Garden of Eden

P 3350 Reality rush.

/ DVH

Boy, I had a reality rush this morning … And the Holy Spirit’s clarity helped me. I realised that when I can end up saying to myself: “What is good right and profitable often feels like I am lying, because my experiences don’t always back it up.” So I asked Him – why? 

This is what He told me: “Prior to being saved, you were raised with this world’s thinking, this world’s definition of truth. You learnt it from your parents, school, your peers, your job, whatever you read. You’ve carefully, and sometimes unwillingly, learnt the moral values of this world from everything around you. It seems like you are lying because MY TRUTH does not come from the same place that you have been taught. My truth is REAL truth, it comes from the Heart of the Father. For instance, if I say something is clean it is clean, that is what I taught Peter the fisherman. You cannot use this world as a reference point to ‘market’ or ‘modernise’ the gospel. Only My Word is truth.

The body of Christ needs to be diligent and read the bible, so they can see for themselves what real truth looks like, how it works, what it contains. The bible helps us to identify the true from the false. Human judgment leads to error. This world encourages people to have opinions, make their own judgments and to be selective about what they choose to believe. This is WHY Christians need to continually renew their minds to align with what I’ve said in My Word. They need to make My Word their yardstick – not this world’s fashions and opinions. 

Right now you need to know My Word and let it be alive in your day-to-day life, it will change what you do, who you do it with and where you go. There is none of man’s logic in the things of the Spirit, there is only the Father’s truth. When it comes to truth, this world wants to explain away sin, and present excuses. That’s what happened in the Garden of Eden – the woman and the man made excuses for their disobedience. Human beings are guilty of ignoring their Creator, and they have made gods in their own image. gods that allow them to live their lives far beneath their calling as My children. This world’s so-called ‘gods,’ legitimise sin, or excuse it.

The simple answer to sin is repentance, and it is yours for the taking. Acting on what I say in my Word, is obedience. And acknowledging that you are not wise enough to know what I know, is the beginning of wisdom …”

The thought that Christianity can often be a mixture of what we already know and approve of, as well as the truth of His Word, really impacted me. Jesus’ words are truth, and we dare not be dismissive of them because of circumstances, or prejudices. Or choose to let them be flavoured by this world’s trends. The real answer to sin is repentance – that leads right back to God Himself. Let’s daily learn to trust the Holy Spirit, He knows the Way each of us should go, and He longs to help us. 

I sat and thought about the kind of things that are now permissible today, and nobody even blinks anymore, we’ve been desensitised. As His kids we have His authority to speak His truth, in love. We can love the sinner but hate their sin. I also realised that if the truth is not setting us free, then somewhere, somehow we are believing a LIE! Let’s keep praying over the details of our lives. 

And if God says in His Word that we can do something, then we can do it and we need to locate the lie that has told us it is too hard, or ‘it really doesn’t matter because He understands.’ Maybe we have been taught something in our past that contradicts the Living Word of God – Jesus, Himself. Then as we carefully, prayerfully and actively look into His book, we will learn to separate ourselves, by clinging to what He said and repenting  from any missteps or lies we may have believed. We have been blessed with absolutes, not ambiguities, within the bible. 

Personally, I am confused and unhappy about the weird and sometime nasty things labelled ‘fair and right’ by this world today. Many times I have struggled to know how to handle things because I dearly want to walk toward the Narrow Gate — not the wide easy path that often runs willy-nilly beside it. I know that is your desire too. Some things are just wrong – the book says so! That is not said to condemn anyone. My question is: how can we know what God Himself has for us if we are walking down the wide road that leads to destruction? Deception will cloud our view.

Hubby gave me some great feedback today, he’s my editor and he helped me to clarify my own thoughts. “Our lives are a little like code for a computer program. We see the thoughts, the images and the user friendly icons that are displayed on our screen. However, right now – today – God is dealing with questionable inefficient code. We need His updating and reprogramming with HIS pure Heavenly code to fulfil our Heavenly calling. This world produces bad code, bad code can distort the output.“

Let’s choose to put Jesus in charge and obey the things He told us to obey – and leave our ideas about what we want behind us. And become like a little child, willing to be taught His Ways. Like I said at the top of the page, boy did I have a reality rush this morning! May God bless you with a day filled with His Presence and further knowledge of His Ways. Amen. Bye. 👋.

P 3289 Be yourself. You are here for a purpose.

/ DVH

Yesterday, I was inspired again by Reavo, who produce the dearest little 3-4 minute clips on YouTube. Can anything good come out of Youtube? You bet – you just have to be discerning. Here are some of their titles; ‘Your love is stronger than my faith.’ ‘ His mercy reaches far ahead.’  ‘I thought my hands were holding on, but You were holding me instead.’ These people have made a sweet and beautiful little felted world, delicate and unthreatening, and they sweetly illustrate the love of God toward others.

I love the way these precious brothers and sisters think. It isn’t good to be someone who looks at stuff and says …”Oh those guys are from such and such a church, and we don’t agree with their theology.” Let’s look at that carefully, shall we? Luke 5:5-7: “Master,” replied Simon, “we were working hard all night and caught nothing at all. But if You say so, I’ll let down the nets.” When they did so, they caught such a huge number of fish that their nets began to break. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.” Those men in the other boat weren’t following Jesus, they were simply other fishermen – Peter shared the blessing with others. Jesus Himself said He had other sheep we don’t know about! 

Here’s a thought: let’s give judging others a big rest, and stop looking at our differences and spend more time looking at HIM! Now there’s a worthwhile project .I have no clue about Reavo’s theology, but the Holy Spirit on the inside of me loves them. And I believe gentleness is vastly under-rated! These little snippets of love don’t preach at viewers, they visually illustrate what God’s love looks like in the nicest way. A whole lot of work goes into each one, and I especially love the producers for finding their own way to preach!

There’s also a fantastic young man on YouTube. He has the gift of joy. He travels about to various shopping centres and dances. (Mostly hip-hop)This dear fellow walks up to perfect strangers with all kinds of bright, catchy, recorded music playing. Meanwhile, let’s not get our knickers knotted about who is playing and singing what – instead look at what he is doing! He is using his own enthusiasm and the rhythm of dance. He is not dancing to show off – although he is great! He reaches out to perfect strangers, takes their hand and gets them to do their thing to the music. I don’t know what denomination this man belongs to, but I can see the Lord in him.

Before his audience even know it, they are dancing, in public … some of them quite badly! But they are laughing and having so much fun they don’t care how they look. It’s just so precious to watch. Kids join in, and so do elderly people, who probably haven’t danced in years! This young man doesn’t preach, he doesn’t hand out leaflets, he doesn’t take money … he has simply made the joy of the Lord his strength, and you can see it.  He walks, lives and dances WITH JOY. He also talks about Jesus freely and naturally in interviews. Most people do not know the Lord Jesus is FUN. More’s the pity.

Our churches can get so busy instructing people, we can easily forget that the Lord saved them to BE with them. Jesus is a people-person. There is always a sparkle of life in His eyes. There are many ways to read the things the Lord said in the Gospels, but it is very good to look at what is written, and see hope all over it, and not just instruction. When Almighty God entered into the Garden of Eden, every evening to walk and talk with Adam and Eve, He didn’t go to lecture them. He went to BE with them! If we read the Old Testament carefully looking for what each person said in their conversations with the Lord … we will find that Father God related to each person in His book, differently. 

Our differences are a poem to His creativity. The Lord doesn’t want clones – He loves uniqueness simply because HE is unique. Please stop focussing on looking like everyone else and just be yourself. Not the self maybe your care-givers wanted you to be, or the unrealistic person that you wanted everybody to love. The real you, warts and all! We are all human and vulnerable, and liable to make mistakes, but we have the best gift of freedom this world has ever seen. Jesus deliberately came to give us the freedom to be better than we are, so now we are free to stop being self-obsessed, and we can choose to become other centred! Life is far more fun that way. 

Here’s an odd thought. Why didn’t God just make man and take him and her straight to heaven? Why did He put them in the garden? I honestly think the Lord wanted this couple to enjoy what He made. We need to be the happiest, fun-nest people on earth, despite our circumstances. Start to use who you are to love other people! Don’t try to be someone else. You woke up today. 150,000-170,000 other people didn’t. “This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” Be redeemed, transformed, a-n-d …yourself. Sin is no longer a part of you, you are here for a purpose, and that purpose is not to drive other people crazy!  Bye. 🤪

P 2714 “Blessed are they who mourn …”

/ DVH

In the Western world we have weird ideas about mourning and loss. We treat it like it is a terrible flu or something and other people stand by patiently waiting for you to get over it. If only. As if someone else knows how much grief is enough for you! The loss of someone close is not just a small thing – it can be devastating. I love the fact that in the Eastern parts of this world grief is allowed to be expressed, and passion for another person is not pushed away when they leave this world. Instead grief is expressed – loudly. I think that is quite healthy. Jesus told us that mourning is a blessing, so perhaps we need to revise our way of thinking. Grief is something we must go through, not avoid.

Grief comes in many different forms and has many different causes, like losing a career you love. Maybe you have been forced into a severely financially straightened life-stye. Perhaps you have been injured or ill, and you’ve lost your old way of life and you have to reinvent yourself. Or a much loved child has wandered so far away from everything good, right and worthwhile – you cannot even allow yourself to think about it… so your prayers turn into groaning. The bible says this for people who are so grief-stricken they can’t pray: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” Romans 8:26.

Thank God He is praying for us when we cannot!

There are also times that we can be suddenly dragged under into grief by things that have happened to people we love. Truly loving people means we share their sorrow. At the same time, other people’s actions and attitudes can also cause much grief. Or we can be greatly misunderstood personally, and not able to explain ourselves, and that causes the terrible pain of grief as well. Bin there, dun that! I think of grief as some sort of emotional drowning, and the surface of the water – where the fresh air is – seems too far away to reach and unachievable. Maybe we will never reach the surface again – that thought causes even more grief! Whatever the cause, grief, sorrow and suffering are all a reality, and we can get stuck there.

I have observed that grief weakens even the strongest people. I’ve known people who could not find their way out of a grief cycle. It was as if their grief was a terrible burden that horrible circumstances had tied to their backs. So they clung like mad to what they had lost, because their grief was all they had left! I’ve also known other people who carried their grief as proof of their love for someone else who has long since gone to their reward. Grief then becomes an unnatural tie that cannot easily be dealt with or resolved. How long is long enough to grieve?  I have no idea. I can only say that we need to pass through this process, one step at a time. If we hurry grief, we run the risk of postponing it – only to have it grab us by the throat unexpectedly.

What does God say about it? Actually grief made an appearance in the garden of Eden! We barely get to Chapter 6 of Genesis when this verse appears:“And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart.” It is too easy to pass off the Lord’s grief over mankind’s sin as something that He can absorb, because, after all – He’s God! But this verse teaches us something about Him, and us. The bible tells us that we are made in His image and we have shared characteristics with our Heavenly Father. That one line in Genesis shows us that under some circumstances, grief is normal – He feels it … we feel it. You can experience it after you have been betrayed. 

In Isaiah 53:4 it tells us that we can have grief because of our sin. “Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for His own sins!” Grief can be misunderstood, because our society hates pain of any sort – even the natural pain of aging! Unfortunately then we can easily miss the point of any grief we feel because of our own sin. That kind of grief is good. Grief, sorrow and suffering lead us to repentance. But at the same time we need to realise that because we feel those things, it means we have a tender heart.

In Matthew 5:4 Jesus says: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And in Revelation 21:4 the bible says this: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

These two verses tell me that Almighty God has a plan for those who are not completely comforted in this life. One day He will wipe all those tears away, forever. That’s how important our grief is to Him – He has a plan and He will deal with it. We know that even Jesus Himself stood outside Lazarus’ tomb and wept – yet only minutes later, that man was resurrected. Personally, I see what happened to Lazarus as a sign that dead to this world is not really dead. People may be gone from this life, but they are not just plain GONE. We are eternal beings, made to live forever!

Lastly I want to mention a verse in Ephesians 4:30 that has great meaning for each of our lives because it involves the most sensitive and dearest Person Who truly cares for us: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by Whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” The Holy Spirit totally understands grief, because people grieve His precious heart every single day. Seeking to cultivate His company is the greatest privilege we have been given, why would we cause Him unnecessary pain? We are blessed when we mourn, we learn that we are limited beings who need Him. 👋