Grace

P 3068 We have an inheritance.

/ DVH

“For in His wisdom, God designed that all the world’s wisdom would be insufficient to lead people to the discovery of Himself. He took great delight in baffling the wisdom of the world by using the simplicity of preaching the story of the cross in order to save those who believe it. But for those who have been chosen to follow Him, both Jews and Greeks, He is God’s mighty power, God’s true wisdom, and our Messiah. For the “foolish” things of God have proven to be wiser than human wisdom. 

And the “feeble” things of God have proven to be far more powerful than any human ability. But God chose those whom the world considers foolish to shame those who think they are wise, and God chose the puny and powerless to shame the high and mighty. He chose the lowly, the laughable in the world’s eyes—nobodies—so that He would shame the somebodies. 

For He chose what is regarded as insignificant in order to supersede what is regarded as prominent, so that there would be no place for prideful boasting in God’s presence. For it is not from man that we draw our life but from God as we are being joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. And now He is our God-given wisdom, our virtue, our holiness, and our redemption.” 1 Corinthians 1:21, 24-25, 27-30 TPT.

God’s Wisdom cannot be accessed through our puny little, oh-so-easily-distracted minds. We desperately need His minute-by-minute input into our daily life. Together, as His Body – we have been freely given everything we will need in this life. The Lord Jesus’ life of love showed us all of God’s fullness in an every day setting. 

Jesus did so many things deliberately, for a far greater purpose than we ever imagined in our restricted thinking. He came to teach us by example. It is astonishing that Almighty God, Himself, would come to save the world in such an awe-inspiring totally selfless way. Now He is always present with us, as well as in us, in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Because He said it, we can believe it.

Jesus’ life and death are our God-given key which can unlock the mighty revelation of Who God is. Plus we have the Bible which is a road map into eternity. Now, anyone with a heart to learn His ways, can access Him in that book. However, every single one of us will also need the Author’s insight and revelation to open our eyes, so we can read it and be enlightened. The prime objective is to let the bible read you while you are reading it. Then we act upon it. Fame, money, earthly power or human intelligence, won’t help us understand what happened on an ordinary wooden cross outside Jerusalem, that’s why we need His Spirit to open our eyes and hearts.

Without God and all He did for us, we will live limited, small  lives — but with the Holy Spirit’s help – the impossible becomes possible. However, our enemy wants us to ignore these facts, using discouragement, despair and suspicion. It is one of his wiliest, sneakiest tricks. There is but one standard and that is – Christ IN us – HE is our hope of glory. He, and He alone, is our daily inspiration to live above the mundanities of this life. Jesus is SomeOne so good, so pure and holy, yet so normal, we struggle to comprehend how an ordinary human being could live and die the way He did.

At the same time, the bible also reveals to us, that we have not even begun to plumb the depths of Who our Heavenly Father God is … or how utterly beautiful and incredibly wise His Ways are. As we study His book, we can see that we still have such a limited understanding of spiritual things…. God Himself has equalised mankind in one sovereign action – through His precious Son’s obedience. It is no wonder that it can be difficult without the Holy Spirit’s help, to comprehend the vastness of what happened. Now we do not have to reduce God to our size — He already did that, once and for all!

Our access to understanding Who He is, comes from reading to His Word, with the simplicity and obedience of a little child. We need to read it looking for something to obey! Christ lived His life in total obedience to His Father’s will – He did all the work for us. Now we can come to Him the same way any child would come to a loving gracious parent… joyfully, without fear, or shame – always expecting to be received. Our Father’s enormous wisdom and love, coupled with His incredible goodness and kindness, coaxes us into an intimacy beyond our comprehension.

Jesus’ death and resurrection opened the door to a whole other way to live. That wide-open door can only be closed by our own choices. The devil can’t finagle his way in, or short-circuit what God has done because it can only be seen and understood through the spiritual sight of the Holy Spirit’s goodness, mercy, grace. Our enemy is so defeated—he now spends his time trying to distract us from the ongoing, never-ending revelation of our Father’s incredible love.  

Every single day we can always have the input of precious Holy Spirit. He has been given to us to open our eyes and hearts to that new way to live. Under His help and guidance, now we can gladly pass that Grace onto others who don’t deserve it either. You and I have been chosen to be the inheritors and recipients, as well as the distributors and executors of the Lord Jesus’ will. Bye. 🙌

P 3062 The Eternally Grateful are coming …

/ DVH

There is an army of people who will be coming into our churches any day now. In my heart, I can see them. They are broken-down by this life and the way they have chosen to live it. These are the people that you and I might reject because of their outward appearance, or bad life choices. However, these people have discovered that the Saviour is not interested in their past misdeeds, or their backgrounds, and as a result, they are overwhelmingly grateful. These people know they need saving.

They’ve done all the dumb, monstrous things mankind is capable of, and they’ve seen through the tissue of lies our enemy has been feeding society that says: “people are just expressing themselves.” They know, if Jesus is not Who He says He is, or He doesn’t save them, then they are utterly lost. Everything depends upon how we treat these lost broken souls when they begin to join us – will we tolerate them, or make them feel so uncomfortable they leave – or receive them gladly with humility?

One of the difficulties we face today in our churches is that we do not comprehend the depth of our own personal sin against the Lord, and His holiness. Sadly, we can even become totally pre-occupied with someone else’s sin against us! But …we are living our lives, from day to day, totally unaware that we are disobedient to our heavenly calling. Repentance is part of our ongoing salvation. ps. we all need saving from ourselves, daily! We need to be aware, pride and complacency have entered the church. Jesus taught us this about that subject:

“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then He turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give Me any water for My feet, but she wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing My feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her sins, many [as they are], are forgiven her—because she has loved much. But He who is forgiven little loves little.” Luke 7:41-47. Our omissions, our refusal to obey Him, can harden our hearts.

I just love this lady! She interrupts a meeting between some bigwigs from the synagogue and Jesus, because of her desperate need for reconciliation with Almighty God. She knew how wrong her life was, and she did something about it!  Many believers today have become complacent about their faith. We can learn something from this unnamed woman. We need to take notice. She displayed her gratefulness all over Jesus’ feet, publicly. She did not care for herself or her dignity.

Everybody knows we are all sinners in theory. However, there are people who know, for sure, that they don’t deserve any of the costly Grace Jesus has poured out for them. They’ve learnt, the hard way, they are only capable of selfishness and chaos. Sadly it is too easy to think about repentance as an add-on, instead of a life-line. That’s when we end up excusing sin, instead of facing it.

I think the Apostle Paul is a wonderful illustration of how easy it is to think we are right, and that we are living our lives well serving God. This man was being obedient to what he knew, to the letter — and then God Himself went and knocked him off his (high) horse! Immediately Paul’s life was transformed.  “As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting ME?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Acts 9:3-5.

These verses show me that it is possible to think you are right, and still be wrong. Paul was. He thought he was doing God a favour by persecuting those radicals who followed Jesus. He saw himself as an avenger, getting rid of someone stealing God’s own glory. I particularly like the point inferred in these scriptures, where Jesus says persecuting believers is the same as persecuting Him. He takes our persecution, personally! No wonder we should pray for our enemies!!

Grateful people know that without Him they can do nothing. They’ve had their ability to resist sin and temptation tested, and they failed … or they came up empty. That’s when they realised that they simply did not have the power inside themselves to change themselves. These people now live their lives gratefully and they have an attitude that says: “I will serve You Lord, any time, any place, anywhere. My life is Yours now.“ Their desire is to see Him get all the glory, because heaven-sent gratitude has overtaken their sense of self-aggrandisement or need for approval.

These greatly anticipated newcomers, who are covered in the filth of this world, will have so much to teach us all, because their humility and devotion will be stunning. They won’t know what to say or wear, but they will be crazy about the One Who saved them! The Apostle Paul gave away his life, his position and his reputation to serve Jesus. He demonstrated what being saved means – it means we are a people who will always be eternally grateful for what we have been given. Have a good day! Bless you. 🙏

P 3060 Times of refreshing …

/ DVH

“For I will refresh the weary soul and satisfy all those who have given up on life.” Jeremiah 31:25 TPT. The thing with verses like these is that it is easy to look at it, and then look at your own personal experience and think … maybe I keep missing out on that.

Here’s what changed the way I read things like this — I stopped seeing my own experiences as the plumb-line and I chose to take His Word literally instead. Now I look up to heaven and say: “Dear Lord, Thank You for refreshing me. Thank You that You are so faithful, You always keep Your promises.”Amen.

Life today is hard. It is so easy to want to give up on it. The people all around us choose to surrender to the rapidly increasingly, flooding disaster of foul media water, which sweeps away everything else in its path. So we have people who doubt their sex, or people that think that killing a bad person is justified, or that  lying is OK so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody. Apparently stealing is not stealing when it is only on paper and nobody knows. And sleeping around is just normal.  

This filthy stuff can daily wash over us and constantly demand our opinions, our participation and our judgment. Big mistake – huge! We must choose to yield to His greater wisdom. There are times when those awful things push themselves right into our own homes. Right here, right now, there is only one body of water that is safe to jump into and that’s the river of life. It’s in the book! We cannot afford to agree with the people who are being swept along by a torrent of filth, and go on to join them by jumping into the miasma. His life in us has something life-giving to say in every single circumstance. Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding:  in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Amen.

Here is another verse of scripture that helps me with life. It goes like this: “We do not have the audacity to put ourselves in the same class or compare ourselves with some who [supply testimonials to] commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they lack wisdom and behave like fools.” 2 Corinthians 10:12. Jesus is always our yardstick.

I have learnt that who YOU are, and what you do, cannot be my standard. I cannot afford to take my standard from the rest of mankind, because the bible tells me that all have sinned, they have fallen short of God’s glorious ideal, and Jesus is God’s glorious ideal. He met every single standard and requirement that was necessary, when He overpaid our debt. The best measuring stick is Christ, in every single situation. We no longer have to see each other through that yoke of slavery, when I see you, in Christ, I am blessed.

When I am reminded of verses like this one in Jeremiah 31:25, I stop using my feelings, or peering at the circumstances, or even the manifold activities around me, to try to satisfy my own need for validation. I don’t have to blame YOU, Jesus validated me with His love. I would not go to the barbers to buy JAM, I need to go to the distributor of jam, the supermarket.

When someone is annoyed with me, my bible says:“My God shall supply my needs according to His riches in glory.”So I go to God to supply patience, long-suffering, joy etc. I have access to this blessing because of what Jesus has already done on my behalf! He has plenty of the stuff we need, and He loves us. We can just ask Him for it!

Our God is out-of-this-world rich in all those things we desperately need daily. He can’t run out – heaven rests on Who He is …

Plus, I have been promised my needs in writing. Who needs a Lear Jet or a mountain of gold, when you can have Grace whenever you need it? And boy do we need it when somebody gets all-up-in-your-face and you know that it’s their problem not yours. God promises us times of refreshing whenever we need it, and personally, I need His refreshing daily. Sucking it up buttercup does not work well when you are mad. You are likely to get indigestion instead of refreshed. 

There is nothing more life-changing than asking Him for patience, or long-suffering, or joy, or hope, when you need it. You will find you can go further than you ever thought you could, when your motivation changes from: “Please make me happy and comfortable” to “I want what you want Lord.” ←That BTW is a great prayer – but do gird up your girdle Gertie, because this ride can get bumpy before it becomes FUN. When we think of this life as the only life we have, we can make very poor decisions. Yet the glory of God, and all of heaven awaits us. 

Stephen, was a church deacon in the book of Acts. He was given such a clear look at Jesus standing beside our Heavenly Father in heaven, that I doubt he felt the rocks whacking into the side of his dear head, breaking his poor body. He was refreshed when He was dying!! When you are struggling, when you are fed up, when you feel like giving up – ask for times of refreshing from the Lord. Bye. 👋

P 3058 A change is needed.

/ DVH

“I had to nurse you and feed you with “milk,” not with the solid food of more advanced teachings, because you weren’t ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready to be fed solid food, for you are living your lives dominated by the mind-set of the flesh. Ask yourselves: Is there jealousy among you? Do you compare yourselves with others? Do you quarrel like children and end up taking sides? If so, this proves that you are living your lives centred on yourselves, dominated by the mind-set of the flesh, and behaving like unbelievers.” 1 Corinthians 3:2-3.

You know, there’s a deeper place for Christians to live daily – simply because God’s GRACE is available to each one of us all the time. His Grace facilitates our new way to live. However, Grace can’t change a FAKE ME. By that I mean, who we are can be carefully hidden under layers of ‘pious sucking it up’ instead of true transformation. Real transformation means when somebody presses button “A” in our lives, we don’t explode anymore. OH for THAT day!! 

In our society today it seems the land of harder and worse is looming up right in front of mankind. Sadly, most of the time, instead of listening to our own reactions, we make excuses for our behaviour and get furious at someone else. But because of what Jesus did for us, we no longer have to be ashamed to acknowledge where we personally went wrong.

A lot of our time in this life is wasted by pretending we are managing – when we are not. The best thing about sin is that we have an opportunity to be saved and transformed from it, when we acknowledge it! Every person on this planet has sin in common. Realising that, can lead us deeper into the Lord’s incredible Love, we must understand that despite our sinfulness, He will not turn any of us away. It is always our choice … we can live in the need for revenge, or inner peace. You know, babies always need to be looked after, adults have a life to live. Babies are not productive at all, they are consumers.

It would seem from these verses in Corinthians that the Apostle Paul knew some undernourished fat-babies in his life as well! However! “There IS NO condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus…!!” Acknowledgement of our own sin will lead us into a wider, broader place … where I can love you no matter what you did, because I’ve learnt hating you is just as bad as whatever you did to me! Comparison of big and little sins is killing us – and our fake identities are muddying the waters of this life. There are higher places for every single one of us to go. I tell myself: ‘Every time I confront these things in my life, I’m building my faith muscle. Every time I humble myself I am stepping into His Grace.’

So we must decide, and choose to move on from the stuff that has held us captive for most of our lives, and believe what the Lord Jesus said. It’s all part of the same faith. “It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. The slavery comes in when we refuse to acknowledge to ourselves, that we were all born broken! Accepting the never-ending, all-encompassing love of God is available to everyone, changes our perception of things that appear to be stuck. Transparency helps us. We cannot afford to walk around with our noses in the air looking at others thinking: ‘they are more broken than I am!’

Let me be clear – the Lord won’t physically stop us, we must learn, through experience, to use our faith in His truthfulness, to stop ourselves. That’s what our faith is for – we are to live this new life we have been given, using our faith that what the Lord said He did, He did! Acknowledging our sinfulness puts feelings in second place, and at the same time we are telling ourselves that no matter how things look, Jesus has got our troubles or difficulties and He’s THE penultimate Redeemer. 

The door to that jail we lived in before we met Him – is now permanently open.There are no guards! They fell on their backs when He burst out of that grave! The enemy tries to keep all of us busy examining everyone else’s attitudes and actions for our entire lives. Unfortunately, if we put our faith down, and aim at excusing ourselves, we will continue to commit whatever sin we’ve been fighting that trips us up. Instead we must believe Jesus is telling the truth. He said He did it, so it is done. Now we repent and repair things wherever we need to, and move on.

Jesus said that while He was hanging on a cross in agony. “It. Is. Finished.” Every requirement for our new life is already in our account, it has been paid for, in full. Now we put aside the temptation to resent people, or to lie, to ourselves and others, or get angry and hate people. We simply go and do what Jesus would do. He came here to love people, so that’s what we do too! We are all pilgrims, we have not yet arrived: “but we press on!! …” 

There is incredible freedom in not excusing yourself and facing up to reality. There were times Jesus physically went up a mountain to pray. Here’s my little theory … I think He did that because He needed the spiritual, physical and emotional respite from the stuff all around Him. He need to find true REST in His Father.  Prayer and reading the bible are our spiritual life-blood – they gives us rest from striving. Listen as if God Himself was speaking to you, personally. What we need to change is our belief that your sin is worse than mine! Bye. 👋

P 3055 Don’t wait – move!

/ DVH

“This is why the Scriptures say: Things never discovered or heard of before, things beyond our ability to imagine — these are the many things God has in store for all His lovers. But God now unveils these profound realities to us by the Spirit. Yes, He has revealed to us His inmost heart and deepest mysteries through the Holy Spirit, who constantly explores all things. For we did not receive the spirit of this world system but the Spirit of God, so that we might come to understand and experience all that grace has lavished upon us. 

And we articulate these realities with the words imparted to us by the Spirit and not with the words taught by human wisdom. We join together Spirit-revealed truths with Spirit-revealed words. Someone living on an entirely human level rejects the revelations of God’s Spirit, for they make no sense to Him. He can’t understand the revelations of the Spirit because they are only discovered by the illumination of the Spirit. For Who has ever intimately known the mind of the Lord Yahweh well enough to become His counsellor? Christ has, and we possess Christ’s perceptions.”1 Corinthians 2:9-10, 12-14, 16 TPT.

I wish I had understood some of these wonderful truths sooner – so I could have jumped joyfully into the ever on-going journey of full and total surrender – earlier! Instead of merely standing on the edge of it, dipping my toe in and out, hoping that would do. The only thing I got from dipping my toe in, was a truck load of reasons why total surrender was not for me. I became too engaged with the things of this world. My bad!

Sometimes I think the Body of Christ has been so disillusioned by the previous whole blab it and grab it theological movement, our disappointment has led to us standing afar off from the Lord. We are a bit like the Israelites. When Almighty God appeared to be unmanageable and scary, that’s when they told Moses: “You go up the mountain, we’ll stay down here.” Yet, we know darn well it is still our choice to stand so far away. Every now and then, some brave soul makes a bold stand to trust God for this and that, … and when, or if what they pray over doesn’t happen, disillusionment sets in … again!

We’ve seem to have forgotten it’s the thief who comes to steal kill and destroy. And even worse! —- We have forgotten that God is good ALL THE TIME. Let’s learn to look for the good no matter how bad things seem. Instead of wagging the Spirit’s school of learning about God Himself, we all need to sit up front and learn. Just because you or I feel let down or deserted by Him, that does not make what we feel the truth. Let’s stop, read and reread what He has said, and reinforce the wonderful things we know about Him and His Ways. I’m praying for brave souls to step up, and step out, and go on to live in and love on unsaved countries. Our country is an unsaved country! Here I am God send me!

Today I want to lay down a challenge to everyone reading this. There are glorious things about our God that we know nothing about. Those things exist now, and they are there for us, if we just ask. Instead of feathering our own nests, let’s be about His kingdom! Those strategies and secret things are needed right here, right now. I’m not talking about the kind of prayers that will make me more comfortable, because something bad has happened. I’m talking about the kind of lay-your-life down praying that turns the world on its head. These things are not only glorious, they are there to be taken – merely for the price we are prepared to pay to go and get them!

(Isaiah 55:1-6) 

Oh, where are our heroes of the faith? I have known some precious people of God in the past 52 years, and over those years I have seen some of these people persevere and press in, despite their circumstances. Praise God for their faith! But I’m so tired of the same old, same old, slog we participate in daily, week by week, paddling our broken canoes up the fantastic, enormous wild river of God’s love and provision. We need to step up, stand up, and ACT, by participating in what He is doing — instead of hiding away in our little hidey holes of supposed safety and security. 

I also know many dear saints who have been broken by their circumstances, and yet they bravely limp on. But there is a much harder step forward than even maintaining what we have, and it comes from the men and women who know His heart and pray and act on it. No matter what the consequences are.The best things, the most glorious things, are still in front of us, but we will have to put down our ideas of a normal life, and step into the unknown. He’s there, waiting for us. Let’s remember that 11 other men remained in that boat when Peter stepped out of safety into the impossible!

Many generations today chase youth in their attitudes and activities – everybody wants to keep fit. What about spiritual fitness? His ways are so much better than the ways of this world. It’s time to stop hoping somebody else will answer His call, and go ourselves! We need to move. Whether we take our faith to the office, our schools, or some foreign country – if we do not use that faith for more than our own personal gain – we will lose it. Bye 👋

“Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well.”  Ecclesiastes 12:6.

P 3045 This includes YOU.

/ DVH

Acts 5:32 “And we are witnesses of these things, and the Holy Spirit is also, Whom God has bestowed on those who obey Him.”Ask yourself this question — if you are passionate and you want to walk with the Holy Spirit … then, when was the last time you obeyed Him? We need to press through our feelings, and be guided by His Spirit and obey – Jesus did it and so now, we can too!

Yes, of course the Lord forgives us when we act like Peter, and betray Him by denying our knowledge of Who He is! Even when we are putting our own safety, or our public persona ahead of our desire to own our Saviour. But just because it is common, that does not make it the norm. Total honesty is the best way through difficult  situations. Honesty with yourself and the Lord. Don’t settle for pretending, that just muddies the water. Be real. Tell Him you don’t want to do whatever it is, take a deep breath and ask for His help … then do it anyway – using your faith that He will catch you if you fall.

Sometimes, it seems much easier to crawl along … instead of making the effort it takes to get back up again! However, in spite of the ungodly attitudes that I know I sometimes tolerate, all that falling down and getting up again, IS doing something. Even physically speaking, when I get up and down, I am strengthening my muscles. Meanwhile, that thought is a laugh-riot! I have trouble getting out of my chair, let alone getting up off the floor! Moving on … do squats for a bit. Your muscles will quite quickly explain to you that they don’t like being stretched like that. Our emotions and our own way of thinking won’t like being stretched either.

So let’s look at the bible, where the answers are. In the story below the apostles are under scrutiny by the usual suspects … the spiritual leaders! The council are talking amongst themselves, discussing what they can do about these men talking about Jesus all over the place. Shock, horror … now people are starting to follow the disciples!!  One of the leaders speaks up, his name is Gamaliel – he is very wise. 

Acts 5: 40-41: “So, convinced by him, (Gamaliel) they took his advice; and summoning the apostles, they flogged them and sternly forbade them to speak in or about the name of Jesus, and allowed them to go…V41…”So they went out from the presence of the council (Sanhedrin), rejoicing that they were being counted worthy [dignified by the indignity] to suffer shame and be exposed to disgrace for [the sake of] His Name.”

Did you get that? These men rejoiced that someone beat the daylights out of them because that meant they were worthy to bear the Name of Jesus. You might need a few minutes on that one! That flogging showed the world around them, that they belonged to Him, and what they were doing was working, so well people tried to beat that obedience out of them..I’m pretty sure flogging and maintaining a great attitude don’t always go together! (Hebrews 12:4) But the Holy Spirit gave them Grace for that situation. 

Our God is FOR US. He’s not upstairs somewhere sharpening His pencil writing down our misdeeds – He is so-oo-oo not like that! He loves us and He has made sure that every impediment that prevents our faith from growing –  is now gone. Now we repent and repair things, for our own sake, and because that other person needs His GRACE too! I do loads of stuff for Jesus that I probably wouldn’t do for anybody else. 

This scripture from Acts revealed to me the way I thought about trouble. In the past I saw trouble as punishment. However, at the bottom of it all, when I really prayerfully looked really hard – I discovered that I actually didn’t trust God enough to get me through hard things. The reason I took difficult things into my own hands and fiddled with them, trying to make them go away, was that I didn’t believe He always has my best interests in His heart! His love for us is described in Ephesians 3:18-19: “..that you may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

It takes His power to help me understand that He loves me! That was a brand new thought for me, and it started me down the road I’ve been travelling on for years. We’ve applied the bible as a rule book slavishly, but most of us were too scared to get to know Him and understand how, and why He does what He does. We cannot try to understand Him with our brains or emotions  – we need to use our hearts! The Holy Spirit was given to us to lead us into the promised land of fellowship with the Father, Son and Himself. He knows the Way – He brought the Way into this world through Mary! 

The power of God is not just about someone walking on water, or food being multiplied, or when someone receives a miracle. We need His power every single day to obey and understand HIM. How do you get it? Ask for it. I don’t just read the word – I ask Him to use His word to read me – my actions, attitudes, thoughts and feelings. That’s when the Holy Spirit showed me something amazing. Because Jesus chose to be human, God Himself understands how human beings operate, in a Way He didn’t before! He has chosen to experience humanity. He learnt about His creation, firsthand, by being here among us. NOW HIS SON IS HIS PERFECT EXPRESSION OF FORGIVENESS.

Our God He can never be less than Who He is, Almighty, invincible, omnipresent and omnipotent God … But because He IS Who He is – He chose to go the extra mile and experience humanity in all it’s ugliness and stinky attitudes. Jesus Christ is our perfect illustration that men and women don’t have to sink down into the lowest common denominator. That thought comes from the other guy. Look at what Jesus did, as a mere human being! He had perfect obedience to His Father’s will. 

The Lord Jesus totally relied upon the power of the Holy Spirit, and He made that power available, through His death and resurrection, to each one of us today. We don’t have to flounder along feeling guilty and hoping God won’t notice we aren’t perfect yet. SomeBody else took the exam for us AND HE PASSED … With flying colours. Now the Holy Spirit can come to live in us, because God established a precedent with Jesus. He made a Way to make the impossible, possible, and He gave that way to all of us. That includes YOU. Bye. ❤️🥰 

P 3044.

/ DVH

“Jesus said to all of His followers, “If you truly desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:23-24 TPT. 

These verses mean our lives have been whittled down to one important choice – will we live this life we have been given for Jesus’ sake? Or will we continue to choose to try fit Him in around the edges? I’ve noticed that dividing our time between what we want and what He wants, never ever works. What I think and want takes over.

In my opinion this particular choice needs to be presented to anyone who wants to give their life to Jesus – right at the beginning. After all, the Lord’s exchange rate goes right through the roof – we get His loving goodness for our sin! And this type of total surrender should be mentioned before anything else – we need to make it clear that people are giving their lives away.

We are not selling cars, holidays or houses – we are by His Grace, consistently revealing the One we know, to the people-who-have-not-met-Him-yet. I don’t much like the idea of total commitment coming later, as an after thought. In my mind, this needs to be the only thought. This is the choice! I live for me OR, I choose to live for Him. When I mess that up, He’s there helping me back onto my feet again. He’s Almighty God, He gets to make the rules, that means – I follow Him. 

Jesus loves to do great exploits and He wants to do them through all of us. That means we will talk to other people about what we’ve personally known about Him. He isn’t just helping the people on Youtube or the enthusiastic souls who make podcasts or write books. He will help all of us. But our faith levels need to increase. 

The Lord wants to do whatever He wants to do in your life … with you;  through you;  in you – to help others. What He does for us, every single day is so incredible — the sun came up where I live this morning! How about you?! Every single Christian has testimonies about how God’s glory has transformed their lives. But we can become so enamoured with this worlds’ razzmatazz and hype, we miss what He is doing! There is no need at all, for us to ever shift from Him being our central point of focus, because that’s the place we stand on.

We choose to view everything else that happens to us through what He has done. Even our calendars are founded on two abbreviated terms that take Jesus birth as a pivotal date. B.C. means before Christ. AD means Anno Domino(latin) — it means in the year of our Lord… We count time by Jesus’ birth!  Apparently some people have come up with a PC version, but I gave that the flick. If I listen to them I am a descendant of a short-sighted amoeba! Yeah right. Rhubarb.

What Jesus is saying here in Luke 9, is that none of our lives will reach their fullest meaning and potential outside of a totally committed life. God is good, we will always have a choice. So we can self-govern if we want to — but then our responses can be limited by our personal experiences, our intelligence, and opportunities. Deception floats about this world like pollen on a windy day – unseen and dangerous. But when Jesus is our catalyst – the sky is the limit. Let’s remember that this world has no knowledge of what real love looks like and everyone’s lack hurts other people. Love is NOT a feeling, it’s a choice.

The key to the passage in Luke is the word truly. “…If you truly desire to be My disciple…”  That means commitment is going to be needed, whether we feel like it or not. That stance takes bravery! Christianity is not a try now and buy later scheme, it is an all or nothing one. As a matter of fact, I think trying now and buying later is downright dangerous. Many people have decided to try Christianity – and in their view, when God did not met with their untaught irreligious expectations, they dismissed Him with a wave of their hand. They explain that they’ve bin there and dun that and they’d like to keep their options open!

Of course you can ‘try’ Jesus, but please be aware that you just put a giant target from His enemy, on your back. Everything that can oppose you will! Jesus cannot be an optional extra – He has to become the point of our lives. When we give our entire life to Jesus, He takes it. In return, we begin our journey into eternal life, right here, right now. We do that against a backdrop of imperfection, in ourselves and others. That’s why the light in us shines brightly – the darker it gets in this world, the brighter we will shine.

Eternity is not ‘pie in the sky when we die.’ It is perfectly expressed, here and now, by a life lived in faith, following Jesus wherever He takes us. We bring His kingdom down here, by the way we walk, talk, think and act. We can’t psyche ourselves into that kind of stuff – we need His help. And He is always with us, in the Person of the Holy Spirit. All means all. Jesus Christ gave His all, so now we give Him ours. Christianity is not a part-time thing – it is a life-time commitment. Selah. Bye 👋

P 3042 The real and the unreal.

/ DVH

As Christians we dare not live our lives in religion. We have been reborn to live permanently in the reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection – together with all He died to give us. This attitude needs to be present, daily. The Holy Spirit will correct us with His eye on us, then we pray and then we yield. Living with a metaphor – a concept, a mere picture of the truth – means that we will find our metaphorical faith is tested a whole lot, because it does not have its roots in the reality of what Jesus already did!

At the same time, we cannot afford to have untested faith. Otherwise, how will we know whether what we believe is real or a theory? When tests come, and they will!…The first thing to do is check with Him that He is giving us an opportunity to practise what we preach. Then we prayerfully accept the Holy Spirit’s guidance and help, and go forward into doing or saying whatever it is from His point of view. If I haven’t got a clue – I make use of His reference book – the bible.

Cultivating a quiet spirit within, is essential. It can be difficult, but it is not impossible. I know the world around us is like a brass band at full volume, but living in the awareness of the stillness of His Presence will help us triumph over everything else that comes our way. Jesus lived this way – He was peaceful inside despite the outside circumstances. The difference between the real and the unreal, is easily diagnosed by its fruit – agitation or acceptance.

Likewise, giving up on people just because they are not responding to us the way we want them to, is self-centred. You and I don’t have the only way – Jesus Himself is the Way! What we need in awkward moments, is a word of knowledge, or a word of wisdom, or a revelation from our King about how we interact with that person. Here’s a helpful hint:  spiritual things don’t always come with a huge angel and a trumpet! His Voice inside us is so discreet, so gentle, we can miss it.  But there is a way to check out your own hearing— love knows how to be quiet and let the other person speak. Many times we are actually dealing with our own fears and insecurities and projecting them onto someone else. 

God loves them.Ask yourself: ‘why would I annoy or hurt someone GOD loves and expect it will be alright?’  He loves the world, remember? Personally, I would not like to have to explain to the Lord, why I thought brow-beating somebody else was a good plan. Jesus didn’t do it, and neither should we. Our aim is to respond with Grace, Love, Kindness and Peace, and those precious things are enough to keep us busy! Positive things can create teachable moments.

In John 20:11-18, it says:“Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put Him.” At this,she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking He was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him. Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!”

Human beings can be so distracted and disturbed by our current circumstances, that we miss Him when He speaks to us  As you can see, from this scripture, Mary was absolutely overwhelmed by grief, and consequently she was unable to see the Lord when He was right in front of her! It is good to ask the Holy Spirit to keep us alert to whatever the Lord Jesus wants to say to us.  

The thing about Mary in this scripture, is that her faith was at an all-time low, and she didn’t expect to see Jesus again. He was dead and gone in her mind. And if He wasn’t in the tomb, then where could He possibly be? The unreality of the situation channelled her thoughts in a specific direction — to a human answer. Somebody must have done the unthinkable and stolen His body!

If I get bewildered or I am full of despair, then I stop and I refuse to move. After that I go back to the beginning and start to pray all over again. But if my thoughts are still as clear as mud, then I put everything down at His feet, and ask the Holy Spirit to take care of it – until I am led, by Him, back into clarity again. Hearing from God is our birthright, it is not a test. It takes faith, but every single one of us has been given the ability to hear our Shepherd. After all, we are His sheep, the people of His pasture!  

Let’s not underestimate the value of PAUSING. Pausing gives me a chance to catch up with what He is doing. It steadies my personal human reaction, and takes me into His space – where there is no panic, no timetables … only Him. Our faith has been carefully designed, by the Holy Spirit, to be active and real, every single day. If we find we are mistaken, then we need to prayerfully replace the unreal with the real. Bye. 🙏

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 3040 No job is too small!

/ DVH

Acts 6:1-6,8.”Now about this time, when the number of the disciples was greatly increasing, complaint was made by the Hellenists (the Greek-speaking Jews) against the [native] Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked and neglected in the daily ministration (distribution of relief). So the Twelve [apostles] convened the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not seemly or desirable or right that we should have to give up or neglect [preaching] the Word of God in order to attend to serving at tables and superintending the distribution of food.

Therefore select out from among yourselves, brethren, seven men of good and attested character and repute, full of the [Holy] Spirit and wisdom, whom we may assign to look after this business and duty. But we will continue to devote ourselves steadfastly to prayer and the ministry of the Word.

And the suggestion pleased the whole assembly, and they selected Stephen, a man full of faith (a strong and welcome belief that Jesus is the Messiah) and full of and controlled by the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte (convert) from Antioch. These they presented to the apostles, who after prayer laid their hands on them… … Now Stephen, full of grace (divine blessing and favour) and power (strength and ability) worked great wonders and signs (miracles) among the people.”

We limit God and His people, when we think that only the so-called important people among us can do miracles and wonders. Here is Stephen, who was selected by prayer and the Lord’s favour, to wait on the Greek-speaking Jewish  tables. This whole scenario was set off by one group of people complaining about another group. But the Apostles valued the Body’s corporate harmony more than anything else. Those Greek guys were really miffed, because the complainers were distressed by the way their families were being treated. The situation held within it the seeds of discontent. So the apostles set out, with the Holy Spirit’s help, to fix the situation. 

Nobody appears to have given the complainers a talk on how being left out could actually benefit them, because it would give them an opportunity to practise humility! Instead the Apostles fixed the problem prayerfully. They discounted their own personal participation in the solution, but they were more than happy to elevate someone else to take care of it. However, they didn’t just pick two guys randomly, they picked men whose inner and outer lives reflected their faith. That tells us something about God’s mindset regarding small tasks. 

Stephen and Phillip were chosen to be Deacons, and they were provided for the people whose noses were pushed sideways. The depth of that story just blows my mind! Mainly because it is so far away from the way we think today. There are some things in the bible that we really do need to meditate on. They are not just background material to this or that important story. Those seemingly lesser things are worthy of our attention. Now here comes the truly incredible bit of this story … 

“However, some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (freed Jewish slaves), as it was called, and [of the synagogues] of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and of those from Cilicia and [the province of] Asia, arose [and undertook] to debate and dispute with Stephen..“Now Stephen, full of grace (divine blessing and favour) and power (strength and ability) worked great wonders and signs (miracles) among the people. But they (the grumpy guys) were not able to resist the intelligence and the wisdom and [the inspiration of] the Spirit with which and by Whom he spoke. So they [secretly] instigated and instructed men to say, We have heard this man speak, using slanderous and abusive and blasphemous language against Moses and God.” Acts 6:8-13.

Other men who were watching what went on, then turned around and attacked God’s duly elected gift. Jealousy and deception got hold of that group and they betrayed Stephen. The discontent within the Body, opened a door to worse things. It seems to me that their attitude toward Stephen’s gifts was caused by jealousy. And God’s hand on this spiritual man’s life also offended them. We need to be so careful when it comes to offence. That sneaky, slimy little weasel attitude slowly worms its way into congregations and creates schisms, hatred, jealousy and discontent.

In this case it caused Stephen’s death. We don’t know if the men who accused him and wanted to punish him, actually threw rocks at him – but they definitely lied and falsely accused him. And they started the landslide of hate toward this godly man. Stephen became the church’s first martyr.  All because God kissed what this man did, with His Presence, as Stephen chose to serve others. The bible talks about jealousy in Song of Solomon 8:6: “Set me like a seal upon your heart, like a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy is as hard and cruel as Sheol (the place of the dead). Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame [the very flame of the Lord]!”

Serving others seems very insignificant, until you look at everything Jesus did with His time, and deliberately go past the miracles and carefully look into the Lord’s day-to-day actions. All of the spiritually designated gifts are given to the body to help us grow and thrive, and that includes serving each other. We need to pay attention to the things the Lord values, and no job is ever too small. Bye. 👋