Godly

P 3010 Who benefits? Us or His kingdom?

/ DVH

“We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.” 2 Corinthians 10:5 TPT. 

If we take what Paul has said to the Corinthian church seriously, we can see that the Christian life is not meant to be a walk in the park, whistling as we go! There’s a lot of demolition and active transformation that needs to happen in an ongoing, everyday fashion. I believe the New Testament shows us how we can change, what we need to change, and why we should change! The ‘when’ is easy — NOW! If you ignore some behaviour and hope it will go away, you are deceiving yourself. Whatever we hold onto holds us back!

Paul faced a lot of criticism along the way, even from the people he ministered to. Some times people who are very sure of what God has said to them, can appear to be arrogant. It is easy to mistake arrogance and enthusiasm for the anointing of God. Arrogance is when I talk to straighten you out because I already know. It puts me up and brings you down. Encouraging you as we journey together, means I stretch out my hand to you, whenever I might be a help. However, the speaker must always remember: 

“A word fitly spoken and in due season is like apples of gold in settings of silver. [Prov. 15:23; Isa. 50:4.] Like an earring or nose ring of gold or an ornament of fine gold is a wise reprover to an ear that listens and obeys. Like the cold of snow [brought from the mountains] in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to those who send him; for he refreshes the life of his masters.” 

Our God-given place is to continue to live in, and acknowledge our ever-present need for more of His Grace. And we cannot carry that out well if we choose to hide from the very people God sent to help us! Even if they are painful! Honesty with ourselves and others is paramount. I am not talking about being negative, I mean that we are all on the same journey, and none of us have arrived, so pretending we are doing well when we know we are not, is called deception. 

Most people are afraid of correction. They are afraid to admit they can’t perform well, and then they can quickly get caught up in self-effort. It’s a never-ending pattern — trying hard to meet the mark, and failing. The reason I gave that particular method up is because I was a total wash-out at changing myself, I had too many flaws and not enough hours in the day! I have learnt to suspect that my feelings are not a good guideline to where I want to go. However, whatever the Lord says will stand forever — what I feel can be changed by double chocolate ice cream and a piece of cake! 

If someone comes from the place of “I know and you don’t” then they are not yet in a place of humility. That’s a flaw just like any other, often born out of insecurity. As Jesus’ beloved fiancee we need to live in the place of humble surrender, permanently, simply to facilitate the right attitude when we speak to others. I am not just talking about lip-service … we can all say we surrender. But the reality occurs where the rubber of my life hits the road of obstacles and hardship. Or when this life squeezes us so tightly it actually exposes the truth. Life has a very bad habit of doing that! We are afraid to be real because we have not comprehended exactly what Jesus Christ did for us.

More mature people can share with others those things they have learnt along the way, but we had better make sure we are putting what we say into practice ourselves. Even if it looks to us like we will become vulnerable, because we often get it wrong! Like my favourite verse says: ‘Not that I always achieve that aim, but I sure am pressing on!’’…  “ ‘I can’t help it’ doesn’t cover anything … only the blood of Jesus does that!’

“If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just [true to His own nature and promises], and will forgive our sins and cleanse us continually from all unrighteousness [our wrongdoing, everything not in conformity with His will and purpose].”  Our new life doesn’t rely upon us, it relies upon Jesus and what He did. Our aim is to support one another, as we walk forward …together. There are no losers or winners in the Christian life – only participants. 

Sadly, there are many people who think they can still have this AND that error, or bad habit in their lives, and it doesn’t make any difference to their level of commitment. People can be deceived into thinking they can make excuses for ungodly attitudes, and still follow Jesus. As soon as self-deception enters the ring, human beings will be KO-ed out, because we have become double-minded. The point is we cannot abuse the blood of Jesus, which is an incredibly precious thing, to excuse our unwillingness to learn and be transformed. And that’s a life-time goal not a one time event! 

Whatever we say at the altar, needs to be followed up with prayer and deliberate choices. This life we have chosen is not easy. It has many things in it that we think we value – things, or even people we think we cannot live without. Those things need to be given to the Lord along the way, in order to keep walking after Him. These things don’t always have to be bad either, but we don’t want ‘that will do,’ we want everything laid down for His sake. The secret, as I see it, to knowing the difference between what is Godly or not is this – who benefits – US or His kingdom? Bye. 👋

P 2815 Single-mindedness.

/ DVH

““Heaven’s kingdom realm can be illustrated like this: “A person discovered that there was hidden treasure in a field. Upon finding it, he hid it again. Because of uncovering such treasure, he was overjoyed and sold all that he possessed to buy the entire field just so he could have the treasure.”Matthew 13:44 TPT. 

The Lord taught me a great lesson from this particular scripture today. Every single time I’ve read it in the past, I got stuck on the fact that it seems to me that this guy who found the treasure is deceitful. Today, I read it in countless versions, and that premise remained the same to me! Like I’ve said before – sometimes you have to insist! I kept on getting stuck on the fact that this field was did not belong to the man who ended up with it — in my mind he cheated the legitimate owner to get the treasure! Talk about missing-the-point-101!

Look I need to say first up that I can see that this parable is about the priority we give to His kingdom and it is clear that it must be first. But what the Lord and I talked about together today, was a clarification of motivation and inspiration. In my mind, the passer-by should have told the owner about what he found in the man’s field.  However, Jesus Himself told this story so I was pretty sure He had a worthwhile point, and it obviously wasn’t about deceiving people! And then the Lord said this to me …

“You are looking this story from the point of view of honesty and good manners. You have a man-made filter. You do that a lot. Good manners are not the same as the kingdom of God!  And good manners won’t get you into My Kingdom either! They can lock you into a place where you are no longer truthful – you make decisions about what is acceptable and what is not. Instead, you need to be looking for the kingdom of God in everything you see and do. Some times good manners and kingdom things are mutually exclusive.” ‘Ok-ay’ … says I not quite sure that I wasn’t just having a conversation with myself! 😶

The Lord went on: “As a little child you were taught to have good manners, to say please and thank you, and that you mustn’t take or touch other people’s things. So in your mind, good manners and honesty are a precedent … over everything else. However, it was not My Spirit Who taught you that, but experience. And sometimes it was often a painful one. But you cannot do things from My LOVE when you are in bondage to fear. Love and fear cannot occupy the same place – LOVE must always win.

The man in My story who owned this field had never found the treasure in it, he had never even looked, and the sale of this field was a legitimate contract between these two men. And the man who bought it, bought it because he treasured what was in it so much, he gave up everything else. That’s the way I want you to treasure My kingdom!”

Yeah, now I was getting it! I suddenly remembered a number of times when I have used good manners as an excuse to avoid confronting someone else. And then there was a time when I didn’t do or say something because it didn’t seem polite to point it out. Hmmm. Suddenly good manners had rapidly become overrated, and I could see that I was hiding the truth in some situations, under the guise of having ‘good manners.’

What I got from what the Lord said to me was — having good manners are sometimes incompatible, and obstructive to the kingdom of God. We are not meant to be rude to anyone on purpose, but if we are to be led and taught by the Holy Spirit, we may need to rethink the skills we were given as children. Because an automatic response is not the same as permanent transformation. Father God desires us to give things to others freely – not because we are obligated.

I know there are many scriptures telling us how to treat each other, even unbelievers, but it seemed to me the Holy Spirit was pointing out that I had an overriding precedent and it was not from Him.  Then He kindly explained to me that we can speak the truth in love without betraying His kingdom. It is all about our heart’s attitude, not what is or is not said. In the meantime I was hiding my real self behind something I learnt when I was small — for safeties’ sake. If I was not rude to others then that meant I dodged a smack. But the Lord is my hiding place not social niceties. 

The thing is the Kingdom of God is about taking risks, and suddenly my former theology had a hole in it that I could drive a mac-truck through!  Being polite is not the same as being Godly – it just looks the same, to everyone else. If we want to be led by the Holy Spirit then we are going to have to re-learn to do things His Way. The kingdom of God needs to be our priority over everything else, including manners etc.  What the Lord and I talked about together was a clarification of motivation, as well as inspiration.

The bible teaches us that: “a double minded man will not receive anything from the Lord.” And I can see that the conflict between my manners and His kingdom has helped to make me double minded. Those two things are not the same. So I repented! Manners are a man-made way of dealing with society. But we need the same sort of single-mindedness the Lord Himself had. His one purpose was to glorify God, not just keep Himself well regarded and safe! He is always our place of safety. Please feel free to pray for me as I learn how to discern between these two things, Bless you. 👋 

P 2393 Those who have gone on before us.

/ DVH

“And consider the example that Jesus, the Anointed One, has set before us. Let His mindset become your motivation.” Philippians 2:5 TPT. Isn’t it marvellous that we have incredible, recorded, Godly examples to follow? Praise God we have what Christ did and said, in this book we read every day. Jesus made God’s will very clear! 

We have all of the New Testament to explain how the things of God unfold and transform, and how they worked for someone else. Whether it was Paul or Peter or Jude – they all lived this way… HIS WAY. All we need to do is to take what it says seriously and apply these things we read about into our lives! The sky is the limit when somebody starts living their life doing what God’s book says for Jesus’ sake.

Here’s something that Peter said: “Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.” 2 Peter 1:3 MSG. Peter knew that what he was given was also for others who would come after him – that’s you and I. 👏 We have been left an enormous inheritance by these great men and women of faith. 

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that getting to know Jesus is a series of endless spiritual experiences. It is so much more than that – we get to live the way He lived and do what He did – we get to be like Him, in this world. His loving heart, His Character, His devotion to the Father. Jesus Christ shows us how to live a transformed life of devotion to God and He actively taught us what God wants from His kids.

Let’s look at His disciples, who totally relied upon the Holy Spirit for Christ’s guidance, and they too lived overcoming lives. They lived that way in a world that used Christians for target practice, lion chum and barbecue lights! Nothing much has changed today, many Christians are still paying for their faith with their well-being, lives and health. However  I can be inspired into action, when I read about the saints’ of old’s adventures, missteps, and godly actions in His book — and from there I get the courage to have some adventures with God myself. 

Both the Old and the New Testament tell us about people who gave up this life to gain the next. They watched Almighty God work on their behalf. I’ve written down some examples from the New. Let’s look at Ananias who got a word from God and was used to restore Paul’s sight. That man was scared to bits about his God-given assignment, but he did it in spite of his fear. He teaches me that fear does not have to win! Plus, I can simply go and do whatever God tells me, I don’t have to feel like it.

There was another Ananias – Ananias and Sapphira. That couple taught me that lying to God and others has a really really bad ending! Or Timothy, who listened carefully to his mother and his grandmother, and ended up as a companion to Paul. He had two whole books in the bible written for his personal edification. Timothy has taught me that godly mothers with faith are powerful people. 

Or Simon Magus the magician. He taught me the Holy Spirit cannot be bought. Grace can embrace the Holy Spirit but a lack of Grace, together with greed, sends Him away. Or there was Stephen, who waited tables and witnessed to the Sanhedrin, Jerusalem’s supreme rabbinic court. He recited the whole Jewish history from Abraham to Christ! I believe Stephen’s pure faith, together with everything the Holy Spirit gave him to say, had an effect on Saul as he stood and watched that stoning, and heard Stephen pardon his murderers as he died. This shows me that the word of God is a SEED – it has the power to change a life. Stephen died, but Paul eventually converted!

We have these witnesses in God’s book to help us to enrich our own faith. We don’t have to stay within the status quo, living our lives in dull little always-acquiring-new-things lives. We can be led by God Himself, the Holy Spirit, to “go into all the world and preach the gospel…” Acts 1:8. Hubby and I are about to go out again into Samaria, even though we preach the gospel where we live, to anyone who will listen. 

We go out there where the people are and to our amazement – Jesus is out there too!  Listen to what Jesus said about the Samaritan woman and her village in Samaria: “Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”John 4:34&35. What more do we need than… ‘GO?’ That was enough for the people in the book.👋🏻

P 2332 Our perceptions can limit our expansion.

/ DVH

Almighty God’s goodness, faithfulness, loving kindness, mercy, grace, love, joy and peace does not, and will not ever, depend on our perception. He IS all those things and more … simply because it is Who He is. Now there’s a good place to stop and cheer! 🥳 I have learnt during my life so far, that the ability to laugh at yourself is invaluable. Christians can be a bit ridiculous and intense, as well as ever-so-slightly pompous at times – if we are not careful we can suck all the spontaneous fun out of a room with a well placed raise of the eyebrows. 

We can also take ourselves way too seriously. I think we need to enjoy this life we’ve been given more. We can end up trying so hard to appear godly and pious, we give the impression that following Jesus is no fun at all. We should never be ashamed to share our faults and missteps with everyone around us, including our brothers and sisters – who knows what that kind of honest freedom could produce? 

How will others know what Christ did FOR US, if we are so busy trying so hard to look right all the time – without the Holy Spirit’s help. Trying to look good all the time, uses up way too much energy. No wonder we have no extra energy to witness and love on people. Keeping up that kind of appearance is exhausting. Conversely, some of us turn into undercover agents, and work on that sort of attitude so hard that the people around us don’t know we are Christians at all. We just ooze disapproval instead.

Today I decided to share some of the dumb things I have done in my lifetime. You know appearing to be the goods is exhausting, and when you get older you need all the energy you can find just to manage the stuff going on. Being changed from the inside out is the thing, it makes the supernatural normal!  

Hmm … back onto my point …I’ve done so many dumb things – it’s hard to pick. 😂 I once tipped a whole bottle of Shalimar perfume down the drain. I was utterly convinced that very expensive stuff was of the devil … so glub＄glub＄glub＄… down the drain it went. What was I thinking? I thought holiness was about being minutely careful over every little detail. I had no idea back then that holiness has already been imputed to us through our relationship with Christ. 

In other words holiness is about WHO we choose to hang out with, not just how paranoid we are about sin. How we look is mostly irrelevant, Who He is and what He has done for us is the main thing. Meanwhile down the plug hole went the Shalimar. Sigh. My drain smelled gorgeous for weeks! Retrospectively, my poor ex had heaps to put up with. 

Then there was the time I was utterly convinced that God was going to heal my severe short-sightedness. What a laugh-riot that was. I smashed my contact lenses convinced I needed to prove to God how serious I was in my belief that He heals today. You ain’t gunna believe the next bit … for two whole years I went about blind as a bat … doing all the normal things I always did. Fortunately, I didn’t drive back then! 

But I crossed roads, chopped stuff with big nasty knives, looked after my little kids and other people’s kids etc. caught buses, took trains, and carried on pretending that any minute now, praise God, I was going to be healed! Our wonderful Father protected and looked after this ding-bat and her kids, in spite of my theological blooper. I also told everyone else I was healed. Naturally, it was blatantly obvious to everyone around me I wasn’t. SO, what happened? A dear friend gently pointed out that not only wasn’t I healed … I was living dangerously. So, I cried heaps, swallowed my pride, confessed my fault and put my glasses back on. Then I apologised to everyone, and I put it all behind me.

I said all that to say this: at that time –  my perception of Who God is and what He will do, was skewed. I took the word of other people who had experienced His healing, and had actually been healed, followed their steps, and stood on that. Let me be clear, testimony from others can inspire and encourage us but we cannot stand on it. When we stand on things like that, we are trying to piggyback our faith on someone else’s belief – instead of using their faith to springboard us into a deeper relationship with Him, by praying over what the Bible says for ourselves. 

Our perception is incredibly important, it can limit our God-given expansion – we can waste the time we have, trying to be someone or something else! To get a bigger perception we must take His word seriously, wait for His personal input, and let Him expand our view of His kingdom. Be yourself – everyone else is taken!  👋🏻