God’s glory

P 3265 Where are you looking?

/ DVH

2 Corinthians 4:5-12: “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, Who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”    

 At times maybe we think following Jesus shouldn’t cost us! These verses give us the alternatives. The bible is so clear — words like:  ‘hard pressed; perplexed; persecuted; struck down; death is at work in us, but life is at work in you’… should be a major clue. Those among us who think this new life of ours should always be fun, fun, fun, well, they need their heads read. Or they need the bible to transform their thinking! Perhaps some of us are resigned to living with continual disappointment, which is definitely not fun and very bad for our faith! Just to cheer you up even further …

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” That was Verses 16-18 same chapter. 

Why does Paul tell us he did not want us to lose heart? With that list of unhappy endings, that thought seems a bit redundant! He goes on to explain that our outer man maybe diminishing all the time, but our inner man, our spirit, is being renewed by His Presence within us. We can’t live, work, play, or even breathe without Jesus! Seriously. Some of the worst damage has been done to the basic tenements of Christianity, by trying to make it sound like a cross between winning the lottery and a fun fair. In this passage Paul is describing a people who live to see Jesus get all the glory, all the honour – all the time. That’s because their eyes are on Him and they look at everything around them through the light of eternity.

If we focus on our comfort in the here and now, we are going to be utterly disappointed a lot. God is maturing His saints! What part of ‘stoned’ – (ps the writer isn’t talking about taking drugs!) ‘…and sawn asunder, sliced with a sword, tempted, wandering about practically naked with nowhere to live, don’t we get? (Hebrews 11:37) God doesn’t promise us flowers, happy endings and blue birds. Jesus said clearly that this is a narrow difficult road.

 Our fear that reality may put other people off is well-founded. Comfort is king in all our western societies. We desperately need the Lord Jesus to renew us every single day, or any one of us can lose heart and give up. Let’s ask Him to help us to produce the fruit of self-control and perseverance, and water it with tears and fertilise it with surrender. 

Paul calls these ghastly things that bowl us over in this life, “light and momentary afflictions.” Boy that sure puts everything into perspective. What would happen if we saw our difficulties through fresh eyes?  Imagine living life in such a way that love oozes out of our pores, and we leave puddles of glory behind us. We can’t go to the shop and buy Glory! His glory flourishes as we make our hearts His home.

The more we choose to die to self, the more He can be seen within us, flashing out His glorious brightness and capturing other people’s hearts with just one glance. It is imperative here and now, to fix our eyes on Jesus and what He wants for us – including the people He has gathered around us. When we fix our eyes on this world, we can be so easily distracted by what is going on, instead of focussing on Him, this allows other important things to pale into insignificance. I am not there yet …obviously! … But that’s my aim. To daily take in His love for me, and give it away. 

There is no other answer for this world but Jesus. Hubby and I can’t even watch the news anymore it is so chock full of – this person did that evil thing and another one did worse! The bible says: ‘Without Christ we can do nothing.’This whole world is without Christ – that’s why it is in the state it is in. Why are we so astonished? I am learning to assess my focus, and keep my eyes on Him – no matter what else is going on. Where do I look for daily inspiration? Let’s “… all look … unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, …” Hebrews 12:2. Bye 👋

P 2923 Let’s NEVER forget.

/ DVH

Isaiah 6:1-8: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Master sitting on a throne—high, exalted!—and the train of His robes filled the Temple. Angel-seraphs hovered above Him, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew. And they called back and forth one to the other, “Holy, Holy, Holy is God-of-the-Angel-Armies. His bright glory fills the whole earth. “ The foundations trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and then the whole house filled with smoke. I said, 

“Doom! It’s Doomsday! I’m as good as dead! Every word I’ve ever spoken is tainted blasphemous even! And the people I live with talk the same way, using words that corrupt and desecrate. And here I’ve looked God in the face! The King! God-of-the-Angel-Armies!” Then one of the angel-seraphs flew to me. He held a live coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with the coal and said, “Look. This coal has touched your lips. Gone your guilt, your sins wiped out.” And thenI heard the voice of the Master: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?”I spoke up, …
    

… “I’ll go.” Send me!”

It kind of seems rude to comment on such a beautiful piece of prose, so I will try to keep it brief. However, I think that this scripture from Isaiah needs to be meditated upon, over and over again, because  it is just such an incredible, beautiful, scene. 

I don’t care much about angels with 6 wings etc. and what they look like. Some people are kind of obsessed with them – beats me!!  I’ve just never understood why people make such a fuss about angels. I guess they must be spectacular to our human eyes, but, over the years, I have known many people who have done so many searches, as well as research about angels … so I’m kind of over it. Some people seem to see angels everywhere. Me? I see nothing. I am aware however, of times when the Lord has sovereignly intervened in our lives and sent angels to help us. But personally, I’d rather be like Isaiah and see HIM!

When I read something like this from the bible, the very first thing that grabs me is that these angels Isaiah saw were calling out to each other … “Holy, Holy Holy, is God of the Angel-Armies. His bright glory fills the whole earth.” God’s glory is just so magnificent that these two angels can’t help calling out about it! Just pause for a minute and imagine what church would be like if we said things like this to each other… !!! … Yeah, I know it seems kind of old-fashioned, but wow!! Let’s not leave behind the things that are beautiful for the sake of being modern. After all, nobody can look at our wonderful Heavenly Father and not be affected by what they see!  Now there’s a nice little Selah point right there.

Secondly, when Isaiah sees the glory and holiness of the Lord, he becomes painfully aware of his own shortcomings. And he doesn’t mince words either. “I have said so many blasphemous things, and so have the people all around me.” Now that’s conviction! Maybe we need a lot more of that right now, because our society today says anything it wants to. And before either of us draws up our skirts/trousers and says, a bit religiously: “I don’t do that, I don’t talk like that.”  Well here’s a really nasty thought, what do you do when someone else talks like that around you?

The other day when the maintenance man was unpleasant and asked us for a pornography DVD to test out the DVD player, this happened. When I said:“HE wouldn’t like it,” ☝️… the dear man shut up instantly. It was quite funny. Then as the two men were leaving, hubby said that the other fellow working with the maintenance man stuck out his hand, shook it, and looked him right in the eye, said: “Nice to meet you.” My point is you don’t have to come across holier-than-thou to make yourself heard, you can be true to your calling and still be sweet.

Let’s go back to the text… Isn’t it just overwhelmingly glorious that the Lord did not leave Isaiah in that state, where he was utterly bereft before a Holy God. Instead an angel was sent by God to help him. Such love! Did you notice the coal was for his mouth? I did! He’d sinned with his mouth so that needed to be cleansed. Isaiah was a prophet and he spoke a lot for the Lord – people who speak for Him, need to be aware that what they say can be tainted by this world. Just saying is all …

And now we come to today’s punchline … … well you knew we would! …🤣 “I heard the voice of the Master: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?” I spoke up, “I’ll go.” Send me!” —That verse is the reason I write this blog. Almighty God is continually asking that question of each one of us. Wouldn’t it be lovely if everyone who prayed; “I’ll go. Send me…” – actually went! I pray that we are not like the people in that parable Jesus told about a wedding feast … “I can’t come, I just got married, I bought a new house, I have so many commitments I simply cannot come.”  That’s one feast none of us has to miss out on – Jesus made sure of that, personally!

It makes me so sad when people work so hard day after day, for the things they can’t keep. They miss out on the joy and wonder of interacting with the Lord, all the time.The more we live this world’s way, immersed in our daily lives, the further away the Lord becomes. Let’s never forget, we have a Saviour Who cleansed us from all our sins, and that includes the less obvious sins of omission. We have no reason to keep silent anymore…

👋 Bye.

P 2722 Our attitude to making mistakes, matters.

/ DVH

Galatians 2:11-16: “When Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”

These verses show us a number of things. The primary one I want to speak about today, is that this is an example of the way we can sort things out with another believer. Paul spotted Peter’s hypocrisy and said so. He didn’t give into social pressure, instead he called out what he saw, when he saw it. What I understand from that action is — because we love each other, we need to watch each other’s backs, so that none of us miss out on fulfilling our heavenly calling. The thing that matters in what Paul did wasn’t confrontation, it was loving concern for this fledgling church.

The issue Paul mentioned is an important issue. Grace or works?? Unfortunately Peter, the Apostle — fell down the hole of agreeing with something that was not the gospel, because of FEAR. We must note when we read this that Peter was not challenged by anyone of the people who were already around him, instead … he was actually leading others astray. The real subject was not theology – it was GRACE. Was Grace going to lead them?

Sometimes, instead of just accepting the norm, in the name of not being divisive, it becomes necessary to challenge it. This must be done in a true spirit of humility and for God’s glory — not just to elevate or manipulate.The key is that you do it to protect someone else’s back, not because you think you are smarter, more right, or more spiritual than they are. I put those verses here today because they are the kind of verses we can easily read and think … yeah yeah yeah, Peter got it wrong… yada yada yada … meh …Paul is showing us how to deal with error.

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Meanwhile, there is no truth to the rumour that if I do nothing I can’t make mistakes. Doing nothing IS a mistake, unless the Holy Spirit is guiding you. Mistakes aren’t the enemy, fear is, and sometimes fear of making a mistake is an even bigger enemy!  Peter’s personal enemy was often FEAR too. That stuff showed up once in a boat as the disciples were crossing Lake Galilee in a storm. Peter dared to believe he could do what Jesus was doing. He went really well, walking on the water … until the circumstances distracted him and he sank! (There were other instances as well, but I have no room here!)

However, the Holy Spirit transformed this man of God at Pentecost into someone who seized the day, wherever he was. It totally looked like fear had been defeated, but then popped its ugly head up again in today’s story. Fear is like that. It goes away and comes back wearing another hat! This time fear looked like being non-partisan. This stuff often runs many people’s lives and they don’t even know it is happening, because they don’t admit it or recognise it – even to themselves. It will not kill us to be wrong!… Actually it can help us to die to self. We cannot follow Jesus and not die to self. 

We need to realise that dying to self is a lifestyle, not something we visit and walk past. Much later on in his life, Peter says this in 1 Peter 4:8“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”This is the real point. It is not about messing up, it is about the kind of faith that gets up and goes on!. We need to stop hoping that everyone else will make an exception for me in my sad, sorry little life, and man up and start choosing to changing ME! Almighty God’s power has not been weakened by the evil things that have previously happened to us. Read the book!

Peter is someone who I really appreciate. There are times when he has a big mouth and blurts out stuff better left unsaid. We know He made mistakes because he made public mistakes. One of the blessings of Peter’s life for me, is that it was obvious he was not perfect. Paul’s lesson impacts every single one of us. When we leave God’s Love behind, we leave Grace behind. Our attitude to mistakes will rule us if we let it. But let’s always remember that LOVE WILL RULE US FAR MORE EFFECTIVELY.  Bye👋

P 2665 His Way.

/ DVH

There is a way to look at this life that will change our thoughts about how we live our lives, today. The Gospels describe this over and over again. They are not talking about a set of rules, they are talking about the way Godly people view their time on earth and what that looks like. These people don’t consider their time here, belongs to them. They consider whatever time they have, to be HIS. Even if we start to want to understand God’s Ways, that thought will begin the transformation process and change how we perceive this life. 

Listen to Isaiah 48:17: “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, “I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you in the way you should go.” Human beings don’t walk His Way automatically, we need to learn to follow the Holy Spirit and He will teach us the way we should go. Otherwise we will continue to walk in the way which seems right to us! Proverbs 14:12 says:“There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” BTW that verse is repeated in Proverbs 16:25.

When Christ died, there was a possibility released – an exchange. Our sin for Christ’s holiness, purity and clarity of purpose. We cannot participate in that exchange and still live the same way we always have. We need to purpose in our hearts to progressively put aside OUR ways, and actively go after HIS. For example: Jesus Christ chose to die –  now we choose to die, to our old life, and ways, daily. Our aim becomes what Christ wants … what He would do. So we choose to become even more deeply acquainted with the way He does things through reading the bible, prayer, and our actions. As we seek after God’s Ways, we will stop trying to fit the Lord into and around our existing lives.

When we choose to live this life Christ’s way, dedicated to Him, everything around us changes – because WE change. Heaven accompanies His Ways, and so we begin to release the Kingdom of God right here into the earth. Instant miracles are just one of His ways. Those incredible events are not the only Way God does things. Some things happen in our lives over time, simply because we’ve chosen to die to ourselves. This means that we can see that His Way is a wider and far more encompassing stream to enter. It includes digesting His Word and making it part of us, plus taking the time to continually learn to love, and walk, and live like Christ did … He is our example of how we are to live now because we belong to Him..1 John 2:6: “ …the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” 

Jesus Christ called Himself the Way. Jesus Christ is God’s living WAY of saving mankind and changing our lives. Christ’s earthly life reveals what mankind can look like when they follow the Holy Spirit and live the way we’ve been designed to live. In John Chapter 14 we have a brief paragraph that shows that even His disciples were puzzled by what He said – they needed revelation. The Lord Jesus kept on talking about leaving, dying, and stuff they didn’t want to know! Thomas actually says that He has no idea about this Way Jesus talks about. Then Christ makes one of the greatest declarations in the New Testament. in Verse 6. “Jesus answered,“I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” 

Interestingly enough, the early church was also called the Way …that term appears at least six times in the book of Acts. It represented a totally different kind of life – a life surrendered to, and dedicated to God’s glory. These saints of old gave up their lives because the Holy Spirit had given them a revelation that there was a better way to live. To me those early stories illustrate the gap between Christians today, and all of those the Christians who lived and died for Jesus’ sake back then.

Sadly, now we seem to live our lives to suit ourselves, and we try to fit God and His ways in around the edges. But those early Christians chose to completely become acquainted with God’s Ways and they followed Him to their deaths. They left their old ways of thinking, doing, and being, and embraced whatever He told them to do. Because of that they spread the gospel to everyone, everywhere they went.

Isaiah 55:8-9 says:“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.” Our task every single day is to embrace the mystery of following Jesus and learning His ways. The bible also tells us in Isaiah 30:21: “He, your Teacher will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left.” That’s our aim. Our new life is a new WAY to live. Bye.👋

P 2634 Bloom where you are planted.

/ DVH

Jesus Christ was planted on this EARTH, He was planted into a DRY place in a time when nobody understood who He was and why He came. A place where His knowledge of God and His ways, when Christ was twelve, confounded the leaders. But then when they heard Him speak as a grown man they called Him ‘blasphemous.’

His mother heard everything that was said and she kept it in her heart. She knew personally, He was a miracle. However, His family once tried to help Him raise up a publicity campaign to fulfil His God-given directives! 😳 And one other time, His hometown tried to throw Him off a cliff! It seems nobody had a clue Who He really was! People caught a glimpse but they did not comprehend Him. ‘He came unto His own and His own received Him not!’ John 1:11-13.

“My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him. He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.” Isaiah 53:2-3.There was nothing whatsoever about Christ that would make anybody look twice. The Lord Jesus simply looked liked everyone else around Him – Jewish! And right after He was dead, He was planted back into this earth’s dry ground – He was buried in it. Praise God that’s not the end of that story!!

Some of you reading this blog today have been planted in a very dry, unGodly place. Cheer up! The Lord Himself has already gone before you. He knows what that is like, and He knows how to bring that planting, that seedling of His life inside you, into a full grown plant for God’s glory. You and I, we are a blessed people,we have now been planted in fertile heavenly ground by the Spirit of the living God! We are here, right here, right now because there is something that we can do for His Kingdom that is a unique expression of God’s love into this world. But we aren’t here primarily to preach, or teach — first of all we are here to learn to love and live, like He loved and lived. 

WE’VE all been planted INSIDE the passion of Calvary. No dry ground for us!  Incredible passion sent the Lord Jesus to the cross, and passion kept Him there until it was all done. Finished! What He did was so remarkable it left eternally fertile ground!  We can renew our passion by gazing at that cross and realising that ‘I put Him there.’  He loved us all that much. Love is defined by its actions.

Whatever we both did before we met Him was enough to send Him up that awful hill to His death! And He would have done it gladly, just for one of us. Every terrible thing this world has done, went on that cross … and it killed Him. The awful weight of human sin killed Him. Yet we both know that most human beings walk around mindlessly, totally unaware of that great and grave weight in their lives. That stuff squeezed the life and breath out of Jesus’ precious body. 

Our passion for Christ grows as we further understand what we have been GI-V-E-N. We’ve been planted in the warm, fertile, blood-soaked ground of His sacrificial, all-conquering love!  Ain’t NO ground better than that! “He sacrificed Himself for us that He might purchase our freedom from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people who are His very own, passionate to do what is beautiful in His eyes.” Titus 2:14 TPT. “The light of God’s love shined within us when He sent His matchless Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” 1 John 4:9 TPT.

Jesus didn’t just die so we can get on the glory train at the end of our lives and chuff off into heaven! He died to release to each one of us the potential to participate in His earthly ministry. He prepared stuff for us to do before we ever got here. We must pray we find it and do whatever it is, for His glory!

My hope is this, that we would all just stop worrying about who has this gift and who has that one, and run after and concentrate on the thing that every single one of us finds difficult and impossible in our day to day lives. LOVING THE UNLOVELY. We all have people like that –  some of us are so blessed we have a whole bunch of them! They will teach us how to love people like He did – if we let them.Those gifts we run after, will not operate properly without His love – unless you want to spend your life sounding like a brass gong! 

So let’s LIVE this life more and more passionately for Him. Bloom where you are planted – in Christ Jesus! ‘Count yourself dead to sin but alive to Him.’ Romans 6:11. Bye. 👋