Grace

P 2317 The power is IN the One Who rescued us.

/ DVH

“He has rescued us completely from the tyrannical rule of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom realm of His beloved Son. For in the Son all our sins are canceled and we have the release of redemption through His very blood.” Colossians 1:13-14 TPT

THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH BUT…” the free gift of God is eternal life IN Christ Jesus.“ His power released into our lives brings transformation.

If we want to get ‘paid,’ or ‘rewarded’ for having faith;  OR if we view having faith in Him as doing God a favour;  or even if we expect immediate answers to our prayers, or our difficulties fixed, or lifestyle choices magically changed …. then that kind of faith ends in death. That way of thinking will kill off real faith faster than weed killer on a weed. Instead of expecting God to fit in with us and accommodate us… we must learn how to fit in with Him! 

We really must stop anxiously looking for answers to unanswered prayer as proof that He loves us, and start looking for what He IS actually doing – and join in. Right here, right now. Personally, I think we simply can’t have God AND …

… God and a happy carefree life — God and beautiful always obedient children — God and a lovely home/car/job etc. —God and plenty of money to spend — God and the right mate—God and no trials. If you or I do have these things then they are a gift. My advice is share them with others and don’t hold on to anything too tightly. Holding on to stuff is a trap. Always remember that Father God is not content to be an add-in or add-on. His kingdom coming is His first priority.

WHY?  Because HE is God and we are not. We must LET the WORD of God become flesh in us.

Living our lives IN Christ Jesus is not an optional extra. The biggest sin the Israelites committed in the Old Testament was they wanted a god they could manage.  We need to beware of the trap of carelessness and selfishness. It is so easily tip over into expecting our lives to always be carefree and care less. 

The joy of the Lord IS our strength but that joy comes from knowing HIM, not getting what we want. We are now His obedient kids, not spoilt pouty brats! It is up to us to learn His Ways and live like Jesus would, or salvation has not achieved everything the Lord wants to accomplish in us, and through us. 

Our Heavenly Father punished Adam and Eve for eating that forbidden fruit. Then He went on to punish HIS ONLY one-of-a-kind-dearly-beloved-Son for OUR SINS! The cost paid is a huge indication of how important it is to now live our lives His WAY. If that doesn’t make our knees knock together – what will?

We need the reverential fear of the Lord back. We lost it in the touchy feely 90’s and we have not picked it up again.

We’ve been sold a big bag of hot air that is not substantiated in the book. He is absolutely our Father, but He does not ignore sin. And He is not an optional extra, add-on insurance policy .. after-death-cover.  If we think we truly want to know Who God is, then we must first face who we really are. 

We are not sort-of-kind-of nice people who maybe made a mistake but-we-know-better-now people! We are sinners saved by Grace. Grace that cost the Lord His life. We need this kind of balance because true gratitude will lead us away from self-centredness into a lifetime of service. The power to overcome lies in our day to day choices. All we need to be overcomers has been given to us – it is IN HIM. Doing what He would do, going where He would go.👋🏻

P 2312 As He was in this world so are we.

/ DVH

The most important question we can ever ask ourselves is this – WHAT DOES LOVE LOOK LIKE TO GOD? The bible clearly defines what His love looks like to mankind, but how does the Lord God, Maker of heaven and earth, define love – the love that flows from US to Him?

Jesus said in Matthew 22:35-37 “ One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” That original commandment was given by God Himself to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6… sadly, in 6,000 years they hadn’t gotten very far had they? Have we?

Our daily question needs to be: “Holy Spirit how can I do that? How can I love God truthfully with all of me?” Many people might answer this question like this: “by loving each other, by serving Him, by reading the bible, through worship, praise, prayer and fasting.” All of these things are great. Do them with the Holy Spirit’s help and guidance! However Jesus Himself said in John 14:15-31 GNT – “If you love me, you will  obey My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, Who will stay with you forever. He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God.’”

It is just like the Lord Jesus to ask a question and give us the answer … all in the same sentence. To truly LOVE GOD – WE NEED HELP! We need the One Jesus specifically sent back to earth to help us. With the Holy Spirit’s help, obedience to His commandments is the way we show God we love Him. When God’s very special, One-of-a-kind-Son came here from heaven, that’s what He did. Christ modelled that kind of obedience all the way through His life, and on through death, into resurrection life.

We are living after the time that Jesus first breathed on His disciples, and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. And then they went out and obeyed Him, and did what He did and saw the same results. Here’s food for thought – Jesus breathed on Judas! Judas did this stuff too, even while he was pinching money from the common purse! We must stop thinking that the people Who have miraculous gifts are somehow holy. Holiness comes from GOD Himself so we need to learn to let Him flow through us, using our faith. His presence in us, with us, and through us, as we obey Him, will do the changing.

The gifted ones among us were given something from HIM – they simply had the faith to pick up their God-given gifts! That’s God’s glory healing someone, not Brother Everybody-knows-my-name. That guy can’t heal a banana without the Holy Spirit’s help! So let’s quickly look at Stephen… who waited tables … he had the gift of helps. “Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.” Acts 6:8. 

That’s the key to who Stephen was right there, he was – ‘full of Grace!’ How do you get this Grace? You live your life openly and honestly, acknowledging your faults and flaws, repenting, fixing things, and receive His forgiveness —and then you give that away. “…freely you have received, freely GIVE!” If Jesus Himself could do nothing without the Holy Spirit – then without Him WE are sunk. But the other side of that coin means if Christ lived that way as a man, then so can we. 

What we all need, what we must cry out for – is what occurred in ACTS 2 … after the Holy Spirit came to stay there were only DEAD MEN WALKING in the church. His Presence changed them – they valued His Presence above all else. The Body of Christ needs to be changed – and we’d all better get a wriggle on too! 

There were no schizophrenic Christians back then … people with one foot in this world and one foot in the next. They surrendered everything for His sake. Before Pentecost, they were all over the place, but they came out of that encounter with the Holy Spirit resurrected. Their old man, their old way of life was DEAD. Paul died on the road to Damascus, the resurrected new man went on from there.

Our struggle in this life is to die daily …one decision at a time. It’s a choice and Christ died to give us the freedom to make that choice. Together we must learn to constantly rely upon the Holy Spirit.  Time to wake up church and chase after your destiny. “…as He was in this world SO ARE WE!“ 👋🏻

P 2310 Mi casa, su casa …

/ DVH

… my house is your house. I love the inclusiveness of that beautiful Spanish statement. When we give our lives to Jesus this is what we are literally saying. “My heart, Lord, is now Your home…”  my house is now your house. 

The beauty of this type of commitment toward Him is this … He will remain faithful to us, even if – or when, we are unfaithful to Him. He cannot be any other way. Check it out for yourself, and don’t take my word for it.  It’s in the book. Our God is so faithful! FYI the word “faith” is mentioned 243 times in the bible, “faithful” 82 times, “faithfully” 8 times, “faithfulness” 19 times. Our only response to His incredible faithfulness is: MI CASA SU CASA.

Faithfulness is part of Who Almighty God is! Whatever He says, we can stand on it, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance- we can utterly trust Him. The Holy Spirit always knows what to say … and where to look for instructions too! He initiates, and we follow. We need to be oh, so very careful about how we treat the Precious Spirit of God, because He is the Father’s heart speaking to us, leading us into our destiny.

People make walking with Him far too difficult. The secret is to love what HE loves. He loves the Father and the Son … and… … He loves people. He also adores a heart that loves to obey. Obedience to His Ways and directions show our commitment. We must learn to do whatever He asks us to do. – we need to make His priorities our priorities that is how you walk with Him. If He says don’t do it – then don’t do it! 

It only gets hard any time His will conflicts with ours. Here’s another clue regarding how to recognise Him from day to day— He is not a TA-DA kind of Person. He likes to work in secret.  The Holy Spirit reveals Himself to us as we deliberately choose to learn His ways.… so, in the face of this world’s ideas we will end up seeking out what He wants. That’s normal!

His very favourite thing is this:  He loves to help us carry out our daily life. Let Him IN! The Holy Spirit just loves to help. He teaches us, counsels us, leads us and guides us, as we go about our daily lives.  Ask Him. Ask and keep ON asking…  Plus He loves to help us to worship and praise God. Spontaneously, not just at church on Sunday. If you relegate His input to Sundays you will miss the biggest blessing. He gives us insight, revelation and wisdom in our day-to-day settings. Expect His input. 

Plus He facilitates all of God’s kids to live a life of loving joyful obedience and service to our King. Sometimes we may not even notice what the Holy Spirit is actually doing, unless we make His priorities our priorities. But at the same time He does not ever like to call attention to Himself. He adores to point out the things our Heavenly Father does on our behalf. The Holy Spirit’s gentle nature will help us take the lowest place, with Grace, if we let Him. 

We become His helpers as we learn to yield to His personality and plans. Friendship with the Holy Spirit is our greatest asset in this world – it is up to us to diligently discover what He wants done, and how He wants things done and then do it. He will take everything that is broken, false and ugly in our lives and work it all together for good for everyone – including US. And He does it so quietly we may not even notice what He is doing until it is done. He is simply that subtle. Our task to flow with Him, and when that is all boiled down, it means we die to our choices, often and joyfully.

Our house is His house, our bodies are His temple. That is for every day of the week not just Sundays. Our bodies are His home, please don’t leave Him homeless. 👋🏻

P 2309 Grab a cup of something you like and … enjoy what He is saying to you!

/ DVH

1 Thessalonians 1:3&4 “We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.”

I figure if my life is difficult day by day, then perhaps your life is too! And then I read the above verses in 1 Thessalonians and the matter was confirmed. I thank God for you and your life laid down for His sake. It is good to read what the Lord has recorded in His book, and kept through the ages for all of us… and now, we need to personalise it! I urge you to read these verses like the Holy Spirit is speaking to you… because… He is! He is using Paul’s words to help each one of us with the hard bits of this life. These verses are a prophetic word of loving encouragement.

I have also included today, something I read recently from The Passion Translation blog called: “I Hear His Whisper.” Hubby passed it on to me. As I read it, I cried and cried. Life can be so very tough, and loving encouragement from our brothers and sisters in Christ is essential, so words like these mean a great deal in difficult times. Meanwhile, personally, physical therapy for a shoulder broken in 3 places can seem endless, plus typing this blog with one hand using my index finger for the past 7 weeks, is painfully SLOW! 😂

This lovely piece below has been written as if the Lord Himself is speaking to us. It is called – 

‘There is Beauty in your Pain.’

“Your pain has become the birthing ground for the beautiful.  In your greatest devastation, your worship has become a fertile, healthy womb.  From the seasons of sorrow now come glorious gifts for you to share.  Nothing has been overlooked.  Now you will see what I will do through you, because of what you endured while you bowed before Me in surrender.  In your place of your pain, I have poured out My beauty.

Heartbreaking tears of surrender have made you beautiful – so very beautiful to Me.  This is the most perfect offering of your yielded heart.  I haven’t forgotten one single prayer.  I have seen every movement of your heart toward Me in your suffering.  For every tear, I give you a seed to sow in someone’s life.  I have taken your sorrow.  I have cleansed your tears with My love.  Now I pour these tears back to you as rain upon dry soil – golden rain of a new season where flowers bloom and the air is clean and fresh.  Breathe deeply, My love.  The season has changed. “

(“I Hear His Whisper” by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez.)

You might want to just sit a while and let that sink in, it is worth meditating on. 😶 

Sometimes doing nothing and holding on tight to Who He is, is the best answer of all. In Genesis it tells us that the Lord Himself rested. I think there is a time when it is good for us to hold on to what we know, and just keep hanging on, and let His great Grace carry us. I can remember during my accident, sitting awkwardly at the bottom of our stairs … having just bumped my way all the way down to the bottom,… and marvelling that I had such great peace. If I didn’t move my shoulder about I could almost pretend I was OK…⚡️ … I did say … almost! 😂

So I exhort us all to take the time today to remind ourselves  that Almighty God knows what is going on … even when we don’t. Take the pressure off and just BE …   He knows what He is doing. 👋🏻 

P 2293 Sound advice.

/ DVH

“Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.” 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 (MSG) When I read this today I thought … brilliant. This verse is simple, concise and extremely clear.  Sometimes our biggest hardships occur when we overly complicate things and in the end we have so many things to remember, the truly important things get lost.

In my case they seem to fall out of my ears despite my hearing aids! More’s the pity. Keeping it simple stupid works best for me. I love to remember those bible verses I first fell in love with – back then we had pure scripture in song. When things get tough those versions flood back into my heart. These older versions remind me in the heat of battle of the reason why I live this way. 

I don’t know about you, but under pressure from the really high and low tides of this life, plus the normal everyday wear and tear and daily grind, my little faith boat sometimes slips its moorings and starts floating away. That is not good in a crisis. Then we need something sure and solid to hold onto, and the bible has such strength and stability in it.

Ideally, because His book says so, our faith should have substance to it, and not just bob about on the sea of life getting tossed by this and that. Otherwise it is unfortunately far too easy to feel like you are nearly sinking all the time. I know that faith can have its highs and lows, but in the main, our faith needs to be a slow steady progression upwards. We should literally be able to see our faith grow over a prolonged period of time, especially when things have been rough. 

In those times this is where we need to learn to cling to the Lord and His book more tightly. However we must remember, no matter what season we are in – GOD IS FAITHFUL. HE WILL NEVER EVER LET GO OF US! Even when we are faithless, He is always faithful. 

The above scripture from 1 Corinthians 16 doesn’t actually sound like it includes ‘time off for good behaviour.’ There are no holidays from being His kid! When stuff gets tough cling like a limpet to the Rock of all ages!  This particular scripture is both directional and instructional. ‘Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.’ 🤔 There is order in these instructions. The easiest place to end up defeated is in our HEAD. This is where self-talk, from the Word, is a strong rope keeping us moored safely. It directs us so we know what to look for, and how to do it.  You may need to pause and think about that. I did. 

And this verse is definitely correctional, because the absolutes in it are not muddy or unclear. I personally love it when the bible is like that. I definitely love the stories of people just like me and how they succeeded in spite of themselves. Or even how they got it wrong, and God rescued them because He pitied them. But I also love this kind of clear directive. Forget the language, look for the instructions.

Things like the word pity, in any language, is not common today. That word is like …’feeling sorry for.’ But God actually pities us and has mercy on us, because He remembers we were made from dirt. He knows our frame and He knows our weaknesses, and He never despises us for them. To top that kindness off, our Lord Jesus came and walked through this life as a human being, subject to the same temptations and distractions that we are, and He did it without sinning. It demeans His total reliance upon His Heavenly Father, and the Holy Spirit, to think that this life was easy for Him, because we think He somehow had a special advantage we don’t! 

Actually, we have exactly the same advantage He had, the same Helper He had, the same Person Who would’ve held Him fast to His purpose – holds us. The one thing I admire about the Lord Jesus is the only time we see any outward struggle is during His time at Calvary. All of time this everyday stuff was totally settled for Him, He knew where victory lay. Victory lies in obedience.

His purity of His purpose is our benchmark, plus it is also a place of wonder and worship. Remember, the Lord knew irritating people too! He walked around with people who didn’t understand His purpose and started trying to enforce their own agendas. It kinda reminds me a bit of politicians, who start out enthusiastically wanting to help people, and quickly discover there are an awful lot of hurdles in the way! Jesus made that complicated process extremely simple, He loved the person in front of Him. He treated each person in front of Him with God-inspired attention. It totally fascinates me that He didn’t give up under pressure, which is where I sadly fall over.

Thank God we all have His righteousness undergirding us, plus His grace flowing freely through the open channel of our lives, as we give away His love for us, using our faith. One resolute step after the other, in good times and bad, is the only way to follow Him and remain steadfast. Bye. 👋🏻

P 2292 Disposing of myths…

/ DVH

There was a theory in Christianity like 30-40 years ago that ‘what you say is what you get.’  I’ve found that human beings are fascinating … we are always looking for the easy way, or the soft touch or an escape clause etc. etc. But actually I think we have all gone a bit soft. Not in the head, mind you, but emotionally speaking. When things get tough … sadly, ’the tough don’t get going’ … They are far more likely to squawk and complain their heads off and drive their poor pastor nuts.

God is not obliged to answer our prayers, He always hears us – but we are now living under His Grace. We can ASK – but then we trust. Unfortunately, I think we’ve become way too used to outsourcing our problems instead of getting alone with God and working things out with Him.

I can remember, years ago, way back in the Ark – metaphorically speaking – after some huge difficulty or other, crying my eyes bloodshot. I was surrounded by piles of soggy tissues, and I explained to God that I just couldn’t take any more, and could He please feel sorry for me and come and help me out of the mess I had somehow manage to get into? You know, I really don’t have experiences, or hear an audible voice – I’m a plodder… one foot after the other kind of thing … This one time I actually heard HIM LAUGH!

Well that was a tad discouraging! So I said so. But that didn’t seem to make a lot of difference. His reply was even more discouraging… “You don’t know what YOU can do,” He said. You know, He was right!  I’ve learnt the Lord God maker of heaven and earth – always IS. Since then I have been through far worse things, still crying, complaining and filling up our oceans and landfill with even more tissues. But I survived. Despite my heart and mind telling me I couldn’t possibly live through this kind of pain … I DID!

“But the love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God’s Word. We can be sure that we’ve truly come to live in intimacy with God, not just by saying, “I am intimate with God,” but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.” 1 John 2:5-6 TPT. 

As you can see, it isn’t, what you say is what you get … it’s what you get – YOU GET! 🤔 And then comes the joy of learning to live with whatever the problem is, while you are trying to grow through it, and at the same time straining forward to follow Jesus. That’s the real rubber, hitting the real road – impacting lives. I wish I could tell you after all these years that I have learnt the magic formula to managing hard things but … NOPE!!  However, I have learnt to give UP much quicker … but then again, that could be old age. Are you cheered up yet? 😂

Here’s my genuine advice. Go into His book and look for a reality rush. Try reading Hebrews 11. Particularly V13. “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” So are any of us better than Abraham or the guys in this list? No! Jesus Himself said:’In this life you will have trials … but cheer up, I have overcome the world.’ John 16:33.

Unrealistic expectations have killed off more faith than any of us will ever understand this side of heaven. Our faith must always be in God’s goodness, not in answers. Answers are simply the result of the outworking of His plans for all of us. We restrict the Lord when we try to explain or interpret His ways with our finite minds. We will always need the Holy Spirit to help us. ALWAYS! Otherwise we will start reducing Almighty God to SomeOne after our own image … and that is not good at all! 

What we say is definitely not always what we get – Father God always gives better than we ever imagined… in His timing. His timing is different from what we asked for or hoped, or thought, but it is always perfect. Let’s let God be God and we’ll just be us!  Deuteronomy 32:4 (KJV) “He is the Rock, His work is perfect: For all His ways are judgment: A God of truth and without iniquity, Just and right is He.” And that is definitely worth thinking about. 👋🏻

P 2289 The art of speaking to your soul.

/ DVH

So I say to my soul, “Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be disturbed. For I know my God will break through for me.” Then I’ll have plenty of reasons to praise Him all over again. Yes, He is my saving grace!” Psalms 42:11 TPT

Way back in the ark, eons ago … I had three small kids. The youngest, at two, often felt quite overwhelmed by the older kids. They could, temporarily, out-talk the youngest and out-smart and outrun the toddler as well. They could do practically everything better than the little one could. This situation caused the toddler quite a bit of angst and suffering. But the kid grew as children do, and eventually everyone had to run to keep up with them!

However at the time, with a list of things this child had to remember, this dear little person felt a tad overwhelmed. One day they had enough! Everybody seem to know better than this child did and have something else for them to do or learn. So the toddler ran into their bedroom distressed, and they threw themselves on their bed yelling all the way: “I’m the boss, I’m the boss, I’m the BOSS of my bed!“

We all kind of got the point instantly, and were a bit more considerate of this kid’s age after that – we realised that child was feeling quite powerless.  But in spite of all that a toddler figured out how to encourage itself!

Sometimes our own souls need reassurance and if none is forthcoming then we need to talk to ourselves, and do it positively. That negative stuff will do your head in. Self-sabotage is for the birds … and … they don’t like it either. 😂 Do yourself a favour, don’t shoot yourself in the foot, instead when we need to repent and repair things – do it. Then move on! This life has far better stuff to focus on than our failings. Somebody said it better than I can recently – “Don’t look back like Lot’s wife.” Great advice!

It is good to start telling yourself that setbacks are temporary, and mistakes are a part of this life. Bring to mind the sorts of Scriptures that build up your personal POV, instead of tearing it down. The fact that the Lord Jesus thought each one of us was worth dying for is enough to shift our focus away from whatever has been going on and put it firmly back under His supervision. He doesn’t love us because we get things right – He loves us because we are His!

Jesus’ own security was deeply rooted in the Father’s love for Him. His primary focus was always about ‘what was going to be good for the person in front of Him.’ It is not healthy for human beings to live with self-hatred and self criticism. That stuff leaks into other compartments and then it ends up coming out of our mouth unbidden – and suddenly we can find ourselves finding fault with other people all over the place.

We were not saved to become fault finders! Instead we are to be a God-given source of encouragement for many. At the same time, we need to actively practise being able to cheer ourselves up, despite our circumstances, by focussing on what the bible says about who we are in Christ..

This Psalmist knew the real secret of maintaining a healthy spiritual attitude – don’t just focus on yourself and your actions or feelings etc. watch and see what God is doing on your behalf. We can use our energy to make excuses for ourselves OR – we can admit our faults, confess them, make reparation and use our energy etc. to remember everything the Lord has done for us. That focus changes moods! We can encourage ourselves in the Lord, and modify our self- talk. Plus deliberately remind ourselves of His unfailing love and grace toward us. And I have found it useful to not just parrot off those words of loving hope – the secret is to let them sink in.

The fact that Jesus loves you and me, is extraordinary. HIS LOVE IS LIKE THE OCEAN! Bye 👋🏻

P 2283 A Personal Opinion.

/ DVH

I want to begin by saying to those who are sick, brokenhearted, or injured – God has not left you, no matter how you feel. Even if your friends, or family have given you up – He will not EVER leave you. I have learnt in the hard places, like many men and women of God have learnt before me, this is the time to lay down upon the altar: “I will build an altar to You in this difficult and dark place. I surrender once again Lord, to Your will, Your way.” Amen.

This is a difficult subject for me, I have experienced healing from the Lord, supernaturally, many times in the past. But at this moment in time that is simply not my current experience. I wanted to talk today about some of the things we don’t want to talk about. Instead we can get caught up in a little man-made eddy of “I’m asking the Lord to heal me, or somebody I care about, and I must speak positively all the time or I will wreck it” – only to find that the answer is not what we hoped. 

We can easily go astray in our faith walk while we are in a dark valley. We know the Lord Jesus is with us – He promised to be there. But the reality of our experience denies the faith we are fighting to hang onto. So we read books about healing, because we desperately want to be healed, or to see it happen for someone else. We read the Bible reading the appropriate scriptures out loud over and over again. We run after His grace and go and get prayed for in every and any healing line. 

Meanwhile all of these things are good things to do – however, would the Lord require us to lie? I don’t think so. HE doesn’t lie, so why would He require us to lie on His behalf? Still, we can and must learn to persevere, Jesus Himself said so on several occasions. “… ask keep on asking so you can you find knock on the door will be open to you.” He taught us that perseverance in in prayer is a good thing. It was said of the Lord that He healed ALL who came to Him. Even when He fed people – no-one left hungry… Our God loves to provide and heal – it is His nature.

So what do we do when our experiences in these areas do not match up with what we are taught? Here is my two cents worth: whether it is my fault, and I don’t have enough faith, or it’s misunderstanding about what the Bible says, or simply haven’t been to the right person to get prayed FOR … —I refuse to measure Almighty God by my experience of Him or with Him. Instead I choose to find out Who He is from His book, independently from my own experiences.

He doesn’t ever answer to me, I answer to Him. You could easily say that I have weak faith in this area, but I say it takes more faith to believe in His goodness in adverse circumstances, than it does to believe in His generous and precious provisions in this life and receive them. Often we measure the King of all Kings with our grotty little man-made rulers and then we do one of two things –

We decide that it must be the unhealed person’s fault …OR …we sentence the sick person into a nether world of trying hard to get healed, and strangle them with the edict that they must not be negative and honest about their difficulties, thereby leaving them to struggle with their enormous burdens – alone. Neither of those responses even vaguely resemble what Jesus would do! He once prayed for a blind man twice… and offered no explanation for doing it that way either!

Jesus’ disciples also prayed for a little boy that had a demonic spirit that kept throwing him into the fire. The kid had convulsions, and the disciples couldn’t do anything about it. It is interesting to me to note that the Lord rebuked THEM. He didn’t growl at the father, or the kid, or even the people standing around watching. He rebuked his disciples instead for not having enough faith! 

I believe this is our problem in this day and age. We have tied the burden of being healed onto the sick person. As if they haven’t got enough to go on with! We haven’t thought about the fact that we have taught a whole generation that being sick is a sin. Plus we are saying that these sick people are responsible for their current circumstances. Implying that there must be something terrible hiding around corners in their lives somewhere, and they’d better toddle off and dig about until they find it! Instead of simply holding them up before the throne of Grace, and reminding them that they have greater faith than even they understand, because they love Him and serve Him, despite their negative circumstances.

Jesus told the disciples once when they asked Him: “Who sinned this guy, or his parents?” His response was – ‘Neither! This is for the glory of God.’ Funny how we tend to overlook that answer. We must learn to be honest with ourselves and others, and learn to say: “I DUNNO!” when we do not know. Then turn everyone’s attention to the goodness of God and all His Mighty works, and praise Him because He is worthy. Healing is absolutely His children’s bread but the children are led by a loving gracious Father. 👋🏻

P 2279 Transformation sucks…until it doesn’t!

/ DVH

Loving other people,  especially difficult ones, is our biggest test. As we let the Holy Spirit touch our lives and hearts, the things that really annoy us about other people, start to quietly melt away. There was no one singular moment for me, personally— instead, there have been thousands of little choices – to shut up when I didn’t really want to – and to look for the good in situations when the bad was banging me on the head repeatedly. 

There is no specific secret – I just had to stop putting ME first. The more we can drag our unredeemed minds out of self-preservation and start actively renewing them, the more we start to understand that following Jesus really works. There are still times my mouth starts running without thinking, then irritation takes over, and I couldn’t care less how someone else feels, all I care about is some clown is standing on my foot, metaphorically speaking. 

Over the years I’ve learnt that the subject of love makes a magnificent theory, but it doesn’t always work out the way we hope it will IRL. People do stupid annoying stuff. It’s inevitable! The point, is whether they mean to hurt us or not, the result is we still have deal with it. That part IS our problem. This is one of the best reasons I know to take judgment right out of the picture. As soon as we go into judgment, we’ve run right past mercy and left faith behind, and skidded right on through to feeling entitled to getting a break in our adverse circumstances … Which hardly ever happens BTW.  

There is just no going around the fact that we need an external-soon-to-become-internal source of power – because we don’t have that kind of grace toward other people, in us. Speaking for myself, in the past 2 weeks, I have found any number of reasons to get irritated. Pain is a fantastic motivator – unfortunately it mostly motivates you in the wrong direction… and then you start to feel sorry for yourself. 😱

Loving other people the way He loves us is utterly impossible by ourselves. We have to put aside the habits and actions we’ve cultivated in a lifetime – and deliberately, as in on purpose, step into His never-ending stream of love. This also means that at the same time we will have to realistically face who we truly are – warts and all. Not fun. Realism is not always a major feature of our Western churches.

Eventually you and I are gonna have to put a whole lot of stuff down, and deliberately forgetaboudit! And begin to pick up His sacrificial love, ask for His help, and start to use our choices. We do that simply because of what Christ did for us. Love is a chosen sacrifice. The good news is we don’t have to like it, we just have to bite the bullet and do it anyway. But the more we make the choice to live this life cooperating with the Holy Spirit, and learning His ways, the easier it becomes. That is when we will start to see His fruit forming in our own lives. 

All of this spells out the fact that just like Jesus Himself …“by myself I can do nothing.”  Human beings need restoration. Praise GOD He does that kind of thing, brilliantly. Loving others is always going to be hard, because in reality, I don’t always want to choose love – I want to choose comfort and convenience instead. However, change will never come unless we start to make hard, sacrificial choices. One of the most important choices we will ever make is to choose to believe the Lord Jesus is more important than how I feel or think, or anything awful you might do to me.

My final thought is this … we can follow Jesus to the cross and choose to die; and wait for Him to fulfil His promise to resurrect us – or we can put all our energies into self preservation. We can’t do both, not if you want to live in love the way He did. Bye 👋🏻.

P 2276 Mercy starts with US.

/ DVH

Mercy is like a well, sometimes we can run dry, and at that moment …we often let fly!  When that happens, repent quickly, fix it, and go and get alone with Jesus as soon as you can. Then ask for a fresh infilling of His love and grace. We extend mercy to ourselves when we do that instead of beating up on ourselves. However, at the same time, we are not absolving ourselves of the need to repair, and re-connect with the other person. 

Self flagellation and self accusation is not profitable, we need His grace first before we can begin to analyse what happened, and we need to look through His eyes at the current event, and not ours. We need to choose to look at whatever happened from His POV and not the world’s. His POV of restoration is far more important than us yelling at ourselves for getting it wrong.

We need to rush to our mercy seat, Christ, and sit down with Him. The bible tells us when we run toward Him, He runs toward us. Just stop and think on that. The God of the Universe rushes toward us and the Holy Spirit is on point and totally engaged on our behalf as well. He is ever-listening and ever-present to carry out Father God’s wishes. This is the exact moment that we need to remember Whose child we are. 

There is also no room for shame either! Jesus took our shame, sin, guilt and blame with Him to the cross.  “There is …no condemnation etc . etc.”  We need to get to Him as fast as we can. Then we prayerfully override our feelings of despair about what we did or said, and start reminding ourselves of how much we are loved by Him. He is the source of healing. Healing is not just about bodily ailments, our souls can be sick …it’s in the book.

I am not talking about ignoring our own personal responsibility to fix things with other people. Father God is the place where we get the grace to forgive others. The way to get a clear conscience is to deal with the matter. Don’t get tied up in who is to blame, or who said what. The point is we have to get back to Jesus, throw ourselves on the mercy seat, acknowledge our own fault, and don’t just start raving on about what the other guy did or said and  how much it hurt you. There is no value in that. It’s like yelling at the bus when it’s already gone, all the yelling in the world won’t bring the bus back.

Condemning yourself is a bit like adding fuel to the fire of your own hurt. Take a breath. Remind yourself that our precious Father loves you no matter what and He doesn’t change … “in Him there is no shadow or turning…” Now turn and look at the cross! It’s empty!! We live in the other side of the resurrection there is hope there! The Holy Spirit knows how to turn that mess we are in around.

Don’t try to fix something while your own emotions are in turmoil. Just breathe slowly, tell the Lord you’re sorry, ask Him to forgive you. Wait for Him to speak. You need instructions. If your toaster is malfunctioning then you will probably need to look at the instructions or check out the guarantee. The bible is God’s personal instruction manual for human beings. It is His guarantee IN WRITING! So when we are malfunctioning we need to go back to the word of God, and start reading. 

When I’m in a tizzy emotionally, or in in my mind, OR both! I find reading a Psalm calms me down. I rediscover my humanity by reading about what the psalmist said.- I like to go to one of the Psalms David wrote. Pick one where David is cranky at somebody or other, so he wants to kill them, and tell God they died. And I keep reading because I know that by the end, he will have calmed down and started turning his thoughts back to God. And that’s what we need to do too.

If you need to cry, cry. BUT – our God does not take sides. He only has one side – HIS! Remember the angel asked Joshua ‘who is on the Lord’s side?’ There are no winners or losers in Father God’s plans because when the Lord is in charge …everybody wins!  He loves us all. His aim is for every single human being to know Him and trust Him. We need to actively learn to have mercy toward ourselves. However that does not mean we are right or wrong, or that He favours us over someone else. Everything hinges on us treating the other person with His grace because our relationship with Him cannot go forward without active grace. Grace for us and grace for them. 

The Lord has already forgiven mankind – as His family we operate by His agenda now. Forgiveness is the hallmark of Who He is, and now, it has to be the hallmark of who we are. Focussing on our flaws magnifies them – this is why it is destructive to our faith to focus on someone else’s flaws. Our focus is always on the Answer – JESUS. 👋🏻