His light

P3447 A firm foundation.

/ DVH

Here’s Philippians 4:19 (AMPC) “And my God will liberally supply (fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Well, that nails that on the head …if we need it He will give it to us. This is Paul talking, and he too had needs. But nothing must come between us, and glorifying our Lord. Sadly, the world around us, currently runs on greed. Greed is not only about having excess — it’s about wanting what we don’t have. It’s like a huge head devouring people, money and time.

I think our churches have been building on the wrong foundation —- a foundation of gain, and an easy life. We’ve been building on what Jesus can do for us …instead of what HE HAS ALREADY DONE! Let’s just pause, breathe, and think on that for a bit. The Lord Jesus is not a ‘gimme’ vending machine. He told us we would have suffering in this world – yet we want to pray our way out of the very things that will mature us. It’s not about my comfort – it’s about God’s glory!

We are often fooled into praying for this bad thing to stop, and that good thing to happen. And the truth is … that’s all about our own comfort. We pray for what we think we need, to make our lives better. It’s the wrong foundation — this can create people, who want, want, want, and they aren’t often satisfied with what they have already been given. The King of glory died in our place. That’s our only focus and only foundation. We are here to serve Him now. 

Sadly if what we’ve prayed for happens, then becomes far too easy to just move on to the next apparent need. Material needs are a distraction. The appetite they create cannot be filled, and we can waste the life of God in us, plus the time He has allocated to us, by running after those things. Let’s listen to James 4:2-3: “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” 

Why are we building church buildings to the glory of God, when the glory of His Presence is what we actually need  … not more buildings? Our focus seems to be skewed. It needs to be on the-people-who-don’t-know-Him yet, not building maintenance. Jesus Christ did not care about material things, He was grateful for food to eat, and a place to sleep. That’s the King of ALL Glory in a wooden food trough in a tin shed, and He also slept rough on the side of the road. Nobody cooked Him a twelve course dinner.

We are here to build His kingdom, not ours. Most people in our churches do not understand what the Lord Jesus did to provide for their daily spiritual bread or where their focus needs to be. He died and gave us His rights, so now we can use His rights, His way – for others. He saved us, and our primary task is to learn to love the unlovely, not gather things.

At the same time, we can be easily deluded. Sometimes we sing “Jesus took my burdens all away,” and many people walk out the doors of our churches just as burdened as they were when they came in! Sin is a burden. We CAN carry it on our backs, but it BELONGS at the foot of the cross. Put your sin, the government’s sin, your family’s sin, anybody else’s sin down, and walk away. Let Jesus meet all your needs.

When people are evil to you, then pray for them and start rejoicing that He set you free from whatever they did. I don’t much care for psycho babble, or blaming this person, or that parent — if HE says we’re free, then we are free. Feelings don’t come into it. We are not using our faith to believe Him. Our aim is about ‘feeling good’ – instead of worshipping Him for what He has done.

Our greatest treasure is Jesus! Plus the freedom to live the new life He died to give us. We’ve been taken out of darkness into His light. That means we don’t have to pray for light, because we already have it  — Who He is, and the bible are now our light. Jesus taught us to pray like this: “Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come,Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”  What comes first in that prayer? Our needs, or His will, His way? 

Our focus has become so worldly, we call what we have been given blessings, but perhaps they have also become an ANCHOR, tying us into this world’s systems. Those systems/cisterns? can’t hold the water of the Holy Spirit. (Jeremiah 2:13.) Paul says: “”For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21. Now that’s a useful cistern! Jesus didn’t die to give us a trip to the Bahamas, He died to set us free from the kind of greed that puts God Himself on the back burner.

Our foundations need to be firm, otherwise our faith in Christ will remain shaky and unstable. What Jesus did for us is the only Rock we build on, everything else is just His loving kindness blessing His kids. Bye 👋.

P 3265 Where are you looking?

/ DVH

2 Corinthians 4:5-12: “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, Who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”    

 At times maybe we think following Jesus shouldn’t cost us! These verses give us the alternatives. The bible is so clear — words like:  ‘hard pressed; perplexed; persecuted; struck down; death is at work in us, but life is at work in you’… should be a major clue. Those among us who think this new life of ours should always be fun, fun, fun, well, they need their heads read. Or they need the bible to transform their thinking! Perhaps some of us are resigned to living with continual disappointment, which is definitely not fun and very bad for our faith! Just to cheer you up even further …

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” That was Verses 16-18 same chapter. 

Why does Paul tell us he did not want us to lose heart? With that list of unhappy endings, that thought seems a bit redundant! He goes on to explain that our outer man maybe diminishing all the time, but our inner man, our spirit, is being renewed by His Presence within us. We can’t live, work, play, or even breathe without Jesus! Seriously. Some of the worst damage has been done to the basic tenements of Christianity, by trying to make it sound like a cross between winning the lottery and a fun fair. In this passage Paul is describing a people who live to see Jesus get all the glory, all the honour – all the time. That’s because their eyes are on Him and they look at everything around them through the light of eternity.

If we focus on our comfort in the here and now, we are going to be utterly disappointed a lot. God is maturing His saints! What part of ‘stoned’ – (ps the writer isn’t talking about taking drugs!) ‘…and sawn asunder, sliced with a sword, tempted, wandering about practically naked with nowhere to live, don’t we get? (Hebrews 11:37) God doesn’t promise us flowers, happy endings and blue birds. Jesus said clearly that this is a narrow difficult road.

 Our fear that reality may put other people off is well-founded. Comfort is king in all our western societies. We desperately need the Lord Jesus to renew us every single day, or any one of us can lose heart and give up. Let’s ask Him to help us to produce the fruit of self-control and perseverance, and water it with tears and fertilise it with surrender. 

Paul calls these ghastly things that bowl us over in this life, “light and momentary afflictions.” Boy that sure puts everything into perspective. What would happen if we saw our difficulties through fresh eyes?  Imagine living life in such a way that love oozes out of our pores, and we leave puddles of glory behind us. We can’t go to the shop and buy Glory! His glory flourishes as we make our hearts His home.

The more we choose to die to self, the more He can be seen within us, flashing out His glorious brightness and capturing other people’s hearts with just one glance. It is imperative here and now, to fix our eyes on Jesus and what He wants for us – including the people He has gathered around us. When we fix our eyes on this world, we can be so easily distracted by what is going on, instead of focussing on Him, this allows other important things to pale into insignificance. I am not there yet …obviously! … But that’s my aim. To daily take in His love for me, and give it away. 

There is no other answer for this world but Jesus. Hubby and I can’t even watch the news anymore it is so chock full of – this person did that evil thing and another one did worse! The bible says: ‘Without Christ we can do nothing.’This whole world is without Christ – that’s why it is in the state it is in. Why are we so astonished? I am learning to assess my focus, and keep my eyes on Him – no matter what else is going on. Where do I look for daily inspiration? Let’s “… all look … unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, …” Hebrews 12:2. Bye 👋

P 3223 Joy cometh …

/ DVH

I spoke briefly about joy, yesterday. I think this blessing can be kind of elusive, because many people chase after pleasure as a substitute for it. We need God’s JOY – it’s our STRENGTH! Pleasure, however, is a bit like sand, it falls through your fingers and disappears into the void! The bible tells us in Psalm 30:5 that JOY “comes in the morning.”  I have experienced that! Joy is an expression of our God’s own nature. However, joy comes into focus as we continue to notice Who He is and what He is doing – no matter what time of day it actually is! 

Loving and knowing Jesus means knowing and loving and living in … JOY! I want to exhort you to grab hold of His Joy when it comes on you. Seize those times when pure joy floods your thoughts, because this is an exquisite part of our Lord’s Grace toward us and He is strengthening you for what lies ahead. We need to let Christ’s Joy re-energise us when we are feeling flat, motivate us forward when we are tired, and just plain make us laugh at ourselves and this crazy old world. That’s the secret of living with joy – it doesn’t care about appearances, it values the nearness of Jesus instead. 

Another of the secrets to finding the Lord in whatever is going on in your life, is to believe and revise what He has already told you. Jesus Himself said: ‘Don’t be afraid, I will be with you always, even unto the end of this world.’ Don’t just nod your little head and smile at that scripture. Yes it is a nice scripture, yes it seems comforting, but it can’t comfort you unless you apply it. I read it, reread it and then I go out and believe He is with me, even if I don’t feel a blooming thing. His word is more solid than the earth beneath my feet. Let’s stick a big flashing sign over our hearts that says: “Welcome here Lord Jesus!”

God’s Word does not flourish in our lives because of our feelings, it flourishes in an atmosphere of faith. And we get faith by hearing what He is saying to US, personally, as we read it. So grab your bible when you feel flat, and read a Psalm. I read until I find something that cheers me up! To be fair, sometimes I might read quite a few Psalms, but that won’t kill me. “The entrance of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.” Psalm 119:130. Hey look at that! I qualify! I figure that I will definitely need His light to be able to see His joy! 

Knowing Jesus loves us, should constantly usher in joy. We can waste the time we have been given trying desperately to find joy in other things – people, places, situations – but this world’s joy is situated in things that are temporary and hollow. Many people are so addicted to feeling happy they never actually find real joy! Real joy lasts. We can seek outward distractions instead of His Presence, but He is inside us, because we belong to Him. “But what does it say? The Word (God’s message in Christ) is near you, on your lips and in your heart; that is, the Word (the message, the basis and object) of faith which we preach,…”  Romans 10:8. Deuteronomy 30:4.

Joy can most certainly make us laugh, but it isn’t just laughter. I think joy can be limited by us. For instance, joy will break out when we talk about Him to people who-don’t-know-Him-yet. Our joy is a living companionship with a Person, not just a feeling. And we can’t lose Jesus quite simply because – glory of glories – He refuses to leave or give up on us! Stop for a moment and ask the Lord to reveal Himself to you through joy. Ask Him to help you to recognise it when He answers you. 

We can miss answers to prayer, when what happens doesn’t look like we think it should. “So keep being alert and ready at all times. For I promise you that the Son of Man will surprise you and appear when you don’t expect Him.” Luke 12:40 TPT. I know this verse is about the second coming, but because it’s in the book it can also be speaking to each one of us, today! 

True Joy has freedom for us in it, even if the person experiencing it is in jail. Paul said—from jail!—“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” Philippians 4:4. Joy crosses man-made boundaries and laughs at them as it skips merrily on its way. Joy contains the pleasure of God’s love for us, even when it is face to face with pure evil. Stephen’s face was radiant as they were stoning him to death in Acts. He wasn’t just happy, he was —-JOYFUL.He was looking right at his Heavenly Father, and His Son, Jesus.

My advice is this, don’t try to put a lid on spontaneous joy, because it will break your lid and move away to where it is welcome and free to do what God sent it to do! Sometimes people try to organise the Lord, and create a joyous atmosphere. Let’s let Him take care of stuff like that – I’ve read Genesis 1 … the Holy Spirit is good at atmosphere, trust me! I ask Him for more and more joy, because the bible says His joy is my strength, and who doesn’t need strength every day?

Parts of Isaiah 61 say this about who we are and what we are here to do: “The Spirit of God has sent me …to care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename them “Oaks of Righteousness” planted by God to display His glory. They’ll rebuild the old ruins, raise a new city out of the wreckage. They’ll start over on the ruined cities, take the rubble left behind and make it new…” Lord let “… Your joy go on forever.” 

Do yourself a favour, and chase after JOY, it is such an important part of our daily lives – it’s a reality, not a feeling, a gift not a chore. Bye.  👋

P 3087 Mercy.

/ DVH

“How blessed you are when you demonstrate tender mercy! For tender mercy will be demonstrated to you.” Matthew 5:7 TPT.  Oh, let us thank the Lord for that!! This is the kind of verse that can slide by our understanding, yet most of us have needed mercy from someone else at some stage or another in our lives. The Holy Spirit has mercy on us simply because He is merciful by nature. He is not winking at sin – He will convict us the minute we give Him a chance! But His loving kindness immediately welcomes us back into true fellowship when we turn around, face our faults, confess and repair things. 

At times, anyone can quite easily excuse their behaviour like this: ’They did this evil thing and that awful one and it was unforgivable.’ There are times when we seek and search for a short-cut to get us through the things we think we cannot bear, and we forget God has given us the power to overcome sin and the devil. That’s why it is essential to remember that Godly attitudes and actions have nothing whatsoever to do with our feelings – they run on our choices.

However, when we demonstrate mercy to someone else who does not deserve it — we are deliberately stepping out of darkness into His light. In His light we can see what is really going on. We will remain blinded by darkness when we choose to not forgive or hold a grudge. If I stay in unforgiveness, or I refuse to extend mercy to someone else, my emotional reactions or responses have blocked my ears and eyes to that other person’s need, because my own judgment got in the way. 

The dictionary explains that mercy is: “compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.“  It says this about grace: “this word is commonly translated as “favour,” which means acceptance and goodwill regardless of whether we’ve earned it.” Those two things are not the same! Mercy goes beyond grace. It loves the unlovely. To do that we must recognise who WE really are, without Jesus.

And that particular point is the reason why a lot of Christians have been shot in the foot and they keep going round and round. Because we forget who we are without Him, and we leave Him behind when we step into unforgiveness and refuse to extend mercy. We start to think: ‘God saved us, but I wasn’t all that bad in the first place, after I don’t deliberately hurt anybody.’  Come again??

We have been saved from sin, and it’s power, because we needed it .God does not have gradients for sin. Ever since the garden of Eden human beings were born in sin, and we dare not trust our own un-renewed hearts.. Eventually, what’s really in our heart will find its way out! We cannot afford to make our own assessments about who anyone is … until we’ve lived this life squashed so tightly into a corner and we feel we cannot escape from it, we will have no idea how we will react. I dunno about you, but I’ve wished people DEAD! I know I’m a sinner, but mercy came to me and drew me back to God, when I had no excuse! And if He ever His took grace to change me and His undeserved mercy back… well … bye bye me!! 

However, when you have a hole shot through your middle by someone else’s sin, those kinds of God-honouring thoughts rarely come up. Some people just won’t quit being mean!  So we are going to need the Holy Spirit’s supernatural power, grace, mercy, plus His strength to continue to give them what He has given us for free. Outright undeserved mercy opens doors that appear to be nailed shut. 

In reality what we think is happening, is probably not what was actually happening. That other person who hurt me was not acting against me – they were simply acting FOR themselves. In other words, there was no intention to do harm. It did not come into their decision making, instead they were self-absorbed. If you do not know you have a Guardian Who is on your side — you will probably mount your own guard and fire away!!

Maybe we think someone like a wife basher or paedophile, a rapist, or a murderer, or a thief is beyond our help. So we choose to withhold grace and shut up our heart of mercy. We think they deserve to get whatever they get, for the way they have acted and the choices they made. I am not making excuses for anybody’s actions — all I want to say is that the person with the greater sin needs the greater mercy. In that moment, I can choose to give it to them. Good place to remember we didn’t deserve what Jesus gave us either.

I like this verse: “But whoever has the world’s goods (adequate resources), and sees his brother in need, but has no compassion for him, how does the love of God live in him?”  I John 3:17. People can be needy because they are spiritually poor! We must continue to sow grace and mercy everywhere and remind ourselves that judgment belongs to the Lord, He is the One Who knows all things and sees all things – not us. He will have mercy and compassion on whoever He chooses. We all deserve hell! Mercy is grace that goes beyond forgiveness, instead of punishment, it ushers in the power of God. Bye. 👋

P 3072 Make yours a life well lived.

/ DVH

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16 MSG.

The person we need to be is the one Almighty God planned for us to be when He created us. Did you know there’s a big difference between the person you’ve become – because life’s bashed you up a bit – and the person God intended when He created you? That difference is our learning curve. I’m older, I’ve bumped into a lot of learning curves. 

You know, old age is not always the drag everybody thinks it is. Old people are way less threatening to young ones when their hair gets white and they kind of hobble about. Old people don’t constitute a threat. If you are really fortunate and your family is kind, now you can tell the same stories over and over again, and not realise you are doing it. While they all listen politely. Now there’s a perk! Meanwhile you might look a bit addlepated. Oh well. 

However! The bible has a whole other idea about who we ALL are! You and I, we are the light. When we walk into a room, that whole room is flooded with His light, because He goes with us. This means that we can tell the difference between this life’s fake stuff and the real. God’s light bulb inside us, is so bright, all the hollow useless stuff shows up instantly. We can waste the time He gave us striving to look cool, or clever, or wise … or we can enjoy Him. You can’t do both. What a great pity it is when God’s people stumble around in the dark when we were made to shine, and give Him glory by doing it.

That verse above tells us the very best and only way to keep our faith alive. We must use it. I can guarantee using it will be extremely inconvenient, and pride will probably fall on its head as we learn to do what the Lord wants. For so many years, I tried hard to be kind and caring – but – people would annoy me and then I’d have to avoid them. In that process I picked up awful attitudes toward other people! Trying is out – doing it anyway is in. 

Hubby and I have been doing peculiar things for years, as the Lord guides us – we don’t think of them as outrageous, we think of them adventures with the Holy Spirit and Jesus. The bible tells us in 1 Peter 2:9 that we have been chosen to be ‘a peculiar people.’  We try to live up to that. So we’ve done things that people said would never work, and sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t – but every single time we had to use our faith. I keep telling you, eleven good Godly men sat in that boat watching Peter walk on the water. They were safe, but they didn’t stretch their faith!

I walked around for 2 years, about 45 years ago, claiming God had healed my eyesight. I was taught that I could have whatever I wanted, and I wanted to see without glasses. A-n-d … He didn’t heal my eyes. Instead I became stuck down the hole of my own proclamation of healing when I was actually as blind as a bat. Sadly I was far stupider than bats are – they have radar! I crossed busy roads, went on trains, did all the usual stuff, claiming I was healed. Would you like to know the miracle in all that dumb? I was never in danger for a second, not one. Isn’t He amazing??!! My Heavenly Father took care of me in all my stupidity. I repented and went and got glasses again, but I learnt you can huff and puff, but you cannot twist God’s arm.

However, I did learn something else that is very important – God is wa-ay bigger than our mistakes.The smart thing is to jump into His river and let Him steer your little boat. My life, thus far, has not been boring — and neither is the Lord! Bringing out ‘the God-colours’ in this world involves innovation and creativity and a positive attitude. We are the most blessed people on earth – we can’t DIE. When we leave here, we go to heaven. Win, win! Many times we are clinging to the things that cannot last, and ignoring the things that DO. Desperately trying to distract ourselves from who we’ve become in the meantime.

We say stupid things like: “IF God heals me, I will serve Him. Or if God fixes my kid, my marriage, my relationships, my job, then I will serve Him.” Who said we have that option? We serve Him because He is Almighty God! The bible is not an either/or book. Have you read the Old Testament lately? God is incredibly good, but it’s HIS way or the highway. The people who are alive in these times need hope. HOPE is Jesus’ middle Name! Well, it’s one of them, the Lord has a lot of middle Names. (Prince of peace, Mighty God…) !!

“Sing God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing! Sing to God—worship God! Shout the news of His victory from sea to sea, Take the news of His glory to the lost, News of His wonders to one and all!” Psalm 96:3 MSG. The God of all the Universe made you to shine. Make a decision to make your life a life that is well-lived, and not just a safe one! Bye. 👋 

P 3061 Please don’t waste His light.

/ DVH

Ephesians 1:18:“ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in His holy people,..” What the heck does that mean? It means   that a spiritual person can see a glorious spiritual reality that a natural man cannot. We can place great value on the gifts of the Spirit, on the infilling of the Spirit, on receiving from the Spirit. We do this like those ‘experiences’ outweigh the reality of daily walking with Him! Walking with Him here on earth is our highest calling.

When you and I gave our lives to Christ, He came to live in us. The idea that Jesus would live in our hearts without the Holy Spirit makes no sense. Actually, God Himself as a revelatory, creative Being came to live inside us in the Person of the Holy Spirit. He knows the way ahead for each one of us. 

What we need to do is to acquaint ourselves with the ways of God, so that we treat Him like the priceless treasure He is! He’s right here, with each one of us every day. He wants to teach us, personally, as well as corporately. Whenever we live our lives choosing to do things according to our will – the Holy Spirit will quietly leave. But He does not leave us permanently – He strives with us to get our attention.

When I look at you through a slave’s eyes, what you do or don’t do, suddenly matters to me, because it affects me. When I am operating in the flesh, I can misunderstand your motivation, and become disgruntled or unhappy with you — if your behaviour is my yard-stick. But when Jesus is my yard-stick, I have been given the God-given grace to see YOU through His eyes. This means I can have mercy. I can give you grace, I can die for you daily, because I can see what He can see about you. 

Because I love Jesus, what He chooses to love, I love – now, your behaviour becomes inconsequential. And if we get snippy at each other we are reverting to the flesh. The flesh will not and cannot profit us, spiritually, These fleshly attitudes mean our God-given, Heaven designated Helper will leave, because I have chosen “my way” over “His way” and He will never take away our choices. He quietly waits for us to notice that He has left.

“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”Joshua 24:15. Day by day our choices matter. Christianity is not a part-time religion, it is an all or nothing one! Winning this war depends on our daily choices, our willingness to surrender everything that matters to us, to Him. When we live like that, we are demonstrating our faith that our God is a good God and He will not do us harm. Our eyes are enlightened to see beyond the here and now.

We dare not waste the daily light God sends us through His Word. I exhort you to take those things you read every day to heart, and act on them. They will be essential on the next step of your journey with Him. Bye. 👋

P 2878 Unconditionally forgive everyone.

/ DVH

““Your ancestors have also been taught ‘Love your neighbours and hate the one who hates you.’ However, I say to you, love your enemy, bless the one who curses you, do something wonderful for the one who hates you, and respond to the very ones who persecute you by praying for them.”Matthew 5:43-44 TPT. Many people don’t like this scripture because it hits something inside them that they don’t care to acknowledge. Personally, I think things like gossip have their roots in these attitudes. We try to bring people down by badmouthing them to others, especially if they threaten us or we can’t forget what they did! 

Hatred can be generational. It can be taught to us by the people we dearly love, who raised us. After that sort of family indoctrination, it can become quite easy for gossip, slander, lies, and hatred to be passed down from one generation to another. When generational things are cherished and repeated endlessly, eventually they break out against other people Jesus died for! Meanwhile, how sensible is it to hate some people ‘cos your folks, or your friends, or people we esteem hate them too? You know that voice that you can hear in your heart that keeps saying: “Wrong way, go back.” Listen to it.  We have the power of God in us — we can usher in generational change by our choices.

Any unloving focus can drag us away from our main objective – loving others. Gossip and judgment build themselves, through repetition about what some perceived enemy did or said.  And when the bad incident that started with anger, or judgment happens to our people, our house, our group of friends – then it becomes personal!  That personal experience adds weight to everything else that has gone before it. It’s a distraction from our main purpose – let’s not allow ourselves to be distracted away from our purpose.. 

Between all the hating, cursing, lies and the repetition of the terrible stories — hatred is now flourishing in this world. Now this ghastly attitude is set firmly inside a demonic stronghold. I think the press/media etc. lies to us regularly in order to provide sensational stories to get our money and attention. Advertisers love that idea! The press blows up information and twists things to make what we read, see, or listen to, sensational. 

Meanwhile, our thirst to be in the know, and our efforts to find out about something that garners a lot of attention, have created a monster. We have made ‘knowing things;’  or ‘having the skinny on this or that,’  into some kind of a competition, and in the process we have devalued the people Jesus died for. Those people who are supposedly informing us – prefer making money, or gaining information — to caring about their fellow man. Real lives are affected and sometimes destroyed, by falsely reported things. 

This happens when the story becomes more important than the participants. Things like that help to create hard, and sometimes deceitful hearts. Meanwhile the media is about money and making some people rich. It seems to me, that the press take their little texta pens, and colour-in what really happened, by bringing up the bad shades and diminishing the good ones, so that we will read/watch/listen to their version of what is actually going on. We can easily get sucked into this filthy whirlpool and end up angry with somebody we’ve never met!

I believe this practice is a device of satan, because he loves to capitalise on greed, plus our own perceived desire to know stuff. Gossip etc. has become a new form of addiction. But the truth is, we don’t actually need to know! We can pray for the people involved in terrible things, but we often can’t do anything about whatever is going on. All we can do is to STOP and deliberately let His light in through prayer. Unfortunately our idea of light, and the Lord’s idea of light can be very different things. How do I know that …? Because our light can often be hidden under a basket – that’s how! Hidden light is not useful. Darkness still remains in the corners. We dare not bring our own agendas into our prayers. 

Even some churches have been deceived, they have become more concerned about being politically correct than loving others. Our priority is always LOVE. There are times that we too borrow the press’s textas and do some colouring-in of our own – villainising people! We are here to shine His light into the dark places – not to spread the darkness around. To me, that means I need to be like Him no matter what is going on around me. A light illuminates, it doesn’t have an opinion, it simply shines by its nature. 

So what can we do about these things? Well, I think investing emotionally in something we have no control over, is the enemy’s way of wasting our time. We may even feel better initially, more in control of things, but unless we pray for both sides of whatever is going on, we are missing the point. We don’t get to judge who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. My advice is – don’t believe everything you hear, and remember to unconditionally forgive everyone. Let’s not get so tied to the things of this earth, that we can’t hear when heaven comes calling. Bye. 👋

P 2624 Take positive action.

/ DVH

“Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him.” (CS Lewis.)

God said that like this, in Colossians 3:2-10: “Set your minds on things that are above …(!!!That’s where the real action is!) “… not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ Who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator….”

… “  (12-14) “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

So here’s my question — WHO gets all this nifty, but really nitty, gritty, hard stuff? We do! You. Me. US! This means I can’t sit about on my hands praying fervently that the Lord will change me … while I keep on doing the stuff the bible says DON’T DO! This is a really good time to remember that the Lord put Jonah in a whale (!!) to get him back on track. So if you wanna be rebellious, then you’d better stay away from SeaWorld!

Seriously, this stuff is a no-brainer. We need to take what Jesus said and make it our great AIM to leave the ugly stuff that will tangle us up and make us fall over, behind us. If you are a fighting person who gets bad tempered at the drop of a hat, then whack your hand over your mouth and vacate the premises. And don’t come back until the urge has left you! Our mouths get us in so much trouble – sadly, I have learnt this truth the hard way. What we say, or sometimes refuse to say … is responsible for so many bad things. If we choose to abuse someone else it will escalate – and unless you are talking to a door, then that other person will retaliate!

No-one wins in an argument. Even if you think you’ve won you’ve lost! When we bad mouth or abuse someone else, we are deliberately walking away from the Lord and empowering the Old Self. Jesus won’t interfere, He wants us to take responsibility for our own behaviour. Honestly, I don’t care what they said — what am I going to do about it? We must stop expecting the Lord to supernaturally intervene, and work on changing our own hearts. HE WILL HELP US but He will not do it for us! Nothing else matters but being with Him.  So put away the things that are going to drag us away from loving Him, worshipping Him, following Him. We cannot serve two Masters. Jesus said that in Matthew 6:24. 

For those of you who are related or married to somebody who loves to pick fights, or someone who gets irritable easily … stop blaming them, and quit engaging with the argument. I don’t care how wrong they are – what is the kingdom of God worth to you? Sadly, for some people it is worth less than their own opinion. We want all the power in the world so we can move mountains, but we cannot deal with the mountains of disapproval, criticism and lust in our own lives? Good luck moving that other mountain Jesus spoke about, if you can’t control YOU.

Start speaking love and approval to the other person. It is extremely hard to argue with someone else who keeps telling you how terrific you are, how valuable you are. It is not lying – that person is valuable to God! When we are angry with someone, we rehearse their faults – why not rehearse their good points?! Life is not a competition, it is not about who wins or loses. It is about life and death. Yours, theirs and the people around us. We’ve been put here to shine His light into a dark place —- not to increase the darkness! Lastly, revenge belongs to the Lord, so do yourself a favour and don’t get in His Way.

Jesus said this verse nobody likes, remember? (Matthew 5:29)“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for. thee that one of thy members should perish, and. not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” Imagine what we would all LOOK LIKE if we took that verse seriously! 😱 We need to choose to participate in positive actions with His help. Lastly, “Love your enemies …” — because at the very least you will drive them crazy!

Bye. 👋