cares for every single person individually – no matter how things look, or how we feel.

Our faith hides in, and depends upon His goodness. It hides us from the deadly attacks of the enemy. It creates an atmosphere that is alert and notices whatever the Lord is doing. Our faith looks for good even within the bad. Our faith believes in Him, His Character, His never-ending kindness, goodness and love. And it shields our hearts by reminding us of everything He said in the bible. Our faith is not in circumstances or people, it understands other people fall victim to their own lack of faith in His reliability.

Lastly, His hope comes directly from our belief system –  it understands that HOPE is a Person. Christ. Our hope relies upon what He did. We cannot afford to gain hope from works, or even experiences – our hope is in Him. Sleeping in the light is wasting the time God gave us all. Just because things have become darker outside, that does not mean we can afford Nanna naps! The light shines brighter in the darkness. 👋🏻

P 2174 The secret of a life lived in faith…

/ DVH

…is to look away from the natural realm. That BTW, does not mean we ignore the natural realm around us. It simply means we don’t let what is around us – in our faces, so to speak – dominate us. We see it all, but it does not have the final say – the Lord Jesus always has the final say. 

“We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus who birthed faith within us and who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this: Because His heart was focused on the joy of knowing that YOU would be His, He endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!” Hebrews 12:2TPT.

And there you have it. Our new life in Christ is all about focus. In today’s world, focus on Him takes faith, because there is so much to distract us. For most people, their lives are soooo busy it seems they barely have any time to take the time to focus on spiritual things. Perhaps that’s because we have over-spiritualised stuff. Spirituality needs to be like breathing. Adam and Eve didn’t flap-doodle about every evening when the Lord came into the garden … they expected Him!  This new life needs to be normal, not something we have to ‘work up.’ Faith isn’t what we do, it’s the way we regard Him. What we do comes from knowing Him.

We have become so enamoured with having ‘experiences’ that we have forgotten that this life is a relationship with a Person. Read the Old Testament – the men and women in there expected Almighty God to guide and help them, and that was normal. They complained when they thought He wasn’t helping them – read the Psalms! Stop for a minute. Imagine expecting the Lord to be with you in every single situation that you will face today. That was the way the Israelites lived. Yet they missed it, because they only saw His provision – they did not see Him or His wonderful Heart toward them.

When we get over into the New Testament we find that the Lord is SomeOne that the people in those stories utterly rely upon in every situation, and they know that He will be there for them. He is no longer an add-on – now He is their life! You know, we’ve unintentionally allowed the most precious things in this life to become secondary. Our God is a jealous God. He doesn’t ‘do’ second place. And that’s not because Almighty God is egotistical either – it’s because we were made to be with Him. He knows us. Every single thing He does is for our good. 

Mankind was not designed to walk alone. In Genesis the Lord says: “It is not good for man to be alone …” When Almighty God says something is not good it is NOT GOOD!  He walked and talked with Adam and Eve every single day. And His minute by minute input into our individual lives always refreshes and revives us! We are not good on our own. We can manage some of our time without other people, but we cannot possibly manage without HIM. I was raised without a father and I missed him. How much more should we miss the Presence of the One Who made us!

Jesus Christ lived day by day together with His disciples – He chose to be that close to human beings.  Ordinary people, not just religious scholars, asked God Himself questions and … He explained Himself! Sometimes His answers created even bigger questions (!!)  … but … just imagine that for a second. Those people were in His Presence and most of them didn’t even know it. Maybe we are still doing that today!  The Lord Jesus loved to interact with people. He healed them, fed them, talked to them, in Person! And He didn’t zap sinners into stone either – He is so merciful. When we don’t spend time with Him, we forget how precious His company is. And oh! – how He misses our company.

In this life we live, every single day is filled with pressure and distractions. But our God has enormous compassion toward us, because He knows we are glorified dust, and human beings fold up under pressure. BUT, He is there for us throughout each single nano-second – loving us – encouraging us to press on – into His Presence. We don’t go anywhere without Him knowing where we are. Most of us are just like a little baby who thinks the adult is not there when they play ‘peek-a-boo’ – He’s there. Turn your head. LOVE WALKS WITH YOU. He doesn’t sign in and out on a time clock!

The Holy Spirit is this life’s greatest treasure. Imagine this – the SomeOne Who made everything we see, wants to walk around with you and I through some of the dullest, dumbest days ever. Work isn’t called work because it’s fun! But our God loves us so much He can’t wait to be with us … He knows how to do what you do, much better than you do. You know, AWE is the natural outworking of a greater revelation of Who He is. 

Father God loves to share His secrets with anyone who wants to know them. But to do that we must look away from the natural realm into the things that will last, and pull focus onto His new life within us.  This life we have now is just a blink in eternity’s eyes. Living by faith means we live this life, right here right now – enjoying Him. 24/7. 👋🏻

P 2154 Time to step up our training.

/ DVH

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18). When the bible says we are being transformed, that means right here, right now. However, more responsibility in this new life of ours, can mean we will face even more opposition … that’s also something that we need remember as we go along. BUT the Lord is way too kind to let us move from one glory into the next without Him personally preparing us. HE WANTS US TO WIN. Our God is really great at resistance training! 🤣

If you feel you have been called to do this or that, or whatever;  then you need to know that there will be opposition facing you. The upside is that the Lord knows you can go through whatever it is. Jesus will walk us each step of the way, just like He did for Peter when he was walking on the water. Christianity is not for the faint-hearted. However, we must remember, that it is always filled to overflowing with His kindness, mercy, love and grace for the timid, inept and weak. Keep praying for eyes to see these things! Our God is so incredible. Stretching our faith means developing spiritual muscles. If you read the book carefully, you will see that happening in so many lives in the bible.

Philippians 2: 3-4 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”Now there is a great verse to remember. I urge anyone to exercise great caution when talking about the things the Lord has said about your future. Our opponent knows very little about us, unless we open our big mouths and tell him – he’s not omniscient or omnipresent like our Father. You and I must learn to strengthen our feeble knees and wobbly hands by fighting his opposition daily – through the immediate situations we face, and how we decide to face them. God trains us for this war through these day to day seemingly ordinary difficult situations.

He allows these things every day, so we can willingly learn to choose His ways – for His sake. For things like humility, preferring others, speaking well of others as well as living our lives for His Body’s sake. Our God will not let us move on to what comes next, without learning these lessons. So, sadly, some people go round and round like an eddy in a little pool, because they have not yet learnt what they need to know so they are unprepared for what comes next. That would be me with my hand up BTW. I’ve gone round and round so many times I got giddy. 😵‍💫 Then I asked Him why I was stuck … and He told me!  We prepare for WAR by fighting our daily battles.

It took me a while to understand that I actually was hobbling myself by refusing to learn His ways. We have such a good good Father. Remember He will never send us out unprepared. He also does not make a private strategise the next move on the battlefield – that task belongs to a general – that’s why we need leaders. My advice? Learn to be happy where you are … let Him arrange what comes next. Do what you can, and then turn it all over to Him and leave it there. We cannot afford to ignore any tests He sends us. Each one is building a muscle we will need when we step into what He has for us NEXT.  

Jesus came here to serve us, and when we follow Him we will always lovingly serve others. The most fun you will ever have, trust me, is when you are led to serve someone who hates you – and go and you do whatever the Lord tells you to do, and it messes with their mind. I’ve seen people ‘lost at sea,’  literally, because they do not have a pocket to put my kindness toward them in. It’s hilarious. BTW you don’t do these things as revenge, you are just following the Leader. But it still can be a tad funny!

Our God loves oxymorons. These are the things in the bible that are put together in a harmonious way, but they are actually in direct opposition to one another. So he sends a coward to fight without number, and a hater to save a particularly hated city. Plus He brings His Only precious pure Son through the lineage of a couple of prostitutes. He tells us clearly in the book, that when we are weak then the potential exists for Him to be strong IN us etc. Jesus even told us we are blessed when we mourn! So when God tells us to rejoice always you can be pretty darn sure that this life is going to give us opportunities to have that particular mindset challenged. Nothing is wasted. Opportunities will only be wasted if we don’t rely upon His word.

The bible is a road map to His heart, and His Ways. We cannot afford to lean on our own understanding, instead we need to faithfully, and progressively learn to know and lean on HIS. But, because His Ways are higher than ours, they won’t always seem fantastic, instantly, to us! There is so much more ahead of us, if we don’t waste the life we have feathering our own nests! Instead we need to progressively learn how to live for His kingdom and put that first. Training is hard. It means putting down what I want, and doing something I don’t want to do – especially not repeatedly! The benefit of this, is that as we learn His ways, we are changed, and then His Ways not only make sense, they become extremely beautiful to us.  Praise the Lord! 😂