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P 2797 Faith comes by hearing …

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… and more hearing comes when you act on what you heard! However, without my obedience I will be like a computer on standby. Nothing happening here! Obviously I don’t need His guidance to – feed my face, sleep, or go to the toilet. Jesus clarified practical things like those – read His book. 

BTW there is no advertising in His book, it is all about instructions. Even the things that put the instructions into context, are still instructions! You and I can end up wasting the life He has given us, if all we do is follow Brother-or-Sister-I-know-everything-because-I’ve-been-up-the-mountain-of-God’s-doctrine! That’s a lazy way to follow Jesus. Let’s remember that Peter had stuff to learn that John didn’t … simply because they were different people. We are not perfected yet, but that doesn’t mean we give up!

Regard what other people feed you spiritually, as supplementary feeding. It can add helpful vitamins and minerals, but the meat, rice and veggies should be dug up or pulled off the tree by us! Harvest your own crop. The way to prevent what you hear every day from going mouldy or getting worms in it, is to ACT on what you read. Obedience counts. Faith comes by hearing, and this kind of hearing is not passive – it is not about comprehending the words — it is active – it puts those words into action.

Instead of telling yourself “I’m not mad at anybody.” Ask the Lord, “WHO am I mad at?” Take a pencil, the answer will astonish you! We have been pardoned from our sin, but we are not bullet proof from other people’s jabs. So if my faith is stuck in a slump, then I remind the Lord that His strength is made perfect in my weakness and I find something to OBEY.  Then I watch out for what happens as I use my faith to move on. That’s how faith gets stretched. I believe that He hears ME, because the book says He does.

The Lord doesn’t say all this fantastic stuff in the bible just because He can turn a lovely phrase – He stands behind His Word. That’s why Jesus is called the Living Word — He’s the Word … per-son-ified. We cannot afford to excuse ourselves from our learning curves. If you can’t do what the Word says, then ask the Holy Spirit to help you AND TAKE A STEP. Our God loves people who mean what they say — He means what He says and He acts on it!

When my faith starts getting wobbly, first of all I check out my heart, to see if I am no longer using my faith to live. Faith is meant to be active. It works, it reaches toward Him, all the time. It is not an emergency activity!  It’s a form of spiritual exercise. I have had many people tell me that God gave me a brain and I am supposed to use it — yes He did. But our brains are not meant to supersede His Word. Read the book. Faith, by its very essence means I won’t always understand with my mind – my mind needs the spanner of God’s Word to adjust my thinking. Many people will give us the pip, but faith-filled confession opens the door to humility and clarity.

When He tells me to repent, then I do it – asap. I simply can’t kid myself that I can still walk in faith and be disobedient, that’s rationalising His instructions away. Many times I have obeyed, and reluctantly gone to see my brother when I had a bone to pick with him – and when I got there I had the courage to ask for his forgiveness. I got the courage on the way! Our faith grows as we obey Him. If He says “give” or “give more”— then I had better do that. I can always ask Him to help me and show me how to obey Him.

I don’t know where everything is in the bible, but I do have a secret weapon… I know the One Who wrote the book! A phrase, or one word floats up into my thinking and then I use my faith to go and look it up. I pursue Him. At the same time owning my sin is not a scary thing, because SomeBody already paid that debt for me… so I don’t need to be ashamed. I just need to be honest with myself and others. Now I let Jesus defend me. He’s good at it.

If we truly want to move mountains then it would be good if we started by moving the mountain of unbelief in our hearts and attitudes, daily! Sounding nice and sweet in church is not the same thing as transformation. To do the first thing, I must be on my guard – when I do the second, my responses will have already changed.  We are designed to be walking, talking illustrations of God’s love in action. God’s love is REAL, it is not just a theory. He doesn’t hold a grudge!! At the same time I simply can’t afford to use my mind or feelings as the umpire. Instead I need His Peace! 

Faith comes by hearing – hearing comes by listening carefully – and listening carefully directly leads into obedience – which leads to mind renewal! Pretty soon you will start to know God’s opinions about a whole lot more things than you did when you started. Bye. 👋

P 2784 They are not just stories.

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The whole time the Lord Jesus was preaching, He was demonstrating, teaching, and living out a kingdom life in front of everyone around Him. Praise God that people wrote this stuff down! These things are illustrations of how God’s kingdom works. He preached about what the people in God’s kingdom look like. And He talked about what the kingdom looks like —  check out what I mean for yourself. There’s plenty of stuff to do in there! All of the Gospels show us what a life laid down for others looks like. It is an error to think that only Jesus was meant to live that way. He’s the Person we imitate with the Holy Spirit’s divine help.

Our Lord went out and did God’s will, every single day He was on this earth. Doesn’t that blow your mind? Think on this: our glorious Savior was forgiving, saving and inspiring someone while He was dying. He didn’t stop even when He was taking His last breath! He was still leading the people around Him into a greater knowledge of God’s ways from the place of His enormous pain. WOW! And we think talking to Mrs Kerfoops next door is hard! Jesus was struggling to breathe, and He still witnessed to His Father’s great love and passion for people. And if you are short on words for witnessing, that’s OK – Jesus didn’t use many ‘cos it was too hard for Him to speak! 

In the New Testament, the Gospels are a visual illustration, an aid, they show us HOW God’s kingdom functions. They are not just ‘stories’ about the things Jesus did and said, they are Jesus’ demonstrating and explaining to us how God’s kingdom WORKS. He taught, then He did, and sometimes He did, then He taught!  And at other times both things happened simultaneously. To be quite honest with you, I could get stuck on the Gospels for the rest of my life. There is just so much richness in there. 

You and I are adults, we aren’t little kids going off to Kid’s Church hearing stories about Jonah and the whale, or Jesus expanding some little boy’s lunch anymore. Everything the Lord Jesus says and does in the Gospels is a life lesson.  It is not just some fairy tale like Jack and the bean stalk! These things are instructions. Through Jonah, God is saying to us, no matter what big thing swallows you up, even if it is your own fault – He still has a plan for your life. And the boy with the his little lunch teaches us that even the little we have, can grow in His hands and feed others, if we will just give it to Him. 

There’s a way to read the book and it is not the same way you read a novel. It is too easy to read God’s book as simply words on a page. This book is God’s carefully preserved and chosen Manufacturer’s Handbook and it has been written down and kept safe for us. The Jewish people are trustworthy, they memorised their own history by word of mouth passing these stories down from generation to generation. We have what we have today because of those stories passed down. Even the New Testament, although written down, was also passed down by word of mouth. That’s what preaching is! The miracle is that it doesn’t matter which version of the bible you read personally, because the Holy Spirit kisses those things that are important to US, with His wonderful Presence. 

Then revelation comes. After that comes repentance – I guarantee that bit! You can’t read the book without finding places where you’ve fallen short of the mark. Don’t be condemned. Getting it wrong is not the end of the world. It’s a place where we can learn to trust in His faithfulness. We must do more than just sing: “Great is thy faithfulness … 🎶” – we need to live believing it! This life is not about our performance, good or bad, it is about His faithfulness to honour His word! People all over this world are living and dying without any knowledge of the One Who loves us all.

Take your little lunch, your little life, and give it to Jesus. Then go and do what He says to you. Read this scripture with that in your mind:

“When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”He asked this only to test him, for He already had in mind what He was going to do. Philip answered Him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Another of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.” John 6:5-11.

This kid didn’t have anything worthwhile to feed so many people, yet he shows us that our spiritual poverty is not the end. In Christ’s hands that is always the beginning of something extraordinary. Anything that is given to Jesus will multiply. These are not just stories, they are a living history of how God can use ordinary lives and bring forth His kingdom. Bye. 👋

P 2747 We need Clarity.

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Colossians 2:9-14 NIV: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made YOU alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

Oh man, God’s book is such an incredible blessing! I love it when seemingly complex subjects are written with this kind of clarity, that means I can sometimes understand what it is saying. You know, for many years, nobody ever told me that I am now dead. I listened to sermon after sermon about this interesting thing, and that glorious revelation, but how to live my life for Jesus and die to myself, never came up. OR – if it did I was too thick to hear it! I didn’t realise my bit was to die to what I want, and live for what He wants now. As a matter of fact, I thought the people who lived like that were special people – missionaries, pastors, evangelists etc. But for ordinary people like me – we just plodded along doing our best and failing – lots.

The enemy nagged at me: ’You are a failure, you are of no use to Jesus because you can’t live the perfect life. If you are sick it’s your fault, if God doesn’t help you, you must have some undiagnosed sin.’ If I was a donkey the load of weight to get stuff right, that was plonked on my shoulders was far too great to bear!! I was taught about what the right lifestyle looks like, how to pray properly, how to give, what my kids should be like, or how to live with difficult people. The answer was easy – just be nice to them now. HAH! How could I be nice to them when my instant response was to thump them?! 😱 No pressure!!!

Everybody has sinned – including the famous saints we think are perfect because they appear to get it right! They too have fallen short of His glorious ideal Jesus. His Grace is everyone’s equaliser. Sin is sin, it weighs us all down. And no matter how much we perfume sin, or cover it up with nice smiles and pretty responses, and appealing sermons, it still stinks. It smells of death!

After a while, I lost hope, I thought: ‘Maybe I’m just too broken and can’t be fixed.’  That happy little thought did not help me live with the aforementioned difficult people, and it didn’t make me very cheery either. BUT GOD IS FAITHFUL FOLKS… I’m here to tell you that every word in the bible is true, and if we choose to walk with Him, we can be transformed. It’s a process.  People may accidentally mislead you, but His book never will.  So we believe the book and then act on it. This means we will personally see God at work, every single day, when we act on what He says.  Meanwhile, the Beatitudes could keep us all busy for the rest of our lives.  He taught me about dying to self when I started living like His book says — plus, I desperately wanted to love others the way He loves them.

I use what the bible says, like a prescription from the doctor. And followed the instructions. Then I made my first assignment loving impossible people!  Boy does that keep me occupied!!  The book says: ‘all my flesh was put off when I came to Christ and was baptised…’ so I not only believe it,  I am daily living my life like it’s true. I realised that I didn’t have to sin anymore, I was making terrible choices that indulged my flesh! But Jesus paid for me to live free of my old ways and I have a HELPER.

Before anybody gets tangled up in the thought: ‘but I can’t hear the Holy Spirit’ … let’s make it clear. Try listening! Ask Him to help you recognise His voice. Don’t dismiss that quiet voice inside that says:”Don’t say that you will hurt someone.” The Holy Spirit speaks to me inside my heart. When I was a kid I would have called that voice my conscience. It seems I always had a place where God could speak to me, I just didn’t always like what He said! So I ignored it and did what I felt like. I was hardening my own heart by my refusal to listen and co-operate with Him. The truth is you and I are now dead, and we both daily choose to live that way on purpose.

Now, I walk in the power of my own God-given choices. The power of God is active on our behalf when we make that kind of choice. I had so much yuk stuff in my life that I was tolerating, thinking it was normal to struggle. I lived expecting to have to suck all the bad stuff up, buttercup!  I totally hoped my inner thoughts and behaviour didn’t show to others and that would kind of be OK. Hey, I still struggle! But now it is against my own flesh indulging itself, by having hissy fits and excusing its own bad behaviour.

If what you hear in your head is mean, nasty, spiteful, dangerous, and against what the bible says – deal with yourself and REPENT. It’s not somebody else’s fault – it’s ours! Pray and humble yourself. It’s the devil! he picks up on our weaknesses. If what you hear is kind, loving, supportive, helpful and it glorifies Jesus, and it’s IN the book – then that’s the Holy Spirit! Here is my advice on how to die daily — PRAY. Then find something you have never even tried to obey before, use your faith that God will help you, and go and do it.  We lack power because we lack the kind of faith that leads us into obedience.

This probably means we will have to fix things with our neighbour, or our mother-in-law, or someone we don’t much like. Transformation works in us as we do these hard things using our faith. He promised to help us. Believe Him – take Him at His Word. The more we obey His directives, the more our faith becomes living, and the bible will give us His clarity. Bye. 👋

P 2742 Stand firmly on the Rock.

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Our God is our ever-present Rock and foundation.”He only is my Rock and my Salvation; He is my Defence and my Fortress, I shall not be moved. With God rests my salvation and my glory; He is my Rock of unyielding strength and impenetrable hardness, and my refuge is in God!” Psalm 62:6-8. “Yahweh, You’re the bedrock beneath my feet, my faith-fortress, my wonderful deliverer, my God, my rock of rescue where none can reach me. You’re the shield around me, the mighty power that saves me, and my high place.” Psalms 18:2 TPT.  “He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just, a faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He.” Deuteronomy 32:4.

What does it mean when the bible says that Almighty God is our Rock? It means because we are His, and we have learnt, through experience that HE cannot be moved, so we cannot be moved because we are standing on Him and all He has done for us! We need to continually practice the skill of not being moved, even if an adverse wind is taking our breath away. Our knowledge of the goodness and purposes of Almighty God need to be far greater than the intellectual knowledge we’ve collected about the force of any kind of wind. Otherwise fear will take control and fear makes a terrible driver. Almighty God, His goodness, His faithfulness are the firm foundation we stand on.

The winds of change are blowing all over this world, and I think that they sometimes seem like gale force winds. At the same time, I sometimes wonder how any of us will cope if we move on into hurricane winds? The kind of wind that brings total destruction in its wake. Like: what if war comes to where we live? What if hunger or thirst comes? What if the people we love, or our families are no longer safe wherever they go? What if our families do not love God with a greater passion than we have – what will become of them? Are we equipped to do what we can … and then go on to stand! That wind blows inside our minds, as well as outside and around us. God becomes an untested theory.

There is something that exists today, that I’d call ‘distance trouble’ — bad things happening to people like us, but they are happening far, far away. This means we can enjoy relative peace because those bad things occur elsewhere. Instead we live with a low distant rumble of what might come next. Because these things are not happening now, right where we live, we are still free to view them dispassionately. We can have sympathy, tears, or be shocked, but my question today is – what happens when those bad things invade our safe carefully cultivated personal worlds?

How will we manage to love our enemies, when right now, our enemies are mainly in our minds? One day we could have real actual enemies, facing us, who physically want to kill us. People all round this world are facing that reality right now. We have the luxury of viewing change as an optional  extra because we are positionally secure … However, even here, where I live, there are gangs of children roaming the streets, stealing things that don’t belong to them. The opinions about what to do about this reality are many and varied, but ineffective at best. 

There are people in this world who are daily too busy running for cover – to save their lives or their families – they don’t have time for opinions. What would we do if what is there, comes here? How will we cope? I want to propose that if we have not made the Lord our God our firm anchor – our ROCK, and have that reality established in our lives, we cannot possibly know what WE are capable of, under extreme pressure. Now is the time to learn to trust Him, and surrender to Him and His Ways. We need to give up our right (?) to determine our own destiny.

Human beings do not respond well under extreme pressure. Yet it seems that we are still not wise enough to make the Ways of God our first priority. Many people I know are selective about what they will and won’t obey. They dismiss someone else’s dedication as over-zealousness and extremism. “That’s not that important,” they say, “God understands I can’t live like that. I have other priorities.” Do we have to almost drown in our own sorrows, before we learn in the depth of our hearts that this life is brief? We need to do good while the sun is shining … because things may not always stay that way! Personally, I need the ever-expanding many-sided wisdom of God constantly instructing and helping me or I will lose my way. He is my Rock.

Now is the time to stretch and prepare ourselves and our children, for the things that could come and bang upon the door of our safe little havens. Now is the time to learn to love, give, share, and care — and make that loving caring concrete, as well as the aim of our lives. We need to learn to stand firmly on the Rock that is God Himself, and learn to remain stable and not falter, no matter what comes next. That takes training and perseverance.  Bye. 👋

P 2727 This is our way forward.

/ DVH

Hubby sent me this lovely bit of writing the other day and it was so sweet I wanted to put it here, today. It’s from: “I hear His Whisper”:.. and it’s called – “Kindness reveals My nature.”

“When you act toward others with a heart overflowing with compassion, you are living out the very heartbeat of My mercy. When you line your life with kindness, you cannot miss the blessings of My kingdom. Your return will be great when you live a life of generous love.

I tell you the truth: acting in love toward others may sometimes feel like the greatest sacrifice. However, when you train your heart in generosity, you purify your motives. I delight when you reflect My magnanimous love by choosing to extend mercy to others. Self-defense won’t get a person very far in life, but look at the rich lives of My beloved ones who live to benefit others. 

Rather than seeking only to fill their own bellies, they freely give to others in need. Model your life after the generous rather than the stingy, and you will live in the beautiful blessing of a clean conscience. Look to Me whenever you need grace to empower your choices. I will always help you!” written by Brian Simmons

Hebrews 13:16 TPT:“We will show mercy to the poor and not miss an opportunity to do acts of kindness for others, for these are the true sacrifices that delight God’s heart.”

I love it when I read something that exhorts me to live this life to the full and it shows me how to walk with Him. Bonus buy … isn’t it wonderful that things like this delight His heart! To be honest, I’m sick to death of long winded theories on how to be a better Christian, and things that have never seem to work out for me. I can’t seem to stay the prescribed course, and then I fall on my head and get disheartened. Sigh. I’m always glad for the person who wrote the book etc. it just doesn’t seem to be my thing. My memory ain’t what it used to be, so I forget what I’m supposed to be doing almost immediately. Cultivating kindness and generosity suits me better, because it isn’t hard to remember and it has a powerful effect!

I have noticed that different sorts of lives have different handicaps. For instance, I can no longer do the sort of things that other people take for granted. But I also know that others are handicapped by busyness and their essential activities as they try to press forward into their high calling in the Lord. Some people are handicapped by their home circumstances — they have parents or children, or spouses or friends that don’t support their Christian POV. Some are trapped financially. I think that we all have difficult lives in this modern world. Today’s special thought from Brian Simmons is a great example of how anyone can live this life for His sake, even when there are other things making their lives difficult … simply by living generously.

We can also choose kindness – and when we do so we are revealing the Lord’s own nature. And the bonus bit is that we don’t necessarily have to have a speaking gift! Generosity speaks its own language. I love this kind of over and above giving because the Holy Spirit has taught us personally about the power that lies in unexpected kindness through giving. I find it opens doors that we can’t see, in other people’s hearts. We’ve both seen people who are very restrained and quite formal, suddenly divulge all sorts of info about themselves in response to something or other we did. 

Today I want to talk about the ways I’ve noticed kindness can transform things that seem to be rock solid. Being kind as well as generous is an incredible way to bless others and open up hearts – ours, and someone else’s too. First of all, we can actively choose to be kind, loving and forgiving, when we know that the other person is expecting a totally justified rebuke. This sort of kindness is incredibly powerful. It can be tempting to take advantage of a situation where one person has done something damaging, and we are on the wrong end of it. But when we are generous with our love, forgiveness and kindness, we can be used by the Lord to usher in change into their lives. Kindness opens doors.

It can give energy and hope to the weak. Whether the person is weak in spirit, or mind or body, it energises others when we treat them with respect and love. At one time we saw a severely disabled man on the street. He was unable to control many of his bodily functions. His carer was a charming kind man, mopping up for him with a loving touch. The carer was so happy to chat to us, but I must confess that we wanted to talk to the person in the chair! The disabled young man’s whole bodily demeanour indicated that there was nobody home, but as we spoke to him – his face came alive. He couldn’t speak, but his eyes shone. It was almost as though he responded to the love and said: “You can see me!” We told him we could see how brave and courageous he was, and we prayed for help and healing from the Lord. We kind of floated away from that interaction much more blessed than the young disabled man was! 

Kindness like Mr Simmons mentioned above also shows up in generosity. God will always repay us when we give to unselfishly to others. That’s because HE is where kindness comes from – so we are mirroring Jesus’ example. The truth is, we’ve noticed you can get blessed by paying attention to the way the Lord repays you! I know someone who used to make up boxes of food for people in their congregation who were doing it tough. They’d fill a basket or a box with the kind of things that these folks could not afford, plop the box on their doorstep, ring the bell — and run away … like naughty children ringing a doorbell and escaping before being caught! 😂 Someone hid around the corner to watch the response. They said doing that was so much fun, and they highly recommended it for unexpected excitement and joy. 

The bible clearly says: “it is more blessed to give than to receive:”(Acts 20:35) and our task is to personally prove that scripture is active and effective! I know it cuts away possessiveness and the desire for more stuff we don’t need! Human beings can get so caught up in their own terrible circumstances, or this or that bit of dreadful news, we can forget God has a plan and He has given His kids the power to change things. We may not be able to change the course of a war, but we can pray and intercede for those trapped inside one. 

Kindness and generosity are powerful weapons in our spiritual arsenal of God’s ever-increasing love and mercy. I believe this is our way forward into reaching the world. Bye. 👋

P 2710 ‘Have good day, make good choices!’

/ DVH

“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:6-8.”Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”Luke 6:38.

Did you get that? If you want MORE of God – then give MORE to God! Our generosity or lack thereof, can limit the blessings God has flowing toward us like a river. They will float on by us and we won’t notice them. Meanwhile, He says we will have everything we need – not necessarily everything we WANT! But we can always ask – He’s a very generous Father.  At first glance these scriptures appear to be about monetary giving – but I also associate these verses with the way we live. Let me explain:  our LIVES are also our tithes and offerings. This means that we choose to serve others, 24/7. All day every day. Are you cheered up yet? 

If you are a parent you will know that there is no such thing as a part-time carer for your brand new infant. New parents walk about looking like zombies for months and months, and sometimes years! They accept that no sleep etc is part of the deal. Now if you are a nurse, bus driver, IT specialist, accountant, father, sales assistant, then your employment – the way you use your days – are not bigger than your primary calling as His child. EG You are not a nurse and a Christian … you are a nurse who IS a Christian.

Belonging to HIM is our first priority. Not our families, not our friends, not work-mates, not even our own relaxation. We have chosen Him, so we have chosen to serve Him! Yay! And we do that by serving Him and others, every single day. We give our love, our time, our efforts, our insights, our kindness, our patience AWAY, all the time. There is no such thing as a part-time Christian because there is no off button. We live this life sowing blessings and being one!

Meanwhile, burn-out is a symptom of not yet knowing all we can about how to REST in Him. I am not condemning anyone for it, I am just saying that this condition is a diagnostic tool of how much self-effort we are putting into doing what the Lord wants. We need to continually remember that ‘His yoke is EASY … His burden is …LIGHT.’ That’s not just a pretty word picture — it is a way to live! We simply must progressively let Him inhabit every single area of our lives or we will not be living this life, our only life, in His Presence. That’s where the power of God resides, IN HIS PRESENCE. That’s how Jesus lived!! Yes, it is costly, just like giving away money you need is costly, but the results have results in other people’s lives.

The verse from 2 Corinthians above, shows us we cannot live this way by force. We must choose and we choose over and over again. Otherwise we will either become incredibly angry and extremely rebellious — or we will quit Christianity and wander off into the wilderness, complaining our heads off and eating quails until they make us sick to our stomach. The Lord knows we are all weak – that’s why He promised to be our strength! Because we are HIS we have access to His perfection, which is what that verse in 2 Corinthians 12:9 says:“His strength is made perfect in our weakness…” or we can settle for little, instead of much. My premise today is this we cannot lose when we give! “God is no man’s debtor…”

We all love Jesus. But it’s probably pretty clear to everyone around us one way or another that we are not perfected yet, However we’ve chosen to follow Him and now we are straining to reach the goal. Are we always cheerful about it? Not always. But that lack of cheerfulness is a sign that we are in a process.  We don’t have to get it right, we just have to stay on the path – using our choices! (Repent and repair, remember?) And then we ask for His help to take every single opportunity He sends our way to choose Him all over again. When we choose Him and His ways – we are doing everything for HIM! ‘Whatsoever you do, do it with all your heart as though you were doing it for the Lord.’

We totally give Him our lives because He totally gave us HIS, first. He will guide, help, comfort, lead and teach us. If we sow sparingly into His kingdom and Jesus is not the centre of everything we do, then we will miss the blessing of provision He has for His kids. Only eyes of faith can see some blessings, because wrong attitudes block our eyes and ears. I once heard a mother say to her child: “Have a good day, make good choices.’ Amen! Bye. 👋

P 2654 Give yourself a break!

/ DVH

Actually, I don’t mean take a holiday – I mean cut yourself some slack. It is too easy to become formulaic in our faith. We think things like: ‘if I do and say this, then He will do and say that.’ It seems like we think the Lord is a vending machine. We stand in front of it, stamping our foot – getting crosser by the minute because we did everything we were supposed to do … and …nothing happened … things stayed the same.  Then we rummage about trying to figure out what we’ve done wrong because God is always active on our behalf and where’s our answer? I dunno … I learnt years ago I am as dumb as the dirt I came from! 

But I do know this … Almighty God is not afraid of inactivity. Between Malachi and Christ’s birth 400 years went by. Here’s something to reflect on — in that time there would have been Godly men and women who died waiting for an answer. Nobody likes that thought! Yet Christ went through everything He did into His terrible death, and His grave and nothing stopped any of it. That shows us that God has greater purposes. We often have to wait for the greater purpose to manifest. Other things simply must be endured, and we will need to learn to do that with faith, grace, and love … However, sadly, those graces will not take endurance off the menu! 

I also know that as individuals we can hold up our own personal change by being disobedient. Maybe we simply refuse to look at things that need transformation, or we feel that change in my life is impossible. Perhaps we even trot out well-worn excuses,…”My family is like this… it’s just who I am … other people are so picky … “  What we are really saying is: “I don’t believe I need to change God… I expect You to change Your mind … OR …You could change THEM!”  We sing songs and read in the book that nothing is impossible with God, but that goes right out of the window when it touches our inner rebellion. We are afraid of change.  BTW, about the excuse:  “My family is like this…” you joined a new family remember? There’s that excuse done and dusted!!

Years ago, I had the dearest friend who used to tell me when she was praying about something really important that she thought God had gone skiing or something because there was no response. What she said was a joke … but, at the same time, it wasn’t a joke … she was referring to the fact that His silence scared her. Rightly so, sometimes silence means NO. The Lord holds the future, and maybe that idea we have won’t hold water in the future He has planned for our lives. 

Jeremiah teaches us that HE “… know(s) the plans He has for us, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11.So what we think we need, or even want, may not be in the plans He has for us. At other times we simply need to live through our disappointment, and talk to Him about that. Either way, He’s always the Answer! The Lord simply isn’t sharing His thoughts with us at that time. That doesn’t  mean we have committed some dastardly sin – it could mean that we have an opportunity to keep banging on the door. Like the guy in the parable Jesus told. That guy needed bread for his visitors.

This is why I’ve learnt to leave things with Him. I ask Him for revelation, and then expect that when He is ready to share with me, something will pop up in my bible reading, or someone will say something, and my heart will recognise His voice, in their voice. And sometimes the circumstances have already changed, it just took me a while to notice it! I’m a bit slow that way …

My point today is, it is not good to beat yourself up and wonder what you did wrong after you have prayed about it and you still can’t hear Him, or you seem to have lost the path. If you know you did something stupid then fix it. Doing that side-steps a whole lot of angst. At the same time let Him be God and you be you. Mistakes are going to be made! He is perfectly capable of redirecting our paths. “…He will make straight our paths …”Sometimes our mistakes seem to be real clangers … I’ve made loads of them! 

Yet, because He is our wonderful Father, the glorious Creator, the One Who sets us free – He can take our surrendered spirit of disobedience or stupid, and make something beautiful out of it. He made the world out of nothing. Taking our sometimes wilfully shattered lives, and making something incredible out of them, is what He does. Give yourself a break – He won’t give up on you, so don’t give up on yourself.

I’ve found that self-flagellation accomplishes very little, surrender accomplishes far more. It softens our spirits and helps us to remain humble. I pray all the time:  ‘Lord, I want what You want.’ Amen. And then I forgetaboudit until He brings it up. Bye. 👋

P 2616 AS …

/ DVH

The bible says in Matthew, we are to love one another AS we love ourselves. It’s part of a conversation Jesus had with a guy who seemed to be looking for boundaries, or, at the very least, guidelines in how to please God. Jesus said this to him in Matthew 22:37-39:  …“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour AS yourself.”

The Cambridge dictionary explains the word AS, like this —“used in comparisons to refer to the degree of something.”

It means this: to the same degree that I love me, I need to love you. Yeah, people have been stuck on that merry-go-round for years. I think we’ve all been sucked into trying to love ourselves first, SO we could love others. Rhubarb. That’s NOT what the bible says. As and so are not the same thing. So means I already need to be full, and then I can look at your need.

The reality is this: if I have an idea that maybe I don’t love myself enough, then it can’t be my fault if I can’t love you! And I will probably set out on an endless, fruitless, not-to-mention distracting quest, trying to love me! Well, there’s a waste of time. Think about it … how can I die to self if I am busy trying to love me – so I can eventually love you? The thing is, that verse has been used to make a nice little hidey-hole. If I get focussed on loving and being nice to me, then the real truth is I probably won’t have enough time for YOU!  

‘So I can love you’ means I will be way too busy trying to find and fill the hole in my heart for approval and love that this earthly life has left me with … to even look your way. Please understand, I do not mean to imply that the Lord was on a grammar kick – I’m sure He said what He meant. Human beings sadly … notsomuch! God could care less if you have some large amount of money in the bank or not — He cares how you use your money because it indicates where you are spiritually. Do you use what you have for the good of others, or do you give away whatever you can afford or whatever is spare? If so you are missing the blessing. AS means we do it the same way HE would do it.

Self-love is a new age concept and it has snuck into the church.

The key word in this scripture is the word AS. It is extremely simple to discern if we love ourselves, we simply need to ask ourselves: “do I feed me, do I have somewhere to sleep, do I have clothes to cover me….??”  The next question then, must be …in comparison to me, ‘what does my neighbour have? Somewhere to sleep? Something to eat? Clothes they can wear?’ If the answer is no, then I have missed the mark as well as the point. Jesus cleared up the whole “who is my neighbour” question when He told the story of the Good Samaritan!

Anyway …the point is not to increase my love for ME it is to increase my love for OTHERS. The right response to that question is this: am I loving others in the same way I love myself? Do I care enough about them to make sure they have what they need? I do hope you can see the difference, because it is a big one. I am not indulging in semantics with these two little words. Those two little words and their interpretations make a huge difference to my whole giving behaviour.

This is where the blessing lives:”And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” Hebrews 13:16. “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 22:33. “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?” I John 3:17. (Yeah I know! Bring that up!!)

Loving one another in God’s eyes means we look after one another. Why do you think Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead? Read the book. “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” Acts 4:33-35.

The Grace of God in our lives causes us to be generous in the same way God Himself is generous – He’s the same Holy Spirit. Here’s a further laugh-riot to contemplate. Those givers in Acts, had no choice on how the money they gave was to be used – the apostles distributed it! Ananias and Sapphire agreed to defraud God. They used the power of agreement to try to lie the Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ. Loving others the way we love ourselves is about living a Grace-filled shared life. The result is, we become givers in every area! Bye 👋

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. 👋

P 2493 Are we fruitful?

/ DVH

The Lord God told Adam and Eve in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply, and I do not believe that  He has taken that directive back. We have sometimes translated that phrase into meaning we should have children. Here’s what I want to talk about today, what if that was also a spiritual directive as well as a physical one? Ya might want to think about that! 🧐 BTW, fruit-ful means full of fruit!

Jesus once cursed a fig-tree for not being fruitful. What that shows me is that fruit is extremely important to Him! The Lord also talked at length about remaining in the Vine, so WE can produce fruit. His fruit in our lives is an exhibition of His life in us, it shows us, and others, that we are abiding – we are living in Him; His ways; His life-giving light – by choice.

The Lord Jesus has a different way for you and I to live, but I think sometimes we would rather fit that new life in and around all the things we like to do, or maybe even feel we have to do. We sing and say that ‘He is our comfort, and joy,’ but do we take away that comfort and joy from being with Him, when we have a quiet time? Being close to, and attached to Him, produces fruit – stuff we have for ourselves and stuff that prompts us to think of others.

It cost Father God everything He cherished to buy us back. Our response is to live this life by presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice. A sacrifice actually involves loss – of time, control, people, or things. We own NOTHING. Owning stuff is an illusion. Sadly I think we are often missing our true mandate — the opportunity to use our time to be fruitful for His kingdom, by sharing material things with others.

Jesus didn’t play racquet ball or golf, or have a boat, and I’m pretty sure the only book He studied was the bible. He liked to spend His downtime with people. He knew how to live this life here on earth and be fruitful while He was doing it. Meanwhile, if He was in a boat then somebody else owned it and He was using it to reach out to … other people! 

Pursuing the growth of real fruit in our lives, by learning His Ways, and living the way He would – transforms us. We need to remember the King of all glory, is lowly and gentle in His heart. He demonstrated those traits by caring for those who were suffering for any reason. Many times at the bottom of our pitiful, less-than generous response to the poor all over this world, is entitlement, greed, and laziness. If we are not careful we will end up constantly exhibiting a distinct lack of love for our fellow man. No demonstrated love = no fruit! The sap of the Lord’s vine is LOVE.

FYI, nobody likes suffering or pain – no matter where we were born! It seems as if we Christians have laid aside our responsibility to care for our fellow man. Jesus warns us about that stuff in the book of Revelation 3:17.“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” People who do not give freely lack love! That’s why the Lord said we need to be cheerful givers. That cheer is the sap!

Those of us who can work, need to find ways to provide for those who can’t work, or have nothing. It’s simple. Help people who need help. Deciding whether people deserve it or not is a sign of entitlement. We simply must stop thinking that the privilege of wealth is a right and if we earn stuff then it is ours.  We have been blessed with material things to be a blessing. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,”Matthew 6:21. In my opinion, the line indicating that we have enough, which means maybe now we can share,  is always moving away from us. We need to be chasing His fruit – it lasts!

Paul said in Acts 20:32-35 “You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus Himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”The Apostle Paul worked hard to supply his own needs, as well as for the needs of those who went with Him. That sharing is a sign of living this life being fruitful!  He was showing all of us that it is NORMAL to think about, and supply the needs of others. It is not an optional extra, sharing and giving are signs of the life of the Kingdom within. 👋🏻