Fool

P 3024 The sky is the limit.

/ DVH

How many people today have been boxed in by this world’s interpretation of their ability to learn, or their mental condition, or emotional or physical skills? Today’s so-called experts analyse people and put them into categories, with more labels on the outside than a misdirected parcel! This one has ADHD .. that one has Autism …  the kid is three and someone has boxed it up and classified it for life!  Our kids are actively being “categorised” before they have left High School. We need every member of our Father’s huge family and some people are just plain late bloomers.

It is a very bad idea to put this world’s ceilings on what we think someone else can do – no matter how many letters they have after their name. We must appreciate what each of us has been given for the benefit of others  “… preferring one another in love…”  There are times we try to use someone else’s differences against them – that’s ungodly. Almost half of the recorded disciples were fishermen and Jesus chose them! Today, in order to manage humanity, our societies’ categorise people, so we don’t have to deal with each person, one at a time. 

Thank GOD! He is not even remotely like that! He sees every single one of us and loves each one of us as His very own individual children. He doesn’t look down and think; “This one is broken” OR –“That one is no use to Me.” We are all incredibly dear to His heart – no matter how this world sees us. And we are all incredibly important to His Body too. We are going to need every single member of the Body of Christ standing in their place, because the enemy of our souls is at the gates and he is trying to pinch our kids by writing “not acceptable,” “don’t expect much” and “broken at birth” all over them. Don’t you believe it.

Our Heavenly Father is a redemptive Father, Who longs to reveal Himself to all of us. Every single one of us has a place in His plan! Yes, even the so-called broken ones!! We are all broken one way or another— some of us are simply badly broken inside where nobody else can see. Occasionally some of that ugly stuff leaks out every  where and that person gets put in jail. We must not disqualify people on the grounds of what this world thinks about them. Jesus clarified sin: “…but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” Matthew 5:22.

Sinfulness is our common denominator, not so called beauty, athletic prowess or intelligence! Right now we are reaping what we have sown into this world through our own ambition, and greed for more. Sadly we have sown into the whirlwind. Our children are growing up believing that to be pretty, handsome, athletic, gifted and/or highly intelligent is something to be greatly desired. Who says that? 

Manufacturers, fashion gurus, universities, teachers, people in political arenas — the people who will make money from what we do … THAT’S who is saying it! Give me one reason why we should trust their judgment? Unless making money is your god, these attitudes are poisonous vapours. They come, they go. Even the best athletes get hurt, highly intelligent people go wandering off into abstract land, and supposedly beautiful people are constantly criticised. What are we doing to our kids? Why are we not teaching them to be who God made them to be? We are a gift to each other. 

Even in the church we fail. We can easily make too much of one gift over another …“But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”?

As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honour just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?” 1 Corinthians 12:21-27 MSG.

I think the bible tells us very clearly how we need to treat each other – we need to encourage other people’s potential to serve the Lord. Let’s look for Jesus in others, watching for the Grace of the Holy Spirit on each life. I’m not talking about positive speaking either. I’m talking about having a genuine prayerful appreciation for someone else’s POV. You never know, if we all do that we all might learn something!

We need every single member of the Body of Christ, even those gentle, timid souls who hide up the back and hope nobody asks them a question. We are limiting a limitless God if we limit His kids based on our own opinions and experiences. Instead we need to proclaim – the sky is the limit and the heavens beyond it! Bye.👋

P 2960 Are you ‘sanctified and enriched?’

/ DVH

“To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified (set apart, made holy) in Christ Jesus, who are selected and called as saints (God’s people), together with all those who in every place call on and honour the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace [inner calm and spiritual well-being] from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always for you because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, so that in everything you were [exceedingly] enriched in Him, in all speech [empowered by the spiritual gifts] and in all knowledge [with insight into the faith].” 1 Corinthians 1:2-6.

You know, the first night someone eats great spaghetti bolognese it is yummy, everybody enjoys it. But if you leave some for another night, the left-overs will be enriched by time, and the melding together of the various flavours into something new and even more fabulous. Tickling our taste buds into a deeper experience. After we are saved, we learn to love like He did so that the flavour of our life is sweet, rich and good to those around us.

Christians are destined to do more than give mental assent to the truths in the bible – we are destined, right here, and right now, today, to mirror the love and life of Christ to everyone we meet and know. God’s sanctification and richness are meant to flow through us, so He can touch the lives of everyone around us. These holy things, the qualities that are in Christ Jesus, need to soak into our lives and join together to produce a brand  new sanctified, greatly enriched SELF! 

God didn’t just re-vamp us when Jesus saved us, or even update us with some sort of fantastic, whizz-bang upgrade. He totally transformed our lives with His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as we practice yielding and co-operating with Him. We are permanently changed and … wait for it … ENRICHED and made HOLY.  We are destined to become what He planned for us from the very beginning of time.  Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we can be bigger and sweeter, and more loving than we can comprehend.

Sadly it is too easy to be the product of this fallen world all around us. We’ve been influenced, battered and blasted by other imperfect people, who are just like us. Living within relationships and situations beyond our control. Those things have shaped us into the kind of people who live to hide to protect ourselves against the ugly things of this world. There is healing in the blood of Jesus. God planned for His kids, to volunteer to exhibit the same qualities that Jesus Himself had from the beginning of time. And this process is not about what we can do by ourselves. Just like the spaghetti gets better from soaking in its own flavours, we get better and richer by soaking in His love for us and spreading that flavour around.

Christ opened something that can never be closed again when He died in our place. He tore open in this world the forces that imprisoned all of mankind to sin, death and destruction. He flung opened the door to the possibility of change! We have been given the power to choose to be transformed under the Holy Spirit’s influence. Now, if you are happy with who you are right now, then perhaps that is not going to seem like such a wonderful gift. BUT! If being like He was, in this world, seems like a dream to you, cheer up! It’s now a reality.

How do we get there? We go through the same door of death Jesus went through, and we choose to die to what we want, like He did, minute by minute. By the way, I don’t mean you literally kill yourself!  We are to die to self, by giving up our right to live this life the way we want to, the way we planned for ourselves. And instead we deliberately choose to lay our lives down for His sake, just like the Lord did for us – using our faith to do it.

Then you and I will come out the other side of those everyday, deliberately made choices transformed. Selfishness, spite, anger, lying, murder – all those things that have held us captive to our own personal circumstances – even the choices we have made so far –  melt away under the power of what Christ did for us. The way to be transformed, is to choose to yield our will to His will. 

And that is not a part-time job, it is a life-time of day-by-day specifically chosen decisions to live this life Christ’s way. Jim Elliot, the modern martyr, said this better than I can: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.” And the bible itself says that like this: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25.

We will all die eventually, but it is how we choose to live from day to day that matters. We can live this life grabbing at all we can, to meet whatever needs we’ve picked up along the way. Constantly angry with others because they are trapped as much as we are … or we can choose to live His Way. Having a servant’s heart and loving those people around us this world pronounces unloveable. BTW, we are ALL unloveable!! And we all have our own nifty little devices to hide that fact from the world around us.

To live like Christ did, we learn from the Holy Spirit Himself, to be the change we want to see. We too can be sanctified and enriched and be like the Lord in every circumstance, as we choose to die to our old way of thinking and start to embrace and act on His ways. He died to give us the power to change and live a brand new life. What are we doing with that power? Bye. 👋

P 2436 Be humble, the Lord loves a humble heart.

/ DVH

“If you readily receive correction, you are walking on the path to life. But if you reject rebuke, you’re guaranteed to go astray.” Proverbs 10:17 TPT. The Lord gave me a key when I was a very young Christian and I’m still learning how to use it. He said this: “If you will hear Me for correction, you will hear Me for direction.” I can personally testify that that word is true. Allowing Him to correct us at any given time, opens eyes that are often blind to the owner’s faults … as well as new possibilities. Being ready to be wrong at any given time is not only a great source of humility … it is a source of amazing God-given strength.

It comes from understanding that we do not know everything. The bible has this great piece of advice in it: “Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.” Proverbs 17:28. Personally, I like my son’s translation of that, which is: “Even an idiot looks wise with his mouth shut!” 😂 James 3:13 says this: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.”  

Humility is rare in today’s world, and, as a result, the people of this age aren’t always wise – you simply have to read the papers to see that! When is the last time you saw a world leader say: “I was wrong, I’m sorry.” When is the last time YOU said it?  Meanwhile nobody enjoys being wrong…including me! But in this wonderful new world of God’s kingdom coming in our lives — we are rarely right— that’s because we are on a journey. Only God is good – remember? Humility always begins by putting Him first.

Many Christians bumble along, hiding from who they actually are, because they don’t want to change … they don’t think it is necessary. They discount their nasty attitudes behind closed doors, and think public politeness will fool God and others. Sadly I fall down that hole all the time. I was raised to have good manners, and they shoot me in the foot a lot. But true humility owns its faults and then seeks the Holy Spirit’s help to correct them. It loves reparation.

False humility criticises others where the perpetrator can’t be heard. You know good manners is about me looking good to you, humility is about caring how I look to God! Good manners can be hypocritical. We cannot be cleansed from known sin we will not own. Utter honesty and sincerity can be difficult to live by, but owning our faults, humbles us. Sadly we can successfully hide nasty traits from others by calling those traits nice names like — caring, constructive criticism, good manners, and sometimes we even misuse the prophetic…

Paul has that whole idea smashed… “Why not suffer wrong?” He says that in 1 Corinthians 6:7. He’s talking about Christians suing each other, but it is all the same difference! What He means is humbling yourself, and living honestly and truthfully is spiritually beneficial.  Peter says: “Humble yourself, under God’s mighty hand, that in due time He may exalt you.” 1 Peter 5:6. We need to come to the place where what God thinks and what He wants, is far more important to me than my pride, or what you think of me.

When we choose human wisdom we are moving away from the wisdom from above. James 3:17 tells us what this wisdom looks like: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.” It isn’t about who is right, and can prove it. Or who is wrong and hasn’t got a leg to stand on! What would GOD Himself have to say about our petty spiteful arguments? What are those things doing to our spiritual lives? 

My 96 year old mother has taught me these things by example. She forgives everyone, and speaks well of people, plus she absolutely respects Almighty God. She has always had the kind of attitude that says: “There is no point in holding a grudge, life is too short for grudges.” I have never heard her criticise anyone. My husband’s mother’s response to gossip or criticism is to stop speaking … full stop! She withdraws and won’t be drawn into the conversation. She respects Jesus more than people. It seems to me that senior generation of women has a lot to teach us!

I think humility starts in our hearts. We get it automatically as we understand we cannot possibly live this life the way Jesus did, without asking for His help… because there is too much of ME in the way. A repentant person is one who repairs things quickly, because their relationship with the Lord is far more important than outward appearances. Living this life dead to self is the very best way to follow Jesus – you get to humble yourself in front of others – all over the place! 👋🏻