Freedom

P 2668 Shame, the disqualifier.

/ DVH

Over the years in my Christian life I have observed that if I let shame in, then the result is I stop trying to hear God and avoid Him instead! Plus I leave off reading the bible and skip church. None of that stuff is good! I’ve disqualified myself because I am feeling bad about something I have done, or I am contemplating doing. Shame creates a need to hide. Adam and Eve did! It is a fact of life that every single person on this planet has down times. Times when our attitudes are not at their optimum, when life is not one glorious victory following another.

Shame is a tool of our enemy to send us spinning off in the wrong direction. We end up looking at ourselves, as well as how we feel about what we have done etc. – instead of looking at the Lord – Who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. The saddest thing is this – sometimes shame has its roots in real sin – sin that needs to be confessed and repented about. Confession clears away any reason the enemy has to accuse us and cause even more shame.

There are many people in our churches who go regularly week by week, and they are in all kinds of pain, because they are carrying shame, for things done in the present or the past. Perhaps they don’t want to do something that they keep on doing, but they just cannot find a way to stop. Or they are ashamed because they are not doing what they think they should be doing. Feelings demand a whole lot of work and energy. We can end up in an emotional washing machine, getting more and more agitated, drowning in our own despair.

Shame is a cloak. A substitute for conviction, which leads to repentance. Some times shame has been thrown over a person in the past, by someone they regard as an authority, and this other person gave the one who is ashamed, strong logical reasons why that cloak should be worn. That, BTW is a sign of control. Anybody who tries to control us is not on the Lord’s side, whether that person seems to have good motivations or not. Shame has its roots in fear. It can’t grow good fruit, its roots have not gone down deep into LOVE and acceptance.  

The bible tells us to ‘agree with our adversaries quickly’ –  that way we can also quickly repent, and instantly dismiss shame. When we come to Jesus we are given freedom, there is no control. However, shame may also do it’s best to separate us away from the very One Who came to redeem us. It will cause us to hide from Him. We can even end up living a life that is a lie, pretending we are fine when we are not, and hiding our true selves from everyone around us.The sad thing is;  we have no reason to be ashamed because we have His promises in writing!In 1 John 1:8-10 and 1 John 2:1-2 it says:

“If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—simply come clean about them—He won’t let us down; He’ll be true to Himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. ..”1 John 2:1-2 says this: “My little children, I am writing these things to you, so that you do not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

The most important thing about these few verses is the fact that forgiveness always rests on the Lord’s Character and His Character is perfect! It is in Christ’s Character to tell the truth – and the truth is, we have already been forgiven. The second most important thing in my opinion, is this: honesty and confession are the only way to go. It’s not the most comfortable approach, but it is the only one! When we let light pour into the darkness we no longer have to be ashamed, we simply need to be honest and confess our faults to Him, and to others. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is our God-sent, God-given Lawyer! He is our Defence Attorney before the throne of God. He won’t give us a character reference – instead, HE SIMPLY POINTS TO THE CROSS. You might want to sit and stew on that for a while. 

Our part in this process is to be honest with Him, and ourselves, and use our faith to believe that He does not lie and we are not some kind of mad-exception to His poured out love. Shame must never be our cloak – Christ’s BLOOD IS ALWAYS OUR CLOAK.  If we accidentally crawl out from underneath the Lord’s provision of forgiveness, then we need to repent quickly, make reparation where necessary and move on. Let’s not let shame disqualify us from living a brand new life, free from the past, and our own sinful stupid decisions. Bye. 👋

P 2657 Self-effort will fail.

/ DVH

Romans 8:5-11. MSG.“Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores Who God is and what He is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored”.

“But if God Himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of Him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome Him, in whom He dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He’ll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”

Wow! That’s some plain speaking right there! I’ve read that quite a few times and this time it is from the Message Bible. What Paul is saying is this: … Saying “I can’t change” is denying the reality of God within us. Before we understood what the Lord Jesus did for us, we had an excuse – we were empty and ignorant. But now! We are full to the brim of God and His purposes. Paul is explaining when we focus on us, how we feel — we become self-absorbed and after that, it is no surprise that we are not aware of God and what He is doing! We are too busy making sure we get what we want from Him or trying hard to please Him. Christ already did that – for us. 

We need to give up trying and start believing. Next comes obedience. We cannot go around these things because as soon as we do, we will go back to thinking about my life, my family, my purposes and what I want. And there you go, I’m self-absorbed again. That’s the thing about trying harder, you will get the stitch with it because we cannot maintain the effort … After that it becomes too easy to start focussing on what He’s not doing in my life. When I gave my life to Jesus, He took it. That’s what faith is all about. I just believe what He said and act accordingly. Feelings are nothing! Instead we choose to believe in the Lord, that He has whatever it takes to change us and we start doing what He said.

Meanwhile, that self-effort hole is deeper than we think. Paul explains it wonderfully – if I think about ME and how I feel, and how whatever you said hurt me, more than I do about Him and His purposes … I’ve totally moved into self-absorption. And that’s not a hard step to take. Everything around me lives like that. Plus I’ve been thinking about me for most of my life! Instead, I need to focus on what He wants and Who He is, and His desires for my life;  to overcome my natural penchant for selfishness.

So my diagnostic tool is this — WHO AM I FOCUSSING ON?  I must focus on Jesus, He perfectly met every single criteria for the things of God. Without His input those things are beyond my natural ability. I need the Holy Spirit Who is my Helper, He is brilliant at them. His emphasis on the other person is total. We will not get to where we want to go by forcing ourself to do what He says … we get there by asking Him to help us, and then we step out of the boat of self effort and self-centredness into FAITH. We need to GO WHERE THE GRACE IS!

I am so greatly encouraged by these verses that the same Spirit that helped Jesus to do everything the Father assigned for Him to do – IS NOW IN ME. I simply need to adopt a posture of total deference. In other words to walk with Him I need to learn to YIELD. He is not on ‘our’ side, HE IS ON THE LORD’S SIDE. He’s an expert at pleasing the Father. Any effort we make to change without His input is doomed to fail. It may produce a temporary result – but it will not grow FRUIT that lasts. You know the really great thing about growing fruit, is once it starts happening the fruit happens all by itself. We simply need to keep our focus on the Lord – then the Holy Spirit will supply what we need.  Doing what the Holy Spirit leads us to do, transforms our whole view of this life.

Whenever He leads us, we cannot possibly get proud – HE helped us and WE KNOW IT!  Self-effort is an exercise in futility that will send us off into despair – following Him leads us into a freedom we have never known.👋

P 2656 Let’s remember we are to be married.🕊

/ DVH

Romans 7:4-6 MSG: “So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died He took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with Him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to “marry” a resurrection life and bear “offspring” of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we’re no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we’re free to live a new life in the freedom of God.”

Oh man, some days I can’t wait to get to heaven to listen to the Apostle Paul preaching  – that’s if I ever get over following Jesus around! What a conundrum … Picture this: Jesus is talking about how He and the Holy Spirit made the moon and stars, as He heard the Father speaking them into being. At the same time, Paul is talking about the beauty of Christ Jesus;  and James is reminding us of what we’ve been given … OR …OR!!! … every now and then we fall on our faces from the sheer wonder of where we are! And… AND!!! Here’s the biggest plus of all! We can run into the throne room and fall on our faces and worship at the throne. Choices, choices!  Maybe in heaven we can do all those things at once?! Sorry I got so distracted … moving on …

Romans 8:1-4 MSG: “With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when He sent His own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In His Son, Jesus, He personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.”

Feel free to stand on a chair and cheer! 🥳 What a brilliant explanation! First of all I want to say, there is no worship and devotion toward the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit like the worship we choose to give All of Them down here. Why? Because down here worship is a choice, a sacrifice – in heaven, worship is joyously spontaneous. We give the Trinity the best gift when we choose to worship Them, because They are so worthy. Despite our busy lives, or whether we feel like it or not!

Just imagine the throne room for a second … there are these incredible angels — flying around the throne crying out; “Holy holy holy” over and over and over and over again – they never stop. I asked the Holy Spirit once why they do that and He told me this: ‘Because at every single turn they see something new, something glorious to enjoy, some aspect of the Father’s Love and Grace they have never seen before.” 🤯 Well, that’s my mind blown… how about you? Down here, we are always running after whatever is new – in heaven we simply have to gaze at our Heavenly Father and the view will be breath-taking and endless.

I shall vacate this heavenly rabbit trail and get back to my point … which is … look at what our beloved Bridegroom has done for us!  Take a minute to wander back to Romans 8:1-4 and read those verses again. Just when you think things can’t get any bigger or even more wonderful, we are reminded that our precious bridegroom, Jesus Christ, volunteered … because He loves us that much. Well, there’s me in a soggy heap in the corner. 😭

Christians can live like everyone else, staring at the ground, thinking that the next episode of our fav show is the only moment of joy in a week of drudgery and effort — OR — we can reread Romans and rediscover what we have been GIVEN. Those verses mean that we have the power to throw off depression and the cares of this world, because of our Bridegroom’s gifts. Those freely-given gifts mean we can be at rest, care-free, living in pure peace, despite our circumstances and difficulties.

JESUS HAS GOT US AND HE WILL NEVER EVER LEAVE US OR FORSAKE US. How we feel is just a blip on time’s radar. We don’t have to live under this world’s clouds of pessimism, constant drama and angst. Instead we can choose to embrace what we’ve been given. Each and every time I take hold of those hard-won gifts that He died to give me, I fall in love with Him over and over again.

Real Love is like that. It is a journey of discovery, familiarity …  as well as delight, where we visit and re-visit the Lord’s loving kindness, mercy and grace, and realise how much He loves us.  It’s time to remember we are engaged to be married to the most incredible Bridegroom … Who loved us before we even knew Him! Our faith is not based on pretty thoughts or theories, now we live in the daily reality of being totally forgiven, loved and cherished … And if we aren’t living there, then it is time we did!  Bye. 🙌

P 2655 Reflections

/ DVH

I have recently come to the conclusion our society is no longer living our lives in a holistic, interactive, interpersonal way anymore. We seem to see sex as the same thing as intimacy, and we have contented ourselves with living this life voyeuristically. What I mean is people are watching other people live their fictional lives on TV or social media pages. 

Even if most of what is read is exaggerated or photoshopped – and whether it is true OR NOT — it is, unfortunately, way too easy to live our lives like peeping toms peeking through life’s windows, and occasionally making clever comments. That’s a very poor use of a beautiful God-given gift – insight. People can get so busy trying to impress each other, that they aren’t living the life they actually have, … enjoying the days God has given us, plus interacting with the people who live around us.  

Many years ago, hubby and I were blessed to travel to many other parts of this world. I became so obsessed with taking photos for our memories back home, that in the end … I was looking at all that glorious once-in-a-lifetime scenery through a view finder. The Lord whispered to my heart: “Look UP. You are really here. Enjoy the sun on your face, enjoy the people around you. Enjoy the atmosphere. You can’t live your life through a view finder!” Hilariously, that whole thing had a fascinating ending … we hardly ever looked at those photos when we got home! 

You and I only have now … even the next minute may not be ours. All over this world human beings have died while I am taking the time to type this. Humanity seems to have become quite shallow parodies of who we can really be. Only standing up to demand things, and complain about what we want. We protest, instead of finding ways to contribute! We were made for finer things.

But although we can now plumb the depths of our oceans with clever, specially made vehicles, we can’t plumb the depths of our own souls! Apparently hurting people aren’t very interesting or popular — so most of us have learnt to hide what is really happening inside, where we actually live — because we need to present a successful happy face to the world around us. We’ve stopped participating and now we live our lives spectating. The only thing that can tempt us to participate is MORE MONEY.

This faith life we have been given is to be lived, enjoyed, savoured – not dissected or commented upon. As Christians we will miss the best bits if we don’t appreciate what we have right now. It is in front of us. We all need to turn off our critical responses and start looking for what is good about things and how can I help? I don’t need to be famous to help, I just need to get off my butt and do something.

There are times when we spend our precious time discussing other people and their faults, and pulling them apart with words. If we are clever enough we can make you laugh, and feel bad, all at the same time!! We dissect other people like frogs in a laboratory … but our spiritual eyes are so blind that we cannot see that other people have pain that is beyond their words, and outward appearances. Thank God for our Saviour Who sees beyond our posturing and pretence, right into our hearts.  …“Then we cried out, “Lord, help us! Rescue us!” And He did! His light broke through the darkness and He led us out in freedom from death’s dark shadow and snapped every one of our chains.”  Psalms 107:13-14.

Thank God for Jesus! He specifically came here to show us another way to live. Despite this world’s cynicism, and the need for the next thing or fad to amuse us – we have the power to choose to change and BE changed. We can control our own destiny, by participating in what is good, right and profitable. We simply must deliberately choose to put down all that stuff that is often simply this life’s pollution, destroying the beauty of who we can be. You and I are the pinnacle of God’s creation! I don’t care if you have 5 billion dollars or I have one dollar to my name, we all have the capacity to grow and contribute to this world, even in our old age.  

However, we cannot help others if we present them with a specially crafted front – a parody of real faith. To witness to others, we need to be real. So if we aren’t coping, then we need to tell someone. Pray! Ask for the Lord’s help. Life is a process and nobody is perfected yet!  Lastly, as we live our lives, we cannot afford to live with a skewed reality. That’s the way this world currently lives.  Let’s live this life, the only one we have (!!) … knowing that even our scars can tell wonderful stories about our Saviour. Bye. 👋

P 2647 Hitting the refresh button.

/ DVH

“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to Me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis.” Matthew 11:28 TPT. As I have said many times before, I am very literal when it comes to reading the bible. This means that I tell the Lord, “Please help me Jesus, I am tired out of my brain, I need Your refreshing.” I call that hitting the refresh button. Now here’s a truly great refresh button, from the bible, just for you and me!

“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received reconciliation.” Romans 5:10, 11 &17. “For if,by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”

So after I’ve read that, I put what it says in my own words. It goes like this, “If one ordinary guy (and his wife) managed to stuff up the wonderful things God had for mankind – then it stands to reason that His own Son, coming here to earth and living this life the way it can be lived – will release grace, and righteousness, plus the ability to rise above our day to day circumstances.’  Amen.

Here’s a heads up. You can’t do what I just did if you are running by the bible with a piece of toast in your hand, on your way to the office! The best thing to do is to pretend you are a tea bag and just sit in the Word until its goodness comes out! If we want to live this life refreshed, we must allow the bible to wash us, and let it soak in. If a stupid computer needs to be refreshed from time to time, then I sure do. Stuff happens in my world all the time and I forget to duck! 

The other day we went to the doctor and she was such a negative Nancy I wanted to go home and pull the covers over my head. However within days, Father God proved her negative POV wrong. Sometimes people will say and do things … ugly, grumpy, faithless things. You know when Jesus is not in charge, none of us are all that great. Life happens and it isn’t always happy happy joy joy! This means I will often need a fresh page to go on with – how about you? I need to pull focus back to what is real, and separate out whatever is shadows from the past, floating through my mind making me angry, unhappy or afraid.

The bible clearly tells me that God is not mad at me, now I have the freedom that Christ died to give me. After I soak in that thought, whatever I need to do is already done, because I am yielding to the will of the greater One within me. FYI, I’ve learnt to let go of my own way – my way ends in death! So … I forgave the doctor and then I got on with what was going on, even though it was a little hairy at our house for a bit. I want His way, the way that leads to life — life and more life. This means I can have His grace for any situation I find myself in, and if I forget to partake of that Grace — then I have His Grace to lead me back into His complete redemption!

Here’s an important key to living this life refreshed … Don’t look at your circumstances and defer hope by waiting for things to change before you enjoy His benefits. “Hope deferred will make your heart sick!”  Start reading about His benefits and then start cheering.The bible tells us not to forget His benefits in Psalm 103:v2. Remind yourself of everything that He has done in your life. The more we pull on that string of remembrance the more good stuff comes to the surface – we start remembering how good He has been to us.  We can preach ourselves happy if we take the time to really remember, read, and tea-bag soak in all He has done for us when we read our Beloved’s words.

The bible is not just an ordinary book. It is God Himself speaking to us from day to day. Imagine this. Suddenly you are pulled up into the throne room, you have no idea how … and Almighty God starts speaking to you from the throne. That’s what happened to Isaiah and Paul … do ya think they might have remembered what He said? To be refreshed we need to give His book more than a cursory glance. We need to prayerfully ask “What have You got for me today precious Holy Spirit?” Then pause, and read. Read until your heart gets happy and you start to think ‘I never knew that stuff was in there.’

Every day we meet the Lord in His book, and we use that book to refresh ourselves. We pray and talk things over with Him, so we can spend refreshing times with Him. We are His kids whether we feel like it or not. We cannot afford to live in our feelings because they change with the weather and our circumstances. Push the refresh button and drag your thoughts out of hell and into heaven. He’s waiting for you … 👋

P 2634 Bloom where you are planted.

/ DVH

Jesus Christ was planted on this EARTH, He was planted into a DRY place in a time when nobody understood who He was and why He came. A place where His knowledge of God and His ways, when Christ was twelve, confounded the leaders. But then when they heard Him speak as a grown man they called Him ‘blasphemous.’

His mother heard everything that was said and she kept it in her heart. She knew personally, He was a miracle. However, His family once tried to help Him raise up a publicity campaign to fulfil His God-given directives! 😳 And one other time, His hometown tried to throw Him off a cliff! It seems nobody had a clue Who He really was! People caught a glimpse but they did not comprehend Him. ‘He came unto His own and His own received Him not!’ John 1:11-13.

“My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him. He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.” Isaiah 53:2-3.There was nothing whatsoever about Christ that would make anybody look twice. The Lord Jesus simply looked liked everyone else around Him – Jewish! And right after He was dead, He was planted back into this earth’s dry ground – He was buried in it. Praise God that’s not the end of that story!!

Some of you reading this blog today have been planted in a very dry, unGodly place. Cheer up! The Lord Himself has already gone before you. He knows what that is like, and He knows how to bring that planting, that seedling of His life inside you, into a full grown plant for God’s glory. You and I, we are a blessed people,we have now been planted in fertile heavenly ground by the Spirit of the living God! We are here, right here, right now because there is something that we can do for His Kingdom that is a unique expression of God’s love into this world. But we aren’t here primarily to preach, or teach — first of all we are here to learn to love and live, like He loved and lived. 

WE’VE all been planted INSIDE the passion of Calvary. No dry ground for us!  Incredible passion sent the Lord Jesus to the cross, and passion kept Him there until it was all done. Finished! What He did was so remarkable it left eternally fertile ground!  We can renew our passion by gazing at that cross and realising that ‘I put Him there.’  He loved us all that much. Love is defined by its actions.

Whatever we both did before we met Him was enough to send Him up that awful hill to His death! And He would have done it gladly, just for one of us. Every terrible thing this world has done, went on that cross … and it killed Him. The awful weight of human sin killed Him. Yet we both know that most human beings walk around mindlessly, totally unaware of that great and grave weight in their lives. That stuff squeezed the life and breath out of Jesus’ precious body. 

Our passion for Christ grows as we further understand what we have been GI-V-E-N. We’ve been planted in the warm, fertile, blood-soaked ground of His sacrificial, all-conquering love!  Ain’t NO ground better than that! “He sacrificed Himself for us that He might purchase our freedom from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people who are His very own, passionate to do what is beautiful in His eyes.” Titus 2:14 TPT. “The light of God’s love shined within us when He sent His matchless Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” 1 John 4:9 TPT.

Jesus didn’t just die so we can get on the glory train at the end of our lives and chuff off into heaven! He died to release to each one of us the potential to participate in His earthly ministry. He prepared stuff for us to do before we ever got here. We must pray we find it and do whatever it is, for His glory!

My hope is this, that we would all just stop worrying about who has this gift and who has that one, and run after and concentrate on the thing that every single one of us finds difficult and impossible in our day to day lives. LOVING THE UNLOVELY. We all have people like that –  some of us are so blessed we have a whole bunch of them! They will teach us how to love people like He did – if we let them.Those gifts we run after, will not operate properly without His love – unless you want to spend your life sounding like a brass gong! 

So let’s LIVE this life more and more passionately for Him. Bloom where you are planted – in Christ Jesus! ‘Count yourself dead to sin but alive to Him.’ Romans 6:11. Bye. 👋

P 2631 Beware of roadblocks.

/ DVH

There is a possibility in our lives that we can have hidden, (even from ourselves), agendas – things that will inadvertently get in the way of true growth. Sometimes we can get caught up in our minds or emotions with ideas, people or things that we fiercely defend, but we are totally unaware that is what we are doing. Over a longer period of time, we can also learn to carefully avoid some situations because we are subconsciously aware that we don’t cope with them. Likewise, we can steer away from, or even get angry about, some things, purely because there is concealed pain behind them.

Ask yourself this question – apart from Jesus Himself – Who is THE most important person in your life – is there anyone or anything that you strongly feel that you cannot live without? Maybe a person who you value so much, that even the smallest thought of loss can send you into fear or anxiety? If you are a parent, maybe it’s a child …whether it is an adult child or not …  or perhaps a spouse;  or a close friend. Even the thought of any loss connected with these things can send you into an overwhelming downward spiral. If even the very thought of letting go of something or someone sends us into a panic – that is a clear indication something has grabbed hold of us!

You know, the thing we are most afraid of, can sometimes be the greatest spiritual strength in our lives, when we overcome that fear with His help. Always remembering that His help leads us TO DO SOMETHING. Perhaps there is a job we don’t want to lose, or we’ve fixated on finding somewhere safe to live – but this thing, whatever it is, influences every other decision we make. And it may not even consciously register in our minds. In this scenario that person or thing, no matter how normal or insignificant they seem to be, can become a roadblock to spiritual growth. 

When things get tough, and hardship strikes — this predisposition to protect ourselves and hide from suffering, will get in the way of any of the Holy Spirit’s solutions. Simply put, we won’t ask Him to help us with someone or something we don’t want to lose … just in case He takes that thing or person away! Plus we can easily go on from there to make decisions based on fear and pain instead of what the Lord wants. 

It is incredibly easy to think we know what is best for us – but that decision can be formed within the framework of hidden fear NOT FAITH. The assumption that our feelings, or even familiar thought patterns are a good guide, is a lie! The Word of God is our primary, solitary guide. I have seen godly parents put up with abuse, because they feel they cannot live without their fully grown child and the sneaky wrong spirit in that adult child ends up ruling the roost.

Or maybe the parent is afraid of what will become of their progeny and sadly, co-dependency has taken hold. We can sometimes desperately pray and hope: “that Jesus won’t mind, because He understands I can’t help it, I need it to be like this.” Read the gospels … the Lord told one man to leave his recently deceased father behind!

I have also seen sweet Godly Christians hurt others because they refuse to let go of something that should have been left behind them years ago. That has been caused by fear which has been carried forward from childhood pain. It can colour our adult thinking. The thing to do in such situations is to get to the root of the tree by asking WHY?

Why do I feel so strongly that I cannot let go of my child, or spouse etc. and give them to Jesus unreservedly, without any agenda in my heart? What pattern of ungodly thinking is preventing my growth? What fear is ruling my life? How did it start, and what am I still doing now, today, to keep that fear alive? We need to prayerfully identify and deal with these issues under the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and guidance.

Our God is not mean. He is a loving caring Father, who is deeply involved, and intimately engaged in our everyday lives. BTW, this issue is not about disobedience, it is a deep lack of trust. We are not trusting the Lord to take care of those things that are extremely important to us. Sadly we could even be letting fear rule. But our precious loving Father knows us, and He knows the way we need to go to get through things like this. We must follow Him, step by step into relinquishment. It is not good to hold on to other people so tightly that you lose your own God-given freedom!

Matthew 16:19:“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” The Lord Jesus Christ gave His power to the disciples when they were too dumb to know what they were given. That’s how generous to mankind He has been! We can personally prevent any change in difficult situations or even dangerous ones by misusing the power we already have — instead of yielding people or material things to Him and progressively learning to live a life of faith. We need to let go of those things that weigh us down. At the same time by holding on too tightly to someone/something else we have the power to prevent growth and change in that other person or situation.

It is part of our job description to voluntarily choose to live this new life Jesus died to give us, embracing the power to overcome, instead of hiding away from it because it might pinch something from us! Plus always watching and aware of any roadblocks or ‘keep-out signs’ we have inadvertently put up or embraced… because we know those things will steal His new life away from us. Bye. 👋

P 2578 BECAUSE …

/ DVH

1 John 4:17-19: “This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love BECAUSE He first loved us.”

Some words in the bible need greater attention than others. Today when I woke up, ‘we love because He first loved us …’  was rattling about in my mind and heart. My first thought was this… maybe we have that concept in the wrong order? We can easily get stuck on we must love, as a directive, instead of focussing on the fact that we have been given something that we don’t deserve. And not only that … we have been given so much of it we have plenty to give away! … I think that that thought changes the ballgame!!

When we engage with the things in our lives that we know are not God’s will or even His ways, the correct and most fruitful response, is repentance, NOT shame or guilt etc. What’s the difference? Shame comes from the devil, it drove Adam and Eve away from Almighty God in the garden. But knowing we are loved will always draw us back toward Him, BECAUSE He is the answer. That sort of response shows us whether we are afraid, or not – if we are afraid we have believed a lie! 

When a little child breaks a toy, it runs and takes that toy to the parent to be fixed. In a good parent/child relationship the infant is not afraid. Instead it has confidence, it knows love will fix it. That attitude is our yardstick. As Christians, we are compelled by His love to be drawn back into fellowship, with Him, and each other. No matter what it takes. Meanwhile we can’t say we love God and hate our brother BECAUSE those two things are incompatible!  However, after real repentance and reparation, our sin is now under Christ’s blood. It has been dealt with BECAUSE it hinders fellowship and our love relationship with Him. It’s hard to love and feel guilty all at once!

The way we live now is about our attitudes and motivation, not rules or fear. We don’t have to flimflam, deny or obfuscate about our sins either — now sin is not our focus! We live differently because we LOVE Him. The reality is this, whatever we choose to take into our own lives, we will eventually give out. If we take in greed, avoidance, shame or guilt for some action or other, then we will give that out to someone else. Let’s remember that our God will never use us to give out stones or snakes to people in need, He is a good good Father. 

Freedom is now ours. God’s Love gave us that freedom, and it is Christ’s eternal legacy for all of us. When we step away from freely giving away that kind of love to others, we step out of that freedom. At the same time if something pricks our conscience, and we dismiss it and do not deal with it, it becomes sin. It’s disobedience! The same thing happens when the Lord asks us to do something but we don’t want to do it. Disobedience to the Holy Spirit’s leading can block our ears to God’s guidance.

So, if we read the bible and think: “Nope, nothing in there today for me!” Then we simply must keep on reading — BECAUSE seekers find things. Sometimes we might tell ourselves “God understands blah blah blah.” That’s called rationalisation and denial. Today, right where you and I are – we’ve  been given a new heart that is soft toward God, and His ways, but we can harden that soft heart by ignoring Him. We can fool ourselves that it will be OK … but inside, the Holy Spirit is jumping up and down and waving His arms saying: “Wrong way go back.”

BECAUSE God made Himself incredibly vulnerable, by becoming a man, living here with us, and dying for us so we can be with Him forever — now our response comes from a place of love and devotion to Him and His Ways. Now His unearned or deserved love for us motivates our love for others. 👋

““So I give you now a new commandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you’re My true followers.”” John 13:34-35 TPT

P 2561 Anonymity can be a great blessing.

/ DVH

When you were a kid did you ever wish you had a cloak of invisibility? I did! Especially when an adult was coming at me with something in hand to punish me. Whether I was wrong or not …I truly felt I needed that cloak!. Unfortunately my mouth let me down a lot and I usually managed to say some dumb thing, or argue with my parent, and that resulted in even more discipline! I just kept digging holes with my mouth instead of remaining shtum. Kids have limited wisdom! 

However, that is not my reason for talking about anonymity today. In my opinion, fame is fleeting. The people who pat you on the back on the way up, will kick you in the tush on the way down! Fame is not always what it is cracked up to be, you only have to read the news to see that. Famous people are subject to a great deal more criticism and critique – the word jealousy springs to mind.

These words from Galatians 5:15 in the bible leap out at me: “It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?”

Fame is not only overrated, it is most definitely NOT OUR aim.“For even the Son of Man did not come expecting to be served but to serve and give His life in exchange for the salvation of many.”” Matthew 20:28 TPT. So let’s get this sorted … the One Who saved the world, did not aim at fame, or power, or notoriety … Jesus Christ aimed at elevating Almighty GOD when He saved US – not Himself.  Which may well be the reason that most kids today know way more about Star Wars, Harry Potter and Pokemon than they do about the Lord Jesus!

Over the years I have come to notice that we kind of look down a bit on our faithful Sunday School teachers, or Religious Educators in schools, as being a bit old fashioned. But these people know all about anonymity. Most of us won’t have a clue about what they do, week by week, so the children of these times can find out that the Lord’s Name is the name of a wonderful Person … not just a swear word. Today I want to take the time to remember those who faithfully serve. It seems to me that most of the time nobody notices what they do. 

You know who I mean. Brother So-and-so, who faithfully puts out the chairs week by week and is always up for a letter box drop to let people know where your church is. Or Sister-I-forgot-her-name who calls up younger Christians regularly to make sure that they haven’t wandered off the path. She also goes to the hospital to visit people as well calling into homes. She prays for the saints that are sick, and sincerely asks them if she can help in any way. She’ll probably hand you a cup of tea or coffee next Sunday!

I find it fascinating in a world that is obsessed by fame that these quietly achieving servants of God go virtually unnoticed. Because these people are the ones who actually understand they are not here to be served, they are here to serve. Oops! I think I said a bad word. That would be the word … SERVE. In this blab it and grab it, everything belongs to me lifestyle, where my service has to be noticed or I won’t do it — we are incredibly fortunate to have any people who still think that following Jesus means serving others. Because I strongly suspect the idea of serving the Lord and others nowadays, means other-people-are-supposed-to-serve-me and make my ministry famous. 

Many people want to be like the characters in the “Cheer’s Bar” on TV,  we want to be where everybody knows our name! Well I want to point out that if we are following Jesus, then those steps always go down. Not up. They will lead us on an excruciating journey like the one HE had — carrying something that weighed 165lbs (75kgs) on bloodied torn open shoulders and back. Not to mention a horrendously painful headache! Let’s think about carrying that lot up and down through a large city to a hill outside it, where the people we pass by yell abuse at us. 

Even when we arrive at our destination, we will be flanked by known thieves. Our reputation is in the bin. People jeer as they see us, because human beings have an incredibly perverted sense of winning when someone else appears to be losing! Humility is lost on most people. Yet while Christ was suffering excruciating pain He still breathed out forgiveness. That’s real service. We are called to be laid-down lovers of Jesus – that means, my kingdom go – His kingdom come.

Today, more than ever, we need to follow Christ into serving mankind by demonstrating His love to people who will never deserve it. And anonymity can be a blessing. 👋

P 2555 Boldness/ confidence.

/ DVH

Boldness and confidence are both initiated and fostered by our personal relationship with the Lord. Let’s look at Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” The place to foster confidence in our relationship with the Lord, is in the throne room – in our intimate one on one, time with Him. This is the place where God freely gives us mercy and grace and the will to live new lives. Our desire to walk wholeheartedly with the Holy Spirit will lead us into His new life. 

Yielding our will to His, means we have chosen to learn to love Him through participating in His processes. Selfishness falls off when we love for what we can give, not just for what we can get! Some people believe we approach the Lord only to worship Him. YES! Please always do that! However, our primary reason to be with Him, is simply because we enjoy His company, His POV. We have fallen in love with the wonderful God we are coming to know, day by day.

Boldness and confidence are fostered by intimacy. There is no presumption, instead this precious intimacy becomes so important to us, we start to loathe the idea of any separation. That POV motivates us over and over again. I don’t believe that pretending to live in His love and grace can do that. satan knows each of us well enough to fling something at us and our self-effort will collapse. I know very little in this area, but I can say this, the more you seek the Lord for Himself, the more He will reveal Himself to you. Sometimes there are some questionable things that people have told me God said or did, and my heart jumps up, unbidden, and says: “No! He would never act like that!”  I think that’s a little part of what confident intimacy looks like.

Almighty God always wants us to be confident in Him, especially in His goodness and goodwill toward mankind. His book the bible becomes powerful for us individually, when we take His instructions personally and act on them. Our precious Father doesn’t want us to live in any fear, at all. He sent His perfect love in the form of a Man, Jesus Christ, to show us, in Person, that He loves us. Christ is our source of spiritual life.  Everything in this New covenant is voluntary and our participation and obedience are the result of our passion toward the Lord.

Let’s clarify that. The size of any disobedience is not the issue, the attitude of our heart toward whatever it is – will be the thing that comes between Him and us. Openness needs to prevail, and, in turn that leads to true openness with each other. Confidence in Who He is and how much He loves me will actually release incredible freedom. However, that freedom is never carte blanche to be nasty and use His agonisingly hard-won Grace against Him or others. 

Our Heavenly Father, God, is not a legalist. He took care of every single legal indictment against humanity at Calvary. We didn’t just escape punishment, because of what Jesus did, at the same time we inherited Christ’s status before the Father. We were given Christ’s FAVOUR. That includes the ability/power to resist the devil and overcome the stuff he throws at us, con-fid-ent-ly!

The Lord is not looking for us to tick boxes and get everything right, He’s looking for us to genuinely rely upon Him to help us to do the things He asks us to do. Leaning on Him and His power and wisdom is our birthright – that birthright makes us rich in incredible things this world simply cannot buy. As we live that way we will see Him work on our behalf and gain more and more confidence in the One we love, because what we believe is based on personal knowledge of HIM. We don’t have to live bewildered powerless lives, because we have been given the power to walk away from temptation and to live lives that bless, help, and bestow Grace everywhere. That’s our inheritance.

Boldness and confidence are also not about shouting or being forceful. Sometimes it means we simply stand our ground, quietly. Firmly insisting. We need to learn to recognise and resist the devil’s wiles, and horrid suggestions of hatred and bitterness. At the same time, we simply cannot afford to let our enemy con us out of what is now our birthright, by bringing up stuff that we’ve done wrong or things we omitted to do at all! Our enemy keeps lists of wrongs  – WE DON’T – neither does our Father. We fix the things we can, with repentance and humility, and own our own bad attitudes. Then we go on to pray confidently for the grace to continue our walk totally reconciled with Him and others. 

Personally I just keep telling myself: I need mercy so I’m going to give it away! I keep on sowing grace because I know I am going to need it every day, all day! Our boldness and confidence comes from our knowledge of Who He is, what He is like, and real-life, personal, intimate revelation of His goodness as we walk with Him. 👋