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P 2306 Authenticity verses His plans.

/ DVH

Our society insists on authenticity, even when that particular state of mind bumps into someone else’s life. Somehow then my authenticity can and often seems to override or negate yours. OR it wants to!  People can always build a great case for themselves and I can definitely build a better case for me! 

I believe with all my heart that the Lord wants us all to be authentic. BUT, He wants the real us, not just the person we think we are – or even what we want or hope to be … The person we try so desperately to hide – who is actually sinful, careless, self-centred one. Or maybe even a demanding twerp who is stuck somewhere between two and five years of age … and never wants to grow and change – they just want power!  

Growing up, or maturing, is a part of authentic Christian development. It’s the moment I stop blaming you for my own short-comings and responses, and begin to understand that not only am I not perfected yet – I ain’t ever gunna get there unless I start acting like God is real and He can do exactly what He says He can! 

Meanwhile, I am responsible for any ugliness inside me, and you can’t make me do anything. You might just give me appealing opportunities and choices, but Jesus actually died to give me a free choice. I have a Saviour Who is daily constantly imparting and infilling me with His new life. To get that new life – I will have to give up my own perceived right to live MY life MY way, and stop trying to manipulate your life to make ME comfortable. Wouldn’t all that be loverly? 😳 

I have a great diagnostic tool that will clarify these issues. When you read the bible or Christian books or articles etc. and they talk about people’s faults – do you know people who fit these descriptions given, and they instantly flood your mind? Or – do you fall on your face crying out to God that you know what you just read fits you and you need His help to repent? Maybe then another sort of list pops into your mind … a list of people you have sinned against. None of that will kill us!

Do you listen carefully to your pastor’s sermons, mentally wishing your mother, brother, cousin, neighbour was here today to hear this … ? Ah-huh! Oh yeah, you gotta a case of extreme religious-itus. The only cure, is genuine I-gotta-fix-this-now repentance. 

That kind of revelation always opens the door to real transformation. Unfortunately, I can choose to put my own shoulder against this revolutionary door to try to shut it again! Or even try to board it up, a little, just to keep it ajar, to let in a little light… and no more. People stuck in these thoughts can also get fixated on ‘its not fair’ …PLUS …we can all drift off into …’what’s blatantly obviously wrong with YOU.’

It is just so much easier to see how someone else can and should change, instead of me personally choosing change with His guidance and help! To gain real God-given authenticity I will have to lay down my plans for me and my life… and pick up the plans clearly laid out in the bible. However it is way too easy to use God’s book, selectively, to prove our own POV. What takes actual courage is to let His book read us, feed us, and correct us. The Lord is so tired of the ‘where is that thing You promised in Your book’ prayers. He is looking for saints who will lay down everything – simply because they want to see His kingdom come, and His will be done – so HE might be glorified. 

Here’s a really big thought – if I choose to change, then the way I see you will begin to change too. Instead, I will get His POV – and Jesus doesn’t see you negatively. Lastly, if being authentically ME means I am stomping on you then I missed the part where I need change and prayer more than you do. 

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” 👋🏻

P 2229 ‘Help help’ is a great prayer!

/ DVH

I read this today in Psalm 91:1”Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Today I just want to mention God’s provision of rest for His kids is the only way human beings can manage this life and all its pressures. The Lord is wonderful, when we live this life for Him – He blesses everything.

We are not alone. We need to learn to progressively and intentionally “rest in the shadow of the Almighty…whose power no-one can withstand!” Our enemy has no power over us in that place of peace-rest. The Lord Jesus Himself said the same thing in Matthew 11: “Then Jesus said, “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you. Let Me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  Jesus Christ understands humanity – He understands how hard this life is. We can LEARN THIS, He will teach us.

The best place of shelter, EVER, is IN God Himself. We hide in what Christ already did for our sake. We can try to hide away from trouble by staying busy, or actively choosing to forget stuff, but hiding in God is the only place we will find the kind of real safety, and solutions that last. Everything else is temporary. So, how do we do that? Learn to run to Jesus immediately when things go upside down – and tell Him He is your refuge. 

I do that out loud! Even before I lift the phone to get others to pray – I start running toward Him inside – yelling help help all the way. I understand that we’ve all developed independent … not-so-great habits … of relying upon ourselves – but I have found personally, that when I try to figure things out … the line of admitting defeat moves away from me, and so does inner peace and sleep. And my brain starts to feel like messy mush. 😂 I get exhausted. That’s why I’ve learnt it’s easier to give up and ask for help immediately. When I see God acting on my behalf, that miraculously reminds me that GOD LOVES HIS KIDS. Real peace and safety in this life is an illusion. Our Father wants to help us. 

The older hubby and I get, the less enchanted we are with our own brain power and memory bank.  We seem to have developed a super-power of forgetting most things ten seconds later! This Psalmist knew how to stay safe until disaster had passed by Him. Because of what Christ did, WE can live in that place permanently. Jesus gave us that when He died for us, that’s why He mentioned it. Praise God we all live on the other side of the cross!  We have a safe place to run where we will always be welcome, and that is God’s ever-active MERCY toward us.

We all get beaten down by this life and some of the people in it. That’s the time to pick up those burdens and give it ALL to Jesus. Then we do whatever He says, in the book – and then…we  leave everything with Him. Tell yourself ‘God is looking after that!’  If we accidentally revert to worrying and problem solving, then repent, and give it back to Him again. Learn to live relying upon the finished work of Christ’s death on the cross. The more you live like this, the more it becomes the way you think. The technical term is called renewing your mind. Even if you accidentally go back into worry etc.- then give it back to Him, just one more time. Human beings are much too frail to walk around with heavy burdens on their backs.

Listen to this: “Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down.” Isaiah said that 700 years before Christ was born. One day he was praying and he ended up in the throne room and God’s incredible holiness gave this prophet a revelation about who he really was. Isaiah saw his sin. Thank God, he also prophetically saw Jesus coming into this world 700 years later! Isaiah saw God’s provision for his sins and everything else, long before Jesus was ever born. Seeing that changed that man’s POV forever.

This is what Jesus Christ came to earth to do for humanity, to show us another way to live. The bible gives us so many witnesses. Today I have put one from a Psalmist, plus Isaiah, plus Jesus Christ Himself. They all tell us we can come to God, and offload our burdens, troubles and sorrows, because SomeOne has spiritually taken them for us – JESUS Christ took all those things to the cross, 2000+ years ago. Those weighty things in our lives are as gone as our sins!  Let’s ask for His help to continually lay our burdens down, and live in His rest, instead of this world’s turmoil. 👋🏻 

P 2195 No time for a Nanna-nap!

/ DVH

“But you, beloved brothers and sisters, are not living in the dark, allowing that day to creep up on you like a thief coming to steal.For you are all children of the light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night nor to darkness. This is why we must not fall asleep, as the rest do, but keep wide awake and clearheaded.But since we belong to the day, we must stay alert and clearheaded by placing the breastplate of faith and love over our hearts, and a helmet of the hope of salvation over our thoughts. He gave His life for us so that we may share in resurrection life in union with Him—whether we’re awake or asleep.” 1 Thessalonians 5:4-6, 8, 10 TPT.

The bible says His word is ‘a lamp to our feet and a light unto our path.’ And the Message bible says this: “By your words I can see where I’m going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path.” Christians do not lack light – we actually can’t! Jesus is the light of this world and we are in Christ – it’s not EVER dark where He is. You will always have plenty of light when you hang around with Jesus.

Sadly, sometimes what we do lack is the will to go and sit in the light and learn from Him! We need the Holy Spirit’s help to stay awake and alert in these overwhelming times. Ignoring why we are here is sleeping. Unfortunately human beings are not inherently good, despite popular opinion  – they are often uncaring, self-centred, independent creatures who want what they want when they want it. And if you don’t believe me read a newspaper or look at social media. Those things will quickly convince you that without Christ we are all helpless and at the mercy of our own appetites!

But because we live in the light – living there means His light will convince us that darkness cannot oppose us. Turn a light switch on when it is pitch black – darkness doesn’t leave grumbling and complaining – it is simply gone. Part of the way we shine His light out there into the darkness is to actively engage in learning His ways from the Holy Spirit. How to love others – our family, the people at work or school, our neighbours, so it is incredibly important that we see other people through His eyes. We get our Father’s eyes through living in obedience. His eyes are full of compassion. Otherwise our eyes are full of our own needs and our problems. Living in the light means we are learning to unconditionally accept the person in front of us. We can’t ever do that without the Lord’s help.

As we go about in this world, it is easy to see that many people have become so used to the darkness – that the light in us, and coming from us, hurts their eyes or they are afraid of it so they hide from it. But there are others who are drawn toward the light because it resonates deep within them. In today’s careless self-centred world, we cannot afford to be asleep on the job because who we are is always on display. People watch us  simply because we are standing in His light. 

Alert people keep their faith going even when it is opposed on all sides. If they have to hang on by their fingernails, they hang on! They tell themselves, “God has got this. These circumstances did not surprise Him. He has a plan, His plans are for my good and my future. I cannot afford to see my circumstances through the white noise this world produces, even though it is all around me – I must look at this life through the Lord’s eyes not my own.” These people stop holding onto what they think they must have or need, and let everything go – other people’s sin, the absence of real love everywhere etc. simply because walking with Him is more important than anything else.

Our personal faith is far more incredibly valuable than we realise, and we access and use our faith when we choose to love others, no matter what is going on in us and around us. Faith is a belief that our God can and will only do all of us good whether we know it or not – because He is good. We need the kind of strong faith that protects our hearts. The kind of faith that covers our heart with the belief that He loves and cares for every single person individually – no matter how things look, or how we feel.

Our faith hides in, and depends upon His goodness. It hides us from the deadly attacks of the enemy. It creates an atmosphere that is alert and notices whatever the Lord is doing. Our faith looks for good even within the bad. Our faith believes in Him, His Character, His never-ending kindness, goodness and love. And it shields our hearts by reminding us of everything He said in the bible. Our faith is not in circumstances or people, it understands other people fall victim to their own lack of faith in His reliability.

Lastly, His hope comes directly from our belief system –  it understands that HOPE is a Person. Christ. Our hope relies upon what He did. We cannot afford to gain hope from works, or even experiences – our hope is in Him. Sleeping in the light is wasting the time God gave us all. Just because things have become darker outside, that does not mean we can afford Nanna naps! The light shines brighter in the darkness. 👋🏻