Holy Spirit

P 3270 The impossible is easy for the Lord …

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P 3269 The Spirit of Truth.

/ DVH

My heartfelt apologies if you tried to access my site – firstfloormessages.com. My server has ongoing problems, I recommend WordPress for access until the problem is resolved. The tech team is working on it.

“And I will send you the Divine Encourager from the very Presence of my Father. He will come to you, the Spirit of Truth, emanating from the Father, and He will speak to you about Me. And you will tell everyone the truth about Me, for you have walked with Me from the start.” John 15:26-27 TPT. When I read this scripture today, the first thing that jumped out at me is the fact that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of TRUTH. It seems to me that our society is in love with ‘grey’ areas, and we don’t live our lives openly and honestly anymore. It means we can easily miss what the Lord wants to say to us, or to lovingly say to others. Purity is about our proximity to the Holy Spirit. We want to create an atmosphere He loves by following His instructions in the Word.

Most people work hard, struggle financially, and engage with the media to relax and escape from the pressures of life. That’s actually called evasion. Postponing problems won’t fix them or get us into a fit state to face them either. We have been saturated in what the media says and thinks. It is full of lies, and I am not just talking about the politicians! Every time we watch a fictional movie we are actively embracing being lied to. It is not nothing, it frames our subconscious thinking! Actors are actually extremely good liars! Even things like reality shows are staged strategically to appeal to our baser selves. We have been reduced to spectators, instead of being participators in this life. It seems we are embracing the spirit of this world, not the Spirit of truth, but we want the Lord of All to fit in around all of it!

I’m not against TV – I watch it! However, true reality is not happy ever after – it’s the dirty dishes, going to work, no parking, a screaming baby, the cat throwing up on the carpet, or an unexpected bill. The bible says things like this:

• But seek FIRST His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. – Matthew 6:33

• Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, with prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. – Philippians 4:6

• Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. -Romans 12:12

• But those who wait on the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint. – Isaiah 40:31

• Whoever DWELLS in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. – Psalm 91:1

What we choose to focus our lives on matters. We can live in fiction, or distraction or in His shelter. Doing both is called double-mindedness. We are blocking our ears to the very Person Who knows what comes next. So let’s just ask the Lord: ‘should I watch this?’  …’What do You think about this show Lord?’ If He doesn’t like it then don’t watch it. Can you honestly see Jesus kicking back in a comfy chair with chips on His lap, and His feet up, watching ‘Bambi’, because He walked a long way and prayed for so many people, and now He needs to chill out? So why didn’t the Lord do pointless things to relax?  

He was busy seeking first the kingdom of God. Jesus knew He was here on assignment. SO ARE WE. Prayer, waiting on Him, and reading the bible, etc. takes time and the benefits of making these things a priority often comes later. It is the Holy Spirit’s great joy to help us find our way through the maze of stuff that goes on daily. Seriously there is no such thing as minutiae to the Holy Spirit. He is our Helper. We need to prayerfully cultivate our relationship with Him, by not grieving Him or ignoring Him, when He speaks to us, then turn His instructions into actions.

If we are still giving into grey areas, perhaps we have not taken the opportunities He has given us to hone our listening skills. If we choose to ignore Him, He will go away! Sadly, this world is going to hell – on our watch! If we feel we need to escape from the life we are living, then we need to fast and pray and ask the Lord why? What is making me so dissatisfied with my life? Just be aware that the Lord won’t blame other people for our decisions and actions — He will simply reveal ME to me. I vote we all stop allowing distraction to ‘dull’ our spiritual senses.

We cannot afford to want to live this life both ways. We have already given up our right to live this life however we want. Ananias and Sapphira decided to cheat on their income tax, so they fudged the books. And yes, I know that’s not what the story is about, I am exaggerating to illustrate – not lying! 🤣… Those guys dropped dead immediately.  A bit severe wouldn’t you say? NO! The Holy Spirit was such a treasure to the Apostles and disciples, that they would not tolerate the lie. Pause and think on that. The Spirit of truth is our Treasure, now too.

Valuing the Lord and His Presence is our assignment. We can’t afford to partake of this current society that paints black white, then calls it OK-grey! We need to know, hear and obey the Spirit of truth. He is our most valuable asset. Jesus thought so much of the Holy Spirit’s ministry, He wouldn’t go anywhere without Him …  … and then He sent Him back to help us. Bye. 👋

P 3263 God’s Will is challenging.

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P 3262 What language does God speak?

/ DVH

This could blow your mind, it blew mine. Just out of the blue this morning the Lord said to me: ”What language do I speak?” WOW! … I mean I wasn’t even praying or anything! We know that the Lord speaks every language of man but does HE also have a language?… I decided to go with what Ezekiel wisely said instead:“Only YOU know Lord.” Then He reminded me that He can speak every language on the planet and all the languages of angels. Plus the unutterable sighs and groaning of the human heart. WOW … again! 🤯 In fact, we don’t even have to speak, because the Lord already knows. (Psalm 139:4)

Over the years, I’ve learnt that when the Holy Spirit asks me a question, it’s time to be quiet and listen, He’s about to teach me something I don’t know. So I put a sock in it and listened. This is what He told me:“I speak faith,  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control..” Colour me flabbergasted. It took me ages to even comprehend what that means – I think of those things as actions.

First of all, it rocked my world to find out that these things we call spiritual gifts or traits, are languages! Then I realised that many people call ‘love’ a language. I know that Jesus is our perfect example of these things we call fruit… but are these things also God’s language? Off we go! In Psalm 139:6 it says:“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”  I’m so-o going to need His help!

I kept on praying about it, and then I read this:“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, the Word was God.” John 1:1. Our Lord Jesus, is His Father’s language in human form. 🤯 Jesus Christ is God’s living LANGUAGE. The more I prayed over this, with the Holy Spirit helping me, the more I started to remember other scriptures. God also speaks faith! He spoke this world into being when there was nothing – that’s faith! The Holy Spirit went off and did what Almighty God said, and that too was faith!!  Faith is a language – our universe and beyond were founded on His Words, and then Holy Spirit turned the language into an action. 

Adam and Eve blew it when they disobeyed and ate the fruit. They stopped speaking the languages God had given them, when the devil slithered in and taught them to speak doubt! A questioning perversion of the language of faith. Faith has a way to speak, and it originates in God, and freely obeys Him. Here’s an interesting thought for free: Moses lifted up his staff over the Red sea and Psalm 114:3 says: “The sea SAW it, and fled…”  The SEA saw WHAT? The staff of authority in Moses’ hand! There are many bigger ways to see and understand the things of God than we can imagine – sadly we’ve restricted ourselves to just MAN’s knowledge.

My hubby had this thought: “Jesus spoke PEACE to the sea when it was turbulent.” That rough sea obeyed the Lord immediately He spoke faith to it. When the Lord said “Peace be still,” He was speaking one of His Father’s languages. He told the disciples once in John 12:49 “For I have never spoken on My own initiative or authority, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment regarding what to say and what to speak.”

Let’s look at another one of the things that we call fruit, but God uses them as one of His languages. I picked patience. When someone is speaking to a little child and the little one doesn’t understand them, we will often say that the person is speaking patiently to the child. Patience has a tone, It is another kind of language. That language can speak to human beings as well as animals etc. and get the same response. It relaxes and soothes. God’s languages are spoken for the other person’s well-being. 

The kingdom of God down here on this earth has a voice. These kingdom languages help us to serve, know and honour the Lord, as we learn to speak them. He uses us to speak His language to others. We dare not waste our time speaking ‘man’ – we need to learn to speak His language everywhere we go – by believing and listening to what He says and acting on it. That’s how His Word begins to transform our language – when His Word becomes our language! We will learn how He speaks, when we stop predicting what we want to hear from the Lord, and take the time to wait for Him to speak to us.  

Like I said at the top of the page, the Holy Spirit shared this with me, but let’s be totally clear, my brain is not smart enough to come up with these thoughts! We need the Holy Spirit to teach us our Father’s native tongue … so we can be pure in our speech. Purity of speech isn’t about throwing out swear words, or criticism, or hate – it’s about learning to speak LOVE. The bible says: “That which is not faith is sin.”  We often go for avoiding the negative – instead of participating in the positive. 

We could be outwardly speaking well of others — but in our hearts, which are open to Him at all times, what do we really think? What are we projecting toward other people – His languages of faith, hope and love? Or are we speaking from the hurt of the past …and head knowledge… which can be a dead language. What language does our Father speak? – I think it is love. And you can be sure He speaks your language too. Bye. 👋

P 3261 What are we walking toward?

/ DVH

If you and I want to see other people, (Christian or not), the way Jesus sees them, then we will need heavenly eyes that can see beauty in the midst of a pile of ashes. And even if we are in mourning, we are still able to find His JOY. We will sincerely praise Him, even when we feel lower than a snake’s belly and people are after us! What we need is the kind of Love that does not falter ... please don’t settle for less!  And the way to get these heavenly things, the things that money cannot buy, is to be obedient to the things Jesus taught us to do.

“This love means living in obedience to whatever God commands us. For to walk in love toward one another is the unifying commandment we’ve heard from the beginning.” 2 John 1:6 TPT. The reason we are so separated as a Body is thatwe are not walking in Love toward each other! Do you have anyone in your life that you want to run away from them? Me too. Some people scare me. But John tells us that God’s Love causes us to walk toward one another. That isn’t a suggestion, it’s an instruction – we need to use our faith. 

Sadly, we think if we can’t do that, then that’s OK, God will understand it’s a bit too hard, especially when we promise to try harder next time. John, BTW, doesn’t say TRY, he just says do it. Because doing it is what obedience looks like and Jesus has provided us with the power to participate. Many earthly relationships are shattered because we believe a lie. The lie is that other person is too hard for God to change. Here’s a thought, maybe we need to change, and when they meet with a transformed ‘me’ then perhaps the other people will change their responses! There is nothing like mixing things up a bit!!

Jeremiah says in 32:17:’Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! There is nothing too difficult or too wonderful for You—“  When we read the above scripture we can see that our reality is not what Jeremiah said! Our belief system is faulty. We cheerfully sing … ‘Nothing is too difficult for thee’ … and then go out and act like what we just sang isn’t true. Um,,, that’s called hypocrisy.  FYI, saying one thing and doing another is called … hypocrisy. We are much better off to be honest with the Lord and talk about it with Him with an open bible in front of us. Just be honest and tell Him ‘I don’t want to.” Then repent for disobedience. The Holy Spirit wants to show us the way forward, and if we wait for Him – He will help us.

Any negative responses in us can be triggered by fear, or anger, or thinking we are not strong enough, as well as …just plain old rebellion! This can include: “Why should they get away with hurting me?” Because our sin hurt Him! He paid, in full so now we CAN be obedient if we use our faith instead of our faulty imagination. The reality is: “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. That means I can love you even though outwardly you are pricklier than the ‘jumping chola cactus’ pictured above. That’s a cactus that apparently grabs you if you even remotely brush by it. Looks nasty doesn’t it?? OW!! I know quite a few chola cacti people – boy, are they a challenge! 

The point is this: If Almighty God Who made the heavens and the earth says I can do it, then I can do it. Not because I am clever, and not even because I can be obedient … although that helps! But because He said so!  We can’t afford to pick and choose what we decide we will believe. We need to go back to: ‘HE SAID SO,”Let’s repent and go at it again… and again… and again. Always remembering that God looks at our hearts and He helps us when we act in faith. The Lord knows when we don’t want to do stuff, but He is happy when we value what He values. 

Jesus didn’t shirk away from doing the hard things, just  because human beings can be hard to love. He continued to lovingly walk toward those who were going to destroy His life. Because we want to be like Him, we need to participate in the things He did. The difference for us is this— SomeBody else went down those roads to give us His power to overcome those very things that seem to be impossible. Now, we have His strength available to us to help us to do the very things we don’t want to do. Jesus didn’t run away from the cross – however, He was honest about how He felt about it. 

Hey! Personally I get up tight when I have to go to the dentist, eye doctor or the hospital etc. I ask people to pray for me or I can’t  go in the right spirit. I want to approach the staff wherever I go with love, not fear. Hope not despair. I can’t afford to let some nasty imagined outcome, spoil my day. We need our peace it keeps us going.This is what happens when we learn to value what the Lord valued – we keep our peace!

Walking toward each other is always going to be hard. Human beings have a way of pecking at each other’s faults like grumpy chickens. And the further we are away from some people, the better everyone looks!  Walking toward each other seems dangerous, but it means we are prepared to take a risk. Let’s start walking with Grace Himself guiding us, and trust the Holy Spirit to get us through what happens next. The love bit comes later. Bye. 👋

P 3260 Always our choice.

/ DVH

“Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything —every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.” 2 Corinthians 9:8 TPT. Amazing isn’t it? Here it talks about the clear reality that God has given us so much Grace that now we have more than enough to give away. It’s in writing, in Jesus Christ’s WILL and WE benefit. 

Everybody likes abundance. I do too! But I wonder how often we are tested on that particular concept … ?? It feels to me like I’m tested daily to be honest! If you are tired, ill, young, old, especially or you don’t have what everybody else appears to have… all that stuff we think we need. Those things we seem to be missing out onwill come and sit on us and camp there. Removing our God-given view of the eternal. The problem is, for years we have thought that Almighty God is here to indulge US! 

Look, I’m very happy for the Lord to ‘supply all my needs according to His riches in glory‘ … Whoo-pp-eee!! Yes, please! But IS THAT what this verse is actually about? Hmmm. Please note it says… ‘according to HIS riches in glory.’  Our Heavenly Father’s idea of riches is totally different than ours! Jesus is rich in all of the Graces that this life needs… and… I am not … a-n-d … neither are you. Not unless we start to use our faith. 

He has infinitely more Grace than I can ever imagine, and He won’t run OUT… e-v-e-r.  So, because I am now in Christ Jesus — I don’t have to run out either! That’s what Calvary did for all of us. When we choose to follow the Lord and obey Him, we are potentially rich in the things that last. The thing we need to ask ourselves is this, are we appropriating what we have been given? Or do we bleat ‘it’s too hard ‘ like a lost sheep waiting for the Shepherd to come and rescue us all the time.

Have we become so busy with earthly riches we’ve forgotten all of His benefits for us? “Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [ONE OF] all His benefits” – Psalm 103:2 AMPC. It’s all a done deal! He has already given us His Grace, now we can’t afford to let our hearts forget what He did! The Lord could care less about worldly wealth. He knows it can disappear in a heartbeat. Let’s list some of His real benefits. 

1. He forgives our sins. (Matthew 6:12)

2. He heals our diseases. (Exodus 15:26)

3. He redeems our life from destruction. (Psalm 34:22)

4. He crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies (Luke 15:11-24)

5. He satisfies us with good things (James 1:17)

6. He renews our youth like the eagles. (Isaiah 40:31)

7. He executes righteousness and judgment for all the oppressed. (Matthew 11:38-30).

8. He makes His ways and His acts known to us.

Stop for a minute and just breathe. You and I, right here, right now, have access to Jesus’ own unlimited supply of His Father’s Love, the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, salvation, redemption, a brand new heart, plus a new way to live. And… AND!! … HEAVEN IS OURS!  Are these benefits or what? Let’s not ever forget that we have Grace, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control … These things now belong to us. Why on earth should we worry about money, etc. when heaven belongs to us? Jesus died so we can have all this heavenly stuff that changes our lives, here and now. 

So how do I get it? Glad you asked me that!  “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. ASK for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?” Matthew 7:7-11.

A.S.K… Ask, and then A.C.T. — it’s a piece of cake. We’ve all been given faith – now we need to use it to enter into the riches Jesus won on our behalf at Calvary. Does anybody out there think that they will need love, joy, peace, patience, etc. IN HEAVEN?? Me neither. We need it down here! What the heck are we waiting for? We cannot afford to have His heavenly riches as an add-on to earthly ones. The earthly riches will distract us, and cause us to forget the heavenly ones. And, before you know it, how we feel becomes more important than loving others. 

We need to use our faith not our feelings. We can lose our peace because we are struggling with, and for, the things that do not last. Bad move. I’m with Joshua — smart guy Joshua! … He stayed behind in the tent of meeting and learnt stuff from God Himself, personally. He received wisdom and heavenly priorities in that tent! “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:25. Joshua made a personal CHOICE. He chose to do things God’s Way. It was permanent and irrevocable – he didn’t forget God’s benefits. 

We can continue to scramble around in the dust like a chicken looking for worms, and forget to use our God-given blood-bought ability to fly high — OR we can fly like eagles and renew our strength. It’s always our choice. Bye. 👋

P 3257 It’s time to get the band back together.

/ DVH

Years and years ago, when I was a much younger Christian, I loved reading instructional Christian books, plus I listened to tapes, music, and videos, everything I could. I was trying to grow my faith. I desperately needed to belong, to feel like a part of the Body of Christ. You know, there’s a whole lotta of odd people out there who really really need Jesus – we all might want to think about that. Back to it … eventually, I realised I was reading the bible and understanding it through someone else’s filter!

The Holy Spirit truly is the very best Teacher, He explains things first-hand – personally! There’s nothing like getting your own revelation from His book. Back then, whenever I read 1 Corinthians 13, I read it through other people’s interpretations to help me understand it. My thoughts were ‘boy do I fail at that!’ No wonder I felt a failure, at that time I had no idea how complete the Lord’s redemption was on my behalf. Like Paul said in Galatians 3:3 MSG bible: 

“Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!”

I believed my sins were bigger than what Jesus did. So when I messed up … and I did, a lot … I was shattered. Yeah, I know, that makes no sense at all. The Lord has a whole new kingdom reality for all of us. Sadly, at that time, I just had too much luggage that I dragged along behind me! To top it all off I erroneously believed this kind of stuff was true Christianity, and I was just really really bad at it. 

You see, people in my family or the church still irritated me, and when they were unkind, I wanted to run away, or thump them. Eventually, I became ill. So getting healed became my new focus. I figured I had become sick because I was failing the Lord all the time. I just want to strongly insert the fact that Jesus is not like that! 

But at that time, I jumped into every single healing line I could find, simply because I badly wanted to be well! Instead I just got sicker, and that added a further burden. It seemed to me that I must be a terrible Christian because I was ill in a generation that thought if you were sick it was your own fault! For years I wandered around thinking God had given up on me. And getting divorced did not help that perception. 

I know there are verses that clearly talk about divorce, and yes, I accept them! God definitely says don’t do it! However, He’s also merciful – He explains WHY. Participating in a divorce makes our hearts hard. Even though I repented up one hill and down the other, I had hardened my heart against any sort of redemption by Him. Unbelief is still sin! Works will do that to you. They will cut you off from true redemption and also real gratitude. It’s hard to be grateful when living for Jesus is a whole lot of hard work, and you can’t do it.

I guess I saw Almighty God as SomeOne Who held a grudge, like most people I had met. And I thought I deserved to be rejected. In that process I lost the One Person Who dearly, eternally loved me. At that time, I had no comprehension of unconditional love. If you happen to feel like that, I would like to testify to you that the Lord Jesus is not keeping a score of our sins against us. He can’t, His blood wiped them out!! At the same time, I hadn’t properly personally digested 2 Corinthians 5:19: “…that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favour with God].”

It’s pretty hard to go out and tell others about the reconciliation that exists in Christ, when we aren’t living in it! Eventually, through the patience of a dear old minster, I came to see that the Lord Jesus is the One Who knelt beside a woman who was taken in adultery. and He also dealt with the people who wanted to stone her. Once He sat by a well and talked with a woman who had had five husbands … He didn’t give either of these women permission to live like that! However, the Lord altered the course of  both of their lives just by being Himself! The love and power of God is like that – it sets people free. 

I believe the church world-wide needs to go after the Lord’s lost sheep. The bible clearly tells us the Shepherd always does! Those broken, beaten sheep who have wandered away – or maybe they were even shoved out because the church didn’t want to be contaminated by their sin. Let’s ask the Lord to help us to win back our brothers and sisters – mothers, fathers, friends, rabbits and relations. The Body cannot function without ALL its parts. We need to be like Paul and participate in their reconciliation and restoration. So let’s love them OUT of their isolation. Maybe they are ready to repent and come back! 2 Corinthians 2:5-11.

How about we stop shooting the wounded, or leaving our broken-hearted members behind? And ask the Lord if we can be used by Him to restore them instead. Let’s get the band back together. Who knows what God will  do when we embrace others who have gotten lost along the way? Bye. 👋

P 3254 It ain’t rocket science.

/ DVH

Hubby and I are blessed to attend a ‘missionary church.’ Our pastor is a missionary to this country, and his aim is to raise up missionaries for other countries, as well as right here … to go and preach the gospel. He is not concerned about numbers – our numbers can sometimes be few – but his aim is to get the gospel out there and encourage others to take it seriously and start living for Jesus. I think every church should have this aim. My question is today — where are our missionaries from the world-wide church?

I have a few observations to make about this subject. Most denominational, Pentecostal, and Charismatic churches have traditionally sent out missionaries to other countries. However, each group has their own individual slant on the bible. Who cares? As long as they preach the gospel – hallelujah! However, it is so easy to judge a missionary’s prowess by evident spiritual gifts as well as numbers, and a well-formed character comes second. My question is:  how will these people in strange environments respond to difficulties?

Meanwhile, people in the Western world leave their churches all the time and many start a new church to validate their version of doctrine. UM!! We weren’t saved to validate God’s doctrine! He can take care of it by Himself, thank you very much. We’ve been commanded/told to preach Jesus! I’m not trying to be critical because I know the aim is to make our churches grow – because each church wants to see people saved.Their purpose may well be pure, but they seem to think bigger, means better…  and I don’t! Bigger can mean more passengers, not participants.

It is tremendously sad for the world-wide church to be divided over individual interpretations of the bible. God’s wisdom is many-sided or faceted, it says that in Ephesians 3:10 AMP:“[The purpose is] that through the church the complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety and innumerable aspects might now be made known to the angelic rulers and authorities (principalities and powers) in the heavenly sphere.”  What we see depends on where we are standing. Our finite brains can’t contain ALL His truth, we simply get little revealing glimpses of it.

Here’s an odd example of how misinformation works. A few blind men, found an elephant by accident. They didn’t know what it was. One man found the tail, so he thought an elephant was like moving rope. Another felt the skin, he thought the elephant was like wrinkled paper, etc. My point is this, when it comes to the precepts of God we are all still blind and sometimes, sadly, arrogant with it! I am not more right than you and you are not more right than me. Only Jesus Himself is Truth. But we both have gleaned little snippets of His wisdom along the way. However, we are here to make HIS name great and I’m not sure that can happen easily, when we decide we are here to push our doctrines and agendas. 

Whenever I write this blog, my dearest hope is that the reader will fall in love with His Word and go and look things up in the bible for themselves. My words can only have power in them IF the Holy Spirit kisses them for your ears. Otherwise I am bonging away, doing my best ‘gong’ imitations, hoping someone can hear me. In other words — please don’t follow me, follow Jesus. Here is another version of the above scripture in Ephesians 3 MSG bible, the Apostle Paul is speaking: 

“This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.                                     

And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, Who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels.” 

Paul was a missionary. He and the other disciples set out to follow Jesus’ instructions, and make disciples, not converts. Simon the sorcerer was a convert! This is what real commitment looks like: hundreds of years ago, the 18th century Moravian church sent out missionaries to preach the gospel to leper colonies. These men knew they were never coming back, they would die there. They left behind their own little families, their homes, their churches, and sailed away never to return to their homeland. Such was their devotion to the gospel. At the last glimpse of them they were standing on the deck of the ships that would take them away forever, and cried out until they could no longer be heard: “May the Lamb receive the reward of His suffering!”  Personally, I find that very challenging. That’s character!!

Missionaries are sent into this world to preach the gospel into places where it is not preached. They need to be mature in their faith. Enthusiasm is great, but nothing beats a changed character. We don’t go out to grow our churches or push our doctrines, we go to preach Jesus and what He did for mankind. Doctrine confuses people,and the Lord Jesus died to unite us. As His disciples/missionaries we are instructed to tell everyone we know the good news — that Jesus Christ loved them so much, He came here to save them! It ain’t rocket science.🚀 Bye. 👋

P 3252 Letting Go – lets Him IN!

/ DVH

“As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us.” Hebrews 12:1 TPT.

We have a path God has prepared for us to run on. We are not running along aimlessly, bumping into things, we have been chosen to run in the same race our Saviour ran in. Imagine that! A race that will glorify our Heavenly Father! We simply can’t afford to hold onto old wounds, or other people’s sins against us. Instead, let’s ask the Lord for healing, extend forgiveness, and then make a quality decision not to go over these things again … and move on. When you get angry with someone, put the energy produced into something else! I don’t recommend punching out their lights BTW.

Our enemy tries to trick us that if we let go of stuff, we will not get any resolution – those people who hurt us will get away with it. That’s a lie from the pit.  Jesus Himself brings resolution and redemption everywhere He goes! Let Him in, He is a Redeemer, Healer, Comforter, Trusted Advisor. This type of thinking simply brings death with it – it is sent to torment us. It is like running around with one foot nailed to the floor. We go nowhere. These things tie us into the here and now – and we forget our purpose! 

We can’t afford to live like that –  holding onto grudges, or perceived slights from others, or continually probing old wounds to see if they have healed or not. Those things prevent us from running the race God has set before us. Our enemy uses other people’s actions to throw dirt and dust into the air, clouding our God-given ability to see spiritually. These things tie us into somebody else’s agenda. Forgiveness is mandatory, not an optional extra, no matter who did what to whom. My advice is to keep on asking for Grace, Grace and more Grace, daily. 

“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you because you belong to Christ.”  Ephesians 4:32. What does that mean? It means that every time somebody hurts us the first thing we need to remember is the fact that we’ve already been forgiven for our own sins. Letting go of grudges —  the past, other people’s unwillingness or inability to change — frees us for better God-inspired things! We simply can’t afford to give our eternal blessings away. It’s too dear!! What we lose is clarity of heart and mind.

The way to be fearless in the face of other people’s sins, is to ask for His help and then act in faith. “Do good to those who despitefully use you…” Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27&28. Praying for these people is essential. And our  obedience is the key that opens up the kingdom, it will usher in the change we want to see.. “If you are willing AND obedient …” it says this in Isaiah 1:19a. It is not enough to just be willing, willingness needs to be followed through with action – obedience. 

Let’s stop merely agreeing with what the bible says, and go out and live this way, every single day. We can’t “afford” to stay angry with other people. We don’t have to go and live at their house! Pray and do what God says to do. Forgiveness ushers in real peace. If we haven’t got some personal instructions from the Holy Spirit — a directive on how to manage things. Then we need to read the book, and find something in it to do, that we are not already doing, and do that. Those biblical things are the principles of His kingdom. We always have plenty of those.

It is incredibly important to let go of the weights that have been holding us down. We sing these things … we say them, we read them and we even memorise them — but we need to do more than that. It is time to remember that the life we had before we met Jesus is over. Our previous dreams are over. There are better things than that ahead! He gave His life to us, and now we choose to give our lives to Him. We can’t tell Him how to operate His kingdom – He is the King! The more we let go of our own agendas, timetables, lifestyles, the more His kingdom will manifest itself among us. 

Our God is incredibly gracious to us, He lets us learn. But for some of us, even learning has become a side eddy. A place we’ve been caught up in. It stops us from going out and doing what He asked us to do. The best kind of learning finishes with practical application. Personal life changing experiences. By all means study the bible, every single day, but study it to find things you can do. The things that stir your heart are likely to be the things that stir His. 

We can read stuff like, ‘forgive one another’ but then we forget to do our “safety checks.” That’s like a sound check for believers … Let’s not put a big tick on any scripture thinking that we already know this stuff, and He died for it, so we’ve already passed. He paid for us, so we have already passed. However, now we need to ask the Holy Spirit: ‘do I have any little foxes in my life spoiling the vine?’  That verse above in Hebrews 12:1 sees sin and wounds as weights. Are we trying to run a marathon with a whole lot of weights all over us? 

We have to let go of our wounds, even though they are deep, and they still hurt. We are not releasing things because these things don’t matter – those wounds, those sins, cost Jesus His life. They matter! Let the Lord take care of them. Forgiveness is not giving in – IT’S A BATTLE-PLAN! Think about it. Let’s release everything that distracts us and let Him help us win. Bye. 👋

P 3251 Learn to see like He does.

/ DVH

We can easily think ‘knowing’ others is about hanging around them, or watching their faces and actions. Often we take note of what they do or don’t do, or pay attention to the results of their decisions – or even what they say about themselves. In the natural, that could be true … but spiritually speaking it’s not. The reality is here and now we can no longer afford to only use our physical eyes to see others, anymore. We must learn from the Holy Spirit, how to see others the Way He sees them. And He longs to help us do it. How others appear on the surface is often learned or adaptive behaviour, it does not always bear a resemblance of their true, God-designed selves.

“Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at Him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and Him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with Himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what He is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ Himself now: Become friends with God; He’s already a friend with you.”  2 Corinthians 5:16. MSG. 

The church at large has spent so long focussing on sin … by avoiding it, plus making sure we are not polluted by it, that we forget that people are the primary reason we are still here!  This verse says we (mankind) have ALL misjudged Christ. His goodness is all over the bible, so I’m thinking that it is entirely possible, based on that One Witness (Jesus), that we all utterly misjudge other people and their motives! 

Let’s pray, and storm heaven about having spiritual sight, and ask Him to help us see others through His eyes of Love. Almighty God does not look at this world and its inhabitants the way we do. We often assess people based on fear, experience or what someone else says about them. Father God has a lot to say about people in general in His book – the mistake we often make is we hear His words with someone else in mind!  It is so easy use His book as an accusation to suit our own agendas. Let’s avoid that mistake by reading the Word like He is speaking to you, not the guy standing behind in church, or your family, or any other people you don’t like.

The Lord doesn’t assess this world into people who love Him and those who don’t! He sees us all as His kids, the ones He loves – the Holy Spirit Himself formed each one of us inside our mothers. He knows our names, our history, our passions, our needs – He even knows how much hair we have on our heads. Does this sound like SomeOne Who is watching us to see if we sin? Jesus paid for everybody’s sins – murderous attitudes, thievish lying ways etc., but He is not motivated, nor does He react to, what He sees – because Love looks at things differently! 

It looks for the good in others. Our God isn’t partisan. Right now, He doesn’t divide any of us into groups – the good guys and bad guys … that’s MEDIA, not God! One day Jesus will sort out the sheep from the goats, but that’s not our job! He may not favour what we think, just because our POV seems right to us and everybody we like to hang around with!! God is love and love looks like 1 Corinthians 13! And Love always wants to capture the heart of His kids! God’s love, despite modern society’s ridiculous ideas — is not permissive, or soppy, or prejudicially flavoured – or only in favour of our little group. His love is all over His book. The things we like, as well as the things we don’t.

Jesus loves because Love is Who He is – it is not a changeable attitude affected by whims. Read the book! In order to see others the Way the Lord sees them we will need to look at others as precious to Him, despite their dreadful actions and our personal prejudices. Every single human being on this planet is undone without His Presence. That thing you hate in others, or your supposed enemy, is just a lack of the Presence of God, first of all in you, and then in them.

We choose to forget that He died so we can all live differently. We’ve attached ourselves to all manner of creeds and attitudes, because we think we need power over others to straighten them out. And some people we just plain HATE, because they are breathing! At the same time, we like to hang around with people who believe in the same things we do.

Seeing through His eyes means that nobody is left out – every single human being was saved 2000+ years ago. Now we treat others like we would treat the Lord, when it suits us or even when it doesn’t. We live our lives in the reality of His kingdom, where we can do nothing without Him, His insight, His loving kindness, His love. So His people look for the good, and highlight that, because that’s the way we’ve chosen to see. Bye. 👋