Focus

P 3442 Keeping our love ON.

/ DVH

One way or another, I have spent a great deal of my time in hospitals. I am not saying that to gain sympathy, it is simply true. Meanwhile I don’t like them. I feel like someone is going to pop out of the ether, and decide I need this ghastly test, or that. Or maybe some super keen doctor will sentence me to four hours of waiting in a chair. While I try not to mind my life being whittled away by people in white coats. Yeah, I have a bad attitude. The Lord reminded me this morning that sick people go to hospitals, “the fields are white!” He said. “I need more energy Lord,” I said!

Remembering to keep our love ON can be difficult at times, especially when we’ve spent a lot of our lives living the other way. Here’s what Jesus said:  “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.’ Matthew 7:13-14. Yeah, I wish He hadn’t said that too … but He did. The narrow gate needs to be sought and found – it isn’t like the yellow brick road, wide and obvious!

The people who travel this narrow road study LOVE. How it works, what it looks like when we do it. The Lord has said some tough stuff in the scriptures, but when I look at the way I’ve chosen to live in the past, I am so grateful for His wisdom – I need to hear it! It wasn’t that I didn’t try to obey Him, but I know I gave complaining equal footing in my life. A grateful heart is a fantastic blessing, in the list of blessings God has given us. Let’s stop searching for the fake gold of this world, and start digging for the real treasure … Jesus Himself.

However, we will have to fight any Goliaths that have taken up residence in our lives. Those things that bellow and hurl threats of doom and despair at us, and others, through us. He yells that he will kill us, our friends, our families, plus everyone we love, to create fear. Love can’t flourish in an atmosphere of fear. We must trust the Lord to take care of us. David ran at Goliath, but he left his big brothers up on a hill hiding behind rocks! His brothers had a problem … but David didn’t! His faith in Almighty God saved an entire nation that day.

The thing I love about this young man is that he believed in the God Who was with him, when he faced Goliath. We are so much better off than David was, we have the same God IN us. That thing that we think we can’t possibly fight, we don’t ever have to fight it alone. He will be with us. He promised, so let’s choose to believe Him! David was no more alone on that battle field than WE are. Jesus told us that He has given us His power, and we need to believe Him and act on it. Then we can go to our enemy’s camp and take back what he has stolen from us. 

People spend time praying to become everything the Lord God means for them to be. I want to add that it is also good to pray that we would identify and throw off all those weights the enemy has been laying on us since birth … “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Hebrews 12:1. WE do that, God doesn’t do it for us – He does it with us!

We may not feel like we can outrun the Goliaths of this world, but we can definitely learn to outwait them. BTW, “outwait” is a verb meaning to stay longer than someone else, or to wait until a bad event or time finishes.” Perseverance is a vastly underestimated Grace. It comes directly from the fruit of “patience, faithfulness, and self-control.” We have eternity on our side – satan does not, and he knows  it! If we do not faint in our journeys with Jesus — we will win. Don’t look at problems as forever things, once we give them into His hands who knows what He will do with them?

Doing the things we hate is another form of worship, as we do them “as unto the Lord.” Let’s face it, without the Holy Spirit’s help, none of these things are actually appealing. They are easy to read, but it is much harder to motivate yourself to do it. We want to raise the dead and heal the sick, and have a ministry, etc. But Jesus wants us to be bullet proof — He cares about our hearts first. And Paul gave us a list of things that we need to remember to wear. So as we put on the full armour of God, we put on those things are illustrations of the new way we’ve chosen to live now. This is how it works:

‘Always speaking HIS truth;  remembering we have Christ’s righteousness as a gift to clear our path;  at the same time we are always ready to share the gospel;  and our faith guides us and prompts us to act. Together with the knowledge that Jesus died to save us and now we have the Holy Spirit with us.’ Let’s embrace active cultivation, through our own personal choices, and make room for the growth of the fruit of the Spirit. As we “…put on love, which binds …(all the other graces) … together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:14. We can’t be patient, kind, self-controlled etc. without LOVE leading us. 

Doing things we dislike is a challenge, but there are so many riches that are already in place, waiting for us to draw upon them. So let’s focus on the Lord and His blessings, not our feelings.. Our faith when it is active, will give all these things, substance. They become evidence in our lives of His Presence.  The answer is simple — don’t take your love off … Jesus’ love is always on! Bye. 👋

P 3441 We carry His Presence …

/ DVH

…and that is a privilege. This life is not meant to be a drudge, slogging on from day to day, only to get up the next day preoccupied with the same problems that occupied our thoughts yesterday! Or perhaps something new pops up and that takes over. 

We can be kept so very busy trying to get to a place where we can obey what He asks us to do, that in the end, we do nothing. Instead we are always waiting. Always in transit but never arriving. The minute we said “yes” to Jesus, the things of this world became secondary. Our primary goal now is to love and serve Him and others. Let’s actively learn to let Father God take care of us. He will look after ‘matters concerning us.’ I spent years trying to figure out which bit was my bit and which bit was His! Finally I thought … “You have the lot Lord, I can’t manage this juggling at all, I keep dropping things.”

Let’s be clear: when I finally realised what DEAD means I did more than just have a thought, I actively took my life and its problems, and prayerfully handed it all over to Him and then I refused to pick them up again. My problems were often people, and the way they had treated me. So I gave up my right to be protected from people who didn’t care a hoot about how I felt, and started practising Love, I chose to change my focus from making them happy to loving them. I was rotten at it and I needed His help. Love does not mean you have to give in. Love means you listen to Him – FIRST. Let the Lord draw your boundaries.

Now, I take my thoughts captive and hand them back to Him. If I end up ruminating over something or other, then I repent and give it back to Him, and ask the Lord to redeem everything. We cannot afford to live in partial surrender. We will spend most of our time trying to figure out which bit is His and what’s ours! Total surrender is the only way to go, otherwise we can be distracted from our main purpose.

Jesus reminded us of that purpose in Mathew 22:37-40.“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

We need to remember our God-given purpose. Love Him first, then love others. That’s because we can’t actually love others unless we meditate on how much He loves us! We are His disciples, we distribute the bread that has been broken in His hands and we give it to the hungry all around us. He was broken for all of us.

If the Holy Spirit had not come at exactly the right time, the disciples could easily have wandered away, and maybe set up their own ministries based on what they saw Jesus do, around them and through them. They too needed the power of God to fall on them. The Holy Spirit released in them the same clarity, courage and purpose Jesus  had. When you read the Epistles etc you don’t hear the Apostles talking about how this or that difficulty occurred last week. Their focus is on Christ, crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected. 

They didn’t care if their parents smacked them too much, or someone bullied them, or stole their money etc. They had better things to do! All this prayer for healing of our inner selves can waste a perfectly good life. Stop living in the past. Be like those 10 lepers!  They were totally healed as they went. Thank God for what He has already done in you, and keep asking Him for more. Then go out and love on other people. Ask Him to help you recognise in yourself anything that could distract you from His primary purpose of loving God and others. 

Back to the Lord’s disciples. It would have been easy to walk about grandly despatching this snippet of information, and passing on this new revelation. If they did that they would have become a brand new breed of Pharisee, Sadducee or Teacher! We don’t need labels, or chains of honour, we need the Holy Spirit. Forget ministry, that will overtake you when He is ready. Those twelve men could have sat back and said, “We were His friends, we saw Him do incredible things.” And lived off that for the rest of their lives..

But they didn’t. They were the ones who had walked with Him and talked with Him and learnt from Him … and He said …“GO!” … So they went. They sought out lost people who didn’t know what Christ had given them, and they daily gave away what they had. They died living that way. 

It makes me want to weep. We sit in our comfy houses in the Western world, and drive our nice cars to church, and pray that Almighty God will make our lives happy and the lives of our families happy. And when they aren’t the way we think they should be, then we pray for Him to make the trouble go away. HE is the centre of the Universe … we aren’t. We aren’t even a blip on the Richter Scale. 

We’ve been given the privilege to carry His Presence with us wherever we go. Leaving the Holy Spirit behind, ignoring Him and His directions is incredibly risky. One day we could wake up and think: ‘maybe the bible isn’t true, maybe it is just an old book with sweet metaphors about niceness.’  People do not often lose their faith in one gigantic explosive event, it is more likely they will lose it little by little and walk away. It’s called compromise. Value His Presence and His love for you, and others, daily. Bye. 👋. 

P 3436 There is a time to jump up and down.   

/ DVH

“Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol Him, all you people. For great is His love toward us and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord.” NIV Version Psalm 117, V1&2. This is the shortest Psalm in the bible, it has just two verses. Sometimes brevity can be incredibly important. This Psalmist knew what to focus ON! It’s anonymous. Plus it is an exhortation for all of us to praise the Lord, no matter what nation we belong to or what is going on around us. By the way …

…to extol means: “to praise someone or something with a lot of energy and high emotion. It is a formal verb used when normal praise is not strong enough, often translated as glorifying, celebrating or speaking very well of a person or idea.”  Praise is not a just starting place for worship, it has an entity all of its own, just like thanksgiving does. 

Praise isn’t only about singing. The Lord can be celebrated with words, like this Psalmist does. It’s what I call … pulling focus. We stop wandering about talking to each other and focus on Him. We choose to praise Him because He is worthy of praise, our focus, our energy. Praising God doesn’t mean we sit about like stunned mullets half-heartedly mumbling the words and hoping no-one will notice our lack of participation. Nor is the sermon the only point at that moment either! When we focus on Him with praise, it opens our ears and eyes to His possibilities in our impossible situations.

A lack of praise is like going to a birthday party, where the guests, the cake, the balloons, the bunting, the trimmings… the celebratory things – are the point! We go to a birthday party to wish the person who is having a birthday a happy day. In the same way, praise takes our eyes off us, and our circumstances, and puts the Lord where He always belongs … foremost in our minds. It is a way of tuning into Him, and tuning UP to each other. One voice, one heart, one song — all for Him.

We don’t sing, dance, clap etc. to amuse Him, we do these things because every single part of us needs to stop our normal busy everyday lives and completely focus and recognise “we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.” Doing something physical helps us focus. It is not about how rhythmic we are, or how polished our choir is … church is all about HIM. Then, because He is so incredibly generous, our spirits come alive gazing at life Himself! 

Coming to church is not about singing songs and learning, it is about corporately giving the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit honour. All of us come together to bow down before the One Who has given our lives salvation, purpose, direction and meaning. That’s why we get in our cars, etc. and drive across town and deliberately come to a time and a place that has been set aside for Him. We come to be with Him — together.

We are mistaken if we think praise and worship is for us. Church is not FOR us! We do what we do because He deserves it. When we don’t participate in praise, or worship, we’ve missed the reason we came to church. These things are not flattery, or meant to be lip-service, instead we are calling out to the Lord …with a deep desire to give HIM something that will please His heart. Our unity will blossom in these circumstances. Because we don’t want anything back, instead we choose to leave our own agendas at the door. What He has done for us makes us a grateful people.

We can’t praise and worship without the Holy Spirit guiding us … this means we come to church having prepared our hearts to go and be with the Lord, and His body. For just a short while, we stop focussing on our busy lives, and enter His Rest. When we sing, we are singing to Him. Just like the people at my mythical birthday party sing – “Happy birthday to you.” A birthday party is not for the other people, it is for the birthday person. Praise and worship are for our King and Saviour, Jesus, and our Heavenly Father. Let’s prioritise that!

It is good to ask the Holy Spirit as our conductor and choir master, to come and help us, because human beings can be caught up in themselves and their own lives, becoming selfish and self centred. His holiness will prompt us from the inside and remind us that God Himself is the reason for our lives. There may be times we come to bring a sacrifice of praise and worship, because our life has chucked a wobbly and it took all we had to come to get there. There is no right way to approach these things- we do them the way the Holy Spirit tells us to do them. 

In church, Father God has His own purposes, and His will supersedes what we think we want or need. Part of that is letting the people who are leading us, lead. If someone happens to need ministry, God will arrange it. So we choose to trust the Holy Spirit, the One Jesus gave us to help us, because He knows what is in our Father’s Heart at any given moment. We go to participate. 

We don’t have to see Him to be able to give Him glory –  we have His book! More on that tomorrow. “Rejoice in the Lord, always, and again I say … rejoice…”  Like I said, jump up and down! Almighty God loves us, now, and always. Bye. 👋

P 3434 A quality decision.  

/ DVH

“Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour, and authority! Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm. Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ.” Colossians 3:1-3 TPT.

There is a way we all need to go … Proverbs 22:6, I think a description of that way appears in Colossians 3:1-3. That way means we don’t just die to self – we live this life resurrected, striding into a brand new life, where Jesus rules – right here, right now. This happened to each one of us when we gave our lives to Christ. He has kept His part of this covenant, and now it is up to us to keep our part.  Our part is an assignment. We choose to take Him with us wherever we go. 

His part will stand forever, whether people acknowledge it or not. Ours depends upon us believing what He said and acting accordingly – using our faith. Everything we read in the bible points to this brand new life that is ours for the taking – Jesus gave it to us when He died in our place. Why live in the defeated ruins of an old life, when the new life He died to give us is ours for the taking?

Our daily need for His help, and His freely-given input, turns into a yearning that encourages and motivates our faith to keep on pressing on, and in. We want Him. Not rules, not religion, but Him. Anything else pales into insignificance. There can be times we feel listless, plagued by an unwillingness to yield to Him, and we sometimes give into it. That stuff isn’t just disobedience — it comes from a lack of real focus about what is actually going on... God Himself is wooing us! This is the next part of our chosen adventure with Christ. He stands at the window, oil dripping from His nail-scarred hands, waiting to be asked into each and every moment.

We cannot afford to ignore the things Jesus said, they are our life-blood. Our spiritual life and health depends entirely on what He did for us, and our choice to believe the things written in His book are true. Otherwise we will pick and choose what we want to believe, and be led about by all sorts of distractions that will tickle our ears, and continually lead us nowhere. We might even become faddish, and look ridiculous to the world around us. 

Whenever God is truly present, conviction has to follow because His holiness challenges our humanity. Conviction is not about yelling at people for being sinful, and threatening them with a ghastly final destination – it also not just about going the wrong way — conviction means we are wrong! We can’t be right without His input. Deep down most people already know that their way of life is broken – they either don’t care, or don’t want to change, or they don’t know how to change. 

The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin. As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach the Christ-like goal. The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin.

As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach this Christ-like goal.

The Holy Spirit revives our faith as He leads us. Our faith was not design to drag along behind – always waiting for a sign, or proof, or some sort of approval. What matters in this process is the room we give Him in our lives. Some people can spend 60 minutes quality time with the Lord day by day, and it is enough to fuel their ministry. Others progressively fall in Love with A PERSON and they refuse to let Him out of their sight! The Holy Spirit longs to draw us into the same sort of depth we see in the Apostles in Acts.

We are all in the same battle. We daily fight to let Christ be everything to us, instead of simply our back-up in times of trouble. Freely loving Him is our reward – we don’t care what this world offers us, or what we think we might gain in the next. Jesus wants to reside/live/inhabit our lives, today. Imagine the honour! The King of glory quietly calls us to walk with Him. His Presence is not a merit badge tribute to our spirituality, He is our beloved Lord and Saviour – Who is closer to us than our heartbeat.

But we must deal with our own pride, our need for autonomy and self-importance. And make a quality decision to live in His resurrection life, listening to Him and loving others. Bye 👋.

P 3430 Choosing Him over me.  

/ DVH

“Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvellous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God to be His sacred, LIVING sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights His heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.” Romans 12:1 TPT. And the Amplified version: “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [dedicating all of yourselves, set apart] as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your rational (logical, intelligent) act of worship.” It is the only intelligent, rational thing to do.

Singing, dancing, psalms, hymns all flow from that place of true surrender— where we daily choose to give God our all and then live that decision out, minute by minute. But what people often settle for as true worship, can be a happy exercise in cheering US up! God has angels that can sing more enthusiastically and joyfully than we can. He has beings we can’t even imagine, and their sole purpose is to fly around the throne proclaiming … “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Three choruses of “Lord I give you my heart” ain’t gunna cut it unless we go away and act like we sing.

Let’s look at Ephesians 5:19: “Speak out to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, offering praise with voices [and instruments] and making melody with all your heart to the Lord, …” Singing is a way to worship Him, but true worship begins with surrender. Listen to Jesus worshipping His Father by presenting His Body: “Saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but [always] Yours be done.”” Luke 22:42. And then Jesus allowed Himself to be manhandled and brutalised by thugs. Living for Jesus in everything we do and say, plus presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice is total and true worship. Let’s just remember that when we sing, we also get a benefit, we feel better! But, when we present our bodies without any reservations, we are truly worshipping Him.

If we only focus on our vocal participation in worship we have missed the best bit, which is … laying our lives willingly down for His sake, not just on Sunday morning, but every single hour of every single day. BTW, this is not something we can fudge. Father God knows our hearts, and He knows what our intentions are. How do I know that? Well … I’ve been tested on it. It doesn’t take that much trouble in my life to reduce my enthusiasm for His Ways. This is why we need the Word of God to slice between the way we think, and what we intend to do. I can’t speak for you, but I know I can say all sorts of stuff when I feel good! To truly worship Him, we need Him to enlighten us and reveal the things we hide from ourselves. Trouble does that beautifully.

However, because of His great mercy, wanting to do it, preparing to do it, is the same as doing it, in His eyes. Abraham was totally prepared to sacrifice Isaac – he raised the knife to kill his son on that altar. And the Lord said: “Stay your hand …” This is what our Father is like, He understands we are dust, however our faith needs to mature. The safest place in all the world is in the centre of God’s will. The thing we don’t like about that sentence is that the centre of His will can be a place we don’t want to go, because we know what is waiting for us there! We get to die. To choose His way above our own and leave behind our excuses. Let’s remember that He calls living like this ‘living sacrifices.’ Just like Jacob, we could walk away with a limp! 

Worship is about what it says in Song of Songs … “I am my Beloved’s [garden] and my Beloved is mine! He feeds among the lilies [which grow there].” It’s intimate, sacrificial, joy-filled and personal. Our wonderful Heavenly Father is so worthy of our total surrender and worship! Meanwhile, the centre of God’s will probably won’t be the centre of this world’s attention! Good thing to know.

HE planned for us to be here – right here, right now. For some people, who have faced years of rejection, you may need to write that down and stick it somewhere where you can read it, often. Almighty God not only accepts you, He wanted you so much He provided for you to be with Him forever, and it cost Him everything He held dear! I love a whole lot of people … but forever is a huge amount of time! HE is so good, He has provided us with the consistency of His ETERNAL love, in an inconsistent world. Our current world-view declares people are IN one day and OUT, later that afternoon.

The Lord doesn’t change, despite how inconsistent we are. Listen to what He says to the Israelites who cleared off and left Him! “I am God—yes, I Am. I haven’t changed. And because I haven’t changed, you, the descendants of Jacob, haven’t been destroyed. You have a long history of ignoring My commands. You haven’t done a thing I’ve told you. Return to Me so I can return to you,” says God-of-the-Angel-Armies.” Malachi 3:6,7. Because He is true to His own nature, He did not destroy them – He withdrew His Presence. What a tragic thought – to be asked to live in His Presence and chose to walk away like they did!

True worship is about us doing more than singing or saying we are living for Jesus, it’s choosing Him over me. Bye. 👋

P 3429 GRACE is not an optional extra.

/ DVH

It is often so easy to focus on our needs. The need to be well, or have enough money, or a job, or a house, or even the right spouse to serve Him. When what we actually need is His Grace for wherever we are – right here, right now! Jesus Himself didn’t have any of those physical things and it didn’t bother Him — His food and drink was to do the will of His Father. Paul wasn’t impressed by the fripperies of this world either, and if you look at all the disciples, they didn’t think they needed anything BUT JESUS.

I know about a number of missionaries who don’t have most of the kind of things that we take for granted. However, they don’t feel poor. Actually they’d rather walk with Him, than rely upon stuff. The Lord Jesus gave us His grace when He died for us, now, Grace is the vehicle we step into, and we never ever step out of again!  Because our aim is to follow Him, we choose to apply ourselves to learn this truth. We literally cannot do anything without Him. Salvation is not just asking Him into our lives and walking away, clutching our free ticket to heaven. Grace is the ticket that takes us all the way there. That ‘ticket’ cost our loving Saviour His life.

By now we have learnt that choosing to love anyone is incredibly powerful, and it is even more powerful when we begin to understand the cost of that kind of choice. Our choice to follow Him blesses the Lord Jesus’ heart. We, and millions of other people, who have gone before us, are His reward for all His suffering. I don’t think human beings have the capacity to live the way Jesus did, and maintain it, without the Grace of God freely flowing through their lives.

It takes Grace to love someone who feels so entitled to focus on their own happiness than anything else around them – they see this world in a childish fashion. “What’s in it for me?’ It can be remarkably easy to give up leaning on the Lord, because the spiritual things seem too hard. That’s the point. They were always going to be too hard. Our quest is to choose to learn to love, live, move and have our being in Him, and His Grace helps us achieve that, one step at a time.

‘Grace needs to be viewed not just as a one-time pardon, but as an ongoing spiritual strength, that helps people change and serve others.’ (Google) Loving others in our own strength will eventually produce a conflict of interests, and most of the time, it’s likely that my own interests will win! That’s when Grace Himself leaves, and we are left with ‘me’ in all my selfish glory. Conversely, I can easily get puffed up by how sacrificial I am, even when you clearly don’t deserve it. I can also probably be misled by hardship — but His Grace is God’s gift to me, to lead me into His Ways.

It is, unfortunately, comparatively simple to keep trying to control the world around us, without being a good steward of what lies within. I am of the opinion that we can’t do anything lasting, or eternal, without His Grace. True grace is eternity that has already come, or been invited, into the here and now. Let us not  forget the first few lines of that well known passage in 1 Corinthians 13, “The fruit of the SPIRIT …”   We will fail in our quest if we fail to realise that it’s HIS fruit that will be manifested in our lives. As we learn to co-operate with Him and ask Him to grow it – we will need His Grace to endure and keep on loving others.  

That fruit will be automatically and systematically nurtured as we choose, minute by minute, to stay attached to the vine. Jesus’ Grace holds us there – on that sometimes uncomfortable spot that challenges us to die to what we want. That takes these things out of the realm of what I can do, and puts them squarely into the Kingdom reality of what Jesus has already done. You can’t have both – self interest is not the same His interest, no matter how carefully we use pretty, spiritual words to make it sound better. In those moments, let’s choose to remember that Jesus didn’t care if He impressed anyone with His spirituality or not. Most of His praying was done in secret! 

We don’t need to explain Grace to participate in it. After all, His Grace saved us when we were already sinners. His Grace came and found us. Our job is to give grace a HOME. We were too stupid to ask for it, we definitely didn’t deserve it, so we won’t always recognise it when it comes our way. Nevertheless it is there. Our ignorance, or wilful disobedience, does not negate what God freely gave us. His Grace is the sap that facilitates the fruit of His Spirit to grow in our lives. I can try to change myself until I am blue in the face, and I might even outwardly change my behaviour. But I cannot change my heart. It will deceive me. 

The Grace released by what the Lord Jesus Christ did is far more powerful than we can imagine. Because of it, we need to live our lives gratefully. Grace saved us and it sustains us. We cannot outgrow our need for His Grace in our lives. Grace acts as a moving vehicle, it runs on our faith, and carries us past our perceived limits, into a new way of living. It is an unearned gift that holds us steady, moves us forward, and changes how we see our flaws. The bible shows us what to do and Grace helps us do it.

His Grace runs to meet us when we mess up. It lifts us up from the dirt and grime into a bigger place where we see how much He loves us, far more clearly. It gently washes us clean – again – and it holds us fast in His love even when life tosses us around like a leaf in a storm. We need His Word, plus His Grace, to help us apply it in our lives, all the time. God’s Grace is not an optional extra it is an essential oil, perfuming our lives. Bye. 👋

P 3428 A soldier does what he is trained to do.

/ DVH

“Since Christ, though innocent, suffered in His flesh for you, now you also must be a prepared soldier, having the same mind-set, for whoever has died in his body is done with sin. So live the rest of your earthly life no longer concerned with human desires but consumed with what brings pleasure to God.” 1 Peter 4:1-2 TPT. These kinds of choices are part of our suffering for His sake. We deliberately choose to give up what we want to do, and we yield to what He sent us here to do. It’s a total change of focus. But we can’t live like this by ourselves – we are wrestling against principalities and powers, we need our Commander-in-chief leading us, giving us His Grace every step of the way.

This verse is a magnificent thought, but a terrifying one as well. It is like a spotlight showing up the places where what we think – is different from what we do. In other words, it is easy to say we do this stuff, but can we actually live it? My only answer is “yes” we can — simply because Jesus did it first … but … we cannot do it alone! We’ve been empowered, by Christ’s death into living this life a new way. After the Lord Jesus died, even the disciples wrangled with their feelings of loss, and yet they went back to what they knew … fishing! Human beings without the influence and leading of the Holy Spirit can be loveable, but dumb as a rock when it comes to spiritual things. Those things won’t fall on us, we must go after them. His grace will help us. 

When I was a young Christian, I noticed that there was a level of commitment in a few people that I didn’t seem to have. It was as if there were some sort of line in my mind that I would walk up to, then I’d look over into the other side of it and it all looked too hard for me. So then, I’d walk back to where I came from. That line was called — a total commitment to Christ. I wanted His life in me, but I wanted my own ideas for my life too. I wanted to  ‘make my own choices’ – to be a Christian when it suited me, and walk away when it didn’t. My perception of His benefits  was all about me, instead of Him. Maybe that’s why Psalm 103:2 tells us not to forget His benefits!

I had plenty of friends, rabbits and relations who were quite happy to explain to me that my ideas about Christianity were nice .. but surely I didn’t have to take the whole thing quite so seriously!  And that was the beginning of an odd period in my life where I did the hokey pokey. I put one foot over the line, then took it back, then the other foot  … if you have ever done the hokey pokey … you get it. In the end I became double-minded. I got to the stage where I finally agreed with others. that I should coast along, do nice things when I felt like it – yet I could still be angry with the people who were mean to me, because I couldn’t help it. After all they’d been truly awful and they should know better! I succumbed to ‘poor little old me!’ Self-pity will wreck our faith in a heart beat.

At the same time I was told I had a “virus,” year after year and a lot of people prayed for it to be healed. But it wasn’t healed … because it wasn’t actually a virus! It turned out I needed a liver transplant. Meanwhile, I was in every healing line I could get into, and yet I still got sicker. Then something else unthinkable happened, I was divorced. I knew what the bible said, and I knew what Jesus said … and yet it happened anyway. The ambition to die for Jesus’ sake, fell in the dirt, I couldn’t do it. If I stayed inside that marriage, I would die.

I totally knew I had broken ‘the rules.’ I loved Jesus, but trying harder became impossible, I was too ill. I knew nothing about walking by faith, not by sight. Even though I had carefully memorised the verse! I didn’t actually understand what the New Covenant meant, except in vague terms that definitely didn’t apply to me anymore – because now I thought I was doomed to hell. Folks, religion kills. It murders your faith and it will take your life. Put it down. I exhort everyone reading this to ask the Lord to teach you to walk by faith, otherwise our common enemy will use your circumstances against you.

Even after the transplant, they couldn’t tell me why my liver was so damaged. It just was! Eventually I learnt that a simple very common blood test would have diagnosed what was wrong with me. I didn’t drink alcohol etc. so the medical profession didn’t think to give me the blood test. However, God in His great mercy, didn’t let go of me, just because I let go of Him. He’s like that! This advice in 1 Peter 4 is so incredibly important. Living our lives for Jesus is not an alternate way … it is the only way. God has given us a totally new way to live, step by step, little by little … He calls us to fall in love with His goodness and follow Him. He paid dearly to give us His grace to do it.

I think sometimes, we’ve had our eyes fixed on the wrong application of His principles. In the following verse from Hebrews the Lord is telling us about HIMSELF – not how to get what we want from Him!  “But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (11:6) We’ve used our faith for years hoping to make our lives more comfortable, telling ourselves God wants us to be healthy and happy. But it actually says … He rewards those who chase after Him and the result is … WE WILL PLEASE HIM … He doesn’t have to please us … He’s GOD!

Take my advice and decide to live your life as good soldier of Christ – don’t wander in and out like I did. Leave behind the ‘stuff’ you’ve picked up along the way. Make that choice. Bitterness, anxiety, and disappointment doesn’t belong in our brand new heart. Neither does lying, hating others, abusing or hurting people. Whatever your excuse is for staying the same – it’s a lie.

A good soldier does exactly what he is told to do, no more, no less. We have been given a wonderful Companion in our daily journeys, He knows how to strategically get us through our battles – don’t leave home without Him.  We need the Word of God, plus GRACE. Bye. 👋

P 3426 Dead is the new way to live. 

/ DVH

In Galatians 2:20, Jesus reminds us what this life is really all about. Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

This getting-dead process can be challenging sometimes. So the reality is, I choose to die to what I want, over and over again. Here’s what that means practically. Someone says something I think is provocative, so I ask for the Holy Spirit’s help, and I say nothing. Despite how provoked I feel, the Lord Himself will give me that soft answer He talks about from Proverbs. I’m just doing what Jesus told me to do, ‘turning the other cheek.’ If people cheat me and they lie to me, I pray a blessing over them until I mean it. In other words, I let the Lord Jesus fight my battles for me. It’s up to Him what happens to people who behave like that, He knows more about them than I ever could.   

This means I have deliberately chosen to live this life dead to what I want, and alive to what He wants. Let’s be clear, I am not talking about being mostly dead, or I wish I was … dead. What I mean is – I’ve chosen to die to the way I used to think about, relate to, and treat other people. Now, I owe them LOVE and I use my faith to trust Father God to help me with that. He clearly told me “that vengeance is His.”  Here is the Good News part of the gospel. Because of Jesus’ resurrection I don’t have to stay dead — now I have a new way to live, right here, right now. TODAY – and the power to do it.

Of course I will need the Holy Spirit’s help to live that way. But He won’t do it for me. I’m not a puppet, I’m a person who makes a choice.. I take a step of faith, and the Holy Spirit helps me to move forward. When I refuse to be angry back at someone else, He gives me something sweet to say to them, that helps to diffuse their anger. Meanwhile, you can’t pick a fight with a dead person, because they won’t say anything back. You could yell at them, if you want to, but … you’d be wasting your time. You’d be better off shouting into a black hole.

Each one of us has to choose to die to what we want, and come alive to the reason Jesus brought us here. But once we do, our thinking begins to change and we start to think like He does. Then the Holy Spirit helps us to use our God-given faith and hope in His goodness, to live a brand new way. It’s the way Jesus lived. We all know His plans are good for us, that’s also in the book! I’ve decided to trust what He said more than I trust what I can see going on around me. We choose to come alive to Christ and His Way of living and leave our past behind us, when we die to self and live for Him.

It is not humility when I say on this blog that Jesus helped me with this and that – it’s a fact. If I try really really hard to be what He has already given me for free, well — that’s when the trouble starts! I begin to lose my sense of His Presence with me, because my excuses for my own bad behaviour fill the air around me! The only Person Who can resurrect a dead person is Jesus. When He does that He makes them sweeter. Trying to resurrecting yourself and hold on tightly to being right, is a waste of time and energy. Whatever we try to do by ourselves doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. We will just wear ourselves out doing it, as well as becoming jaded, and losing hope. Give up. Die to self.

It is easy to tell when I have wandered off and given up living for Him – I want my own way. Day by day living His way is always a choice. Sadly, I can get offended before the poor schmuck with their foot in their mouth has finished their sentence. I am not at all nice to be around, especially if I try to change myself. I get mad at other people because they annoy me and they want their way. The safest, sweetest place to live, is to live this life using the faith He gave me. Then my priorities change. My focus needs to be on what He did. Not what I have or haven’t done. Like I said yesterday, “nothing can ever separate us from God’s love” — we have proof of that. Jesus died to make that statement eternal.

Many Christians cheerfully sing 🎵 “We are here for You, Jesus…”🎵and then everyone goes home and lives this life we have been given, for themselves again – often using heaps of energy to be ‘nice’ to people who aren’t ‘nice’ to them. Day by day, we are so focussed on our plans, our lives, our ideas, our success, our happiness, our money … plus our wellbeing. That isn’t the deal… not the one in His book! The deal is — He died for us — so now we live for Him. Meanwhile dead people don’t have aims, or opinions.

We don’t have to sit around, impassively, waiting for this stuff to fall on us. We need to aggressively choose to live this life of LOVE He provided for us and act it out. We take faith steps, and take up this new life He has given us. Let’s run, and choose to use our faith to do things His Way, for His kingdom’s sake. And read and re-read His book, daily refreshing our memory about what He has already said.

Choose to live a life of Love, it’s the outworking of our inward faith. Dead is the new way to live – because the Lord’s kind of new life can only blossom and bear fruit in dead people, who choose to live this life, His way. Bye. 👋

P 3418 Father God has a plan.    

/ DVH

“For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:24 TPT.  This verse is a revealed part of Almighty God’s plan for our lives. Iron sharpens iron, one scripture throws light upon another. We must eat it all, not just the bits we like, or think we need.

The life of God within us is designed to grow, flourish and prosper. “Beloved, I pray that in every way you may succeed and prosper and be in good health [physically], just as [I know] your soul prospers [spiritually].” 3 John 1:2. But if we happen to be ill or infirm, that is not necessarily an indication that something is wrong with our souls. We need to look at this verse very carefully. This is something John prays for the people he is writing to —he is praying a blessing over them and us.

I’ve watched dear Christian friends nearly turn themselves inside out trying to find out the reason they are sick. Let’s be quite clear – nobody likes being sick! But sadly sometimes our focus can shift over onto the illness and being healed, and it moves away from the Lord Himself. It is as if we feel God is withholding health from us and we don’t know why. I don’t know why either, but I do know God will not withhold any good thing from us! His plans are beyond our imaginings. My own personal experience cannot ever negate what He says — so I must be thinking amiss. 

The thing is, we need His definition of good not ours. Let’s remember it pleased our Heavenly Father to crucify His dear Son on our behalf. That was God’s plan! Imagine doing that with your child for billions of totally ungrateful people who don’t love You or appreciate You, and now they use His Name as a swear word! If our focus goes off following Jesus and being grateful for all He has done for us and given to us … we may easily start rabbiting around in the corners of our minds looking for reasons why we are not well. We can lose our peace! Father God does not mean for us to live in confusion and conflict – He has provided a way through. A different way to think.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1a. Unless the Lord tells you how to chase that bunny rabbit of healing, you are missing out on the best part. The best part is always getting closer to Jesus! The bible says He is close to the broken-hearted. That’s God’s plan. Please don’t let what you don’t have, steal what He has already given you. Instead, start thanking Him for what you can see you have.

Part of His plan includes my obedience, if He says ‘come,’ I come — if He says ‘go’ I go. When we came to know Jesus, He saved us. Yet it is far too easy to forget that we gave our lives … this life, right here and now … AWAY. My only real sane choice is to obey, which means my feelings of inadequacy and helplessness aren’t the only reality. The way I regard what Jesus does in my life, is my gift to Him. I choose to yield to His plan, believe in His goodness. That doesn’t rely upon circumstances, it relies upon Who He is.

I know, that you know, that there is no sickness in heaven. Our problem is, we tell ourselves that being well will make it easier for us to serve Him, so we need to get well so we can serve Him better. That’s a terrific argument. But there are times when we need to focus on loving and serving Him, no matter what else is going on. You or I might meet someone in the next hospital bed who needs to hear from Jesus, and that person won’t go anywhere near a church. Paul was yielded to the Lord, yet he still went into jail – unfairly! But then he ministered to the guards and wrote those letters that still bless us today.

Let’s look at the people Jesus openly admired, because they show us His Ways aren’t like ours. The Lord honoured a tiny little old lady who gave two pennies. (Mark 12, Luke 21) There was a non-believer who knew more about submission and faith than most Christians do, and Jesus praised that man for it. (Matthew 8:9) And a fallen woman who washed His dirty feet with her tears. (Luke 7) Plus a tree-climbing tax collector who was so changed he gave away more than the law demanded as recompense for his thievery. (Luke 19). Not to mention a leprous man from another country who knew how to say thank you. (Luke17).  The Lord doesn’t think like we do.

Those people in the above scriptures didn’t know much about anything but pain, poverty, isolation, suffering and rejection, but they knew they needed Jesus’ help and they submitted themselves to Him. “My (Our) help comes from the Lord Who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:2) Choosing Him above the things in this life that will make our lives easier, is always the right choice. The Lord didn’t promise us, sunshine, lollipops and rainbows – He promised He would be with us in trouble.

Because we love the Lord we can have an abundance of His Love, wisdom, peace and joy in our lives in spite of our circumstances. Believe me, TRUE PEACE is better than a Maserati! He’s always doing something, we just don’t always know what it is. Meanwhile I often think we undervalue the importance of having enough. Father God always has a plan, that plan is to bring out the best in us and the people who live around us. It’s a good plan! Bye 👋 .

P 3413 Let’s not paint on windows of our mind.

/ DVH

Fear, and sin love to paint their tormenting little scenarios in our minds. I like to be positive on this blog, but the bible clearly says we need to ‘know our adversary.’  And one of his best tricks is to make me think that my adversary is … ME, MYSELF AND I!! I am sure you know what I mean – we often forget what the Lord has already done to set us free.

When something bad happens, we can instantly find reasons to blame ourselves. But what really happens is the other guy stands by whispering into our minds, reminding us of our mistakes and faults. Our poor motivation starts with a thought. Then he tempts us with something we think is good that distracts us from the real battle. God doesn’t tempt us. James 1:13: “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God” [for temptation does not originate from God, but from our own flaws]; for God cannot be tempted by [what is] evil, and He Himself tempts no one.” Find the ‘fatal flaw’ and deal with it.

The enemy uses doubt like a spray can of paint while he is trying to twist or cover up the truth. Plus he tries to disrupt our thoughts with temptations, threats or intimidation. It happened to Jesus and it will happen to us, we are not exempt. But, because we chose Jesus we have a way to escape, thank you Lord! Knowing the Word of God is our way to fight! Let’s be alert and aware of the devil’s schemes, and remember how easily we can be outwitted. 2 Corinthians 2:11. “…in order that satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.”

Our enemy will always challenge God’s word. (Genesis 3.) he has no tender-heartedness, or pity in him, so he delights in preying on our ignorance or innocence. And another way he sucks us into his vortex of lies, is to challenge our identity in Christ. (Luke 4:1-13; Mark 1:34.) He tells us those promises in God’s Word are for someone much nicer and more spiritual than we are. Many saints suffer from his whispers that their salvation is not firm.

Our salvation, our turning to Jesus to save us, may not look like Brother-I-got-baptised-in-the-river-Jordan’s grand event. Instead, we simply went up the front and didn’t feel a thing … but we knew we had to make that choice and we did. Our enemy picks at the parts of our faith that are weakened by our own sin, doubt, and sometimes other people’s rejection of us etc. Daily, he prods at us to focus on those things. 

Let’s focus on Jesus, what He did FOR us, and what He is doing IN us, right now. He is our true north! My prayers may not be answered and sometimes yours aren’t either … but that’s not the point. The point is what is your focus today? If we are not clinging to Jesus like a limpet on a rock, we could be making ourselves a target. The devil creates emotional tornadoes everywhere, and we can be easily overwhelmed by those thoughts that hit us upside the head … unless we choose to make the main thing the main thing. JESUS IS ALWAYS THE MAIN THING. “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7. We cannot afford to face our adversary unprotected – we have armour! Let’s stand still ready to battle the accuser when he flings lies at us. We do things the way Jesus tells us to do them. He’s the One Who beat satan.

Under extreme circumstances, which we all face, it is good to SING! — “Be filled with the Spirit singing to yourselves, with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melodies in your heart to the Lord.” Ephesians 5:18,19. Preferably not out loud in a public place, because people will look at you funny and perhaps send for the men in those white coats. I sing in my head, and I recommend that. I find my best fighting scriptures there too. It can be distracting if you happen to be talking to someone else, but it works – stay in listening-to-Jesus-mode, don’t switch off.

The bible tells us to “put on the whole armour of God,” because we need it. Ephesians 6:10-18. The first thing we do after making sure we have our armour on —is to make a stand. Plant your feet. You are a tree planted by God Himself by the riverside, don’t be moved. We have been saved by Grace, now we belong to Jesus. Ask for scriptures to fight the circumstances and feelings … we can’t afford to let ourselves entertain any kind of lie. Don’t worry if the person in front of you is piling up lies like some people pile up the trash – don’t you lie. Your truth is God’s truth, and that’s the bat we use to bash away the lies that come at us. We don’t care about what Sister-I-always-know-the-Answer says. What is Jesus saying, right here, right now – in His book?

Let’s press the refresh button, and remind ourselves that God loves me! Then quickly get rid of any sin that might trip us up, so we can stay in love with everyone around us. Peace is our portion. We live within His peace, and we spread that heart peace around us everywhere we go. As we acknowledge Jesus’ Lordship in our lives, we will get better and better at raising up the shield of faith.

Lastly, let the Holy Spirit frame your prayers. Yield to His will His way, daily. And please don’t let satan paint lies on the windows of your mind. They will block out the marvellous things the Lord has given us to see and do.  Bye.🔥.