Hate

P 2825 We are weapons that are forged in the fires of adversity …

/ DVH

Many Christians like to think that we are doing our best when we just meander along, picking up this new thought and putting down that old one — hopefully teaching our own kids … but probably not very worried about other people. We pray, and then we secretly blame God if He doesn’t send us revival! Be your own revival. To be a Christian is to be a true revolutionary! These passionate individuals see hatred as an opportunity to love others!  Meanwhile. loving and caring for those that hate you, is contrary to what humans want to do – of course it’s radical! 

In most countries today there are not many practising Christians. And by practising, I don’t mean going to church week by week. I think we’ve been reduced to a remnant – how else can we explain the excesses of the West in the face of the total deprivation everywhere else?! We’ve learnt over years of inactivity to pay lip-service to things that need our total devotion. When Jesus said: “Follow Me” – He wasn’t talking about a parade!  

Christianity is not designed to be a religion. Jesus is the way we live and breathe and learn to love others – even the ones that wish we were dead. We cannot call ourselves Christians, if we have not learnt to OVERCOME — things like our own penchant for sin, our greed for the things of this world, as well as our own personal trials and tribulations. We must learn to handle bad times the same way as good ones looking to Jesus Who is the Author and Finisher of our faith.

It seems to be that what we believe has not affected the entirety of our lives. Instead we plaster over the things that need to be purged, including those personal attitudes that Christ Himself preached against. Sadly, when we water down what we believe for our own benefit and convenience, we are watering down the power of God at the same time! We need to remember, we are either on fire, or the fire is slowly dying, or it has gone out! A tiny bit of Christianity that makes us feel safe will not do, we must be completely immersed in the things of God. And what we say has to be exhibited by our lifestyles. His love always becomes incredibly real in the fire of adversity.

We’ve been reborn to take what this world thinks, and stand it on its head. We don’t just saunter along smiling at everybody, waving cheerfully, holding a banner for Jesus and putting up cute pictures of scriptures over our sink! What we believe needs to be lived out – day by day by day. We are His living bibles, to be read by everyone else around us, we are not just nice polite people! Instead, Christians live real lives filled with real problems, and a lot of those problems are totally insurmountable without God’s help … so we are learning how to utterly RELY upon Him.

Our faith is nothing without the power and Presence of God. All we have to offer others presently, is pie in the sky when they die. God cares so much more about all of His kids, than the trite things we present to others. He is not an absent God Who benignly, and absent-mindedly smiles down on His sometimes AWOL, naughty children. That is insulting to the Holy Spirit, Who is ever-present. He longs to be our ever-present help in time of need, not the spare tyre on the back of yet another brand new vehicle! Instead of working ourselves up into a lather trying to demonstrate His power – we need to daily die to self and demonstrate HIS LOVE instead.

I think the reason people aren’t coming to Jesus is because our ideas of witnessing have made Him seem weak. We present Him as a baby, or God on a cross unable to come down. Or even SomeOne Who can be contained by a church building!  WE ARE HIS ALTAR – our hearts are His home. Our contribution to this world is that we know the God of all Hope! We need to talk about Who He is. He’s the Almighty, ever-present, always holy, always with us, Father. The God Who knows everything about each one us. Who freely gave us His own Son to pay for humanity’s wilful sinfulness.

We must not be afraid when the fire around us, and in us, heats up, and life becomes unbearable. That’s when the truly great weapons of war are forged … IN THE HEAT OF THE FIRE. He promised to be with us when we walk through the flames. (Isaiah) The biggest enemy we face, is not the other guy – it’s us – as we lead lukewarm lives at the cost of someone else coming to know Christ. God’s Love cries out daily to be demonstrated.“But God demonstrated His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8. 

It’s time to do more than idly talking about Him when the subject comes up. It’s time we showed our enemies His love, like they are our best friends. We need to stop using prayer for release or an escape vehicle, and pray for the Grace and courage to walk through the flames – untouched. ‘We are weapons of His warfare, and those weapons are not carnal but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.’ 2 Corinthians 10:4. People are dying every single day and they have no knowledge that this life is not all there is. 

We have to become His swords, forged in the fires of adversity, so we can cut off other people’s chains and set them free, like Jesus did. Bye.🔥

P 2755 This is our life now.

/ DVH

Love God first. Love other people well, preach the gospel, and DO the great commission – don’t just agree with it. (Leviticus 19:18;  Luke 10:27;  Matthew 22:36–40;  Mark 12:28–31.) There is no compromise – this is what Christianity looks like.  We live our lives taking what the bible says seriously, and act on it – our job is to tell and demonstrate to others that there is another way to live. This means we refuse to excuse ourselves – we repent and repair instead! Even when we don’t think what the bible says applies to me, then we pray over it anyway. Our God-given reality is clear – SomeBody ALREADY paid for our right to live in His kingdom. He transferred us out of this kingdom into His. We are now citizens of heaven, right here, right now — whether we live like it or not. Our task is to bring heaven down here, by the way we live our lives. 

Of course all that seems impossible, because we know that we cannot change ourselves. We’ve personally learnt  that what we think looks good, ends up with us eating the wrong fruit! Adam and Eve checked that one out. Jesus’ death has already delivered us from rebellion into obedience — so now we have been given the right to choose to produce His fruit! Things like reading the bible, doing what it says, using our faith, not relying upon our feelings – those things help us eat from the right tree and they grow great fruit. That’s the tree of Eternal life. We were given eternal life when we said yes to Jesus saving us. Now our obedience pulls that life, His kingdom, into this world’s reality using our faith. It’s gloriously simple.

I’m just going to let what I just said lie there, to stare at us both for a minute or two. 👀 Why? Because we both know it but we don’t get it!  If we did this world would be very different by now. You and I have been translated out of this world with its value systems, proclivities, ugliness  and actions, because those things don’t belong in God’s kingdom.  Now we are citizens of another kingdom! Our hearts are His holy place now, when we chose His way, He goes everywhere with us. Almighty God’s kingdom has sacrifice at its heart. Christ came here to help us when we least deserved it, and He demonstrated for us, how that kingdom works.

If we were to go and permanently live in another country, we can choose to become citizens of that country. That country’s rules and regulations now govern us and we are no longer governed or influenced by where we previously lived. God’s kingdom is like that. It is not a part-time, depending-on-how-I-feel-on-the-day way to live! Instead it is our new way to live, right here, right now. Christ’s death moved us into His kingdom!  Now we are called to demonstrate that kingdom by the way we live, here and now. To love Him first, then others. Obedience is not optional – it matters.

We have been strategically placed into the middle of grumpy, dissatisfied, selfish, ungracious people who get right up in our faces and tick us off. However, our responses to their provocation will govern where we live. In His kingdom we have been given the ability to see these people through His eyes. Obedience opens our eyes to a whole new way to live and see others – I don’t care who you think somebody is – once you see them through His eyes it will change how you relate to them, forever.  We are now citizens of heaven who live as ambassadors for our homeland. Pray your house will be a little bit of heaven to everyone who comes into it.

God’s kingdom can always be found wherever people need it. You and I are the seed He sowed into our surroundings, and our job is to grow and manifest His kingdom there!  My advice is to repent if you haven’t been living this way, and fix the stuff you can – then pray over everything and give it to Him. Pray that the Lord, Himself will redeem everything in your life. Because God’s kingdom is not common where we live, we will act and react differently than everyone else does, as we prepare ourselves to demonstrate His love to others. 

Here’s today’s question: which kingdom are you and I cultivating every single day? His or ours? To love God with all of our hearts we need to start cultivating our awareness of His kingdom within us. WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, HOW IT SOUNDS, WHAT IT DOES. That’s why we read the book, to identify and spread His kingdom. ‘The kingdom of God is already within you …’ Jesus said that in Luke 7:21. I don’t have to strive to blow my nose, once I know how to do it I just do it! Christians have believed a lie – we are not powerless. Day by day we are taking back the ground the enemy has sown into our lives, and the lives of others around us, as we choose to live like Christ would.

Another question … If His kingdom is IN me then why do I keep doing the stuff I regret or hate? Because we are used to making our own choices. Plus, God’s kingdom is not accessed by knowledge, it is accessed by faith. Faith causes us to act – to love the unlovely, to care for the poor, to yield to Him. Say to yourself when you feel lost or overwhelmed, ‘Christ only did what He saw His Father doing. What are You doing now Father God?’ Then do what you see the Father doing. Trust me, I’ve been living like this for a while and I end up doing a whole lot less yelling and correcting;  now I spend most of my time simply loving others. Loving others despite how they are acting changes things – me, them, and the circumstances. God’s power is released when we act in faith.

Our old life of sin can spin us off into tangents, chasing things that don’t matter. Father God got rid of sin so He could be with us, day by day. When we use our faith to do what Jesus would do, His Presence in us opens doors we can’t even see. I have found if I don’t know what to do, I ask for a scripture. I do this all the time. To my amazement I start accessing a storehouse of scripture I have stored up inside, without even trying! Stuff that I don’t even know that I remember, comes out.

Romans 8:14 TPT“The mature children of God are moved by the impulses of the Spirit. “ The Holy Spirit is the wind in our sails – He is everywhere, for everyone, all at the same time. Oh, how I love watching Him and what He does with my feeble efforts. He does everything so beautifully, fitting together the broken pieces of my life in ways I cannot possibly imagine. I’ve seen Him do it. Here are my last few thoughts, love the Lord first, then other people, and tell others how His Presence in you has changed your life. Always remember, you’ve moved – you are a citizen of heaven now – this is your life now! It is your destiny to bring heaven down here to earth.  Bye… 🙌

P 2719 Our faith is a faith of paradoxes.

/ DVH

“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”2 Corinthians 12:10. Paul gets happy when most of us would run away. Ya might want to think on that for a bit. 🤔  When is the last time you cheered when everything went wrong and you couldn’t fix it? …. Me neither!! When is the last time either of us remembered that the weaknesses we feel are a sign we are strong in Him? 

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” Matthew 5:11-13. When we suffer for righteousness sake, we are blessed! And if people hate us then we are even more blessed. Yeah… r-i-gh-t! “How enriched you are when persecuted for doing what is right! For then you experience the realm of heaven’s kingdom.” Matthew 5:10 TPT. So, in keeping with the theme of today’s blog — when is the last time you ran about shouting gleefully: ”I’m rich, I’m rich?” — simply because people were rude to you, or cursed you, or criticised or threw rocks at you or made your life difficult. Rocks can be words too! 

Here’s another one to chew on:  “As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed;…” 2 Corinthians 6:9. These are things nobody in their right mind would want to experience – yet when we chose to follow the Lord Jesus, that way of life became our portion. We have paradoxes by the bucket load:“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.”Matthew 5:3. As Heidi Baker once said: “My poor in Mozambique know they are poor, in the Western world, you don’t know you are poor.” Here’s a big fat revelation … she’s not talking about money or goods, etc. She’s talking about us being spiritually poor… Having stuff can cause a huge pre-occupation with keeping stuff … or getting even better stuff. We can be so obsessed with keeping our routines and systems ticking over, that our spirits can be in abject poverty. 

One of the greatest paradoxes of all is putting what we can see or feel above what He has already said in the book! Or maybe it’s thinking we can live this life however we want, and still enter His kingdom…?  Here’s another interesting one: “If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:3. Usually effort means we gain something!! But in this verse effort is secondary to something that is so ephemeral, so subjective – we need His book to define what it looks like!! And it looks like stuff we cannot naturally do – fancy God asking us to do stuff that we cannot do!

The real thing about paradoxes is that they run contrary to the way we want things to happen. Up becomes down;  in is out; and saved becomes a way of life, not just a ticket to heaven. The bible says that salvation needs to affect everything, especially the way we relate to others. If you find yourself getting snippy with someone, it’s time to do a spiritual check up, with His help. Just like you would check your temperature if you feel a bit off. Each time we say ‘yes’ to His Ways, we are saying ‘no’ to our own way, and that’s when we step into our own personal battle. 

The paradox of our faith is that it has no evidence until we act on it!  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. It takes faith to say nothing when you feel provoked by circumstances or someone else. It takes faith to speak to another person about the Lord. It takes faith to be kind when someone else is unkind.  Ya might want to think on things like that today. The Christian life is filled with paradoxes that cannot be understood except through the eyes of faith. Bye👋  

P 2698 Some things really are as plain as the nose on your face.

/ DVH

Thank God we always have HIS MIRROR! The bible clearly reveals to us that we cannot love God and hate our brother. “We love because He first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister IS A LIAR. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.” 1 John 4:19-21. And just in case we think we can wiggle out of that particular idea on a technicality, Jesus Himself answered the whole …  “Just who is my brother?” scenario, brilliantly, in the story of the Good Samaritan. He made it clear, my brother or sister is the person I want to avoid, or the person I blame for making ME feel bad!

We can be easily fooled into missing out on our new life in Christ’s life-giving lessons, by dismissing our own personal responsibility to fix things. Being reconciled means humbling yourself not just shoving the blame off onto the other person. We can’t just silently excuse or dismiss our need to cherish Him, and His Word above everything else, and hope He won’t notice! Fixing stuff isn’t just a process of negotiation, and agreement – true reconciliation means we can go back to walking with each other in love, as quickly as possible. The aim is change – not pretending! Self-deception is the worst kind of deception.

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.” Romans 12:17-19. Personally, I ask the Lord for His help to sort me, and the other person out. I let Him know I am happy with what He wants to do about it, either way. And I aim to take the low road – because I probably did something or other! His Presence is way more important to me than my ego. People who protect themselves have fragile egos and, sadly, they can easily miss opportunities to die to self.

I recommend true reconciliation with others highly, because that action quickly diagnoses all the greebilies that hang around, unnoticed, in our own lives. These creepy critters disguise themselves as terrible wounds that have been inflicted on us – and that means many times we avoid the stab-ber like the plague. Have you ever noticed how dead-set easy it is to prove your point and get sympathy for your sorrow when somebody hurts you and everybody else can see it was their fault? My advice is to give sympathy a swerve and go for the Gold – walking with Jesus.

Oh the temptation to feel justified can be such a battle. We can easily want to bad mouth that person who did us so much harm! We can end up collecting other people who agree with our assessment of the perpetrator’s behaviour like we’d collect postage stamps! The temptation rises up to go over and over the events in our mind, revisiting what we should have said to put that other person in their place. Of course YOU don’t do that … and … neither do I! Where is the faith in self-justification? Nobody should owe anybody anything but LOVE … and that situation is only diagnosed by the One Who paid it all.

Unless we choose to leave our fate in His hands, we can end up wasting our time and effort trying to paint a picture of how right WE are and how wrong the other person is. Of course they are wrong! It’s often as plain as the nose on anyone’s face who is at fault. But the real point is this … our response is our response. And guess what? The only thing we have any power over is OUR RESPONSE. Um … ‘turn the other cheek, and walk the extra mile’ seem familiar to me.  You know if Jesus had avoided the toxic people WE WOULD ALL BE DEAD IN OUR SIN!

Yes, I know I am advocating letting that person who hurt you or I go free! But that’s what Jesus did for US, and He didn’t put any caveats on what He did either… He died once for all. That’s what the book says. So that serial killer who has despatched numerous people in ghastly ways… can stand on the same ground I do. GRACE. Sin is a great leveller, and fast recognition of what I’ve done, is a brilliant way to get humble quickly! That murderer can change their life too, just like I did. Meanwhile it is so dumb to keep lists of things anyone did! Just give it all to Jesus quickly, and make sure that you fix things with that other person too – to both people’s satisfaction.  

The thing that has a permanently lasting effect on us is to value Him above all the bumps, breakages and bruises this life hands out. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. My advice is …keep your mirror handy – we all need it! Bye. 👋

P 2531 Our place in God’s plans.

/ DVH

1 Samuel 22:20-23: “But one son of Ahimelek son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled to join David. He told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord. Then David said to Abiathar, “That day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your whole family. Stay with me; don’t be afraid. The man who wants to kill you is trying to kill me too. You will be safe with me.”

To put you in the picture – King Saul is on one of his “let’s kill David … … plus anyone else who helps him!”… moods. Saul had heaps of ‘destroy that guy’ sprees. Below is my condensed version of one of those stories.. David goes to Nob and asks the high priest Ahimelek to help him, he and his men need food. Ahimelek gives David and his men yesterdays’ shew bread plus Goliath’s sword to help him. It is good to remember, King Saul hates David without any Godly cause. Some people do that you know – it isn’t always your fault.

Meanwhile, I think King Saul is deeply envious, and jealous of David and his popularity and his good heart. To start with Saul’s own son Jonathan loves him and this young man is constantly helping his friend. Back to the story — Saul hears about Ahimelek helping David out and he becomes furious — which actually seems to be the king’s emotional default position (!!)  And he sends for Ahimelek, and all the other priests. There were 85 of these men, and King Saul tells his men to kill all of them. 

But the king’s men are unwilling to strike down priests, so Saul gets Doeg the Edomite to kill them, as well as everyone else who lived in the town of Nob. Apparently Saul also believes in guilt by association. This is where the verses above pick up the narrative. We find out that through the text, that David did not trust Doeg at all. It seems that David’s internal spiritual radar was spot on! 

The reason I want to feature this story today is to highlight David’s attitude. Attitudes are easy to miss when you are just reading things as a story! One of Ahimelek’s sons escapes and runs to David, telling him what Saul has done and David picks up responsibility for what has happened … even though he was not the perpetrator! He literally becomes this man’s city of refuge, taking the man and his whole family in under his protection. I love that! When I read it recently, I started praying the Lord would make me a place of refuge like that for others, so they can come to know Him and His love, better.

It is good to look hard at what happened to Ahimelek. We need to note that none of the people who were assassinated did anything wrong – but they were all destroyed to satisfy the king’s desire for revenge. It can be way too easy to start hunting around for the ‘Sauls’ in our own lives … those people who hate us … when we read stuff like this… Nobody loves everybody all the time! By the way, if you find some people like that in your life – remember to forgive them! 

However, today my aim is to talk about having a heart just like David had toward others. He became the protector of the weak and vulnerable – despite the fact that he was being actively pursued by a jealous, vengeful king. He is innocent of any wrong doing. Under pressure, David is still a righteous man! As Christians, we need to be the sort of people that care enough about other people to protect them prayerfully etc., as well as practically and we need to learn, from the Lord, how to prevail under pressure. You get it that the pressure comes first – eh? Then we get to do the prevailing stuff!

This world has so much injustice today it is easy to be swept up in anger and frustration, and then get overwrought, and start acting, and reacting from our pain. Because of that pain, we can easily switch our focus over toward getting rid of the problem. In this story, and in most of ours, the problem is a person. Yet David had enough wisdom to leave Saul and his machinations to GOD – he just kept actively evading him. This was WHO David was!

IF we take matters like this into our own hands we will miss our calling. We are called to be ministers of reconciliation – not God’s revenge on two feet! Our enemy can successfully distract us from the main thing and … the main thing is to find OUR PLACE in His ANSWER. One of our biggest temptations is to rush in where angels fear to tread and act without wisdom. My advice is wait for our King, Jesus. Our place in God’s plan is to be a minister of reconciliation. There is no greater calling.👋

P 2495 Let God disarm you …

/ DVH

“Now, please listen, for I need to address an issue. I’m making this personal appeal to you by the gentleness and self-forgetfulness of Christ… … Now I plead with you that when I come, don’t force me to take a hard line with you (which I’m willing to do) by daring to confront those who mistakenly believe that we are living by the standards of the world, not by the Spirit’s wisdom and power. For although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons, using manipulation to achieve our aims. Instead,our spiritual weapons are energised with divine power to effectively dismantle the defences behind which people hide…” 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 (with omissions.)TPT.

Paul talks about this greater wisdom in the verses from 2 Corinthians above. This wisdom relies upon God’s power not man’s clever plans, or great counselling … or even avoidance. Instead it exposes lies, and disarms the sorts of excuses that men and women often make in order to stay the same and feel good about themselves. Paul is quite severe in this edict, as he first establishes the essence of this lie – there is no power of God in it … therefore … it won’t accomplish anything lasting!

He is explaining that the Lord’s spiritual wisdom goes beyond the stuff we understand with our minds, into the very heart of what is actually going on. It leads to complete exposure of the desire that human beings have to justify themselves, and hide our true selves, for one reason or another. That hiding gig started in the garden of Eden, the first thing Adam and Eve did after they sinned was HIDE. Hiding is not good because that action denies the power of the cross. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness…”1John 1:8&9. Confessing sin means we own it!

Meanwhile, we don’t have to tell every single person every single thing about ourselves! But we do need to be ready to have the Lord uncover the things we have hidden …  sometimes … even from ourselves. I have found hatred in the weirdest circumstances in my life. If you asked me I would have said: “I don’t hate anyone, its a waste of time.” Actually what I was really saying was: “I hide my hatred under another name.”

But the Lord had my number, and He showed me what I called hurt was actually hatred, and I avoided looking at it because I did not want to know. It was like my own private warning system that flashed a sign that said: ‘this person is dangerous,’ when I looked at certain people, and that was my excuse for not loving them. These are the lengths we go to to justify ourselves! When all we need to do is confess our sin. 

Unfortunately, in reality, I think I sadly felt quite OK about having that attitude – the people I was scared of, and concerned about were very mean! Hiding was a way to avoid their meanness – but it also cleverly disguised my real feelings! None of these thoughts were allowed to prevail in my conscious mind, because I had become really adept at concealing this stuff from myself.  I would have noticed things like that in a heartbeat. So instead, I gave it another name. HURT. But as I chased after loving like He loves, things kept floating up into my conscious mind. Like gritting my teeth when that person spoke to me – a big clue right there!! 

That’s when I realised that I actually went out of my way to reward those who were good to me, and secretly avoided those who weren’t. I pretty quickly figured out that loving like the Lord loves, means my opinion, or experiences no longer matter. He does not love us based on our behaviour. He took that aspect of our lives out of the equation, when He died on the cross. Indeed, our bad experiences and attitudes actually need to be confronted because they create greater potential for His Grace to be released! 

He wants us to treat everybody the same way – we are to love them enough to die for them. And if we truly want to changed to be like Him – then that’s the standard! Here’s a red hot tip, taken from my own experience: you and I can’t do that all by ourselves – we need supernatural help. This is the place, mentioned in the bible, that is designed by God, for His power to be made manifest through us. His strength is made perfect in weak people.  And along the way we will gain, bonus buy …  self-control.

If we choose to hide our weakness – the result is we will miss out on that perfect strength. Father God is not interested in the appearance of good.  He wants His goodness to be immediately evident even when someone else takes a nasty big fat bite out of us. Boy is that’s going to cost us! It cost Jesus to save us, and we are following Him now on the road to total transformation. Praise God! Right now we have His power available to us, so we can overcome anything that paralyses us, by leaning on Him and following His ways – instead of pretending we are A-OK.  

We simply must let/allow the Lord to disarm us. This new life in Christ comes with honest transparency, not deceit, shame or guilt. Embracing transparency will, over time, help us to know that we are truly loved by Him – especially when His love reaches into the hidden corners of our hearts.  👋🏻

P 2357 Love is about choices – not feelings.

/ DVH

Hubby and I just celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary a couple of months back. I still think he is the nicest and best man I ever met. But SOME DAYS … that’s a choice not a feeling!  And I’m pretty sure he shares that sentiment with me. 😂 Not as often, of course – ‘cos I’m MUCH nicer than he is! Okay. That’s a joke. Haha!!

What I mean is this – some days we have to choose to love each other, because we don’t always understand the other person’s POV. I so-o don’t man-speak and he has no clue how to speak female, so we collide. Because we are both quite passionate people, there are times we collide loudly. No fun is had either side in that collision. People make times like that about individual issues – points of differences – you won’t get anywhere that way, trust me. The real ‘issue’ that needs to matter in those moments IS THIS: who is gunna repent and ask for forgiveness first? Sigh. It is usually him not me – he’s way better at saying ‘sorry’ than I am. It’s mega-annoying. 😡

I said all that to say this:  just because we disagree and feel horribly abused, misunderstood, and uncomfortable – that does not mean we quit the marriage or give up on the relationship. It simply means we have temporarily lost our common ground – and one, or both of us, has dug their heels in and refused to compromise or even listen to the other one. My particular fault in these matters is that I always have a point, plus I absolutely loathe not being listened to! 

People often say sagely: “Marriage is about compromise.” Phooey!! Marriage is about CHOICES. I choose to forgive because it’s in the bible! That’s true wisdom. At that moment when I am no longer feeling like my precious hubby is the nicest man in the world – I still have a life-mandate to fulfil. I promised to follow Jesus and He is offering me a new opportunity to choose to follow Him and die to self. These moments are the little foxes that spoil the vineyards of a husband and wife’s love for each other – we need to seize those moments for the Lord’s sake. The power of agreement opens doors that will not open any other way – we need to cherish and protect it.

If I choose to stop fighting the current issue and instead ask the Holy Spirit to help me keep my mouth shut, I will accomplish two things. The first is establishing His Lordship and the second is an opportunity for the Lord’s wisdom to prevail instead of chaos. I may have to insist about these two choices … and, to be fair, I quite often fall into the trap of seeking to be understood – instead of working to see the other person’s POV. However, even if what is happening makes no sense to me – it makes sense to the Lord – I know He can guide me through it.

It is extremely difficult, but not impossible, to lay aside your claim to be right – when you do it for the Lord, and not just for the other person. When you lay down your arms for His sake, whether you are right and they are wrong, THAT IS WHEN JESUS’ LORDSHIP PREVAILS! In that moment I have yielded my control back to Jesus and the Holy Spirit because I love Them more than winning or being right. Meanwhile, do not be fooled – those moments are hard. The other person may not have the same view of Lordship you have.

Here’s what I have observed – it only takes one person to turn things around … but that Person needs to be Him! Get a load of this scripture: “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates (works against) his [Christian] brother he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20) At this point you could be thinking that you don’t ‘hate’ your spouse – yeah! But at this moment you are not in the middle of some dumb argument that you both feel it is imperative to win!! You can hate anyone given enough provocation trust me. Plus spouses often know each other so well they can lean all over each other’s buttons. In the middle of an argument neither of you are working together!

One of our biggest faults as Christians is that we try to wiggle around what He said in the book so we come up with a hundred reasons about why this particular verse does not apply to me. We all hate to be wrong and in those moments we forget about the One Who hung on that tree for our sake, so we would have the power to resist temptation. Please remember this line: It is not about winning a point or an argument, it is about losing the Holy Spirit’s Presence and YOUR PEACE. We have a choice. Selah. 😶 👋🏻

P 2344 Let go and LET GOD.

/ DVH

Just a few thoughts regarding ‘letting go‘ and learning to get out of His way. When the body of Christ fights, we don’t fight like this world does. We fight on our knees. Plus we fight by the way we choose to live and die.“For although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons, using manipulation to achieve our aims. Instead, our spiritual weapons are energised with divine power to effectively dismantle the defences behind which people hide.”2 Corinthians 10:4.

We don’t need to fight like this world does – we have miraculous weapons. Those Godly weapons will tear through the enemy’s schemes and lies like they were made of tissue paper. Our overriding theme/weapon is LOVE that just won’t quit. It renders hate into sad oblivion. God’s LOVE won’t quit on us! It’s never-ending – eternal!

Today I want to talk about another interesting verse in 2 Chronicles 20:17 “You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you.’”There are times when our current battle belongs to the Lord. This kind of battle means we stand and wait to see what He will do. Oh, how I love to stand and wait and see what He will do next! It is so much fun! He never does anything the way I think He will, so that means I am able to glean more revelation about Who He is. I just love the surprise of it all! He loves to fight for us.

When I asked Him why this kind of battle is so important, He said: “It takes great faith in the face of overpowering adversity to DO NOTHING.” Well that made sense to me! I mean I‘m all for heavenly armies turning up and fighting on our behalf, but faith often touches the invisible and makes it visible. Faith is so much more powerful than what we can see. And faith that is motivated by love cannot be stopped. Even if you were to kill the person who is praying, love is eternal. So that kind of faith stays out there, waiting for the right opportunity to land. 

Did you know that one of Jesus’ prayers has not been answered? … SO FAR! Here it is – “I pray that they will all be one, just as You and I are One—as You are in Me, Father, and I am in You.’  First of all, can you see that the answer to this prayer is participating in a sacrificial relationship? We cannot keep our own pet way of doing things and participate in Oneness. Big clue about Unity right there! We need the fellowship of the Spirit. When we all walk with HIM oneness follows and HE is not divided. We need to let go of the things we keep declaring to be right and allow Him to fight for us on our behalf.

We have never seen the Lord’s prayer for total unity answered so far. It is out there waiting for the right time, the right people, and the right place. None of those things are fixed so we could easily be those people. The reason we are not those people is because we tolerate selfishness, our own opinions and desires, over other people and their ideas and needs. We keep straining out gnats unity-wise and letting through camels. 

Back to my original point. In some battles our job is to wait and wait, and wait, and … not take our faith back. Just like Jesus did. We do this in an undemanding way. We become steadfast because our eyes are fixed on the One Who cannot lie and He never changes. He’s faithful. If Jesus has had to wait 2000 + years to see one of His prayers answered, some of ours might take a while… He let the answer go, and He is waiting for His Father’s plan. No immediate answer to prayer does not mean we were not heard and He isn’t going to answer. HOLD ON!!

In the meantime, we get the opportunity to look carefully at our yet-to-be-answered prayer and with His help, discern whether it is for His kingdom or our comfort! Obviously things may need some adjustment, and sometimes – as it is in Jesus’ prayer for the Body of Christ’s unity – the answer doesn’t entirely rest on the pray-er. He doesn’t care who thinks what is right or wrong – He’s waiting for the fruit of the Spirit to show up. And for all of us to drop our prejudices and let them go.

There are times when Almighty God fights for us. He is not taking sides per se, it can simply mean one of us has stumbled into His purposes. AND … it can also mean that He is being just plain undeserved merciful. We need to start our prayers by letting go, and the Holy Spirit will show us what He wants us to do next. Remember when He fights for you, to watch … and be grateful. But get out of His way – OUR SOVEREIGN GOD IS COMING THROUGH. 👋🏻