His direction

P 3312 Staying in the river!

/ DVH

“Believe in ME so that rivers of living water will burst out from within you, flowing from your innermost being, just like the Scripture says!””  John 7:38 TPT. Great scripture! … I love to watch things on YouTube that many people might think are a bit boring. Every morning we put on one of those supposedly, sappy Christian music videos, that feature pretty pictures of nature. They can stream away for like 11 hours. And then I just let that stuff quietly run, so I can be engaged with my blog, bible reading, prayers and thoughts. You might like just plain silence!

I’ve personally found I’m far more likely to recognise His ‘rivers of living water’ when I am not distracted by other noises, or things that fly past on the TV screen trying to capture my attention! Meanwhile, I’m incredibly blessed and grateful that my time is my own, and how I spend it is up to me. Many people reading this don’t have that kind of freedom. But I think the secret to staying in the river of God begins with staying aware of Him and giving Him my attention. Have you ever watched a well trained sheep dog? The dog never takes its eyes off its Master. Meeting with Jesus is the place where we can ‘let it all hang out,’ because He knows our junk anyway!

Today, I want to talk about the importance of spiritual breathing. Living this new life the way God Himself has designed it, is a natural process with no striving involved. It’s just as natural as breathing IN and OUT. After all we do that without even thinking about it – unless we have some sort of disease or obstruction – we just do it!  “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:12-14. 

Jesus has taken hold of my life for a reason, He will help me find my real life in Him. I am greatly cheered up by the fact that the Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the Epistles — who was, some say, taken up into the 3rd heaven  — told us, he hadn’t arrived at that goal yet! This means that the best bits are still out in front of each one of us. However, just because this goal can seem unattainable, that doesn’t mean we should give up on aiming at it! It simply means we are in the best company, so I shouldn’t give up I should press on! He is now my focus.

Pressing on involves dogged dedication. So does finding out,  knowing and liking the same things the Lord likes! Plus doing whatever Jesus would do in any situation. All that takes focus, time and energy. To do this we need to sort out our priorities. Is it to be God – or the washing first? Jesus has to be more real to us than the people around us. Be assured that I don’t always get it right, that’s why I keep pressing on. However, I have learnt over the years that when my heart is pointed in His direction, the Lord is incredibly loving and tolerant of my muddles and misses, and ‘He makes my paths smooth.’ 

His infinite patience lovingly watches over us. He despatches angels to catch us when we fall, or fail. He can redeem everything and anything. “Who redeems your life from the pit and corruption, Who beautifies, dignifies, and crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercy;…” Psalm 103:4. In other words, to the Lord, human beings are not just a hobby, or a pastime – we are the focus of His attention and affections. Let’s not relegate Him to the back burner as SomeOne we call on when the ceiling falls in. He is our refuge, not our emergency standby. 

“But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9a. What does that scripture mean when we are talking about the River of God? I think we can often put an accent on one bit of scripture over another, and in this instance that means we will be skipping over the best bit. The River bit. The bit that says: ‘My grace is sufficient for you…’ that is the important bit. His Grace is always enough! We just need to return our focus to Him when distracted, and GRACE WILL BE THERE.  Instead of looking into our hearts and seeing our inner cupboards bare and bankrupt—choose to look into Jesus’ eyes and heart, and see the abundance He has for you. We dare not try to manage the weakness we see in ourselves without looking at the greatness of His Grace toward us. Despite our whimsical feelings, we are not poverty stricken!

His power is made perfect in our weakness, but we can’t afford to be distracted by those weaknesses! Instead,let’s pray that He will give us the Grace to comprehend the incredible POWER that was released through the cross.  Our weaknesses cannot stand in the face of that power. Let’s not focus on the negative, let’s focus on Jesus and what He already did. The only thing that can negate His power from releasing itself into our situations, is our decision, or choice, to believe that our badness can possibly be bigger than His goodness!

The Lord Jesus did not just emerge from that grave ‘alive’ like Lazarus did! He was filled with so much Grace and power, He instantly saved the world! That included those Who believed before He came and all those who came afterward. The Grace He gives us is without limit. We need to cherish it with every part of us. The river of God is always available to us, so let’s jump into His love and grace, and stay there on floating on our backs. If we fall out of the river, then we need to jump back in again. Bye.👋

P 3082 I AM your oasis.

/ DVH

“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to Me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis.” Matthew 11:28 TPT.

When I read this verse today the thing that hit me right between the eyes was that Jesus said: ‘I AM your oasis.’He didn’t suggest going on a 4 week cruise, or going to some spa, or theme park or even a Christian conference of some sort – the Lord says HE(!!) is our oasis. We have been misled by our feelings to think that Jesus only goes to conferences or turns up for revivals – He’s IN US – we take Him with us wherever we go! Ya might want to sit and think about that for like a millennium – I know I did – OK so it was 60 seconds … you caught me. 

You know I think we can be really bad at comprehending what the Lord is saying, most of the time. We either overstate it to the point of fanaticism and make it into rules, or we ignore it and hope He won’t mind. We can be so lax with our obedience that we only participate in extending our faith for minor things – like finding a car spot when we need one – or asking God to help us with our day. He wants to BE our day!!

He’s not an add-on. Faith steps are about things we can’t easily do by ourselves — and maybe we kind of step really quickly around things like submission, which is also a faith step. It’s like we think these things are beyond us … so we hope the minimum participation will do …”After all, Jesus knows I am weak!” That’s why He wants you to call on Him to be your strength. We go through this life trying to avoid problems or pray them away, He wants us to confront them with Him!  He longs to be our oasis.

It seems we have yet to work out that His motivation is not just to bring relief, but to usher in permanent change. Transformation of our hearts. Maybe we are hoping the Lord won’t notice because we are embarrassed with our lack of engagement with the things that matter … well guess what?? He knows, because the same Heart that tenderly watches over you, pays attention to everything else. Some problems can be solved by simply changing the way we live. Please do not misunderstand me, He is not watching over us to catch us out in our sins or errors. Instead He patiently waits and watches for us to turn our heads, even just a little bit in His direction – because He knows a better way. 

There is an easier way to live this life we have inherited from Him. But we will have to humble ourselves and submit to Him in order to fully participate in it. Everything in our world’s current view of modern reality suggests submission is not a good thing. Children don’t have to submit to their parents, wives don’t have to submit to their husbands, and nobody has to submit to anybody else’s agendas — unless they pay them well! Submission seems to be a bad word — but that word actually means we have a primary mission which takes priority over other things. Seeking His kingdom is primary – then other things get added on!

It is no wonder that we have left God’s Kingdom behind, it’s because His kingdom is a theocracy, not a democracy. Let’s daily remind ourselves that Jesus Himself submitted to His Father’s will. Sadly it seems that unless human beings can see that it BENEFITS them, they don’t give those ‘other things’ He wants to add into our lives very much attention. So many Christians have cleverly found and featured all the me-first benefits … because the bible tells us“to forget not all His benefits…” I am not sure this response is all He had in mind! 

Off-loading our burdens onto Jesus seems to be a gigantic benefit to me – but we will have to relinquish our anxiety, worry and fear at the same time. Personally, I can’t think of anything better than handing my awful pile of nasty impossible stuff to Him. However, what does He mean by – I am your oasis? An oasis is a place of water in a desert, or a place of refuge in a crisis — or even a place of refreshing. When you view that word this way it begins to make sense. The Lord is not talking about using His Presence like we would drop off our dry-cleaning and return to find everything neatly pressed and clean …He means in this life His Presence is our dwelling place.That’s an AIM – not a suggestion.

I like Ephesians 3:16-19. These 3 verses are great to meditate on because they show us what we are aiming at. 

“I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Being filled to all the fullness of God is another AIM. We need to remember ..these verses are a prayer … the Apostle Paul prayed it for the church at Ephesus. But the Holy Spirit Himself not only inspired it – He preserved that prayer in the bible for our benefit. Paul is praying for US too – every time you read it say Amen! And please –  read it a lot. Now we need to use our faith to believe that Christ actively dwells in our hearts, and we need His power to understand what we have been given! It is not enough to say ‘yes’ — we have to DO yes!

Then our roots go down, so deeply into His love we cannot be moved. This is how and why the saints of old gave up their lives and were martyred. They didn’t do it for an ideology, they did it because they had been internally changed, forever!! His Presence in our lives is our OASIS. Bye. 🥳