God’s plans

P3520 Don’t forget to remember …

/ DVH

“Have you forgotten that your body is now the sacred temple of the Spirit of Holiness, who lives in you? You don’t belong to yourself any longer, for the gift of God, the Holy Spirit, lives inside your sanctuary. You were God’s expensive purchase, paid for with tears of blood, so by all means, then, use your body to bring glory to God!” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 TPT.

“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.” AMP.

Whenever hubby and I are expecting a special guest, we tidy up here and there, preparing food etc. We want our guest to feel comfortable. This verse from Corinthians talks about the most special Guest any of us will ever be asked to host. The Holy Spirit. Because we are God’s people and we love the Spirit of God so much, let’s cherish everything He says to us – remember, we’ve chosen to live and make our lives His home.

The thing is, the Holy Spirit is not bossy, or pushy, or rude – instead, He’s the best kind of guest we will ever know. He’s so sweet and unobtrusive, we can accidentally ignore Him and His wishes. The more we get to know His Ways, the easier it becomes to give Him the key to every single part of our lives. But although we know He is utterly trustworthy — trusting Him, when we cannot see Him or see what He is doing, can be difficult sometimes. It takes faith.

People in the past have looked at verses like this one and they majored on what we need to do to make Him welcome. In my opinion, this attitude is still a bit short of a far better mark. There are things I would never do or say to my family because I know it would hurt them and our relationship. I think this verse is about that too. The marvel of knowing the Holy Spirit is that as we listen to Him speaking to us – when He says: “That’s not a good idea…”  or: “This attitude could hurt that person” … We don’t just get to know what He likes, we get to know Him. Obedience to His Word is the greatest privilege we have ever been given, because this kind of obedience is transformative.

The Holy Spirit made the world. There is nothing He does not know … except the hour, or day when Jesus will appear again — only the Father Himself knows that. BTW, this means that Holy Spirit and Jesus do not know this piece of information! (Matthew 24:36) Astonishing! So when Christians bubble along saying the Lord is nearly here, and this and that, I don’t pay any attention. If Jesus doesn’t know… then how the heck can I know? There are more important things I need to pay attention to. Like fostering relationships with others, and the most important thing of all — walking with the Holy Spirit so our Heavenly Father is glorified.

We dare not forget that the Holy Spirit is the One Jesus sent back to be with us. He’s the One Who knows us better than a spouse, friend, brother, father or mother. Or even … ourselves! Our inner thoughts can fool us into thinking we are something we are not! He’s the One Who knows how to win our enemies, so we can all fight our real enemy, together. I believe that, whether I am here to see it or not, one day we will discover that our enemies are not who we think they are. I think that’s why Jesus told us to love them, because Love prevails, it never fails!

The way we glorify God with our bodies is written down for us in Romans 12:1 GNT: “So then, my friends, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. This is the true worship that you should offer.” After Romans 12:1 comes Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

First we present our bodies, then we renew our minds, and allow them to be washed and cleaned daily by the water of His word. BTW, this kind of washing takes effort. The Lord points something out and then we ask for His help to fix it! The Spirit Himself will teach us how to glorify God in our mortal bodies, but … we’ll probably have to die to self somewhere in there.

So read the bible, do what it says, and let it change your mind – about how “God” things work — because that stuff aids our digestion of His Words. We gave our lives to Him, so our body is now the new temple of God. Galatians 3:20: “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.”

Imagine the practicality of this! Before Jesus came to earth, the temple was in Jerusalem – unless you were born there, you had to travel to go there. Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 21:6. Because of Jesus, and what He did, now you and I have become God’s travelling temples. That’s a huge thought as well as an incredible privilege! As Christians we are destined to carry the Holy Spirit everywhere we go. That’s our birthright. The only thing that stops us is our ignorance. Other people don’t have to go looking for God, because if we become what we have been redeemed to become … the searching ones will see Him IN US.

WE are His temple. We are His Holy stones knit together and held together by His love. What is on the old temple’s site right now is merely a building! Let’s stop glorifying buildings, and start glorifying the One Who died for all of us, so we can begin to be a forever kind of building. Fighting over property lines, boundaries etc. is a waste of time because … people are Jesus’ true real estate. “Have you forgotten…???” … “Don’t you know….???” Let’s not ever forget to remember our part in God’s plans. Bye. 🙌

P 3362 Grapes anyone?

/ DVH

It can be so helpful as we are learning to abide in Christ, to read what He says in a number of different versions of the bible. As I have said many times, it is not the words on the page – it is what the Holy Spirit wants to do with them, in us, as we let Him use them to touch our hearts! He wants to open the eyes of our hearts, which have become closed off and darkened by life’s difficulties, broken promises, and lost dreams we’ve had that have not reached fruition. Here is the same verse in three different versions.

John 15:1-3:“I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of Me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing He prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.”MSG.”He breaks off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and He prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it will be clean and bear more fruit.” GNB. “Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit [that stops bearing] He cuts away (trims off, takes away); and He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit.” AMP.

To be fruitful we need to be open to pruning and shaping. The Holy Spirit is the One Who knows our story from beginning to end so He’s a safe Person to do it. That’s what staying connected to and being a part of the Vine means – daily we choose to trust in His faithfulness, no matter what is going on around us. It’s not just about growing fruit, instead it is an illustration of our place in God’s plans. He does all the work, and we relax (rest!) and simply stay connected to His Spirit in us. We learn to obey Him and daily value that connection above everything else.

We don’t have a grape vine at our house. Sadly I have been put off all vine-like plants, because we bought a Wisteria. I fell in love with the beautiful flowers that hang down and smell so sweet, but … they only bloom for about ten seconds!  I didn’t read about the fact that Wisterias are a big pest that are trying, bit by bit — with their delicate little innocent tendrils — to take over the entire world! Forget aliens – at our house we have WISTERIA!

If you simply must have this gorgeous plant then my advice is that you plant it in a very large pot in the middle of a gigantic slab of concrete. AND WATCH IT VE-RY CAREFULLY. It loves to roam about when you are not looking. It needs careful pruning, because it has a mind of its own … a little like people, really. Back to the Lord’s illustration about grapevines. Grapevines produce fruit… unlike my wisteria which simply makes loads of leaves and some very pretty flowers once or twice a year.

This illustration Jesus gave us about a grapevine is not just some random word picture, it is a complex and beautiful thing that clearly explains what Christ is still doing for us in our lives. By choosing His ways over our own, we are choosing to stay attached to what He has already done for us. This will allow His love and truth to flow through us, it will correct our growth, help us to be strong and grow in the ways HE wants us to go. We will stay connected to His very life in us. 

We start ‘abiding.’ “IF you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:7.Our prayers will change, our aims will change as we let His sap influence and nourish every part of our lives. But if we become distracted and disconnected, we can become like my very beautiful wisteria, lovely to look at, but it wanders around aimlessly choking out the life of other plants. Without attachment to Him, you and I will become fruitless. However, the Master Vinedresser won’t cut us off the vine, He will prune us. Thank You Jesus for Your Grace.

Otherwise we can easily wander far away from His purposes, and end up where we shouldn’t be, because we have neglected to let His sap flow through us, and produce healthy cells that will promote His spiritual life in us. They will, of course, at the right season, produce His fruit. Nonetheless, He will still prune us! Pruning is not the same as chopping off dead lifeless branches that need to be thrown away, it is a necessary discipline that facilitates further reproduction. Like my wisteria, all those signs of life need to be channelled into producing something that is tamed and beautiful – all at the same time.

So things, people, situations in our lives, can and will change. And at the time, it seems like the end of the world … but it isn’t. It is the Lord doing what He promised He would do. Making us more fruitful. Father God is not just interested in just a couple of handfuls of nice sweet grapes, HE WANTS A HARVEST! And just like a viticulturist or vinedresser knows exactly where to cut the new growth back and prune off the branches that are going nowhere — God Himself knows where and when to remove things in our lives that are going to hinder our fruitful production. 

So when a door to something you love closes, I want to encourage everyone today to start thanking Him. The Holy Spirit is our Vine Dresser and He has our best interests in His heart. Pruning means He is active on the Vine, and we will see the benefits. I have watched the Lord take people I dearly loved and thought I really needed out of my life. And at the time there was much wailing and groaning going at my end! It was a bit like finding out our errant wisteria was merrily flourishing inside our roof and under our house! Not. Happy. Jan! 

But afterward, I saw that some people took up my time because they saw me as their source of comfort, and visa versa, I saw them that way too – not the Lord Himself. It was in everyone’s best interests for them to be taken away … so we could both learn His ways from Him. If we want others to eat His sweet juicy grapes, then we need to pay attention to the process that will foster His kind of growth. We have to learn to abide and trust Him. Bye.👋

P 2918 Know your place.

/ DVH

It is a very valuable thing to know your place in God’s plans. Who you are, and who you are not. Listen to the genuine humility in what John the Baptist says in John 1:19-23. “Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, “No.” Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

John had absolutely no problem with his role in God’s kingdom, and yet he had a lot to brag about! To start with, He was born under extraordinary circumstances. His parents were childless and too old to have children when God announced his arrival. This young man looked and lived differently, he was totally devoted to God’s purposes. He practically vibrated with passion for God’s ways. John was the youngest witness ever-recorded in the bible. He jumped up and down for joy, inside his mum, when his mother met Mary, who was carrying Jesus Christ inside her at the time.

This young man knew his place – he simply did whatever God told him to do when the Lord told him to do it. His entire life was devoted to preaching repentance. It still blows my mind that he had a huge personal claim to fame, after all – he baptised Jesus!!  Imagine – he could have founded the “I baptised Jesus movement!” Yet he never once traded on what he did, he simply was obedient to his own calling. Sadly this poor guy got his head cut off because he called sin SIN! Something we all seem loathe to do nowadays.

Today everyone seems to want a big glorious ministry – to be seen and known. While others have given up on any ministry because they don’t seem to be spiritually extraordinary enough. Where are the John the Baptists amongst us? The men and women who know their place and faithfully and humbly stand in what they were given to do. We live in a culture that says that we should become famous, so we can make the Lord’s Name famous. Like HE needs our help!! I love the scripture below, because it smacks ambition right on the head – hard!

“For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what’s the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle…”1 Corinthians 4:7 MSG.

Another version says: “What do you have that was not given to you?”  Our answer to that should always be … nothing. Not one blooming thing. I’ve had 3 children, and I know each one was a gift from God. I also live in a safe place – the Lord gave me that too. Some other Christians live in anti-Christ cultures and they live with great fear. Because they know Jesus, and they love Him, but the Lord is not welcome in their country.They are living like His salt in a deadly stew, fearing a knock on their door.  

Looking at this world all around us and realising what we have been given, introduces gratitude and a sense of place and purpose. The pressure is off, we don’t all have to be big time evangelists … some of us live ordinary lives faithfully serving an extraordinary God! Yesterday hubby explained the gospel to a lady who had never ever heard it before. She asked what the gospel of John was about, and he left her reading the bible for the first time. Our faith has been designed to be active and vibrant — as well as love-filled and dripping in compassion. That’s the only criteria. Fame brings its own pitfalls.

Some of us get to practice love on people who have absolutely no idea or understanding of what they have been freely given. Many saints weep into their pillows in fervent prayer, because they know the fate of others around them. You and I might pass these people on the street and we wouldn’t even know that we are passing one of Christ’s passionate unknown soldiers.

Ambition is a deadly trap. The person imprisoned by it can never do enough, there always has to be more – preferably bigger and brighter. For these poor souls trapped-by-extraordinary-visible-results, the joy of salvation can be lost in the anguish of not-being-effective-enough. Or the need to have recognition. We must find our own place, and start being active and obedient to our heavenly calling — where He put us. Here’s a very old hymn, many may have sung in their childhood that reminds us of that calling:

“Jesus bids us shine with a pure clean light, like a little candle burning in the night. In this world of darkness, so we must shine – you in your small corner and I in mine!”   Bye … 👋.