Hidden

P 3492 I know life can be difficult…

/ DVH

…it has not been so-wunnerful-at-my-house all the time either! However, Psalm 27:5-6 says: “For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling; He will hide me in the shelter of His sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at His sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord.”

I wanted to talk about the subject of trials today, because I totally understand how this life can keep anyone — angry/busy/anxious/devastated — one way or another. Verses like the one I put above, are so comforting, but at the time, when any ‘stuff’ is happening, it seems like these things are just words. Sometimes I can barely find my faith! I learnt that we must stop looking for evidence, and start believing Him … simply because what He said is in the book!

I’ve realised that verses like these verses are not just beautiful words, they are lifelines. Something we grab hold of when the room starts whirling around us, and our world goes upside down. We can’t afford to read them and not use our faith. We need to walk around our house, and thank God that He is keeping you safe. Even when it looks like He has forgotten you. I think of things like Psalm 27 or Psalm 91 in difficult times, I have no idea what worse might look like, but I know He is protecting me from worse, and I thank Him. 

Psalm 91 has taught us: ‘I am a spectator, I am hidden in the secret place of the Most High God!!’  The glory of that verse lies in the fact that once you have chosen to hide yourself in Him, all the ‘sound and fury’ stays outside. However, first, you have to actively put aside what you feel, and believe what He said. The bible also says: “weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.”  Instead of checking on your situation, the things that are often dreadful – hold fast to the fact that if it is in the book, the Lord has preserved it for a purpose. Bit by bit, crawl into the place where He said it, you believe it, and now you are acting on it. 

I think we learn faithfulness by being faithful to Him, especially when we don’t feel like it and it seems like we have no evidence. HE’S GOOD WHETHER WE HAVE PROOF OR NOT. And we choose to believe what He said even when everything around us screams at us — “that is not true, God doesn’t care about you, otherwise He would heal you, set you free, help you, give you strength etc.” Our enemy uses the lack of physical evidence to distract us from Who Jesus is. The lovely things we are promised in His Word, belong to us, and we must use our faith and go after them. Then His peace takes over. 

Let me tell you what I’ve learnt, the very best place to be is:  in trouble, just getting into trouble, or just coming out of it. NO! I am not nuts! Plus, the only PEACE worth having is His peace, and we will have to fight how we feel to get it. We need the practice. We can learn more from our heartaches and failures than we do from anything else. Most people want a comfy, orderly, cosy life, but we are more like to scream out for His help when stuff starts landing on us.

Let’s remember, this life is not all there is. We need total transformation, intensive bible therapy, plus the kind of exercise that comes from doing what He wants and pushing through all the junk and grabbing hold of His goodness. If you are in a hole and you can’t get out, please remember Psalm 27, and Psalm 91. They are not impossible dreams, they are a reality you can cling to when everything is upside down. God’s peace is not in the absence of trouble – but His Presence is still IN US in the middle of it.

We all need to do this particularly if it feels like somebody accidentally shoved you into an armed forces firing range, and you can barely raise your head, because you keep hearing: “Incoming!!” The Lord is still there with you, and He has you sheltered under His wings. Even if you were to tell Him in anguish, “Make it stop, I can’t take anymore.” HE won’t go anywhere! His commitment to us is firm. He’s the Shepherd that goes after that sheep that got lost, or was chased by a wolf! God does things His way, and His idea of what we can do or take, can be very different from ours. We can underestimate our capacity to endure when we are under pressure.

Exhibit A! “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:13. So, why are we often surprised when bad things happen? Yeah! I wish that wasn’t in there either. When we believe what He said, despite the awful evidence all around us, we  will begin to walk in faith … Our God is more loyal, more faithful, more good and kind that we can imagine – and moaning and groaning will not help us get free. Stand firm and hold onto His goodness.

We can rejoice in our sufferings because they teach us we can’t do a darn thing without Him!! … Life is difficult, but life without Jesus is impossible. Where would we go, without the love He freely gives us, when it is so undeserved? I urge you to do more than agree with the bible, stake your life on it. Bye 👋.

P 3483 Cling to Him. 

/ DVH

“ … God doesn’t miss anything. He knows perfectly well all the love you’ve shown Him by helping needy Christians, and that you keep at it. And now I want each of you to extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish. Don’t drag your feet. Be like those who stay the course with committed faith and then get everything promised to them.”  Hebrews 6:10.

“We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up His permanent post as high priest for us, …” Verses 18-20.

Sometimes I find the scriptures are so extraordinarily clear, it’s almost like following a recipe! We are told to hang onto our hope with the same passion we show for the needy. Now there’s another great motivation to help others, it will give us a clear picture of what kind of effort we will need to hang onto our hope.. Meanwhile, truthfully speaking, I have found that when stuff happens, hope can be the first thing to go out of the window.

I get a bit like a headless chicken, aimlessly running on the autonomic nervous system instead of His word, which is hidden in my heart. This is when I know I need someone else praying for me, because I seem to have dropped the ball in some sort of overwhelming panic. At the same time, I don’t want to miss what God has for me in this new situation, so I cling to Him. I remind myself to hang on tightly to hope, because I know that hoping in Jesus, will not disappoint me! (Romans 5:5.)

My point being that hope and other spiritual things are absolutely, definitely, OURS – but they do not always come naturally to us. When we are in panic mode, we are more likely to remember the times things didn’t go the way we needed them to, especially when the ceiling has fallen in again and we are under pressure. Our faith muscles stretches when we deliberately choose to believe Him instead of our circumstances. Will it get better? Won’t it get better? Who cares! Jesus has got this and He always has a plan.

Let’s remember that without hope in His loving faithfulness we’ve accidentally thrown away the anchor, and it’s no wonder we are being tossed about like a tiny ship in a typhoon.  We need a solid anchor in a storm, and Jesus Christ is our anchor. Throwing hope away means you are a couple of steps away from going under. He will save you but your emotional well-being will take a beating. Speak to your soul! I have to yell at mine sometimes … “Soul! Hope thou in God.” My soul understands King James English, even when my head doesn’t!

Verses 18-20 explain why we must hang on to our hope. Our hope goes right into the Throne room. It is our lifeline between us and Almighty God Himself. We trusted Jesus to save us, now we trust Him to keep us … no matter what kind of stuff is going on everywhere else … even in our own households! He made the world, He knows what to do about whatever is going on.

Bad times are never convenient … I know that seems obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs to be said. It’s usually when your pay is short that God will ask you to help out someone else, and suddenly your gas bill turns up and it is overinflated … (pun intended) … the rent suddenly super-sizes in front of your eyes … and then your car starts making those weird noises that you have heard before, but now it is making them in earnest! 

The thing is, our difficult circumstances can distract us from the reality of His hope. Unfortunately, these circumstances are what caused us to go under in the first place! This means we will have to deliberately look away from them back to Jesus, because He is our hope. He can’t fail because He already won. I often ask Him to help me to see what’s at the root of my over-the-top emotional reactions.

I had to do that earlier today. And the answer came like an explosion in my heart. “Despair,” He said. “You are in despair.” Then I ask for a verse to fight with, and if I can’t find one, I type in a word or phrase that currently fits the situation and I go looking. Mostly I hold on tight to WHO HE IS! Jesus doesn’t break bruised reeds and He knows we are all glorified dust.

Psalm 34:18 says: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Well that’s gotta be good! Jesus is close, He saves … those are great words! Skip over the crushed bit, or you will find yourself circling the drain, trying to figure out why you are feeling crushed or whatever …Just take those words ‘Jesus is close’ and ‘He saves’ and deliberately wrap them into your thinking. Cling to Him. Pull your thoughts away from the trouble, back to that phrase … ‘He will save you from this!’

I love this next one! Psalm 43:5: “Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? HOPE IN GOD, because I will praise Him once again, since His Presence saves me and He is my God.” Let’s remember, we are not relying upon our own faithfulness —our faithfulness can vary, depending on the circumstances. We are relying upon HIS, and His faithfulness reaches to the sky!! Which neatly takes care of flying on an aeroplane, if you don’t happen to like them. Bonus buy.

Last one – 2 Corinthians 4:8-9: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” If we hit despair, like I did, then we’ve gone too far. Back up and turn around. The Lord can redeem any situation for good. Just watch Him do it! Jesus made a way for you to get through those things that seem impenetrable.

Now continue to look at Him, not the problems. Do what He says and keep your eyes on Him, not the storm. Earthly things fade away in His Presence as we cling to Him. Remember the cross. Have confidence in Him – speak it out loud, talk to your soul and start thanking Him for helping you through whatever is going on. Sometimes I pray blessings over every single person I can remember, including my enemies. Talking to Him reminds us that He is our hope, our ever-present help in time of need. Bye for today 👋.

P3457 Peace is our guide.

/ DVH

“Let your heart be always guided by the peace of the Anointed One, Who called you to peace as part of His one body. And always be thankful.” Colossians 3:15 TPT. Peace is not a feeling, or even an absence of conflict – peace is a Person. Jesus. He wants to help, comfort, guide us and lead us on. The Lord Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit for that specific purpose. We can have peace with God forever, because of what Jesus Christ did for us. He resolved the conflict between mankind and our Heavenly Father. He will help us with the one we daily confront – those difficulties we have with each other! Peace lights the way ahead.

Because we are His children, God Himself always has a Way that we should go so we can live with His peace on the inside of us at all times, even when the world around us is in rising panic. Peace is our portion, if we don’t have it, then we are told to seek it out – go after it. Peace helps us decide between what is Godly and right, and what is not. We need an umpire when life gets messy, and only the Lord knows our hearts – we don’t.

The Holy Spirit lovingly guides us into a new relationship with God Himself, one of trust. We can’t afford to simply know about Him — we need to know Him, His ways. The Holy Spirit manifests Himself in different ways, so we need to stay alert in our spirits, so we can recognise Him. The bible shows us what the things of God look like. Some things are a warning, others are there to show us how God Himself deals with individuals, as well as nations. Plus we learn Who He is, from this book – when we look a little deeper. Otherwise human beings can get easily tangled up in the things that don’t matter.

This world is filled up with lots of opportunities to be distracted. Noise, trouble, and hardship, even entertainment. If we focus on what is going on around us – we will lose our peace, little by little. Our finite minds try to resolve the conflicts that exist today by leaving Him out. Let’s remember that we don’t know what that other person is thinking. They don’t approach this life like we do. At times stuff just happens to us, and we are drawn into a whirlwind. That’s when we need to grab our anchor – Jesus – and throw what He did for us, down into the depths of our troubles and hold fast to it.

We can pray for peace, or we can simply embrace and surrender to Jesus – because He is the Prince of Peace. Jesus Christ bought us peace with God, because of what He did for us, now peace is our home country. WE ARE CITIZENS OF HEAVEN – no longer of this world. Peace won’t just ‘happen,’ we must value it enough to prioritise it, and repair the things that are broken. Then repent if you have tried to be the whole ballgame by yourself. His Peace is His gift to us. We deliberately choose to walk in harmony with Him and others because we want to understand the WAY He thinks and acts, because we want to know Him even more than we want to be understood. Jesus is not like us. Read the Gospels — He does not think the way we do. To start with, we often reject the people He reached out to!

This is what Paul meant when he said we need to be “in Christ.” When we choose to live ‘in Christ’ that means we do the things He would do, and His opinions become more important than our own. Then we stay hidden in what the Lord would do, that means we can’t afford to rush about excusing ourselves when we’ve done something He wouldn’t! Things like gathering people around us to feel sorry for us when things get hard. The plain fact is we can’t be seen by others, and hidden in Christ, all at the same time. Instead HE is seen and WE are hidden inside His Grace. We can ask people to pray for us, but then we will have to let go of self-pity and our need for sympathy, and hold on tightly to His Grace and faithfulness.

“For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3. This is how we become one of those ‘spectators – ourselves hidden in the secret place of Almighty God.’ (Psalm 91) A spectator is an observer. They simply watch what is going on around them and pray for the other people who are stuck in conflict. Jesus is our own personal hiding place – not our own resources, which may be many … or even our head knowledge of the bible. Head knowledge has to become heart knowledge if we are to be hidden in Christ. 

Paul also said “In Christ I live and move and have my being.” Acts17: 28. Paul let his own reputation crumble in favour of living for Jesus and what the Lord told him to do. Who or what motivates you? The Lord, other people, or circumstances? There are times when fear, or our feelings can get in our way and we end up trying to BE what we already are! Instead, let’s use our faith, stand still and watch Him at work, then do whatever He asks us to do, and then we will slowly start to see the way Jesus does things. That’s how we get to know Him better.

We have peace because we are His – not because we deserve it. His peace is the inner assurance that God is all over whatever is going on, and He will see us through it. That does not mean we will get our own way, instead peace will lead us into participating in HIS WAYS. His peace will guide us through to the place where we are resting in what Jesus already did. This peace is not just a feeling, it is an inner assurance that God is in charge and He is always present with us. Bye. 👋

P 3421 Get rid of that!  

/ DVH

To begin with today, I need to explain an Aussie word that can have entirely another meaning in other countries – otherwise someone’s hair might turn grey and fall out. “Piffing – primarily functions as the present participle of the Australian slang verb “piff”. It means throwing, hurling, or discarding something vigorously or carelessly.”I need to explain this word because I am planning to use it, and its other meaning is not a good one! 

There are things in our lives that we find are extremely difficult to discard. I’m not going to name anything, because I think that’s for all of us as individuals to go away and figure out for ourselves. But I pray this prayer regularly and I have seen extraordinary answers to it: “Dear Lord is there anything in our house that You don’t like? Please help me find it.” Amen. After I prayed that prayer I have found lots of things the Lord didn’t like, and I did not know they were there! I chucked them out.

Just like we do spring cleaning in our homes, we need to do regular spiritual cleaning. Let’s assess if and why we think we need something or other so badly, and why that habit or action is so hard to discard. Hence my use of the word PIFF. Which can be also translated as “chuck.” (I thought it was a bit much to put piff in the title, someone might take offence!)

There are things we do, or that we treasure, or even stuff that is laying about somewhere in a cupboard hidden, that the Lord may not like. And without being too obsessed about it, you and the Lord can have a great time, finding and removing such items. I have. Once I found something yucky I didn’t know we had and the Lord helped me locate it supernaturally. Doing such an ordinary thing with Him, helped me to learn how to listen, and it improved my faith at the same time!  When I am in doubt, by the way, I chuck it out anyway, or I prayerfully choose to stop doing it.

Moving on to two stories from the past: As a child, my son happened to be incredibly untidy – he has since grown out of that. I’ve heard stories about untidy kids who pile everything they don’t care about on their beds and the mother has to go rummaging about to find the washing etc. Not in his case. He chucked everything… and I mean everything … the things that he didn’t want, or want to be seen … under his bed. Eventually, the bed grew lumpy from the crowded floor under it. It didn’t bother him, but it sure did bother me because I had to clean it up just for hygiene’s sake. 

I got so grumpy. If that poor kid could have run away to avoid these not-so-happy situations, I think he would have, but it seems he liked us all too much. I became very sick of tidying up underneath his bed, so one day I threatened him with a smack for every item I found. 1st lesson learned … never promise something you can’t possibly deliver! Hmmm. Before someone thinks of me as a child beater, back in the ark it used to be legal to smack your kid. Read the book! Any-way, when I got to item 110!!! I fell about laughing. I would have had to beat that kid to death to make good on my threat. He was laughing, probably from relief, and a fairly good time was had by all.

Until the next cleanup. I want to add that our son wasn’t being naughty, he just had better things to do in his little boy-world than clean up his room. I was talking to his paternal grandfather about this situation. He was a fun person, and this particular day he volunteered to oversee the clean-up. The kitchen was a distance from our son’s bedroom and yet I could hear them both laughing uproariously from the kitchen sink. I snuck up to see what all the fun was about.

There was Grandpa, sitting on the floor with the boy, picking up things from a huge pile on the floor and asking him if he thought he still needed it. If the answer was yes, it went on a pile on the right, if it was no … then Grandpa said: “Piff it!” loudly and chucked it over his shoulder. Of course the piff it pile was loads bigger than the keep pile simply because the kid wanted to see Grandpa chuck the thing over his shoulder! I crept away lest I spoil such a happy memory for them both. 

I realised that this is what the Lord wants me to tell you, today. When we get rid of the things that are clogging up our relationship with Him, we are making room for other more important things He wants to give us. In my son’s case it was a lovely memory he made with his Grandfather. God enables us to leave behind any weeping and wailing over loss, because the One Who loves us best knows what is best for us. Whether it is some habit that controls us, or something, or someone we feel we cannot live without. 

Many times in my Christian walk since then I have culled our DVDs, books, music etc. among other things, and these times have become precious memories of how much God loves me. So … piff it, or chuck it , or just plain get rid of it – it doesn’t matter. If He doesn’t like it, then gone is good! Bye 👋.  

P3382 Ours is an Eternal Love story. 

/ DVH

Romans 8:15: “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’”                          Psalm 103:13:“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.”                                                                                                                                    1 John 3:1:“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.”

Our God’s love is eternal, and redemption was always part of His plan. This means His love for us will never change. Most people often have no concept of what real love, the kind of love the Father has for us, looks like. Our ideas of love can easily be limited by our earthly experiences of it. 1 John 3:1 throws some light on that. It says ‘behold what manner of love the Father gives’ … behold means look at that love thoroughly and carefully. When we look carefully at God’s love, we can begin to understand His manner/His kind of love. God’s kind of love holds something special for us all inside it. It is a Love that never goes away, despite the unworthiness of the recipient.

Almighty God’s kind of love has no ending or beginning, it is complete in itself, and it is utterly altruistic. “Altruistic means someone is acting out of pure, unselfish concern for the well-being of others. It describes behaviour driven by empathy and a desire to help, without expecting any reward, recognition, or personal gain.” That’s what our Heavenly Father’s Love is like. The bad things that happen to us aren’t sent by Him, they come from our enemy. This is why we cannot afford to live our lives in the soulish, emotional and reactive realm. This world doesn’t produce that kind of love – it is heavenly, straight from the throne.

However, every single time we go into FEAR we will go back into slavery. This what Romans 8:15 is telling us. If we have fear, we are misunderstanding His love. Eventually, under duress, we can begin to be captivated by, and start serving the feelings of fear, instead of serving Him. Fear paralyses us. Fear likes to be protected and kept hidden. It demands to be fed lies and half-truths to keep all of us captive in it. Praise God, that our experiential knowledge of the love of God, personally, and through His word, chucks fear out of the window!

The fear of God which is mentioned in Psalm 103:13 is not the same as this world’s fear, which only bears the fruit of destruction. The fear of the Lord opens the door to further wisdom. Fearing God is not about being afraid, it is about being respectful and compliant in the things He has told us to do, because we acknowledge His Wisdom, His Ways and authority over our lives.  

God has provided for us to live in, and from, wisdom. The Lord’s wisdom is available to us at any time. Because of His incredible loving generosity, He will give us His wisdom whenever we ask for it. The Bible talks about wisdom like this: “For the reverence and fear of God are basic to all wisdom…” This is why our living, breathing, thriving relationship with the Lord matters … as we walk with Him we become aware of Who He is, and how much we need Him. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, Who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” James 1:5.

When I read scriptures like the ones above, I am reminded of how generous the Lord is toward us – how remarkably rich He is in love. Being rich in love is almost incomprehensible to us – we are used to all kinds of poverty in this life, including spiritually – even though it has never been God’s will for us to be poor. Understanding the Lord’s love means we will develop a quiet confidence in HIM, not our circumstances.

He is reliable, faithful, good – so if I don’t see what I am asking Him for – I remember that James told me that I can ask amiss. Then I ask the Lord where I’ve missed it.  Romans 3:4 “God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar;…” Making His Word our plumb line changes our perspectives, because we begin to understand real truth from His perspective.

Before we were even brought into this world, Father God’s Love was complete in itself. The Trinity worked in perfect harmony, They had such a precious bond of love and unity we can’t even begin imagine it. They did not need mankind … the love They have for each Other is already perfect and complete. Instead, They chose to create us from that love. The bible says: “Let us make man in Our image.” Genesis 1:26. We’ve been created to look like Them – we were born out of Their love.

The Father has given us the freedom to choose to love and obey Him … or not. Sadly, those “no”  choices have released death, destruction and decay, loose in a world that had never even seen an electron or proton out of place. You and I are designed to be like God, like His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in this life to others. We have the opportunity to know His kind of love, and give it away to others while we are still in this life. Our disobedience, ignorance, and disrespect can short-circuit this process.

The Holy Spirit chooses to reside within us, when we give our lives to Jesus. Now we have the capacity to share the same kind of complete and powerful love that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share. Let’s thank God for His salvation plan incredibly implemented by Jesus Christ His beloved Son. Because of Jesus we are now part of His wonderful Eternal love story. Bye. 👋

P 3270 The impossible is easy for the Lord …

/ DVH

but it is also very challenging to our faith. In the gospel  of Mark 2:1-12, some men tore off a house-roof so they could lower down a paralytic friend in front of Jesus…. Did you get that? They tore up some poor guy’s roof! This hospitable family man offers his home for a meeting and that’s the thanks he gets?! I suppose the man could have used the resulting hole for a skylight…? !

The details we are given in the Word make this story extraordinary. Mainly because I don’t imagine digging a hole in any kind of roof would be easy. But these men were so devoted to their friend, in their desire to get him to Jesus, that they would have done anything. Meanwhile nobody seemed to care too much about what the occupant of the house thought when they burrowed into his nice little house like gophers either. Why not?! Somebody got healed and they all saw it.

 Are we willing to risk possibly offending people in order to bring someone into the Lord’s Presence? (Remember wherever we go, He goes.) The fear of retaliation or offence is very real in our society. Nowadays if somebody tore off a church roof to get a sick person to Jesus, they’d probably sue them for a replacement roof!  Plus they’d grizzle at them — ‘don’t you know how to use a door?!?’ But these friends were undaunted by societal rules, and motivated by love for their sick friend, instead. I’d like to be a friend like that, and boy would I like to have a friend like that myself!

Jesus didn’t really seem to care who He offended. The Lord did not ever set out to be offensive but if that happened, well, it happened. He didn’t even pause to explain Himself, or His motivation etc … He just moved on. His priority was  His Father’s will. How can we possibly imagine how incredibly difficult it must have been for Him to carry out the Father’s will, even when it included His own suffering and death?  

Not to mention the fact that when it came to the time of His death, Jesus did everything He did, without the comforting Presence of the precious Holy Spirit. He was SomeOne the Lord had always known intimately. It must have been so painful for the Father, and the Spirit stand back and not rescue Jesus from such villainous wickedness. But there was a higher purpose. Meanwhile it is not hard to imagine satan firing mental missiles at Jesus while he was tormenting the Lord inwardly and outwardly on the cross.   

Today I want to remember how very much the Holy Spirit loves to help, comfort, and guide. And yet at that point in history, He had to step away. The Father’s Will could only be accomplished if the Holy Spirit didn’t step in. The Lord Jesus did all that He did for us, so we can be sons and daughters of God!  Otherwise the doors of heaven would have stayed shut to the likes of you and I! Jesus chose to do this so we would never have to be separated from the Holy Spirit’s loving kindness, and wisdom ever again. It stands to reason that His devotion to mankind is so huge – HE WON’T EVER LEAVE US. The Spirit of God loves us the way He loves Christ. Imagine that. He freely shares with us  His life-giving ways. If it is not love, then it is not Him. 

The Spirit of the Living God creatively uses the power of love and grace in ways we cannot imagine, over and over again. To one person He says, “consider Jesus” … to someone else He says: “you have been forgiven” and to another He says: “the Father loves you with an everlasting love.” No matter what the Holy Spirit says: there is always  unimaginable, overwhelming love in it. He chooses to meet some people in their dreams, others while they are reading the bible, or through someone else’s books. He met with me in front of a clothes line! His originality is mind boggling.  

Someone else might say what I just said, in a totally different way, and that is just another example of His incredible creativity. He is also out-of-this-world wise. There are so many ways to describe Who He is and what He does – silently -we can easily lose count! That’s why I love Jesus, we can see in Him the things our natural mind couldn’t possibly make up! And the Lord Jesus totally relied on the Holy Spirit’s help – so should WE.

This is Paul speaking to the Ephesians, about the diversity of the things He has for us. 3:8-12: “To me, the least of all the saints, was given this grace: to proclaim the good news of the fathomless riches of Christ to the Gentiles, and to enlighten everyone as to what is the administration of the mystery hidden from the ages by God, Who created all things, in order that the many-sided wisdom of God might be made known now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places through the church, according to the purpose of the ages which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through faith in Him.”

Please do not allow anyone else to minimise the beauty of the One that Jesus Himself chose to entrust with our care. We all matter so much to God, even when our faith is severely stretched, let’s not limit Him. Let’s learn to walk with Him instead. Watch out for evidence of His work in your life as well as around you. Seeing Him at work helps our faith.  He will show us how to repair the things that this life has broken in us, or in our relationships with others. He will tear up and get rid of anything that is holding us back from reaching Jesus, just like those friends tore away the roof in order to get to the Lord that day. Despite challenging our faith, the impossible is so easy to our God.  Bye. 👋

P 3263 God’s Will is challenging.

/ DVH

Jeremiah 1:7-10 “God told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’ I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there. I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it. Don’t be afraid of a soul. I’ll be right there, looking after you.” God’s Decree. God reached out, touched my mouth, and said, “Look! I’ve just put My words in your mouth—hand-delivered! See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do among nations and governments—a red-letter day! Your job is to pull up and tear down, take apart and demolish, And then start over, building and planting.”

Did you notice that right after the Lord tells Jeremiah, He will be with Him, the Lord tells the man what He wants him to do? Guidance from the Lord is our birthright, but it won’t always be a picnic in the park. It is almost certain to be guaranteed to look bigger than we are!  In Psalms 37:23&24 it says. “The steps of good men are directed by the Lord. He delights in each step they take. If they fall, it isn’t fatal, for the Lord holds them with His hand.” Don’t you just love that? We can’t even fall over when we are His, because He promised to lift us up with His own hands!

Let’s look at a New Testament truth, one of the last things Jesus said to His disciples: “He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:15&16.This task was far bigger than they were! Until the Holy Spirit came, they men hid away from this world, because they had lost their Teacher. But if the Lord always asked us to do things we can do, where would faith come in? We wouldn’t need it. Sometimes the first thing the Holy Spirit teaches us is that we can’t do anything without Him! No matter how clever we are – we don’t always know how to get out of our own way. 

Our daily struggle isn’t about whether we should rob a bank or shoot someone, it is about an individual’s right to have a ‘say’ over their own lives. But the mutinous thoughts tip our hearts away from God. For example, most people I speak to, haven’t got a clue how their behaviour affects other people — they are too self-involved. That’s not smart, BTW, it’s DUMB. Sadly, because of this, there are times it appears as if these people don’t care. We need to remember that other people don’t have our comprehension or our yardsticks. They have their own. If we remain humble maybe we can learn from them. Submitting to God has such a positive side to it. 

Jesus has faith for us to be bigger than our unknown limitations. He said in Matthew 5:14: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.” A Christian’s life is built on a hill! Our lives have been built by God on Calvary’s HILL!  We cannot be hidden unless we choose to be hidden. The first active step into God’s guidance in our lives is this: “…choose this day Who you will serve.” There is no point in going anywhere or doing anything, until we’ve made that choice. Otherwise we can be taken out by the enemy because we are still standing on his ground. We must choose — are we all in — or not? That’s what dying to self looks like.

The bible encourages us to follow Jesus step-by-step into a daily process, a series of moment by moment choices. Our part is to continually choose life. His life in us. So we pick up all those other things, ambitions, dreams, hopes etc. and go to the cross and leave everything there. What stays uppermost in our minds, heart, and spirit is this; now I live for Jesus’ sake, and for Him to live in me, I have to be dead! See Galatians 2:20:

“What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with Him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”

My point today is this, because of what Jesus did for us, we are ALL sent ones. Whether we have an official title or not. Jeremiah, God’s handpicked prophet, struggled with it, and it has often made me think. We can try so hard to get out of what the Lord wanted us to do, and not like where He wants to send us. We ask ourselves, is that fair? No! Not by this world’s standards! But God doesn’t operate by this world’s standards – He has His own. And they are good, righteous, and give glory to the only One Who can bear it. We are called to be a light, and He trusts us to get on with it. He has so much faith in His kids!

These holy things that form His Character in us will not to be obtained by searching or pleading.  Because Jesus took care of everything. Father God isn’t begging people to follow His Ways — He’s a good, good Father, Who knows the Way we should go. And that’s where our trust needs to rest. Let’s choose to remember that, when we live a life dead to self, we are entering into living by His Grace. We will never be alone in our quest to follow Jesus, because we have the Holy Spirit, our Helper Who also has our good in His heart. Plus we have His book to refer to. Every time we say ‘yes’ to His way instead of our own, we are letting the Spirit of God loose in other people’s lives.

God’s will is meant to challenge us. It’s supposed too! It’s the reason we take our little lives, and invest them in His Kingdom, so we can beam His light into the darkness. Bye. 

P 3201 Judgment belongs to God … only HE can be trusted with it.

/ DVH

I Corinthians 4:3-5: “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.”

To begin with I want to make the point that no matter how sweet anyone appears to be, none of us are perfect. When that statement becomes a reality in our lives, it goes a long way to stopping judgment. Especially if you manage to figure out that you can’t actually see, because you have this blooming great log in your own eye!

Judgment belongs to the Lord, because only He has the wisdom and love, together with the spirit of reconciliation, to see through the lies we even tell ourselves. Jesus loves the truth, and the Holy Spirit is in charge of conviction, not us. What He shares with us will bring clarity into hidden things about ourselves so we can deal with them, together. But we need to be so very careful about even the appearance of judging others, as we can easily misinterpret what we think we can see. The best thing to do when you discern something in somebody else is to pray for them.

Paul’s writings show us that he totally understood something that is essential for our own personal knowledge of God’s kingdom. I believe he understood the way our Father does things. Our Father doesn’t uncover our sins in front of others, instead He wants His generosity and kindness to fill us, and draw us to a place of sincere repentance, without any fear of reprisal or shame. When Paul received all those heavenly revelations, he didn’t take dictation. He was given Grace, from God, to understand and comprehend the Lords intentions toward man. 

This kind of revelation is so helpful – I urge you to ask for it. Once we truly comprehend that only God is good, and the devil is the bad guy – then clarification brings revelation. Being filled and remaining filled with the Holy Spirit means we can’t afford to hide anything from Him. However, the light of God in and on our lives holds no dangers for us. Jesus faced our Heavenly Judge for us and was punished in our place. No crime = no time!Let’s put aside collecting mental lists of do’s and don’ts. Then hopefully we will stop slinging them at each other!

This passage in 1 Corinthians presents us with a good reason to stop that kind of thinking and allow our minds to be changed by His Word. When it comes to judgment, only Jesus knows what is in that other person’s heart. If I am angry or afraid of someone, I can so easily be deceived by my own heart, and run on at the mouth. At the same time I can end up filling up my thoughts with junk … simply because I am convinced I know why someone did, what they did! … But I don’t know and I can’t. The Person Who truly knows what someone else thought or did, pardoned them, by doing what HE did.

I lived in an atmosphere in my childhood, that threatened me with physical and emotional violence when it came to my performance. So I learnt to be deceitful to protect myself. I am now old enough and I know I have been empowered by Him, so I can choose a different response! “I know Whom I believe, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that day.” 2 Timothy 1:12.

I could hold a grudge and harden my heart, but I will stop moving forward in God if I choose to do that. But He won’t reject me, because we have a covenant – an agreement signed in His own Son’s blood. Sometimes we can shoot ourselves in the foot, because we can’t possibly know what God is going to do next, so we pick up judgment to defend ourselves. The Lord is not like us! Hallelujah! Now, there’s a good thing to remember. Some responses to circumstances have become so ingrained in our psyche, we do things automatically. We need to deliberately retrain our responses, by allowing His Word to become a part of who we are now.

Judgment in the Christian world can be a fatal flaw. It means that we can no longer get to “know each other after the Spirit “  … because we are too busy trying to duck blows that may or may not come. We can quite easily forget our ministry of reconciliation, and use God’s Word to brutalise others. That sword is for our enemy so we can cut people free – it is not to slice up your neighbour!!  We can’t know what is in someone else’s heart, so acting in wisdom means we need to suspend judgment and extend GRACE. 

We can have confidence that we are already accepted, we simply need to be prepared to become vulnerable. That is a rude word to some people. They avoid vulnerability like the plague. Repentance isn’t a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength. It’s an honour system. Jesus honoured and pardoned us, so we honour what He did for us, by honouring and pardoning others and suspending any judgment. Sadly, our hearts can be deceitful. They can excuse me — and accuse you —- all-at-the-same-time! 

That’s why paying attention to what comes out of our mouths is the biggest clue to what is going on inside! Our speech, actions and attitudes need to be given our attention – especially the unguarded ones. The body of Christ can be a little like a slow leaky tyre, you want to fix it but you just can’t find the leak. This is a place where we lose touch with the Holy Spirit and HE is the ever-present Wind beneath our wings, let’s plug up them holes! Judgment belongs to the Lord — only HE can be trusted with it. Bye.👋

P 3176 Sounds like a laser to me!

/ DVH

“For we have the living Word of God, which is full of energy, like a two-mouthed sword. It will even penetrate to the very core of our being where soul and spirit, bone and marrow meet! It interprets and reveals the true thoughts and secret motives of our hearts.”  Hebrews 4:12 TPT.

Yeah, that last bit is a bit of a doozie! The writer is talking about those inside, hidden-in-our-heart bits we sort of kind of know about, but we do our best to hide them from ourselves, and others! You know what I mean, the things that we suddenly glimpse, and we try really hard to instantly forget them because they look like the Great Wall of China and it’s all too hard! We all know a Godly life is a priority. We must remember that stuff like this is a distraction. The thing is, those hidden things I’ve mentioned, flavour our lives and our points of view …to the extent that we end up seeing bad motivation where there is none. Then we end up trying to escape or debate over the issues of the very things that can transform us.

We know that God’s Word will go straight to the heart of any matter and, at the same time it lays our phoney, self-serving excuses bare. So there we are … uncovered and exposed, feeling lower than a snake’s belly in a wheel rut. Guess what? In those self-discovery moments we must remember that Jesus died for every stinky evasive attitude we have as well. We will lose our way when we stop listening to the cues that the Holy Spirit gives us. He wants to lead us back into true fellowship with Jesus and our Heavenly Father. That’s the only safe place for us. Our God is always for us.

When we choose to allow His Word to work on our hearts, it will do the kind of surgery that will affect our minds emotions and bodies. It can expose errors between what the Lord says, and what we think. It often shows us the way we think is shooting us in the foot spiritually, especially when we choose to take it seriously! His Word takes the doubt out of what we believe because it reveals to us the Way the Lord thinks, and what He wants from us. Plus it separates our way of thinking away from the world’s way of thinking. All that happens because this morning we decided to prioritise His Word – reading it until something strikes us in the heart. Then we choose to go out and act on what we read. 

The acting on it bit is incredibly important. James 1:19-27 exhorts us to not just hear what the Lord says but go out and do it. “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 

For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

Looking into God’s word and persisting with it, until we identify how to act on it, means we are moving away from being a hearer, into being a doer. We will begin to walk with the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God never theorises – He acts! It is in His nature to be active for us and others. The people who choose to follow Him, act like Him. They know they need His help, because they know themselves clearly enough to realise that they can be deceived so easily.

These people are not driven by emotion, instead they manifest what righteousness before the Lord, looks like. The Word working in them and on them changes the way they react! They truly love the Lord, because they have discovered His love is a love that is like no other. ‘Listening and doing’ people deliberately set aside anything that remotely looks like it might hold them captive. They know that Godly actions bless them and others, as they participate by working with Him. His kids understand Who the Lord is, who they are, and they are realistic about this life. They constantly remind themselves that Jesus died for their inadequacies.

These people James is talking about are never self-deceived because they don’t trust their own opinions – instead they use the bible as their permanent reference book. They are well-aware that life and death is expressed through what they say, so they pray and watch over the way they use their words. Their desire is to bless others and if what is said won’t bless anyone, then they refuse to say it. His kids love to honour the Lord in everything they do, simply because He has revealed His heart to them and they’ve fallen in love with Jesus and the Way He does things. They can never forget that the poor, hungry, homeless among us are our responsibility. 

The Holy Spirit’s leading and freely given understanding are just like a laser, cutting through our wishes and wants, to expose who we really are, but without any fear or shame. Bye. 👋

P 3122 God sees.

/ DVH

In some places in the bible (Ezekiel and Revelation) all sorts of creatures are mentioned. They have eyes everywhere, in places we don’t even like to think about. To me this is a picture of the incredible depth of sight our Heavenly Father has – He sees ALL! Those creatures’ eyes mentioned in those books reflect Hebrews 4:13: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” Our Heavenly Father knows what is happening in your life right now, how hard it is for you.

Nothing is ever hidden from Him. And as we walk through this life toward complete wholeness and holiness in Christ – that thought should not make us afraid – it should turn our hearts to the Saviour. We need to remember what Colossians 3:3 says:“For [as far as this world is concerned] you have died, and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God.” We don’t have to hide anything from Him when we choose to live our lives for Him. Let’s continually allow the Holy Spirit, to guide, correct and teach us His Ways, and continue to remain hidden by what Christ did for us. Because of what He has already done, we know that we can trust Him and His Word. 

This is why an intimate relationship with our Father is important. If we only give God importance in our lives according to our immediate needs, then we could eventually fall away. Because sooner or later our prayers will appear to be unanswered! Instead, let’s bow to the superior knowledge and sight, of the Great I AM. That knowledge is revealed in the bible. Our God sees everything, and He is a mighty JUST God – WHO LOVES US. If we sin, He already has an Advocate praying and pleading for us at His right hand. His own dear Son. Jesus is utterly trustworthy. He never held anything back from His Father in His entire earthly life, and He poured His life out for each one of us!

God’s measuring tools are not the same as ours. We cannot afford to use our own measuring stick, because we can end up deceiving ourselves with excuses … and blame. That’s why Christ came – to provide us with a Saviour Who has personal experience of His Father’s love. He showed us what obedience and humility looks like …and He had perfect confidence in His Father’s Word. On top of all that, He also had understanding about the pressures of this world! The Holy Spirit will reveal what is in our hearts to us, if we let Him. He knows everything. He gave us these scriptures and then lived them out in front of our eyes.

This why our bible reading needs to become more than just a cursory reading. We already know that it can become a diagnostic tool, and reveal to us our own hidden attitudes and actions. It also shows us the works He prepared for us to do, before we ever arrived here. Human beings like to fool themselves. We hide things, even from ourselves, because we don’t like to be wrong …instead we can end up blaming others.

Exhibit A … Genesis 3:12. Adam blamed GOD HIMSELF. “… the woman YOU gave me … ” Hiding ourselves from Him is foolish, and we are only fooling ourselves. We are like little children, who love to play hide and seek, they have no comprehension that the person who is seeking — is not really gone! God knows and sees exactly where we are and what is really going on.

In Ezekiel there is another example of what God knows and what man doesn’t. Most of us know this story so I will just give a brief overview today. The Holy Spirit whisked Ezekiel away in the spirit, to a valley filled with skeletons – dry bones. And then He talks to Ezekiel about them. These people are totally DEAD. The scene is a powerful picture of what life without Almighty God, and Jesus Himself looks like. Important people come and go in this life – famous ones, clever ones, but, in the end – we will all end up dry bones. But, because God sees and knows all, it doesn’t have to stop there!

The Spirit reveals to Ezekiel that valley of utter, permanent destruction, seemingly permanent oblivion. But God can see potential even in dry bones. He can raise up an army from a valley that has only known death for years!  Ezekiel 37:9.“Then Yahweh said to me, Prophesy to the breath. Yes, prophesy, son of man. Say to the breath, ‘Lord Yahweh says: Divine breath, come now from the four winds. Breathe on these lifeless bodies, so that they can live again.’The Holy Spirit asks Ezekiel a hard question in this chapter: “Can these bones live?” Verse 3. Ezekiel is no dummy — He gives a GREAT answer, filled with humility and hope! “…only YOU know Lord…” Then the Mighty Spirit of God commands the prophet to prophesy and command life to come back to those bones again!

I want to encourage everyone who has loved ones who-don’t-know-Jesus-yet — or loved ones who have wandered away — to be like Ezekiel — speak His life to the dry bones. God has given us the power to shift things that appear to be fixed. Sometimes situations like these, loom over us like huge mountains in our lives. But Jesus once said: ‘Speak to the mountain and tell it to move.’  The Lord once told the sea to be still! Prophesy to the Divine breath – the Holy Spirit. Let’s start praying for our friends and families: “Holy Spirit come. Breathe on these empty, lifeless bodies so that they know true life as His children, and become part of His army.”

God sees and knows what is happening around you. Sometimes instead of lying down under circumstances, we need to stand up and prophesy what God says: “And consider the example that Jesus, the Anointed One, has set before us. Let His mindset become your motivation.” Philippians 2:5 TPT. Amen. Bye 😘💨💨💨