Glory

P 2314 It’s a Redemption story.

/ DVH

In the bible we have the clearest picture of our God and His desires for mankind. I can see redemption spelled out so clearly – over and over again. Destruction can and will overwhelm us, without our constant awareness of His glorious redemption. To women like Ruth and Naomi His redemption looked like Boaz. To the 2nd thief on the cross next to Christ, it looked like paradise was knocking on his door.  

In Exodus 35:4-9 there is another redemption story: “Moses said to the whole Israelite community, “This is what the Lord has commanded:  From what you have, take an offering for the Lord. Everyone who is willing is to bring to the Lord an offering of gold, silver and bronze;  blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair;  ram skins dyed red and another type of durable leather; acacia wood;  olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense;  and onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breast-piece.”

So what are these verses in Exodus about? Are they about the local desert and wilderness ‘Stitches and Craft Show??’ 😳 These guys were formerly slaves – they were beaten, starved, and owned by somebody. So where did they get such incredibly rich and costly items? They were given to them by their captors the Egyptians, before they left Egypt. God gave the Israelites favour, so they were able to collect all these riches. 

The point is not the riches, it is what the Lord did with them! Let’s just think about this, those precious materials were used to build a temporary house for God and man to meet… now that’s redemption! They were booty. The spoils of their captivity. God took the fruit of their captivity and turned it into a place of worship. 🧐 Think about it. He will do that for you and I. He will take the places of our greatest pain and loss, and make something so incredibly beautiful out of them – we will fall on our faces in worship.

I have two more illustrations. When Abraham went up the mountain to sacrifice Isaac, at that place of potential sacrifice, there was already provision. God provided a ram for Abraham to sacrifice instead of his precious son. On yet another occasion God provided a whale to preserve Jonah’s life – even though it was Jonah’s sin and disobedience that put him in that position in the first place! 

My point today is this – do not let past failures, or circumstances, or even captivities, rob you of TODAY’S DELIVERANCE. Our God ALWAYS has a bigger plan. And don’t be surprised when the Lord takes whatever you give Him, no matter how decadent, destroyed or even wrecked it seems, and makes something glorious out of it! Just like the tent of meeting the Jewish people crafted, under the Holy Spirit’s tutelage and guidance. God had a purpose for it all – a place where He and mankind could meet.

He will take our failures, or exhibits of our captivity and destruction etc. and use those things we are ashamed of … TO BRING GLORY TO HIMSELF. Just follow the Holy Spirit’s prompts. JESUS IS A ‘BEAUTY FOR ASHES’ SAVIOUR! Those seemingly disastrous things become the places where our faith leads us on into further, deeper trust.

“For Yahweh is always good and ready to receive you. He’s so loving that it will amaze you— so kind that it will astound you! And He is famous for His faithfulness toward all. Everyone knows our God can be trusted, for He keeps His promises to every generation!” Psalms 100:5 TPT

Those scars that are still on Jesus’ body are not marks of shame —they are marks of redemption. Our whole bible is a redemption story. The whale in Jonah, and the ram provided for Abraham, show us He will do whatever it takes to bring about His purposes. Naomi and Ruth show us nothing is irredeemable. That tent of meeting shows us He will give us favour, but He has a kingdom purpose for that favour. 

All these things reveal His character to us. Our job in the face of defeat, despair and suffering is to not faint but to use any and all opportunities to learn TRUST. Love the bible – in its pages are incredible redemption stories. 👋🏻

P 2307 Moses was a Leader and an Intercessor.

/ DVH

“For Yahweh is always good and ready to receive you. He’s so loving that it will amaze you— so kind that it will astound you! And He is famous for His faithfulness toward all. Everyone knows our God can be trusted, for He keeps His promises to every generation!” Psalms 100:5 TPT

Psalms 90 -100 are traditionally thought to have been written by Moses. I’ve mentioned this today because of an encounter Moses had with the Lord in person in Exodus 33:17-19:  “And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.” Then Moses said, “Now show me Your glory.” And the Lord said, “I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim My Name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”

This bible story is interesting. It shows Moses’ boldness and our Heavenly Father’s generosity. When Father God tells this man: ‘’I’m going to kill them all – I’m sick of them” – He is talking about the moaning groaning disobedient Israelites He had just rescued in the most astonishing fashion. Then God tells Moses: “I’m going to start over and use YOU to do it. I can’t hang around with this lot any longer. I’m going to scrap them and make a new nation through you!!”

Moses then reminds the Lord that it is His own reputation on the line. After all everyone knows that God chose these people and rescued them and now He wants to bail? How would that read again? In the course of this conversation the Lord says that He will stay with Moses, but not with the Israelites. He will not go with them any further because He just might kill them all off in the forward journey. And around about then the conversation I’ve quoted in Exodus above occurs.

In my mind there are a few incredible things happening here all at once. One of them is the intimacy between Moses and God Himself. Not only does Moses question GOD very respectfully, but he lives to do it!  Thinkaboudit! He is not too scared to challenge the Lord. However, I think that all those conversations in Almighty God’s Presence changed this man so much He cared more about God’s reputation than his own well being! Plus he also deeply cared for the bunch of grumbly Israelites more than anyone would ever have expected him too! After all, they wouldn’t co-operate with God, … even for their own sakes.

Self-centredness fell off Moses in God’s Presence. That shows me that true intimacy with God will transform us!  It doesn’t change the Lord, He is Who He is and He already has a plan. But knowing absolute goodness intimately, changes US!  We know God’s goodness, and compassion is available to us because this kind of scenario is repeated over and over again with other different men and women in the book.

We can all know God’s goodness personally, intimately. It ultimately depends on our willingness to have hard conversations with the Lord… AND STICK WITH IT. Like Moses, or Abraham, or Job, or Jeremiah or Ezekiel, or Elijah…whether we like what we hear or not. We will gain far more than our desires – we will come to know more about HIS desires and plans when we pray, persevere and don’t give up. 

At the same time we need to be prepared to love others so much that we will pray for them, and even get stuck in the same hole they are in… even if they are not living well. This is the hallmark of a true intercessor. Actually, to intercede, we need to praying for others until we know we are being heard … like Moses did. He didn’t just “post off” his prayers, then wipe off his hands and walk away. Until I learn how to pray for your problem ….like it’s MY problem … I am not loving you well. 

These things are all a sign of an inner transaction that leads to transformation and further intimacy and knowledge of God Himself. Even that aim changes us.🤗

P 2297 Decide how you will live.

/ DVH

… Living a life of surrendered love is a decision we must all make. It is a lifetime decision and it’s a tough one. However, I cannot conceive of another way to enter into true intimacy with our Lord Jesus Christ. Study doesn’t encourage intimacy as much as relying on Him does. We learn His ways when we live the same surrendered life Christ lived … for His sake. He told us to … “follow” Him. That’s now our job. Following Him, into transformation and our true purpose. At the same time, we go out to seek and find His lost sheep. The Chief Shepherd is always seeking out His lost lambs.

Jesus avoided fame and popularity, and embraced His Father’s will, He had no other desire except to make His Father’s will known and celebrated. If the King of all creation thought it was necessary to live a humble ordinary life, loving and helping, and teaching everyone He met … then … how can we live differently? If His disciples had not walked away from what they knew to follow CHRIST, we would not even have the bible as we know it today. 

Jesus Himself left everything He valued behind, to come to earth and live like we do. “Instead He emptied Himself of His outward glory by reducing Himself to the form of a lowly servant. He became human! He humbled Himself and became vulnerable, choosing to be revealed as a man and was obedient. He was a perfect example, even in His death—a criminal’s death by crucifixion!” Philippians 2:7-8 TPT Jesus Christ did not do miracles and bring extraordinary revelations to mankind simply to prove Who HE is – He also chose to do what He did to reveal His Father’s heart toward ALL of us! 

That veil of revelation was torn open briefly on Mount Tabor for three ordinary men – Christ’s disciples. Those men saw Christ as He really is, IN HIS TRUE GLORY! Jesus went on from there however, to complete His Father’s assignment as a human being, by choosing to obey God’s plan to His death. He took our sin onto Himself and died for our sake. He is now a glorified man … the firstborn of many. Christ is the perfect example of what our God can do with utter and complete and perfect surrender to His will, HIS WAY.

God’s expressed love is not what we think it is, or even what we have been taught it is. It is so much incredibly bigger, deeper and wider than we can imagine! And it expands way beyond this world’s self-serving self-centred ways into eternity. Sometimes I think today’s modern church is mankind still trying to build the tower of Babel … We are still trying to prove to each other, and ourselves, and to Almighty God, how smart and spiritual we are.

However, our Father’s love has pulsated toward each one of us since the moment He created us inside our mother’s womb. Because of Christ, each one of us can be transformed into a tiny expression of Who Father God is, and what He is like… if we are willing to give up this world’s ideas of success and fame, DIE to what we want, and then follow Jesus. The bible reveals the heart of Almighty God toward humanity. HIS WORDS IN HIS BOOK CARRY TRANSFORMATION!

We need to quit deciding WE know who we are and humbly submit ourselves to Him. Only then will our true purposes be revealed … in the light of His love for us, in us and through us. Human beings blossom into their true identity when they hang around Christ. They start to smell and taste etc. like heaven. We simply must start using the power of choice. I think, as we surrender and yield our lives to His purposes … … 

…“Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.”  2Corinthians 2:15.  Figuring out just who is perishing is not our concern … smelling like CHRIST and loving our enemies is!  If all we ever do is live this life we have been given like Christ did and LOVE others like He did –  It is enough. THEN LOVE PREVAILS … it did at Calvary. 🤗

P 2281 We are here for the one in front of us.

/ DVH

“Jesus continued, “In the same way, there will be a glorious celebration in heaven over the rescue of one lost sinner who repents, comes back home, and returns to the fold—more so than for all the righteous people who never strayed away.”” Luke 15:7 TPT

Would you like to bring the Lord Jesus joy and give Him glory? Then love on the person in front of you. We dare not ever lose our heart for the lost, or the ones who know Him and have wandered off. The biggest hurdle to today’s modern churches reaching the unchurched people groups around us, is the idea that reaching people for Christ is one man’s job – the evangelist. In bigger churches they probably have a designated evangelist and sometimes he is the youth pastor.  

While Mr and Mrs It-Ain’t-My-JOB and family, sit securely in their seat, week by week, knowing that Jesus’ desire to go after the unsaved is taken care of by somebody else. I am going to go out on a very large limb here, right to the very edge of a little twig that bounces up and down, and say that just because somebody else has a title, that does not relieve us of the responsibility to talk to the person in front of us. 

Let’s look at Stephen in the book of Acts. IRL he was a  deacon, a steward, a helper. His designated job was to look after the widows and orphans of other nationalities and make sure that they were not overlooked. You know sometimes we need to approach other people’s wacky ideas sensibly, and bring about a resolution that is simple and takes care of the problem. Stephen was delegated that job. People were getting their knickers all twisted and knotted up because they thought their widows and orphans were being neglected. Stephen was one of several answers to the problem. 

I don’t know if Stephen was divinely inspired or just a very well read helper – OR BOTH – but he knew the Old Testament well enough to be able to expound it in a clear and concise fashion from Abraham to Christ Himself to a bunch of guys who had studied that subject all their lives. His reward for such spiritual lucidity was they threw rocks at him until he was dead. He became the first martyr. In my opinion, upon reading Stephen’s story in Acts, he was glad to do it – He is a perfect example of “for me to live is Christ, to die is gain…”

Timothy was Paul’s student, his helper and His unofficially adopted spiritual son, and yet he founded churches himself.  Again, a further example of the fact that you never know what the Holy Spirit will do with obedience. It was said of the entire early church that: “these are the people who have turned the known world upside down.” However, most of the men and women who died for what they believed, and for sharing it with others, are not mentioned by name in the book. 

Ordinary does not mean overlooked by God. If you read His book carefully, you’ll find very few men and women who would’ve raised a headline in today’s news. They simply obeyed Christ’s clarion call to go and make disciples. My question today is: in the face of their courage and dedication, how can we dare not live lives worthy of all Christ did for us?  

I think it is a sad statement that most of us just pay lip service to Jesus’ final words to His disciples. He may not ask us to go to Upper Mongolia, but we’d better be ready in case He does! He has not asked us to build thousands of churches either. A sad fact is, most of our churches today are not founded on a group of people who are newly saved – they are more likely to be founded on a group of people who became disgruntled and disenchanted with their last church or their pastor! 

What ARE we doing with the eternal life God gave us? In the Western world we seem to be content to just puddle along building our own little denominational kingdoms. Jesus didn’t ask us to build churches … HE said HE would do that. (Matthew 16:18) Our job is to treat our salvation as a personal calling.  We are here for the person in front of us. So we live our lives asking the Holy Spirit, ‘what do you want me to do for this person, Lord?’ Then we do it.

We read the bible, obey what He said, absorb His Love for mankind from the book, and give what He gave us for free, away to someone else. We have our part and the Holy Spirit has His. We love on them – He draws them to Christ.  It ain’t rocket science. 👋🏻 

P 2272 The Lord will fight for you.

/ DVH

Exodus 14:13&14  “Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

These verses from Exodus 14 talk about the sort of commitment the Lord has toward our own personal situations. The Israelites are our illustration. They have escaped from Pharaoh and now he is in pursuit, so they complained at Moses and told him to reorganise God because they didn’t like their current circumstances. 😳

First of all I think their responses are quite normal for a people who have no real faith – or for anyone whose God is a concept and not a reality. The very essence of the story of the Israelites and the Promised Land is they were constantly wanting God to prove Himself to them. These people had grown up on the stories about how they came to be in Egypt in the first place. They called Abraham their father, yet none of what they had learnt and memorised was a comfort to them. 

They did what many of us do, they thought following the chosen leader was going to be enough and while they were being delivered, God was brilliant, He was wonderful, let’s all sing and have happy dances together. 🥳 Have a party. But at the first sign of trouble because their faith had no root, they were like the stuff you see blowing around in Western movies … tumbleweed. 

In the ninth and tenth plagues, it was obvious that God was making an exception for them, it was pitch black for the Egyptians when it was broad daylight for the Israelites. The Egyptian firstborn died and theirs didn’t. It was made clear to these people, by signs and wonders, that God was on their side. He had a purpose in mind, and He was going to perform it. Sometimes we can think if we can only see a miracle, if only something spectacular changed, then it could increase our faith. That doesn’t seem to have worked out very well for these people! Here in these 2 verses, God is promising to fight for them but the fear in their hearts was greater than anything He said. 

The truth is, seeing the miraculous and the extraordinary can be a wonderful way to boost your faith, but only if you have a mustard seed of faith inside you in the first place! Faith doesn’t fall on us from the outside, it’s our hearts that need to be changed – we need to learn to trust Him, no matter what. These people’s hearts need to be softened toward Almighty God. It is all too easy to be crazy about Jesus when we first meet Him, but then the trials and tribulations of this life erode that faith to a point where we almost become skeptical, hardened against the very God we profess to love. 

Sometimes bad things happen, so we pray, we get other people praying, we find a bunch of scriptures that express our needs and hold them up to heaven, but the real problem is inside us. Our faith is not strong and steady. HE wants us to grow in our own personal knowledge of how much He cares for us. But we just want the pain to go away, or we need a rest, and we need an answer. Every unmet disappointment, every time our hope is deferred, our heart gets sicker and sicker. 

I believe God fights for us all the time and most of the time we don’t see Him at work because the only answer that is acceptable to us is: ‘I need this fixed, I need it right here and right now.’  One of the best ways to pray is also the hardest – ‘Thy kingdom come Thy will be done ‘ etc. ‘and please give me the strength and courage to wait for YOUR answer.’ Yet despite what the Israelites felt and thought, God’s plans for them never changed, they simply needed to learn to TRUST HIM! He was always there, sometimes working out of their view, paving a way into a new life for them. A glorious revelation of Himself. 

Christ in us IS the hope of glory. The way to make our faith deeper isn’t always to be snatched out of problems, the way to make our faith deeper is to exercise it when it looks like there is no hope. Hanging onto the fact that He is good! Our faith should always be in Him. Who He is – not what He does. 

“I know what it means to lack, and I know what it means to experience overwhelming abundance. For I’m trained in the secret of overcoming all things, whether in fullness or in hunger. And I find that the strength of Christ’s explosive power infuses me to conquer every difficulty.” Philippians 4:12-13 TPT

P 2184 If not now, then when?

/ DVH

The bible says that His hope does not disappoint. So if we are disappointed, then whatever it was that we thought we had, was not His hope! That sentence sent me off on a quest to find out what God thinks hope is. It will probably turn up on one of these pages soon… or maybe you should write it instead? 😊 Our God will not just hand things to us, because that would be no fun. He wants us to press in to get to know Him better. Ask questions, seek answers.

If you want more revelation then personally get to know the Revealer of His Word – the Holy Spirit. The more we press in, the more we start to understand His Ways. Actually I’ve learnt some things simple by observation. For instance, He never does the same thing twice, so I’ve learnt to expect the unexpected! At the same time, many people do not understand the co-operative nature of God. He says, over and over in His book … ‘if you will do this, then I will do that.’ (EG: Psalm 37:4, Matthew 10:32-33, James 1:5)  Meanwhile, if He just handed things to us all the time, then we’d see Him as a benevolent Santa Clause – not as Almighty God, the Ruler of heaven and earth!  

We need to learn to respect and honour Who He is, and that journey to know Him will result in awe … if we don’t faint and give up! He loves to give His people puzzles. Think Gideon – who defeated the Midianites with pots and trumpets. Moses … a burning bush? Abraham .. billions of kids? Jonah … whale mail? Ruth …the greatx10 grandmother of Jesus? It is up to each of us to puzzle these things out personally with the Holy Spirit’s help – it’s the interaction with us He wants. Think of Him as the best friend you always wanted, because He is!

Don’t just leave receiving revelations to your pastor … get your own. Ask questions and wait for the answers. The Holy Spirit wants to help us to find new ways to understand and appreciate our God, but we cannot expect His holiness and glory to be just laying around on the ground like dead leaves!  He will help us – but we need to press in to find His answers. Don’t give up, keep going, and then cherish what you learnt about His nature.

Personally, I think the Lord loves to play hide and seek. The bible says our God: “… rewards those who diligently SEEK Him.” What I am talking about is about fostering our hope that God will meet with us IRL anywhere, everywhere, all the time. However! If we only meet with Him to present our prayer lists so He can answer our fervent prayers – no matter how important we think they are – we’ve missed it! To start with, if He doesn’t answer our prayers right away, we can easily pick up disappointment and frustration. Then our prayers start to be crying and pleading, instead of the confident expectation that He will always do us good – no matter what His answer is. We don’t love people because of what they DO for us, we love people because of who they are!

Our confidence in Him grows as we let Him lead us. Our God is not a cafeteria where we get to pick and choose what we want to know and get from Him. He wants to MEET with us. That can take time, but it primarily takes attitude. Like Jacob said: “I will not let you go until you bless me!” Learn to insist – set aside time to seek Him. Our God loves passionate people. David danced about in his undies in public, because he was so excited the ark was finally going to be in Jerusalem. This man could have permanently stopped his quest when Uzzah died – that event would have put most people off! But David went away and got on his face, and found another way to achieve the goal. That’s in 2 Samuel 6:1-7 and 1 Chronicles 13:9-12. 

These people in the bible are there ‘for an example.’ They are illustrations of how God interacted with mankind before and after Christ. When you read these things looking for Him, you will get plenty of revelations – trust me! We will never become the strong warriors He wants, if we are wishy washy and quit at the first hurdle. The bible tells us ..” …to be strong in the Lord and the power of His might.” What does that mean? It means the battle is won by standing on His side and doing what He says, and not moving ’til it’s done. It’s called STEADFASTNESS. Perhaps we have heard too many airy-fairy sermons, which sounded great and inspirational, but the reality was that they didn’t inspire us into changing our ways … they just tickled our ears. 

We need to see change as a life-style, not an optional extra that only serious Christians have. Otherwise we are making our God too small, and we are leaving all the work to a few people. No wonder our pastors are worn out – they have to do everything! Every single Christian needs to rise up and make a difference where they live. Because the bible is the Holy Word of God, not just a book of suggestions that probably won’t work for me. If not now, then when? 👋🏻 “Let this hope burst forth within you, releasing a continual joy. Don’t give up in a time of trouble, but commune with God at all times.” Romans 12:12 TPT 🙌

P 2169 What fills your mind?

/ DVH

Colossians 3:1-3 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, WHERE CHRIST IS, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you DIED – (as in … you and I are dead, all dead!) – and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Did you know that spiritually speaking we do not have to feel dead to BE dead?

When we live our every day lives using our faith, then Christ becomes our life. (V4) We all know that the stuff in V5 is bad – that’s obvious …“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.” BUT… Vs8-10 are just as important. “But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.  Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” 

Here’s a nasty little thought – pretending to be something, or someone we are not to fit in, is lying. We cannot pretend our way out of something that is meant to be taken off!  Today, there are times we say to our kids, “everybody gets angry, it’s OK,” but here we are told to get rid of it along with greed, lust and bad language. BTW being renewed doesn’t sound like a part-time job to me. Instead it sounds like a continuous on-going activity. Just saying is all …😶

We are meant to take off this world’s ways and put on His, using our faith, over and over again. We read the book and repent and then act on what we’ve read. Choice after choice after choice. And the harder each choice is, the bigger the opportunity to strengthen and enlarge this new life we walking are into! However, we can get so tied up with avoidance, that we forget we have brand new clothes we can wear. It would be tragic to simply focus on the clothes we are throwing off, instead of what He has given to us to put on. In order to wear these new clothes we should at least know what they look like! 

I think most of us are aware of the stuff we need to avoid, but the pressures and difficulties of this life shove and press in on us moment by moment. Our enemy is relentless in his desire to turn our thoughts away from worshipping Jesus with our bodies, by being obedient to His will, using our faith. The Holy Spirit inside us wants us to win. He wants us to ‘taste and see’ that the Lord is good! As we go along, our dedication to obedience helps us with changing our hearts, so then our focus is on going after His kingdom – not on this world’s and its ways. This process may be difficult initially, but it quickly and progressively becomes the way we live.

Part of the problem in Christianity today is that we have been sitting in this world’s saucepan full of water too long and we haven’t noticed the heat underneath the pan being turned up. Every single pressure imaginable is on us and our kids. You can’t go anywhere without being ear and eye-assaulted! 

This why God’s clothes matter. Our natural response to the filthy stuff around us is revulsion, but we have to press on past our natural revulsion into His LOVE. We love the sinner and hate the sin. But we don’t have to love how some people choose to live. However, the more we wear His clothes and learn to see this world through His eyes, the more we will have compassion on those whose choices have been made without knowledge of a better way. There is a liar loose amongst us – mankind is in the grip of so many massive deceptions, and most people are like the bible says: “lambs to the slaughter.” 

But the Lord Jesus’ eyes are currently full of compassion for these lost ones marked for death. The time for judgment is not here yet, even though it is rushing at this world like a freight train. Right now we need to snatch people from the place where they have been mesmerised by evil, and show them, in person, what goodness looks like! To do that we will need His glory wherever we go. We will have to be clothed in it. Our time is no longer our own. It is time to deliberately change our minds by filling them with His thoughts and change our minds as well as our clothes – one choice at a time. 👋🏻

P 2157 Take the veil off – it’s time for show and tell.

/ DVH

2 Corinthians 3:7-18 “Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!

Therefore, since we have such a hope, WE ARE VERY BOLD. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only IN CHRIST is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, Who is the Spirit.”

There are times when I think the reason many Christians act like people who are hiding, a people with a veil on,  because so many great Christian people have crashed and burned in front of the world. There is enormous pressure on the guys in the spotlight. So let’s go back to what Jesus said: “YOU are the light of the world.” That puts all of us in that spotlight.  When we left evangelism to the guys who were publicly known, we put them under intense scrutiny. I don’t think anyone can take that kind of scrutiny. It’s time for us to take off the veil we’ve all hidden behind, and let God’s glory be seen, in us and through us.

We must not be ashamed of, or hide the gospel. That’s kind of doing what Moses had to do back in Exodus and it is no longer necessary – the glory of God was destined to shine through us. Yes I mean today!  Ya might want to pause and think on that for a lifetime or so. 🤔 Moses had to hide his face way back then, because his face was shining with the light of God’s glory and the Israelites might have worshipped him! Today, our job is to be used by the Holy Spirit to unveil that which has been veiled in the past. We don’t have to have a veil over what we believe. We are destined to bring His revelation of His LOVE into this world. Do you want a ministry? THAT’S a ministry! 

We’ve been given a love that suffers long, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things etc. etc. – now we get to give it all away. It is our time to be who we are IN Christ Jesus and to shine with His glory! To do that we need to become fully acquainted with how He works, Who He is – and start deliberately, daily following Him. We don’t need to be a paid-up member of that club to start now – its a choice… SomeBody Else paid our fees. The people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet may have a veil over their hearts, but knowing Jesus removes that veil for us – hiding our light under a basket isn’t in it!

Walking with the Spirit of God is not some sort of special ‘club’ that only a select few can belong to. The Spirit of the Living God rejoices over each and every single one of us. We can’t be born again without Him. He is the One Who guides, teaches, and transforms us into Jesus’ likeness, as we live each day to obey Him. Transformation is not a one time event, it is a daily walk made by our choices, with the help of the One Who went before us.  None of us will come out of that walk alive, instead we choose to die to ourselves. The Body of Christ needs to unveil the gospel, bit by bit, as it has been worked inside US. This means that the world can see it – live and in colour, through us! And if that scares you – then rejoice! Your heart is doing just fine – it is a good thing to have a holy fear of Holy Things. 

In the years gone by, we told everyone around us about our own particular brand of Christianity, and most people said: “Thanks, but no thanks!” The bible explained that would happen, some people are happy to have veiled hearts that don’t want to learn – that’s not our business. Our job is to proclaim, to shine – not to convert. Happily God has no problem speaking to humanity, and He knows how to reach us all. The point is – PEOPLE NEED TO SEE JESUS in and through us. God’s glory is His goodness – the people around us need to see the goodness, the loving kindness of our God, through us.  We become living bibles. Walking, talking, living, showing and reflecting His glory, His love, to others – as a way of life. Even our responses to life’s difficulties make a difference.

So start cheering immediately if you can’t do that, because neither can I! Only ONE PERSON COULD – but praise God – JESUS CHRIST WAS ENOUGH!  Listen to this: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Yay! 🥳🎉 We can’t do this by ourselves, we have a Helper. The Body of Christ must rise and shine – it’s time for show and tell. 👋🏻

P 2129 Tick tock.

/ DVH

Ephesians 3:14-21 TPT “So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth. And I pray that He would unveil within YOU the unlimited riches of His glory and favour until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with His divine might and explosive power.” 

I think these verses are a fantastic prayer to pray for yourself and all the people around you. This is how we need to live – when things are good, as well as bad. We all live on the other side of the cross. Even if we don’t know Him yet, we can ask the Lord Jesus to reveal Himself to us. He has already given this world everything – total forgiveness, plus He poured out eternal His love, and He gave us the power to learn about Him and walk with Him. Our God hasn’t left mankind alone. The Holy Spirit is God and He is here. He came and He never left! And our task is to cherish His Presence and follow Him – the same way Jesus’ disciples followed Him. Using our faith.

You know, the disciples didn’t go on holidays, or have a slouching-about-the-house-day, in those three and a half years of intense ministry? They simply walked and talked with Jesus, each other, and anyone else who needed something. It takes faith to do that when the immediate stuff of this world presses in on us. These men woke up with Him, they ate with Him, they walked dusty roads following Him. I don’t think we can begin to understand the blessing of living, walking and talking with Jesus Christ, every single day. Christianity does not work part-time. We need to constantly use our faith for something else other than excusing our bad behaviour.

Back to Ephesians: “Then, by CONSTANTLY using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of His love will become the very source and root of your life. THEN you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is His love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!”  WOW!

There is one thing we need to know above everything else – our Heavenly Father is looking for a resting place – a habitation – and He wants US to be that place. God is holy and we are not.  But Jesus Christ made this utterly impossible thing – walking and talking with God Himself –  possible for us, in our lives, before we were ever born. I cannot give anyone some formulaic system on how to walk with Jesus minute by minute. My only solution is to make Him the centre of everything you know, and then go out and live for others while we are doing that. This means simple things like – in a conversation with someone else – what they have to say is more important than what we have to say! We need to intentionally reverse the selfish polarity that is dominating this world – and that has to be done prayerfully, and on purpose, through our own choices.

Here is the last bit today: “Never doubt God’s mighty power TO WORK IN YOU and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energises you. Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ—and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity. Amen!”  

We cannot know what we have been given, unless we make an effort for ourselves to find out and seek Him. Somebody else can’t give this to us – even the most anointed man or woman has to choose to pray when they have other matters pressing in on them. We need to ask for a revelation of the importance of our lives for His kingdom’s sake. Otherwise spiritual things just stay as words on a page, and eventually they become interesting information.  

But the reality is, we are all destined to be citizens of heaven, our names are written in His book, the book of life, forever. How sad it would be if we won some super prize in a lottery and we didn’t go to pick up the prize! JESUS IS OUR PRIZE – His nearness from day to day is our greatest blessing, whether we feel like it or not. And most days, at my house, I live with ‘OR NOT.’ We must pray for His power to overcome the seemingly unimportant every day things that hold us back from living our Christian lives in victory!

Everything depends on how you look at this life you have been given and what you cherish most. Whatever we make our priority, will fill our vision. I love that old hymn, “Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart…” If living this life from day to day, is all about finding the rent, going to work, or paying the mortgage, and raising our kids then that will be the main priority of our lives. Ask the Lord to help you to focus on Him above everything else. satan does not have to corrupt us in order to render us useless, and stop us daily living in God’s kingdom. he just needs to lull us off to sleep with our everyday humdrum lives, lurching from one financial or moral temptation to another.  

The Lord has some people in this world, who dearly love Him yet they live under a constant barrage of fear and danger, as well as a huge need for food and shelter. They don’t have a problem focussing on God! He fills their thoughts. Our biggest danger in the Western world is apathy and human busy-ness.  It takes focus to walk with Him and live our lives acknowledging His ways, because this life we live from day to day, crowds our thoughts of Christ and what He did for us … OUT. If not now, then when? Tick tock. ⏰ 👋🏻