God

P 2973 My Strength and Song.

/ DVH

Isaiah 12:1-6: “And you will say in that day, “I thank You, God. You were angry but Your anger wasn’t forever. You withdrew Your anger and moved in and comforted me. “Yes, indeed—God is my salvation. I trust, I won’t be afraid. God—yes God!—is my strength and song, best of all, my salvation!” Joyfully you’ll pull up buckets of water from the wells of salvation. And as you do it, you’ll say, “Give thanks to God. Call out His Name. Ask Him anything! Shout to the nations, tell them what He’s done, spread the news of His great reputation! “Sing praise-songs to God. He’s done it all! Let the whole earth know what He’s done! Raise the roof! Sing your hearts out, O Zion! The Greatest lives among you: The Holy of Israel.”

This scripture is a wonderful example of someone enjoying Almighty God and all He has done for each one of us. This is our true destiny – to enjoy God Himself. And that’s not just worshipping Him with songs etc. Sunday by Sunday either. Daily being grateful, and noticing whatever He does lifts our hearts like nothing else. I love that Isaiah is realistic, he does not pretend he is perfect. Instead, he features what God does about his imperfections.This guy’s whole perspective has changed, he is so soaked in joy for all God has done for us, he’s dripping all over the carpet!

I love it in the Old Testament when people say stuff they cannot know, purely because they are under the influence of the precious Holy Spirit! Jesus Christ is all over these verses. He’s the reason we, the Gentiles, can stand and sing our hearts out – because He came and changed the whole game-plan. Just stop reading for a minute and ask the Lord to help you to pull up a couple of buckets full of the joy of your salvation. That will help you more than reading what I am waffling on about. You know, sometimes I think we don’t have a song because we have our lives so organised there is nothing to be delivered from!

These verses in Isaiah remind me of Moses’ and Miriam’s song. I can’t put it here in full because it was a huge spontaneous song that just flowed out of everyone, as they gave thanks for Who He is and what He did … in front of their very eyes!  Exodus 15. They broke out the tambourines and just let it rip! After all they had seen the sea standing still and they walked on the bottom of the ocean! Water standing still is in the bible a few times, its in Exodus 14;  Joshua 3:16;  Psalm 89:9 … the thing is: God had already pushed aside the water away from the land underneath, all the way back in Genesis 1:6-7. And people wonder where fossils found on land come from. Duh! Read the book!

I think I’m going to be stuck all day singing Miriam’s song in my head… there’s so much joy in it. (Pity I haven’t got a tambourine at hand!) I don’t think we know anything about rejoicing in the Western world and I’m not sure we’ve met JOY yet either…We need joy! He’s always doing things for us. That’s the kind of wonderful God we serve!! Always caring, ever-present. Isaiah understands the idea that God’s plans are long-range and he acts accordingly, expectantly. His faith level is off the charts as the man says: … “ask Him anything.”!!

Isaiah has been to heaven, before the Throne, and his perspective is now clear, it is not clouded by this world’s troubles. But, because of what Christ did for us, the bible makes these things clear to US in Ephesians 2:6 MSG:“It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose His temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, He embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on His own, with no help from us! Then He picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.”

Right about now we should all be searching for a tambourine! Father God has done so much for all of us it blows my mind, over and over again. I can’t believe His intentional devotion to someone like me. I know I deserved hell, yet in His great mercy He provided — A WAY.  A way for me to know Him and live with my heart already in heaven, even if my feet can sometimes be still stuck in the mud and muck of this life. When pain haunts me – and it does sometimes – I can look toward Him and be radiant.

This is what being seated in heavenly places is all about. Isaiah experienced it and he was not the same afterward. You and I may not have his experience, but we know the same God he knows and …  ‘our God never changes.’ He’s not mad at you and he’s not mad at me, even though we fall over and fail Him. This is why Paul said: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”Philippians 1:21. This man was in prison in Rome when he wrote those lines. But he knew the Beautiful One in Isaiah 12:1-6, and this is why I think he said: “… nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:31.

🎼“I will sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously the horse and rider thrown into the sea. The Lord my God, my strength my song, has now become my victory!…”🎶 Bye. 👋

P 2972 Options are an illusion.

/ DVH

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If you truly want to follow Me, you should at once completely reject and disown your own life. And you must be willing to share My cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to My ways.”Matthew 16:24 TPT. The trouble with reading the bible in a modern version is that then we are kind of stuck with what it says. We can’t quit reading just because we can’t understand the language in an older one! What Jesus said here is as plain as the nose on your face. Now there’s a spiritual experience people aren’t keen on! 

I think the place that the church at large got into so much trouble is right here, in the above verse. We’ve made dying to self and taking up your own cross, into an optional extra. Hmmm. Does it sound like an optional extra to you? You know, I’ve tried all kinds of excuses to wiggle out of dying to self.  I’ve said things like… “I had a hard childhood;  people were mean to me;  I’ve been sick a lot;  …”  Sigh. I couldn’t make even one of them fly! You can’t actually successfully talk about sickness, suffering and hardship etc. etc. to SomeOne Who took ALL our sickness and diseases, sorrows and suffering! 😳 He already knows – He’s very kind about it but it isn’t news to Him. 

Thankfully, because of His mercy and grace, He won’t condemn us when or if, we feel sorry for ourselves, because He’s much nicer than we are, and not even remotely religious! The bible teaches us we can make a case and discuss everything with the Lord – that’s in Isaiah. And even if whatever we have done is so horrendous it is as scarlet as blood, He will faithfully wash it for us whiter than snow, simply because He loves mankind, and He personally killed off all the legalities the enemy has held against us.

The thing is if you try talk to the Lord about avoiding dying to self thing you will get nowhere. He actually knows what is good for us,  so we haven’t got a leg to stand on. Maybe that’s because He is the expert at ‘love bears all things… hopes all things … love never gives up.’ And He refuses to give up or let go of us – His primary aim is transformation not comfort.. Here’s a secret I have learnt – you can postpone growth, but that means you are postponing change. We often look at other people and hope they will change, when WE are actually the problem.  

I think that sometimes the reason we feel we can’t die to self is because we are dragging ourselves around struggling with religious rules, and ought-tos, plus all the politically correct junk we have to give lip-service to nowadays —so the thought of dying to anything else is just way over the top. Have you noticed that Jesus   simply treated everyone lovingly, no matter who they were, or what they did, or what they had already done.

There was one time when the Lord called the religious leaders a “brood of vipers.” These leaders made it clear that they didn’t like Him, right from the beginning … but He didn’t care about what they thought, His Father’s opinion was the only one that mattered to Him. Make me like that please Lord! His aim was to stir them into thinking about the way they were affecting other people’s lives.

Sometimes I sit with the Lord and start chucking all that religious PC stuff over the side of the boat, into the sea of His glorious forgetfulness. We don’t need it. We’ve already decided that we will treat people with love — and He will help us to do it. And that’s a lot easier than remembering all the dos and don’ts! The bible clearly tells us that we have better things to do with this life we have been given. In my thinking, there is nobody better than the Creat-or, to tell the creat-ed how it works. Just saying is all …

Take the time to delight in the fact that we are living and breathing with the One Who made everything we can see … and a whole lotta stuff this world hasn’t even found yet! Did you know that there are“… about 15,000 to 20,000 new species discovered each year. This equates to approximately 40 to 55 new species discovered every day.” Doesn’t that just blow your mind?! God has better things for us to think about.

When we live this life His Way it changes the way we relate to others. So with His help and our choices, we can be loving, kind, patient etc. and accepting of people, despite what we think about their faults! When Jesus gets involved, our spiritual eyes help us to see the power of love transform US, and all the lives around us. 

Let’s face it, we all have a choice. We can be ourselves, with a rotten stinky self-aggrandisement attitude, or we can be like Jesus! The book says so. And all we need to do to enter into this new place of be ing a blessing to others is —DIE.  However, God is NOT the ultimate party-pooper, stealing away all the so-called fun things. Instead we can study the fact that He loves a good celebration like we do. Read about Jesus’ birth again, or the Holy Spirit’s arrival on ordinary men and women… Father God knows how to have an occasion better than we do, and there are no hang-overs either.

You see the problem for me in the past was this:  back when I was young, we thought we had to fight the establishment in order to be free. We were wrong. We can be in a prison and still be free — because freedom is an inside job, and options are an illusion supported by copious advertising. Read the book. Bye. 👋

P 2971 You can find Jesus anywhere and everywhere!

/ DVH

“My heart and soul explode with joy—full of glory! Even My body will rest confident and secure. For You will not abandon Me to the realm of death, nor will You allow Your Faithful One to experience corruption.” The Lord Jesus is all over the bible! Right here, for instance in Psalm 16:9-10, hundreds of years before the Lord arrived – there is a wonderful statement where we can clearly see His hope in God’s faithfulness. Obedience, hope and faith took our Lord to the cross. And faith in His Father’s Word kept Him there, until God’s plan was completed. Imagine that!

Our Lord has not ever asked us to do anything He has not already done Himself, and He did everything fully co-operating with the Holy Spirit, in obedience to His Father’s wishes… Jesus cultivated and lived in Love, and He didn’t move away from there…He had the Grace of total obedience. I pray for that a lot!. Some of the things that the Lord Jesus did are beyond words. Like this one:

John 13:3-5“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God;  so He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.  After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.”

This scripture sets a precedent for each one of us — Jesus showed us two ways to cultivate humility. The first is this …we can deliberately choose the lowest place. I don’t think there is a more beautiful action than this one. The God of the Universe sent His Son to serve mankind and redeem us all, and yet right before his crucifixion occurred, Jesus humbled Himself even further, by washing His disciples’ feet. Astonishing!

The King of all Kings, and Lord of all Lords was kneeling on the floor washing those grubby, travel-worn feet. (22 of them!) I prayed about this brief episode, and it occurred to me that in the bible it says that the ones who take the gospel of good news everywhere —have beautiful feet. The disciples went on to take the gospel everywhere. I think this was a prophetic action – a statement of things to come. He is everywhere, in the lowest position – except for the last book, then watch out!

Another example I want to mention is at the cross, He submitted to His tormentors without a word.  Speaking for myself I’ve always got plenty of words … sigh! Jesus suffered the incredible pain of utter separation from both of His constant companions, the Holy Spirit, and the beyond words loss of His Father’s Presence for us too. “He Who knew no sin, was made sin for us…”

During His time on earth, the Lord Jesus walked in complete intimacy with both The Holy Spirit and His Father … minute by minute, day by day. I believe this means we can walk with Them like that too. We simply need to put the Holy Spirit’s needs, and ways, above our own. As each one of us eventually approaches death, we can do so with great confidence, because we remember that Jesus has already walked through death’s door on our behalf. He’s waiting for us and we will not die alone, our Saviour went there for us too.

He flung that door open for every human being that has ever lived on this planet. Death cannot hold any of us captive.. I used to explain it to my kids like this – death is simply somewhere else where we can’t see people for a while — like another room. People are not gone. Some will sleep and some are already dancing through the streets of heaven.

The enemy has no right to hold any of us captive to the fear of death because of what Jesus did for us. It goes without saying that we should be spreading this info around to anyone who will listen while we still have the chance! Death is a door not a destination. Even if we have spiritual unhealthy thoughts about hell, let’s remember that Jesus also went there too, and He held a parade when He came OUT!  

And my last example is this:  Jesus’ glory knocked Saul His persecutor to the ground.“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.He fell to the ground and heard a voice say tohim,“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” He replied. …” Acts 9:3-8. There is no place we can go that He will not be there with us… He’s the Good Good Shepherd, remember?  Bye 👋

P 2970 Religion can kill our faith.

/ DVH

“Beloved ones, God has called us to live a life of freedom. But don’t view this wonderful freedom as an excuse to set up a base of operations in the natural realm. Constantly love each other and be committed to serve one another.”Galatians 5:13. We’ve been set free to love one another and to serve God, of our own volition.  

When we read the Gospels, if we look at the hawk-eyed big brother attitude of the Sadducees, Pharisees, Teachers etc. we can see they pounced on anyone who broke even the smallest of the man-made rules. This included some poor schmuck who was born blind. These religious leaders picked on the guy because he was healed on the Sabbath! Like the man chose that day!? He was offered healing and he said yes … wouldn’t you??

Then there was another man who spent 35 years of his life lying by a pool, and he got into trouble for carrying the bed he had been pop-riveted to for years!  All because he was also healed on the Sabbath. There were others and Jesus healed them all on the Sabbath too. But as soon as these healed people were out in public, some enthusiastic religious enforcer immediately demanded to know why they were breaking this law or that one! Sadly these legalistic men skipped right past the joy of those amazing healings and went straight to the so-called infringement.

The Pharisees etc. lived to point out other people’s sinful actions and attitudes. Their laws consisted of hundreds of add-ons to the Ten Commandments that God gave Moses. Father God paid an incredible price when He gave us the freedom to choose! His aim was REAL reconciliation not lip-service or more laws. Today we are free to choose LOVE. You simply cannot legislate against sin. 

After all, the bible says that sin itself, can give our misdeeds a greater appeal! The religious laws of Jesus’ time, alienated and distanced the people from their God. You simply couldn’t afford to even appear to make any kind of mistake, you would get caught and punished. They even had sacrifices for the things people might have forgotten they did! 

Mercy flew right out of the window, rapidly followed by grace. Healing etc. had to be legislated into a suitable time and place delegated by the religious rulers’ discretion. People had no choice, they either obeyed the law to the letter, or they were punished. Sometimes they had rocks thrown at their heads! Or they were beaten within an inch of their lives. Or they had to fork out money they didn’t have to pay for grain offerings, doves, sheep and cattle. The religious rules had been around for so long, they had slowly been perverted away from loving God and each other, into legalism.

I think the very worst part of all this is that God Himself became even more estranged from His very precious children – why wouldn’t you avoid a god who appeared to require punishment for every single misstep? We know that sin starts with an inward attitude, which can result in an outward action against what God has said, but I think the complete truth is when we sin, we sin against LOVE, not rules. When what we do is not from love we’ve sinned. Which makes categorising sin a waste of time. Instead of focussing on outward actions, our hearts need to be changed. They need to have an attitude transplant and God has given us the perfect opportunity to have one!

Jesus did it for us – He is God’s love in action. He is the perfect example for us — unfettered by profit, agendas, prejudices, judgment, appetites and selfishness,. Meanwhile those snarky I’ve-got-a-right-to-do-what-I-want attitudes we cherish so much in this modern age, can go from choice to entitlement in a heart-beat. Sin is a heart condition. We were born with it but Jesus took the huge burden of personal responsibility for mankind’s sin, past, present and future, upon Himself and He met every legal single requirement. He overpaid!

Almighty God sent Jesus to save everyone, even the guys who killed Him. God chose to sacrifice His own Son willingly—to give US back our freedom, and give US the opportunity to walk with Him. Religion takes our choices away, it sets our minds on an impossible task … remaining sin free. And it totally ignores what Jesus already did for us. It also removes Love from our midst. Loving one another is our only hope of thriving instead of just surviving. “Beyond all these things put on and wrap yourselves in [unselfish] love, which is the perfect bond of unity [for everything is bound together in agreement when each one seeks the best for others].’Colossians 3:14. (AMP)

Unless we choose to live in Love, like Jesus did, the law will continue to haunt the church.  We need to do what the bible says, and put aside gossip, resentment, criticism etc. etc. and pay far more attention to our own hearts, than we do toward other people’s sin. Religion chokes the life out of faith. Bye. 👋

P 2968 God’s Love is alive …

/ DVH

… IN US! We don’t have to pray it down or work it up – it is released … given away ….by using our faith!“Such hope [in God’s promises] never disappoints us, because God’s love has been abundantly poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”Romans 5:5.

Jesus came into this world as Love personified. That’s why studying His life in the Gospels is so beneficial. We can see what God’s love looks like in real life, interacting with real people. He is our example, our living illustration of God’s love in action. That’s God’s love talking to the woman at the well, or pardoning the adulterous woman who was taken to be stoned. That’s God’s love touching lepers, loving sinners, and healing the sick in the middle of a service. That’s God’s love standing on a hillside preaching for hours. Jesus cared that the people listening had no food, and no way to get it easily and He provided for them.

Jesus is God’s love beautifully wrapped in vulnerable  human skin, flesh and bone. It was His love that stayed on the cross until the redemption of mankind was accomplished. It was God’s love that called Him away from here and leave this world, so He could stand beside His Father interceding on our behalf. His love sent back to us our best ally – our helper, teacher, counsellor, healer, etc. in the Person of the Holy Spirit. 

We all love miracles, but miracles are not the main thing! If we stop at miracles we are like Simon the Sorcerer in Acts, or the Pharisees demanding a miracle to order. When we see things like Jesus turning water into wine, walking on water, calming the storm, or healing Peter’s mother-in-law, or healing a man blind from birth …each one of those miracles are prompted by a passionate love for each situation and each individual…These things are not prompted by obligation, or formality or even to prove Jesus was God Himself in human form! God’s love chose to speak to ordinary people in extraordinary ways, in their everyday circumstances.

If we choose to look after ourselves and our own comfort, and refuse to actively learn what His love looks like so we can minister to someone else, we can render ourselves ineffective. The Holy Spirit is pure love — that’s why we can so easily hurt Him with our careless talk and attitudes toward others! Love makes itself vulnerable at great personal cost. So we need the Holy Spirit’s guidance desperately, every minute of every hour of every day – He knows how to please the Father and the Son a-n-d .. He knows the way through everything that happens to us! 

The purity of the Holy Spirit’s love is the power of God to do good. He is God’s goodness in action! Human beings desperately need His kind of altruistic love… it has nothing whatsoever to do with feelings. Jesus came into this world to illustrate love’s true nature. The bible tells us that He demonstrated God’s love toward us while we were sinners. The most precious form of love there is, has nothing to do with the other person’s behaviour. We can’t make that kind of love up!  I don’t care how nice you are to others, nice runs out! 

Love is a little like Joseph’s beautiful coloured coat in Genesis.  It was given to him by his father Jacob. That coat was a concrete illustration of Jacob’s love for his youngest son. It covered that young man, and marked him out everywhere he went. People who saw him might say; ‘There goes Jacob’s youngest son!’  That’s why his brothers were jealous, they had to stare at that coat! 

God’s Love covers US in the same way. His unchanging love is the stamp of God upon His people. It can’t be faked. The people who choose to be transformed by love are enabled by His Grace to put whatever other people do to them – by accident or design – under His blood. We have a far far greater purpose than revenge – we have been appointed by Almighty God Himself to share His Love with other people! There is no greater calling than that. 

Forget this title, or that important position, or this influence, or that speaking ability – loving others is the reason we are all here … We must consciously decide to learn that kind of love. And the grumpy difficult people in our lives are our teachers, our motivators – they inspire us learn how to rely even more deeply upon God’s grace to do the impossible. These people give us opportunities to die to what we want, and say yes to what God wants.

Paul says this beautifully in 2 Corinthians 5:12-21.MSG.“God alone knows how well we do this, but I hope you realize how much and deeply we care. We’re not saying this to make ourselves look good to you. We just thought it would make you feel good, proud even, that we’re on your side and not just nice to your face as so many people are. If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.”

‘May the love of Christ be foremost in everything we say and do as we follow Him.’ Amen. God’s love has been given to us to share, it is alive, it will totally change lives.  Bye. 🙏

P 2967 God knows how to choose a leader.

/ DVH

The Lord chooses someone who is honest, loves Jesus and knows that they truly need redemption!! Someone who will acknowledge their own mistakes readily and repent. God does not choose perfect people. Almighty God loves the person who has learnt to rely upon the Holy Spirit. Human beings, on the other hand, often look for the charismatic, the shiny people, the one who we think has His ear. Hmmm…

Think about this: John was supposedly the Lord Jesus’ favourite disciple. Why didn’t Jesus pick John to be their leader? The Apostle John is recorded as being “the one Jesus loved…” … so why didn’t the Lord put John in charge?? That man had plenty of faith, he did not mess up like Peter. Why did God pick Peter?? Peter was a man of action – he dared to believe – he knew how to take a rebuke!

The reality was, the person Jesus chose to be the leader was the guy who messed up publicly, the most! Peter fell over his big mouth all the time. He constantly, and consistently said inappropriate things – even in deeply spiritual situations. There were other times when he tried to save face, as well as his neck. After all, he nearly drowned himself with his own ambition!

By the way it was Peter who objected to having his feet washed, but later agreed. (John 13:6-10). It was Peter who cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. (John 18:10). Peter noticed the withered fig tree. (Mark 11:21). And Peter was one of the three who witnessed the transfiguration of Christ. (Mark 9:2-6). Plus it was Peter who denied Christ under pressure, despite his sincere vows to the contrary.

Maybe Peter is an object lesson to show us that our mistakes aren’t forever and the Holy Spirit’s help and transformation in a life makes all the difference. However, Peter’s mistakes highlight the kindness, forgiveness, compassion, and the ongoing willingness of our God to understand our humanity.  Perhaps the Lord has a different criteria when HE looks for a leader. 

Here is another interesting thing to note about Peter – he didn’t defend himself, or make excuses. Not once. Instead he was the willing beneficiary of the Lord’s undeserved Grace. He was prepared to learn. However, when it seems Jesus gave this man a chance to repent, he responded with hurt feelings.  

John 21:15-17.“When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love Me more than these?”“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”Jesus said, “Feed My lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love Me? He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of My sheep.” The third time He said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love Me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Peter’s response to the Lord’s questions here are surprising. He seems blissfully unaware of what he has previously done. It seems he did not feel that he had to re-affirm his loyalty. The thing is he had already repented for what he did… ON THE SPOT! (Matthew 26:69-75.) His faith is in their established relationship.

I think that’s why he climbed out of a perfectly good boat in a storm! Fear only hit that man when he saw the wind and the waves. It seems that he had already comprehended the Lord’s faithfulness to forgive, because he had experienced it. I think he understood that God allows us to learn and he clearly shows us the difference the Holy Spirit makes in one man’s life! The Lord showed us all of that, through Peter.

The scriptures show us that leaders are best chosen by God, not by people. Saul is a perfect example of this thought, he was a bad choice by the people based on looks, not character. However God hand picked David, yet he sinned with Bathsheba and murdered, Uriah;  Moses was a murderer too;  Abraham left his parents behind, and put his wife in moral danger twice; Gideon and Elijah were both found to be cowards on occasion;  and Jonah was just plain wilful and petulant! 

The person who knows and will admit they are wrong, and learn from their error, has a distinct advantage over the person who covers up, or ignores it. I don’t actually think that people fall into sin all that easily – I think they step into it one bad decision at a time. God knows how to choose a leader, and it isn’t always who we think it should be. Bye.👋

P 2966 What God did FOR us.

/ DVH

What I write here was never meant to be a list of do’s and don’t’s — if you have read anything I have written as formulaic, right now …I’m asking for your forgiveness. Please don’t get stuck in trying harder – it leads to frustration..

Our God is looking for a people who will not leave obedience, teaching and passion to the pastors;  or evangelism to the evangelists and missionaries;  or kindness and compassion to the ministry of healing!! He has called each one of us, and He wants us all in the middle of what He is doing, now – today! Our love for Jesus is what motivates us. It holds us by our hearts into somewhere that we probably wouldn’t choose for ourselves. It holds us firmly into His Love no matter what.  We dare not abuse it.  As His plan unfolds in front of us we won’t ever want to be anywhere else! 

I want to be real with you. There were things that I found I’d tolerated in my heart that I thought I couldn’t help having there. These were terrible things that other people did to me when I was vulnerable and couldn’t do anything about it. Finally, I realised that I didn’t need healing —instead— I had to remove the stumbling blocks I had allowed to remain inside my thoughts, and start living the way He told me to do, using my faith, daily. Starting with true forgiveness, that lets loose grace and unconditional love.

All of this happened to me, with no signs, no wonders, no big voices from heaven – I just had to decide to obey  – cold turkey! Now, I agreed with the bible, I knew it was truth, but I didn’t always obey it because I thought I had good reasons why I didn’t have to, why I couldn’t help it. So if what He said didn’t seem to be true for my life and experiences, and if I didn’t feel anything, and nothing changed immediately, that meant I was OK. That’s error, it’s not faith. 

I am writing these things for those people who are sick of feeling like a deceitful failure. They smile at church, say and do all the outward right things, but they are using their own strength. They haven’t acted in faith upon what He has said because they are waiting to feel like they can! In my experience, the feelings come later … much later! The good news is the Holy Spirit knows the way through anything. And He will help you, sometimes by reminding you of something Jesus said.

Would you believe, I actively dismissed some of what I read in the bible, as not applying to me? My safety was not in HIM, its roots were in deception. Do you ever see disappointment toward you on His face? If you do, that’s a demonically-inspired mirage. WE are the love of His life! He gave us a book full of instructions and the Holy Spirit, Who will make each instruction personal when we ask Him to do it. Do you know that in His eyes you can’t fail? He has already done all the work for us!!  We just need to stay honest with Him and others, and fix the mess we make as we walk with Him. Peter did that. He blew things all the time, BIG time. 

Jesus continually remembers the cross, and what it did for all of us! My job is to identify with Him the way He identified with me. Now I live like He would, obedient to our Heavenly Father. And I repent and repair things when I’ve messed up. We can’t just pray God will fix us and stop there, hoping He will eventually do all the work for us. Be-ca-use …Jesus already did everything for us and we obtain it by acting on what He said using your faith. Do the thing that scares the daylights out of you first. You will really see Him help you when you step out on a limb.

It’s time to use our faith, believing that what He did worked…and it’s out there waiting for us to claim it by acting on it!! Then we will make our faith bigger than our feelings. Sometimes Christianity consists of so much spiritual talk that we forget the work is done. That’s because it is not just meant to be heard, it’s like your credit card, it has to be activated. Jesus made stuff easy to identify — don’t steal, don’t hate, don’t covet your neighbours 100 foot catamaran, cute spouse … etc. follow Him. 

Knowing what attitudes are dangerous should be clear to us, but Christianity is not a test that we pass or fail. Jesus took that test for us in His name and HE PASSED, once … for everyone.  Our God wants us to move on beyond repentance into the bigger things He has for us. We need His love shed abroad in our hearts’ much much more than we need lists of do’s and don’ts. Bye again. 👋

P 2965 We owe Him our choices.

/ DVH

I want to be perfectly clear today. The Lord Jesus was tormented about the cross – even though He knew it was His Father’s will for His life and it would benefit mankind – He had to make a hard choice. He prayed for hours that the cup that He knew He would have to drink on our behalf, would be taken from Him. And at the same time, He shed blood thinking about the ramifications of what He was about to do! He became sin, for us.

Let’s just try to imagine what it would be like if every single one of your motivations were pure, right, and just — and you were living to benefit others, but you had to live amongst men and women who had embraced a strict religious regime. Love is the only vehicle that will reach them. They are locked into systems that cause them to strive and worry and lie. Yet Jesus knew His Father’s aim and the ongoing love story between God and mankind. He knew His Father’s heart toward us. So He chose to come here, He chose to live here, and He chose to die, here.

Now He is asking you and I to do the same thing, to make hard choices and choose His Father’s Ways over our own. So the next time the Lord says to us;  ‘forgive this or that person’ we need to remember that He is not doing that from an uninformed, inexperienced place. HE KNOWS the cost of forgiveness because He paid it all. That’s why He sent us the very best HELPER — the Precious Holy Spirit. 

Jesus could never be called ill-informed, or uncaring about mankind’s daily difficulties. That’s why the Heavenly Father sent Him here, to us, in an unheard-of tiny village, as an infant. Oh how I wish we would study the Lord’s attitude toward sinners more — He was a Friend to sinners. He loved to restore people, body, soul and spirit. Right now there are people in your life who keep saying spiritual things you would rather not hear … they keep saying this stuff because they ARE your friends.They have learnt there is better way to live. Jesus Christ hated religion, not people. 

Religion robs people of their God-given birthright to be God’s Sons and Daughters. The Lord Jesus was lovingly, passionately loyal to His Father, and He knew His Heavenly Father was being misrepresented by a system that burdened people. “The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, NOT DESIRING THAT ANY should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.”2 Peter 3:9. Amazingly, Almighty God can do something we can barely understand  – He can love the sinner and hate the sin.

Unfortunately, if we choose to live in satan’s camp from day to day, indulging our own selfishness, then the other guy has a legal right to push us around. But fortunately!! … We have the best Saviour, and the most informed, pure and brilliant Lawyer/Advocate that there ever was, to represent each of us before God Himself. Jesus Christ is God’s righteousness personified. He is our example. We also have examples of the way our God deals with all kinds of people in the bible. The Old Testament is not just a group of stories about how other people who lived long long ago — we need to watch how God Himself perseveres and is long-suffering toward them. He is not a God Who stands a long way off – He came here in Person to reveal His heart to us!

This is why our day-to-day choices matter. The Holy Spirit Himself wants to walk you and I through each part of our personal transformation, daily, until we shine with the light of God saturating our very beings. From the inside out! We must stop thinking of choices as something that are meant to appeal to us … and understand that as each choice is made … we will die a little. That’s the aim! This is why the Apostle Paul said: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21. And he also said …”I assure you, believers, by the pride which I have in you in [your union with] Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily [I face death and die to self].”

Jesus is not asking us to do something He did not do Himself. He is asking us to follow Him through the land of many choices into the solitary possibility of ONE CHOICE…. HIM. He’s looking for passionate dedication to His mission from His followers.Yes, He saved us, once and for all, but He saved us to serve Him, and serve others. I write this blog to exhort you and encourage you to remember that God is always on your side. In His heart He wants the very best for you. He wants to help you and I into the kind of transformation of character and spirit that we can only dream about.

This is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit back here to help us. He’s here, right now, with us, to help us make the kind of choices that will prosper our life spiritually. Instead, we are going to be made rich in the things that LAST. Forget physical prosperity … that stuff has to be protected and fought for … what the Holy Spirit gives us, He gives us for free. It’s free because we didn’t earn it or deserve it.  Because of what He did for us, we owe Him our choices. Bye. 👋

P 2964 Offence.

/ DVH

Offence puts a fence between us, other people, and the Lord. That fence often means that we’ve gone back to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and taken a bite out of that life-killing fruit again. Someone has hurt us, and now we are pushing them away so we don’t have to deal with how we feel. Offence is about indulging and expressing the old self, our flesh.

Bless the Lord, because of Jesus, we don’t have to live like that now. You and I have access to the tree of life! ALL THE TIME. The fruit on that tree nourishes us, and our spiritual lives. This means as we talk to the Lord, (in prayer), and read and apply His book (the bible) into our lives, we major on what is really important. Things like: Doing what it says! … Offence can also rear its ugly head because someone has pointed out something we were hoping nobody else saw, and we feel our mistakes have been uncovered. Actually, this means we’ve lost or not valued our LOVE covering. Jesus loves us and that love covers our lives. His Love is our all purpose, everyday garment.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8.“He has brought me to His banqueting place, And His banner over me is love [waving overhead to protect and comfort me].” Song of songs 2:4. 

“Beyond all these things put on and wrap yourselves in [unselfish] love, which is the perfect bond of unity [for everything is bound together in agreement when each one seeks the best for others].”Colossians 3:14.

Without living under, and releasing His love to others, we will quickly go back to eating the wrong fruit from the wrong tree, resulting in judging others and their actions. We can call it discernment, to make it sound better – but that is actually a lie. Real insight stands between the accused and the accuser – Jesus showed us that..We can’t possibly know why someone else did what they did – only God knows their hearts. Meanwhile, I must say from my own experience, that at least some of the time WE don’t even know why we do what we do and say what we say!

Remember, that human judgment began with Eve’s bad decision, she made a terrible judgment call. She trusted her own eyes and her understanding. And let’s not leave out that snake! She deliberately defied the Lord’s specific instructions.We can easily do this ourselves, when we can’t be bothered to ask the Lord about something. Maybe we don’t have time to pray. (How hard is it to say: ‘help?!’) Maybe we excuse ourselves because this decision is not all that important — after all God gave us a brain and He means for us to use it! Actually, He means for us to be obedient to the Holy Spirit because Jesus sent HIM back to help us – right here, right now! 

At the same time human beings can get offended with God. This can happen when He doesn’t answer our prayers the way we thought He should. We quote this verse and that situation and demand that the Lord meet our expectations. Prayer can be bold, but it also needs to be humble. Almighty God is the Greater One, and He deserves our reverent respect. Otherwise we can get offended with Him when we think we know the answer better than He does. There are times when things get difficult, because He is doing something else.

Sadly there are also times that we analyse the advantages for us in a situation, and decide ‘this will be good for me,’ OR even: ‘this is NOT good for me.’ Often we do that from our own unrenewed mind. That’s called ‘leaning on our own understanding.’ The way to lean on His understanding is to read the book, and then OBEY what we read, whether it is convenient, expedient or not!

I ask Him while I’m reading the bible: ‘Do I do this?’ I don’t want to excuse myself, because I value my relationship with Him over everything else. Plus I don’t trust my own understanding – my understanding can be my flesh protecting itself. Sometimes my mind is guaranteed to try to find some loop-hole or other, so I can continue to distance myself from difficult situations and stay comfortable. 

At the same time, I’ve learnt that it does not profit any of my relationships when I offer conditional apologies, and say things like “IF I have offended you then I am so sorry, please forgive me”- “IF” implies doubt. Um …if the person in front of you is angry, then there is no doubt at all that you have offended them! Duh! Whether it is a misunderstanding or not, it needs to be sweetly and gently sorted out, with the other person – with His wisdom and humility as our guide. Who knows? You might learn something, about yourself and each other.

Offence separates people – sometimes whole families. It breaks friendships, and it can destroy churches and start wars. It can mean we are not prepared to let the other person tell their story, because we have hurt feelings or we have been physically hurt. So now we want to stay mad as some sort of protection against that person hurting us again. Offence is always a stumbling block to learning love the offender. Bye 👋

P 2963 Quick sand.

/ DVH

One of the quick sand traps we can fall into as we learn to walk with the Lord, is that we can get stuck regarding sin. We try to explain things away. When we focus on what we think happened and why — that’s when a ‘sin’ focus takes over and we stop thinking like we are children of the King. My advice is in all situations, focus on the Lord. Dismissing our sin is like stepping into quick sand.

What we intently look at, has a tendency to grow larger, and we need the Lord to be larger than the dumb stuff  other people do. Focussing on the cross and everything He chose to do for us, produces clear focus and gratitude. I’ve found that ‘self’ will lie to you. It is not interested in dying … because it is afraid it will cease to exist if it dies. But death to the ‘old’ self is always the desired outcome. We can only LIVE for Jesus to the extent that we are prepared to DIE to self.

Otherwise we will start explaining why we did this or that, trying to justify ourselves. Let’s just level the playing field shall we? “ALL have sinned!” This means we can’t possibly justify ourselves – all means all!  Don’t fight humility or give self any credence, confession is the answer to sin. Renewing – or changing your mind – means our focus will change as we focus on His thoughts not ours. Otherwise we are trapped, but the minute we confess our faults – that trap flies open. Sin is a deceiver. It wants us to identify with it instead of leaning on and relying upon what Jesus did for us. The reality is, sin can no longer hold us, it can only take hold when we believe its lies.

Trying to justify ourselves means that we have been tricked into giving away the ground that Jesus died to give us. The efficiency of our enemy’s trap depends upon the personality of the individual person. For many people, He can grab them because of an underlying sense of guilt or shame. This means that we haven’t yet totally grasped what we have been given. Jesus Christ gave us His justification, His stature before God. We have it credited to our account. God gave us something that we could never do for ourselves – for free. But it cost Him everything – that’s the kind of wonderful God we serve! 

This what what this incredible exchange was all about – Jesus took our sin and gave us His holiness, His righteousness. To walk in those things we need to treat other people the same way He treated us. We were His enemies! We were against everything He stood for. We need to do this generously. Unselfishly. Not just the people we like, but even our known enemies. Now we are free to choose to follow Him down the road of sacrificial love, compassion, kindness etc.

The Christian life is about choices. It is often about choices that need to be made under pressure. Jesus chose to be a servant. So we choose to follow Him and live the same way He did, with thanksgiving and obedience. Our day-to-day choices provide us with a mirror – they show us how much faith we are living in. When we choose to give into our flesh, ourselves, our old nature, we are empowering our old life. That old life no longer has any power over us – we can only enliven it by giving it our allegiance. It is a mirage, a memory, a shadow of what was. We will find the attitude or actions that seem to imprison us, actually cannot hold onto us when we begin to use our faith to walk away from them.

The more we have indulged our flesh the harder the enemy will fight for us to return to that life. he never stops tempting us, because Jesus Himself said: “… in this world you will have trials…” When we are tried, by self-interest or difficult circumstances, our true self comes to the surface where it can be identified and dealt with. Instead of excusing that behaviour as ‘only human’ or ‘normal under the circumstances’ — we need to own how we’ve reacted so we can walk away from it, back into the freedom Christ has given us.

Then with the Holy Spirit’s help, we begin to take our renewed mind’s faith-steps away from the things that drag us down and step into our new life, our new identity, in Christ. We are now who He says we are. This means instead of giving you a piece of my mind, I give away His PEACE to you instead. Instead of punishing you because you don’t suit me, I choose to love you. Loving you is not giving you permission to continue to hurt me, instead it gives YOU a chance to know what unconditional love looks like!

The reason I can forgive you or you can forgive me is because of what Jesus did for both of us. We are standing on the same ground. Our issues are not people, our issues are attitudes and subsequent actions.“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” Matthew 5:21-22a. See? Attitudes matter!! Anger is clearly out of God’s order. It’s not just a bad day, or a stinky attitude, or a suitable response to someone else’s sin, to warn them off.

We know something that the other person may not know – He died for their sin too. Sin, or holding onto resentment or bitterness, or shame or guilt, is like stepping into quick sand. We will drown and smother our burgeoning faith. Our best combat attitude is to continue to renew our mind, and act on what we read. Then we begin to think about this life like Jesus did. We ask for His help – and use our faith to be obedient. Bye 👋