Grac e

P 2549 We are His radiators!

/ DVH

“Now may God, the fountain of hope, fill you to overflowing with uncontainable joy and perfect peace as you trust in Him. And may the power of the Holy Spirit continually surround your life with His super-abundance until you radiate with hope!”Romans 15:13 TPT. OK so I am still kind of stuck on hope … mainly because hope kicks open doors to other qualities. My best advice is go and stand in that fountain in Romans 15 – and don’t step out. Stay IN the water of the Word, let it wash over you as it cleans out your thinking. 

We sing songs about the fountain of God and claim that we have a river of life flowing out through us … and  …then go out act just like the rest of the world that surrounds us. It is time to remember that these people around us have no hope! Let’s make it our goal to go and stand in that fountain of hope, every day. And remind ourselves:  “I’ve been saved, I’m no longer in the kingdom of darkness that I see every single day – I’m now in the Kingdom of marvellous His light!”  Then start looking for His bright shafts of light all around you, shining through other people and even our difficult situations. We have unfortunately become so adept at finding faults:  in ourselves, in the system, in the way we live, as well as in others. Let’s look for His light instead.

Letting the Lord’s love flow into and over us, means we will begin to automatically overflow with joy and peace. You and I have been given all the riches of heaven. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, we’ve been given everything as a product of His Grace. So let’s go out and live in the light of all Jesus did for us. That’s when we will start to radiate hope toward others. You can tell when you’ve moved house from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His marvellous light – other people notice your behaviour has changed and say so.  Standing in His fountain means that the water flowing over you will eventually overflow… into joy. However, focus matters. Our focus on Him can lead us back into the light so we can stand again in His fountain.

Look, it is easy to just kind of file our salvation under that happened back then, and instead be distracted right now by things like;  ‘life is hard and I’m struggling with this and that!‘ The answer to any situation is always the cross. We must choose to decide He died for whatever happened this time — whether it is your sin, or mine against you — and then we pick up our own cross and keep on following Him. Picking up our cross means we own it. We don’t hide from the bad things, we let His light in instead. The Lord Jesus solved everything right there.✝️  Never move past the cross! 

The cross is the reason we die daily, plus it’s our motivation for change. The cross is the symbol of everything He did for us. It seems to me that we have anchored our hope into the wrong place. We have anchored our hope into everything going well. So when things go wrong, we can even think that somehow we aren’t walking with the Lord anymore. That can’t happen – He will not leave us or forsake us. But WE can easily be deceived into walking away from living in the light. Darkness never announces itself … it creeps over us quietly, shifting our focus and attitudes toward others. SIN KILLS HOPE. Sinlessness is not IN us, it’s IN HIM.

We’ve been born again to be His radiators, reflecting His life, His hope, His love, His warmth into everywhere we go. I have learnt that it is ME that needs to change. I am not always that person that other people meet, living on my nicest politest behaviour and smiling through pain etc. Polite does not carry the Presence of God – unconditional love and truth do! Sadly, I am still sometimes the person who shouts at my dear husband, uses sarcasm way too much, or yells at the poor sod on the other end of the phone who is just trying to do their job. But the reality is that’s actually no longer ME. Now I have a choice. Now I carry within me the potential for change. I have been born again, now I have God’s DNA.

When pressed beyond belief, Jesus Christ didn’t retaliate – He radiated God’s Grace and Love. My life is no longer about pleasing ME, and making me happy, it is about pleasing HIM!  Hope will start to die unless it is regularly fed by visiting the cross and looking at the One Who made a way for us to live differently. When we choose to die to self, we too will begin to radiate Christ everywhere we go.  👋

P 2218 Don’t give up!

/ DVH

I want to talk a little bit about seemingly unanswered prayers today. In my lifetime, by the Grace of God only – I have learnt that I don’t have to see something to believe it is true. There are all sorts of illustrations from the bible, of ordinary people who loved God and followed Him. They were just like me. But there have been times when I have been greatly disappointed because my prayers appeared to lay about like limp lettuce leaves. Sadly, the result of chronic sickness is that it takes over this life, and you can start to have a sickness mentality. That becomes a battle all by itself. Plus your faith can take a heck of a beating.

However, I know, that I know, that our God answers our prayers. His book is filled with testimonies on that subject from an unbelievable variety of people. I have chosen to learn to take His Word over my experiences – but that doesn’t mean I don’t wrangle with my feelings on a difficult day! One day, I know I will be healed, up there or down here. But for this moment, I will just keep on asking – and thanking Him. I have learnt that my disappointment does not cancel out His promises. That’s like an ant trying to wrestle an elephant. It’s.Not.Gunna.Happen! 

Jesus Himself told us to: “Ask and keep on asking, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.” The saddest thing we can do when we pray about something, or someone, and nothing appears to change, is to give up our belief about the Lord’s Character just because of that unanswered prayer. He loves us. Our God always does things for our good, let’s add to that our hope that He is always listening to us. “… He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”  So my exhortation today is that we need to keep going after the impossible, and don’t give up!

Our human limitations abound, but HE has no limitations and He is not deaf. We must never ever stop our pursuit of Him, so we can deepen our understanding of Who He is. There is always more we can learn about our Heavenly Father, and the way He does things. Just because some prayers we’ve prayed seem to have led to a dead end, that does not mean we should give up. Jesus Himself told us to press IN and keep ON keeping on. “Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” Luke 18:1-8.

Meanwhile, if our human relationships are worthy of careful attention and passion – just imagine how much more our relationship with Almighty God is worth! We are His people, and He is always worthy of our attention, passionate love and prayers. He loves to care and provide for us, and that love IS His nature. However, I also know, personally, that when our hope is deferred, it can make our hearts sick. That’s a good place to ask for His help. Total dependance upon the Lord and His mercy is not a weakness or a character flaw – we can rely upon Him to always do what is good, right and profitable in our lives. 

Right now whilst you are reading this – you could be ill, or injured, or something bad has happened to the people you love. Perhaps you are estranged from someone, or you are living in constant fear, or you have major difficulties in your life and you’ve tipped over into despair. Awful things do happen – ‘the rain falls on the just and the unjust.’ However, these circumstances are not God’s punishment. When Jesus died on that cross humanity entered a new Era. The Grace Era. The hard things are simply part of this imperfect life we live.

First of all, please don’t beat yourself up over your flagging faith. Simply ask for our loving Saviour’s help to move past your despair … there are days that I have to pray like that one minute at a time. However, today, I wrote this to remind you that He has heard you and He is not ignoring your desperate cries. I can’t possibly explain the situation you find yourself in or even the delay, but I know the Saviour, He brought Lazarus out of that grave and He has heard your prayers. Hold onto that.

Lastly, I want to say to those who are suffering: please don’t give up. “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.” Hebrews 10:35. At this very minute, Jesus is praying for us, and the Holy Spirit is praying too, that our faith won’t fail. I want to remind everyone that we always need to continue to ‘ask and keep on asking’ and we must not give up and faint –  “…because in due time we will receive our reward.” (See Galatians 6:9-10.)  Bless you and bye for today. 🙏