Flames

P 2977 Every promise in the book IS mine!

/ DVH

Here’s a great clue, if we sit about waiting for this promise or that to fall on us, maybe it won’t … or …maybe it will, but it probably won’t always happen the way we think it will!  The promise was never meant to be our focus – HE IS. Every interaction with Almighty God needs to strengthen and stretch our knowledge of Him.

Our God doesn’t like systems. Tell me one time He did the same thing twice! He does, however, repeat what He has said. Someone checked it out and the phrase “fear not” is in the book 365 times! How cool is that? One for every day. Everybody loves God’s promises! Me too. But I’ve also noticed that some of His promises are conditional. Isaiah 26:3:“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in You.” Obviously cultivating a trusting, steadfast mind will reap a more a fruitful situation…  As you can see, it is good to do more than just read the words!

Over to Nahum 1:7: “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him.”  He’s always the place to go when things go upside down, that’s when we deliberately choose to trust in Him, and hold on! Psalm 84:11: “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favour and honour; no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”

OK. First things first. Because of what Christ has already done for us, we are now regarded by our God as blameless. So this promise is for us. If you lack something you’ve asked for —instead of thinking about God as withholding things from you — or questioning whether you are blameless or not — turn it around. If I haven’t received the thing I prayed for then it is probably not good for me. Let it go!! We are not the best judge of what is good for us – He is.

Isaiah 40:31 “But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”The first place to check when you feel like fainting is where or what have you put your hope IN. Sometimes we accidentally hope in people, or circumstances and those things definitely can’t deliver what God just said.

Some of His promises are applicable because we are engaged with His Kingdom – but all of His promises are activated by faith. Our faith in His goodness is the first place our enemy attacks. Faith gives the Lord’s promises substance …even if we can’t see it yet. However, if the Lord were to put out a guarantee brochure … it would say that He reserves the right to stretch our faith whenever He can see it is the right time to do it.

Accepting His will, His Way, makes complete sense to me. It means I am engaged in building His Kingdom. Trying to build the kingdoms of this world appalls me. Those kingdoms are all about money or power. It’s not that I don’t care about these things, it is more about the fact that money etc. is always coming and going – there is nothing permanent about these things. God’s Kingdom is permanent – eternal … like … forever. Now there’s a plus! So whatever we do in faith for His kingdom, as He leads us, lasts forever.

The bible tells us in Isaiah 43:2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” When things get outrageously difficult – HE WILL BE THERE, even if it feels terrible – HE WILL BE THERE.  That’s the promise. Our focus needs to come away from the water, river, fire and flames, and instead we choose to focus on HIM. If we keep on checking to see how that threat is going… we are moving away from our faith in Him, and our fear of being burned or drowned can overtake us instead.

Focus is everything. He wants to be the centre of our focus, our reason to live. Why? Because it is the safest place for us to live. Jesus showed us that. The Jews tried to kill Him before the time for His crucifixion came around and they couldn’t do it. They talked about it … which gave that spirit of murder, power. But they could not kill Him … until it was the fullness of God’s timing … Almighty God has a time for every purpose under heaven, but it won’t always make sense to us. That’s why we need faith.

It is also why we must read His book diligently for ourselves.  Nobody else’s words should take priority over what He says. Chase Him! People have no idea how much fun our God is. Often we simply try to use Him for our own deficits, ambitions and comfort … instead of simply enjoying Him.  Believing in His goodness and mercy IS worship when you are in pain or trouble. God’s love is pure, holy and not self-centred. Everything that happens to us is under His loving gaze. If He allows it, then He will see us through it.

Sometimes the hardest thing to learn is to be real with Him. Remember, Father God listens to our hearts, not just our words. By all means ‘ask and keep on asking…’ And remember HELP is a prayer!! Every promise in His book is mine … because they are HIS promises … and He keeps His promises. He’s the best Father ever. Bye. 👋

P 2684 FIRE.🔥

/ DVH

Daniel 3 – An excerpt from the GN Version V21-25: “So they tied them up, fully dressed—shirts, robes, caps, and all—and threw them into the blazing furnace. Now because the king had given strict orders for the furnace to be made extremely hot, the flames burned up the guards who took the men to the furnace. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, still tied up, fell into the heart of the blazing fire. Suddenly Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement. He asked his officials, “Didn’t we tie up three men and throw them into the blazing furnace?” They answered, “Yes, we did, Your Majesty.” “Then why do I see four men walking around in the fire?” he asked. “They are not tied up, and they show no sign of being hurt—and the fourth one looks like an angel.…”

Just briefly to recap, these three men were thoroughly bound and thrown into an incredibly hot furnace, through no fault of their own, simply because they refused to bow down to a huge statue of the egotistical king. My point today has come from this story. Sin will tie us up and leave us bound. Our own sin, or even other people’s sins against us. However the fire of God comes to burn away everything that is holding us fast into the past. We need the fire of His love to burn away our bondages. 

This is why it is imperative that we forgive other people quickly. The longer we stew on our offences the deeper the roots of those offences drive themselves down into our hearts, minds and emotions. If we are not careful we can end up with a full grown tree that has a root of bitterness, plus all kinds of other junk. Îf you have ever pulled up some sort of a real tree you will know that they are very hard to get out of the ground once they are established!

However, His fire comes on our lives to burn off these bondages – even the ones we have willingly embraced. It doesn’t matter how we got into the furnace, He will get us out! He will not leave us there. Because the fire of His Love and passion for us is always upon us.But we will need to walk WITH Him through those flames.The hotter the fire the quicker and more productive our new found freedom is going to be. When those three men came out of that furnace, everyone’s life changed— for the better!

I want to remind us all of something Isaiah said. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”  Isaiah 43:2. I believe that Isaiah 43:2 is a visual example of what Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego experienced. They were thrown into that fire and it was not their fault. However, SomeBody Else was in there with them, and in that place they were released from all captivity. The fire set them up with a new way to live.

At any given moment we can be thrown into some sort of ‘fire’ by life’s difficulties. Everything is fine, and then suddenly you are standing there watching your life disintegrate, with the fire’s intense heat all around you, and you don’t know where it came from and you don’t know why it has happened! That fire may have been sent by the enemy to destroy us, BUT God will use it to burn off all our bondages. However, our responses to any temptation to run away, can thwart the fire’s purpose. Always remember, God does not send these difficulties, He uses them to take us to a new and safer place, so we can stand in the blazing fire of adverse circumstances and not be afraid.

He promises to always be with us. That’s the first and only place you need to nail your faith to the wall. Not whether we will get out or not, not why we are in there, or even what we did to get in there, but the fact that He promised to be with us! We cannot come to harm when He is there with us. His rod and staff are there to comfort us. He’s setting the table in front of our enemies for a brand new feast. That cup He is holding for us to drink from, is overflowing with His goodness, His love, His compassion, and His deliverance. 

Drinking from His cup of suffering, and sorrow will always taste bitter initially, but as we yield to HIM, these things will do us good. BTW, yielding is not the same as giving up! The more we drink from His cup and share His suffering, the more we will understand what He has done for us, and what we have been given. We will benefit if we choose to stand in the fiery furnaces of this life WITH HIM by our side. His perfect love will throw out all fear. Pray for ‘endurance, until He accomplishes in your heart whatever He wants for His glory.’ 🙌

“Beloved friends, if life gets extremely difficult, with many tests, don’t be bewildered as though something strange were overwhelming you. Instead, continue to rejoice, for you, in a measure, have shared in the sufferings of the Anointed One so that you can share in the revelation of His glory and celebrate with even greater gladness!” 1 Peter 4:12-13.

P 2673 Who or what has your heart?

/ DVH

“When you pass through the deep, stormy sea, you can count on Me to be there with you. When you pass through raging rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through persecution like fiery flames, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you,” Isaiah 43:2 TPT.

The above verse is mentioned today to comfort to anyone who is in a very dark place. It promises us that God’s Presence is never absent despite our circumstances. The thing is, we must remember that this verse and others like it, are faith verses. Almighty God said it, and He means it, so we need to embrace it. However, in those hard times we may not feel a thing! We may dearly need to feel better, but our feelings have nothing whatsoever to do with His Grace in our lives! Even our disappointment could be seen as judgment against His ability to use everything to help us.

The lack of change can sometimes be the reason we are strongly tempted to think that He is not with us, because we have a great expectation that He will deliver us … but sometimes things can even get even worse!!  So what happened? Is it sin in our lives? No! Sin went on the cross. Does God not care that we feel overwhelmed by our circumstances? Of course He does, but we must remind ourselves that He says “I will be with you” — He does not say – you will FEEL Me with you! Yeah, I know, that seems to be splitting hairs, but let’s remember that now we are in His kingdom, where He is King. We chose to come under His rule, and we will need to trust Him to do what He has promised.

“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”Numbers 23:19. In our society today, people are judged or exalted or rewarded because of their actions. As Christians we need to remember that Almighty God does not do things to meet mankind’s expectations. He does not answer to us. In other words, our societal attitudes don’t feature in His decision making processes. Whatever His answer, action, or lack of! … the real point is – His ways are perfect. So, if there is no answer, or corresponding change of circumstances, then we need to remember that He is sovereign. We must always leave our heart with Him, that is the safest place for it.

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; He’ll always be there to help you come through it. So, my very dear friends, when you see people reducing God to something they can use or control, get out of their company as fast as you can.” 1 Corinthians 10:13-14. MSG.

Personally, I have discovered that I can set my pain and strife limits a bit too low – I can probably move and change much more than I think I can! I get side-tracked because I am not all that excited about stretching — old bones, etc. Everything creaks when I am stretched! In those moments, it is good to remember that this life is the only one I’m going to get, and it is about growth and change. That’s two more things older people don’t like much!! I have to remind myself over and over again, that the Lord is bigger than my circumstances, and if they remain the same, after I have prayed … then He has a purpose I can’t see yet! Good place to pray: “Teach me Your ways, Lord, so I can walk with You.” Amen.

“Even when Your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for You already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of Your love takes away my fear. I’ll never be lonely, for You are near.” Psalms 23:4 TPT.

This verse from the 23rd Psalm is a great clue to the solution to my problem and it diagnoses the heart of what is really going on. Who or what has my heart? Does fear rule me when the going gets tough, or does He? We must always remember that “there is no fear in love,” as well as,  “what time I am afraid I will trust in Thee.” When I finally catch on to the fact that I am feeling afraid, it can take a while, but eventually I have an ‘AHA!’ moment. That’s when I realise that I have let circumstances fill my vision, instead of WHO He is. Rookie mistake. I’m back thinking that He’s there to make my life better, I’ve totally forgotten I am here for His purposes.

After repenting, my next move is to ask the Lord, “Who can I bless?” ‘ That’s because ‘it is in giving that we receive!’  And in those difficult times, my receiver seems to have gone off-line. Sometimes doing that simple thing leads to a fresh revelation about Him. And sometimes it leads to a fresh revelation about me. I need both! I have found that taking my focus away from the difficulty, and caring for someone else, eventually gives me a chance to view things from another angle. As I bless others, I remember that my heart belongs to Him, I gave it to Him. 

He won’t ever ‘leave me or forsake me or give me up.’ Switching focus clarifies what really matters. 👋