Grave clothes

P3332 Where have all the encouragers gone?

/ DVH


“Let the inner movement of your heart always be to love one another, and never play the role of an actor wearing a mask. Despise evil and embrace everything that is good and virtuous. Be devoted to tenderly loving your fellow believers as members of one family. Try to outdo yourselves in respect and honour of one another. Be enthusiastic to serve the Lord, keeping your passion toward Him boiling hot! Radiate with the glow of the Holy Spirit and let Him fill you with excitement as you serve Him.” Romans 12:9-11 TPT.

The Apostle Paul did not write this stuff simply to impress people with His literary style. I believe he was giving the church a list of instructions as well as teaching them the way to walk with Jesus day-by-day. We skip over verses like these at our own peril. They are not just positive suggestions, they are life and health to us and they need action … digesting.

We have inadvertently allowed our feelings to get in the way of what Paul is saying here. This means we can end up avoiding Sister Mergatroid because we don’t like the way she is raising her kids – or the way her husband always takes over at testimony time. Whatever! You fill in the blanks. We need to continually remember that personal opinion, and the right to have one, died when we gave our lives to Jesus. Dead people don’t have opinions – they are far too busy accessing the new life Jesus promised us... live in the resurrection not the grave clothes!

Our new life is an example of what Jesus can do with people, who are living in ordinary circumstances. There is something quite astonishing about normal people living a life totally sold out to Him, yet we’ve become used to special people doing it. Maybe we have failed to comprehend the fact that the “old has passed away, behold the new HAS come.”  This is not just a form of adaptation to a different way of life – that very life has come to live in us now!

So now our job is to use our faith and walk out what we have been given. The unknown, unseen church-goer has far more effect upon the community than they realise. It all starts with the way we treat each other, and floods out from the church into the way we treat other people. Because we always rely upon His wisdom, we don’t look down on anyone. We have His Grace to see potential, not faults — so we take the time to speak into someone’s potential – and let go of criticism.

When my kids were small I did all I could to help them see that their one little life matters. Somewhere in that relatively short time of influence, I had to learn to let go of prodding and pushing, plus speaking good – and I had to watch them make mistakes. They became His people … not just my kids. They have their own way of expressing their faith. He’s their Father — and in my observation, fathers are great at speaking encouragement. They help us to have the ability to take a risk so we can grow, plus they offer us steadfast love, comfort and affection, when things don’t go so well.

We need more encouragers. People who help us believe that our breakthrough is our birthright. Encouragement is a spiritual gift found in Romans 12:8: ‘that empowers individuals to inspire, comfort, and strengthen others, bringing hope to the church and everyone else.” This gift is greatly underestimated. It has the ability to stand someone up on their feet so they can go again. It doesn’t push, or look down upon someone, instead it leads and instructs.

One of the Holy Spirit’s Names is “Encourager.” As an Encourager He helps people to find the faith to go on when everything inside them wants to give up. Our collective task is to keep our focus on what He says about us, because the Lord Himself is so reliably generous with His praise and love. This world has damaged many Christians, who have eventually fallen through huge cracks of disappointment and discouragement. Mainly because theyt have misinformed expectations and they are not met. Encouragement is about lifting them up again.

When you can’t find something encouraging to say, ask the Lord – He knows what that other person needs to hear. At the same time, you will be using your faith and you will see Him in action, for yourself. Sadly, there are also times when you have to be your own cheer squad. For one reason or another someone else is not available or you feel like you can’t hear the Lord. That’s when it is good to go to the bible, and read uplifting verses out loud. 

God’s Word strengthens us when we are weary, lost, or broken hearted. At the same time it is important not to deny whatever is going on, we live in a real world with real pain and human needs! These things are not just about sin, they happen because they are a part of life. We can be sidetracked if  we focus on how we feel, above what He says. Faith chooses to believe what Jesus said, despite these times. After all, acknowledgement is not the same as approval.

Let’s read the bible, and remind ourselves that these verses were written for US, for this day, for these moments. Encouraging ourselves in the Lord is important and it is also extremely helpful. David did it. Remind yourself that you are not a bad Christian, you are in a battle and our enemy is relentless. However, …”The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].” James 5:16b. Bye. 👋

P 2680 Walking free.

/ DVH

“I waited and waited and waited some more, patiently, knowing God would come through for me. Then, at last, He bent down and listened to my cry. He stooped down to lift me out of danger from the desolate pit I was in, out of the muddy mess I had fallen into. Now He’s lifted me up into a firm, secure place and steadied me while I walk along His ascending path.” Psalms 40:1-2 TPT.

I have this theory … the things that we consciously walk into, we often need to walk out of. What do I mean by that? When we are careless and wander off His path for us, it is highly unlikely that the Lord will sovereignly transport us back to wherever we wandered off! Instead we have to turn around and make our way out of the mess we’ve made. He will always help us, but it is our responsibility to repent and repair. An-y-w-ay, this man in the above scripture fell in a hole! I like this guy already, I’ve been down more holes in my lifetime than a gopher! 

Did you get the ‘waiting waiting waiting’ part? Nobody likes that bit. Why do we have to WWW? Patience grows as we stretch our faith by firmly holding on to HIS faithfulness. The secret is to keep looking at Him — it won’t help us to constantly revise how stretched we feel! Our spiritual predecessors knew all about waiting. Some of them died … still waiting!! Hebrews 11 – the great faith testimony chapter. There’s a whole big clump of people – whose names we all know and recognise – on that list, and it says – ‘by faith’ in it 20 times! When God repeats Himself, I pay attention.

The important part of these two verses above in Psalms 40 is this: “knowing God would come through for me.” See… I actually think that most people would think “stooping down” and “lifting me up” etc. are the important bits. In other words …we all want to escape from trouble. But the longer we stand still and wait for Him, and look at how faithful He is, the stronger our faith gets. Human beings focus on deliverance, while Almighty God focusses on growth. I’m not saying it’s wrong to focus on getting out of the trouble we’ve landed in, but there’s not that much growth on that path. In the end, it seems to me that it’s the wait, wait, waiting that grows us. And yeah, I don’t like that thought either!

The Lord wants us to know our own limitations, so we can continually enjoy His limitlessness. Everything good comes to us and meets us on the path of waiting and believing in His faithfulness. Christians are not meant to stay immature. We were born again to grow, and mature people know how to wait! BTW, did you also get that word “danger?“ Yup. Another thought no-one likes. But we will be rescued and grow — all at the same time. And that path leads UP, afterwards. I won’t have wobbly weak faith anymore, because God Himself will steady me. So the path I am on now, HE put me on! He has a purpose for me, for my life  — it isn’t just to continually test me, it is to show Himself strong and mighty on my behalf. Now I will need to live using my faith so I can see what He is doing.

Almighty God should not have to prove His goodness to us day in and day out by making our lives easier. His Personhood should be an established fact in our lives. This is not something debatable – His faithfulness is a pillar in the inner house of our hearts.  We are so blessed. We are living our lives on the other side of that cross. We have the writings of the New Testament, His living active will, to refer to. It is our check-list of who we are and where we are going. Otherwise the winds of change and tribulation will keep blowing us over, like the fierce wind speed of a hurricane. 

Psalm 103:4 says: “Who redeems my life from the pit”… Redeem doesn’t just mean ESCAPE … redemption makes things better than they were. It means transformation. Jesus bought my life back from destruction and healed me, changed, and transformed everything. My old ways to live, things like – being frightened, overwhelmed, nasty, spiteful etc. have gone. All that was killed off when Jesus took my sin onto the cross. Now I don’t have to live like that anymore.

We are blessed. We get to leave behind our grave clothes just as surely as Lazarus got rid of his! Now we have a new way to live – calling us up, higher and higher. Any tests or trials along the way are not our God being whimsical … He is not testing our loyalty – He’s preparing a table before us in the presence of our enemies! Now we can enjoy walking free of that old way of living, where we lived in fear that help wouldn’t come. We have proof in the bible that help has already come. Bye. 👋

P 2660 Our everyday bread …

/ DVH

Romans 10: 8-11 MSG:”The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth, as close as the heart in your chest. It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what He did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting Him to do it for you. That’s salvation.”

We are all currently engaged in our God’s eternal processes. That means God is working in us, just like He did when He raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Salvation is not a one stop shop – it is a process … which started when He saved us and continues to this day! The Holy Spirit is working in each one of us, day by day, to deliver us from the things that made us dead in the first place! Now we have to the power to turn away! He transforms our minds so we don’t think dead thoughts. He gives life to our mortal bodies so we can worship and serve Him in Spirit and in truth.

He also releases us to do eternal things, so we can carry His kingdom all over this world. V14: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” Look at your feet. In God’s eyes they are beautiful – He gave those feet an assignment … to go everywhere and tell everyone we meet that He is not mad at people any more. SomeBody Else, a perfect human being who did not deserve punishment, stepped up to the plate and took our place of punishment. You and I should have been nailed to that cross – NOT HIM.

Now, because of the power that was released when He was raised from the dead – we can come out of the dead patterns and thoughts that have haunted us all our lives, and really live. Jesus Christ loved people. He saw restoration happening everywhere He went. People’s lives were restored, hearts blossomed. Their hearts were withering and dying under the very strict laws that were enforced upon them. However, those laws were designed to bring the Jews back to God. Sometimes we are more interested in Jesus Christ the Healer, than we are in Jesus Christ the Author of our ongoing salvation. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

The Lord is also God’s living Word – He’s more than just a human illustration – He is God’s Word per-son-ified. That’s our destiny too. To be daily transformed so that our lives are saturated in the Word of God. We obey it, soak it in and give it out to anyone … the good, the bad, the ugly. And as we press in to learn this kind of obedience, we will kill off the very things we’ve adopted and adapted as protective garments. So now we stand before the Lord and others, just like Jesus was on the cross. Naked. We must be naked to be fully clothed! We are unashamed of this nakedness, because He died to clothe us in HIS righteousness, peace, grace, love, faithfulness …

To enter into this new life we must choose to come out of the grave of our old life, just like Lazarus came out of the grave he was in. Now we let God Himself, and others … strip off the grave clothes that are still binding us into death. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is now alive and working in all of us. That dead life we led before cannot be in charge now – we’ve MOVED. We don’t live there anymore. We moved out of that darkness and now we stand blameless in His marvellous light because of what He did. 

However, it is totally unrealistic to expect our new life to look just like that old one! It can’t, because light and dark cannot co-exist together. One excludes the other, so you can’t have both. This is where the outworking of our faith lies. Not in raising the dead, or healing the sick, or saying Godly stuff – it lies in choosing to live in the place we’ve been given. That’s why our minute by minute choices matter. 

Our old enemies have convinced us that we are still bound to that old life, because those old choices can still appeal to us. But, the Truth IS, those things no longer have any power or control  – they are shadows, not reality. We left that stuff behind us, and now … we are living to follow Jesus day by day. Daily reclaiming the land that was ours from the moment we were born again. We have our own promised land. Christ IN us – our hope of glory. This new land He died to give us flows with milk and honey because HE LIVES HERE.

Today, and tomorrow, and all our tomorrows! … We must realise that we need to choose to fight the giants that we have let occupy that old land – our old life. The things we have allowed that have no place in this new life. We don’t choose which things have to go, the Word of God every single day divides between our thoughts and emotions and releases His truth so we can see it. We simply practice obedience and submit to what He says, every single day. That’s why we read the bible – to get our every day bread and marching orders. 👋