Grace

P 3411 Our hearts are so important…

/ DVH

… they show us what’s inside us. Our lives today seem to be all about experiences, good and bad ones. We are raising an instant gratification kind of generation. The result is many people have become cautious about using their faith — yet we are told very clearly that we cannot please God without using it. The glory of Jesus Christ is that He has already walked this earth with the same kinds of stubborn, decadent and hard hearted people that are alive right now.

The Lord deliberately walked through His life, with Love, Grace and Truth all over Him, and the men who walked with Him, wrote it all down. At any given moment you and I can read about what Almighty God wants from His kids, because now we have a physical illustration, of God’s will for mankind, Christ Himself. As well as a signed document — the bible. 

This book is a serious eternal document.The Lord Jesus signed the New Covenant in His own blood! “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Matthew 26:28. The proof of what Jesus did is not only written down. It is signed. When we come to Jesus to save us, we sign our part of that document with our faith, that’s why we are baptised. We are choosing to give Him our lives so that we can live for Him.

“For this reason He (Jesus) is the Mediator and Negotiator of a new covenant [that is, an entirely new agreement uniting God and man], so that those who have been called [by God] may receive [the fulfilment of] the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has taken place [as the payment] which redeems them from the sins committed under the obsolete first covenant.” Hebrews 9:15-18. Like I said, this new covenant is a serious thing not lightly entered into.

Our faith when it is in action looks like this: I do what the bible says, based upon the fact that I believe the bible is God Himself speaking to me. This means I choose to add my life (substance), to those words … those things that were only words before I acted on them. I started my new life by being baptised, (an action), and I continue to live in it by obeying His Word. I can’t trust my feelings, they will tell me it’s too hard and I can’t do this or that. So I need to use my faith to obey. He has promised to help me. I give time from my life to do whatever He asks me to do, and when I do that I am putting His new life in me, into whatever I am doing. 

My actions prove my faith is real whether I get to see the results I want or not. When I choose to live using my faith, I am investing my own here-and-now life into what I’ve read, and Almighty God promises I will see results. If not here, then I will in heaven. What I do daily, shows the world that what Jesus asks me to do, is worthy of everyone’s attention, because my faith in Who said it, has motivated me into acting on it. There can be no faith without accompanying actions. We don’t pick and choose what we will obey — the Holy Spirit chooses those things for us. 

Many people feel around trying to find faith, when their faith  actually becomes evident by the way we respond to God and each other. Faith is not a feeling, it is a way to live. Just like being a business person or a doctor is a way to live. Jesus Christ lived by using His faith, and then His disciples chose to live and die for it, and so have many others.

Like you, I’ve set my heart on being obedient with the Holy Spirit helping me. That’s what faith looks like, it is always on standby, ready to do whatever He tells me to do. I am prepared to look like a goose and to have other people question everything I say or do. I know that every time I obey, I will get another glimpse into the One I have chosen to follow. Jesus walked this way when He walked the earth. “This is because I have never spoken on My own authority or of My own accord or as self-appointed, but the Father Who sent Me has Himself given Me orders [concerning] what to say and what to tell.” John 12:49.

People often say to me that they do not hear God’s voice. Today, I don’t want to go into impressions etc. or thoughts that stand out in our mind. My point today is that we have a BOOK FULL of things God told us to do. I tell people to begin with the Beatitudes, but the gospels have loads of instructions. Find something you don’t do and do that! Ask the Lord to help you and then just go and do it. Let God Himself tackle how the other person responds. Obedience to His word releases heaven. We are literally becoming a part of “… on earth, as it is in heaven.” 

Many hurt people don’t want to forgive, because it seems like they are giving someone else a licence to do whatever they did in the first place, all over again! That bit is not ours, we are forgetting God inhabits GRACE. Proverbs 4:23 tells us that He’s interested in our hearts not our feelings. “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.” Our part is to guard our hearts. Faith is not just about results, it is far more about a freely given life of sacrificial obedience to Jesus. 

When we pray and want to be like Jesus, we will end up walking the same roads He walked. We will have to forgive people who are not sorry. Sometimes it seems like they will never ever acknowledge what they’ve done, and most of the time they think they are right and you are wrong! But that bit is out of our control. This life is about the state of our own heart. The Lord cares about that, because our responses show what is inside us. Just keep presenting your “paid in full” cheque, signed by Jesus Himself.  The Lord paid for them. He paid for you. Guard your heart and walk on. Bye. 👋

P3406 Living like the bible is true.

/ DVH

Every single day, many people reading this blog get on public transport, or maybe they walk or get into a car, and head off to their place of employment. Before they go, they don’t check out how many accidents have occurred to their type of bus or train or car – they just get in the vehicle and GO. They have put their faith in arriving on time, and in one piece. We all need this kind of faith in God’s Word. What if we treat His Word the same way we treat ordinary things like public transport? What if instead of this life being clouded by stuff, we responded to Jesus’ teaching like He is in the room with us?

Instead of remembering those things that we think didn’t work, our thoughts need to be continually drawn back toward what Jesus has said and already done. Then all of the focus goes off me and my efforts, and over onto His finished ministry. His ministry benefitted every single one of us. Let’s live like we believe that.  Instead of living this life randomly, remembering Jesus at oddly choreographed moments — or perhaps when the roof falls in —- He needs to become the centre of everything we give our lives to.

So when we go to work, raise our kids, interact with others …  even our leisure time … is now lived for Jesus. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.” Colossians 3:23.  As we choose to live this way, we will be transformed daily, because living this way means we are using our faith. Over time, our thinking will change— it shifts to what Jesus wants from me and what He did for me. Now I read the bible listening for Him to speak to me. 

There is no need for a debate about whether I should forgive or not. That’s a done deal. I give freely and love others without thinking up good reasons why I shouldn’t!  There is no longer a debate going on inside me. Nothing is about  who is right and who is wrong— our new life in Christ is about knowing what He says and living my life the way Jesus would. Every choice, every step we make to do things His way, is a step or choice toward total transformation. So we choose to respond to things the way He would, because we can be like Him. And in this process our own ideas, plans and programs fall away. He becomes the central pivotal point – not what Sister-always-has-an-opinion thinks, or Brother-if-you-don’t-believe-what-I-believe-you-are-going-straight-to-hell thinks! Our thoughts centre on what does the bible say, and what would Jesus do?? 

It seems to me that we’ve mistaken authority for dictatorship, and they are not the same. Nor are we ruled by a consequences consensus. That’s what gave us all these denominations in the first place. Is Christ divided? 1 Corinthians 1:13 says otherwise. The Apostle Paul was utterly brilliant — until God Himself blasted him and threw him off his horse — then he also had to learn to think about absolutely everything he had already known from Christ’s perspective. Meeting Jesus didn’t just change this man’s mind, it changed his life! God must have given Paul a huge dose of humility on that trip to heaven!

The way to be transformed is to make the same choices Jesus made. He chose to die to what He wanted, or thought he needed, to live for the will of His Heavenly Father. By the way, it is one thing to metaphorically die to self — it is totally another to lay there and let someone else do it for you. That spouse, that neighbour, that boss, that child who drives you mad, is God’s grinding wheel to transform your life. And if it seems like it is killing us … that is what it is supposed to do! It is part of the process of dying to ourselves and daily learning to live for Jesus. It is as real as those nails and that cross were. Let’s use our faith to step out of the boat of this world’s opinions and start moving into our Heavenly Father’s ways. What if what we know about the Lord was more real than the things around us?

We learn grace when we choose to act like Jesus would  toward people who are not treating us well. Have you noticed that today many people have the most amazing energy to persecute others? It goes on and on – like most TV soapies. We can choose to default on our God-given new life arrangement, and many Christians do. It is so much easier to explain away the bits we feel we can’t do. But it is far better to seek out what He says in the bible, particularly in the New Testament. It’s not difficult to think like Jesus does, it is just very hard on our flesh. 

When we live, day by day, moment by moment choosing to follow the Lord, we are choosing LIFE. ABUNDANT LIFE.  We have yet to see fully what that means, we simply know that Jesus Himself lived like this. Heaven comes down, because heaven is attracted to the smell of sacrificial living, when it is done for Jesus’ sake. Let’s keep this fact before our eyes, Father God sacrificed His Son to redeem anyone who wants to be saved. That shows us that what we run away from, the Lord goes toward. 

As we live like His Way of thinking, doing and being is true, and it is — that’s when our faith-filled actions lead to His truth totally saturating and inhabiting our lives. Faith is the pathway into this new way of life God has given us. We don’t just live this way to raise the dead, we also live that way to raise our hopes when all seems lost.That faith that saved us, will transform our lives as we use it day by day. It all starts with what we SAY or choose not to SAY.

Living the way Jesus Himself did, day by day, by loving others and choosing to obey Him – means we are living like the bible is true. IT IS. We will continue to have only a little of the power of God, while we choose to put our faith into simply being saved. I believe that power is released through walking by faith in love, humility, daily releasing His grace to others, and following Him. Bye. 👋. 

P3405 We are God’s poems, in this world.

/ DVH

“We have become His poetry, a re-created people that will fulfil the destiny He has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfil it!” Ephesians 2:10. 

And you thought you were not all that valuable! You and I are daily becoming a poem, a individual and collective Psalm to the glory, goodness, grace and long-suffering kindness of Almighty God. And if that doesn’t make you smile, then I’m concerned for you! Father God doesn’t make mistakes, so neither of us can be one… and neither can anyone else.

Say this to yourself – ‘God says I have a destiny, because He has given me one. I am not a mistake or a screw up. I’m here for my Father’s glory and honour.’  Amen. Father God is so present and engaged with all of us. Sometimes we don’t see Him because we aren’t looking. There is no task in our lives that is too small. You know, the lug nuts on our car tyres hold the wheels on – they don’t look important, but if they all come off, so does the wheel. Our wheels can start to come off if we believe what we do is irrelevant.  We cannot afford to let our limited human thinking, limit Almighty God.

Because He IS limitless, humanity is still discovering those things that are old news to Him. Yet He has hidden treasures for us in this world, things that we are only just discovering now. We think we are clever when we find them. But just imagine how brilliant Father God is — HE HID IT! My advice is “don’t limit God” — and never think your problems are too big for Him, instead ask Him to help you with them. Remember, He is writing all this down because … your life is a poem.

People are so funny! They ask the Lord for a parking spot if they need one, but they don’t see world affairs the same way. Our lives are governed and planned out for us by Him, and we’ve found, because of Jesus, we’ve met people we would never ever have met. That’s how BIG His plans are for us. There is a surprise at every turn, so we’ve come to appreciate the small things He does. Years ago, we were driving around in the wilderness area of Tasmania. We were in a very remote area delivering bibles when we recognised someone in another car, who had pulled off the road.

This person is famous, they are on Australia-wide TV all the time. We turned around … because God said …”Turn around” and we went back and gave this guy a bible. We chatted briefly, and then left. To be honest I am not sure he appreciated what we gave him all that much, but he was very gracious about it. At the time, we were the only two cars on that road! For the next few years of his life, this particular man had more trouble than Job did. Did he use that bible? I dunno!! We sure prayed for him! I know we were part of a much larger plan from the Lord to get his attention, we became a part of the poem He is writing over that person’s life.

That’s the secret to recognising your destiny as the Holy Spirit writes your ‘poem.’ Please don’t ever think you have to be the whole ball-game … Eg … the batter, the pitcher, the short-stop, the umpire … instead, wait in the dug-out for your turn. God will call you when He needs you. When He wants me to say something, He says: “You’re on!” Most of the time I don’t even know what to say, but it isn’t ever about what I say — it’s about carrying the One Who I am walking with. Peter recognised the eternal quality that was in Christ, when he said to Jesus “… You alone have the Words of eternal life.” So whatever Jesus says, has LIFE in it.

Part of our daily focus is about paying attention to the process of being re-created. Poetry is about the little phrases just as much as the big ones, so let’s seize any seemingly minor opportunities and follow them through. Sometimes when the Lord does stuff, He doesn’t need a brass band! The Holy Spirit loves to speak in whispers, nudges, and thoughts. Be encouraged and follow the thread and do what He says. The Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus are with us to help us with our daily lives. Remember, Jesus is the Living Word, if anyone knows what to say – He does!

You and I are poems that are destined to glorify Him. One day we’ll be dead and gone, but the Holy Spirit will continue to write poems over people’s lives until Jesus comes back! It is in God’s incredible nature to appreciate beautiful things, but His idea of beauty is not the same as ours. We see beautiful things as an arrangement of features and physical attributes – the Trinity sees beauty as an inside job. Mother Teresa was stunning – a glorious loving poem written to God’s glory!

Finally, let’s remember that we are not our own, anymore. SomeBody bought and paid for us. “We were purchased with a preciousness…” 1 Corinthians 6:20. Verses like these are written right throughout our very own Psalms to remind us of Jesus’ grace and obedience toward us. It is our destiny to be a Love poem to Him. Bless you. 🙌

P 3400 You clean fish after you’ve caught them!

/ DVH

In the church today we seem to have forgotten that WE are now the Holy Spirit’s temple. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit Who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]?” 1 Corinthians 6:19. Just because we can’t always feel Him, see Him, or hear Him, that doesn’t mean He is not with us. But it can mean we are not making Him welcome or walking with Him! Like I said a few days ago, we can still choose to tune Jesus out when it suits us, and then we cannot hear Him properly to serve Him. Sound familiar?

The Lord promised us that He would send the Holy Spirit back to us, and He did. Now we are no longer our own “… for God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:20… Now our lives are to be spent serving the Lord… He gave His life for us, and now we give up our lives serving Him. At the office, on the train, in school, at our house, wherever we are … now we are servants of the Most High God and we don’t get Mondays and Fridays off! Death to self is not just a Sunday way to think, it’s an all day every day, every minute of the day lifestyle. Whatever we do now, we do it with all our hearts as though we were doing it for Jesus Himself – because we are!

The consequence of our lack of understanding of our new life in Christ means we can end up trying to fit Jesus in around the way we used to live. Except for one fact, our old man died when we said yes to Jesus. At the same time there are Christian people right now, sincere precious saints, who are trying hard to serve God in their own strength. Sometimes they have the appearance of good or they fail secretly. Then they feel bad … and eventually they fail again. Where we are failing the worst is that we don’t understand, when He died, WE DIED. When we asked Jesus to save us we left our old lifestyle, our way of thinking being and doing behind us. Now we need to become best friends with the Holy Spirit. If He likes it, we like it. If He doesn’t then we don’t either. 

The more we apply the Word of God to this world’s injuries, and sinful activities in our lives, the more power we will have to follow Him. We simply can’t do that in our own strength. Even if we succeed in producing the outward appearance, we can’t change our hearts. However, because of God’s great GRACE, we do not have to do this alone. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to help us – to remind us. To ‘buddy’ us through the process of putting down all our old ways and picking up God’s new ones. I want to warn you, in my experience, that is not an easy thing. Mainly because we’ve begun to think that we already know who we are, so change/transformation is like peeling off your skin inch by inch.

I said all that to say this:  on this last journey we met two very different people, but they both had one thing in common. They had been thoroughly rejected by the Body of Christ so much so they didn’t dare go to church, nor did they associate with Christians. So whatever transformation they are supposed to undergo, became null and void under the attacks of seemingly virtuous Christians. Gird up your loins you ain’t gunna like this one bit …

,,, One person was a homosexual trapped within a lifestyle that offered them a perverse form of love. For some desperate people the wrong kind of love is better than no love at all. This young man cried and sobbed when hubby was kind to him, because he was so used to being rejected by the church. We don’t have to approve of this person’s behaviour to love them. Often we reject people simply because we don’t know how to display the love of God with power, we are not displaying Who He is into the world around us! And yes, I’ve read the book, I know how the Lord feels about homosexual behaviour. “Some will be snatched from the fire.” Jude 1:23.

The second person is a divorced lady, whose father is a pastor.  She had been thrown out of her family, her church, her Christian friendships for getting a divorce.  Divorce is not contagious, people, its a choice, sometimes made under terrible pressure. Her entire family no longer speaks to her, or associates with her. The Holy Spirit loved both of these people. In order to set prisoners like these people free, the people who actually want to love Jesus but have no power to stop what they are doing …  the church must stop eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and stuff ourselves full, daily, with the fruit of the tree of LIFE!

We’ve become like the Pharisees etc. We keep rejecting the lepers and the so-called unclean ones, but our churches are the only place ANYONE can get clean. People come to church to get clean! We need the power of the Risen, Resurrected Christ to help them. We were all sinners, every single one of us. We must stop judging the people who seemingly have HUGE sins against our supposed little ones. And start having compassion on those people who are trapped by satan’s lies telling them: ‘that this is who they are, and they can’t be any other way.’ 

None of us know who we really are, or what we are capable of doing until we are tested. I found that out the hard way. Read the book and take particular note of the things you want to gloss over. Have you ever wished someone dead? Have you ever looked at someone else’s spouse, family, house or job and wished you had them? Have you ever put Almighty God on a shelf because you were busy and asked Him to “please wait over there?”  Have you ever lied to make things easier?

It’s time to display the works of God through love and deliverance, not judgment and avoidance. We only get to clean the ‘fish’ after we’ve caught them – because then they will know for themselves, they are unclean. We didn’t know we were unclean until the Lord’s purity began to work on us. It’s called conviction. Bye. 👋

P 3398 Faith has one primary purpose.

/ DVH

“If you want to be made right with God by fulfilling the obligations of the law, you have cut off more than your flesh—you have cut yourselves off from Christ and have fallen away from the revelation of grace! But we have the true hope that comes from being made right with God, and by the Spirit we wait eagerly for this hope. When you’re joined to the Anointed One, circumcision and religious obligations can benefit you nothing. All that matters now is living in the faith that works and expresses itself through love!” Galatians 5:4-6 TPT.

You know I’ve done enough stupid stuff in my life to know that positive talk won’t help me to use my faith and love others. Mainly because whatever you talk yourself into, you can talk yourself OUT OF! Plus satan would be de-light-ed to help me to go the wrong way. Even other people’s reassurances won’t help when my focus goes off – ‘whatever the Lord is doing,’ and lands on ‘what’s in it for me?’

Yesterday I looked at David and his faith-filled interactions with the Lord. No matter what happened in his life, David’s heart stayed right with God – even when he was corrected. You and I are blessed to be able to live that way too, because of Jesus and what He did. So this morning, hubby and I were talking about how much we need to be reminded that God doesn’t love us for what we do or don’t do – He loves us because Love is Who He is. Now we always have a choice in the arena of faith. Do we believe Him or not? Will we let Him make ‘love’ who we are?

If we don’t make that choice to deliberately keep aware of His Grace, we can become so focussed on serving the Lord, and making sure we do everything right – that we forget to enjoy every single day what we have been given. When we live with rules and judgment over ourselves, we are much more likely to give that junk away to someone else: Peter made that clear when he said: “…such as I have give I thee!” Acts 3:6.

His focus in the above scripture, was spot on. He honed in on being a benefit to those around him, not the law. So giving away what he had, meant that he lived aware that he had fresh clean water bubbling up inside him. His faith was always active. I want that, and I’m pretty sure you do too – that’s why we are all taking this journey together. When our focus is on right and wrong, eventually, we will start focussing on, and judging ourselves, and others.

This wrong kind of perspective can distract anyone from the revelation we’ve been given about God’s Grace and what He has done for us. Jesus did not only come to save us from our big or little sins – He came to save and restore our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Sin is the lesser thing, the Lord Jesus’ primary focus is always on redemption and restoration and His love being shed abroad in our hearts – by FAITH. We receive love by faith, and we give it away … using our faith.

When we read the gospels, it is clear Jesus wants us to know what His Father likes and wants from us. And self-recrimination and condemnation of others is not on that list. Micah 6:8 tells us that God has shown us what is good. “He has shown you, O man, what is good;  And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” 

Adam and Eve lost their fellowship with God; but Jesus, the second Adam, is the Founder of a whole new spiritually-aware kind of people. He came to restore us and exponentially increase our faith, love and fellowship with our Heavenly Father, so that we could begin to know the kind of Oneness that the Trinity enjoys. We cannot have that when we have enmity with one another. Our focus will go off faith and fellowship and love, over onto finding fault with others.

That’s when we decide to protect ME at someone else’s cost. Maybe we don’t like these people because they do this and that, or we don’t like this member of our family because they did so and so. You know, loving people doesn’t have to mean we give them permission to mistreat us, or that we approve of the way they treat others. Loving them means that we use our faith, put them into God’s hands, and live the way He says. 

We can’t afford to embrace the idea that everyone thinking the same way is the criteria for restoration. It isn’t! It can’t be! We don’t all think the same way! Almighty God Himself has to be the One Who unites us.  However, His love is a universal language, and expressing that love, using our faith, as He leads us, can take away barriers. That’s what God’s love given freely to all of us undeserving sinners did! It took away all barriers. We can now enjoy Who He is, and He can expand our viewpoints over and above our prejudices – so that our prejudices… fade … away.

If someone is in error, then we need to remind them from God’s Word what His way looks like. If necessary then we will engage the church leadership in this process. Withdrawing love cannot be the way forward. As we co-operate with the Holy Spirit, and let Him love people through us, we will learn to release our faith as we choose to live in love. Meanwhile Galatians 5:6 says: “And we to whom Christ has given eternal life don’t need to worry about whether we have been circumcised or not, or whether we are obeying the Jewish ceremonies or not; for all we need is faith working through love.” 

The law can’t produce what faith does, in our own lives or in the lives of others. Faith has one primary purpose – to activate our lives with love. Bless you 👋.

P 3396 Don’t be scared of their faces!

/ DVH

Well, here we are again, at 4.00am, in the middle of a tiny town in New South Wales. It’s freezing – but some of you out there know a lot more about freezing than we do! Hmmm… I married the most wonderful man nearly 39 years ago, as I am typing this he is getting me a cup of tea. Most men would be thinking about justifiable homicide, and mumbling about strange women with even stranger habits, and yet he’s helping me! He has just set me up with my computer and about 200 pillows, so I can type. 

Inspiration sometimes hits me around 3-4am — when anybody with a lick of sense would be sleeping… Except this bed is harder than a rock, plus the fan that I need to have – rain, hail, heat wave or snow – it keeps my face temperature down … but the rest of me feels like an icicle. The strangest bits of you wear out when you get older! One side of my face gets hotter than a furnace and bright red, the other side is normal. Go figure …

Today I wanted to write about a common problem anyone can have when it comes to talking to strangers about Jesus. First of all, it can be very daunting , especially if you have an agenda. That means instead of being relaxed and smiling, every bit of you is tensed, even your hair follicles, because you are waiting… waiting … for an opportunity to somehow insert your faith into the conversation. It becomes a huge strain that shows on your face and in your attitude… you just gotta witness. Cue the gritted teeth. DON’T DO IT. Seriously! Love people and see what comes next. That’s what we do. 

There was one place we stayed in where everything about that place said: “How dare you two come here! Go home immediately.” Grumpy people kept popping up like burrs in the lawn. And then we saw these two fierce looking cleaners, who were about 18 years old, and they were totally covered in tattoos and spikes. Even their hair was spiked – as well as bright pink! They seemed madder than a starving Rottweiler.

And here comes hubby, limping along, because he has a sore foot, and he’s carrying two blocks of chocolate. He simply told them they were doing a great job and he wanted to thank them. They melted like snow in the tropics. Suddenly, despite their outward appearance, they were two ordinary young women who were highly delighted to have someone notice their efforts. And all it took to tell them about Jesus was two blocks of chocolate! 

Yesterday when we arrived where we stayed overnight, everything was upside down. The hosts weren’t quite ready, we were tired, which set everyone’s teeth on edge – so we prayed for His Grace and then behaved like we already had it. (That’s called faith.) And the mood began to change. Hubby gave away three bookmarks. And a grown women, a teenager, and a five year old were our new best friends. The littlest one was even more delighted when hubby gave her two books about Jesus. This morning at around 3.00am I suddenly realised how privileged we are. That little one heard about Jesus for the first time in her life, and He was there to hear and see her happy pleasure.

We go to quite a few places, and we sometimes find a certain version of the King James Bible has been lovingly donated. What a ministry that is! Praise God for their faithfulness … I do, however, have a few problems with it. The language. Most people do not speak King James English anymore. Plus it is a big fat thick book, and wherever it turns up, it looks like nobody else has ever even opened it, let alone read it! Wherever we go, if I see a KJB I always put a pass-it-on card inside. Sometimes desperate people will read that bible, because they need someone to care about their life… “Does God care about me?” Like Paul … I’d rather speak two words that can be understood, than a whole book full of ??? what on earth does that mean??

I remember when I first came to know the Lord, I was astonished to find out that Christianity had its own music. I had only ever listened to the radio and I had never heard anything even remotely like it. I’ve been in love with Christian music ever since. Now I send people clips from Youtube. I once played my mother a DVD I had made of beautiful scenery from a trip we had just taken. She didn’t even look at the pictures – she was totally entranced by the music! Of course, I immediately got miffed about that and had to repent on the spot. We sometimes blame the devil for our own inadequacies. Ho-hum.

Not so long ago, we gave one of our coffee table books of Psalms to a young woman of another faith. She didn’t even see the pictures, she was captivated by the words. Let me tell you anybody can be a seed sower. You just gather seed and chuck it everywhere. When you do that, led by Love Himself, all kinds of sweet things happen. Here’s what Jesus thinks about it: “He (Jesus) turned to His disciples and said, The harvest is huge and ripe. But there are not enough harvesters to bring it all in. As you go plead with the Owner of the harvest to thrust out many more reapers to harvest His grain.” Matthew 9:37-38.

Dear Lord we need more feet on the ground, thank You! Amen! Did you notice that I am not worried about seed? I’ve been praying for artists, and song writers, and wordsmiths, to paint, sing and say stuff, in plain English, that can be freely given away. One lady we know makes beautiful handbags for abused women. Ask Him for inspiration. Share what you love to do – do it and include others. I used to share my roller skating time when I was younger. Last of all don’t be afraid of their faces, there are real needs behind those grumpy looks. Bye. 👋.

P3386 Unusual style of fighting.        

/ DVH

When Jesus’ disciple Peter’s anger flared up at some soldiers who had come armed to the teeth to take the Lord away — the Lord Himself said: “put your sword back in its place … for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” Matthew 26:52. Hatred can so easily explode into actions, and then we hurt others, and ourselves, in the process. We hurt our own hearts when we hate. We can’t afford to live any other way except for living in love. In love with God, and the people who drive us crazy.

We are the people who fight on our knees! Unfortunately, many of us cannot be trusted with a gun, because most of the time, we don’t know what spirit we are in! Jesus had already fought and won the above battle, in the garden of Gethsemane, on His knees — while His disciples were sleeping. Peter’s sword was just going to hurt someone, and it did! Meanwhile, what is Peter – the fisherman – doing with a sword? … Moving on …

We are not fighting the same kind of war that many other people fight, although what we have to say, is equally as explosive. Our war is spiritual. Because “the weapons of our warfare are not CARNAL but they are mighty because they pull down strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:4. We can’t win if we continue to fight with the weapons from this world, because Jesus has already given us our appointed task. All we will do is kill off more people that our Lord loves. We are clearly told, by the Lord Jesus Himself, to “pray for our enemies” and “do good to those who despitefully use us.” 

Open hands in prayer, are far more effective than the clenched fist of war. If we are tempted to hate, then we must choose to bow our knee. And then we start praying for the people who are hurting, persecuting and despitefully using us. Pray for them like they are your own family!! Sometimes those people hurting you ARE your own family!

Pray for their salvation. Pray for redemption from sin. PRAY and then pray some more. We are not fighting that person in front of us, we are fighting the devil on his back. Those people who hate us believe in what they are doing because they’ve carefully been taught to hate. They don’t know what real love is. When an honest man meets Jesus, his first response is to bend his knee and say: ‘I didn’t know love like this existed.’ 

You and I have been appointed by Him to bring His love with us wherever we go. That happens when we choose to put down this world’s plans and ideas, and pick up the life Jesus has chosen for us. LOVE is the only antidote for hate, and love is the way to win. Even if we die … WE still WIN! Paul said that in Philippians 1:21. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” That is our banner. 

Oh, let’s be real here for a minute. How can we possibly say that being dead is better than living, when we have a mortgage, kids, extended family and obligations to others? Because we have been practising dying to self for years. That’s how. Now we live our lives making daily hard choices to die to our own desires – and then, at the moment of deep impact, we will have enough freedom to choose to follow the Holy Spirit, wherever He goes.

Let’s use the right weapons to fight. The bible says: Love conquers everything. Meanwhile, we can’t fight a spiritual war with tolerance  … because tolerance wears thin – and eventually it wears off – we need God’s supernatural love. Press in, beloved of God, and don’t stop until you get it! The people we think are our problem, are the ones God calls us to.

When we put on the whole armour of God we are not doing it to go to WAR, we are doing it to protect the faith that is in us. These weapons , these protections – this armour – has been given to us to protect us. It will stop us from being taken out of the fight. Our Father needs every single one of His kids standing in their place doing what He put us here to do – loving Him first, then others. In His eyes ALL of mankind is irreplaceable. 

We see a multitude of people – but Father God sees Amar, George, Hina, Amanda, Lev,  Malosi, Mary, Rufus, Jai, Vasilisa, Jessica, Patrick, Joachim, Freya, Zyar, Ikem and Leah! Our Heavenly Father is such an incredibly good, good Father. He sees each one of us as if we were the only one. We’ve been told to “put on the whole armour of God.” It will protect us from the fiery darts of the enemy so we can stand in the middle of the war raging all around us. Just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, stood in a fiery furnace and Jesus joined them there. He’ll join us in prayer for our enemy’s souls too.

Jesus came here to show people just like you and I, that there is another way to live this life, one day at a time, one step at a time. He did not pick a fight with anyone. These battles need to be stopped in our prayer closets. Then we can see our TRUE purpose, because we’ve chosen to put aside this world’s ideas of what a perfect life should look like.  

In the meantime, we can have utter confidence, because we know how this fight ends. We win! So we will continue to participate in unusual fighting with interesting weapons. Prayer, grace, kindness, forgiveness, love, joy, peace etc., these things are our weapons. We choose to turn the other cheek, and walk the extra mile, and we give some demanding guy our tunic when he asks for our coat! Bye, 👋. 

P3378 Wise like a serpent, gentle as a dove.

/ DVH

Jesus is gentle, humble and lowly in His heart and He wants to lead us into His rest. That’s the kind of rest where I do what He says, how He says to do it, and He does the rest! We don’t have to work at it, we just follow Him. That’s wisdom. Here is the Message version in Matthew:

V28-30:“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” … 

Jesus was talking to the people, gently, tenderly — telling His audience that what He is saying is what the Father wants to say to them. There’s also a big clue and a great promise in Matthew 11:30b. Jesus is speaking: “But I’m not keeping it (God’s Ways) to Myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.” Godly assurance is available, we just need to be willing to listen. That’s the key, and it’s even more wisdom! It’s an equal playing field.

Living like this is not a once-off thing. It happens over and over again. Walking in His Grace flows along, dipping up and down, but it is a continuous theme that we go back to. The continuous theme of our lives is now UNFORCED GRACE – we choose to be saturated in His LOVE for people. It has already been given to us, so now we receive it by faith, and we are commanded to give it away to people who don’t deserve it any more than we do! The fact that we know we cannot possibly live that way by ourselves, shows us how much we need the Holy Spirit! We are learning His wisdom.

Unforced Grace is a series of love choices – it’s not the ‘grit-your-teeth-and-put-up-with-it-kind. We simply use every opportunity to practise loving those who are unloving to us. If a harsh word comes up in our mouths, we take a breath, pray(!) and then respond with His Grace. He’s the same Spirit Who was in Christ Jesus – and if we want Him and His guidance, we can have Him. He’s gentle and He will lovingly teach us.

In Acts 2:1-4 the Holy Spirit’s Presence was a sovereign foretold act from heaven. It was announced a number of times. “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

This happened TO those obedient, waiting people – they could not, and did not make it happen by themselves. Their part was to obey the last thing Jesus told them to do, which was … you guessed it … WAIT! We can’t make the Lord do anything. But we can position ourselves by our willing obedience, however the minute we make something a rule, the Holy Spirit will leave. He goes wherever He wants to go. We just get to watch — and what a privilege that is!

There are precious sincere souls who have frightened other people into believing that if they don’t pray in tongues they are not born again. That is error. It is not wisdom, and a lot of the time, it isn’t gentle either. If we are going to be pedantic about things, then everyone who has been filled with the Holy Spirit, should have what looked like a tongue of fire over their heads and come away from that experience fearlessly preaching the gospel in the streets!!

“I fell down,” is also not listed as a criteria for receiving the Holy Spirit and His guidance into our lives. That experience is amazing, but it is not mentioned as a criteria. And if the sound of a strong wind was needed, then many enthusiastic churches would probably hire a wind machine for special effects! Even staggering about after we are filled with the Spirit, is not proof we were filled. We receive and walk with Him BY FAITH! That means we believe He is with us – feelings, experiences or not. We obey because Jesus said so.

The Christian life is not a fruit market, we cannot pick and choose what we want to believe. That’s what the book is for – to teach us His ways — ALL His ways. Not just the exciting bits. We are filled with His Spirit because the bible says so.  “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counsellor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever—“ John 14:16. Jesus asked His Father to send us the Holy Spirit and the Father sent Him… end of story. The Holy Spirit never went away – we simply stopped living a life that will make Him welcome by the way we choose to live.

We will always need the Holy Spirit, and being excluded because of tongues is a tragedy. Tongues are like the fire that appeared, or spontaneous preaching, or the power of God let loose. A SIGN and a WONDER. Let’s use our faith to ask for His help, and then believe He will help us. I’ve personally found that obedience sharpens my hearing. Now we live this life the way He chooses for US. The Holy Spirit is unseen and often underestimated, and He loves it when we recognise His gentle, wise kindness quietly operating in and through our lives. 

Taking up Jesus’ yoke simply means we choose to do things His Way. It doesn’t mean we can never have an idea of our own — it simply means we yield and submit everything to Him, plus those who have the responsibility of caring for our souls. This is protection, not restriction! There’s a lion out there that wants to eat us for lunch. However, we don’t have to be afraid, because the Holy Spirit knows God’s Ways and He will teach us to be be wise and gentle. ‘Wise and shrewd like a serpent, gentle and innocent as a dove.’ Bye. 🕊️

P 3371 Cultivate Fruit. 

/ DVH

I love summer time when all kinds of fruit are in the shops and it seems like we are overloaded with choices. Any kind of fruit looks great to me. You know in the bible I can’t find one instance of anyone talking about dieting! Fasting – yes! Dieting – no! Father God has provided us with a tremendous variety of foods. He is the source of it all, including the fruity yumminess, because He caused every pleasant and fruit-producing tree to grow in the Garden of Eden. It was a fruit-bearing tree that seduced Adam and Eve! 

And today, I have a little theory I want to write about that. Here we go… inside any fruit there are seeds – most fruits have at least one seed. According to my little bit of research, most of the fruit we have today that are seedless, have been specially cultivated by horticulturalists to remove those seeds for our convenience sake. If you’ve eaten an orange with a great many seeds in it, you will understand why! 

If we look at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I think we will find that when Adam and Eve ate whatever kind of fruit it was, its seed was in there too. It also became part of them, not just the fruit. Inside any seed is the potential for many other trees to grow. When Almighty God banished this couple from His garden, they lost all access to the tree of life, because they’d disobeyed when they ingested the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, together with it’s seeds.

Now this couple had the potential to decide what was good and what was evil … because the seeds of knowledge, and the quest for power were growing inside them. They decided disobeying God was evil, that’s why they hid. They already had the potential to be like Him … without His WISDOM, MERCY and GRACE and DISCERNMENT etc.

Their disobedience robbed them of their holiness, and the access to Holy fellowship that God Himself gave them. That fruit of disobedience, that they chose to eat, was passed on to their offspring. Then God planted Himself into the earth in the form of His seed in a virgin’s womb. Jesus was planted and He lived here, He died and was buried here. A seed has to die to bear fruit.

Cain became jealous and killed his brother Abel. The seed of ‘whatever I don’t regard as evil’ is not evil, has become my new idea of truth. This was fostered the minute Cain entertained the thought: “Why didn’t God like my sacrifice?” Independent thinking is a very popular theme nowadays. It seems to me that truth is no longer fixed, because we have thrown away our access to the Tree of Life, the bible.  People are planted in the wilderness, instead of being planted by streams of living water. The bible points us firmly to our need of a totally New kind of Life – in Jesus! 

Humanity has been sowing trees ever since. Conversely if I think it’s good then it’s good!  EG. You can’t tell me what to do, because seeds of disobedience and rebellion have already been sown and cultivated in my life from birth! We can’t blame Adam and Eve, because we are personally responsible for what we choose to cultivate in our lives. Every interaction, every chosen course, every single choice … feeds and waters His seed in us … or the wrong seeds.

Jesus Christ hung on a fruitless ‘tree’ and HE became the Seed that died to foster our new life in Him. When we ask Him to live within us, we received the potential to cultivate the Tree of Life in us. I think that’s the abundant life Jesus spoke about. Not spectacular houses, piles of money or fancy cars. We can spread heavenly seeds wherever we go.. When we were born again, Jesus Christ gave us His life and put His seed, inside us, WE DON’T HAVE TO SIN ANYMORE. We have a choice. 1 John 3:9 – “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.” 

And Colossians 3:12-14 tells us what that seed looks like: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

This new life we have today is about cultivating His seed, His new life within us — together with all its graces. Jesus died for us, to produce IN us, a new way to live. That way to live isn’t just about us having comfortable lives, it is about our enemy meeting an army of people sold out to spreading God’s love, everywhere. They are being trained in righteousness by the Spirit of the Living God. God’s love is not a theory, it is His grace, let loose so mankind can lay claim to their birthright – the tree of life and the different kinds of fruit that freely grow on that tree.

We’ve been misled by religion. You and I can’t cultivate His seed in someone else – it is their choice. But they still need to know they have a choice. We are His witnesses to everything He did, and is still doing in our lives every single day. His seeds of obedience, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, love, and joy and peace are now in us. We simply co-operate with the Holy Spirit and follow His lead, using the opportunities life brings across our path. 

The seed of eternal life has been sown into us when we said YES to Him. So we choose LIFE, the way our Saviour lived it. Now is the time to cultivate His fruit… and that’s my little theory. Bye. 👋

P 3365 You don’t have to think that way anymore. 

/ DVH

Yesterday I spoke about living aware of God’s care. The Lord challenged me later that day about this blog, and He used my own words to do it. Here we go: “Instead let’s proactively remind ourselves that Jesus died to give us His holiness, His right-standing with our Father, and His Grace to finish whatever Father God has asked us to do. So we must lay aside ours.” First of all, it feels kind of weird quoting me to me, but let’s just move on and pretend it’s normal, OK?

In this life I’ve learnt to recognise the signs of someone else’s anger very quickly, because I was once governed by anger, and I didn’t like it much. So, all by myself, I figured out placating people was the easiest way to escape, and I did that! Unfortunately, placating people doesn’t work all that well within God’s idea of His Sovereignty, but I couldn’t seem to stop doing it. Fear of man drove me around like a bus!

If the person who was angry antagonised me enough, then eventually, I would blow up. The disagreement then went on to get very loud and all thoughts of placation flew out of the window. I had not cultivated the fruit of self-control, because I was used to shutting myself up or mouthing off, depending on the day. I didn’t get self-control by using my faith in what Jesus did for me – I got it because I was afraid of punishment!

When we come to Jesus we bring our sins with us, and lay that junk down at the foot of the cross. But, today I realised that we need to bring our own hard-learnt way of doing stuff and put that there too. In the end we can end up with what Jesus said, PLUS what our parents, teachers, friends, bosses, rabbits and relations etc. have said to us, and about us. Or those kind of things will compete for our attention. We can get caught between two worlds – the world of the Spirit, and the old me that used to be. We need to renew our minds and deal with the junk – on purpose. Otherwise we will do the right things for the wrong reasons.

Sin is easy for all of us to identify, because Jesus Himself told us that His primary commandments are to Love God and each other. Anything that isn’t that, is sin! Which, BTW, He has already paid for it. Thank you Lord! Stay with me, and don’t rush to the healing rooms just yet OK? I didn’t need healing, my mind must be renewed and transformed. I was still being influenced by other people’s sins and their actions against me – from when I was too little to defend myself. Those things also need to go to the cross – and I was still being partially governed by my own self-effort in some areas. Everything has to go to the cross, because the bible says: We‘ve moved out of darkness into His marvellous light. 

Before you and I came to know Him, there were things that we did that were sin, and maybe like myself, there were also things that life itself taught us were bad so we exercised our own will, and stopped doing them. I don’t think you could easily persuade me to steal. Years ago, as a child I used to pinch small change out of my stepfather’s money-box, and when he caught me, he taught me quite emphatically that this was a bad plan. Especially when He introduced me to his belt – I never did that again!

I was also clearly taught not to lie, so now I fall over myself trying to make sure I don’t lie. My point is this: both of my parents taught me those things by berating me and using physical force – I did not learn them from the Lord! I learnt THEIR WAY, not HIS. So when I came to know Jesus, ‘don’t steal and don’t lie’ were already firmly established within my list of things I should not do. I forgave my parents long ago but I did not take what I actually learnt FROM THEM, to the cross. I still had a harsh master in my head, and the Lord Jesus is not like that!

I know in my heart that Father God would have wanted me to learn those things in a different way – not involving violence. But learning from the Lord meant I wouldn’t pinch stuff or lie — and the roots of my responses would have come from love and respect for our Heavenly Father, instead of FEAR. And I had to take what I had already been taught to be true before I met Jesus, to the cross as well.

Like the scripture says:“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30. Ergo, if it’s heavy and hard, then it isn’t the Lord! It might be time to revise where those thinking patterns came from.

We don’t have to see those wrong belief systems as sin, unless we still harbour resentment toward the perpetrators. Instead we need to take them to the cross, put down the old way, and pick up His yoke. The Lord wants you and I to end up with a blank slate, not a whole lot of man-made left-over reactions. Obviously it is not good to blame the other person/people/culture … but don’t blame yourself either! So forgive everybody, including yourself, and move on using your faith. Leave behind your old ways of thinking and step into a renewed mind using the grace and righteousness that Christ Himself has already given you. Bye 👋 PS Remember, when you give something to the Lord, you don’t have it anymore!