Grace

P 2785 “To each one of us …”

/ DVH

In the bible it says that the Lord Himself gave gifts to the church … read these scriptures along with me: “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: “When He ascended on high, He took many captives and gave gifts to His people… …” 11-13 “So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip His people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:7-8,11-13. We don’t have to wait for our birthday, or Christmas! Jesus has given us all gifts to help us grow and know Him…NOW!

“There are different kinds of gifts. But they are all given to believers by the same Spirit. There are different ways to serve. But they all come from the same Lord. There are different ways the Spirit works. But the same God is working in all these ways and in all people. The Holy Spirit is given to each of us in a special way. That is for the good of all.”1 Corinthians 12:4-7.

“If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other. 

Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying. When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all! Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honourable.” Romans 12:7-17.

Today, I want to say, loudly – that, despite how you might feel, you have a gift. Actually you could easily have more than one of them!! But don’t ask me what they are, it took me a while to figure out what I am here to do! This Grace the Lord has given me to help others, has also helped me to feel that I have a place within the Body of Christ.

Many Christians have excused themselves from being activated for His kingdom, on the grounds that they are not worthy, or clever enough, or gifted enough, or they don’t know what they are supposed to do, or they don’t have time and they hope that the Lord understands! However, we all need your contribution. You don’t have to be an evangelist standing on the back of a flat-bed truck, you simply need to live a life of Love everywhere you go, towards everyone you meet, and be prepared to give an account of the hope within you.  That will stretch everyone’s faith and your gift will rise up as a result.

The thing is, this New Covenant we share is an agreement between us and the Lord – it’s a promise that we enter into between Him and us, and it is binding. (Read the book!) Jesus covered our sins with His blood, so we can be free to live the life God planned for us to live … and it is never too late to start. Jesus deliberately provided us with SomeOne Who will always help us and never leave us. SomeOne Who will teach us His ways, and help us with the process of transformation. It’s the Holy Spirit.

One day, not long ago, I woke up and realised that my complete spiritual poverty,  is my strength.🤔 So today, the Lord asked me to remind you of your place in His Body by using His Word. The Holy Spirit wants you to know that there is a place in His plans for you. Sometimes, for a small group of people, that is a place that is seen, and for many, many, many others, they will remain unseen. But He has promised to touch us all in extraordinary ways, with supernatural gifts.. I look forward to the day when the vast, unseen multitudes of ordinary Christians step into what He has for them.

So today, I just want to encourage everybody reading this, He wants you to participate in His plan in the lives of those people you know and influence. He needs you to be you. Who you are, because of His Presence in your life, will reach others. Last of all, I want to use my favourite vehicle, the bible, to pray for you. I am totally convinced He will answer these prayers because they rely upon His faithfulness, not on anyone’s ability.  

“I pray with great faith for you, because I’m fully convinced that the One who began this gracious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you until the unveiling of our Lord Jesus Christ!” Philippians 1:6 TPT. “And I pray that He would unveil within you the unlimited riches of His glory and favour until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with His divine might and explosive power.” Ephesians 3:16 TPT.“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Colossians 3:23-24. Amen. God gives gifts to each one of us. Bye. 👋

P 2782 We are people of HIS Grace.

/ DVH

The glory of God is more important than our perceived welfare… you might want to sit and think on that sentence for a while. 🤔 I know I did! I have no desire to criticise the church or her servants, whether they are pastors, preachers, prophets etc. But in the last 40 years many Christians have gone right away from our main focus – the Lord Himself. It seems we need to seriously take note of satan’s sin… pride. Our focus needs to be clearly centred around us being God’s servants. It was not above the Lord Jesus Himself to regard Himself as a servant, and He is God’s only Begotten Son! 

I know that the Lord regards each one of us as His brothers and sisters, the bible says so, but that is because even Christ Himself would never dream of elevating His own status above His Beloved Father. Jesus perfectly illustrates that love lifts up its beloved, and has no concern for its own position. Read Song of Solomon and you will perfectly see how love, the Shepherd, treats the Bride – us!

Because of what Christ did and the way He regarded us, we are incredibly precious in His sight, but that is Jesus’ Grace and generosity, flowing toward us,not our right. Our God is mighty, awesome, and above all we can think or imagine. He is the One True Almighty Everlasting God, who made heaven and earth and created everything we can see … …and a whole lotta stuff we can’t! He existed before we did, and eternity will not be long enough for us to plumb the depths of how wonderful, glorious, and how precious our Heavenly Father is! I did not have a father present in my life, so there are days when I am totally wrecked by the fact that God Himself has claimed me.

Unfortunately Father God has been poorly represented in my opinion. He is not some easily fooled fun-loving Grandpa who indulges His children! Many people over recent years, have walked away from their faith, because their faith was in a Santa Claus figure – not Almighty God Himself!  So they quit! Disappointment grabbed them by the throat and choked out whatever faith they had. Presumption is such an ugly condition. It robs us of what His Grace has done for us. 

This meant that when bad things happened in life, and that happens to all of us, these poor souls fell away, wondering why they hadn’t qualified for the benefits advertised! Praise Him, the Old Testament is filled with stories of God Himself making beauty out of ashes. He took inadequate men and women and blessed them with His wisdom and purposes. He is still doing that today, with you and I.

Many preachers still tell us that that was then, and now – we are under a New Covenant. Yes, we are, and praise God for it. But that New Covenant frees us to choose Him for Who He is  … not just for the benefits He lovingly bestows upon His people, day by day. He blesses us, but that is a testament to His goodness … not our entitlement or faith! The bible exhorts us in Psalm 103  “…to forget not all His benefits.”And then that Psalm goes on to list them, one by one. This Psalm reminds us that we can praise and thank Him as the Author of whatever goodness, forgiveness, and mercy that has come our way. And because we know His heart through His book, we can also praise Him for what is still to come.

This Psalm is not a free pass to demand whatever we think we need. It is God Who supplies our needs, and my advice is to have a conversation with Him first. The Psalm is simply telling us where good things come from. Listen to James 1:17. He tells us clearly where blessings come from.“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” If we get so focussed on the gifts and not the Giver we have missed the main event! God is revealing Himself to us, He’s saying when good things happen to you and I —- ITS HIM!

Just yesterday, at our house, there was an incredibly fierce storm. The lightning and thunder were right over our house and the hail was pelting down and I am ashamed to admit that I was afraid. But suddenly, peace swept over me like a river … fear didn’t leave, it simply melted as His greater Grace helped me. I didn’t even ask for it. It just came upon me because God is so kind and good. A gift comes from the Giver’s heart.

We need to stop reading the bible simply to grab at promises that we think He should honour, because we know how good He is. Instead, we are a privileged people who know what they have been given and we are grateful. A people of His Grace. That Grace comes in, and it flows out toward others. Our Heavenly Father is more than just a provider, much much more. He is the love in each one of our hearts, especially when life tests us. Bye. 👋

P 2767 God’s incredible faithfulness.

/ DVH

Nehemiah 9 some excerpts from Verses 18-23, 26-31— this was read aloud by a group of Levites after the wall around Jerusalem was rebuilt and the conviction of the Holy Spirit fell upon them.

“… And You, a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, Incredibly patient, with tons of love—You didn’t dump them. Yes, even when they cast a sculpted calf and said, “This is your god who brought you out of Egypt,” and continued from bad to worse, You in your amazing compassion didn’t walk off and leave them in the desert. The Pillar of Cloud didn’t leave them;  daily it continued to show them their route; The Pillar of Fire did the same by night, showed them the right way to go.You gave them Your good Spirit to teach them to live wisely…”

“…They cried out to You again; in Your great compassion You heard and helped them again. This went on over and over and over…” “…Still, because of Your great compassion, You didn’t make a total end to them. You didn’t walk out and leave them for good;  yes, You are a God of grace and compassion…” “…You are not to blame for all that has come down on us; You did everything right we did everything wrong.”

Romans 8:32 “He Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.”

You and I are a part of God’s story on this earth. We have been chosen to show others His heart toward mankind.Because our lives are limited, time-wise, it is extremely tempting to think more about our own story, than His story. But God’s story is the one we will sing about one day in heaven. When we understand that our lives are part of that story – we will begin to live in God’s bigger picture. Christ died to give us the power to live free of the junk that this world chucks at us.

Those people who have already gone on before us are cheering us on. You and I are now the ones writing His story today –  right here, right now – everywhere we go. Almighty God is so faithful to mankind, His book glows with His faithfulness and compassion toward all of us. We have been so blessed, everything we have is a gift from Him – all of it is so undeserved. Our only response is to give Him our lives, and live this life as living worship for His glory.

Do you think you are faithful to Him? I know He sees the way we treat others … but before either one of us hangs our head in shame about our failures … here’s an incredible scripture to also think about.  Many people have failed Him throughout time, however — “If we are faithless [do not believe and are untrue to Him], HE REMAINS TRUE (faithful to His Word and His righteous character), for HE cannot deny Himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13. We are standing, now, today, on what Jesus did. That cannot change. What He did will never change. It is more stable than the ground under our feet. This world may shake and tremble but the Lord said this: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.”

Because we count on Jesus, and Him alone to save us, we can have enormous security. Alive or dead – His words are so firm, so strong, so true, we can stand without fear upon them, because we know He is faithful. That’s why we need to choose to live by faith in this life. When we live by faith we are simply responding to His faithfulness. We are responding to a debt that we owe, that we can never repay but we can enjoy it, day after day after day!

God is so incredibly faithful He will not give up on even one of His kids. I’ve been praying for three prodigals in our family to come home to Jesus. But it won’t be my prayers that change their minds! My intercession is valuable, it helps me stay in love and not judgment – but Christ’s death and intercession changed eternity … for everyone, now and forever!! I exhort you to stand on that and pray from that place! I hold His faithfulness up to Him like a banner and remind Him about the things I have learnt about Him. Christ died for what He believed. Now I live for Him in response to what He already did.

I put the above excerpt from Nehemiah in the blog today because it shows the incredible, over-the-top kind of commitment Father God has toward His kids. It blew my mind! The Israelites were so terribly unfaithful, but our God stands by His word. And He doesn’t just sort-of-kind-of put-up with all us now either  — He totally removed the sin barrier between us and Himself, at incredible personal cost. Now we can get to know Him, personally, intimately even though we will never deserve it. He wants to be near us.

That’s why we no longer live this life as the unwise do. Instead we’ve learnt to cherish what we have been given. Christians seek to treat other people like they are Jesus, whether they are nice or not …it’s part of the life of God we inherited. And when we don’t or feel we can’t live that way – we repent!  We treat reconciliation the same way Christ treated it – He did not come to earth and pretend to take our sins away – He simply prayed like mad and went and did it.

Because He chose to do that, God’s power to overcome evil in this life has been released into the earth to save all mankind. We cannot afford to keep other people captive by pretending to be nice, or smiling with plastic smiles and fake attitudes, or insisting that we are OK, when we know, deep inside, we are not! That’s not faithfulness toward Him, that’s called self-preservation.

You and I have the power to live sacrificially, as a son or daughter of the Most High God. He is worthy of any sacrifices we might make along the way. His compassion, and reliability, His goodness, His trustworthy heart are so patient and kind. We are the ones who know, firsthand, that we don’t deserve any of it. Jesus continually stands faithfully beside His Father praying for each one of us, because He knows what it is like to be human.

We live this life choosing to tell other people about God’s faithfulness in a world that is overflowing with disobedient, imperfect, unkind, unloving people – even greedy, grabby, deceitful, murderous ones. His faithfulness is our great blessing.  Bye 👋

P 2764 Don’t be afraid to fail.

/ DVH

“A person may have many ideas concerning God’s plan for his life, but only the designs of God’s purpose will succeed in the end.”Proverbs 19:21 TPT. In other words, we don’t have to plan our lives – we can simply let the Lord do it for us! Our society is really big on personal success stories – but when we live a life of faith, it can be easy to become afraid that we might have missed God. So we wander off, despondent, out into the wilderness. Feeling ashamed of our fear. Maybe, we even feel protective over the Lord and His good Name, because if we make a big mistake we could bring dishonour to Him, and His Ways.  

First of all, God is not scared of the wilderness – Jesus went there on purpose! Secondly, He can protect His Own Name. Our job is to use His Name with reverence. The Lord has sent many a great person into a wilderness to test them. My advice? Stop! Climb under the shadow that is cast by the Cross and …breathe. Quiet your soul.  Make yourself a cup of something you like, and just sit. The busyness of your mind won’t help you. The third thing is this, remind yourself that He can look after His own Name, and remember to repent for being faithless. Then ask the Holy Spirit to stretch your faith in Who He is, and how big He is,  and go and do whatever He told you to do. Feelings are the antithesis of faith.

Now if what we want to do is sheer, wilful disobedience – then we need to humble ourselves immediately, repent and remember to resist the devil. Our Heavenly Father is the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things ON the earth and in the sky – He can get us out of any dumb place we walk into. Keep your focus on Him and use your energy to block your ears to satan’s lies. Then start bringing into your mind the many people in the bible who got it wrong — just don’t use that info to continue on into further disobedience! Loads of people missed God’s will and it is recorded in His book. The Lord rescued them simply because He is a good God and He loves His kids. We need to believe in His goodness! 

Meanwhile anybody who doesn’t want God anymore, will not give a flying fig whether He wants them, or not. Simply bear in mind that we are exhorted not to test Him. That’s called honouring and reverencing Who He is! Remain humble, and let Him work those disobedient things you chose to do, together for your good. And do what you can to make things right with the people you’ve hurt. Get down on your carpet, and stay there until you completely comprehend the mistake you’ve made. Some times disobedience comes from FEAR, we feel we must control things. Repentance is always good, but we need to be delivered from fear.

Here are some names of other wayward people, to help you with your search … try Gideon, David, Samson, Jonah, and Peter. Human beings make mistakes, we are famous for them! Sometimes they are huge, life changing ones. God is ALWAYS bigger than OUR mistakes. Listen:“For I am the Lord, I change not; …” Malachi 3:6a. His attitude of redemption will not change until Jesus finally rolls up the world. Our loving obedience is the sweetest gift we can bring to the Lord, but let’s remember that we are not perfect, we can be sincerely wrong – often! 

And … sometimes … even wilfully wrong! I’ve gone on both of those roads, and the Lord is so faithful, He still stayed with me, He does not give up on His kids. Otherwise, why do we pray so hard for our loved ones who have wandered off? We inherently already know that He is good! Remember the story of the lost lamb? The Shepherd valued that lamb so highly he left his other valuable sheep and went looking for the little lost one. He’s a good shepherd!

The Apostle Paul was a murderer – God used that man’s crimes against His kids, the Jewish nation, to show Paul how big GRACE is, and how comprehensive Christ’s death was! God’s Goodness can do amazing things. We underestimate its value at our own peril. It is nothing to do with us or whether we are appealing or not – it’s HIS Grace. It’s the goodness of God that put an angel with a flaming sword, at the entrance to the Garden of Eden. I believe that angel was put there so Adam and Eve could not get back in again, and eat from the tree of eternal life. Mankind would have been eternally lost if we had eaten from that tree.  

Sometimes our confidence can be in our own ability to perform whatever God has asked us to do. Forget that idea. Remember, our God knows what is coming next! Jesus reminded His terrified disciples in the boat in the middle of a storm, that He had already told them they were going over to the other side. And … they did go to the other side – eventually! He didn’t tell them there would be a storm in the middle, because His purpose was to go to the other side. Besides, a bunch of them were fishermen they knew how dodgy that lake was. That’s the time faith grows.

We must put our confidence in GOD ALONE. Anything else we can come up with, is just wood, hay and stubble. One day that stuff will be gone. Our ability to perform – or not! Simply doesn’t come into it. God has used a donkey on other occasions. It is not good to be so proud of who you are, and what you can do spiritually, that you stop seeking His wisdom, His Ways. Let’s continually live to seek to know Him better. We cannot even afford to rest on our spiritual gifts …  instead we rest on WHO He is.

We are in the process of learning to live this life, the only one we have, to learn His ways and follow our leader, Jesus. The Holy Spirit is using everything to get us ready for heaven. so don’t be afraid of failing… some of the very best humans fail … failing can make you a kinder, nicer, more compassionate, tolerant human being. Bye. 👋

“Before you do anything, put your trust totally in God and not in yourself. Then every plan you make will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3 TPT

P 2763 Mo-ove along the car …

/ DVH

…nothing to see here, I’m coming through … and I’M BUSY!! 

Nehemiah 6:1-9 tells us a story: “When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that there were no more breaks in it—even though I hadn’t yet installed the gates—Sanballat and Geshem sent this message: “Come and meet with us at Kephirim in the valley of Ono.” I knew they were scheming to hurt me so I sent messengers back with this: “I’m doing a great work; I can’t come down. Why should the work come to a standstill just so I can come down to see you?” Four times they sent this message and four times I gave them my answer.

The fifth time—same messenger, same message—Sanballat sent an unsealed letter with this message: “The word is out among the nations—and Geshem says it’s true—that you and the Jews are planning to rebel. That’s why you are rebuilding the wall. The word is that you want to be king and that you have appointed prophets to announce in Jerusalem, ‘There’s a king in Judah!’ The king is going to be told all this—don’t you think we should sit down and have a talk? I sent him back this: “There’s nothing to what you’re saying. You’ve made it all up.” They were trying to intimidate us into quitting. They thought, “They’ll give up; they’ll never finish it.” I prayed, “Give me strength.”

I’m starting to love this guy Nehemiah! He not only knows how and where to start … he knows how to finish too! God has given this man great wisdom as he went about his work. We can always ask the Lord for wisdom at any moment. I’ve discovered that we often want it at the beginning of a project, but we also need it in the middle, while we are being harassed, plus at the end too! The Lord likes us to follow Him, as He leads us – using our faith. Nehemiah knew to stay the course.

So, back to this man of God:  next news you know, the Israelites’ enemies have sent someone with a flattering message, to supposedly support him… … As we begin to prevail in our obedience to the Lord, our enemy is not above sending someone else along to give us reasonable doubt about what we are doing. Four times these men tried to engage the man of God as he laboured over rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls. The last time Nehemiah’s enemies used the fear of death to startle him into stopping. But he sent them away with a short, sharp word.

When we choose to do what the Lord wants – as we seek Him, He will guide us and protect us from the enemy’s lies. Nehemiah saw right through Shemaiah. This man wanted him to hide from his enemies and that meant he would stop building the wall God told him to restore. So Nehemiah went right back to prayer. You know it sounds to me like that man was praying as he was mending the wall!

Let’s be clear …Nehemiah had confronted a King about the Israelites’ plight. His courage and sense of duty caused him to make that request when he needed too – even though he was a minor player in the court. He was respectful, and clear, and dedicated to the cause. What he did was nothing short of miraculous, however, whenever Almighty God smiles on something you are doing – no-one can stop you … BUT YOU – and He will go around you, if He has to – His will, His purpose!

Nehemiah refused to be distracted. He called Shemaiah and his cronies, liars. You know sometimes we need to identify the spiritual opposition and name it! We can waste our time trying to be polite to our enemies in a difficult situation, when the reality is we need to confront them and tell them to take a hike. When God tells us to do whatever it is, it must be done no matter what, and Nehemiah kept on acting in faith. “And I am sure that God who began the good work within you will keep right on helping you grow in His grace until His task within you is finally finished on that day when Jesus Christ returns.”Philippians 1:6.

The thing I want to highlight today is that all these interruptions and distractions led this man of God into prayer – they didn’t make him give up or give in. Instead he went back to His source of inspiration. I can only speak for myself but I am sure in my life so far, there have been times when I have given in to fear, much too soon. Afterward, I dearly wished I had pressed on.  My fear of ‘missing God’ – which is an enemy accusation – made me vulnerable. At that time I didn’t have enough confidence to believe I could keep going, so that meant that I gave into the pressure around me. The nagging voice inside my head kept telling me over and over again – “you’ve got it wrong, see this and this has happened.’ I limited God’s ability to redeem my errors – sinful or not. 

Nehemiah is a fine example to all of us of perseverance and faithfulness. Once this man put his hand to the plow – he would not be swayed from his appointed task. Sometimes, at the first sign of trouble, we are so anxious to get the job done, we can bail out too early! We too can have Nehemiah’s confidence in our lives. Our confidence is not in our hearing, it is in our God getting us where we need to go despite our wrong turns, fear and inadequacy.  So, like Nehemiah, we tell our enemies to, ‘move along the car – nothing to see here, I’m busy, and I’m coming through!  We must put our confidence in God alone, not in our ability or lack thereof. Just keep swimming …!!

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28. The Lord God is so great, so mighty, that He can take our mistakes, and turn them into shining stars for His glory. Bye. 👋

P 2753 “It’s the little foxes …”

/ DVH

Things happen. Plans that were well-made and prayed over, can change in a heartbeat – and sometimes we can’t figure out why! I have to have a number of blood tests regularly during the year because of my health. When we looked carefully at the blood form we were given, it included fasting. It never includes fasting. That’s because I don’t  “do” fasting — for no other reason than my body over-reacts. 

Any-wa-ay we couldn’t do what we normally do, regarding the tests, so I had to skip breakfast until I came back home. Now we had to hurry … and we quickly scooted off to the phlebotomist for the tests. That clinic was closed. Yay! Off we go to another clinic, further away, to get my blood taken. There was a queue, because the second clinic was busier, which is why we always go to the first one… moving on … 

We got the only new phlebotomist in the entire place. He was kinda slow, and he couldn’t find my veins, so he had to go and find someone else to help him. Plus he also took an age to fill out the forms. Well he would, he’s new! Being new is not his fault. Meanwhile I’m sitting there telling myself how I feel is all in my head, I will be fine. At the same time I prayed that I would make it through all the delays without something awkward happening.  Praise the Lord, by God’s grace, I did.

My point today is this, we never know what we can do until we do it. And sometimes we can limit ourselves by not including the Lord and what He wants, into the equation. We tell ourselves that God is not interested in our every day little lives. It is far too easy to divide life into categories. Then sl-ow-ly … Almighty God goes down the bottom. My blood test was a practical thing and it seemed like nothing to pray over … until it did! Today I realised how important it is for all of us to have practised adaptability – because this world keeps changing. Sometimes overnight! 

There are people right now in Florida who no longer have a house because Hurricane Helena dropped in for an unprecedented massive disaster. They can’t even go for a blood test, if they happened to need one. They can’t buy their medicines. The pharmacy, doctor’s clinics, and hospitals are all gone! Ya might want to pause and think on that.

If I weigh my inconvenience this morning against people with no house any more, it isn’t hard to see which side is going to be heavier! Humanity has become so convenience-minded that a little inconvenience, looms like a giant test. I think that the reason our Western society is out-of-sorts a lot is because we expect things to go a certain way, and we don’t like it when it doesn’t. Enter cranky! Leaving adaptability behind –  we have become comfort-gluttons. 

People work very hard to pay for wonderful fantastic gadgets and appliances that are supposed to help us — but!... They are so expensive, we will have to work longer to get the money to pay for them! It’s like the never-ending story. If we are not mindful we can end up living our lives like hamsters in a wheel. Allocating time for this and that, yet very little allocation is made for a common subject that we all share  – interruptions. BTW if you have kids interruption is now your middle name! 

Picture this — you want to get a 2 year old into the car when they are already having a great time playing a game at home. That’s a little like trying to stuff the oozing toothpaste back in the tube. As fast as you can you dress and put said kid in the car, and make sure you have their favourite stuffed toy – and a non-spill drink, and a not-messy snack. At the same time you are using up your slowly-decreasing energy, trying to convince a kid that was already having fun, that it will be even more fun at the shops. I used to bribe mine with rides!

You put on the little one’s favourite music on to amuse them. It’s that mind-numbing stuff that kids love and you feel is costing you your brain cells. No wonder people get radically confused in their old age – they’ve been Wiggled and Bluey-ed to death. All this is to keep tots amused while you negotiate traffic, and drive round and round and round, looking for a parking place… now you can go and buy something that you didn’t need in the first place, but it looked nice and it was on special!

Our sense of daily purpose in God has been swallowed up by false advertising, and the need we have to distract ourselves from ordinary! Sadly we are living in a world where it appears that nobody wants to know Jesus, and it is easier to drift along under the grinding wheels of doing the next thing. Jesus Christ ends up a PS in our lives instead of our focus. The answer is, we will have to deliberately choose to change our lives, one awkward, uncomfortable step at a time. Something to think on … bye. 👋

“The little foxes are ruining the vineyards. Catch them, for the grapes are all in blossom.”S of Songs 2:15.

P 2747 We need Clarity.

/ DVH

Colossians 2:9-14 NIV: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made YOU alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

Oh man, God’s book is such an incredible blessing! I love it when seemingly complex subjects are written with this kind of clarity, that means I can sometimes understand what it is saying. You know, for many years, nobody ever told me that I am now dead. I listened to sermon after sermon about this interesting thing, and that glorious revelation, but how to live my life for Jesus and die to myself, never came up. OR – if it did I was too thick to hear it! I didn’t realise my bit was to die to what I want, and live for what He wants now. As a matter of fact, I thought the people who lived like that were special people – missionaries, pastors, evangelists etc. But for ordinary people like me – we just plodded along doing our best and failing – lots.

The enemy nagged at me: ’You are a failure, you are of no use to Jesus because you can’t live the perfect life. If you are sick it’s your fault, if God doesn’t help you, you must have some undiagnosed sin.’ If I was a donkey the load of weight to get stuff right, that was plonked on my shoulders was far too great to bear!! I was taught about what the right lifestyle looks like, how to pray properly, how to give, what my kids should be like, or how to live with difficult people. The answer was easy – just be nice to them now. HAH! How could I be nice to them when my instant response was to thump them?! 😱 No pressure!!!

Everybody has sinned – including the famous saints we think are perfect because they appear to get it right! They too have fallen short of His glorious ideal Jesus. His Grace is everyone’s equaliser. Sin is sin, it weighs us all down. And no matter how much we perfume sin, or cover it up with nice smiles and pretty responses, and appealing sermons, it still stinks. It smells of death!

After a while, I lost hope, I thought: ‘Maybe I’m just too broken and can’t be fixed.’  That happy little thought did not help me live with the aforementioned difficult people, and it didn’t make me very cheery either. BUT GOD IS FAITHFUL FOLKS… I’m here to tell you that every word in the bible is true, and if we choose to walk with Him, we can be transformed. It’s a process.  People may accidentally mislead you, but His book never will.  So we believe the book and then act on it. This means we will personally see God at work, every single day, when we act on what He says.  Meanwhile, the Beatitudes could keep us all busy for the rest of our lives.  He taught me about dying to self when I started living like His book says — plus, I desperately wanted to love others the way He loves them.

I use what the bible says, like a prescription from the doctor. And followed the instructions. Then I made my first assignment loving impossible people!  Boy does that keep me occupied!!  The book says: ‘all my flesh was put off when I came to Christ and was baptised…’ so I not only believe it,  I am daily living my life like it’s true. I realised that I didn’t have to sin anymore, I was making terrible choices that indulged my flesh! But Jesus paid for me to live free of my old ways and I have a HELPER.

Before anybody gets tangled up in the thought: ‘but I can’t hear the Holy Spirit’ … let’s make it clear. Try listening! Ask Him to help you recognise His voice. Don’t dismiss that quiet voice inside that says:”Don’t say that you will hurt someone.” The Holy Spirit speaks to me inside my heart. When I was a kid I would have called that voice my conscience. It seems I always had a place where God could speak to me, I just didn’t always like what He said! So I ignored it and did what I felt like. I was hardening my own heart by my refusal to listen and co-operate with Him. The truth is you and I are now dead, and we both daily choose to live that way on purpose.

Now, I walk in the power of my own God-given choices. The power of God is active on our behalf when we make that kind of choice. I had so much yuk stuff in my life that I was tolerating, thinking it was normal to struggle. I lived expecting to have to suck all the bad stuff up, buttercup!  I totally hoped my inner thoughts and behaviour didn’t show to others and that would kind of be OK. Hey, I still struggle! But now it is against my own flesh indulging itself, by having hissy fits and excusing its own bad behaviour.

If what you hear in your head is mean, nasty, spiteful, dangerous, and against what the bible says – deal with yourself and REPENT. It’s not somebody else’s fault – it’s ours! Pray and humble yourself. It’s the devil! he picks up on our weaknesses. If what you hear is kind, loving, supportive, helpful and it glorifies Jesus, and it’s IN the book – then that’s the Holy Spirit! Here is my advice on how to die daily — PRAY. Then find something you have never even tried to obey before, use your faith that God will help you, and go and do it.  We lack power because we lack the kind of faith that leads us into obedience.

This probably means we will have to fix things with our neighbour, or our mother-in-law, or someone we don’t much like. Transformation works in us as we do these hard things using our faith. He promised to help us. Believe Him – take Him at His Word. The more we obey His directives, the more our faith becomes living, and the bible will give us His clarity. Bye. 👋

P 2746 Let’s not weaponise our words.

/ DVH

Arguments start with, and are maintained by – words. We need to carefully listen to what we are saying – instead of simply listening to other people so we can rebut them. A lack of careful listening can start unnecessary trouble, and clarification is a useful tool too. Learn to ask questions – non-provocative ones.

Meanwhile, abuse of any sort is a whole other ballgame – don’t do it – don’t allow it. That stuff becomes cyclic and worsens as it goes along. The only way I know to avoid perpetrating verbal abuse, is to shut your mouth. And I am speaking from experience here, I am a word person. Angry verbal people can use words like weapons, it is like facing a machine gun spitting out rounds of bullets. And BTW asking GOD to shut your mouth for you is about as good as waving a wand over the top of your money expecting it to grow. You can, however, immediately ask for His help.

Let’s remember that we ALL have CHOICES – and it is not the Lord’s fault if we make bad ones. Here’s a clue, it helps me. Take your hand and stick it over your mouth and leave the room. Now breathe deeply, calm down. Don’t review what they said to stoke up the fire, ask for His help. Christians need to live their lives constantly aware that the work has already been done – we know WE WIN. Our task is to start believing the book, and change our responses and actions using our faith.

Let’s move on … to another form of abuse – financially. I think one of the ways to avoid financial inequality is to value what your partner does. It is cruel to hold other people hostage by controlling their finances. Financial freedom is important, within reason of course. God’s people are a generous people. This means they don’t have to think before they help others, because their whole way of seeing this life has been transformed. They often notice someone else’s deprived state and act without being asked.

Lastly the way for an abused person to avoid physical abuse is to pack their bags and leave. No amount of apologising can negate the terrible effects of intimidation by thrashing. There needs to be enough space for repentance and change. Occupying the same space is like sticking gasoline next to an open fire. Bullying is a symptom of a far more serious problem – not a character trait! Look at this subject like this:  the bible talks about choosing the right way, and you can’t choose clearly if you have no freedom.

Back to my point – words can start wars. The worst thing about being angry with someone else is that we can have a tendency to exaggerate what was actually said, in our favour. We take what we said, and make it sound OK, and make what the other person said AWFUL! Sometimes hubby and I disagree about what was said more than we do about the subject! How stupid, inefficient and ineffective is that? It’s a total waste of time – nothing actually gets resolved. The answer is to give up holding each other ransom over something said in temper, and look at the LOG in your own eye first. 

We need to use do good with our words. Speaking them to empower, not cripple others. “And never let ugly or hateful words come from your mouth, but instead let your words become beautiful gifts that encourage others; do this by speaking words of grace to help them.”Ephesians 4:29 TPT.  In this new life we now have, we have the power to speak life! Our words are now destined to become beautiful gifts. Sadly, some things that are said are not worth the price paid for the delivery because they can have far reaching terrible effects! So how do we let our words become beautiful gifts? 

Glad you asked me that! We all need Grace. I believe that Christians greatly underestimate the enormous value of Grace. Some of us think that making small talk and avoiding hot issues – instead of embracing intimacy – will let us off the hook. It can’t. Intimacy is our destiny … read the book! If my hand does not know what my feet are doing then I will be an accident waiting to happen. I fell up the stairs when I tried that one out!  A body needs co-ordination. Co-ordination … wait for it … … COMES FROM THE HEAD! As we yield to His words – our words, thoughts, actions and reactions change. However, agreeing with the Lord changes nothing –  HE ALREADY KNOWS HE’S RIGHT!! We have to choose be His disciples and then follow Him down the road of obedience, and it’s a death march!

Grace is free … it just takes obedience to step into it. We use our faith that what He says in the book is right and act on it. Yes, a part of us will die, but those parts weren’t going to help us to walk with Him. Secondly, Grace can go places and do things that we can’t do by ourselves. Grace opens many doors. It transforms the person who chooses to live this way – and over time, it will have a ripple effect on others. 

Don’t just watch what you say … deliberately give what you’ve said and what the other person has said to you – to the Lord and then leave it with Him. One day you and I are going to answer to Him for all those stray words, and explain ourselves to Him. Let us not weaponise our words. Living this life with eternity in our minds, reminds us that nothing that happens to us cannot be released and given over to Grace.  Bye 👋

P 2744 Beware of bear traps.

/ DVH

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is my strength of my heart and my portion, forever.”Psalm 73:26. In a nutshell I think this verse means this;  all by myself, trying very hard and with my best intentions, I will probably fail! I wanna say that there’s a very strong possibility of a probability of a maybe, that I won’t be successful. Sigh. However! This verse makes this clear, I am not meant to rely upon my own strength, because now – praise God!…

… Now, I have His strength. A strength that I know carried Jesus through everything— including all the torture, and on, and to and through the cross. I want to remember that when I am pushed and prodded by some enthusiastically grumpy person, or when someone else’s actions are stretching me …  Jesus remained silent in the face of His accusers. I wish I did. 

For so many years I’ve been trying to kill off that particular bit of my flesh. I long to have the ability to remove the desire to ‘pay back in kind’ because so far my temper rises and I’m a dead duck! Sadly, after someone else has vomited their grumpy thoughts all over me, if what they are saying is error – I feel this almost irrepressible urge to straighten that other person out. My subtitle on this subject is: ‘I would want to know if I was wrong so they will too.’ Yeah. Right. 🤪 Have I mentioned that I have a tendency to be optimistic as well as unrealistic?

Today I have some observations that may, or may not be helpful when some schmuck – did I say that out loud? – clomps all over your precious little tootsies with their hobnail boots … and then … they don’t say “sorry.” Actually, most of the time people have no idea what they did. But at other times their not-so-friendly-remarks are definitely done on purpose. Somehow their aim – to hurt or not to hurt – does actually matter, strange as that seems! This situation is made even worse if the perpetrator says something like : ”I don’t mean to upset you, BUT” … and then they hit you with a triple whammy. And yes, I understand that using words like perpetrator won’t help me! 

It seems to me that it is useless to take the unrealistic position of waiting for the other person to realise what they have done… because, as I just mentioned, perhaps they already know and can’t wait to pounce on you – again. At other times, maybe they haven’t a clue and their flesh just failed them. However, it is much better to call whatever happened sin, and go on to deliberately and personally forgive them — than it is to invest emotionally in the entire scenario and try to prove your point or excuse their behaviour. Bin there dun that, sometimes other people don’t wanna know if their not-so-helpful-attitudes hurt you. 

Meanwhile, for us, as His kids, it’s a win-win situation. We get to humble ourselves and they get a load of grace they obviously need. I have found it is very helpful to look at sin in that way. When someone hurts me, maliciously or not, I can choose to release God’s Grace into their lives, since, in my view, they apparently need it. The next thing to do is to give the whole kit and caboodle over to the Lord and deliberately don’t remember. Remembering someone else’s sins is a bear trap. Remembering brings everything up and starts counting how many times that person has done bad things before. It’s a bad time to try to strengthen your memory muscles!

When bad things happen to us, instead, we need to remember the Lord, and what He has done. He does not send difficult things to punish us! Those things are part of living in a fallen world. Instead God is giving us an opportunity to get to know that part of His heart better. We suddenly have a shared experience. He knows what it is like to be defenceless in front of people with tongues as sharp as razor blades. Jesus already PAID everyone’s debt – and that includes the person who was just horribly rude to you – whether that other person knows this fact or not. Let’s remember our responses change us.

Forgiveness is not an optional extra. It’s an essential premise our entire new life is founded on. Check out the bible – this is not just a thought … it’s a theme!  We cannot always avoid the bear traps of this life, even though they make us miserable, but the choice is not whether we are going to let that particular bear trap off the hook – so to speak, but whether we are going to OBEY THE LORD OR NOT. It is always a choice. May God bless us all with great strength. Amen. 👋

P 2738 Avoid at all cost.

/ DVH

“Jealousy is as strong as the grave.” Song of Solomon 8:6. This was the first scripture that I thought of when I began to think about jealousy. I think each of us may have experienced that things like bitterness, resentment, jealousy, rage, lying, etc. etc. aren’t good for spiritual health. None of these things are great traits to have, for quite obvious reasons. They can tie you up in knots long after the object of that stuff has left this world. I’ve found one thing leads to another and suddenly you are swimming in bad stuff — justifying yourself all the way.

“But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.”James 3:14-16. This scripture really impacted me, it exposed the thought that selfish ambition is a companion to jealousy. And James does not fiddle about, he calls it demonic – and unspiritual. Did you notice that this awful stuff goes right for our jugular? It attacks our hearts. Oh my! James goes on to talk about what real wisdom looks like, but I want to talk about the nasty bits today.

Here’s why. The jealousy bug has bitten me fairly recently. This thing that has happened involves people that are still with us, on earth, so I cannot give you details. However, someone appeared to be stealing something that was actually MINE. I know that intent counts because these people didn’t think it would matter, but unfortunately, when informed of my pain, they wouldn’t stop. That’s when I learnt that the desire to choke the living daylights out of someone who appeared to be stealing something that I know is mine — was sadly much bigger than the idea that I am a person of GRACE. I know I’m not perfect, by any means, but I honestly thought I was bigger inside than that!! Sigh. Reality rush.

Then I discovered why. Jealousy can have roots. This thing had its roots in my childhood. This rotten stuff can hide itself away, as it is actually stealing the life of God within us. It steals energy, focus, plus our very expensive, it cost-Jesus-His-life-to-give-it-to-us … PEACE. Here’s something to think on about that: “A peaceful mind gives life to the body, but jealousy rots the bones.” Proverbs 14:30. As if there is not enough going on inside my skin, daily! Thanks for bringing that up, James! Meanwhile I’ve now learnt from further study that our God is a jealous God. That thought made so much sense to me,if I bow down to, or give in to jealousy, then I am worshipping that thing, not the Lord!

At the same time, I also realised that I was working very hard to do something about my actual bones in the natural, older people have to think about that. I was physically prepared to take medicine, do weight-bearing exercise, and generally move around more to avoid bad bones. Yet, at the same time, I was also shooting all that effort in the foot, by holding onto something I could not change, because – hullo! Jealousy rots the bones!! All because it involved someone else’s behaviour!  That whole thing gave me an excuse to feel sorry for myself.

This stuff all transpired when I became obsessed with someone else taking something from me I didn’t know I valued until they took it! Even more sadly, the people involved had no comprehension of what they were doing – they thought they were helping me! Talk about throwing petrol on a grass fire! 🔥 Have you ever tried to change someone else’s mind when they think they are righteous? You may as well try to hold back the ocean.

I have had so much legally, legitimate stuff to be angry about, that I could have divided it into categories! And all this happened despite me repeatedly disclaiming the idea that the helpful people’s actions were hurting me, not helping. Whoosh! That stuff went way over their heads. It is good to know that it’s only truly helping someone else, if the person who needs the help actually wants it, right? DUH!! 

Sorry. After I wised up, and repented — I told the Lord that if He wants me to have what was being stolen, then HE would have to get it back for me. And then I stuck to that thought. Plus I had to add in repeated forgiveness, because they would keep harping on the so-called fact that what they were doing was good for me – bless them!!… Says she with gritted teeth. 😬  I repented of jealousy, anger, and wanting to whack people. Hmmm …you know, I just gotta say that I think it is a mistake to colour in bad stuff with a pretty pink pencil and pretend it is not what it is. Sin.

So I am on a learning curve. I’ve learnt that jealousy is to be avoided at all cost, because the ramifications to our spiritual life and well-being are not worth it. Bye. 👋