Harvest

P 3519 There are two kinds of wisdom … 

/ DVH

… heavenly and earthly. When I write this blog, my aim is not to have people agree with me. Instead my hope is to inspire others to talk to Him, as well as talk to each other. Pre-digested food doesn’t help our spiritual health. There is nothing like fresh manna daily. So we daily read His Word to get a glimpse into His wisdom! James himself mentions that there are two kinds of wisdom. That gives us the opportunity to look at the Lord’s wisdom carefully, so we can identify it.

James 3:17-18 TLB: “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows discussion and is willing to yield to others; it is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted and straightforward and sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.”

I know the bible seems to use an excess of words – descriptive ones and sometimes seemingly irrelevant ones. But I’ve found that every single word that comes from God’s heart, sweetly burrows its way into my heart and it will profit me – if I let it. It is so easy to look at the tasks that are in the book, and do them and think that’s that! But actually I think the Lord loves the communication between Him and us, far more than us gathering info, or doing tasks. To the Lord, us listening to Him, and us talking to Him, are just as important.

I truly believe we can be transformed by this simple daily interaction. The Lord’s unconditional love is life-changing. But unless we keep looking into the mirror of His Word, or we will end up going about our day forgetting what we actually look like! Even being near Him saturates us with His all-powerful love, wisdom and goodness – whether we feel something or not.

In order to partake of His wisdom we need to know what it looks like, and bless God, James is giving us a clear description of His wisdom. Sadly we all know what man’s wisdom looks like too, that stuff is everywhere. Books, TV, radio etc. When I turn the TV on, something or other blathers at me full volume, and my brain almost melts! But the Lord’s wisdom is so gentle, we can easily miss it. Yet we need to be able to identify it, or we will ignore what He is saying to us. He won’t force what He thinks on us, our involvement in this process is purely voluntary. He doesn’t want us to miss the truth in what He says when we hear it. This world is not like Him, and it is easy to see the difference.

The Lord’s wisdom is gentle, peaceable, pure, polite, not argumentative, and He loves peace. Our Father is kind and unobtrusive, we can ignore His voice when He calls us to Himself. It is easy to hide behind: “I don’t really feel like that today,” OR “I’ll catch up tomorrow … I’m busy Lord.” The verse in James shows me that He cares so much about my life, and my freedom. But He will not interrupt me, I will have to choose to ask Him to help me. And the result of Him speaking to me, will bring me peace, not turmoil.

The Lord doesn’t use a multitude of words, He speaks directly to the point. What He says is so powerful it produces incredible results. In Genesis our Father’s response to darkness was —-“Let there be light.” No waste of words there! On another occasion He said in Malachi to the Israelites; “Your words have wearied Me.” So rattling on, mouthing platitudes, pretending to relate to Him won’t impress Him – He would much rather we were honest.

Almighty God does not mind if I ask Him questions! I ask Him things all the time. I was raised around adults so getting a word into a discussion was pretty fraught with danger back then. Seven year old kids only think they are smart! But the Lord is not like that at all. He is quite happy to explain how things work. I literally never had a father, so talking to one is a really big deal to me. The ones I knew as a child were absent, scary and only saw me when I did something wrong — that didn’t help much.

But I have discovered that the Lord is always so kind to us even as we walk with Him. Because of these glimpses of His wisdom, we learn how incredibly inadequate human beings are. We may be great at stuff that is inspired by cleverness, but we are not good with the kind of purity He has. His goodness and wisdom are like flashes of lightning when we stumble across them. Because of that, I think that the worse kind of temptation we face is not necessarily sin…

Most of us want to avoid sin like the plague. but in my opinion the worst temptation we face all the time is the temptation to believe that He is not good and He won’t be good to us. When we take His goodness as our standard, then whatever happens cannot distract us. We know that He’s good, so what He does is good and pure, it is destined to transform us. Jesus Himself told us that He came here to give us abundant life! That’s our benchmark. Our Heavenly Father does not have any secret agendas. James clearly tells us here in this passage, that the Lord’s wisdom, is wholehearted, straightforward and sincere. And we have it in writing!

There are two kinds of wisdom, the wisdom that dazzles us with razzamatazz and the wisdom that comes down from above, from ‘the Father of lights.’ James 1:17. It illuminates Who He is and who we are to Him. Bye. 👋

P 3468 Check out of lukewarm!

/ DVH

“No soldier when in service gets entangled in the enterprises of [civilian] life; his aim is to satisfy and please the One who enlisted him.” 2 Timothy 2:4. 

“Sow seeds of righteousness for yourselves, and you will reap a harvest of God’s unending love. Break up the hard, fallow ground of your heart. For it is time to seek YAHWEH’s favour until He comes to pour out righteousness on you like falling rain.” Hosea 10:12 TPT.

We remain in His teaching when we live the way Jesus would. The bible tells us there is no room for lukewarmness, yet that very state is almost normal today. We have excuses for the way we live that are like the Tower of Babel … they reach up to the sky. But the only thing that is meant to reach that high is our praises! It seems we’ve chosen to forget that we died the day we came to Christ. Dead people have no reasonable excuses, they can’t defend themselves, or criticise others. They can’t do anything!

We can’t afford to wait for this kind of passion to overtake us – our new life in Christ relies upon us choosing to mature and taking every bit of what He said seriously. Nobody else can make us do that – we must do it voluntarily. The thing is, let’s be aware that we can maintain a perfectly even, cheerful outside attitude, while inside we are seething with anger and keeping count of other people’s supposed trespasses against us! Actors count on their ability to deceive their audience with their performance, but we are not actors.

It is up to us as individuals to find and break up the hard fallow ground inside us. Those things are — ‘areas that have become cold, unyielding, and closed off due to old habits, pride, emotional walls, or unresolved pain.’ (Google.) The Holy Spirit loves to help us identify areas where our hearts lack true Godly compassion and mercy. Let’s choose to remember that if the eye suffers, the whole body does. 1 Corinthians 12:26. We no longer have any claim to any kind of judgment, dead people don’t.

Here is a quick test to see if you have anyone in your life that you really can’t stand, and you want to avoid them like the plague. Check out your state of generosity and love levels toward that person. Generosity takes our ‘temperature,’ and we can often ignore it. We are told to ‘do good to those who despitefully use us …’ sadly, most of the time we can settle for appearances, or avoidance, or living our lives removed from others with token, spoken care. Many people have moved from one church to another because they felt lonely in the crowd. Husbands and wives end up treating each other like opposing forces, yet they appear fine on the outside.  

Because of what the bible says, I know that Jesus has redeemed the old me, and the new me would not dream of flinging bad stuff at you! A mature person knows that any differences  are present because that other person is unique … so they don’t withhold love, or doing good to whoever crosses their path. They don’t live with a level of deception that pretends all is well when it is not, and they don’t blame others for their own shortcomings. Instead they find places of agreement, and ‘lose’ the bad memories under the blood of Jesus, and deliberately choose to remember instances where love prevailed.

Breaking up hard ground starts with acknowledgement, repentance, plus reparation … We are even prepared to take the whole blame when it is obvious to you that you have done nothing. Humility thrives. These people care more about winning their brother than winning some squabble! They don’t justify their own behaviour, and blame someone else for what they have chosen to say or do. Humility hates separation and will do everything in its power to repair things. Here’s a great incentive – Jesus lives in each one of us, when we are unkind to each other we are being unkind to Him. Let’s not care about who did or said what to whom, and choose to care about unity instead.

“Your people (that’s God’s own people) will rebuild what has long been in ruins, building again on the old foundations. You will be known as the people who rebuilt the walls, who restored the ruined houses.” Isaiah 58:12. Did you get that? Rebuilding ruins … those things that have been broken for years. But then you, together with the Holy Spirit, choose to rebuild on the foundation of what Christ said and did. We’ve made the mistake of thinking that we must agree with others for relationships to be restored. Instead we agree that other people, whoever they are, are worth the effort because Jesus died for them too. 

We are now “in the service of our King.” That doesn’t ‘turn off’ when we are tired, fed up, or even ill. Let’s not forget what Jesus did for us, and GAVE to us. Otherwise we might forget the reason the Holy Spirit is here with us. He gives us the power to overcome in spite of our difficulties. He isn’t just with us so we can feel good, blessed or comfortable – His sole task is to make us, with our co-operation … like Christ. His goal is transformation, not petting us and patting us so we feel happy, vindicated and okay. 

Like soldiers who obey orders, now we live our lives in obedience to the Lord’s will, His way. There is no room for lukewarm when we daily choose to live like that. Bye. 👋. 

P 3432 Let’s pay attention to who He says I am. 

/ DVH

“Nor to give importance to or occupy themselves with legends (fables, myths) and endless genealogies, which foster and promote useless speculations and questionings rather than acceptance IN FAITH of GOD’S administration and the divine training that is in faith in that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence)—Whereas the object and purpose of our instruction and charge is love, which springs from a pure heart and a good (clear) conscience and sincere (unfeigned) faith.“ 

1 Timothy 1:4&5: Let’s look at this bit: “…the divine training that is in faith in that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence).” Love comes out of allowing God to train us in Christ’s Ways using our circumstances and we respond with our faith. Now let’s ask one of those pesky questions: what, or who do I lean on when life gets uncertain and unstable?

Today I want to encourage you to think about leaning your entire human personality on Him and, at the same time, aim toward trusting and having confidence in His Way of doing things. Leaning on Him means if He moves we fall over! This can be one of those great things that stays a theory. In our minds, we say: “Yes Lord!!” But when He asks us to actually ‘do good to those who despitefully use us’ … well, that’s a whole other ballgame. All that we are must lean on Him!

At the same time we can easily have a skewed opinion of what it looks like to be in ministry. We don’t have to be on a platform to be used – His grace works anywhere! But whatever we do, we need to have His fruit bursting out of it. His fruit is the proof that we are learning to love with His love – not just what we think. There needs to be an accompanying harvest to those theories in our lives. 

This is how faith expresses itself. Theories don’t change lives, actions do. I’ve been in places and situations that looked impossible, but Jesus saved us and helped us to get out. I’m not saying I liked it when that stuff happened, I’m saying that bad things give us opportunities to stand still and watch Father God do what He does best – love everyone, all at once! I’ve had to learn it is OK to be a person who doesn’t know everything. I know I can’t do anything in my own strength, it never goes the way I planned it – I found that out by figuratively falling on my head.

For instance:  the possibility of me learning to weight-lift, or run, skip, hop, kayak, or bicycle in a 100 kms marathon is now remote. Even suggesting that I jump out of a perfectly good aircraft (why would you!) — is well beyond my scope these days. That’s not laziness, btw, that’s just disability, age and a certain amount of respect for gravity! I watch people older than I am do these things and I don’t feel bad. I think: ‘I am stretching myself in a whole other direction … spiritually.‘ Trust me, that is just as intense and difficult as the physical stuff.

If I am going to train for something, then I want to train myself to walk in holiness and righteousness before the Lord. I already know anyone can have access to these things because Jesus gave us HIS righteousness etc – BUT! … those things can be easier said than done. Which is why we need to use our faith, especially as we live in everyday land! He really did give me these things and I need to act accordingly. If you are going to aim at something, aim high … … but I’m still not going to leap out of a plane, parachute or not!!

Here’s another verse. Hold onto your hat! “For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems sad and painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness [right standing with God and a lifestyle and attitude that seeks conformity to God’s will and purpose].” Hebrews 12:11. This is how we get righteousness, holiness, and conformity to what He wants. God’s love, the fruit of the Spirit, etc. these things have already been given to us. Done deal! Now we need to walk with Him and submit to the discipline those things will bring into our lives. Think of those things as being like my parcel at the post office. It’s already here within reach, all I need to do is go and claim it using my faith that the PO hasn’t lied to me. 

The Lord’s kind of discipline teaches us His Ways. We can read about those things in the book, but sooner or later we have to respond to them. That’s the discipline part. We pray, and then we do the very thing that seems alien to us. Sometimes it can even seem ill-advised! We turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, love those who won’t ever love us back, and obediently follow Jesus, and the path He took before us. Here’s a little clue that will help us on our journey. When we do things His Way, we leave our ways behind.  

We are not all the same. Your idea of love might not look like my idea of love, which can lead to conflict between us. Try asking your spouse or your kid what their idea of love looks like – it’s mind-blowing. But HIS LOVE is the standard, not mine or yours. Let’s aim at loving others with His Love. The bible clearly tells me what that love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13. And Colossians 3:14-17 tells me what I need to put on, in order to wear it. However, I have to start with my faith! It takes a great deal of faith to shut-up when you want to shred the person who is attacking you.

Let’s choose what Jesus bought for us at Calvary, and put those seemingly impossible qualities on, using our faith to do it. I step into WHO HE SAYS I AM. Final thought: How am I going to move mountains if I cannot change my behaviour and let Him transform my character? I need the Holy Spirit’s help! By the way, when the bible says trained by discipline, it isn’t a suggestion. Bye 👋. 

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. 👋.

P 3362 Grapes anyone?

/ DVH

It can be so helpful as we are learning to abide in Christ, to read what He says in a number of different versions of the bible. As I have said many times, it is not the words on the page – it is what the Holy Spirit wants to do with them, in us, as we let Him use them to touch our hearts! He wants to open the eyes of our hearts, which have become closed off and darkened by life’s difficulties, broken promises, and lost dreams we’ve had that have not reached fruition. Here is the same verse in three different versions.

John 15:1-3:“I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of Me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing He prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.”MSG.”He breaks off every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and He prunes every branch that does bear fruit, so that it will be clean and bear more fruit.” GNB. “Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit [that stops bearing] He cuts away (trims off, takes away); and He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit.” AMP.

To be fruitful we need to be open to pruning and shaping. The Holy Spirit is the One Who knows our story from beginning to end so He’s a safe Person to do it. That’s what staying connected to and being a part of the Vine means – daily we choose to trust in His faithfulness, no matter what is going on around us. It’s not just about growing fruit, instead it is an illustration of our place in God’s plans. He does all the work, and we relax (rest!) and simply stay connected to His Spirit in us. We learn to obey Him and daily value that connection above everything else.

We don’t have a grape vine at our house. Sadly I have been put off all vine-like plants, because we bought a Wisteria. I fell in love with the beautiful flowers that hang down and smell so sweet, but … they only bloom for about ten seconds!  I didn’t read about the fact that Wisterias are a big pest that are trying, bit by bit — with their delicate little innocent tendrils — to take over the entire world! Forget aliens – at our house we have WISTERIA!

If you simply must have this gorgeous plant then my advice is that you plant it in a very large pot in the middle of a gigantic slab of concrete. AND WATCH IT VE-RY CAREFULLY. It loves to roam about when you are not looking. It needs careful pruning, because it has a mind of its own … a little like people, really. Back to the Lord’s illustration about grapevines. Grapevines produce fruit… unlike my wisteria which simply makes loads of leaves and some very pretty flowers once or twice a year.

This illustration Jesus gave us about a grapevine is not just some random word picture, it is a complex and beautiful thing that clearly explains what Christ is still doing for us in our lives. By choosing His ways over our own, we are choosing to stay attached to what He has already done for us. This will allow His love and truth to flow through us, it will correct our growth, help us to be strong and grow in the ways HE wants us to go. We will stay connected to His very life in us. 

We start ‘abiding.’ “IF you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:7.Our prayers will change, our aims will change as we let His sap influence and nourish every part of our lives. But if we become distracted and disconnected, we can become like my very beautiful wisteria, lovely to look at, but it wanders around aimlessly choking out the life of other plants. Without attachment to Him, you and I will become fruitless. However, the Master Vinedresser won’t cut us off the vine, He will prune us. Thank You Jesus for Your Grace.

Otherwise we can easily wander far away from His purposes, and end up where we shouldn’t be, because we have neglected to let His sap flow through us, and produce healthy cells that will promote His spiritual life in us. They will, of course, at the right season, produce His fruit. Nonetheless, He will still prune us! Pruning is not the same as chopping off dead lifeless branches that need to be thrown away, it is a necessary discipline that facilitates further reproduction. Like my wisteria, all those signs of life need to be channelled into producing something that is tamed and beautiful – all at the same time.

So things, people, situations in our lives, can and will change. And at the time, it seems like the end of the world … but it isn’t. It is the Lord doing what He promised He would do. Making us more fruitful. Father God is not just interested in just a couple of handfuls of nice sweet grapes, HE WANTS A HARVEST! And just like a viticulturist or vinedresser knows exactly where to cut the new growth back and prune off the branches that are going nowhere — God Himself knows where and when to remove things in our lives that are going to hinder our fruitful production. 

So when a door to something you love closes, I want to encourage everyone today to start thanking Him. The Holy Spirit is our Vine Dresser and He has our best interests in His heart. Pruning means He is active on the Vine, and we will see the benefits. I have watched the Lord take people I dearly loved and thought I really needed out of my life. And at the time there was much wailing and groaning going at my end! It was a bit like finding out our errant wisteria was merrily flourishing inside our roof and under our house! Not. Happy. Jan! 

But afterward, I saw that some people took up my time because they saw me as their source of comfort, and visa versa, I saw them that way too – not the Lord Himself. It was in everyone’s best interests for them to be taken away … so we could both learn His ways from Him. If we want others to eat His sweet juicy grapes, then we need to pay attention to the process that will foster His kind of growth. We have to learn to abide and trust Him. Bye.👋

P 3233 Here’s hubby!!

/ DVH

1 Corinthians 14:12: “So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church.” Today I want to introduce a very special guest speaker. My husband made these remarks to me a couple of days ago, when we were sitting talking together. What he said was so good, I simply had to share them with you guys. So I asked him to write it all down. My dear husband loves to see people like you and I stepping up and using their gifts to help others. Today I’ve  made it his turn to help you. I pray you will be blessed by the wisdom and clarity of what he said to me. 

“There is a gulf of real difference between 2 paradigms — the world’s way and God’s way.  One is about procurement of information to ‘better’ the self — and the other is about God’s kingdom activated and working through our lives. 

If you are working person, you will already know that workers can get Professional development days. They are paid to do courses to improve their professional status and expertise. Or perhaps someone might buy self help books etc.  Alternatively someone else has been encouraged to gather more information, to gain a greater advantage, or knowledge of a subject – as a person or a professional. So the self gets ‘better’, more improved, stronger, to gain an advantage in this world. This system glorifies man himself.

However, God’s way is to die to self, to serve, to prefer others to yourself, and constantly rely on Him. That aim is to glorify God alone. If we take the methods of the world’s paradigm into Christianity, we too will begin to gather information, and be deceived into thinking that we are progressing in the faith life and equipping ourselves to be a ‘better’ Christian. But in reality, we are piling in more knowledge – without the power of God working in us, and through us to others. We will have more reliance on self, instead of on the Holy Spirit. More insight from human knowledge, instead of revelation from heaven. 

Christians have learnt to gauge their ‘growth’ on how much we know, instead of allowing Jesus to teach us “through the kind of active obedience that can only be learnt through suffering.” This means yielding and allowing the Holy Spirit to divide our soulish attitudes and actions by deliberately choosing to use the scalpel of God’s Living Word, in and on our lives. At the same time, we also make quality choices to love others … even those who are not with us.”

…I’m not going to play ‘top this thought’  today— quite simply because I know I can’t. Hubby is saying a whole lot of stuff that I know I have said in various ways for the past 8+ years – except He took ONE page … and I have taken 3,232 of them! Is my face red? Ho-hum! I think this is what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 14:12, when he exhorted us to excel in gifts that build up others. This means we will know it’s a spiritual gift when it benefits other people! That, BTW, is our Godly criteria. 

Let’s choose to be a people who don’t care about all kinds of spiritual hoop-la, the kind of enthusiastic stuff that turns up in our churches to try to attract the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet. We want Jesus to come and be with us, to do what He wants to do. He loves to set people free. We want true, genuine joy and wisdom from God Himself because He always changes lives. Those things can only come from the Holy Spirit, not from our own clever self-improvement think tanks!  Plus we want all of us to thrive in the Holy Spirit’s Presence, and go out and do whatever God has set for each one of us to do, for His glory.

I won’t say anything else today, I will leave you to think on what hubby said. Man I love clarity and he’s got bags of it. Such a blessing! Bye and bless you! 👋

“I pray for you that the faith we share may effectively deepen your understanding of every good thing that belongs to you in Christ.” Philemon 1:6 TPT. “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” James 3:17

P 3229 YOU are His House.

/ DVH

“Here’s the one thing I crave from Yahweh, the one thing I seek above all else: I want to live with Him every moment in His house, beholding the marvellous beauty of Yahweh, filled with awe, delighting in His glory and grace. I want to contemplate in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 TPT.

It is so easy to read lovely scriptures like this one and think of God’s house as being somewhere else. Like in  heaven, or at church, or bible study, or in our worship times. Let’s look carefully at this next scripture, which I’m sure we all know very well, however, I’m not positive we are actually applying ourselves to live it out. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is IN you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” I Corinthians 6:20.

Yeah! Sobering thought. We, you and I … are now HIS house! If we want Jesus to ‘hang with’ us, we need to make His house a place He would like to inhabit. And we’ve gone about doing this the wrong way in the past. God loves the things that last. “Faith, hope and love,’ that’s what we are aiming at. His temple is not just some hypothetical glorious ideal, far, far away from us. This verse clearly shows us we are individually responsible for the state of His house. Knowing this is the beginning of change, but it won’t actually change the way we think, until we digest it and grab hold of it and act on it. Holy-Spirit guided action can, and it will. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” 1 Corinthians 4:20.

I can’t tell you what that will mean to you, but I can tell you a few of the kind of things that have affected me, and none of them are about what I eat, or what I watch on TV, or read etc! The first one is something that I call: “feeding the doubt.” FAITH! Doubt happens when I start ruminating over anything that isn’t working out the way I thought. The thing is, God’s temple is dedicated to Him and what He wants, so what I think I need or want, pales into insignificance. His Will His Way needs to be my permanent motto. And our God loves faith. So I repent. 

I may not think I have done anything wrong, but I choose to actively trust the Holy Spirit to know what HE likes. It’s His house, so I want His desires. I need to stir up my faith and talk to the Lord about His goodness to me. Then I ask for His help to remember those times when I have trusted Him, and I’ve seen Him graciously do the miraculous in my life. All those little things that don’t matter to anyone else, but they have impacted me greatly. Remembering His goodness is a great active sword. Whenever my faith falters, I need to stop, and reestablish the fact that He is good.

The next is to actively keep my HOPE in His goodness alive, in a primary place in my heart. Because without that hope, I will start trying to solve my problems by myself. His hope is my anchor. Hope anchors me into the bedrock solidity of His never-ending-always-present love. Otherwise I can float about being affected by the wash of someone else carelessly speeding past me. Now I keep on doing whatever my day brings up, I go over everything good in my life that He has given me, and thank Him for those things. I can also thank Him for saving me, and continually washing me with His Word.

This last thing that affects me is equally important – loving other people extravagantly. This bit is where we counteract what other people do. If I do good things for a return, I am expecting a benefit from this world. My hope will be shattered. When I do the things, He asks me to, as He leads me, especially for people who don’t deserve it – It becomes extravagant LOVE. This can sound impossible, especially if the person/s involved aren’t super-duper sweet guys. In other words, we aren’t exaggerating when we say we can’t love them, because they are, humanly speaking, not nice folks.  

Actually, loving not-so-nice people extravagantly is actually easier than loving the people that you deeply love, who have treated you badly. The more invested we are in the person, the harder it gets to be obedient. We can think up lots of excuses to opt out of obedience, when someone we love mistreats us. Things like thinking they should know us better, or give us their best behaviour all the time.  How realistic is that?? 

The reality is, people are human beings. Some things – even if they seem easy to you – can be hard for others. This is the time we need to remember that people will let us down, but the Lord never ever will. We have to switch our focus off them, onto Him. They can’t do everything we need – but Jesus already did!  Loving extravagantly means we lavish love on others, even when it is undeserved. This is the kind of love that blows people away. It’s not just nice, or kind, it is over-the-top love, the kind Jesus gave away all the time. 

Loving others extravagantly reaps a harvest. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9. I call this kind of verse, the kind of verse we try not to memorise because it seems too difficult to practice! The bible has loads of those. The ones we skip and hope God isn’t looking. Because we are His house – we actually don’t have that luxury. Remember, right here, right now – you are His house. Bye. 👋

P 3151 Good fruit.

/ DVH

The Lord wants me to talk about this particular subject one more time… so here we go …it seems to me that all those things I have been talking about in the past few days, are actually tied together. So IF we find we are reluctant to forgive someone else, it definitely means something, and we need to look at that particular situation very carefully. To begin with it means Jesus just slipped out of our focus!

We need to understand that the people who love Jesus know when they are wrong, because the Holy Spirit whispers to them! Plus the scriptures jump out at us and convict us. At the same time, any one of us can feel beaten up by negative circumstances. I think it is about vulnerability — we don’t want to make ourselves vulnerable to anyone we feel we can’t trust. 

That, BTW, is why it is a good plan to give difficult people to the Lord and leave them with Him. We can be so incredibly disappointed or hurt by someone else’s actions, that it seems like we can’t let things go. Especially when the other person has not acknowledged our pain, or asked for forgiveness. Or they keep on doing the thing that started the mess in the first place! That’s when our decisions need to kick in.

This kind of negative reaction shows the importance of redemptive power in all our lives. If you can get stuck on how you feel about what someone else did — then imagine how stuck they are in your mind, when we constantly see them through the filter of their past deeds/misdeeds! Here is something I use to check on my forgiveness metre. If someone’s name causes me to grind my teeth, either inwardly or outwardly, this means I have something that I need to get alone with the Lord to fix.

Seeing anyone through that kind filter can lead to a highly volatile situation — where our bad history with a person outweighs anything good, and everything they say and do has another meaning to us! The result is we are distracted and we don’t have to look at that list we are silently compiling against them. At the same time holding on to that list can be oh, so useful to prove our point about how mean they are!

All of us can easily find reasons, or excuses for our behaviour… whilst analysing someone else’s attitudes or what they have said. Meanwhile, our enemy is delighted to drag all kinds of stuff out periodically, to ?help? us remember when that other person does something we don’t like again. 

This is why forgiveness needs to be based on choice. We need to make a quality permanent decision that following Jesus is the way we have chosen to live, and then we must choose to protect that decision! In a nutshell becoming a Christian means we have given up the right to make lists! If we end up avoiding people, then we probably have a list somewhere – tucked away in our psyche. It took me a long time to realise that keeping a list of other people’s sins is not true protection. It’s a trap!

The worst thing about keeping lists, is that this trait can start in childhood, as a result of imperfect parenting. Childish assessments are not accurate, because they come from a brain that is not completely developed or matured! When we hold something against someone from our past — I’ve noticed that anybody else who even remotely sounds like the people we are offended with — ends up thrown into the same pile. Pretty soon that pile gets so high, we can’t see or hear God over it. 

Let’s remind ourselves that our stated aim as followers of Jesus, is to be the people who forgive and release others on the spot .Otherwise that little niggle in the background of our thoughts quickly becomes a whirlpool. Then we have no idea why we are going round and round instead of moving forward. Our God is incredibly kind, He won’t let us move forward while we are dragging stuff behind us like the tail on a comet.

Let’s realise we cannot afford to relinquish our God-given right to be free from captivity – simply because we want to choose to be angry at someone else! Being mad at someone is still captivity! Almighty God is more than able to protect us, we don’t need to protect ourselves anymore. Let’s not fall into the trap of holding a grudge to keep ourselves supposedly safe. “My God is my protection and with Him I am safe.” Psalm 18:2.

Meanwhile there can be a gap between believing, and living that way – it’s time to close those gaps. There are times when we end up chasing healing, which is another subject altogether. Healing can be another little side eddy to get stuck in — it can become an excuse we use to hide from God and others. Our healing is in our proximity to Jesus, stay with Him and watch what He will do with you. To be perfectly honest with you, sometimes I look at people and think:“Aren’t you sick of going round and round yet?” Now I need to repent!!

The belief that Father God is always for us must stay at the forefront of our minds. Even when it seems that everything we hoped for and loved is facing extinction. That’s what dying to self is like. “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But IF it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24. Dying to self opens us up to the things we can’t see.

Our God is devoted to His harvest coming out of our lives. Namely – FRUIT.  And we can’t hang on to grudges and stuff and still produce good fruit. Instead we will bring forth diseased produce, in our own lives and in the lives of others. Bye 👋.