His plans

P 3470 Entitlement can shoot us in the foot.

/ DVH

Denying ourselves can be really hard. Since birth we have had to negotiate our way between what’s OK to do, and what isn’t — and that pretty much depended on who you were talking to! Maybe your Grandparents thought you could do no wrong, while your parents experienced a totally different reality. But now, because we have chosen to follow Jesus, the responsibility for denying ourselves, falls on us – not on other people’s rules. We can choose to change our ways, or we can continue to take the same entitled, childish attitudes we had way back then … into adulthood.

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].” Matthew 16:24. 

You don’t see many people writing songs about that verse! When things don’t go our way, first of all our flesh gets antsy, we can get really grumpy, and before you know it, we are in the middle of a gigantic pity party. That thought pattern is a satanic plot to undermine the way we live our lives. And it happens simply because we feel entitled to better treatment from this life, and other people. When we give our lives to Jesus, that idea goes out of the window, forever, and we need to get used to it. We gave our lives away!

I want to dismiss the theory that this life owes us something. I had a pretty hard childhood, and bleating about it didn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference to the cosmos – it simply ignored me. And then it threw even more guff at me to make sure I knew who was boss …  and with my lightning fast mind, I eventually figured out that was definitely not going to be me! For some people this means a fully-fledged battle with this world at every opportunity, all of their lives. And for others? Well they just lay down because they know from experience that they are going to end up on the floor anyway — no matter what they do or say. Resignation is not our destination either. Paul found out he was ill-equipped to fight against God – the Lord knows where our “off” button is! 

The only true alternative is to allow the Holy Spirit to teach each one of us how to fight, who to fight, and how to engage in the everyday battle to lay down our lives for others. It involves a process nobody likes, especially initially. This means I ask the Holy Spirit for His help and I lay aside that snappy, snide reply.

Sadly the only thing that seems to impact many human beings to change anything is the thought that they might die if they don’t! The thing to remember is that change means Jesus is not just doing a ‘make-over’ … He’s ‘remodelling’ us from the inside out to look like He does, but then we become more like our true selves, designed in God’s image. What we lose is irrelevant in the presence of what we will gain. 

“Then Jesus went to work on His disciples. “Anyone who intends to come with Me has to let Me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow Me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, My way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?” Matthew 16:25. GNB. 

I am not even remotely trying to make this process sound easy, because that would be lying to you. You and I have spent a lot of years practicing living our lives, one way, and then the Lord interrupts our excuses, subterfuges, and manipulations with a clear directive like the one above. We can’t afford to ignore it. The truth is we no longer have a life – we gave it away. So we can know Jesus here and now, and live with Him forever!

“All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honourably with personal integrity and moral courage]; …” 2 Timothy 3:16. 

Is there a plus side to this less-than-materially-motivated or unappealing deal? YES. “His truth makes us truly free …” in this life and the next. I have no idea why anyone wouldn’t want to co-operate with the One Who made you, He knows far more about what we can and can’t do, and He is generous and kind. When satan cried out for my blood, I knew I deserved what was coming to me, but Jesus gave him HIS BLOOD instead and He definitely didn’t! The more I read about the Lord and His plans, the more I emphasise that God’s processes can be difficult. It’s hard at the beginning to say no to yourself when you feel entitled to a better deal. However, what we walk away from is temporal – what we walk toward is eternal. You do the math.

The sense of entitlement we have had since we were born is in direct opposition to everything Jesus stood for – so when we choose to follow Him, we need to understand that this part of our journey ends in a grave. Entitlement is a fairy story we tell ourselves so we can cope with hardships. Ask Jesus to help you cope instead! The truth is, without Jesus Christ’s sacrifice we are all entitled to hell. Bye. 👋.

P3451 Are you running on empty?

/ DVH

“For it is Christ’s love that fuels our passion and holds us tightly, because we are convinced that He has given His life for ALL of us. This means ALL died with Him, so that those who live should no longer live self-absorbed lives but lives that are poured out for Him—the One who died for us and now lives again. So, from now on, we refuse to evaluate people merely by their outward appearances. For that’s how we once viewed the Anointed One, but no longer do we see Him with limited human insight.” 2 Corinthians 5:14-16 TPT.

Our human insight will always be limited. Let’s always remember that the Lord is so much wiser than we are, that’s why we know we can trust Him. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” And in 1 Corinthians 13:12: “In the same way, we can see and understand only a little about God now, as if we were peering at His reflection in a poor mirror; but someday we are going to see Him in His completeness, face-to-face. Now all that I know is hazy and blurred, but then I will see everything clearly, just as clearly as God sees into my heart right now.”

We live in a place where we think we understand, and then … we don’t. Where stuff happens and it makes no sense. Where God is suddenly hidden from us – but in the next moment, we can be given a flash of insight and we think we know everything … but we don’t. Why not? We can’t. Our teeny tiny human minds, and self-preservation get in the way. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,”declares the Lord.“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9.

We simply cannot always understand the way the Lord thinks! That’s why we have His book! There are times where it seems like He is fighting us at every turn … but then we discover that this ‘fight’ was part of our growth process! At the end of the verse in 1 Corinthians 13:12 it says: “But then I will see everything clearly …just as clearly as God sees into my heart right now.” Did you get that? Here it is in another form from Hebrews 4:13. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes, and He is the One to whom we are accountable.”  He is telling us to reassure us, that HE ALWAYS SEES US … always.

At the top of the page I asked, ‘are you running on empty?’ This can happen when we get ahead of His plans. Or maybe we decide we don’t like His plans, and we like our plans a whole lot better, so we go off-roading. We can end up looking a lot like a modern car’s GPS system. Here’s an illustration: our car’s GPS system needs frequent updating. The-powers-that-be are continually making new roads, and they are eventually registered on the original computer guidance maps. But if we use one of these new roads we can appear to be flying over blank terrain. The road is not registered, so the guidance system goes whacko, and then it gives up! 

Hold on… I’m getting to my point and it has nothing to do with car navigation, and everything to do with our own life navigation. The thing that will short-circuit His processes in our lives, is our lack of trust in the fact that the road of our life may not be known to US, but IT IS known to HIM! Unless we are continually fuelled by our love for Jesus, and filled up daily on His Word, we can easily run out of love-to-give-away, and then the road ahead starts to become unclear!

Let yourself off the hook, none of us are ever going to fully understand His ways, by ourselves. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him?” But WE have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:16. There’s the answer! You and I have the same help Jesus had, the Holy Spirit and the bible and collectively – WE, together, the church, Christ’s body, has the Lord’s mind. Which is why our enemy continually tries to break churches up! People get cranky and they leave instead of working things out. That action has fragmented our collective knowledge of His goodness. And this is why we need to meet together, because – all by ourselves, we can be misled.

We need to relax into what He tells us in His written Word,  trust in His wisdom in our midst – and stop dividing other Christians into categories! Otherwise we will very quickly run out of fuel. We can be refuelled by His love for us, through others. This is why going to church is important, other people can input their insight into our lives. They can pray for us, and give us a word from Him.

We cannot afford to stop reading the Word of God to get to know Him and His ways. The bible is our heaven-sent manna to feed us spiritually every single day. It too, helps fuel our passion for Him. At the same time, the Holy Spirit gives us His GPS guidance to help us through the day ahead, even when the road in front of us is unclear, He knows the Way. Let’s remember that although the Lord can  give us, personally, insight, we still need each other. For encouraging prophetic words, kindness in an unkind world, and unconditional love when this world beats us up.

We can’t afford to run on empty. Our passion needs to be continually ignited by the bible, the Holy Spirit and each other.  Bye. 👋. 

P 3426 Dead is the new way to live. 

/ DVH

In Galatians 2:20, Jesus reminds us what this life is really all about. Paul said: “I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

This getting-dead process can be challenging sometimes. So the reality is, I choose to die to what I want, over and over again. Here’s what that means practically. Someone says something I think is provocative, so I ask for the Holy Spirit’s help, and I say nothing. Despite how provoked I feel, the Lord Himself will give me that soft answer He talks about from Proverbs. I’m just doing what Jesus told me to do, ‘turning the other cheek.’ If people cheat me and they lie to me, I pray a blessing over them until I mean it. In other words, I let the Lord Jesus fight my battles for me. It’s up to Him what happens to people who behave like that, He knows more about them than I ever could.   

This means I have deliberately chosen to live this life dead to what I want, and alive to what He wants. Let’s be clear, I am not talking about being mostly dead, or I wish I was … dead. What I mean is – I’ve chosen to die to the way I used to think about, relate to, and treat other people. Now, I owe them LOVE and I use my faith to trust Father God to help me with that. He clearly told me “that vengeance is His.”  Here is the Good News part of the gospel. Because of Jesus’ resurrection I don’t have to stay dead — now I have a new way to live, right here, right now. TODAY – and the power to do it.

Of course I will need the Holy Spirit’s help to live that way. But He won’t do it for me. I’m not a puppet, I’m a person who makes a choice.. I take a step of faith, and the Holy Spirit helps me to move forward. When I refuse to be angry back at someone else, He gives me something sweet to say to them, that helps to diffuse their anger. Meanwhile, you can’t pick a fight with a dead person, because they won’t say anything back. You could yell at them, if you want to, but … you’d be wasting your time. You’d be better off shouting into a black hole.

Each one of us has to choose to die to what we want, and come alive to the reason Jesus brought us here. But once we do, our thinking begins to change and we start to think like He does. Then the Holy Spirit helps us to use our God-given faith and hope in His goodness, to live a brand new way. It’s the way Jesus lived. We all know His plans are good for us, that’s also in the book! I’ve decided to trust what He said more than I trust what I can see going on around me. We choose to come alive to Christ and His Way of living and leave our past behind us, when we die to self and live for Him.

It is not humility when I say on this blog that Jesus helped me with this and that – it’s a fact. If I try really really hard to be what He has already given me for free, well — that’s when the trouble starts! I begin to lose my sense of His Presence with me, because my excuses for my own bad behaviour fill the air around me! The only Person Who can resurrect a dead person is Jesus. When He does that He makes them sweeter. Trying to resurrecting yourself and hold on tightly to being right, is a waste of time and energy. Whatever we try to do by ourselves doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. We will just wear ourselves out doing it, as well as becoming jaded, and losing hope. Give up. Die to self.

It is easy to tell when I have wandered off and given up living for Him – I want my own way. Day by day living His way is always a choice. Sadly, I can get offended before the poor schmuck with their foot in their mouth has finished their sentence. I am not at all nice to be around, especially if I try to change myself. I get mad at other people because they annoy me and they want their way. The safest, sweetest place to live, is to live this life using the faith He gave me. Then my priorities change. My focus needs to be on what He did. Not what I have or haven’t done. Like I said yesterday, “nothing can ever separate us from God’s love” — we have proof of that. Jesus died to make that statement eternal.

Many Christians cheerfully sing 🎵 “We are here for You, Jesus…”🎵and then everyone goes home and lives this life we have been given, for themselves again – often using heaps of energy to be ‘nice’ to people who aren’t ‘nice’ to them. Day by day, we are so focussed on our plans, our lives, our ideas, our success, our happiness, our money … plus our wellbeing. That isn’t the deal… not the one in His book! The deal is — He died for us — so now we live for Him. Meanwhile dead people don’t have aims, or opinions.

We don’t have to sit around, impassively, waiting for this stuff to fall on us. We need to aggressively choose to live this life of LOVE He provided for us and act it out. We take faith steps, and take up this new life He has given us. Let’s run, and choose to use our faith to do things His Way, for His kingdom’s sake. And read and re-read His book, daily refreshing our memory about what He has already said.

Choose to live a life of Love, it’s the outworking of our inward faith. Dead is the new way to live – because the Lord’s kind of new life can only blossom and bear fruit in dead people, who choose to live this life, His way. Bye. 👋

P 3418 Father God has a plan.    

/ DVH

“For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:24 TPT.  This verse is a revealed part of Almighty God’s plan for our lives. Iron sharpens iron, one scripture throws light upon another. We must eat it all, not just the bits we like, or think we need.

The life of God within us is designed to grow, flourish and prosper. “Beloved, I pray that in every way you may succeed and prosper and be in good health [physically], just as [I know] your soul prospers [spiritually].” 3 John 1:2. But if we happen to be ill or infirm, that is not necessarily an indication that something is wrong with our souls. We need to look at this verse very carefully. This is something John prays for the people he is writing to —he is praying a blessing over them and us.

I’ve watched dear Christian friends nearly turn themselves inside out trying to find out the reason they are sick. Let’s be quite clear – nobody likes being sick! But sadly sometimes our focus can shift over onto the illness and being healed, and it moves away from the Lord Himself. It is as if we feel God is withholding health from us and we don’t know why. I don’t know why either, but I do know God will not withhold any good thing from us! His plans are beyond our imaginings. My own personal experience cannot ever negate what He says — so I must be thinking amiss. 

The thing is, we need His definition of good not ours. Let’s remember it pleased our Heavenly Father to crucify His dear Son on our behalf. That was God’s plan! Imagine doing that with your child for billions of totally ungrateful people who don’t love You or appreciate You, and now they use His Name as a swear word! If our focus goes off following Jesus and being grateful for all He has done for us and given to us … we may easily start rabbiting around in the corners of our minds looking for reasons why we are not well. We can lose our peace! Father God does not mean for us to live in confusion and conflict – He has provided a way through. A different way to think.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Psalm 127:1a. Unless the Lord tells you how to chase that bunny rabbit of healing, you are missing out on the best part. The best part is always getting closer to Jesus! The bible says He is close to the broken-hearted. That’s God’s plan. Please don’t let what you don’t have, steal what He has already given you. Instead, start thanking Him for what you can see you have.

Part of His plan includes my obedience, if He says ‘come,’ I come — if He says ‘go’ I go. When we came to know Jesus, He saved us. Yet it is far too easy to forget that we gave our lives … this life, right here and now … AWAY. My only real sane choice is to obey, which means my feelings of inadequacy and helplessness aren’t the only reality. The way I regard what Jesus does in my life, is my gift to Him. I choose to yield to His plan, believe in His goodness. That doesn’t rely upon circumstances, it relies upon Who He is.

I know, that you know, that there is no sickness in heaven. Our problem is, we tell ourselves that being well will make it easier for us to serve Him, so we need to get well so we can serve Him better. That’s a terrific argument. But there are times when we need to focus on loving and serving Him, no matter what else is going on. You or I might meet someone in the next hospital bed who needs to hear from Jesus, and that person won’t go anywhere near a church. Paul was yielded to the Lord, yet he still went into jail – unfairly! But then he ministered to the guards and wrote those letters that still bless us today.

Let’s look at the people Jesus openly admired, because they show us His Ways aren’t like ours. The Lord honoured a tiny little old lady who gave two pennies. (Mark 12, Luke 21) There was a non-believer who knew more about submission and faith than most Christians do, and Jesus praised that man for it. (Matthew 8:9) And a fallen woman who washed His dirty feet with her tears. (Luke 7) Plus a tree-climbing tax collector who was so changed he gave away more than the law demanded as recompense for his thievery. (Luke 19). Not to mention a leprous man from another country who knew how to say thank you. (Luke17).  The Lord doesn’t think like we do.

Those people in the above scriptures didn’t know much about anything but pain, poverty, isolation, suffering and rejection, but they knew they needed Jesus’ help and they submitted themselves to Him. “My (Our) help comes from the Lord Who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:2) Choosing Him above the things in this life that will make our lives easier, is always the right choice. The Lord didn’t promise us, sunshine, lollipops and rainbows – He promised He would be with us in trouble.

Because we love the Lord we can have an abundance of His Love, wisdom, peace and joy in our lives in spite of our circumstances. Believe me, TRUE PEACE is better than a Maserati! He’s always doing something, we just don’t always know what it is. Meanwhile I often think we undervalue the importance of having enough. Father God always has a plan, that plan is to bring out the best in us and the people who live around us. It’s a good plan! Bye 👋 .

P 3395 He is faithful.

/ DVH

“For we have already experienced “heart-circumcision,” and we worship God in the power and freedom of the Holy Spirit, not in laws and religious duties. We are those who boast in what Jesus Christ has done, and not in what we can accomplish in our own strength.” Philippians 3:3 TPT.

We need to learn to use our faith in His goodness, no matter what is going on around us. Heart circumcision occurs when we allow the Holy Spirit to cut away all those things that will make us stumble, lose faith, become discouraged, or forget what Jesus died to give us. We are exhorted to worship God in the Holy Spirit’s power and the freedom we have already been given. We can stay in our old-life chains by choice, but those chains cannot actually bind us anymore! We must push against them using our faith. What binds us is our perception. It simply feels like we can’t do it. Remember satan always wants to illegally imprison us. 

It is always our choice to totally rely upon what the Lord Jesus said and did – despite the hard things we will face as we choose to live that way. Like a butterfly struggles to be free of its cocoon, you and I need to struggle against those whispers that run about our brain telling us ‘following Jesus is futile … it’s all too hard.’ All that ghastly stuff our enemy whispers to us in our darkest moments. Even our day-to-day circumstances can seem to conspire against us.  Like Paul said very succinctly in 2 Corinthians 4:8-10. 

“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.” 

What does this faith walk look like in real life? It looks like these verses describe — daily death to self, and complete surrender. We will have times of despair when we stretch and use our faith to live for Him. It is normal! Jesus suffered that way too. And living a life of love in this unloving world can be hard. But because we don’t just want to pay lip-service to God, then we must, with His help … conquer those things in our lives that want to cloud our view of Him and His will. 

Overcoming is not just about standing somewhere, looking victorious, with our flag lifted high, and light flashing off us everywhere!  It’s far more about that person who is bloodied and bruised and on their knees, weeping before their King. You can tell a seasoned saint, their love is more than skin deep. You and I may not always initially conquer stuff – but now we know where to go! This means we will fight our own thoughts, other people’s comments, our old tendency to sin, and circumstances. Plus other people’s sins against us.

As I have said before, God’s timetable and ours may not be the same, but the secret is to not quit, just because His ways are far above ours. His plans are already in place. When we defer to Him, we will be blessed to see Him do what He loves best – loving on people and setting them free. That includes US! Let’s remember what the bible says – first, last and always. The Holy Spirit’s goal is the total transformation of our hearts, souls, minds and bodies, so we can be in this world like He was.

“Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.” 3 John 1:2. Amen!

The reality is, our faith in His goodness will be stretched. Faith needs to be exercised, but just like physical exercise, it ain’t always fun! We can’t afford to skip reading the bible, praying, or living this life with Him centred in our thoughts. Our aim is to do what He says, so we purpose in our hearts to know and trust Him, no matter how things look. That is the place we choose to stand. And if I flop over, or you flop over in despair occasionally, there will be no judgment. We may have to wait to see what He will do, but in reality, our opinions aren’t worth a bean, be-cau-se … He always has a far better plan than we can imagine.

There can be times when we can’t find the Lord, or hear Him well enough to follow Him, and that is simply because our souls aren’t prospering. This has nothing whatsoever to do with how we feel, even though our feelings may be jumping up and down and shouting at us. Instead it has everything to do with Who and what we are looking at. We’ve been told to fix our eyes on Jesus – He’s the Author and Finisher of our faith. Disappointed eyes see so much less than faith-filled eyes can see. We are to live this life, cherishing His character and what He has done, and we refuse to budge.

Total commitment is essential to survival. Almighty God is not SomeOne Who serves us – it is the other way around – we serve Him. Our Christian walk is all about faith because: “…without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6. Remember Peter was looking at Jesus as he walked on the water, then he looked at his circumstances – and his faith fell over and his body started to sink. 

In the darkest of times we must “hold fast to what …(we know) …is good …” 1 Thessalonians 5:21. GOD IS GOOD, hold onto Him!  With all my heart I believe that there is true spiritual breakthrough in front of each and everyone of the members of His body. Let’s practice using our faith no matter what is going on around us. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for ”HE WHO PROMISED IS FAITHFUL.” Hebrews 10:23. Bye 🙏.

P3377 Psalm 54:1-7, and Matthew.   

/ DVH

“Save me, O God, by Your name; And vindicate me by Your [wondrous] power. Hear my prayer, O God; Listen to the words of my mouth. For strangers have risen against me. And violent men have sought my life; They have not set God before them. Selah. Behold, God is my helper and ally; The Lord is the sustainer of my soul [my upholder]. He will pay back the evil to my enemies; In Your faithfulness destroy them. With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to You; I will give thanks and praise Your name, O Lord, for it is good. For He has rescued me from every trouble, And my eye has looked with satisfaction (triumph) on my enemies.”

Psalms like this one make me smile. David is saying: “Git ‘em God! Git ‘em good!” Yet his confidence in the Lord’s timing stands out like a beacon. The Heir apparent, God’s anointed, approved and appointed King, David, was constantly on the run from King Saul, the reigning King. It was a long time after this that David prayed this Psalm that God Himself gave David two opportunities to take Saul OUT! He could have killed Saul twice, but… he… didn’t! (1 Samuel 24 – the cave in En Gedi and 1 Samuel 26 – the camp in Ziph.)

This shows us that an apparent opportunity, does not mean it is God’s intention for something to happen! King David had a heart toward God and he knew God’s Ways. I think He wanted what God wanted, over and above what he personally wanted or thought he needed. He spent somewhere between 7 to 13 years running and hiding all over the country-side from King Saul. 

Even as a much younger man, David proved himself to be brave, so his refusal to kill Saul was not cowardice. On the contrary his reverential respect for His Heavenly Father, meant David simply refused to touch the Lord’s anointed. The strangers he is talking about in Psalm 54 that want to kill him, could have easily been mercenaries sent by SAUL. 

The Lord always has a better plan than you and I. But His plans can be long-range. Sadly we can often only see to the end of our own noses, and we want instant relief from difficulties, not transformation. Change takes time, and we can grow ‘weary in the well-doing.’ Adjusting how we respond, plus co-operating with the Lord, can give us a brand new perspective. That answer is continually on the cards for our lives. This is why we need His guidance to get us through the time in between.

There are times when it looks like God is not answering our agonised, tearful and despairing prayers. We may feel overlooked – it seems like He has thrown us to the wolves and gone on holidays. This is the best time to hold fast to the FACT that He is always good and He ALWAYS has a bigger plan. Our part in that plan is to hold onto Him and believe He will get us through whatever is going on. That is not easy! Saul went for the immediate answer, kill the guy who is your opponent. But David let God Himself deal with the problem. We have to learn to take the Lord at His Word, grab His hand and hold on.

This brings me to my second scripture – where God is at work in a different way. Our faith in the Lord’s goodness is the only viable life raft in a stormy sea. Let’s look at what happened to Peter after he began to sink into the water, as he was walking on it. This verse shows us God’s goodness in the land of the living … or the-almost-drowning!  In Matthew 14:22,23 – it seems like the Lord is scolding Peter – yet this man’s doubt and fear seem perfectly natural.

In the Living Bible it says this: “Instantly Jesus reached out His hand and rescued him. “O man of little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt ME?” That little word ME is so valuable!! I can almost hear the Lord saying: “Do you think I would let you drown to teach you a lesson?” Then the Lord put Peter safely back in the boat because that is what Jesus is like. We can all act like Peter at one time or another, we too can become suddenly suspicious of Jesus’ motivation toward us, and we look around us to see if there is anything else there that can help us to cope. Sadly, the things around us cannot help us! Let’s press in and show our faith in Who Jesus is and honour His goodness, instead.

Whenever we stop and turn to face the wind and the waves, we are simultaneously taking our eyes off the Answer. Jesus is our Answer. Peter teaches us that crying out when you are afraid you are going under, isn’t dumb, it’s what we need to do. The man’s faith just needed to grow and mature beyond his hope of adventure. And King David teaches us that God always has a plan, but it may not always suit us or line up with our timing.

Sometimes OUR idea of faith is way beyond what we can actually manage to do, and at other times we can stretch further than we think we can. Failure is not an option with the Lord. He will deal with our enemies, and/or save us from our own decisions. He will always get each one of us back to a safe place…because that is what LOVE looks like. Psalm 54 and Matthew teach us that. Bye. 👋

P 3281 Doors an windows.

/ DVH

Whenever we can see our loving Heavenly Father at work, it could be a door, OR a window! What do I mean by that? A door opens life up to new possibilities for His plans in your own life – you can walk through it into a new place. A window shows you possibilities, but they are outside your reach. You can see stuff, but only from a distance. One creates action, the other can create despair and frustration… unless you prayerfully use what you see out of the window, to send you to the open door! An open door is not enough – you need the leading of the Holy Spirit and inner peace.

Christians talk about this stuff a lot. They often say that God has opened ‘a door’ for them to do such and such. Here’s what happened to Paul a couple of times … 2 Corinthians 2:12-14: “Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia.” Yet in 1 Corinthians 16:8&9. “But I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost. For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.” 

Don’t you just love it? Paul goes to Troas and finds ‘an open door’ but he had no peace.  Plus Titus, his companion in the Lord, wasn’t there. This next scripture from Acts, shows us what happened after that. You and I can see an open door, many times in our Christian lives but, the question to ask is this: is it OUR door, or is it simply a window showing us possibilities. The verse in first Corinthians explains something powerful, something we need to know. A door was open at Ephesus at another time too, and Paul went through it, yet he lingered there, despite the fact that there were many adversaries!

What does that teach us? Here’s my potted version … adverse situations and people don’t mean the door you want to go through is shut! You might want to think on that. Many a fine missionary has run into all kinds of adversity and adversaries, but that did not daunt them. They stayed true to their heavenly calling. The leading of the Holy Spirit is extremely important whenever we want to obey the Lord by “going out into all the world to preach the gospel.” And no peace is a sign that you are there all by yourself. Peace is our umpire! We will end up side-lined in the sin bin if we ignore the umpire! 

Over to Acts 16:6-12 it says: “And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them …” 

Do you see that? It was the right calling —- wrong place —- God redirected Paul through a vision. It seems to me that he saw something through a window, and then the Lord helped him find the right door! Father God is so merciful, He gave Paul that vision to help him go in the right direction. If you go somewhere for Jesus because you believe He called you to go — then first of all, like Paul, take a partner who has the same heart as you! Remember, in 2nd Corinthians Paul didn’t find Titus so he moved on, plus He had no peace. That’s because God wanted him elsewhere and Troas was not the place. 

If we read about this situation in Acts, we can see that the Holy Spirit Himself forbad them to speak in Asia. We simply must learn to follow the Holy Spirit, He will guide us. People have lost their faith doing something God Himself never called them to do. They went simply because there was an open door. Not every open door belongs to us. Prayerfully make sure it is your door! 

Because we are His — Almighty God controls our opportunities. Jesus Himself said this in the book of Revelation 3:7,8: “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the Holy One, the True One, Who has the key of David, Who opens and no one will shut, Who shuts and no one opens.” ‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept My word and have not denied My name.”

Ps did you notice that this church had little power? Having little power does not mean your church is a failure or you have missed it! Keep preaching the gospel and don’t lose your hopes or dreams of seeing the dead raised and the sick healed, keep them. Keep them alive by keeping in the Word. Pray for everyone who needs it… then leave the results to Him. All of those things are promised to people who believe and act on what He says, using His Name. My advice is to keep moving and acting on the Word of God, and always make Jesus the centre of what you do. Even if you went the wrong way – He has another plan for you.

God promises us that if He shuts a door no one can open it, and when He opens one then watch out!  Just because you can see something, that does not mean it is your responsibility – even Paul had to learn to listen carefully to the Holy Spirit and obey Him. The bible tells us that we are to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves, so please don’t let someone else’s rapidly growing church bring you down from where God put you. Praise God for their increase instead! Numbers don’t matter to the Lord, Jesus started out with only 12 men.

Like I said at the beginning of this blog, prayerfully check to see if what is in front of you is a door or a window. Make sure you wait on the Holy Spirit so you can spot the difference. You can have full confidence based on the book of Revelation that if it is a door God has opened in front of you, no man can shut it. Amen! Bye. 👋

P 3111 The fixed point.

/ DVH

Isaiah 43:4-11. “Since you are precious and honoured in My sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth—everyone who is called by My Name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.” 

Lead out those who have eyes but are blind, who have ears but are deaf. All the nations gather together and the peoples assemble. Which of their gods foretold this and proclaimed to us the former things? Let them bring in their witnesses to prove they were right, so that others may hear and say, “It is true.” “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me no god was formed, nor will there be one after Me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from Me there is no Saviour.”

Almighty God is giving us incredible reassurances in this scripture. It hits the spot for me. One of my kids and her daughter live way down South from where I live, so I have had to learn to hold fast to what the Lord  promises in His Word. When I read this passage, I feel such concern, compassion, and love from Him for myself, and the family I miss so much. Hubby’s family is way down South too!  Jesus wants us to know today, that it is part of His overall plan to bring all the lost, wandering, and far away sheep back together again. Praise Him!

Life today, seems very ‘stretched, intense, and stressful’ to me. People go on enormous holidays, and they think nothing of travelling great distances by plane. When I was a child, a big trip for us was travelling in an old car to go to Bendigo to visit my Great Grandmother. Yes, I was fortunate enough to know my Great Grandmother! It was not an easy journey to see her, but it was worth it! She’s with Jesus now – so our story together will one day continue.

Great Grandmother was my favourite person as a child – despite the distance between us. She and my Great Grandpop had chickens, grapevines, fruit trees and veggies. Her house was always spotlessly clean. Plus … boy could she cook! OK … I think I just momentarily  went way off track, thinking about her cooking. We used to drive up to Eaglehawk, which is just outside of Bendigo, a few times a year, and it seemed quite a distance in our ancient Rockne car. See pic above – that’s not our car BTW – that’s just the model. 

From Pretty Sally, the tallest hill around, to Bendigo is 140 kms and the distance from our home in Kew to that spot was 60kms. Yet in our long journey north we had to stop twice to put more water in the radiator. It took all day to get there, nowadays it only takes 2 hours in our modern cars! Our old car would always conk out at Pretty Sally Hill, and we’d have to wait for the radiator to cool down to put water in again. If you didn’t do that, you could crack the head, and then …bye bye, Rockne! The car would belch steam to let us know the water had boiled and we should stop. 

I loved all the little towns between Melbourne and Bendigo – today you bypass most of them. But on our journey, we’d stop, have an ice cream or a cup of tea – and then we’d start off again. Back then cars didn’t have any air conditioning except for opening the windows! And going to Bendigo seemed like the ends of the earth to a fidgety kid ten year old! I think I fell in love with the country at an early age. But distance is nothing to God. Wherever your family might be, wherever your memories are – nothing can stop God from reuniting people.

Today, lots of people visit the South Pole to see penguins in their natural habitat, for their holidays! And I can get from where I live to where my daughter lives by travelling in 2 hours on a plane. My point is a small one. Whatever the distance between you and your loved ones, Father God is promising, in this passage, to reunite all of us with Himself, and the ones we love and miss, simply because He is good and He has claimed us for His own. When you are His kid He looks after you! Even death cannot separate us from Him. The story of Lazarus proves that!

The Lord is establishing His authority and sovereignty, in this passage in Isaiah, and He reminds us that anything else that wants to push its way to the centre of our thoughts cannot legally come between us and Him. Even before Jesus died for us all, God always took care of His kids. His sovereignty is superb and supreme. Anything else that exalts itself against His will, has to fall away, and any other gods aren’t worth even talking about, in the light of Who He is. Today He wants to reassure us that He will keep His promises. Nobody else can do what He has done. Or what He is doing right now for you, and what He will continue to do to keep His promise to you and His plans for your future. 

That means His promises are totally secure – backed  up by something so incredible we can hardly conceive of it. WHO HE IS. You know – that’s what always comes under question when bad things happen to us. IS HE WHO HE SAYS HE IS? Our enemy uses doubt like a politician uses too many words. Father God tells us to hide His Word in our hearts, so we won’t sin against Him, for those times when doubt batters at us. But at the same time we are also learning that His Word is stronger than anything else in this world. 

Think about this: we are standing on what Father God said, and what the Holy Spirit DID about His proclamations. The Lord Himself is our fixed point in our endlessly wound up, merry-go-round world! Fractured families and friendships happen – but our God is mighty and consistently loving. He truly loves reconciliation, and He will always be faithful to His Word. Bye. 👋 

P 2974 Wake-up!

/ DVH

Sometimes I think the body of Christ in the West no longer has a song of deliverance, because we have our lives so busy and organised, there is no time to find out what’s really going on around us. It seems to me that a lot of the difficulties we face are seen as an interruption to our own personal definition of how this life should go! We pray ‘deliver us from evil’ and hope that will cover it. What a luxury we have!

We all live somewhere:  maybe we have a job and kids, their school stuff — this thing and that to do. We are so busy that we simply must continue to do things to maintain the rhythm of our lives.  Unlike our brothers and sisters in conflict areas all over this world… today more than ever, Christians are living their lives like a people who have forgotten Who He is, and what He has done, and what we OWE Him! Instead we sing “Live for Jesus” then go home and live for ourselves. We spend our  precious time here maintaining the things of this world.. 

I wonder what happened in Lazarus’ life after he came out of that tomb? You see this man knew, first hand, what it was to die … and then be given a new chance at this life. Are you sure your ‘new life’ is making a whole lot of difference? Maybe we need to become more acquainted with other people’s suffering and sorrow, instead of wallowing around in our own disappointment… all because we missed out on the brand-new bargain TV on sale! Our wonderful God is so much BIGGER than the Person we’ve made Him out to be. We see Him as SomeOne Who is supposedly hanging about waiting for bad things to happen to us  – so He can bail us out of them!  We serve HIM, it says so in the book.

After all, this is Almighty God we are talking about, and I don’t think it is appropriate to fit Him in around the edges of our already well-established lives, do you? I know, we have plans, things we aim at … but what about His plans? Did He just save us so we can go to heaven in the sweet bye and bye? Or does He have something for us to do with this new life He has given us?

How can we ever know the sweetness of His deliverance from hell and death, when we are often too busy, or scared, to be obedient and take a risk?  The Lord needs a people who are prepared to take risks all over the place just to bring glory to His Name. We cannot have our cake and eat it too – we must DENY ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. That kind of life is never going to be convenient, the time is never going to be right, and … obedience is not an optional extra!

Here’s something to rattle everyone’s cages: “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easy going formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.”  Matthew 7:13. MSG. I wish someone would tell me why we all work so hard to be on the wide road of ease, when the bible is quite clear, that road is the wrong road. This life is not meant to be easy!

Jesus Himself also said this, through Peter in I Peter 4:12.“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test you [that is, to test the quality of your faith], as though something strange or unusual were happening to you.” They are a big part of this new life we’ve been called to embrace. They are not interruptions to the routine of our household, even though they sometimes seem like that! They are opportunities to stretch and strengthen our faith.

Hardly any of us are interested in being missionaries to Africa, or an Asian country, or our local suburb! Most of the time we can barely manage the day to day difficulties that pop up regularly — those things that keep us distracted from our main purpose. Our main purpose now is to live for Him not just survive! Did Jesus settle down in a little flat somewhere in Jerusalem and hold bible study meetings every third Wednesday? He did not! He fought for us and died and then He left us in charge. Boy does HE know the meaning of faith!!

If this world is a mess then it is because the church has been silent for far too long, because we are afraid of the consequences of speaking out. We need to faithfully pray for those dear brothers and sisters who are living in conflict areas all over this world. Those people who are still faithful to their heavenly calling. These people face horrors beyond imagining, simply because they have chosen to follow Him! These are the real heroes of the faith today. They live by faith daily. And they are not just victims of geography either … Unlike us, they are unable to think ‘ aren’t we lucky because we live somewhere safe?’  

The Bride of Christ in the West is enjoying an enormous indulgence – we are asleep in the light. Sadly we’ve sometimes been known to pitch a fit if we can’t get eggs at the supermarket this week. It’s time to wake up and do the things God previously planned for all of us to do.“My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives His life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God Who loves me so much that He gave Himself for me, dispensing His life into mine!”Galatians 2:20 TPT. Bye. 👋

P 2641 Here’s something chunky to chew on:

/ DVH

“The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him – (Jehoiakim ) – to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by His servants the prophets. Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.” 2 Kings 24:2-4.

In this passage we are told that Almighty God punished all of Judah for something a previous king had done. Good place to stop and think! Meanwhile Jehoiakim, the current king, was a bad king as well. However, the Lord’s punishment came 90 years later! Think about it. People who weren’t even born under Manasseh’s reign were still part of the Lord’s punishment! Everyone was carted off to Babylon. But the king who actually did all that bad stuff was already dead!! That puts a whole lot of things in a different light. Father God’s plan was for restoration for that whole nation – their plan was to keep on doing what they wanted to do. Guess Who won?

This scripture also shows us that God may WAIT to do whatever He said is going to do, but … He WILL do it!! He was standing up for His prophets who kept telling everyone – “Wrong way go back!” His long pause was about waiting for the people of Judah to repent. In the book of 2 Kings, as the prophets foretold, the whole of Judah was carried off as captives to Babylon. I’m guessing “I didn’t vote for that guy Manasseh, He wasn’t a good leader” didn’t cut much mustard with the Lord!! They ALL went off to Babylon. They were given time to turn around, and they didn’t. ‘That’s not fair’ isn’t part of His thinking – it’s the way WE think. It seems to me that our idea of good and His idea of good – are two different things.

We weigh up this and that, and forget that God has a plan! There are times that He might tell us about it … but just because whatever He said hasn’t happened yet, that doesn’t mean He’s gone to sleep at the wheel. Acknowledging His sovereignty means we trust Him no matter what is going on. We are told in the New Testament that we can appeal His decisions, but that still doesn’t guarantee we will change things. Interacting with the Lord over things that we would like to see changed, or even people we wish would change – may not always seem fruitful because His plan is for everyone’s good – not just ours.The secret is to ask Him what He is doing, instead of asking Him to rubber-stamp what we think is good for us. 

The bit that often irritates us is we don’t like to think we don’t have any power. We know that Jesus is King, we know the King – what’s the hold up?? Here’s a revelation I’d like to offer: We will always have power to perform whatever He tells us to do! ← ya might want to Selah that for a while.  In other words, we are not given power to show off, make friends, avoid trouble, get big churches or to demonstrate our own personal POV. Beware, sometimes the Lord has a very different purpose and destiny for us in our stupidity. 😳 That thing that seems OK with us can lead to us wondering why we fell off a cliff. (Proverbs 14:12.)

Human beings like to make their own plans. Sometimes they are even founded on something that the Lord told us to do, and so we merrily go off and start to do it. Then something happens, and we can end up wondering: ‘where did He  go?’ It’s time to remember, that Almighty God loves relationship. Relationship is not about one person organising another – it is about two people finding common ground and moving forward. Our God is happy to negotiate but because He is wiser than we are, there will be many many times when He gets the final say! His way has benefits for everyone, not just ME.

However, we can always ask Him what His plan is in this situation, or that, or that person’s circumstances or that. and then pray accordingly. What am I saying is this: WHY NOT LET GOD BE GOD?!Human beings are wonderful at taking something dodgy and dressing it up in fine clothes and phrasing it so it sounds like it will benefit everyone. But the subtext often is it that it will benefit ME. Like Yoda says in Star Wars: “See through you we do.” We are no longer living in a democracy – we have been born again into a Theocracy.

Yes, we can always negotiate, and put in our two cents worth, but at the same time, we need to remember, the Lord has all the information! And He is looking for us to have faith in Him and trust Him. People who have little faith in God make their own plans! But He knows the plans He has for us, plans for our good, plans to give us hope and a future. We need to trust HIS PLANS instead of tweaking this and that so it suits us better. The best part of His plan is that He will come with us when we want to do things His Way. 

Is He a God of mercy and grace? Of course He is! It says so in the book. But He is looking for a people who are happy for Him to be God, and at the same time they are happy to be His people. Read the bible! His disappointment with the Israelites, over and over again, makes me want to weep. The Israelites wanted a token god, one they could put on a shelf and forget about until they needed help or some victory, or deliverance. He’s NEVER been that! But this is a good time to reflect on the fact that God’s overall plan included letting us kill His Son so we can be utterly restored – from sins we never should have committed in the first place!  Selah.

Sadly we can still make that mistake today. Ask yourself, do I talk to the Lord to get to know Him, or do I do it to get my prayers answered? The way to flow with the Lord, is to run things by Him, then take the time to wait to get an answer. Ask Him for His mercy and grace, because He will always give it – and then watch and see what He will do with your trust in Him. I can’t even begin to say how many times I’ve run past doing stuff His way, in my enthusiasm to get things done. However, there was always an unforeseen cost.

We want pain and suffering to go away, but God can use it to transform us and our motivations – as well as touch the people around us.  And that’s something else chunky to chew on! 👋