Gentle

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! 👋🏻

P 2376 Living a transparent life.

/ DVH

“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James 5:16. “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7

Transparency in our lives frees us to walk with each other … not to mention the cleansing effect it has as we walk along! However, our current society loves to expose people simply for the shock value. But that is not the same as choosing to live a transparent life for Jesus’ sake. Exposure in today’s world often equals intrusion. 

Unfortunately it is very easy to hide the reality of who we actually are at our house, and present a better picture to others on the outside. But choosing to live honestly frees all of us to openly trust the Lord more, and to present our faith in its true light. We are the people who live in, and value, forgiveness. It is way too easy to hide who we are and simply claim we are being positive. Lots of nasty stuff hides in there! We need total honesty when we are coming before the One ‘to whom all hearts are open’  – and if I lie to you about who I really am, I will hurt the BODY – I will stunt its growth.

Transparency is a hallmark of belonging to Jesus, because we are the people who have nothing to HIDE, so we don’t live in fear of exposure. Instead we live in reality. We know we are sinners saved entirely by His Grace. It is dumb and a waste of our time here on earth to be saved by grace, and then go on to try do our best to LIVE hiding in external works and nice attitudes. Paul talks about that in Romans and Galatians. 

Our God will never take our choices away, He wants us to surrender them, willingly. You only have to read the Old Testament to see how patient He is with all sorts of people. He dealt with them as individuals. He let them grow INTO whatever He had for them to do. It is sad when pride, plus fear of judgment, along with a fatal saving-face attitude, can get in the way of owning our own frailties – we can’t reach our full spiritual potential that way! 

Sadly, some things we choose to hide because we are ashamed about them, and other things we hide because of the way we want to appear to others. We can unfortunately, easily acquaint hiding with privacy or safety, but trying to remain safe and secure without Him being in charge, hinders our growth. Growth comes from acknowledgment, not sweeping stuff under the carpet and hoping nobody else notices the lump! Jesus is gentle and lowly in His heart – that’s our reality. Isn’t that an amazing thing to be able to say about our Saviour? No wonder we love Him!

And He loves for us to be our true selves, freely and willingly, because there is a great deal of healing in being honest and open. I am not talking about being nasty or letting your nasty feelings attack others. The idea is to be CHANGED – not just released to be a pain! This kind of life means we will learn how to accept ourselves and others, and their flaws. However, self is definitely going to die in the process of changing the way we live, because all pretence has to go out of the window. Polite and nice simply get in the way of real Spirit-given love. We use so much energy trying to look right, that in the end, we have nothing left to give away.

Owning our own frailties is so important. To live like this we have to deal with fear, which can snarl at us from the corners of our minds and emotions and tell us that those ‘other people are not safe.’ Let’s be absolutely clear. Other people are definitely not safe! They need saving too!! That’s why we don’t put our trust in them, we put our trust in Jesus, to get us through anything and everything that comes at us. We are doomed to disappointment if we misplace our trust. We may need to give other people the benefit of the doubt as to their motives, but we trust HIM, not them. Others will fail us, accidentally, or on purpose. Human beings are frail, they have faults and foibles and they can easily stomp on us without even knowing it, or thinking about it.

That’s why we need to trust the One Who knows us better than we know ourselves. I’ve found that all kinds of nasty little things hide in corners when we are not honest with ourselves or one another. It is good to forgive and forget when people let us down, but the best way to deal with others is by living in His love with His help. That Love looks like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This is what the Lord Jesus already looks like, and that’s WHY we can trust HIM.

I found it is helpful when dealing with difficult people, to go straight to forgiveness and not pass “go!” until I’ve done it.  At the same time I continue to cultivate the company of the One Who will never ever fail me. The Holy Spirit. Transparency and honesty help us to relate to Him, and He helps us to become who we wish we were. 👋🏻

P 2355 Meekness is not weakness.

/ DVH

I believe the body of Christ has yet to discover the true value of meekness. The One Who rules the world and also made it, was led away by wicked, jealous men and yet He said nothing. He also said nothing when they beat Him mercilessly, and shoved a cruel crown of thorns into His head. He even gave His hands to the men who nailed them to the cross. God’s will was more important to the Lord than His own, even when it involved torture.

These things are Christ’s life illustrations, they show us we need the Holy Spirit’s help all the time, because He knows the way through whatever this life throws at us. There will always be a temptation to retaliate strongly to injustice and cruelty. And … there are also times we respond passively, underhandedly, by trying to control things. That’s not meekness. A meek person accepts God’s will and His timing – no matter the personal cost.  

The word MEEK means “quiet, gentle, and easily imposed on. It is a companion to submission and having a submissive heart.” Bad things are going to happen to all of us, we can’t avoid them, but to have a heart like Christ has, that means everything to a meek person. Bill Mounce, who is a biblical Greek expert, defines the Greek word praus – translated meek or gentle – as: “the positive moral quality of dealing with people in a kind manner, with humility and consideration.”

At the same time meekness doesn’t see someone else’s sins, mainly because it isn’t even looking for them! The whole purpose of this grace is to find out what the King wants, and do that! Anything else is white noise. A meek person will deal with themselves no matter what the other guy is up to, because they take what Jesus said personally, so they remain humble and always available for change. 

Meekness starts and is perfected in our relationship with the Lord, first of all. Accepting His will for my life helps me accept whatever He does with yours. Our God totally believes in each one of us because He sees us one of us through the filter of the cross, but we must not abuse that filter for our own purposes. Instead a meek person is grateful – that Jesus would stoop so low to make us acceptable – that provokes submission, and service to others in them. 

I decided that this would be a good time to say that meekness is a fruit of the Spirit!! In the bible in 1 Corinthians 13 it is called “long-suffering.” In today’s society meekness is the total opposite of what we are being taught is … our rights!!  We discard this particular Grace at our own peril.  When meekness is rejected as weakness people become narcissistic. They say thing like: “My rights and needs must be met so I will take them by force if necessary!” A person Who is meek is more likely to care about your rights than their own.

However meek people are not passive people, they have simply made a decision that walking with the Holy Spirit is more important than anything else – including their so-called rights. A submissive meek heart can be cultivated under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, leading and correction. “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5.

There are times we can mistakenly think that those niggly little seemingly incidental, unimportant disobedient things we do, have gone away. But in reality they’ve actually turned us inch by inch away from the path He’s put in front of us UNTIL WE CAN NO LONGER SEE THAT PATH AT ALL. It is up to us to keep our relationship trimmed, full of oil and ready to ‘go” when the bridegroom calls for us. Meekness lies down that pathway of clarity, humility and obedience. Independence is a luxury we simply cannot afford. We need Him and we need each other.

Jesus Himself said – in the Beatitudes: Matthew 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Meek people have great faith. They believe that life can be changed by utterly surrendering to the King, because they have learnt there is NOTHING this King cannot do with totally submitted yielded vessels.  👋🏻

P 2219 Hope is a wonderful thing!

/ DVH

To continue with what I wrote yesterday, I wanted to mention the importance of hope today. “There once was a shepherd with a hundred lambs, but one of his lambs wandered away and was lost. So the shepherd left the ninety-nine lambs out in the open field and searched in the wilderness for that one lost lamb. He didn’t stop until he finally found it. With exuberant joy, he raised it up, placed it on his shoulders, and carried it back with cheerful delight!” Luke 15:4-5. TPT.

In my immediate family, we have “lost sheep” – people who no longer follow Christ. Some ran away grumpy, on purpose. They got cheesed off because the Christian life did not turn out the way they thought it should.  And some just kind of meandered off not looking where they were going. Sheep are dumb – they don’t know what is good for them, they can be so busy eating and meeting their own needs, that they forget about the Shepherd and how much He loves them … until they get into trouble.

As you already know, I rarely include someone else’s thoughts in my blog, but I read this prophetic exhortation, and I thought it was worth including today. Many of us have one or more individuals in our families that have gone away from their faith in Christ. This excerpt was such an encouragement to me, I hope it encourages you too. 

I Hear His Whisper … THE PRODIGALS WILL RETURN. “I am calling home the sons and daughters who have forgotten Me. You will see a waterfall of love and mercy bring My children from afar. I have walled them in. They haven’t roamed as far as you expected. They are never outside of the boundaries of My love, and I have never left their sides. I know how to woo the hearts I created. They cannot find what they need outside of Me. In My mercy, they will be restored with fresh passion to seek Me and to know Me.

Dry your eyes, and with a hope-filled heart, look with eyes of faith. The lost ones are coming home. Your delight must be in finding them and loving them back into wholeness and dignity. You will remove loneliness from their hearts. You will see them restored. Even within your family, there will be healing and grace as I recapture hearts and ignite their longings for Me. Love well. Forgive completely. You will see the restoration you’ve prayed for. My will shall be done in their lives.” by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez.

I loved this prophetic word, because it is all about what God is going to do for us, but it includes an exhortation for US to prepare our hurt, disappointed hearts, to receive the ones who broke our hearts back again. Those who have been lost to us have been lost for many reasons. Right now is the time to deal with our side of everything that happened. “Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.”(Ephesians 4:31) 

It has taken me a long time to absorb the fact that I can add to my own struggle with others, by what I say.  If I choose to continually rehearse someone else’s sin over and over again, it may seem like a form of self-protection. Plus it seems like you are reminding yourself of what happened so you don’t fall for the same guff again! But the reality is, my self-talk can also cement someone else back into a place that no longer exists for them. That attitude, that action, only exists in my own memory. Personally, I am not who I was even last week – or last month – or last year! God is changing me, daily and boy do I need it! Let’s not colour in tomorrow’s miracles with yesterday’s half-dead felt-tipped markers. He’s doing something new. Hold on, it’s coming…

The Lord is going to do what He has planned to do so quickly, that we will be astonished. So we need to prepare take the time to search our own hearts and minds now, with His help. Let’s start thanking Him for what comes next, and remember – you and I could have easily been the sheep that wandered off. None of us are exempt from the seduction of the spirit of stupid, in this funny old world of ours. Cultivating hope is a wonderful thing. 👋🏻