Govern

P 3105 Take regular BATHS in the Holy Spirit.

/ DVH

Isaiah 42:1TPT. “Take a good look at My Servant. I’m backing Him to the hilt. He’s the One I chose, and I couldn’t be more pleased with Him. I’ve bathed Him with my Spirit, my life. He’ll set everything right among the nations. He won’t call attention to what He does with loud speeches or gaudy parades. He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and He won’t disregard the small and insignificant, but He’ll steadily and firmly set things right. He won’t tire out and quit. He won’t be stopped until He’s finished His work—to set things right on earth. Far-flung ocean islands wait expectantly for His teaching.”

As you can see, Jesus is our highly recommended example of submission. Plus He is our perfect illustration of how to have a permanent, total loving connection, at all times with our Heavenly Father. He was not interested in publicity, or fame, He is always drawn to those people our society deems unlovely, broken, nasty, and unredeemable. Let us realise that legislating tolerance is not the same as loving acceptance. Father God’s will for our lives is loving acceptance. The Lord Jesus gave His all to obey His Father’s wishes so we could be accepted. 

Meanwhile, doesn’t the whole being bathed in the Spirit thing sound lovely??!! You and the Holy Spirit splashing away, having fun together! Hmmm. Way back in the ark we took baths to get rid of dirt. Are you still there? God’s grace, together with the Holy Spirit, will help us to deal with the stuff we’ve been ignoring, or overlooking because that pile of junk seems too hard and too big to tackle. But first we need to realise we need a bath! To get rid of dirt, grime, hypocrisy, jealousy, rage, and revenge, etc. – we need to regularly take a bath in the Living Water of HIS WORD. 

Our God is so good to us. He will always use His Word to encourage us when we are down, to free us when we are trapped, and to wash us when we are dirty. The following verse in Ephesians 5:26 talks about what the Word of God does in us and for us. “Husbands, you must love your wives so deeply, purely, and sacrificially that we can understand it only when we compare it to the love the Anointed One has for His bride, the church. We know He gave Himself up completely to make her His own, washing her clean of all her impurity with water and the powerful presence of His Word.”

There’s a bonus buy in this verse for husbands who are prepared to listen to it — if you follow the Lord’s advice in this verse you will have a happy wife. The advice is this: be like Jesus to your wife. That could keep some people busy until the next millennia!  And, ya might want to read that last sentence again and remind yourself that we will always need His help! Go to the gospels and see how the Lord Himself treated women. It is a sad fact that in the past men were only too happy to lead, but they kind of skipped the whole deeply, purely and sacrificially bit – not to mention love their wives the way Jesus loved the church!

A-n-y-w-ay! … Back to my real point today – deliberately deciding to take a daily bath in His Word. We can read verses like this, nod our heads and  agree with what it says, and still privately think …‘this stuff was written long, long ago, how can it be relevant today?’ The truth is it won’t be relevant unless you choose to make it relevant. Our personal decisions govern what we participate in. If we sow into the flesh—what we feel, or what we think might happen—we won’t even begin to see a harvest in the Spirit. The way to see what the Lord will do with obedience … is to decide to be obedient and get on with it.

Many of this world’s ideas are the exact opposite of our stated desire to be transformed and changed into the Lord’s likeness. You simply can’t walk with the Holy Spirit and disagree with the Way He does things! Father God is so good, He will not cross our wishes. However, what He has done is to provide us with opportunities to change our minds and turn around and go back into submission. Submission means our human mission becomes subordinate to His Heavenly mission. It means that He knows better than we do what we actually want and need – mankind is ruled by its appetites. God has a better plan, because of the Grace Jesus released at Calvary, the Holy Spirit can and will guide and lead us into His Ways.

Like I’ve said many times before – Jesus overpaid our debt. Now we have a bank of Grace that we can draw on, anytime, anywhere … under any circumstances… it is there to help us change! “…ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you …”  The problem is people have bashed on the door of this verse for years now to get stuff that they think they want or need. Things like expensive cars, houses, boats, trips overseas etc.etc.

This verse about asking was used to illustrate to us that we can have the Holy Spirit’s help anywhere, any time. Jesus is talking about receiving, welcoming and being helped by the Holy Spirit, not about me being given a new Porsche! When we allow God’s Word to wash us clean, our motivations become clean too. Let me put it this way – every interaction with His Presence changes us. If we mean it when we say,‘create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me,’  then we must choose to engage with His ways. Taking regular baths in the Holy Spirit means bearing in mind that we are looking to be clean — not just tick a box! That will change our hearts and transform our minds. Bless you. 👋

P 3041 Blame and shame …

/ DVH

… the destructive twins. Those thieves take our peace and joy away and leave us with angst and worry. They make poor governors of our behaviour. They can be aimed at ourselves, as well as others. When we are caught up in this way of thinking, we move right out of operating in Grace, because blame and shame thrive on guilt. And guilt distracts us from the reality of our salvation. 

If our enemy cannot get us to sin, he wants to keep our minds so focussed on our shortcomings, or someone else’s quirks, that we can barely spiritually breathe. The more we allow these thought patterns to rule the less we will love ourselves or others. I have come to the conclusion that who I really am is the person who comes out when I am squeezed by circumstances. That thought has helped me enormously to be realistic about my actions and attitudes, without being obsessive. Instead I confess my faults and He heals me! I don’t have to be afraid to admit my shortcomings, because the Lord has taken care of them. Now I can happily give thanks because of the Grace He releases to me, and through me. 

Sadly, everything we say and do can be disguised to look good to others, by using our own good manners. However, those things do not come from the fruit of the Spirit, but from our own will and our own personal sense of how this life is meant to work. I often spiritually fall over someone else’s lack of manners, because mine were dinged into me from birth! Those things immediately send me spiralling off into judgment. Good manners are great, but spiritual fruit is permanent. It can be eaten. That fruit slowly ushers in spiritual growth, health and transformation, and when you take a bite out of it, it won’t bite you back!

We have His help, always. But we can become so used to acting, or even reacting, without any thought, we can miss those crucial moments to yield. The Holy Spirit is our 24/7, on the spot, Helper. He wants to help us transform our inner attitudes so what comes out is really IN there! Sadly, in many congregations it is almost easier to give a performance of good, than it is to face our short-comings realistically.

If you have lived most of your Christian life on a steady diet of religion, trying to manufacture in your own strength what our kingdom lives need to look like — that can be an enormous weight. We can feel such a failure all the time, because all we can see is fault. Blame and shame love to jump on that bandwagon. So if I feel down, you must have done something wrong, so it’s your fault!! I have discovered that the more I oppress my true self, the more likely I am to hide my faults, and focus on yours.  It is like a being on a merry-go-round I cannot get off! Now I have an image to keep up! 

Letting God into our intimate thoughts and inner self can be incredibly daunting. Some of us don’t let anybody in there! Instead we have constructed ‘devices’ to distract ourselves from paying attention to what is going on inside. Maybe we are afraid of blame or shame. That’s often when our awareness of what Jesus did for us has become dim, and remote— then we try to hide from the One Who already loves and knows us. Jonah is a brilliant example of that kind of thinking in action! He hid in the bottom of a ship because the Lord’s idea did not appeal to Him, he blamed God Himself for wanting to save Nineveh. Yet Paul has several instances where he openly admits they had one idea, and the Holy Spirit had another! It’s OK to be wrong, just be honest about it.

For most of us God’s Love is a strong concept, yet to be deeply experienced. It is not a deep seated reality. We can devotedly read the bible with this awful feeling that we will always fall short, and sadly that can lead to blaming and shaming ourselves, or even to putting others down, because they seem to be successful, and we’re not. At the same time, some of us have learnt to be really great actors! That’s why I love reading the gospels, because the disciples foibles and dumb attitudes give me room to be myself – real, inadequate and normal. I know I need a Saviour!

Religion blames and shames people, and that produces fear, rejection, and pain for everyone involved. The Pharisees and their mates didn’t understand where the Lord Jesus was coming from, and yet they knew the bible, backwards, and inside out. They were the leaders, so they made a visible practice of knowing everything  from every direction. Just like they did back then, a religious bent can colour the way we look at His Word, and affect how we live our lives and regard other people. Blaming parents seems to be a national past-time! ‘They smacked me too much, or they used shame to govern me.” Blame is blame no matter why or where we aim it. I comfort myself that I had a childish mind back then – but I don’t have to have one now!

The fullness that belongs to every single one of the Lord’s kids will always seem out of reach if we continue to wrestle with religious stuff. God loves real people who make real mistakes!  I have noticed a couple of things about blame and shame … if you have lived with it in the past, those terrible twins seem to nag at you in subtle ways in the present, and you are more likely to fall into that pattern of thinking again, as well as reflecting it to others, especially under pressure. Let the oppressed go free – them and me!! Praise God for His Grace.

Bye. 👋

In Romans 1:16 Paul declares,“I am not ashamed of the gospel,”and Isaiah 54:4, which promises, “Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame.”And 2 Timothy 1:12: “But I am not ashamed, for I know Whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.”

P 2832 Get ready to be stretched.

/ DVH

Years ago, a young fellow who had no family and would have been all alone for Christmas, joined us for Christmas lunch.  And when he started in on his third helping of a heaped plate, we started to suspect something was amiss. In those days we didn’t know a lot about the munchies, but the evidence spoke for itself, so we sort of kind of figured it out. The sad part was his everyday behaviour was often all over the place, even though he was part of the leadership team, yet nobody had ever noticed that this poor kid was hooked on Marijuana!

Did you know that in Proverbs 11:25, it says: “A generous person will prosper; Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” Today I want to present what I think could be an interesting idea. Ask someone who lives a lonely life, to Christmas lunch. Have you ever prayed: “Lord please show me something I can do for You?” Well, asking someone you don’t know very well to join you and your family for lunch at this time of the year could open a door to deeper relationships and possibilities, and it just might stretch you … all at the same time. Plus, bonus buy, everyone could make a new friend.

Over the years our family has learnt to have an elastic house. One year a young person slept on a fold-away-bed in our lounge, because his family had chucked him out. This dear young man could break things better than a compactor, but he was the most sweetly natured person. Eventually, after he left us, he matured, he married and now he is a plumber. Only heaven knows why his folks chucked him out – he was a great kid! Having him live with us was totally inconvenient, we lived in a tiny cottage, and we had to move his bed whenever we wanted to watch TV!  Plus at that time I was as sick as I could be. The immediate years post-liver transplant were not fun. But helping out people who were virtually homeless brightened up all our lives. Living an extra-ordinary life is challenging, but the rewards outweigh the negative bits. Especially retrospectively. 🤣

The thing we’ve noticed is that we can’t afford to let our own circumstances, govern our generosity. Back then, our lives were made so much richer by the people who came to live with us … even at the worst of physical and financial times – by God’s Grace we all managed. Father God is not trying to interrupt our carefully planned existence … He wants to enrich us. Other people and their unusual ways of thinking, being, and doing, will stretch us and bring us out into that bigger place mentioned in Isaiah 54:2.“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.”

We can pray that scripture for ourselves, and then wait for Him to do it for us until we are blue in the face, but the truth is, WE must learn to stretch our tents open and take risks… It is blatantly obvious that this kind of stuff is supernaturally natural, because Jesus Himself told us that when we do these things:“…for the least of these…”we are doing them for Him! Hands up anyone who wants to minister to the Lord? OK, you have your instructions. 

Just settle in your heart that it will be inconvenient, and put stuff away if you don’t want it broken! Actually, the surest way to discover the things that we are unreasonably attached to, is to have someone else break them! I learnt that the hard way!!  BUT … no matter what, we cannot lose, because of what we win… “Everything … everything … EVERYTHING … works together for our good, … for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.”

His purpose is to find willing vessels to fill with the Holy Spirit’s love and power! He doesn’t need experts — Jesus Himself chose ordinary  fishermen, a taxman, a former prostitute to be His followers  I mean, did you ever ask yourself Who taught Peter to speak like he did  in the book of Acts? The Holy Spirit did! The Lord is not looking for perfection – He doesn’t have to, He already is!

Like I said before, we will have to stretch ourselves to find His purpose for our lives. Remember, Jesus was homeless,  because there was no room at the inn. To me that means that you will never know who you could be taking in! Maybe a homeless angel, or a lost kid whose life was so painful he had to smoke his way through it. 

I think the poor are so poor, they have no time or energy for pretending, they are simply trying to survive. From a distance, it is easy to be put off by how they look … but God sees people clearly, He knows exactly who they are. We’ve found that poor people don’t need to be convicted of sin, when they are confronted with His Loving holiness, they know. The poor are easier to save than middle class people who think they are mostly pretty OK. 

Christianity is neither a hobby or a part-time job … it’s a life well lived. It’s a life lived the way Jesus would live it. I exhort you to begin to stretch your home and take in someone who might have Christmas dinner alone – or maybe even a bed for somebody who needs a safe place to sleep. That’s the way to get elastic houses. Bye. 👋 

P 2756 Don’t let distraction fool you.

/ 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.

One of the most common stumbling blocks to living our life of faith is distraction. Our lives can be so busy, we get overcome by everything that is going on around us. We are blessed with wonderful leaders and people who want to inspire us, but sadly, even the people we admire, and cherish their words – or buy their books, or listen to their podcasts, etc. can trip us up. What someone else thinks about what the bible says contributes insight – if you want insightful inspiration for your own life, you will have to go after that for yourself.

There are no shortcuts to a relationship with Almighty God. The only proxy we need is Jesus – and He sent us His Spirit to help us. We dare not put any other person in His place. Each of us needs personal time with the Holy Spirit and His book. My advice is this, don’t cherish anyone else’s words above HIS. His words have His power in them! When we love and read His word for ourselves, and think about it – it is harder to be led off by our own imagination. So when things bump into us and turn the world on its head, we will know how to handle them – or where to go to find out!

Secondly, not every thought we personally think is worth keeping! Look at it this way – if you were the other guy – wouldn’t you throw the odd tempting ugly thought into people’s minds? That guy is the most dangerous being in this world. he tells us stuff that is from the pit — smelling of temptation, full of hatred, half-truths and prejudice and he tells us that these are our thoughts and we must act on them.Our minds can be an escape room, where nobody else can see or hear what goes on in there. The bible says: everything that is hidden will one day be shouted from the rooftops…Jesus Christ has stamped us with His stamp of approval – let’s live this life gratefully paying attention to Him instead.

Realistically speaking, I think that sin starts in our minds.  And sometimes those seemingly random thoughts, can be thrown in by our enemy as he sneaks by us, these things can be disguised as normal. The antidote against any despicable thoughts, or even some peculiar thoughts that seem a little bit off! –  Is God’s Word. When we know what the Lord thinks, we have comfort when we need comfort, we have security when we need security, we have unconditional love permanently. Now these are some thoughts that are worth holding on to.

Amazingly, our bible is what Almighty God thinks, in writing! How blessed are we? If we don’t know, or can’t remember personally what God thinks, we have a book full of what He has said. This book is not just about what He said to us, but it shows Him interacting with other human beings who are fragile, easily distracted, just like us. In His Word we have written truthful testimonies as to what our God is like, and how He interacts with other people. They are an example of how to take captive any thoughts that could lead us away from following Christ. Or they clearly show us what happens when we don’t!

The Holy Spirit’s kind of thinking helps us to relax into God’s love, rest there, and allow Him to lead us in the way we should go. His lovers LIVE to obey Him. Our affections govern our minds and hearts, and eventually, our behaviour. Listen to this scripture and think on it: “So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23 TPT. Here’s some great questions to ask yourself regularly: “How is my spirit doing? How is my heart?” I am not talking about how I’m feeling. But have I got peace on the inside? Even if worry is clanging away inside my head – it doesn’t have to torment me. The bible gives me a sword to deal with that stuff.

I heard this recently and it made me laugh … and then I sighed…  all at the same time. Truth does that to me! Someone said this about today’s world: “I had a vision of the Bride of Christ walking down the aisle toward Jesus, her Bridegroom. He was standing at the altar smiling, His eyes burning with love for His bride. And … suddenly … ’here comes the bride’ … She’s stunning, beautiful. Dressed in the finest, purest white, embroidered silk, her hair shiny, and her skin is like smooth satin.

As she progressed down the aisle a strange buzzing was heard. The bride reached into a pocket in her beautiful dress, and pulled out her phone. She stopped walking, and started talking to the person on the other end of the phone. After that, she checked her Instagram, took some selfies, and posted a photo of how she looked on Facebook! Meanwhile, Jesus our passionate bridegroom was still waiting for her to come to Him. He was waiting for the affection of her heart to turn toward Him.” 

My immediate response is to ask myself – am I like that bride in the vision, so distracted by this life, by the every day stuff going on? Or am I trying to find out how many people are watching me?  Do I seek everyone else’s opinion of my life but HIS? It is later than we think. We cannot afford to let our distracted ways of thinking get in the way. Our Bridegroom is waiting for us.  Bye. 💕

P 2652 Dead, dead, dead, dead DEAD. All dead!

/ DVH

Romans 7:4-6: “So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to Another, to Him Who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”

Because I am dead, as a result of my own free-will choices, the law is no longer there to govern me or my behaviour. Instead, I have been given the ability to understand Almighty God’s heart toward sin. Sin separates us … from each other and from the Lord! So now, as I obey the things He tells me to do, those things get written inside my heart.

We simply must get away from the idea that this life is meant to be pain free, carefree and successful… tra-lah-lah, pink rosebuds, rainbows and fairy floss moments… That is a LIE. It leads to disappointment. But because we cherish reading and obey His book, now we’ve changed our minds about difficulties. We come from the place that says that God is answering our prayers to be transformed. By His Grace, we have been given opportunities to make Godly decisions instead, so we can be vessels for His use, to glorify Him. 

Jesus Himself said: “In this world you will have trials …” Did you get that? We WILL have trials! It’s normal! However, you and I are so incredibly blessed, because the Holy Spirit lives inside us – He will convict and convince us of sin, to help us grow. He loves to help us to “…be of good cheer ‘ …(because we have the very same Spirit that Jesus followed) “…He will overcome the world!” That means that Holy Spirit will come alongside me to steer me through those difficulties.

The circumstances thrown at us in this life are great at st-ret-ch-ing us, so that we can hold more of His goodness, grace, mercy, love and peace etc. inside! And the Holy Spirit Himself will help me change the habits, internal thinking, attitudes, and actions that were in my life before Christ saved me. Sin needs to be put to death when I see it in me. I willingly kill it off with repentance, by humbling myself and admitting my faults … preferably to other people … as well as making sincere reparation.

Now, I ask the Holy Spirit, my precious Helper, to help me. Then I watch out for opportunities to change my responses. I CHOOSE TO DIE because I understand that JESUS CHOSE TO DIE FOR ME. My life is now lived constantly being refreshed and coming alive to the Holy Spirit, and His ways;  as well as putting to death the things I discover within my heart that highlight what the law has revealed to me as SIN. 

With God’s help I am learning what is actually inside my own heart. That stuff has been hidden away as a personal means of protection – but now I know HE will protect me! The Holy Spirit reveals to me when my attitudes and actions are out of order with what Christ would do. I have learnt that the only way to prosper my soul is to let go and believe He is holding everything that matters in my life – no matter what appears to be going on. The Holy Spirit doesn’t send me hard times, — those difficulties are just a part of everyday life!!  Sin has consequences, for all of us – your sin, my sin, everybody’s sin has consequences!

BTW, I am not reaching for the best version of myself, I am reaching toward the goal that Jesus set before me – TO BE LIKE HIM. Jesus Christ’s heart and His attitudes were totally pure. Personally, I can’t trust my own attitudes, thoughts and actions, because my own heart will excuse me, as well as deceive me, and it will probably blame YOU. This can be a difficult process because I don’t much like discovering there are things in my heart that are not pointed toward the Lord. These are the things that I’ve taken the time to excuse and hide, so I won’t feel bad about myself. But I don’t have to feel bad about myself anymore! SomeBody Else paid the enormous cost to give me the opportunity to change and renew my mind and heart. 

However, I will have to apply myself to listening, watching and reflecting on what I do, as well as why I do it. Plus I will need other people to help me, because my own discernment is not trustworthy. It will excuse me. Listening to others is essential because it is too easy to lie to myself and make legitimate-sounding excuses to stay the same, and remain comfortable. It is extremely dangerous to brush aside or not pay attention to anything that I am told. If I brush conviction away, because I am embarrassed or ashamed— I will harden my own heart against the very Person Who came to redeem me. 

If I blame YOU, or my parents, or my upbringing or my spouse, or a garden gnome (!!) for my failures in these areas, I am out of order because the Law of LOVE always applies. I need to keep that uppermost in my mind. . I need to choose to live this life dead, dead, etc. … ALL DEAD … but alive to HIM! 👋