Grace

P 3150 Living by faith.

/ DVH

Like I said, yesterday, this means that we will put down our desire to hone in our focus on a problem, and choose to look at Jesus instead. He perfectly mirrors the things we are looking for in ourselves, and others. Let me put that this way – if all you are focussing on is what the other person did wrong, then you can’t focus on the One Who IS perfect in all of His Ways. Unless you are cross-eyed!

A single focus is needed and the bible calls that being single-minded. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24. When difficulties occur, our part is to realise that although we are weak in many areas – Jesus isn’t! So we choose to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to focus on the Lord, because He is good at it!

Practically speaking, if we just yelled at someone else, then it is a no-brainer that we need to repent and repair things – even when we feel provoked. Extending forgiveness is the quickest way to go back to focussing on Him. It will lead us back into single-mindedness. We can’t look at two vastly different things at once. Our choices matter, and most of the time we make them almost without thinking. But when we review what Jesus said, that means our focus switches from what went wrong, to what He did. We choose to look just one way – at Him. Forgiveness is much easier to access in His Presence.

When you are annoyed or angry with someone else, take a breath, and say “Jesus please help me” I’ve read the bible for years but I have never once read about Jesus saying: “That person is wa-ay beyond redemption. It’s OK, you can’t help being mad at them.” We both know that He simply won’t do that. Why not? Because He bought redemption for everyone when He died! He knows it is a done deal. It cost Him His life-blood and His time on earth to do it! 

Unfortunately, we can easily become used to making room for our scratchy, nasty, irritated attitudes. This means our focus can be sidetracked. But if we choose what the scripture says, we will look at Who Jesus is and what He has given us, and those facts change everything! In the face of such incredible generosity, anger has no place to stand. Loving generosity takes the ground out from under our enemies – not to mention our stinky attitudes.

Because we are still in process, perhaps there are times when we don’t want to look at the Lord, because we think we want to punish that other person. After all they upset us, so they deserve to be in trouble. That whole POV is deceit. It’s like locking yourself up, throwing away the key and saying: “That’ll fix them!” Free means free – even for the guy you don’t like! In moments like that, I’m not sure we understand the whole concept of freedom clearly enough. We need to practice.

When we hold onto anger, resentment, and bitterness, we are locking ourselves away from the Answer. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. A bad attitude is extremely costly – not to mention heavy! You don’t have to sell your house and give the money away to live by faith.  We just need to live our lives like Jesus would.

This reminds me of an old cartoon, with the Road Runner and the Wile E. Coyote. That dumb Coyote was never ever going to win. It wasn’t in the script! His job was to end up blown to bits, flattened under a rock, or smashed by a train etc. The Road Runner was always going to beat him. Defeat is inevitable when we play in satan’s backyard. It is not in God’s heavenly script for us to punish the people who despitefully use us. Read the book! Living by faith is not some big deal ‘raising the dead’ occasion – it consists of the daily choice to obey the Lord, forgive others, and live like He did. One hurt at a time.

Every time we give away undeserved Grace to someone, we are releasing God’s Grace into their lives. That Grace is powerful. It saved us!! But when we hold onto someone else’s sin, we are keeping them from the kind of Grace that can deliver them from the very attitudes that caused the problem in the first place! Many people are easily imprisoned by how they feel. Hanging onto things like a list of all the wrongs that other person did – and keeping it in our heads, together with the accompanying emotions is a deep pit with no way out. 

When that stuff hits your heart – boy are you in trouble.That’s when a tree of bitterness can take root and grow. Let’s kill that tree, and stop going over what they did repeatedly – even if they just did it again ten seconds ago. Don’t throw anyone’s past sins into their face in an argument, and don’t talk about what happened to you, with other people to soothe yourself. Their opinion actually doesn’t matter. Building a case against someone else is dumb. Sin belongs under the blood of Jesus.

Lastly, talk to the Lord. He understands betrayal, heartache, disappointment, anger, and provocation etc. The Holy Spirit will help us negotiate our way through the crumbling cliffs of excuses, the explosive reactions, the endless litany of disappointment and the utter despair we face when we feel betrayed. Living by faith is only hard for us because we have not cultivated it. Bye.👋

P 3145 Who Am I now?

/ DVH

Our identity is IN CHRIST. So if I want to find the real me, I can’t look in the mirror, or even at what our society says about who we are, or what we think we are. We will need to look into the mirror of His Word. Unfortunately, that’s also the place where we will discover the places where we are unlike Him as well! And our destiny lies in what we choose to do about those things. When we brush His Word aside, we can end up going round and round chasing the things of this world.. 

Romans 6:6-14 (bits of it) “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, [that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin… …In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

What Paul is saying here, is that the way we regard ourselves now we are alive in Christ, matters. We have not been set free to please ourselves, we have been set free specifically so we can choose to obey Him. At the same time we no longer have to sin – those desires and their accompanying actions went to the cross with Jesus so we don’t have to live with them anymore. When we choose to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him, every day, we are choosing God’s way over our own. 

Then we have put away the immediate gratification of indulging our feelings, or what we think we want, in favour of giving God what He wants.That’s when we act like His kids and begin to become more than conquerors. The biggest enemy in our lives for us to conquer, is the enemy of SELF, not somebody else. We must put away our old attitudes, hurts, actions, and the past, and begin to renew our minds by reading and obeying the Word.

The Lord Jesus was motivated and activated by what His Father wanted. Did He feel like it? We certainly know of one occasion when He didn’t!  But we are clearly told that Jesus was mirroring our Father’s attitude toward us and sin, and that helps us to see Father God more clearly. When our desire to please our Heavenly Father overcomes what we imagine that we want, we will begin to walk like Christ did. His Grace, and the power of God is there with us to undergird us, as we step forward into a brand new way of thinking about this life. This process is not a happy walk in the park! Each one of us still has some sort of wilfulness and a desire to get our own way, inside us. 

The Lord wants us to choose to do what He has said in His book, simply because we love Him and want to be with Him. Personally I am learning that I want the Holy Spirit’s guidance in my life – more than I want my own way. But it still can end up in a real wrestling match, especially in these dark times when everything we see around us is about self-gratification! Also we can each have a poor perception of what we can really accomplish –  mainly because we’ve been acting a certain way all our lives, and it seems insurmountable to us to act differently.

The point is what Joshua said: “Choose this day Who you will serve … as for me and my household we will serve the Lord!” Our obedience comes down to our choices. And when we choose His way, we will die a little. Personally, I have found that being dead looks much better than having my own way! Yes really!! Father God can do a great deal with even one ordinary person who is happy to stop living for themselves and start living for Jesus’ sake.

We simply don’t have to be slaves to sin anymore. Jesus Himself personally showed us the way through that trap – obedience to God’s Word works! Romans 6:17-18 “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” When we see something in the book that the Lord told us to do, that’s when we pray, ask for His help and go out and co-operate with Him.

It is good to ask the Holy Spirit if we are a slave to anything other than Jesus’ righteousness. There is no shame in discovering places inside your life where we’ve been trapped by our own dumb choices. But because we can see it, that means we need to pray over whatever it is, repent, and ask Him to show us the way through it. Then we go out and live differently. So, instead of saying something inflammatory, now we deliberately choose to go with love, kindness and patience etc …

Here’s a tiny clue that helps me: Pray first. Secondly, don’t expect happy feelings to overcome you, this is about stretching your faith. It hurts – just like stretching out a calf muscle will hurt! Find out what the Lord thinks in the bible, and do that. Things can seem to be very entrenched into our personalities – so repetition also helps! That’s how I learn who I am. I am His child, learning His Ways, because He chose to love me first. Bye. 👋

P 3142 It’s the Lord’s nature.

/ DVH

“The Lord is close to all whose hearts are crushed by pain, and He is always ready to restore the repentant one.” Psalms 34:18 TPT.  I love the word always in this Psalm. When human beings say always, we often mean – most of the time. But when God says always that’s exactly what He means! He is not into hyperbole or exaggeration. What He says, He means. Whatever He says, you can stand on. Doubt has nothing to give us, but angst. Holding fast is hard, but when we do it, we will reap a great reward.

Oh I pray that everyone grasps this truth and holds on to it tightly. It will comfort you in times when the roof has fallen in. The Holy Spirit will take His Words and unfold them before your eyes, and suddenly the thing you can’t understand, is clear. Let Him expound God’s word to you. There is nothing like God Himself, explaining what He means when you study His scriptures!

It is His truth. Almighty God put His full stop on His truth when He sent us the Living Word, Jesus, so we could see His Word in action. Ask yourself, how did Jesus treat sinners? — With grace, mercy and revelation that leads to repentance. How did He interact with the sick? With compassion, kindness, and healing. How did He minister to the spiritually hungry? With fresh bread directly from heaven. When God says He is close, He means He is close!  PAIN should not be our reference point – He is! 

Choose to believe Him, and remember to thank Him. You can thank Him for being with you, and not leaving, you even if the difficult circumstances haven’t instantly resolved. Focus on how close He says He is. When bad stuff happens, He won’t ever leave us. He takes His Word seriously and He keeps it. When we gave our lives to Jesus we stepped away from the feeling/thought-based world attitude, into His light and that light won’t lie to us. It can’t! Goodness, mercy, love, kindness, gentleness and truthfulness are part of God’s very nature. He does not lie. 

Years ago, I read books about countries on the other side of the world. I heard about them on the radio, and then I saw blurry pictures of them in black and white on the TV! And then one day I got on a plane and went and stood in those places. That one action took many countries out of the realm of my imagination, and brought them into reality for me. 

If you mention places like Germany, or Greece or France, I have memories of golden sun on my face – and some pretty yummy food too! If you say Singapore, I remember the brilliant architecture, sounds and smells. The thing that transports what we know into our personal experience — is FAITH! I ran about like a headless chicken and got a pass-port, and visas, packed my bags, then I got on a plane, and those countries came out of my imagination into reality.. I acted on what I saw! Faith acts on what it has read in the bible.

Our Spirit-prompted, Word-based belief in whatever He says, can take His Word and bring it to life. For those who are interested, I am not talking about believing for a Lear jet or a house with a bowling alley in the basement! I’m talking about God’s true riches. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness etc. But if we choose to treat His book like an information source, we will miss out on tasting the substance of His love, which transforms human beings. Ask for His help, and deliberately practice being loving – leave your feelings out of it.

Faith comes first. That’s when we decide to take a risk regarding Jesus’ truthfulness and Personhood and you and I will begin to have our own personal history with God Himself. The bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing comes from exposing ourselves to His Word— when we feel like it and when we don’t. And if you are sick, sad, or lonely then you probably won’t feel like it. I listen to the bible read if I can’t read it. We need to daily let His Word wash over us and cleanse us from the unbelief and heartache of this world.

Personally, I have yet to say: “oh goodie” when a testing time comes upon me. Nevertheless, I am learning that in those faith-testing times it means that God is taking me deeper still. The deeper the foundation, the greater the stability of the building. Our gracious Father is making sure we won’t ‘shake’ and ‘quake’ like we used to … because what we are standing on now, is firm and secure, and we know it.It’s like David said to Goliath: ‘First I killed a lion, then a bear, so YOU are going down!” Each faith-prompted action and subsequent experience led David into a deeper understanding of God Himself, and more confidence in Him.

Some things have now gone from my head to my heart. That’s because He has written it there! Our hearts are the safest place for that knowledge to be. When things are dark and horrible, that’s when we need to exercise our faith in His never-ending goodness the most. I tell the Lord: “You said You are here, so You are here! You are truthful, and I believe You. Thank You for being here close to me.” Amen.

When we stop trying to use the Lord for our own ends, and we decide that all we want is HIM – then we can tell Him we want to stay close to Him no matter what. That’s when we will see Him in ways we cannot imagine. Sometimes we need to do what David did and remind ourselves of the times when His goodness has upheld us and He helped us push through to victory. No matter how things look — and for many many people today, I know things look terrible, but I exhort you to hold fast.

God has not left you, and HE WILL NOT! Jesus our Shepherd will walk with you in that deep dark valley and use His staff to protect you from everything that wants to harm you. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. If help doesn’t come immediately He’s telling you He knows you can do it! Remember that His loving kindness is the Lord’s nature — and this too, shall pass… 😢 Bye.

P 3141 The power of Choice.

/ DVH

These pictures directly above the blog, all look so pretty — the golden poison frog, the aconite flower, mercury, and the last one is deadly nightshade. All those things look harmless, but they can kill you in a heartbeat. So does sin. And most human beings are very poor judges of what will harm us. Plus we can be adept at finding thousands of great reasons why what we are doing won’t hurt anyone! The thing is —sin in our lives affects our spiritual hearing, our spiritual sight and we can’t recognise what the Lord is doing. The truth is we are dead to this world, and we no longer have to do anything. 

You know, dead people no longer have anything to do with the law, simply because laws don’t apply to the dead. They apply to the living. We are dead to sin exercising its power over us, when He died. When we chose to follow Him we died. Maturing faith continually chooses to enforce this new reality, day by day. We can’t afford to let the world tell us who we are, instead we let Jesus define us. Independence is overrated! It is a small-minded story thrown up upon the screen of our minds by a deadly enemy — who points out someone else’s sin, and says ‘poor you,’ whenever life is hard. We can end up living under the influence of a lie!

In this modern world people covet getting their own way, because they think they know what makes them happy, and they know best!  True happiness can only be found in Jesus. That’s not just a pretty saying – it’s the truth. in reality, there is no happiness, peace, joy, love, faithfulness, kindness etc. outside of Him..“For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” Romans 7:5-6.

One of the most wonderful things Father God gave Adam and Eve when He created them, was the freedom to choose. As we mature, we need to grow into making Godly decisions, through our daily choices. Our decisions can have huge ramifications, as we decide to die to self, we will need to walk away from the things that came naturally to us in our past. Now we have chosen to live a different way, and we want to cultivate the reality of the cross in our lives. It hurts to say ‘no’ when everything inside you screams ‘yes.’ Just ask a drug addict or an alcoholic – they grapple daily with choices. 

Human beings have become obsessed with sacrificing the long range benefits of this life, at the cost of immediate gratification. We want what we want now. And we will work day and night to get a holiday that only lasts 3 weeks, or slave to pay for a house we may never own.“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” Mark 8:36. As Christians, we need to live our lives focussing on the things that will LAST! The thing that is wrong with leaning on our own understanding is that our own understanding is faulty!

When Jesus went to the cross, He took our sin WITH HIM. Now we no longer have to be held captive by the things that have haunted us our whole lives … “no longer to be subject to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. Our enemy daily tries to trick us into giving our power to him, so he can set up his nasty little strongholds in our lives.  But the answer is in the book – our obedience to God’s word. Choosing to die to self is the way to kill off our rampant self-centredness. It is foolish to indulge ourselves. It’s death in a prettily wrapped, greatly appealing, immediately gratifying box!

HOWEVER – right, here, right now – we have a Helper, a guide, a counsellor, a comforter Who wants to help us win! Babies cry and crank over lost things, mature people move on. Sin has no power to make us do anything – it’s all down to our choices. We need to practice asking the Holy Spirit to help us!  The power for us to be transformed was released over 2,000+ years ago. The Holy Spirit exploded all over Pentecost and demonstrated to those believers what God’s power looks like in action. Lives were irrevocably changed. That power is still here to transform us — we get it by using our faith as we follow Him.

The power of God looks like preaching when you are scared to death of it. It looks like praying for the sick when you don’t feel so flash yourself. It looks like owning up to the things in your past that you have tried to keep hidden, and then deliberately taking the time to fix them. Mature people don’t leave sin lying about – they take responsibility, and prayerfully and obediently, deal with it. Babies expect someone else to do that for them. We are suppliers of God’s love and grace, not consumers like the rest of this world.

Most Christians have faithfully memorised heaps of scriptures. Now we need to take those scriptures from theory into practice, and INTO our lifestyle. Agreeing with what God says, won’t change a thing unless we act on it. Obedience is the key to His kingdom, but it’s the one key we like to leave dangling on its hook! We can all have genuine reasons why we should hate this person or that circumstance. We’ve chosen to forget that we don’t have to live under any circumstances anymore, because Jesus has let us out of that prison. His love set us free and that love is so powerful, it will continually do it. Our daily choices are powerful. Bye. 👋

P 3139 We make life way too complicated.

/ DVH

Hubby and I love to pray for the-people-who-don’t-appear-to-know-Him-yet. We ask them if they need prayer, and if they say yes, then we pray simple, clear, un-preachy prayers about whatever is going on in their lives. People cry all over the place.This means we need to totally focus on the Lord coming with us wherever we go.”We can’t do anything without Him,’ it says so in the book! 

So let’s get that big fat lumpy bit of our personal pride out of the way, so we can be a channel of His love into the lives of the needy people around us. We need to live under His watchful care. We don’t have to be obsessive, but it is also important to make sure we haven’t bungled something or other, or offended anyone. In this current climate that is easy to do. People get offended, and hurt each other all over the place. Nobody wants to give anybody the benefit of the doubt. Here’s an interesting thought:  people aren’t necessarily doing things against you – instead they are doing those things for themselves! Sadly suspicion is rampant, and blaming someone else is the name of the game.

The truth is, we won’t even know if the Holy Spirit is with us, if we insist on pretending to be something we are not. We can’t hear Him properly when we live like that. We are not meant to be experts, we are FOLLOWERS of Jesus! Please remember the disciples bungled things too! In my opinion we should all be still learning, even when we are nearly dead! Jesus IS truth – He doesn’t like deception – too much yukky stuff hides in deception. He is and always was, totally and absolutely real, and that means we don’t have to lie about our life with Him at all, because we are not trying to sell anything! Get used to being humble and not knowing the answer to everything.

Instead, our desire is to do our best to announce Him – not pretend to BE Him.  Acting ‘holier than thou’ puts people off. Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that Christians can be so scared of making a mistake they don’t do anything at all!. You know it is not a good thing to give ourselves permission to be two people, depending upon where we are. The person who lives at our house, needs to be the one who interacts with everyone else! All that deceitful, hiding stuff will shoot anyone down in flames. We are all saved by GRACE – so what’s the big deal if you are an argumentative fathead and I am a nasty big mouth? Pray for me, and I’ll pray for you! 

I hate being politically correct OK? I call that sort of stuff lying. I’ve found that political correctness means I am being so careful not to press any buttons in you – I end up not wanting to love you and I will avoid you. But if we want the Holy Spirit to come everywhere with us, then we need to be the same born again, still-being-transformed-person we always were. Leave the fancy-schmancy acting performances on the stage …  be yourself. 

Ask Him to help you see and overcome those things that pull you into mindless silly games. And then… ‘ask and keep on asking…!!’ Especially if you know you have weaknesses, then pray for His strength to be strong in those weaknesses. There are no incurable diseases in Christ – He always has the last word – physically and spiritually!  “There’s a time to die…” remember? We’ve learnt that talking to anyone, and staying filled with His Grace, draws people to Him. You stay filled with Grace by acknowledging you need it. The bible tells us HE will separate the sheep from the goats, I have no idea why we would ever think that should be our responsibility.

Those people all around us are just human beings like us, and often we have no idea how that person arrived at all those nasty, ugly attitudes. Nor do we know what the Presence of Jesus will do, if we take the time to take HIM with us, wherever we go. The Body of Christ has lost its focus — we are like Esau, going for the immediate thing that suits us, but to get that, we have to give up our inheritance for no good reason except that living and walking with the Holy Spirit seems too hard. Actually, it’s easy. We just need to point our hearts toward that aim and get ready to be wrong and acknowledge it – OFTEN.

We already have a perfect example of how to live like our Father’s children. Here’s the VERY best advice on being yourself in the whole New Testament. “Then He (Jesus)said: I promise you this. If you don’t change and become like a child, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3. ‘Become like a child’ … remember that little children happily went to Him. And babies felt safe in His arms. We need to be childlike, not childish.The Lord is not like other people – we can trust Him.

Life is much simpler when you live with a childlike attitude. This means you hand your broken toy/life to SomeOne bigger than you are, and then hang around Him watching and waiting to see what He will do with it.  Then you obey Him. I love living like that. Complications give me a headache! Jesus has invited us to enter into a relationship with Him that is pure, trusting and real. Nothing covered up or denied. Be yourself and uncomplicate your life. Human beings aren’t actors in a role – we are just ordinary people saved by His Grace. Bye. 👋

P 3137 We all like the ‘nice’ verses.

/ DVH

I have been reading in Acts 5:1-11, and it seems to me that nobody much likes this particular story… they certainly don’t let you teach the whole ‘you-will-drop-dead-if-you-lie-to-God’ story at Sunday School, or even from the pulpit. The thing is, that story is in the bible for a reason, so we need to take it seriously. Let’s just pause and think a minute …I mean, what kind of Christian does stuff like this? Can I just squeeze in a thought here – the one that says: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom?” That kind of fear sounds like a good kind of fear. Off we go … to a funeral — well … two actually!

“Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.”

I think it was the lack of Godly reverence that ended this man — not just the fact that he lied, or even the money he hid. It was the fact that Ananias thought he could fudge the truth when he was facing God Himself. Let’s be clear. This man knew exactly what He was doing. He wasn’t someone who just happened by, he was part of the group that had seen the Holy Spirit at work in incredible ways. In the bible, right after this particular incident, a whole lotta people suddenly became very respectful, and responded to the Lord, and each other, with much greater reverence. As it should be! Here’s- V’s 7-11. This is called a conspiracy, by the way!

“About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.” Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

Everybody loves the ‘nice’ God pictures. Sweet pictures in our minds about Jesus loving people, healing them, redeeming their lives – but nobody likes this picture very much. Yet having respect for Who He is, and all the blessings we don’t deserve, bestowed upon us,  is essential. We don’t actually deserve anything He has given us. It is all grace! We all deserve hell! And I really don’t care how nice or saved you think you are!  I believe that at this moment in time, Almighty God is dealing with His people, He is calling us to come home and start behaving like HIS kids.“Why do you call me Lord, Lord and you don’t do the things I say?” Luke 6:46.

The fact that He is so loving and generous toward us all, does not mean we can presume upon Him or His Grace. Meanwhile, every word that comes out of God’s mouth is worthy of far more than just our attention —those words require our willing obedience! Not just the ones that say the things we think we want to hear. Acts 5:1-11 shows us why we need to be honest with Him and ourselves. Disobeying what God has told us is a minefield, if we are unsure, then we need to check up on what we’ve heard in the bible. 

These two people, Ananias and Sapphira, were Christians! So we can’t hide behind the idea that this story is under the Old Covenant. Meanwhile, it seems to me that they were also serious Christians because they were willing, to a degree, to participate in the whole sharing everything idea that had overtaken the entire body at that time. My point is – there was no need to lie!  There was room for the truth. And “I can’t do this, my faith isn’t big enough” must be said. Almighty God knows we are dust, we don’t have to pretend to be somebody we are not!

Let’s also take note of how protective Peter was of the Holy Spirit’s ministry in their midst. Man, this thought is so important – His Will, His Way!  The Holy Spirit is the gentle, loving, generous, beating Heart of God Himself. Lying to Him for our own benefit, hurts Him. Don’t hurt Him! That’s dumb! He will leave and He’s our Helper! That’s like sending away the fire department, the ambulance, and the police when your house is under siege and on fire, and you can’t get out. This passage is one of the best examples of lying to God and the consequences of doing it, in the whole bible. And the Lord’s response to this situation was to cut it all out, like a surgeon cuts out a cancer…thoroughly. 

Please don’t succumb to the pressure of pretending you are something that you are not. We cannot afford to leave the King of all Glory standing there waiting for us to decide if it is worth our reputation to be truthful with Him and others – or not! I urge everyone reading this to value the Holy Spirit, and His input with everything you have, and everything you do. He wants to be made welcome in our lives, not just by what we say or sing – but by the honourable way we choose to live. Bye. 👋

P 3136 Let’s soar like eagles …

/ DVH

…not just waddle about like ducks. Yeah, I know! You are probably sleek and fit … but I am not!  Waddling, BTW, gets harder to eliminate as you slide into old age. However, this life is a gift, so let’s not waste a minute of it. Even our daily experiences count — good or bad – after all some people didn’t wake up this morning. Back to soaring with Jesus ….!!!

This translation of the Lord’s prayer was so beautiful I wanted to include it on today’s page. I often find a new translation is like discovering an old, much treasured friend, from an entirely new perspective. Please bless the people who take the time who give us those new perspectives, Lord! Amen.

“Pray like this: ‘Our Beloved Father, dwelling in the heavenly realms, may the glory of Your Name be the centre on which our lives turn. Manifest Your kingdom realm, and cause Your every purpose to be fulfilled on earth, just as it is in heaven. We acknowledge You as our Provider of all we need each day. Forgive us the wrongs we have done as we ourselves release forgiveness to those who have wronged us. Rescue us every time we face tribulation and set us free from evil. For You are the King who rules with power and glory forever. Amen.” Matthew 6:9-13 TPT.

I love the fact that the disciples owned up to not knowing how to pray, and so they asked Jesus to show them how to do it. His deep abiding love for our Heavenly Father comes through this prayer above all else. Please note – as we learn to live in His kingdom – He manifests it in us, and around us. We really do need to take the pressure off and enjoy what we’ve been given, because daily we want to see the Lord at work in our lives, just like the disciples did. The bible says: “We can do nothing without Him,” and why on earth would we want to try to do this stuff by ourselves? After all “His ways are perfect…” mine are often self-centred and based around comfort!

The Lord is meant to be the absolute centre of our lives. But the idea of giving my whole life to Jesus was so scary that I would not even entertain the thought. Actually I was kind of glad that this particular way of life seemed to belong to a few, far more important and gifted people than me. They all knew how to do this stuff wa-ay better than I did. And when I did reflect on it I thought, what would Jesus want me to do? What would He take away from me? What would I have to stop doing? Yeah! I had trusting God issues – big time! I suspect I may not be the only one to be like that either.

So, let’s look at this part of that prayer…’may the glory of Your name be the centre on which our lives turn.’ Amen. Otherwise this life shoves its way into our thinking processes very forcefully. This world insists, it demands, and elbows its way into our every thought – pushing aside our good intentions, our desires and even our voluntary participation in His way of living. Daily we face all kinds of interruptions and intrusions. When we go to an ordinary place like the supermarket, we are unpleasantly surprised and whacked in the hip-pocket with prices that are not constant. How do you glorify God in that? Repent a lot, without becoming obsessive about it.

Here’s my further insight into that particular issue …trust Him with everything, even the mundane things, like the shopping. Something that ordinary can be an opportunity to see the Lord work and build our faith. The very best thing we can do is to see our money as His money. Our view of our own daily life will change when He’s in charge. Seeing the Lord as‘our Provider’ is so appropriate, as one day rolls along and follows another. These seemingly little things are the moments we live for Him — by thanking Him, and prayerfully looking for His input everywhere in our lives.  

A sentence in this prayer, talks about releasing forgiveness. It is so easy say the words ‘I forgive you’ but do we complete those words by actually releasing forgiveness through us toward the other person? Forgiveness contains within it enough Grace for everyone to change! Saying it is one thing, releasing is entirely another. Doing that captures the spirit of what Jesus illustrated in front of us, in His book, day by day. It is like breathing in and out. That air we breathed IN is now gone, because we’ve let it go and moved on to the next breath. I think holding onto even the memories of injuries and sins against others is a little like holding our breath and hoping the other guy turns blue first!.  

I constantly need rescuing from what I’ve said or done, or even my reactions to unexpected things that interrupt my thinking. This week we have had an insistent mina bird sitting right outside the house, right where I am typing and editing the blog inside! A few feet away. I confess I have thought murderous thoughts toward that bird! What a racket it keeps making. The Lord’s help in such a tiny thing is essential. BTW, I don’t wait for an emergency or interruption – I’ve learnt to ask for His help, all the time.

We have this incredible access, this life-style of love, only because Jesus is our King, and God is our Heavenly Father. And we know that the Holy Spirit will guide us through everything. We want to transform the way we interact with difficulties and blessings, pleasure and pain. Hopefully that means we can all soar like an eagle, not waddle like a duck – or be at the mercy of an endlessly squawking mina bird! Bye. 👋

P 3134 The best response.

/ DVH

Our justification before Almighty God is based entirely on what Jesus did for us. He came to earth, totally identified with mankind, and chose to die in our place. That fact continually amazes me …. What amazing love! What an incredible exchange! 🙌 The Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit have such a passionate love for humanity, wherever we are, no matter what we have done. Always remember, Jesus knows how hard this life can be. Because of what He did for us, now we are DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, dead! All dead – so we live like we are DEAD!

The blood of Jesus washes away every single bit of our ugliness, carelessness, spite, anger, rage and wanting what we know we cannot have. Now, because of the freedom from fear of reprisal, and the power of God given to us to live like Jesus did – it’s time to put this AWAY world’s junk and LIVE for Him. God is no longer angry with mankind – all His anger was spent on Jesus. Now let’s ask some questions: what are we doing with what our Saviour DIED to give us? Do we squander it by living this life doing whatever we want to do? Or pay Him lip service on Sundays, while we live for ourselves Monday through to Saturday? What should our response be? Romans 5:1-6,8-11,16b, has the answer: 

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us. 

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… … But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation… … The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.”

Have you ever told a lie, thought an unclean thought, or wanted to seriously hurt someone else – even in your head? God calls that, and many many other things, sin. In His kingdom, that which is not LOVE is SIN! Instead of all of us facing punishment, Father God chose to give us the opportunity and power to live this life glorifying the One Who gave us so much. Jesus is with us in Person, day by day. 

Thank God, our ignorance or rebellion, has not cancelled out the magnitude of what was done on our behalf. The Lord Jesus made us right with Almighty God, and it cost Him everything this world had to offer, to do it for us. He paid our outstanding debt! A legal contract that eliminated what we owed forever, washed clean in His blood. Before we knew Him, we had no inkling of need, or even the personal power to gain that kind of incredible favour for ourselves. We’ve been tainted by sin since the moment we were born – even the sin of our forefathers still haunts us. His LOVE toward us, is the reason we are compelled into action.

After Jesus Christ died He went to hell and He defeated death. It had a legal right to claim all of us. He went there for us, as our proxy, the One Who chose to face satan in our place. But hell could not keep Him there because satan could not find one reason to punish the sinless, spotless Lamb of God! He had no legal reason to accuse Jesus. our enemy had to let the Lord go, because Jesus never sinned, in thought, word or deed. Everything He ever did, said, or thought, was done from Love’s motivation..

He took away every legal right satan had to torment mankind forever … and then …Holiness entered the halls of hell! Now satan cannot keep anyone there who has given their life to the Lord because he has no legal ground to stand on. Faith in what was done on our behalf is our only response. We’ve sinned, but SomeOne Else overpaid the bill for us and satan has been legally tied up. he has no recourse – except to deceive us into thinking we don’t qualify …or torture us with past sins … or get us to totally focus on getting what we want in this life. When we call upon the Name of Jesus to save us, we move from this world’s kingdom into God the Father’s kingdom. Our faith in what Christ did justifies us, gives us His peace, and releases God’s grace to live this life the way Jesus Himself would. 

We no longer belong to this world. We have an allegiance, a loyalty to the One Who paid it all to save us from ourselves. So much grace was released by what Christ did, that the power of sin over us has been broken, forever! No matter how we feel, or whatever temptation crosses our path, we don’t have to live that old life anymore. Daily we choose to live, by faith, in His kingdom where LOVE has all the power. We live  voluntarily, giving away that love, for His sake. When we choose to step away from sin, or accepting its premises, we find that now we have the power to defeat it. That’s the very best response! Bye. 👋.

“We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Romans 6:2b.

P 3116 Let’s quit labelling people.

/ DVH

“Now, even though I am free from obligations to others, I joyfully make myself a servant to all in order to win as many converts as possible. I became Jewish to the Jewish people in order to win them to the Messiah. I became like one under the law to gain the people who were stuck under the law, even though I myself am not under the law. And to those who are without the Jewish laws, I became like them, as one without the Jewish laws, in order to win them, although I’m not outside the law of God but under the law of Christ. I became “weak” to the weak to win the weak. I have adapted to the culture of every place I’ve gone so that I could more easily win people to Christ. I’ve done all this so that I would become God’s partner for the sake of the gospel.” 1 Corinthians 9:19-23TPT.

Hubby and I have discovered that ‘sorting’ people in our minds into groups, is detrimental to sharing our faith, so we’ve stopped doing it. We decided what Paul says is extremely valuable in everyday life. What I mean by this is, we can inwardly categorise other people as ‘Christian’ or ‘non-Christian.’ And that the result of that is we speak differently to those-who don’t-know-Him-yet. Here’s some free advice — treat everybody the same!

We were convicted by the Holy Spirit that living like that, is His Way. Believers, non-believers, people of another faith … these are all people Jesus died for and His chosen sacrifice for them makes them worthy of our love, attention and respect. The church seems to have delegated the power of God to just few brothers and sisters, who we thought were more holy than us because when they prayed for people we saw results. Now everybody else is just supposed to muddle along – making sure the flowers are done for Sunday, and leaving spiritual things to the more spiritual people! Rhubarb. I can’t think of a single part of my body I don’t need. What army sends only its generals off to war and leaves the troops behind?

Most people are content to go to church and be nice to everyone around them, in the hope that the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet would want to come to church with us and be like us. And … … how-zat-workin’-out-for-ya?? We seem to be unaware that the reality of God Himself is present among us at church, because He promised to be there. And I don’t care if you sit in a pew or on a deck chair in the park!“Wherever two or more are gathered in My Name!!…” Let’s put our Saviour back where He belongs – in the centre – not doctrines or sermons. And let’s do it simply because He belongs there. We cannot afford to major on rules instead of love. We are clearly instructed “…to owe no man anything but love..”and God is not just talking about MONEY. 

The thing is, Love doesn’t play favourites. It treats everyone it meets with Grace, and kindness, simply because everybody is made in His image. One of the most important things that can fall off when we skip over our devotion to Him, is that we quickly revert to religious form, without any power!

Jesus is not partisan. He treated everyone around Him as His Father’s children. That included Roman soldiers, His disciples, Jarius, Pontius Pilate, Samaritans, etc., the Lord responded to everyone and anyone who spoke to Him and He didn’t bother to check their credentials. Jesus answered people’s questions and prayed for them for healing and deliverance with no prejudice or restriction at all. They were not required to get baptised or to follow Him – in order to be healed.

Instead LOVE motivated everything He did.“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.” Revelation 22:17. Jesus says: ‘come” and … so does HIS BRIDE! The only prerequisite for preaching to people seems to me to be that they want to hear, and they are thirsty!

If we feel like we need to force what we say out, the other person will notice. Instead we need to reverence His Presence in every part of our daily lives, so we when talk about Jesus that’s what will show. Let’s bring Him into our everyday conversation and say things like: “When I talked to the Lord this morning He said this!”“God’s been teaching me about Himself.”  Let’s outwardly make Him a part of our everyday lives and not be sour, like a pickle, toward  other people if they swear. 

Let’s talk about Him to everybody, not just brothers and sisters in the Lord. When hubby and I do this we have only experienced astonishment from others. Wherever they are and whatever they believe. And then they cry! Because they never thought God cared about them enough to want to speak to them! They all know they don’t belong to our club! Our exclusiveness is excluding ordinary people who might want to know.

What I’ve learnt from Jesus’ example is GOD LOVES ALL HIS KIDS. Whatever colour, race, creed, religion they have – He regards each one  as His own.They don’t have to join a church, to be told HE LOVES THEM. Hubby and I refuse to own any denomination when we are talking to others. The Lord wants to touch their hearts not their heads!

The only difference between the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet, and you or me – is His GRACE. I never talk about doctrine, because that stuff can divide people, I just say whatever He tells me to say. Mentally sorting people into categories is odious, so let’s repent, and quit doing it, and treat everyone we meet as our Father’s kid instead. Inclusion is powerful. Bye. 👋