Hatred

P 3348 Show me the Father…

/ DVH

“Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don’t you know Me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Now, there’s poor old Phil with his socks blown off! 🧦💥🧦! Hang on to yours … OK? Jesus is explaining what seeing and knowing the Father looks like. So now, let’s take a look at John 14:21,23.

“The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.]” AMP version.

The above verses are a tool. Jesus is showing us HOW to see the Father. Let’s remember, we have been told in the bible, God’s Ways are not our ways. That’s Isaiah 55:8-9. Indeed our Heavenly Father’s thoughts are so far above ours, we are doing Him a grave disservice if we try to bring Him down to our level! That’s because basically, we can’t understand the way He thinks because it is simply beyond us!

However! The Holy Spirit has been sent to us to help us to understand what He is doing and He reveals the Father’s character to us, as we pursue Him and cherish obedience. It is not just that God is wa-a-a-a-y smarter than we can ever be … but He is … it is that His thoughts are based on, and rooted in LOVE, and we don’t speak “love” very well — yet. 

His love is pure, holy, accurate, discerning, faithful, patient, joyful, peaceful, kind, good, gentle and it is full of self-control!! Our kind of love is whimsical at best, and it floats about like a cork on the ocean, we can be guided by many things outside of our conscious control. But nothing is outside God’s control! He is a sovereign God with humanity’s good in His mind and heart. That’s something that is so far beyond our comprehension, we are going to need the Holy Spirit’s help – all the time. Otherwise we end up speaking our enemy’s language – hatred and blame.

If we wanted to show someone what our spouse or child or parent looks like, we might show them a photo. Jesus Christ is God’s photo! At the same time, He is incredibly 3 dimensional and far more real than we can ever comprehend. He is God Himself, and a living breathing obedient Human being, Who loves mankind and came here to save and help us understand that Our Father is not like other gods.

When we choose to obey what the Lord says — we will get glimpses into the WAY He does things. Remember, He doesn’t do stuff the way we do it, so some things won’t always make sense to us. The difference between God’s ways, and ours is huge. I think we fail to understand Him sometimes, because satan encourages us to use human logic to understand a Holy God. That’s like using wet spaghetti to tie your shoelaces. You can, but why on earth would you? Our God is a mystery wrapped up in glory and splendour — not SomeOne who can be parcelled up nicely and put in a box.

Jesus came to earth as God personified. He came to save us — as one of us. He was the perfect Person to come here, and the perfect representation of our Holy God. Reducing the Lord to rules and regs is like trying to repackage hot melted butter in the same paper it came in. The Lord Jesus is God Himself with our kind of skin on, and He is a totally, everlasting, smitten lover of mankind. Jesus blew away all of our rules and regs toward His Father, but He carefully kept the Father’s heart in all things perfectly. He did not come to earth to please us – He came to rescue and save us from satan’s wiles.

When we look at Christ sitting beside a well, talking to a women who had been married 4 times, and was now living with the fifth guy — we are looking at God sitting beside her … kindly guiding her, piquing her interest and transforming her life. Almighty God says so many things at once we cannot take them in! God once sat down beside Jonah. The man was complaining about a dead plant that was supposed to be there to give him shelter. Almighty God took the time to explain to Jonah that plants are not more important than people. Nineveh needed saving, and He had chosen Jonah to preach to them. Trying to avoid our destiny is a waste of time and it can have very strange consequences. 

Our God has deeper, more eternal motivations than we can ever dream of — to even begin to know Him we need to obey what He tells us, in His Word, and keep looking, and re-looking at Jesus. We must practise paying attention to the way He did things, toward His Father, and men and women. When we do that we will begin to learn God’s ways. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Hebrews 1:3. 

To us, words are simply a method of communication – to God Himself, they are a way to speak LIFE. Jesus Himself said it: ‘show me the Father,’ means we take the time to deliberately observe His dear Son in action. He expected the disciples to recognise Him by His actions. Jesus clearly says: God looks like ME. Bye 🙏 .

P 3297 How to humble yourself.

/ DVH

In years gone by — even before I was born(!!), there were carefully embroidered scriptural sayings on the walls of most homes. The amazing thing was, that previous generation valued and embroidered challenging scriptures to remind themselves of what the Lord has said. They put these sayings up for everyone to see. Things have changed somewhat eh? 

I think we can also get a pretty good idea about what the Lord thinks about people’s lives, when we read the Old Testament, and see how He responded to the Israelite’s disinterest, disobedience and disloyalty. However in the NEW, He says stuff like this through1 Peter 5:6. “So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time He will lift you up in honour.”  Today I want to talk about this particular verse and how it might apply in our daily lives. I propose to give a hypothetical scenario that will hopefully clarify what I’m getting at. So off we go …

“… A Christian is at work dashing about, their feet barely touching the floor, when the boss calls them into his office. They kind of hope that he is finally recognising how much effort they make every day — but unfortunately, … not! Their boss appears to be nit-picking about something that went wrong that doesn’t matter all that much, and what’s worse, they didn’t do it! Now this situation will not get this person fired, they will just get one of their boss’s interminable lectures on ‘blah blah blah blah’. So they stand there trying to keep an interested look on their face, because their boss is a bit of a control freak. 

But THEY know, that they know, that they didn’t make the mistake – yet the boss is going on and on about this error like the building is on fire because of it. What to do? Do they throw the person who actually did do it, under the bus? After all, the Christian happens to know that the person who did it seems to be a lazy sod, who does as little work as possible. Lately they are often at home throwing a fake sickie. It would serve them right to get a good ticking off, it might just motivate them into action! Meanwhile the boss keeps droning on and on, and  they are waiting for a pause, so they can clarify whose fault it really is, and then the Lord says: “Don’t do it.”And they totally know it is the Holy Spirit talking to them! 

On drones the boss, but suddenly he stops and looks right at them and says: “Is there anything you would like to contribute?” After they have bitten their tongue nearly in half — they mumble out an apology as sincerely as they can, and tell the boss they will make every effort not to make the same mistake twice, and stumble back to their desk. Then they look over at their often-absent, always lazy, work-mate and he’s looking at the races on his computer! It seems some people never learn. So — do they pass on the lecture with gusto, or just keep schtum? 

This is the way temptation works. This guy is being tempted to vindicate himself, and give the other person a serve. However, in those moments you have a perfect place to humble yourself, and ask the Lord Himself to vindicate you! Then perhaps you might start silently praying for this guy to pick up his game. This is where we ask ourselves: “what would love do?” And maybe Proverbs 10:12 drops into our mind: “Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers and overwhelms all transgressions [forgiving and overlooking another’s faults.” 

Now our mythical example has a choice. He can dob this guy in and save his ego, or perhaps pay out on the man privately, because it is actually his workmate’s fault. But this means they are adding to the pile of junk that seems to be squashing the life out of the other man. But after all that, what has this man’s situation got to do with them? This guy is not exactly their favourite person anyway.

So the Christian man wanders outside for lunch, and they want to pray.  But … here comes the offender and he wants to sit next to them! Suddenly this man is babbling on about how hard life is and how he has been thinking of ending it all, because his wife left him, and he misses his wife and kids. Instant relief falls on the Christian, because they didn’t say anything to the boss about him. Then the Lord says: “Help him.” The Holy Spirit gives this guy a road map to healing for the man who has caused him so much trouble.

Here’s what I have learnt. Closed spiritual doors swing open, when we choose to take His Way through our difficulties. If we put down our pride— and look at someone else and their situation — we will start walking in Jesus’ shoes. People said things about Him that were so far from the truth that they were obviously lies!  But He chose to love and help others, despite the agenda-ridden underlying rotten attitudes that came at Him. Jesus had no pride, because He always knew where His help came from. “Our help is from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:2 and Psalm 124:8.

Humbling yourself is not fun. It hurts us to the degree that we realise our own pride is still alive and kicking! In Christianity there is always a greater good, and the greater good is the Lord’s domain. He can steer us through anything. Humbling ourselves and letting go of our right to be defensive, is in our Father’s Kingdom territory. We let Him defend us. Bye. 👋.

P 3296 Choose to Love.

/ DVH

“Those who are loved by God, let His love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of Him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love. The light of God’s love shined within us when He sent His matchless Son into the world so that we might live through Him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved Him. It was His love, not ours. He proved it by sending His Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if He loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life! No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendour. But if we love one another, God makes His permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in Him, and His love is brought to its full expression in us.”1 John 4:7-12 TPT.

Father God’s Love is not a theory or a lovely idea, it is the reason you and I are still here. Love can be voluntarily learned under the Holy Spirit’s tutelage – and we are here to learn to love those who treat us terribly, ignore us, hate us, or speak against us. Why? This very process is what forms Christ within us. As we co-operate with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God – we will learn to recognise what His love looks like. This means we are getting to know Him and His Ways. His love is not like this world’s love. God’s love is not indulgence, it is our pathway into holiness. 

So when we respond badly to our circumstances, we need to repent and repair things. However, every time we choose to follow the Holy Spirit, and we use our faith to respond differently — the Spirit of the Living God transforms us from the inside OUT. Suddenly we find we are walking with the Lord and it is easy. It is important to recognise that we are wasting our time fighting for our rights – dead people don’t have rights! The bible tells us to “RECKON ourselves DEAD to sin and ALIVE to righteousness.” Romans 6:11. 

This means that the way we regard the situations life flings at us, is what really matters. We can do what we’ve always done,  smile politely and say ‘that’s OK’ … but we know it isn’t!  We can avoid the person hurting us. Or we can sit about feeling sorry for ourselves and throw a pity party with our friends … OR … we can take His word and do what Jesus would do. 

The Lord Jesus saw satan for what he is – he’s a deceiver. A big bag of whispers, wheedles, half-truths and lies. he will tell us we can’t possibly do what God wants because that means we will be giving in. Then that other person will win. But we have the power within us to yield to love, not because of our own self-effort, but because of what Christ died to give us. This life is not about who wins and who loses – it is about learning to love like Jesus does. 

Let’s spend a moment thinking about all the people you have trouble loving — and see those people as neon highlighters. They highlight what is really inside us. Actually, that’s often why we get mad at them! We can all appear sweet and caring … until somebody pokes the bear!  BTW, we need to encourage each other into doing good works, not into losing our tempers. Love is not mushy, self-serving, or simply getting along with someone who is difficult. Love is an ACTION word. It’s a verb not a noun.  A noun is the name of something, a verb is something we do. We may not FEEL any love, but we choose to DO what love would do. 

Love is our first responder attitude to someone else’s hatred, fear, or rebellion. We start with love, we continue in love (Hebrews 13:1);  and we finish with love. (Proverbs 17:17). Love is not meant to be the default setting on our personal radar, it is a way to live. We need to go to love asap, and stay with it. Why?? Because LOVE always wins, it cannot fail! (1 Corinthians 13:8). Just don’t touch that dial in the middle of whatever is going on! Keep trusting Jesus. The Holy Spirit can walk us through any place of temptation, we don’t have to be afraid of it. (Psalm 23).

We didn’t just receive God’s acceptance and forgiveness, for all our sins, we also received an inheritance. Read the gospels and pay particular attention to the bits Jesus says. Conquering seemingly impossible things, is what our inheritance looks like! It’s what His kingdom looks like. If we could be like Jesus in our own strength, then He would not have had to die for us. When Jesus died, He didn’t leave us money, because we don’t need money – God Himself promises to supply our needs! 

So tell Him what you need, and if you need to love someone, ask for it! Then step out and act in faith like Peter did when he walked on the water.  We inherited the Lord Jesus’ propensity and desire to love the unlovely! Love can and will conquer all – just don’t let go of it and drift off into thoughts of spite, bitterness or revenge.

The Holy Spirit has a way through every difficult situation we find ourselves in. Our biggest trap is we have already learnt this world’s responses. Some of our responses are even automatic, because we’ve honed defensive weapons to protect ourselves—and when we feel threatened, we go straight to them. We’ve been deceived by our enemy into thinking we must work at it and solve things. But God promises to help and protect us. So in order to experience His help, we will need to lay our defensive devices down, and remind ourselves that here and now – “…our God is our protection and with Him we are safe, He protects me like a shield.” (Psalm 18:2.) 

We can learn, with His help, how to ‘identify the things that so easily trip us up‘ (Hebrews 12:1) and instead pay attention, and throw our lives into living like Christ did. The reality is, when we resort to sin, we aren’t trusting Him to look after us, and that’s when we need more of His love. Study His love. See for yourself what God’s love looks like, then choose to love with His love instead. Our choices rule our lives. Bye for now. 👋

P 3285 Practical stuff.

/ DVH

I want to be practical today because I have spent a number of days talking about living in the new life that Christ died to give us. So today I want to talk about how I am learning to live that way. First of all, I refuse to allow things I’ve done, or things other people have done, to remain hidden and unacknowledged. I treasure my relationship with the precious Holy Spirit above everything, so whatever He wants, I do. Pretence shoots honesty in the foot.

Theories cannot change our lives unless we actively decide to participate in them. Most people want to practice the things we are taught, so they nod and smile and go home … and try harder to meet the impossible standard Jesus set for all of us. Over the years I’ve learnt I am not capable of anything but the appearance of good. However, Christianity is not just practical, it is possible. Here’s the good news. Jesus died to give us His power to overcome our enemy, our own faults, as well as this world! And here is the bad …truth, humility and honesty are the highways we need to travel on.

We cannot expect to serve Jesus and maintain the life we already have. The whole point is for US to be changed. This point is the place where so many Christians part company with the Holy Spirit’s Ways. However, we simply cannot live with a foot in each camp, eventually we will slide back into the camp that looks after “me, mine, myself and I!’ “Mankind heads for sin and misery as predictably as flames shoot upwards from a fire.” Job 5:7.

Over to an illustration … I have been at odds with someone in my immediate family, all of my life. We both just saw things differently – we simply didn’t get each other. I tried to avoid dealing with this person by staying in their presence for the shortest time possible. Then the Lord began to challenge me about how I was treating them. The truth was, I treated them like a bad smell! I was polite … and distant. The Holy Spirit can lead us into distancing ourselves from someone for a purpose and a time, but in this case, I just plain disliked everything that person said and did, so I stayed away. I didn’t like being around them – they uncovered who I really was! 

Then He began to challenge me and I saw that underneath my hurt and pain, was resentment, hatred and bitterness. I wanted THEM to change who they were to make ME more comfortable! Anyhoo, they weren’t changing, and as time went on, things got worse. OH, how I hate the land of worse!! So I gathered up my courage and asked Him how HE wanted me to treat them, and His perfect answer sent me into self-pity, tears, and petulance. After all, everybody I knew agreed that I was much safer far away from this person. But HE didn’t. I just need to say, that if you have a problem like this one, then you need to ask the Holy Spirit what He wants YOU to do, and do it – but be guided by what the Bible says!

At that time, Jesus told me to treat that person like I would treat HIM. Sigh. I would have rather swum through shark-infested giant seas to South America, than do that. It seemed to me like I was giving them permission to continue to treat me badly. Then the Lord said this from Psalm 91:15&16 “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. …I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress…” So I crawled up into that Psalm, and clung on to it like a Rhesus monkey and prayed ‘help help!’ At the same time, I banged on my hat of salvation, picked up my breast-plate of righteousness and the sword of truth, and off I went. FYI the sword of the Spirit is not for slicing and dicing the other person – the Holy Spirit guides and teaches us how to use this sword His way.

I recommend tackling this kind of relationship difficulty, with at least 3 Holy Spirit inspired scriptures, that you’ve prayed over – as well as asking Him for His wisdom. After a while of loving on this person the way I love Him, I noticed that they hadn’t changed at all … … but I had! That sore place inside me had become inaccessible because I had stepped into FAITH. Then I realised that so much of what happened when I was with them, I had taken personally – but those things were the result of this person’s mal-formed personality. What I thought was personal viciousness, was their way of getting what they thought they needed. Their humanity was on display, and they didn’t know Jesus so it was the only course of action they had.

As I stuck with the Holy Spirit’s plan, I gradually saw a brand new person I had never met before. I still didn’t much like the way that they did things, but that stuff is not actually my business. I found we could laugh together, and genuinely express love for each other. At this point I want to stress that only someone very close to you can hurt you so badly.  Other people can come along and poke you in the scars you bear from your previous injuries. Don’t maltreat them for jumping on your hurt places.

We call it protecting ourselves, and God says “He is our protection and with Him we will be safe!” I found practicing loving my enemy – in this case a family member – worked best, when I started with the person who hurt me the most! That person could be a spouse, or a parent or a sibling, but the transformation that we personally experience, gives us the impetus to continue living this way. We get to see His power at work in our lives.

Here is a final question: “Have you ever noticed when you are with someone who hurts you, it never occurs to you that you might be hurting them at the same time, because you are way too busy firing arrows at them?” Yeah, I know… bring that up! We can become so entrenched in our own attitudes we can’t see anything, or anyone else. Let’s remember that God’s word is practical, you can stand on it.  Fixing relationships is essential! Bye. 👋

P 3194 Fear is our enemy.

/ DVH

Good morning. I wanted to say a little about what happened at Bondi beach here in Australia on Sunday the 14th of December.. I had to wait on and ask the Lord what to say because … I simply had no words. I would like to add my prayers to yours and ask for our Heavenly Father’s comfort for anyone and everyone who has been affected by it. “Oh God our Father, please comfort and care for those who have suffered such incredible losses. Help their hearts, their spirits and their minds. I pray for the injured, their carers, their families, and especially our precious Jewish brothers and sisters. Lord please continue to guide and help the first responders, the police, the doctors, nurses and paramedics. Please help us all and comfort the broken hearted. Oh Lord, I pray the you will give those men and women who lead us Your clarity and wisdom. in Jesus Name,” Amen.

“For God will never give you the spirit of fear, but the Holy Spirit Who gives you mighty power, love, and self-control.”
2 Timothy 1:7 TPT. 

By the Grace of God we all can quote the above scripture and others. Things like this one from Philippians 4:8:: ‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things …’  Of course we should only think on those things. But tell me this … are we?? Or are we lying awake at night trying to figure out the things that only God Himself can do? I exhort everyone reading this today to turn your fears into Godly prayers. Use them to diagnose what ails you. 

Let’s actively learn and prayerfully understand these things from the Lord’s point of view, because our own ideas fall apart under pressure. In today’s current climate, I suspect you aren’t doing a great deal better than I am! Cheery thoughts are wonderful, but there are times when our hearts fall down into our socks with all kinds of bad news. That is when we need to do some essential revision with our Personal Trainer, the Holy Spirit. I ask for His love, and wisdom, and a new clean heart all the time.

The bible says: “…His ways are higher than ours.” Isaiah 55:9b. It also says: “His ways are past finding out…” Romans 11:33. Right now, our self-made ladders are daily looking less and less like they are going to be useful. WE.WILL.ALWAYS.NEED.GOD’S HELP. Day or night. We are living through times when we don’t know what will happen next. So instead of waiting to ask for help when things get worse, let’s start out every single day asking Him to help us. And then …’ask and keep on asking’ all day! He’s always there with us, and for us.

The above scriptures are wonderful diagnostic tools. We all know them. They were probably some of the first bible verses you and I memorised after we were born again. However, knowing the words is not the same as deliberately applying the meaning. If whatever we are facing produces fear, hatred, anger, despair then it is absolutely and totally not from God. We need to deal with it and yield to Him. After that we start out by doing anything we know we can do, in consultation with Him. Then we need to let those things go. Hatred nurtured, produces wickedness.

When you or I do not feel empowered, or loved, in our hearts, then whatever is coming at us, is an attack. It is not Almighty God. It’s the other guy!  Meanwhile it’s not our mother’s fault, or our father’s fault, or my spouse’s fault or even so and so’s fault! The scriptures are a sword. A sword is for fighting. Especially at the times when the enemy of our souls bombards our minds with horrendous thoughts. 

Let’s replace these evil thoughts … those rotten, ugly, desperate, despairing thoughts that are continually coming toward all of us … let’s replace them with what He says. There are thoughts that satan tosses into our heads like hand grenades, Let’s replace them with what the Lord Himself says. Our prayer needs to be – ‘Dear God please help me.’ And our ability to cope always comes from reading His word enough to know that we know —that He is FOR us — so if what we hear or think is not FOR US, it is not GOD! 

I have been learning to refuse to debate the ugly stuff that slithers into my brain. When it comes to satan, even debating stuff is a dumb idea. Those things are sent to steal our peace, time and eventually ruin our lives. Let’s channel our grief and anger into prayer, and replace those evil thoughts with what I know about His goodness. I walk about waggling this sword in my hand: “I know You are good Lord, despite what I can see, You are always good.” And I keep on whacking until I pass out, or the other guy goes away. Seriously. 

The Holy Spirit knows how to deal with all kinds of stuff. Let’s ask what He wants us to do, rather than stewing on what somebody else did. There is no need for us to be afraid, because FEAR is not from God. He has accepted us, irrevocably … eternally, Bye. 👋

BTW, we turn the news off. The more we listened the angrier we got. The news does not facilitate love.

P 3050 Let’s say what He tells us to say.

/ DVH

Acts 8:34&35. “And the eunuch said to Philip, I beg of you, tell me about whom does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this portion of Scripture he announced to him the glad tidings.”  

My point today is this: when it comes to sharing with people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet — the bible is not one-size fits all. For a very long time we have presented people with John 3:16, or Revelation 3:20, and now those verses have become a tried and true method of presenting the gospel. They are great verses! But we have so many illustrations in the bible we can simply ask the Holy Spirit: “How would You like me to talk about Jesus to this person Lord?” 

Philip preached the gospel to a eunuch, and the man was saved on the spot because of the book of Isaiah. Stephen started with Abraham! Peter once preached something Joel had said. In another instance, multiple salvations started with a couple who decided that lying to the Holy Spirit was a good idea … and they both dropped dead. Anybody want an outreach that starts with people falling over DEAD?? This is an example of  what the fear of the Lord looks like. It starts with recognising that we are dealing with Almighty God, not the local council representative. Our Heavenly Father can’t be deceived.

Moving on … Jonah impacted the lives of a boat-load of sailors when he was walking in disobedience. A terrible storm ceased instantly as they threw him overboard, and that sight cut the sailors to the heart. The Apostles walked in signs and wonders which impacted the whole of Jerusalem. God knocked Paul off his horse and rendered him blind. I like that one … because the irony does not escape me! That man was already blind …he was continually persecuting the Church!

Who and what turns a human being around? The Holy Spirit does – HE’S THE WIND. It’s quite windy outside my house today. I can go outside and shout and scream fit to beat the band, but I cannot make the wind do anything. The wind goes where it wants to go. Jesus said this:“The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it is coming from and where it is going; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”John 3:8. 

We need to learn, now more than ever, to listen to the precious Holy Spirit and trust Him and the Way He does things. Repentance and humility are always a help with that. We are blessed. All God-inspired ideas come from Him. But if we are not careful we can end up using them and reusing them like we are reading from a text book. THE HOLY SPIRIT NEVER RUNS OUT OF NEW WAYS TO GLORIFY GOD! 

Here’s a big thought from the book of Revelation … chapter 4, verse 8: ”…Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:“‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, Who was, and is, and is to come.”I asked the Holy Spirit about these creatures and this was His reply: “These beings need that many eyes to take the Almighty Father in. And every time they fly past the throne, they see something new, something glorious that they have never seen before, about Him, about Who He is.Their praise will never run out.”

Sin doesn’t exist in heaven, because sin would not be comfortable there. It’s a Holy Place. The Father and His love fill everything, because He IS everything! Heaven is filled with truth, light, love, peace, joy etc. Sinful people react to those things one of in two ways, probably because these options are polarising. They either reject it and Him, immediately – or they are awe-struck and move toward His light. 

There are many people who admire their own way of thinking, and they do not want to surrender to love. It isn’t fear that stops them. Instead, it is a lack of interest, hatred and many times it’s plain old rebellion.The message of the cross seems simplistic and foolish to some people. They find the things of God beneath their attention, they would rather cling to their sin than change their ways. But billions of others have simply been hurt by this life, or they have never known what real love looks like. Whatever the response is – we choose not to differentiate between people. Instead, we present what He tells us, how He tells us, to the people He sent us to.

Our job on this earth is to proclaim Him and fulfil His mission for our lives. We are to present the solution to sin and death – Jesus Christ. The bible is our tool, and now we use it to share Jesus with others. We are here to proclaim and demonstrate the good news.. But people won’t be able to choose if we do not follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and say whatever He tells us to say.

“For the Anointed One has sent me on a mission, not to see how many I could baptise, but to proclaim the good news. And I declare this message stripped of all philosophical arguments that empty the cross of its true power. For I trust in the all-sufficient cross of Christ alone.”1 Corinthians 1:17. Bye 👋

P 3040 No job is too small!

/ DVH

Acts 6:1-6,8.”Now about this time, when the number of the disciples was greatly increasing, complaint was made by the Hellenists (the Greek-speaking Jews) against the [native] Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked and neglected in the daily ministration (distribution of relief). So the Twelve [apostles] convened the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not seemly or desirable or right that we should have to give up or neglect [preaching] the Word of God in order to attend to serving at tables and superintending the distribution of food.

Therefore select out from among yourselves, brethren, seven men of good and attested character and repute, full of the [Holy] Spirit and wisdom, whom we may assign to look after this business and duty. But we will continue to devote ourselves steadfastly to prayer and the ministry of the Word.

And the suggestion pleased the whole assembly, and they selected Stephen, a man full of faith (a strong and welcome belief that Jesus is the Messiah) and full of and controlled by the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte (convert) from Antioch. These they presented to the apostles, who after prayer laid their hands on them… … Now Stephen, full of grace (divine blessing and favour) and power (strength and ability) worked great wonders and signs (miracles) among the people.”

We limit God and His people, when we think that only the so-called important people among us can do miracles and wonders. Here is Stephen, who was selected by prayer and the Lord’s favour, to wait on the Greek-speaking Jewish  tables. This whole scenario was set off by one group of people complaining about another group. But the Apostles valued the Body’s corporate harmony more than anything else. Those Greek guys were really miffed, because the complainers were distressed by the way their families were being treated. The situation held within it the seeds of discontent. So the apostles set out, with the Holy Spirit’s help, to fix the situation. 

Nobody appears to have given the complainers a talk on how being left out could actually benefit them, because it would give them an opportunity to practise humility! Instead the Apostles fixed the problem prayerfully. They discounted their own personal participation in the solution, but they were more than happy to elevate someone else to take care of it. However, they didn’t just pick two guys randomly, they picked men whose inner and outer lives reflected their faith. That tells us something about God’s mindset regarding small tasks. 

Stephen and Phillip were chosen to be Deacons, and they were provided for the people whose noses were pushed sideways. The depth of that story just blows my mind! Mainly because it is so far away from the way we think today. There are some things in the bible that we really do need to meditate on. They are not just background material to this or that important story. Those seemingly lesser things are worthy of our attention. Now here comes the truly incredible bit of this story … 

“However, some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (freed Jewish slaves), as it was called, and [of the synagogues] of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and of those from Cilicia and [the province of] Asia, arose [and undertook] to debate and dispute with Stephen..“Now Stephen, full of grace (divine blessing and favour) and power (strength and ability) worked great wonders and signs (miracles) among the people. But they (the grumpy guys) were not able to resist the intelligence and the wisdom and [the inspiration of] the Spirit with which and by Whom he spoke. So they [secretly] instigated and instructed men to say, We have heard this man speak, using slanderous and abusive and blasphemous language against Moses and God.” Acts 6:8-13.

Other men who were watching what went on, then turned around and attacked God’s duly elected gift. Jealousy and deception got hold of that group and they betrayed Stephen. The discontent within the Body, opened a door to worse things. It seems to me that their attitude toward Stephen’s gifts was caused by jealousy. And God’s hand on this spiritual man’s life also offended them. We need to be so careful when it comes to offence. That sneaky, slimy little weasel attitude slowly worms its way into congregations and creates schisms, hatred, jealousy and discontent.

In this case it caused Stephen’s death. We don’t know if the men who accused him and wanted to punish him, actually threw rocks at him – but they definitely lied and falsely accused him. And they started the landslide of hate toward this godly man. Stephen became the church’s first martyr.  All because God kissed what this man did, with His Presence, as Stephen chose to serve others. The bible talks about jealousy in Song of Solomon 8:6: “Set me like a seal upon your heart, like a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy is as hard and cruel as Sheol (the place of the dead). Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame [the very flame of the Lord]!”

Serving others seems very insignificant, until you look at everything Jesus did with His time, and deliberately go past the miracles and carefully look into the Lord’s day-to-day actions. All of the spiritually designated gifts are given to the body to help us grow and thrive, and that includes serving each other. We need to pay attention to the things the Lord values, and no job is ever too small. Bye. 👋

P 3022 God’s faithful family.

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God’s faithful servants are always up for change, because they choose to trust Him. They relish the opportunity to see the our world afresh through God-given revelations, and renewed spiritual eyes. These people don’t back away from a fight, instead they know WHO WON and that is enough for them. They know how to stand still until the Lord is the victor.

All these faithful people care about, is glorifying Him, not just escaping from hardship or difficulties, because the Lord promises to be with us in trouble. They don’t go looking for hard things, but they won’t back off if that stuff bangs on their door. These people pray for transformation, as well as patience —believing God will answer them. Their prayers are full of praise. They don’t expect their life to be a perfect because they know it has a purpose, and those two things are not always compatible. 

After praying prayers of commitment or holding fast to a promise  —they know there will be a test. They are alert to anything that could blindside them because they know that they are not perfected, but their trust is in Him. They respond to every situation with gratitude. Even the Lord’s discipline in their lives shows these people He loves them: “…because the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son.” Hebrews 12:6. 

The Lord needs His family to cultivate a very strong intimate connection to the Vine Himself, because we can’t do anything without Him. His faithful people realise His power is made perfect in weak people. So weakness does not surprise or intimidate us – instead we rely upon Him to get us through whatever happens.

God’s people know the battle they are fighting to win is in their OWN heart and mind —it has nothing to do with the other person in front of them. That is the true stance of an overcomer. Of course there will be times when other people will jump on any, or every nerve, especially when life is already difficult… that’s because  satan has no mercy…  Mercy is a love gift from our Father!

The reality is, those people who annoy us, are not attacking us. They are attracted to, and need the light that is IN each one of us. Even though it seems personal, it isn’t. Difficult people are tools in the hands of an angry enemy who knows he cannot win because he has already lost! satan will keep right on throwing hate at us, trying to cement rage, hatred, despair, disappointment, frustration etc. in all of us. We need to live this life AWAKE, rejoicing in the light of everything that Jesus has done for us. Sleepy, half-hearted people can make bad choices. 

God’s people don’t forgive their enemies because it is a nice idea —- we forgive them because we have been given the power to retain their sins. All that means is that everyone can get stuck if we choose to hold on to whatever someone did to us. Prayer for an enemy is powerful prayer. Forget praying for the sun to stand still! We pray for the guy who lords it over us and treats us badly. We pray blessings over the people in our lives who despitefully use us. This kind of prayer opens our eyes to new, deeper realities.

The bible says:“Owe no man anything but love.” Romans 13:8. God’s faithful family choose to live a life of LOVE despite the cost – because they know Love can never fail. Bye 🥰

P 3017 Priorities.

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““But whether I live or die is not important, for I don’t esteem my life as indispensable. It’s more important for me to fulfil my destiny and to finish the ministry my Lord Jesus has assigned to me, which is to faithfully preach the wonderful news of God’s grace.” Acts 20:24 TPT.“And yet I will show you the most excellent way.” 1 Corinthians 12:28-31… That way is LOVE! Don’t let how you feel about someone else’s behaviour steal away the joy of serving Him.

There is no point trotting about advertising fabulous spiritual gifts if we do not have love. Love for the Lord, love for our brothers and sisters, and love for the lost. Love is a VERB not a noun. It is an action, not a perception or a feeling. For example … “God so loved the WORLD that He GAVE…”  If we want to be like Jesus then there’s the starting point. Love is not enthusiasm, which runs out at the first sign of pressure. Or even charisma – which falls on its head if someone peeks behind your bullet-proof curtain and finds the real OZ. 

Love is not a feeling, it is the way we deliberately regard and treat others. Many people in the body of Christ do not develop their ministry gift because they get stuck in the enemy’s sticky mire of: “I can’t ever love this or that person. I hate them. I hate what they say, I hate what they do. I even hate what they stand for! If you wait a minute, then I will tell you why I hate them, and then you will hate them too!” That boggy mess is worse than quicksand. It is endlessly self-suffocating.

What if someone looked at YOUR life under the kind of microscope you are applying to others – how would you do? “But but but … you don’t get it, they really are evil and they keep on hurting me.” Actually, I DO get it! I have hard-to- love people in my life too! But I gave up keeping score up of other people’s nasty ways. I gave it up because I decided that I love Jesus far more than I hate them! You can always tell when someone else is stuck in their feelings, reasonability goes right out of the window. They simply must vomit all their yuk over you – because it is so poisonous, even THEY can’t keep it down! 

That stuff will drown you quicker than an anvil tied to your ankle when you have fallen into deep water. It will keep you so busy focussing on the other person’s faults, you cannot even begin to see your own. You’ll hear every sermon wishing they were there because …‘they need to hear this!’ Regularly rehearsing other people’s faults in your head – and even out loud – can easily lead to telling them about what you think you can see. It creates anger, and it’s called … judgment. Nobody needs to go down that nasty little rabbit hole trust me!

The only Person who had a total right to judge each one of us — let us go free. Is this a good time to mention He expects us to do the same for other people? Otherwise we will end up their captives!  Who do we want to serve? The person we hate, who probably hates us, or they are too dumb to know differently – or the Lord Jesus?  It takes a great deal of energy to maintain that kind of hatred and anger. The worst bit about this kind of scenario is that good people get hog-tied into hate, bitterness, resentment, and anger etc. and they can’t even conceive of an exit, because their beloved granddaddy hated those guys too! Now we have a new kind of inheritance – hate and revenge! 

As long as we keep score of the bad things that person does, it will disturb our peace, and we become the other person’s prisoner. Keeping lists is hard work! Chuck that junk in the sea of forgetfulness, where your sins are, and let’s look at what Jesus came to do for us, and in us, and through us instead. He came to set captives free, and give us all life in abundance. That means when we put our dear little head on our pillow we will have a clear conscience. 

Now we are destined to leave behind the sweet smell of Christ – healing, forgiveness and acceptance. We were given that for free from Jesus’ sacrifice, and now we have so much of it, we can give it away. I’ve looked at some people that I quite literally used to run away from, and thought: “You poor schmuck, you can’t help it can you?” I recognised the trap they were stuck in. They think that nasty, ugly person is who they really are! Finding our best selves with His help is a joy-filled way to use our time. Loving someone does not mean you approve of their behaviour. It simply means you are His obedient kid!

I enjoyed the original cartoon movie ‘Mulan,’ where Mulan is fighting the bad guy on the roof and has set him up to get a rocket in his underpants and she says this to herself as she runs away…”get off the roof, get off the roof, get off the roof!”  

My friend. My very dear, dear friend, brother or sister:  “GET OFF THE ROOF!” Any minute now there will be a giant explosion and you will be caught up in it. God is telling you today, you have better priorities. You have places to go, people to meet, things only you can do for His kingdom. And glories to tell about His love and forgiveness … don’t get bogged down in the mud of intolerance and hate. We need your gifts.  Bye. 👋

P 3006 God always has a bigger plan!

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John 18:10-11: “Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given Me?”

There are times in our lives when we have a very painful  cup set before us, just like our Lord Jesus did. At those moments, it seems horrendous to even contemplate accepting that vessel  —- let alone drinking from it! Yet in this verse the Lord defended that cup to Peter. It was the one He knew His Father wanted Him to drink. In the light of the cross, we can clearly see the purpose that Almighty God always had on the other side of this awful ghastly time … mainly because we have the benefit of hindsight – and we have the book!. 

But in our everyday lives it is much harder to comprehend what has sometimes been set before us. Our natural instinct is to fight the idea that we are meant to eat and drink some of the things the Lord has allowed to impact our lives. I’ve heard people say: “God would never ask me to do such a thing!”“ I thought that you said God is good – why would He ask me to live through this?” My short answer is this: because He asked it of His Son, first. 

The reality is this, in order for us to be like Jesus, we need to choose to follow the Lord, step by step through the troubles and tribulations of this life, because at the same time we are learning to live resurrected lives. In the presence of death, a resurrected life shines so brightly. However, the bible also tells us we will have times of triumph when we tell trouble and strife to get out of our way! Sometimes we resist, and trouble flees, and sometimes we quite simply need to go through. 

Dying to self is painful, it is utterly impossible without the Holy Spirit’s Presence in our lives. And we cannot live in the fullness of the Christian life without Him. You can’t have a resurrected life without death first! There may be times we are simply asked to contemplate drinking the cup of suffering, and in those times, we learn to yield — but at other times we cannot escape, the only way forward is to walk into the valley of the shadow of death.

However that situation comes upon us  – we need to keep walking through it. He will walk with us, and He asks us to walk through any hardship, and even the kind of destruction that looms against us. HOWEVER – satan cannot design one thing that can bring forth life … But even death itself, under the Lord’s watchful, passionate eye, brings LIFE and more life in abundance. Sometimes the way to get more life is to die!

Acting like Peter did, when he sliced off that soldier’s ear, is the same as taking difficult matters into our own hands. When the Lord does not give us personal intimate instructions, we always have access to His book filled with the Way He wants us to respond. However, cutting off someone else’s ear for retribution and defence — is not the way forward. Anger breeds more anger, revenge breeds more revenge, and hatred and violence breed an even greater desire for the kind of hatred that can lead to murder! 

God always has a bigger plan than we do. Think about it. Do we think that the Lord has ever said: ‘Whoops, I missed that one!?’ We all know that His timing is perfect, even in the worst possible times. Now, hold onto your hat —- here’s a verse that nobody likes much: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”  Psalm 116:15:  I’m pretty sure nobody has ever stitched verse that onto a sampler and hung it up on the wall.

However, if you have lost someone dear to you, then this verse is also not the kind of verse that will comfort you instantly. Instead remember and comfort yourself with the thought that Mary and Martha couldn’t not see the bigger reality when Lazarus had been dead 3 days. We can all falter under that kind of pressure. Their faith was in Jesus doing something about the situation before things got to that stage, but Jesus’ aim was to glorify God through what happened. We need to go past the immediate situation, remembering He is good.

Even in terrible things like death, our response is often about US — our loss, our feelings, our idea of what God should do. When these things happen we have an opportunity to transform our minds by remembering that: “He knows about everyone, everywhere. Everything about us is bare and wide open to the all-seeing eyes of our living God; nothing can be hidden from Him to whom we must explain all that we have done.” Hebrews 4:13.

Lazarus’ sisters, two women who both followed Jesus, could only see their terrible loss. Death takes us all by surprise, even if it is expected. However it can also be swallowed up in the kind of victory that expands our view of God Himself. Sometimes the hardest thing to remember in times of trouble and strife, is the fact that God  has a much bigger far-more-wonderful-than-we-can-ever-imagine, plan.

Especially when hardship does not disappear quickly. Our biggest challenge in those times is to remember that He’s a good God, and He will walk us through these things. Faith continues to grow when we trust Him in that dark valley. My prayer for all of us is that we can continue to walk, no matter how slowly, using our faith, and reminding ourselves that our Saviour is always right there with us … even when grief clouds our sight. Bye. 😢