Guardian

P 3087 Mercy.

/ DVH

“How blessed you are when you demonstrate tender mercy! For tender mercy will be demonstrated to you.” Matthew 5:7 TPT.  Oh, let us thank the Lord for that!! This is the kind of verse that can slide by our understanding, yet most of us have needed mercy from someone else at some stage or another in our lives. The Holy Spirit has mercy on us simply because He is merciful by nature. He is not winking at sin – He will convict us the minute we give Him a chance! But His loving kindness immediately welcomes us back into true fellowship when we turn around, face our faults, confess and repair things. 

At times, anyone can quite easily excuse their behaviour like this: ’They did this evil thing and that awful one and it was unforgivable.’ There are times when we seek and search for a short-cut to get us through the things we think we cannot bear, and we forget God has given us the power to overcome sin and the devil. That’s why it is essential to remember that Godly attitudes and actions have nothing whatsoever to do with our feelings – they run on our choices.

However, when we demonstrate mercy to someone else who does not deserve it — we are deliberately stepping out of darkness into His light. In His light we can see what is really going on. We will remain blinded by darkness when we choose to not forgive or hold a grudge. If I stay in unforgiveness, or I refuse to extend mercy to someone else, my emotional reactions or responses have blocked my ears and eyes to that other person’s need, because my own judgment got in the way. 

The dictionary explains that mercy is: “compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.“  It says this about grace: “this word is commonly translated as “favour,” which means acceptance and goodwill regardless of whether we’ve earned it.” Those two things are not the same! Mercy goes beyond grace. It loves the unlovely. To do that we must recognise who WE really are, without Jesus.

And that particular point is the reason why a lot of Christians have been shot in the foot and they keep going round and round. Because we forget who we are without Him, and we leave Him behind when we step into unforgiveness and refuse to extend mercy. We start to think: ‘God saved us, but I wasn’t all that bad in the first place, after I don’t deliberately hurt anybody.’  Come again??

We have been saved from sin, and it’s power, because we needed it .God does not have gradients for sin. Ever since the garden of Eden human beings were born in sin, and we dare not trust our own un-renewed hearts.. Eventually, what’s really in our heart will find its way out! We cannot afford to make our own assessments about who anyone is … until we’ve lived this life squashed so tightly into a corner and we feel we cannot escape from it, we will have no idea how we will react. I dunno about you, but I’ve wished people DEAD! I know I’m a sinner, but mercy came to me and drew me back to God, when I had no excuse! And if He ever His took grace to change me and His undeserved mercy back… well … bye bye me!! 

However, when you have a hole shot through your middle by someone else’s sin, those kinds of God-honouring thoughts rarely come up. Some people just won’t quit being mean!  So we are going to need the Holy Spirit’s supernatural power, grace, mercy, plus His strength to continue to give them what He has given us for free. Outright undeserved mercy opens doors that appear to be nailed shut. 

In reality what we think is happening, is probably not what was actually happening. That other person who hurt me was not acting against me – they were simply acting FOR themselves. In other words, there was no intention to do harm. It did not come into their decision making, instead they were self-absorbed. If you do not know you have a Guardian Who is on your side — you will probably mount your own guard and fire away!!

Maybe we think someone like a wife basher or paedophile, a rapist, or a murderer, or a thief is beyond our help. So we choose to withhold grace and shut up our heart of mercy. We think they deserve to get whatever they get, for the way they have acted and the choices they made. I am not making excuses for anybody’s actions — all I want to say is that the person with the greater sin needs the greater mercy. In that moment, I can choose to give it to them. Good place to remember we didn’t deserve what Jesus gave us either.

I like this verse: “But whoever has the world’s goods (adequate resources), and sees his brother in need, but has no compassion for him, how does the love of God live in him?”  I John 3:17. People can be needy because they are spiritually poor! We must continue to sow grace and mercy everywhere and remind ourselves that judgment belongs to the Lord, He is the One Who knows all things and sees all things – not us. He will have mercy and compassion on whoever He chooses. We all deserve hell! Mercy is grace that goes beyond forgiveness, instead of punishment, it ushers in the power of God. Bye. 👋

P 3086 Followers.

/ DVH

“IF you want to be My disciple, follow Me and you will go where I am going. And if you truly follow Me as My disciple, the Father will shower His favour upon your life.”John 12:26 TPT. As the nice man said: we are followers of Christ, so where HE GOES — WE GO.  As we follow Him we get to be a part of whatever He does. The Lord loves to go into dark places, and talk to scary people. Light works best in the darkness. He likes to go to places that most Christians would probably like to stay out of – where the people who know they are sinners hang out.

Simon Peter once asked the Lord this question: “Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” And Peter did. After a few disasters, hiccups and missteps, the powerful Presence of the Holy Spirit fell on Peter and He preached one of the greatest sermons Jerusalem had ever heard. 3,000 people got saved, when this ordinary fisherman preached. He followed the Holy Spirit out of his hiding place and into the heart of the city.

Jesus took care of all our sins, but that doesn’t give us a free pass to do whatever we like with our lives. It was an exchange – His life for ours. Just in case we haven’t done the Math yet —that means our lives don’t belong to us anymore. We are so blessed, the Holy Spirit has given us the ability to follow Him, just like Peter and all the other disciples did!  Asking the Lord what we are here to do, is one of the most important questions we can ever ask. But Jesus didn’t concern Himself with their gifts or ministries, following Him was the first step into their new life.

Many sincere Christians pray: “Lord please show me what You want me to do for Your kingdom.” And when no answer comes, they figure that He doesn’t want them to go anywhere or do anything and they put down their personal calling, and sometimes … they settle for religion. Our personal calling is this: “FOLLOW ME!” Gifts and ministries follow that.

Here’s a huge revelation for today – obeying and following Jesus will lead each one of us into our calling… because part of that calling is to be transformed. Sadly many of us still aren’t ready for ‘the calling bit’ —we are too steeped in this world’s ways. Forget about the past, or the fact that you prayed and prayed for Aunt Minnie and she died anyway! I’m so sorry you suffered the loss of someone dear to you. But many sincere people have sadly gone under simply because they tried to lead – not follow Him. 

Be like Jesus, just LOVE PEOPLE and see where that leads you. Loving people opens so many doors! Christians are out there searching, wandering about, looking for miracles … if you wanna see a miracle … take a risk and be obedient! ”God  will not let you fall. Your guardian will not fall asleep.” Our guardian doesn’t sleep, because the Holy Spirit is always on.

The Word of God is a sword! Swords belong to warriors – not couch potatoes. It works the other way around – we take a risk, and speak or share, and God will back us up, and if He doesn’t, we get humbled! Bonus buy! You know, it is very windy at my house today, tomorrow it may not be windy at all – the WIND goes wherever He wants to – He’s always blowing somewhere. Find the wind and follow Him. Go into your prayer closet and stay there until you find Him.

Jesus did not die to make our lives easier…. read the book. Then ask the Holy Spirit questions while you are reading and do something about what it says.  Ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you are out of step with Him, and what He wants you to do about it.  It continues to totally astonish me when I realise what I have been tolerating in my life, because one day follows another and I am walking around half asleep, or telling myself it is normal to be mad at someone else. Try asking Him ‘Am I mad at anyone? “ Take a pen, you could be there a while!

Peter and Andrew moved away from what they knew how to do – which was toiling on the family fishing boat – and they immediately followed Him. Then Jesus set about showing them that what they had always done before with fish, they could now do with men and women. Here is the best question ever to ask the Holy Spirit … “Lord, where are YOU going?”  It is an oxymoron to call ourselves ‘followers of Jesus’ when we are not going anywhere. Jesus did what His Father told Him to do every single day. He got exhausted following the Father’s will. He had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. Yet He treasured His relationship with His Heavenly Father above everything else, and obedience to the Father’s Will was His sole purpose. 

The Holy Spirit stayed WITH Him, IN Him, and UPON Him, because the Lord Jesus understood the word devotion, He knew that ministry means movement, engagement, interaction with others. Be a follower of Christ – He’s always doing something! Bye 👋

“As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us.” Hebrews 12:1 TPT.

P 2996 Outer space is yelling at you!

/ DVH

“God’s splendour is a tale that is told, written in the stars. Space itself speaks His story through the marvels of the heavens. His truth is on tour in the starry vault of the sky, showing His skill in creation’s craftsmanship.” Psalms 19:1 TPT. Today, we are going to do some pausing to contemplate … off we go …!!

Every now and then it is good to take yourself outside at night, and just look at the stars. And if it won’t wreck your life, or your nightly routine — take your kids too! We all love to watch fireworks, but God Himself has the kind of splendour that is on display almost every single night of the week. Looking up at it opens up our eyes to His incredible creativity. He decorated that sky just like he decorated this earth …for His glory and for our benefit, then He declared everything He made “good.” That’s a really big statement from our God, Who is the ultimate definer of GOOD.

Here’s a fun fact:  the world has a new telescope – the James Webb Space telescope. It is floating about in space above us, and it can see much farther than the old Hubble could. It recently saw a large cluster of what appeared to be brand new stars … Yay! It turned out, on closer inspection to be a cluster of galaxies just like ours! Doesn’t that just blow your mind. It blew mine. 

Sometimes I think the thing that separates us from those ants which are always scurrying about, is the fact that God did not come to earth to save the ants! Did you know it says in the bible:“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, the son of man that You care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour. the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!…” Psalm 8:3-8. It is good to stop and consider what God Himself has made. This kind of pausing is good for us.

Moving on, but still star-gazing …“And the Lord brought Abram outside [his tent into the night] and said, “Look now toward the heavens and count the stars—if you are able to count them.” Then He said to him, “So [numerous] shall your descendants be.” That’s some kind of promise! Have you ever thought about the fact that we, you and I, are sons and daughters of Abraham? God fulfilled, and He is still fulfilling His promise to that patriarch in each one of us,  until Jesus comes back. Here’s another fun fact:  Abraham was not alive on the earth to see that promise fulfilled! And yet there are times when we complain to the Lord because He doesn’t get us a parking space when we need one. 🙄  Sometimes we can be easily distracted by trivia.

It’s called perspective, and we need to deliberately stop what we are doing and get some.  Maybe we can sit and look at the clouds roll by in our lunch break, or watch rain drip off leaves on the trees. Perspective ushers in balance. There have been terrible things in your life and mine that seemed like they were going to end us! The ceiling fell in, or someone did something unthinkable, and we could feel life draining everything out of us.. 

But, here and now, we are sitting  – with me typing, and you reading this dumb blog … teehee – and we are still going. We survived whatever that horrendous thing was, even though it seemed insurmountable at the time. Sometimes things really aren’t as bad or permanent as we think they are  — all we need to do is look at the bigger picture instead of what is happening within our own little tiny frame.  And yes, I do know that sometimes when you stop to smell the roses you can get stung by a bee – or you find that very pretty rose has no scent whatsoever … but nevertheless, pausing is worth it. 

We need to give ourselves permission to pause. And take off all those hats we force on our heads. Maybe we could assess how many of those hats actually belong to us! I have found when I’ve done this, that many of the hypothetical hats I wear, are there because I don’t want someone else to be angry with me, or I feel obligated to put on a Christian face and do the right thing! Now there’s some dumb motivation!! Here’s a thought: that means that somebody else, other than Jesus Himself, is controlling me. It means my faith in His ability to protect, comfort and help me is slipping.

Romans 8:9 states,“You, however, are not in the flesh but are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.” Have you noticed that the Holy Spirit is never in a hurry, but He is always right on time? Especially when you take the time to look at whatever happened to you retrospectively. SomeOne Else will be up tonight watching over us, no matter what is going on around us or outside, while we are sleeping.

The bible says in Psalm 121:3-4:“He won’t let you stumble, your Guardian God won’t fall asleep. Not on your life! Israel’s Guardian will never doze or sleep.” We need to remind ourselves that the Lord Himself has got me! He will not let go. So this life that presses in on us, actually doesn’t rely upon you, it relies upon Him, and His faithfulness and He ain’t moving! Give yourself a break, and start to inhabit a life that makes room for thoughtful  pauses …maybe there are times we just might hear outer space yelling at us! 🤣 Bye. 👋