God

P 2598 No fake smiles please!

/ DVH

My dear hubby loves the Emoji movie, especially that over-the-top female smiley face that blinds people with its toothy grin. He thinks she is hilarious. You know, that face is actually pasted on – it’s stuck. In other words that emoji has been carefully drawn to pretend to be something it isn’t.  So when bad things happen, that smiley emoji isn’t being REAL — which is just like a whole lot of Christians. Bad things happen and they paste on a smile but inside they feel God, and everyone else, has let them down. 

Most people in this world know FAKE attitudes a mile off. It is so much better to be your real self and repent for stinky attitudes, than it is to hide who you are. Now if you happen to be a grump … then the answer is to be transformed. 😂 The bible covers that! Please note: transformation is not instant. It’s repetitive… it’s re-pet-it- ive … it’s actually quite repetitive! So now we spend our days learning to lean. Getting stuff right is no longer our goal, leaning on Him is! 

If we are not careful we can make living for Jesus … into a future goal. We can live this life hoping that if we fake it we will eventually make it. Yielding, surrender, dying to self – these are all key words.  Otherwise transformation becomes something we work hard towards achieving, but we never seem to arrive!  The bible says we need to be living for Him every single day. 

Almighty God wants us to draw on His strength all the time, using our faith. Faith grows when you use it! So we exchange His beauty for our ashes. His joy for our mourning etc. We are human and we run out quite quickly — but Jesus is rich in these things ! He will give us what we need as we live a life of total dependence. The Lord is not fooled by our positive, Sunday morning smiley faces.

We could see miracles every single day if we stop trying to be what God already made us and learn to yield to and trust in Him! Listening to yourself being kind to someone, when you wanted to smite them mightily a minute ago is a miracle! Success is no longer our goal – because we know can’t do anything without Him and we don’t want to be without Him.“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

We need to be changed inside, and honesty matters.  We can’t! … But He already did it for us. Some of our nice attitudes are barely skin deep — so when they are provoked they end up coming out. The Lord is not looking for perfection … Jesus already nailed that, and then He generously gave it to us – for free. Ask yourself this: why would Almighty God – Who loves us – want us to live our lives pretending to be something we are not? But oh! How He LOVES a truly transformed heart and life. Then when someone else hurts us, we feel worse for them than we do for ourselves.

I know some transformed people. They know they can’t do anything without Him, but they yield in obedience to what the bible says daily, so they can change the way that they live. They are not perfected. Not at all! But they enjoy being close to Him, and they don’t want to give that up for living a shallow life that has no substance. Things stay shallow when we stop living by our faith.  We must learn that we are not called to exhaust our OWN patience/love/joy/peace,  first — only to find that we have run out! Here’s a hot tip, let go of your pride and GIVE UP RIGHT AWAY and fall into His everlasting arms. He will supply that need.

My point is, learn to pray “Help help” early! We cannot afford to wait until we are overwrought and exhausted because we’ve been wrangling a problem in the natural. I pray a surrender prayer all the time now. I remind the Lord that I won’t be able to  manage anything at all without Him. I do that at the beginning of the day and I repeat it when I find myself pasting on a fake smile. I could care less about looking incompetent, or inefficient. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy seeing Him active in my life. I feel Him help me to go further than I ever could in my own strength. I know I can’t meet Christ’s standard, what He did was perfect. So I start with surrender and I don’t move from there. 

We have all developed coping mechanisms over the course of our lives and when we get saved, we carry those coping mechanisms over into our faith. Then when we read in the bible and see what we are supposed to look like, who we are meant to be, we increase the pressure on ourselves to be like that. Unfortunately, when we fail in our own efforts – we feel we are letting Jesus down. And if we do happen to succeed, then WE GET PROUD.

All that leads to a level of inadvertent deception, and a lack of transparency that prevents intimacy. It stops Christians from becoming all we can be in Christ. It also leads to a form of religion with no power in it. We need to learn to live our lives dependent upon Him, using our God-given faith instead of striving to reach an unattainable goal. We cannot make ourselves perfect. He has already accepted us.  No more fakey fake smiles. Learn to lean on Him. 👋

P 2597 A funny thing happened after I wrote yesterday’s blog.

/ DVH

…Like, at this moment I’m revisiting my own words. That didn’t take long … 🙄 Let me set the scene. Before we leave home for a bible run, the precious people from our church gather around us and pray and prophesy for miracles and souls to be saved. Their faith is fantastic!! After I’ve heard all their prayers I often start to wish they’d go instead of ME. You see, I know what’s out there … and even worse … I know what’s IN me – those two small things can sink my boat! Without Jesus I’m sunk. Moving on…

Actually, I need to be very real here or you will miss my point. Let me share with you what we’ve learnt over the last 19 years. God has a plan for each of us. We have each been given kingdom work to do, and all of it is a part of God’s MUCH bigger plan. Personally, I don’t think the Lord is looking for the next Billy Graham coming down the turnpike … 

… I think He is looking for ordinary willing people, like you and me. People who will believe they really did give their lives away to Him, and bravely stick up their hands and say: “Here I am Lord send me!” And then they go and do what He says. If anything good has come out of the last 19 years we’ve been travelling all over this country — it is because GOD IS GOOD – and He’s not fussy who He uses… sometimes He uses donkeys and whales … 😂 Hubby and I know we are both totally incompetent without Him. To be frank, without Him we’d probably give up when it gets too hard.

You and I, are a tiny part of His kingdom, and in that kingdom some people have heaps of stuff to contribute and others take their two little coins – which is all they have … and put it into His treasury for His glory! Yes, I know I just shoved two very different concepts together … hang on …  my point is that hubby and I are two normal people who dared to believe God is much MUCH bigger than our fears and we go and do it anyway – trembling most of the way.

Speaking of that … trembling I mean … the other night we sent out a frantic text to our prayer support explaining that we had suddenly discovered the next stop over on our trip is a dangerous place. That info is on Google, so it must be right! And we are staying there for two nights. It is one thing to talk about letting perfect love cast out your fears, and totally another to do it – right here, right now. We are on the coal face … so we are facing that fear. We are back in the place where our theories are going to be tested, again.  It is time to remember our peace is in HIM – not the circumstances.

A nice Indian man, who is our host at this motel, doesn’t seem thrilled with us. His spirit of kindness and co-operation flew out of the window. So, no to bibles, no to stuff for his kids, no to practically everything – including putting our food in his freezer. There are rules pasted up everywhere. To get to this outback place, we drove down appalling roads  and … …we just drove through a local locust plague. That was interesting!!

Plus, also on the road yesterday, a car driving along in front of us suddenly stopped in the middle of the road, in the 110km per hour zone … presumably to look at a great view! Another one nearly cleaned our clock in a local supermarket carpark doing 60 km/h right behind us as we were quietly reversing out.  Let’s not kid ourselves, this stuff can be hard work. Right now, hubby needs a cuppa tea, an aspirin and a big lie down!

However God is so cool, before we left home, the Lord told me to make a bookmark with an elephant on it, for an Indian lady I was going to meet. That unhappy Indian man’s wife LOVED the bookmark – even though her husband wouldn’t let her take another thing – she kept it. And the Lord did that ‘sneaky Pete’ thing He sometimes does and snuck under the radar, again. Nevertheless, there is no grace and power to do anything, unless the Lord gives it to us – you run out of manners pretty quickly!

Hubby and I have a habit of valuing obedience over everything else. We’ve learnt that if we want to see greater miracles we will need to face greater hurdles. You know … I really don’t remember signing up for some of this stuff.  I do however, remember praying … when I had no clue what was in front of me … ‘here I am Lord send me.’ Sometimes doing the work of the ministry is not as exciting as anyone might think — a lot of it consists of slogging on against opposition. 

On the plus side, living this life has taught me to throw away my always-be formal meter. Those things have gone right down the gurgler (drain), and now I have no trouble being truthful about the difficulties of this life we encounter along the way. Jesus Himself said:“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.]”  John 16:33. My advice? BELIEVE HIM.

So why should any of us be overjoyed when doing stuff for the kingdom stops being fun and becomes life-threatening? Because joy is another point of obedience. Jesus didn’t say feel like it – He said do it! I have been laughing while writing this blog today because everything in it is just so true for us currently. Almighty God doesn’t get glory because we are trying hard to be stoic – He gets ALL the glory because HE IS GOD. ← And that’s a full stop right there. 👋

P 2596 There is no hole too deep.

/ DVH

Psalm 16:1-11MSG: “Keep me safe, O God, I’ve run for dear life to You. I say to God, “Be my Lord!” Without You, nothing makes sense. And these God-chosen lives all around—what splendid friends they make! Don’t just go shopping for a god. Gods are not for sale. I swear I’ll never treat god-names like brand-names. My choice is You, God, first and only. And now I find I’m Your choice! You set me up with a house and yard. And then You made me your heir! 

The wise counsel God gives when I’m awake is confirmed by my sleeping heart. Day and night I’ll stick with God; I’ve got a good thing going and I’m not letting go. I’m happy from the inside out, and from the outside in, I’m firmly formed. You canceled my ticket to hell—that’s not my destination! Now You’ve got my feet on the life path, all radiant from the shining of Your face. Ever since You took my hand, I’m on the right way.”

Isn’t this a terrific Psalm full of good advice? It is a testimony speaking about living life His way. When I read this today, it reminded me of a fantastic testimony hubby and I have from years ago, and today I thought I would share it. Many years ago my husband was working full-time as a clinical nurse. One day he was walking an older gentleman back from a procedure, when the old man slipped and started to fall. Hubby reflexly rotated to try and catch him before he fell and my dear fella badly injured his back. Thank the Lord the old man was unhurt.

Long story short, hubby went into months of agony with countless steroid injections, back braces, scans, X-rays, and saw many, many doctors and specialists. The diagnosis was grim, he had worn away the disc between L4 and L5 and the bone was rubbing on the bone, producing constant excruciating pain. The pain was never going to go away, plus he had to take pain killers for months and months… Meanwhile the pain killers messed with his head.

At the same time the hospital kept trying to prove there was nothing wrong with his back, and they were not at fault. Work Cover insurance ignored us. Eventually we were informed that because we had fallen far behind in our mortgage payments, the bank was going to take our house, within the month. It was an awful, awful time. Even back then I was not well, and we had no other resources to fall back on. This went on over eighteen months.

You know, in order to see a miracle, we must need a miracle – they are not just entertainment! … We loved our house and we were going to lose it through no fault of our own. The lady from work cover consistently said that hubby would NEVER receive a pay out – even though everybody knew that he had been injured through work – meanwhile we had endless rounds of appointments talking to people who continued to say: “no help for you!” We kept praying, sometimes complaining, and sometimes with little or NO faith.

Months later out of the blue, this lady called us again. She said: “I’ve got some news for you, I don’t agree with it, but they have taken your case to a higher power.😂 So they have agreed to pay out your superannuation.” Hubby was still on the phone with this lady he had talked to for months, but his knees hit the floor and he cried out: “Thank you Jesus!”  I heard him from the kitchen! Meanwhile, we knew who the ‘Higher Power” was!

The pay out was a bit more than we needed to get rid of the mortgage once and for all. But in order to get this payout we had to go for financial counselling, because it was hubby’s superannuation – so we agreed. The morning of the appointment a word from the Lord dropped into my heart. He said: “Render unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to Him.” OK, we didn’t know what that meant but … we took note of it. Everybody at the financial counsellor’s offices was lovely to us. ‘Would we like a cup of tea? The parking’s  free. How can we help you?’

So in we go to see the consultant. The nice man began explaining how he could save us even more money, with a bit of creative accounting we could avoid paying any taxes on the money we received. He said this earnestly, insisting that it was legal! God reminded us of what He’d said, and both of us knew immediately what that meant. No wriggling out of doing what was right. We had to pay the taxes, $18,000 – $20,000 … a fortune to us. And we thanked the man sincerely and explained we were Christians, so we wouldn’t be depriving the government of their tax.

It was hilarious. The mood in his office changed instantly. The nice man couldn’t get rid of us quickly enough, well we did give testimony about how we got the money in the first place! He probably thought we were going to preach at Him! Especially when we explained that we also needed to tithe on this money. So, we didn’t GET a cup of tea. Nobody gave us a voucher for the parking, In fact they couldn’t get rid of us fast enough. Meanwhile we laughed all the way down in the lifts!

When we arrived home that same day … true story! We had a letter in our letter box – it was a cheque for the exact amount of money we needed to pay the tax!  (We tithed on that too!) God is never any man’s debtor. Praise the Lord!! 🙌 There is no hole too deep that the Lord Jesus cannot find us, there is no difficulty He cannot get us out of.

ps Hubby had an operation shortly after all this … but that’s another testimony. Bye 👋

P 2595 Hubby found this ace place …

/ DVH

We are currently in Uralla, NSW, a tiny little town just past Armidale. We’re out in the real bush, yet we couldn’t be more comfortable – no hip-holes in the ground here! Hubby found this cottage on the net and it is really special. The lady who runs it has thought of everything … well, almost everything … some things are out of her control! The net coverage here is a nightmare. It’s kind of ironic how we found this cottage on the net, yet we can’t get on the net for toffee!

Hubby has been walking about inside the cottage trying to find a spot where the net works, so we can put today’s blog onto WordPress. We’re not brilliant at this tech stuff – we kind of get by, but we don’t know any clever little tricks. Meanwhile,Telstra seems to have fallen out of the stratosphere — or is that the information highway? Hah! Maybe they fell in a ditch!  I think somewhere out in the immediate bush around us, there is a cleverly disguised hide that houses a little man who is peddling like mad, trying to get the net to go faster. We sure are spoilt in the city. I know I complain if the net drops out at our house – I am pretty sure that country people are amazed if it drops BY. 

Right now I’m sitting in a very comfortable chair, and outside of the window that is directly in front of me, there has been a parade of birds of all shapes and sizes. Corellas, rosellas, wrens and finches, magpies … whatever!  There are Eastern rosellas and Western rosellas. Boy are the Western ones lost!! They are apparently only found in the south west corner of Western Australia!!  I looked them up – we have proof, he took pictures!! The bird above is an Eastern Rosella BTW, the Western ones are shy. The owner here has cleverly put out food so all the birds around come at sunset and dawn to eat. What a treat that is!

We are mad twitchers. No, I am not talking about us badly lacking magnesium! We simply love birds – especially the little ones. Watching and photographing them is a favourite past time. Hubby has taken over 200 photos here, so far.  Personally, I think photography is an art. My mother liked to take pictures of people, years ago. However, it was a certainty that she would cut everyone’s heads off. That made for fun family photos!  Everybody would take hours trying to figure out who was who? We all look different HEADLESS! She once took a picture of someone very famous playing tennis. She showed me the photo so proudly – hilariously the only thing you could see was an arm and a hand with a tennis racquet in it! 

To keep you up with what we have distributed etc. so far, we’ve given away 169 things in 2 days, and 60 of them were bibles. One third of the great wall of blankets has been delivered, as well as many other things to the women’s refuge in Armidale. It is such a relief to have some of the blankets gone! Hubby packed them all carefully on the roof of the car in our flexible cargo bag, and we’ve prayed away the rain that kept threatening us, on and off since Brisbane. We didn’t want to be a WET BLANKET! Well, I thought it was funny anyway.🤪

When we arrived here, we realised we had a God-appointment with the owner of this cottage. So we gave her the things the Lord told us to give her and she was teary, and happy, and excited and overwhelmed — all at the same time. In the end she quite delightfully asked us: “Are you guys prophet-people or something?” We laughed and pointed at the roof – the Lord is great to hang around with as you do this stuff – He has the skinny on everyone! No! it’s NOT cheating.

Our hostess was extremely excited about everything, but her eyes really lit up at the Darryl Lea chocolates. There are no Darryl Lea Chocolate shops out here! Then Hubby gave her one of his famous paintings and she cracked up. Those paintings ought to come with free tissues… …  I must remember to write that down.

I am still not sleeping well, so, of course, my dear husband isn’t sleeping well either, although the poor man tries!! Hmmm. You really find the fruit of the Spirit at 3.00 am when your wife can’t sleep.😱 Yesterday, hubby spent ages re-packing the car – I was amazed he could fit everything in the first time. Yet he dragged it all out again and reconfigured the boot. I assume he does that to prove the first time wasn’t a fluke! At the same time I was praying for him, inside the house — I think that counts as helping, don’t you??

So far we’ve met all kinds of people, and some of them I was really glad to wave goodbye to, and others I wanted to take home with us. You can always tell when the Lord touches someone, it is like the outside veneer slides off and the inside gooey centre shows. It is such a privilege. These moments are the reason we do this, the deeply spiritual things  that happen are mind-blowing. People share their deepest needs and sorrows.

 Well, gotta go, gotta do, gotta be … somewhere else. Catch you next time. Bye 👋

ps He just discovered the net works perfectly …on the toilet!Sigh.

P 2593 Duty.

/ DVH

Luke 17:7-10: “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?  So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

Now there’s a scripture everyone wants to carefully embroider and put into a prominent place in a nice picture frame in the lounge! Hmmm. Not-so-much?? Gee, I wonder why not!? Maybe this scripture throws a spanner in the idea that we can have whatever we want, whenever we want it —- we just need to ask for it. Sometimes I think our attitudes to Who He is and who WE are, are completely out of whack. The biggest smack upside our heads is the fact that Luke is quoting Jesus Himself. We serve Him, He does not serve us! And the Lord Himself calls that our duty. 

Now there’s a word that has kind of fallen out of favour eh? Right along with the idea that we are His servants. Here’s another nice chewy verse or two to mull over. Matthew 20:26-28 “Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

FYI … that thought is also in Mark and John — just in case you or I were worried it has been taken out of context, or it is just a one off! It is time we accepted that God’s truth is w-a-y bigger than ours, and it is a bit more final too! After all, He’s God … a-n-d  we’re not! And that’s the end of that story. 

I love the way Jesus opened up the Father’s Love for our understanding, as well as toward us — however, He did not die to open up avenues for presumption. Jesus Christ did not come here to be the kind of Santa Claus/Genie we have sometimes made Him out to be. The way He interacted with His disciples made it perfectly clear how much He loved them, as well as WHO was in charge … and it wasn’t them! He gave clear directives and expected them to be carried out. That is a good thing to remember.

We can easily get trapped in our own human rationale and excuse ourselves, when the Lord plainly told us what we are here for, and what we need to do. He knows we are basically just glorified dust. However personally, I’d much rather try to do my duty, with the help of His grace, than sit about making well-crafted excuses that are really based on rebellion. PS, I often don’t want to do heaps of stuff either, but He rarely asks me for my opinion! Plus you die daily quicker when you do stuff you don’t want to do … and you do it  – just because He said so.

Here’s another bible story that could put a spoke in our bicycle wheel, and trip us all up. Matthew 21:28-31“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered.” 

Yes, it is Jesus talking! Yes, He is telling us that our grumpy attitude does not matter – what matters is whether we obey or not! Check out the bible, God loves cheerful givers but He looks for obedience whether we are grumpy and non-compliant or not. The really, really good news is that we don’t have to do any of the things He told us to do ALONE. Oh! Praise God, we have a Helper! 🙌 What would we do without Him? Whenever my get-up-and-go, gets-up-and-goes … without me … He is the One Who empowers me to keep moving on.

Here’s a quick update: above is a picture of our car. We are off to Armidale to pass on some of the 66 blankets etc. Actually I have no idea how the Lord fitted any of that stuff in our car! Kudos to my hubby, he’s a hero, with the Lord’s help he did it – praying all the way. Now our car looks like it has been eating too many Tacos!  Bye. 🚙 …

P 2592 Who is on the Lord’s side?

/ DVH

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:14-15.

I know that this scripture is often presented as a once and forever decision, and I agree! I believe in choosing God, and His ways, as well as choosing the Lord Jesus Christ to be our Saviour, forever. But I also subscribe to the line in the above scripture that says “…choose THIS DAY Whom you will serve, …” I actually think our spiritual well-being and growth depends on our daily choices. 

Often our biggest opponent for this attitude is postponement, which is rapidly followed up by carefully-excused disobedience. And so, sadly, we give up doing what the Lord has asked us to do today, until tomorrow, because we think that we are too busy today. Have you ever reflected on the fact that God Himself made time? He has also stretched it a couple of times in the Old Testament… I rest my case!!

In my own experience I’ve learnt that I will probably have even less resolve or perceived time tomorrow, than I do today – so postponement is an extremely dumb idea! By the time tomorrow turns up, I will have thought up a number of reasons, or things or circumstances will get in my way … and eventually I’ll wander off, lost and listless – wondering where my peace went!  Being busy in this world is not necessarily a sign of spirituality — unless we are busy with His business we are not following Jesus – daily. 

Remember what the Lord Himself said to a young man He asked to follow Him? This young man told the Lord his father had just died: Luke 9:60 “Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” That sounds so harsh, but it is actually a great diagnostic tool if we look at it carefully. Our response to that kind of directive often reveals our hearts. It not-so-subtly shows us who is actually really in charge in our own lives!  I’m so glad I brought that up!!

We can temporarily forget that we always have choices! When we use our humanity as an escape, it becomes so much easier to allow circumstances or other people to seep away our courage and confidence in God’s ability to support us. That’s when we end up making other people’s needs and wants our priority – instead of what the Lord wants. The Lord knows what ails us, and He wants to help us with everything on our own personal plate. But first we need to acknowledge that many things do not get done because — WE don’t really want to do them! If we live with a false concept, it becomes so much easier to adopt human reasoning to excuse ourselves. The best plan after all that is to repent.

Let’s go back to that first scripture and what we might use to excuse ourselves —‘Well, that verse from Joshua says I should serve Him in sincerity and faithfulness, and I don’t feel faithful or sincere about that subject, so I can’t really do it, truthfully.’ Yeah! Nice try!! There’s a big miss! 🙄 How we feel has nothing whatsoever to do with what the bible says. Meanwhile for the bible to be our plumb line we need to compare everything else to IT! Otherwise we will end up with mankind’s wisdom, which seems to be based on whatever makes me feel good, and that bears no resemblance whatsoever to what’s in God’s book.

We dare not choose God’s side, and then walk away and get lost in man’s ideas. That’s what causes people to be double-minded. We need to know what the Holy Spirit thinks, so we can be obedient. That means read the bible, do what it says, and live like Christ did. Obedience firmly puts us on the Lord’s side. But when we disobey we leave the shelter of His secret place, and start bumbling around in the darkness that surrounds everyone else in this world.

Our daily moment by moment choices, are part of choosing to be on His side. That choice that we made years ago can be watered down and rationalised into a more comfy place so we can still call ourselves Christians. However our prayerful consistent daily choices can keep us sharpened to God’s will and His ways. I think that there are times that we can’t see the answers to our prayers simply because we have wandered off the WAY. That’s like leaving your glasses home when you can’t see without them.

His ways become clearer to us as we choose to live this life the Way it says in the book. The answer to the title of this blog today is, ME!! I am on Your side Lord. Amen. Bye 👋

P 2591 My thoughts about mercy and grace.

/ DVH

“Overflow with mercy and compassion for others, just as your heavenly Father overflows with mercy and compassion for all.”” Luke 6:36 TPT. “Mercy is NOT getting what I deserve, and Grace is getting what I DON’T deserve…” Bill Johnson.

Personally, I’m not actually sure Christians have absorbed the fact that the undeserved mercy and/or compassion we have been given, has been given to us in over-abundant excess – so we have lots, and we can give it away! We need to be alert and become the people who can discern His mercy when it comes toward us…. instead of choosing to become debt collectors, who collect other people’s mistakes! A whole lot of people have actually been very good to us, when we were too dumb to know the way we were acting, was not Godly. Recognising you have been given undeserved mercy and compassion is the best way I know to abound in it … as well as overflow with it toward other people! 

Here’s a helpful hint – you and I have been given mercy because we NEED mercy!  And at the absolute bottom of that thought is the idea that you and I are not all that. Meanwhile, it does not look like we will end up being all that, any time soon either! 😂 Human beings can easily lack bigness of heart. But because we are following Jesus, and He allowed His big loving heart to be broken for our sakes, our only acceptable response to His bigness is to pass that mercy and grace we received ON to others who don’t deserve it either! We all need a whole of lot of mercy and compassion, all the time — particularly the overflowing kind. 

The problem with human beings is that we can think quite well of ourselves, and we can be ignorant of how incredibly costly the mercy we’ve freely received from others  – IS. Godly mercy is expensive to those amongst us who turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile … and patiently wait for you to find out you are not the nice person you think you are! I try to remember that the MERCY I have been given cost Jesus Christ His life. He has given us such amazing transforming benefits by releasing His grace and mercy upon us. But one of the biggest things I need to remember is that He actively encouraged me to pass what I GOT from Him, on to YOU. 

The best way to begin comprehend what mercy, compassion or grace really means, is to realise I don’t and will not ever deserve either one of them because of the sinful state He found me in. These graces are cultivated. God didn’t feel sorry for me – He forgave me! Therefore, I can’t brag about something I was given because the Giver is always the greater One. The truth is it doesn’t actually matter if you don’t deserve it either – you and I are in the same boat, and next time it will probably be my turn! We need to live this new life we were given remembering that we have nothing that was not given to us. (1 Corinthians 4:7)

Most people don’t understand how utterly rebellious we still are! Without daily recognition of God’s grace and His mercy that freely flowed out from the cross toward us … we can easily become a kind of penultimate narcissist with a complete self-interest that is totally pathological!  Sadly, there are people don’t even bother to hide that anymore. They wear their attitude with pride like a badge, and call it self-discovery!! To be merciful to difficult people in today’s world will take every bit of the mercy and grace Jesus has given us. We will have to go back to Calvary’s well over and over again. That’s what “leaning on Him” means. We are in a process, with His supervision, that will soften our hard hearts toward the world we live in, if we let it.

A hardened heart does not comprehend mercy, or grace. The more we allow the Lord to break our hearts with what breaks His heart, the softer our hearts will become. Human beings don’t want to live like that. So this means I will continually need to get these things from the Lord, to give to you! That takes humility. Very few of us know that we aren’t naturally humble. We’ve all learnt to make nice polite noises, and remain silent in the face of someone else’s bad attitude, and so we hope that will do. The wisdom to keep your mouth shut is not the same thing as deliberately loving the person who hurts you.

Here’s a thought that may save your life and sanity, as well as your often-broken heart  … people who lack these things, can’t give you what they haven’t got! They are childishly stuck in ‘me first’ and ‘my turn!’ These dear folk might understand these things in principle, but the reality is this, they are scared to face the revelation of who they actually are – inside. Christians are not nice. We are redeemed not nice!  When we face who we really are – in the light of His goodness and unconditional love – it stops being scary, and His grace and mercy get bigger.

Everything that we thought was good about ourselves DISSOLVES in the reality light of Christ’s own character and loving kindness toward us. We need to be progressively reshaped into His image one decision at a time. And learning to receive and give away grace and mercy empowers us to do it. 👋

P 2589 Don’t get caught up in the machinery …

/ DVH

… because the Lord is still talking to people! Just talk to Him. We have 4,998,214 books that have been written, by lovely people who want to help us learn how to pray … so it is extremely easy to get caught up in methods, not conversation, and hope that will do. Methods require remembering, but conversation allows you and I to be spontaneously ourselves, as well as honest with Him. It opens the door to further revelation about Who He is, as well as … who I am not!

Look, if you belong to a prayer group and you feel better praying ‘proper’ prayers there, then do it. But in your alone time with the Lord, just talk to Him. Jesus Himself talked to His Father like this … look at how personal He is!“Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that You sent Me.” John 11:41b-42. That’s what personal looks like. It shows the breadth of Their relationship. 

Our God is not a slot machine where you put in your $5 — (well, the price of everything has gone up nowadays) — and … out comes the answer. He is a Person. With feelings and passion. He loves, He hates, He is disappointed, He watches over us, etc. Does any of that sound impersonal to you?  We dare not reduce Almighty God to our way of thinking, or even some sort of a system. He wants us to love Him from a sincere heart, not just placating Him with trite sayings. What I mean is this, there are plenty of systems in place that indicate we HOW we should pray … if you want this, then you need to pray that. Jesus Himself gave us clues on how to pray, but don’t be so rigid about prayer that it becomes utterly formal and has no life in it. He’s our Father. Be real with Him.

If it appeals to you, you could take some time to study the kind of prayers Moses, Gideon, Jonah, Job, Ezekiel, Jeremiah etc. prayed. Pick a bible person for yourself and look at how they talked to God in the book. Jonah got cranky at Him and said so – but God did not smite that man mightily! Instead He conversed with Jonah, and reasoned with him. When you are reading the bible, take the time to look at the WAY these men of God related to Him. I want you to see, for yourself, that Almighty God wants you to be you, with Him.

Why? Why should I be myself? Here’s my little theory … there has never been, nor will there ever be someone else like you. Who you are, is a unique expression of our God’s creativity. He enjoys you, your company — the way any parent enjoys a beloved child’s presence. Following someone else’s prayer methods may feel safer, but in the long run, it is limiting … mainly because you are not them! Our God is bigger than our fears. Mightier than our mistakes, and more loving than we can ever imagine! Don’t worry about stumbling over words, or getting it wrong. The reality is prayer is about your heart talking to His heart. 

Our human relationships are often limited by a lack of communication. We don’t want to tell people that they are hurting us, because we want to be seen to be ‘nice,’ and ‘a good Christian.’  But when we act like that, eventually one of three things will happen — we will distance ourselves from the person who is hurting us and that means a severed relationship… Or we will tell the person exactly how we feel in no uncertain terms, because we’ve allowed a head of steam and anger to build up inside! That’s when we introduce the possibility of a worse, severed, irreparable relationship. OR we decide to talk honestly and openly about what is wrong and introduce the possibility of real restoration. 

Almighty God deliberately became a man, Jesus Christ – and that gives Him incredible insight into how people feel and act. Anybody who has read the Old Testament can tell you that real people wrangle with God. They don’t put on religious faces, or trot out religious rituals to take care of their relationship with Him. These people understand that they are dealing with Almighty God and being human is not a sin. Getting angry is not a sin. Being grief stricken and or even disappointed is not a sin – but we can’t fix something we won’t acknowledge.  He wants to become THE SAFE PLACE we take our burdens to. 

Please don’t let the machinery of prayer take the place of real relationship. Many times, I ask Him questions … then I open my bible and the answer to those questions is staring at me right where I am about to read!  Don’t pray AT Him, TALK to Him. Bye. 👋

P 2588 Can you tell me how I can hear God?

/ DVH

It’s like the telephone or the internet. First you need a connection! Jesus talked about that in John chapter 3 – He told Nicodemus …“you must be born again.”  This is not necessarily a feeling – it isa spiritual transaction. To hear God all the time, you need to give your life to Him. BTW, this is not a try now and buy later system. When you jump in, and surrender to Jesus Christ, you are all in – you can’t just dangle your feet in and hope that will do! This place is a place of decision and complete surrender. That means I have given away my life, my hopes, my dreams to Him.

It is a serious place. This decision is not just about whether you will spend your life in heaven one day or not. It is about here and NOW, because when we’ve made this decision, we want to become God’s kids. Now, we bring heaven with us wherever we go.  This process is described in Galatians 2:20. NIV. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” 

The minute I gave my life to Christ, for Him to use for His purposes, I died. However, I am not a zombie, nor am I subject to mind-control! Instead, I have been given power to control my own mind because of what Jesus Christ did for me. Sadly I can still choose to do and say dumb things, but now I live my life knowing Christ has already forgiven me – He will not give up on me.

Because of my decision to follow Him, His life has flooded my heart, soul, mind, and body, and I found the real reason I am here… Which is to serve Him, and you!  An eternal seed was planted within me when I made that decision. It is up to me to water, fertilise and care for that seed, otherwise I am just going to stay a teeny tiny fragile little plant who expects everyone else to look after them. However, I was born into God’s kingdom to grow and mature. I can’t blame my pastor if I don’t talk to Jesus, or read the bible or obey what God has told me to do in His book. Like the mustard seed Jesus talked about in Matthew 13:31-32. I’ve been designed to grow into a spiritual tree, that gives other people spiritual food, shade and shelter, in this life. 

From the moment I was born again, I was given spiritual ears to hear Him and spiritual eyes to see Him at work in my life, and in the lives of others. However, He does not necessarily talk to me through a booming voice, or angel visitation, He talks to me in the place where I have always talked to myself. Some people call that my conscience, or my thoughts – others might say: “He speaks into my heart.” Because this new kingdom we have entered is spiritual, we can be deceived if we don’t read the bible. The bible is the manufacturer’s handbook, so it tells us what spiritual people are, and what they do. Jesus’ life and death is our visual aid. He shows us what living a life of love toward Him and others looks like.

Because … the devil has been talking to you and I from the moment we first understood language– we know that satan also talks to us in the place where we think. he’s been lying to us and telling us God does not want us or care about us, because we are not special enough!  It is up to me to read the bible so I know for myself, what God says — then I can hear when satan tells me a lie. satan is pushy, loud, and mean. he twists things and tries to make us feel stupid, small and inadequate, because he uses the place where we self-talk, to play on our feelings and bring up old circumstances. satan will even use our rational thought processes against us.

We have been absorbing knowledge one way or another all of our lives, However, what we’ve absorbed from that knowledge does not have to be accurate. It can be influenced by who taught us, or our past experiences., and by the dumb things we’ve chosen to do or read, or the people we’ve hung around with. Not every thought that pops into my head is God speaking, and sometimes those thoughts that sound like me are my enemy. satan sounds like me because I am used to his whispering. Nevertheless, I must always take whatever I hear/think, and hold it up against what God says in His book.

The best thing anyone can do to prevent deception is to know, for themselves, what the Holy Spirit has said in the bible. We need to keep reminding ourselves that we are now God’s house:“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. 

We are meant to digest His book by reading it, and then we must obey — do what it says. That’s how the bible becomes part of us. It will change our minds and thinking. It will help us diagnose our own wrong thinking, as well revealing as satan’s whispers.We are in a war … we live in enemy territory.  Some of the worst wars often happen INSIDE our own heads! But sometimes we blame satan for stuff that is really us. Maybe we chose it, or we continued to participate in things that the bible says are not good for us. Everything we do in this life is about choices. As we start to mature, we will make better more informed choices. 

When you and I hear, whispered quietly inside our own thoughts, “I love you” ….that’s God speaking! satan doesn’t love anything. I urge you to pray for eyes to see the Lord at work in your own life, plus ears to hear Him, then check out what you hear with what it says in the bible. The bible is one of God’s ways of manifesting His steadfastness. 👋

P 2587 Why am I here?

/ DVH

I dunno! Ask the Lord! You and I both know that only He knows that stuff. I’m just the peanut writing this blog. Meanwhile, let me try to give a hopefully wise answer to that ‘why am I here’ question …  “to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbour as yourself.”  Hah! You didn’t expect that one did you? 

A Godly response to this scripture may sound easy …but it certainly isn’t a picnic, that’s because it’s a choice not a feeling – and sadly …other people do the darndest things!! The trouble is, those words are actually in His book! 

People sometimes can get fixated on trying to figure out why we are here, or what is the meaning of life (?)… But the truth is what Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-39. ‘Love God, love others.‘ I think I could teach that to a 2 year old! Did you ever ask yourself ‘how on earth do I love God with all of me, as well as loving YOU?’ Especially if you, my actual neighbour, are VERY far from nice! I suspect most of us have asked that question at some time or other, especially when actual reality replaced carefully crafted Christian concepts.← See that? That’s alliteration. 🤪 

Moving on! It would be so much easier to love God and others, if life just bubbled along like a telemovie, and we were all happy little Vegemites singing and dancing together … but we ain’t! And humanity is rapidly getting less and less nice as the years go by. Once we hit the 21st Century, then good manners and polite went rapidly downhill. Without a Saviour we are all doomed. I love that word doom.

There’s a scene with Tae-Kwon-Dodos in Ice Age Mark 1. (I think the film makers are up to Ice Age Mark 74, or thereabouts … whatever will still make the producers money!) These weird looking birds march around together chanting …”Doom on you. Doom on you. Doom on you …”  Then they fall down a hole into extinction. Now that’s not nice – it’s funny and ironic, but … hardly nice!

Back to my point …we seem to be overjoyed to blame our mother/father/uncle/cousin/teacher/boss for our very own ugliness and WE … as in – me, myself and I – allow awful attitudes to overwhelm us. They eclipse our concern for God’s opinion, as well as our fellow man’s well being. Nowadays we can end up holding onto grudges like they are special floatation devices, not stinking heavy rocks sent by the enemy to drown us. We measure everything by how it affects ME – not by its overall benefit to mankind.

It seems “not nice” or SIN …whatever you like to call it,  is firmly embedded into the heart of man.  And we have no hope of fixing it unless we follow God’s Ways. I think right now, not nice is in plague proportions. But I have found it is not good for my own mental and emotional well-being, to over analyse stuff and impute attitudes to other people’s actions.  

Maybe that guy in the supermarket who just ran over my toe with his trolley was distracted and careless… maybe he isn’t a homicidal maniac who makes himself feel better by running over other people’s feet! When did this world lose the kind of rightness of heart that gives others the benefit of the doubt? And what about me making an effort to apologise for something I did to someone else, no matter what my motive was. When did we lose the words (?) … “I am so sorry, I was wrong.” ← That’s a full stop right there. 

So, here is today’s point … yeah … I know, it took a while! We can’t follow Jesus and hate others. Listen to John he’s going to explain it better than I can.“If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love BOTH.”1 John 4:20.

Personally, I think we are here in this world, to contribute, not consume. We are not designed to be greedy-give-me-that, OR … I-want-it-now-passengers… but participators. If we allow anyone else to rob us of our contribution because of what they have said or done to us, we are letting our enemy – WIN. Dumb move. The way to win is in 1 Corinthians 13:8: “Love never fails.” When everything else has folded up its little tent and departed, or crumbled into dust … LOVE WILL WIN … be-ca-us-e … IT SAYS IN THE BOOK … love never fails. 

So, why do I think I am here? To love God first, then you … but if you really are truly dreadful, well … He is always there to help me! Bye.👋