Holy Spirit

P 3428 A soldier does what he is trained to do.

/ DVH

“Since Christ, though innocent, suffered in His flesh for you, now you also must be a prepared soldier, having the same mind-set, for whoever has died in his body is done with sin. So live the rest of your earthly life no longer concerned with human desires but consumed with what brings pleasure to God.” 1 Peter 4:1-2 TPT. These kinds of choices are part of our suffering for His sake. We deliberately choose to give up what we want to do, and we yield to what He sent us here to do. It’s a total change of focus. But we can’t live like this by ourselves – we are wrestling against principalities and powers, we need our Commander-in-chief leading us, giving us His Grace every step of the way.

This verse is a magnificent thought, but a terrifying one as well. It is like a spotlight showing up the places where what we think – is different from what we do. In other words, it is easy to say we do this stuff, but can we actually live it? My only answer is “yes” we can — simply because Jesus did it first … but … we cannot do it alone! We’ve been empowered, by Christ’s death into living this life a new way. After the Lord Jesus died, even the disciples wrangled with their feelings of loss, and yet they went back to what they knew … fishing! Human beings without the influence and leading of the Holy Spirit can be loveable, but dumb as a rock when it comes to spiritual things. Those things won’t fall on us, we must go after them. His grace will help us. 

When I was a young Christian, I noticed that there was a level of commitment in a few people that I didn’t seem to have. It was as if there were some sort of line in my mind that I would walk up to, then I’d look over into the other side of it and it all looked too hard for me. So then, I’d walk back to where I came from. That line was called — a total commitment to Christ. I wanted His life in me, but I wanted my own ideas for my life too. I wanted to  ‘make my own choices’ – to be a Christian when it suited me, and walk away when it didn’t. My perception of His benefits  was all about me, instead of Him. Maybe that’s why Psalm 103:2 tells us not to forget His benefits!

I had plenty of friends, rabbits and relations who were quite happy to explain to me that my ideas about Christianity were nice .. but surely I didn’t have to take the whole thing quite so seriously!  And that was the beginning of an odd period in my life where I did the hokey pokey. I put one foot over the line, then took it back, then the other foot  … if you have ever done the hokey pokey … you get it. In the end I became double-minded. I got to the stage where I finally agreed with others. that I should coast along, do nice things when I felt like it – yet I could still be angry with the people who were mean to me, because I couldn’t help it. After all they’d been truly awful and they should know better! I succumbed to ‘poor little old me!’ Self-pity will wreck our faith in a heart beat.

At the same time I was told I had a “virus,” year after year and a lot of people prayed for it to be healed. But it wasn’t healed … because it wasn’t actually a virus! It turned out I needed a liver transplant. Meanwhile, I was in every healing line I could get into, and yet I still got sicker. Then something else unthinkable happened, I was divorced. I knew what the bible said, and I knew what Jesus said … and yet it happened anyway. The ambition to die for Jesus’ sake, fell in the dirt, I couldn’t do it. If I stayed inside that marriage, I would die.

I totally knew I had broken ‘the rules.’ I loved Jesus, but trying harder became impossible, I was too ill. I knew nothing about walking by faith, not by sight. Even though I had carefully memorised the verse! I didn’t actually understand what the New Covenant meant, except in vague terms that definitely didn’t apply to me anymore – because now I thought I was doomed to hell. Folks, religion kills. It murders your faith and it will take your life. Put it down. I exhort everyone reading this to ask the Lord to teach you to walk by faith, otherwise our common enemy will use your circumstances against you.

Even after the transplant, they couldn’t tell me why my liver was so damaged. It just was! Eventually I learnt that a simple very common blood test would have diagnosed what was wrong with me. I didn’t drink alcohol etc. so the medical profession didn’t think to give me the blood test. However, God in His great mercy, didn’t let go of me, just because I let go of Him. He’s like that! This advice in 1 Peter 4 is so incredibly important. Living our lives for Jesus is not an alternate way … it is the only way. God has given us a totally new way to live, step by step, little by little … He calls us to fall in love with His goodness and follow Him. He paid dearly to give us His grace to do it.

I think sometimes, we’ve had our eyes fixed on the wrong application of His principles. In the following verse from Hebrews the Lord is telling us about HIMSELF – not how to get what we want from Him!  “But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (11:6) We’ve used our faith for years hoping to make our lives more comfortable, telling ourselves God wants us to be healthy and happy. But it actually says … He rewards those who chase after Him and the result is … WE WILL PLEASE HIM … He doesn’t have to please us … He’s GOD!

Take my advice and decide to live your life as good soldier of Christ – don’t wander in and out like I did. Leave behind the ‘stuff’ you’ve picked up along the way. Make that choice. Bitterness, anxiety, and disappointment doesn’t belong in our brand new heart. Neither does lying, hating others, abusing or hurting people. Whatever your excuse is for staying the same – it’s a lie.

A good soldier does exactly what he is told to do, no more, no less. We have been given a wonderful Companion in our daily journeys, He knows how to strategically get us through our battles – don’t leave home without Him.  We need the Word of God, plus GRACE. Bye. 👋

P 3427 Let Him prune you.

/ DVH

Now there’s another happy thought. Most of us, if we are truthful, start backing up and going the other way when we see the Lord Jesus coming at us with the secateurs! Like I said: … let’s be honest!! We look lovingly at some little, hopeful, tender tendril, that has started to grow at the end of what looks like a dead stick on His vine and start to feel ….  a little bit proud of ourselves… ‘Look at what we’ve made … all-by-ourselves!’ And here comes Jesus, snip snip, snipping away. If we had legs in this dumb allegory, we’d run away.

It is unrealistic to continually tell people that our new life in Christ means we will grow a bunch of juicy grapes year after year. Grapes grow best when you prune them. You see, the Lord Jesus is the Master Vine-dresser and He knows exactly when and where to prune so that the vine produces only the best sweetest grapes … and He wants quality, not just quantity. To get that there must be sacrifice and that means even those things that have heaps of potential. All this happens so the sap in the vine will be channelled into less bunches of fruit, and produce better quality grapes in the ones that remain. This happens in winter, when the vine seems to be dormant.

What that means to us, is this — sometimes our most unfruitful seasons, our times of great difficulty and trials, are channelling the flow of God’s Spirit in our lives in certain directions. So we can see the tendrils of new growth in good things like worship leading, or preaching … yet the Lord says … ‘I don’t want fruit from those branches, I want fruit from this little nub down here.’ Then the fruit that will remain comes from the branches HE chooses. Maybe that means developing greater service to others, or deep empathy in our lives. We need to listen, step down from the platform, and follow the SAP!

Let’s make sure we are able to clearly identify what is the Holy Spirit’s work, and what is not! Sometimes our own good works can get in the way of what the Spirit of the Living God wants to do in our hearts and lives. We can be so enamoured with what He is doing through us, we don’t even want to know what He wants to do IN US. That little tendril we like so well could have come from a sucker that snuck itself in at the base of the vine. If it is left untended, it will draw all the goodness out of the true vine, and waste it on growing that sucker. Suckers don’t produce fruit – they are parasitical. They steal growth energy from the host. It seems to me that Jesus utterly understood this and lived by it.

I believe this is one of the reasons why the Lord Jesus said in John 5:19-20. “Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. Yes, and He will show Him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.”

And then He said this in John 12:49: “This is because I have never spoken on My own authority or of My own accord or as self-appointed, but the Father Who sent Me has Himself given Me orders [concerning] what to say and what to tell.” The Lord Jesus laid aside His own will to manifest His Father’s will in everything He did and said. Think about it!  He LIMITED Himself. This is what He is asking us to do, limit ourselves to His plans for us, the same way He limited Himself to His Father’s plans. There are more instances where the Lord said the same thing: John 5:19; John 8:28 and John 14:10. 

Jesus prunes away every single bit of growth that will not profit us spiritually, because we need the energy and the zest of His life in us to be protected, and channelled in the direction He has chosen for our lives. This is why Father God gave gifts to the whole church. Because no human being is meant to have to hold up the entire weight of the vine. The Lord sent back His Spirit to help us achieve what He wants from us. 

“However, I am telling you nothing but the truth when I say it is profitable (good, expedient, advantageous) for you that I go away. Because if I do not go away, the Comforter (Counsellor, Helper, Advocate, Intercessor, Strengthener, Standby) will not come to you [into close fellowship with you]; but if I go away, I will send Him to you [to be in close fellowship with you]. “John 16:7.

The Lord Jesus knew what He could do and say, and He also knew when to be quiet. It doesn’t say He didn’t know stuff, the book clearly tells us that He chose to be limited by His obedience to His Father’s Will. We are asked to do the same. Let’s not get distracted by what this life demands that we do. Obviously we need to do normal stuff, like eat, sleep and take care of our families, but in everything we do, we must choose to go where the SAP of the Holy Spirit goes. That requires us knowing and recognising His Ways.

You know, we’ve all probably bought a bunch of grapes in the supermarket that looked fantastic, but they had no taste. For our personal spiritual fruit to be juicy and full of the flavour of Jesus, we must learn to “… throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us …” Hebrews 12:1a. 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 3425 THINK Bigger!   

/ DVH

At 4.00am I was instantly awake and stuff started downloading into my heart. Then the Holy Spirit said to me: “Tell My people they need to LET ME be bigger.” Then He gave me some examples from His Word to stir our courage.

When Jesus said in Mark 4:39 : “Peace be still” to the ocean, as it tried to drown the disciples … that ocean heard the same VOICE that said: “ Let there be light! “ … so it obeyed. Everything that lived inside the sea came from the Lord speaking, including the sea itself. This world knows His voice. I think there’s a lesson for us in there … if even the SEA is obedient to Almighty God, then what excuse do we have?

We need to think bigger than getting a car park when we need one! This world is in turmoil. The people around us need the peace that passes all understanding and we have it … it is ours. The Lord gave it to us. Give it away! You can always take it back if people don’t appreciate it. That’s in the book too!

When Moses held up his staff at the Red Sea — the same staff that God had transformed from a lump of wood into a snake before his eyes — the bible says: the sea SAW it. “The sea saw it, and fled! “ Then a mighty east wind blew, and the ocean parted. Moses’ staff was nothing, just a bit of hard wood. A shepherd’s staff, used to whack wolves and bears on the head. It was ordinary. Please listen carefully to this bit .. Almighty God took what Moses already had and made it powerful. Ya might want to selah that for a minute or ten. 

After Moses told the sea to part, and all the Israelites were safe, Moses held that staff up again and two walls of water came crashing down on Pharaoh and his army. They drowned. But don’t feel sorry for them, God gave the Egyptians ten plagues to warn them about what was coming. It wasn’t the staff that controlled the sea, and it wasn’t Moses’ power that did it either. When the man of God obeyed what God told him to do, that staff in his hand became a symbol of God’s authority. Now we have His authority too.

When we act upon His Word, day by day as He leads us, it is as if God Himself is standing there with us, backing up our obedience with His power. Let’s look at another scripture in Luke 10:20: “But don’t rejoice because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered in heaven.” Jesus was explaining to the disciples their true priorities. Our priority is not power – but power comes from our relationship and the Lord’s recognition of an individual. The people who do things with God, STAND UP!

When His disciples went out and raised the dead, healed the sick, and delivered people from demons … they got very excited. “Jesus called His twelve disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.… “ Do you see that? JESUS gave them HIS authority. This is why He says: ‘Don’t rejoice about that stuff, rejoice that your names are in My book of life.’  Jesus knows your Name and He has written it down in His book. it doesn’t matter two hoop-de-doos what that other guy knows. 

However, when the Holy Spirit arrived at Pentecost the disciples were supernaturally given their own authority, by God’s Spirit. Holy Fire hit them! That’s purifying fire. I don’t care if you like tongues, or you don’t … we should just get over ourselves. Tongues is a way to refresh our weary souls when we get overwhelmed. But don’t chase that, or any other thing — chase after being filled, and staying filled with the Holy Spirit. He will tell us where to go and what to do.

Another time some dumb-bunnies ran about using the Name of Jesus, and they threw Paul’s name around too. But the demon said in Acts 19:15: “Jesus I know and Paul I know … BUT WHO ARE YOU?’ Demons recognise the real voice of authority because that Voice threw them out of heaven! Those seven sons of Sceva had no authority at all to throw out the devil. BUT WE DO, because we are His kids and our names are in His book.

Seek His kingdom, first. Chase after loving Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength! Ask yourself, are you happy with what you have, spiritually? If not, then remember Jesus promised to give us His idea of an abundant life. That doesn’t mean fancy houses, planes, jewellery, cars, or mountains of money — remember how He lived — that’s the yardstick. An abundant life is filled to the top with the love of God. It  has more than enough to give away, because He is a more than enough God!

One day, long ago, Almighty God humbled Himself and came here and became a man. He made Himself just like us. Then He humbled Himself even further and became a helpless infant! He understands what human beings face. When Jesus delivered that demonic man, stuck in the cemetary of Gederah, the demons in the pigs heard the same Voice that cast them out of heaven. Boy, did they leave! As we live our lives in His Presence, we will begin to understand what we’ve been given. We have the same authority Christ did. 

No wonder Jesus said ‘speak to the mountain and it will be moved’ …He made that mountain – of course it will obey Him. Now, the Lord lives in us. So, unless we work for a mining firm and we intend to whimsically move the local mountains around like pieces on a chessboard — we can ask for whatever we need. Otherwise we don’t have the authority of a banana!

Please don’t settle for an encounter with God – capture His heart and walk with Him! Think bigger. Start thinking about what your life will be like with Jesus showing you daily what to do next … Bye 👋. “… but the people who know their God shall prove themselves strong and shall stand firm and do exploits [for God].” Daniel 11:32b.

P 3424 His Love speaks to us through His actions.   

/ DVH

Our primary goal is to be so soaked in Father God’s love that it overflows onto anyone around us. Love is Who God is, it is His nature. We take in His all encompassing love for us, in the word, in our circumstances – good and bad – and then we let the redeemed good flow out of us toward other people around us. We become like overfilled little buckets that slosh His water everywhere we go. Let’s look at a few times from the bible where people were confronted by His love.

Many times the Lord spoke to Israel about their lack of obedience to what He told them, here’s one of those times in Judges 2:11-15. To the Lord a lack of obedience means a lack of loving respect toward Him. Their attitude toward Almighty God went badly for the Israelites. Here we see how His Love provided them with an opportunity to change their minds, by heeding His warnings.

“Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths.  In His anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as He had sworn to them. They were in great distress.”

Let’s look at Paul and how his encounter with God turned him around. He already had a passionate, fervent active love for what he had studied and learnt – that’s why he killed off Christians, or prompted others to do it.  Almighty God, Who Paul claimed he was serving, knocked him to the ground and blinded him with a light brighter than any other. This is still a teaching experience. I don’t imagine Paul felt all that good, being blind and all! Right there is where his inward disposition, became an outward condition. He was struck blind by confronting God’s loving and living Truth. During that time Paul’s perspective was changed. Instead, Love handed Paul his destiny — and a revelation of God’s ways. It changed him, forever.

Now let’s look at God’s Love in Peter’s life. We all know that Peter denied Christ three times, and on a beach after supper, Jesus restored him again. Let’s pick that scripture up on the third time in John 21:17: “The third time He said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love Me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love You.” Jesus said, “Feed My sheep.” Right here Jesus speaks into Peter’s idea of love, which was a wobbly theory, that had failed under pressure! The Lord transforms it into something Peter, His appointed leader, can DO to build the kingdom. God’s Love restored him, and handed him, his destiny.

Onto two people who were bible-toting, Holy Ghost believers. They are also an example of God’s love in action. Ananias and Sapphira sold their property, but Real Estate.com sold it for more money than they expected … or something like that…!  This couple believed in giving, but they lied and conspired about how much. You can’t lie to Love Himself and keep the life of God in you! Meanwhile, please note that they were asked to verify the amount individually, so either one of them could have recanted their dead-end plot. That’s how love works! They weren’t lumped together, even though they had colluded together. We know this couple didn’t back down even though Love Himself gave them a chance to change their minds. He spoke, and then He acted. Their destiny was thwarted and the integrity of the remaining saints was preserved.

I want to also include Ruth. It’s dead easy to see what happened to Ruth. She knew what submission and commitment meant. She joined herself to Naomi and would not quit. The other young woman went back to her home and she missed out on the blessing. Almighty God opened a brand new door to Ruth, and gave her another life. Plus He gave Naomi grandkids into the bargain! Almighty God made Ruth an active part of our Saviour’s ancestors. Her dedication was astonishing. When Ruth’s loyalty decided to follow Naomi home, love stepped in and acted for her, and she found a better destiny.

Lastly I want to look at Peter once more, because he saw with his own eyes, the result of Love’s work. On this particular day, God’s Love included those who were automatically excluded. Peter was sent for, supernaturally. The very next day, he is headed toward Cornelius’ house and he is hungry. He goes into a trance, and sees a vision of all sorts of unclean animals and the Lord instructs him to kill and eat them. Peter refuses because his religious training forbids him. Then Love speaks to him in Acts 10:15b. Hoo boy I hope someone is listening right now!! … “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Peter sees this vision three times, and then the Spirit calls him to recommence his journey again to Cornelius’ house.

Acts 10:34,35. “Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” V44-46:“While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.”

The Spirit of God, took the time to show Peter with his own eyes, what the Holy Spirit wanted to do, and then He sovereignly carried it out in front of the man. I’m pretty sure by now you have my point – God also speaks through what happens to us – good and bad. That’s love. Bye 👋.

P 3422 The bible.

/ DVH

I think the version of the bible is less important, to me this book is a springboard into hearing from Him. It’s His Word and He can take His Word and touch our hearts however He chooses to. The Lord makes a lot of statements in the bible that sound wonderful, but unless we choose to act on them, as the Holy Spirit brings a verse to our minds — we can easily forget them again.

The scriptures are given to us to be life and health to us — food for the weary soul. Let’s look at Jeremiah 31:25 TPT: “For I will refresh the weary soul and satisfy all those who have given up on life.” Here are a few more versions. Amplified bible:  “For I will [fully] satisfy the weary soul, and I will replenish every languishing and sorrowful person.” The King James version: “For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” Last one, Easy-to-read version:  “I will give rest and strength to those who are weak and tired.”

So looking at all that, what can we do when we are full of sorrow, tired and weary? We’ve learnt that we need to REST and be REFRESHED by the fact that God has given us His Word. He will help us find answers. He will take care of … whatever it is! What the Lord is doing is far beyond our scope of our limited imagination most of the time. His timing is totally perfect, but it simply doesn’t always scratch where we are itching, when we are tired and sad. But He is still doing something.

I think the secret is this – don’t pre-decide how the answers to your prayers will look. When we do that, we can utterly miss His answers to our prayers. Resting on what He says in the book, is our faith at work. Fussing and fretting about what we can do about things when we are already worn out, is a misuse of our God’s freely given resources. Take a big breath, look up and give it all to Him and wait for Him.

The Holy Spirit is our primary resource and His Word is our reference book. If we start looking at other people, and comparing or judging what’s happening to them, we are living under the misunderstanding that we are all supposed to be in the same spiritual place at the same time. We aren’t. We learn His ways by walking with Him individually. This is the God who makes enemy armies fearfully run for their lives, when no-one is actually there!  What one verse means to me, may not be what it means to you.

It is so important to value the cross. Every now and then go back to it in your mind, and remember what He did for you. What He did then, He is still doing! And don’t forget that empty tomb either. Our faith is founded on these events. The bible teaches us how to live and respond to difficulties, based upon a war that has already been won. He won it for us.

If we don’t feel ‘fully satisfied,” like Jeremiah said, then don’t blame yourself, someone else or even the Lord. Instead ask for eyes to see what He IS doing. He’s God … He can do trillions of things at once. Maybe we are missing what He is actually doing because we are too busy meditating on our unhappy circumstances. Let’s choose to be singleminded about these things. Focus on what His book says. That’s a skill we can cultivate, and it involves trust. For our faith to be real it has to be tested. The bible tells us how to face and move through those tests.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4. 

This verse reminds us that God is always doing something. At the very least, He’s testing our faith in His goodness. He wants us to know that when our faith is tested we are developing perseverance. So we decide to rest. That means we stop trying to figure it out by ourselves and just WAIT. We are on God’s assembly line and our tested faith will produce perseverance, but we need to hold fast to what He said in the book. Let’s allow Him to finish what He has started.

We are faithfully waiting and looking to see God’s goodness in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13) Sometimes we can miss the answers to our prayers because the Lord is doing something so much bigger than we could ever hope or imagine. The thing to remember is that we are also doing something, when we choose to trust Him and His Word, instead of running about like a headless chicken. The Lord says: “That trouble is the exercise that will strengthen our faith muscles.”

The bible is a spiritual document. That kind of thing is often hard to read, but we are so blessed … we have the greatest Lawyer ever, praying for us, helping and teaching us. He understands the law and He operates freely in GRACE. This means He knows how to plead our case for us. Let Him. Bye. 👋

P 3419 Keep on… keeping on!

/ DVH

“My beloved ones, just like you’ve always listened to everything I’ve taught you in the past, I’m asking you now to keep following my instructions as though I were right there with you. Now you must continue to make this new life fully manifested as you live in the holy awe of God—which brings you trembling into His presence. God will continually revitalise you, implanting within you the passion to do what pleases Him. Live a cheerful life, without complaining or division among yourselves. For then you will be seen as innocent, faultless, and pure children of God, even though you live in the midst of a brutal and perverse culture. For you will appear among them as shining lights in the universe,” Philippians 2:12-15 TPT.

It’s important to look at the things we end up focusing on day by day. If we constantly and consistently focus on the immediate, we will more easily lose sight of the eternal. These verses make it clear that there is only one way to live. In AWE of God Himself. Ignoring what He says won’t help me – instead I will be presuming upon His grace.

I think that most of us have absolutely no idea what our Father is like … or we would all live differently. God has withheld revealing His glory to us, for our benefit.  When Jesus revealed His glory once, Peter started babbling on about building shrines. He was in the middle of something awesome, yet this man was so overcome by what he saw, he wanted to memorialise the event, instead of worshipping Jesus. It’s one thing to know in our minds Who He is, and totally another to be confronted by His reality!

The fear of God is a real thing, and we all need it. A whole-hearted reverential respect for the Lord and what He says, plus following His ways, just might save our lives one day. Paul is saying here that we need a deeper passion for the things of God. I’m a big believer in grace so if I know I don’t have it, then I ask for it! Jesus is so kind, He will give us His kind of passion as a gift. So if I am to serve and worshipfully love and honour my Father in the way Paul mentions in Romans, I will need to accept that the Grace we’ve been freely given to approach our Father, is way out of proportion to who we really are. We can’t earn anything!

However, we are sadly mistaken if we think that the Lord doesn’t require our actions to match what we say. Change is not optional, it is essential. God wants to protect our hearts from the stuff that is coming next in our lives. It’s our choice and we have to exercise it, and live a new way – the way of faith. Let’s seize every opportunity to deal with our flesh. Our Heavenly Father loves faith, and He wants us to respond to Him in good times and bad, by believing in His goodness. Faith can’t be an optional extra.

I think most believers really want to do what pleases our Heavenly Father, they just can’t come up with the goods by themselves. Like Paul says in Romans 7:24, 25: “Wretched and miserable man that I am! Who will [rescue me and] set me free from this body of death [this corrupt, mortal existence]?” As believers we need to move past the diagnosis of our lack, into the arena of continuing to use our faith in His amazing goodness toward us, despite our shortcomings. God really is THAT good! Jesus has done the work for me. I just need to appropriate the GRACE He daily gives me, by using my faith and following His Ways now – “…not my will be done … THY will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

This is how Paul follows up Chapter 7 … in Romans 8, he says: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” What Paul is saying is that we might fall over as we are learning to live a life of faith, but we are to no longer to live believing we have to mess up, it’s inevitable. God Himself has already provided for everything because of what Jesus did.The Lord Jesus’ death and resurrection is utterly complete. What He did for each one of us is like paying 2 trillion dollars for a 1 cent stamp. He overpaid.

Plus when Jesus died, I died. Dead people don’t sin, they don’t even want to, they are dead, they want nothing. When I chose to live this life dead to what I want, and live it for His glory, then I am free to live my life the way Jesus taught me to live it. I will always need to rely upon His Grace, love, mercy etc. to get me through my days, deliberately going after these things for myself, and then I freely give them out to others.

I live my life with Him in mind … which means I am learning to live my life in Christ Jesus. Believing and acting on what we’ve been told to do, is our outward expression of inward faith. This does not mean life is going to be easy. It simply means we know He will help us through things step by step, growing our faith all the way. The bible helps us remember whenever we forget, and we have the Holy Spirit, Who never ever forgets anything.

Now I live this life, here and now, attached to Him, obeying His ways, looking to Him to start and finish growing my faith as I learn to exercise it. We must keep on, keeping on. It is our God-given destiny to get the hang of the Spirit-filled life, loving what He loves, doing what Jesus would do. Our new life has been already bought and paid for, and we need to move our old thinking out of the way, and start thinking like He does. Bye 👋.

P 3417 Hard questions.

/ DVH

“Then He (Jesus) added, “Now you should go and study the meaning of the verse: I want you to show mercy, not just offer Me a sacrifice. For I have come to invite the outcasts of society and sinners, not those who think they are already on the right path.”” Matthew 9:13 TPT.

That’s a wonderful instruction, we should all do that. Hmmm … so when is the last time someone at your church — or you, asked a street person; or people of a different sexual persuasion;  or someone who has been in prison;  or a devoted gossip; or a liar; or someone with an incurable disease that is contagious;  or a corrupt person;  or someone who follows satan;  or someone who has a faith that is very different than ours, to our churches? You can make your own list, those people are on the list of the people in this world that I came up with.

Right here in the above scripture Jesus Himself tells us to show mercy to them. Then the Lord said the most amazing thing … He came to CALL people like that! Jesus’ death is clearly stated as an action that saved the world – the Grace that was released toward mankind was for ALL. We cannot afford to think of mercy and grace as something that is only available to the people we regard as good candidates, or those who could be worthy in our own eyes … or … even let money influence us. Even if we don’t happen to like these would-be recipients of the gospel or what they currently do or how they live. 

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.”  Revelations 22:17. “Whosoever will may come!” The only word that matters is COME!! Salvation isn’t a free gift if we limit whoever may participate in it with our own prejudices. I know this is not going to be a popular subject with everyone, but it is what the scriptures teach, and what Jesus Himself said and did. We are told to invite these people to come, and have mercy on them.

Jesus deliberately touched lepers, He showed mercy to promiscuous people, He ate with people who really enjoyed their food, and a drink … He even supplied the wine once! He ministered to people from an unacceptable country when the opportunity came up. He didn’t seek them out, but He saw real people, human beings — not labels or political preferences or skin colour, or revolting or sinful practices.

He didn’t approve of their sins but He actively loved those people. The religious people of His day took offence at these things, but even those people who took offence at what He said and did, didn’t influence Him! It is a sad sad day when we use God’s Word in one place to cancel out His Word somewhere else. We’d be better off asking Him: “This is what You’ve said Lord so how do we do it?”

I think it is time that we threw open the doors of our churches and let the whosoevers in! Some of those people who want to be saved and come through our doors will be messy. Their lifestyles may not suit us. We need to understand that the Holy Spirit is the One Who finds and calls people, and He is the One Who transforms them. In other words we have to stop thinking that the ‘other people’ who come through our doors have to be our definition of ‘nice.’ It wouldn’t hurt to stop thinking of them as “other people” either! Some of us don’t look so hot anymore, because we have adopted a whole heap of prejudices… 

Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to truly change our hearts and minds. Meanwhile, we must start addressing all of our own prejudices, with true repentance. If people don’t know the way they are living is wrong in God’s eyes, then why can’t we show them His grace so they can experience Him? Disapproval sure doesn’t work! What they do after encountering the love of God is not our concern – we are to love people, we don’t have to like who they are, what they do, or how they live. Jesus is still working on me — how about you? Some people simply bother our theology.

Catching fish is dirty and smelly, and kind of slimy and ugly, I mean no offence when I say that drawing up our robes around us, like a Pharisee would, is not to our credit. I think that’s why Jesus called fishermen to walk with Him. Those men weren’t specialists of the law, or religious men … they made a living doing ordinary tasks. They understood the less elite side of life from personal experience. We must expect all kinds of people come to us to have their lives changed by His Grace – the grace is meant to be daily flowing through us. Our Saviour came here to help everyone.

I’m a whosoever! When I heard God loved me and wanted my heart, I stampeded my way into a church, cheering loudly about what Jesus had done for me, and I probably drove a whole lot of really, really nice folks crazy. I’ve since repented for annoying people with my unbridled enthusiasm for the things of God — but, as it happened I had never heard any of that stuff before. Who knows who we might be, without HIS Grace touching our lives and hearts? 

Let’s choose to minister to the desperate, demon-possessed, broken-hearted, rejected lost souls of this world. Jesus once talked about a wedding feast where those who were already invited begged off – so the master of the feast sent out his servants to compel anyone they found to come in! We don’t have to approve of how others live, but our reactions to other people gives us an opportunity to look good and hard at what we are actually doing. It’s time we asked ourselves some hard questions. Are we fulfilling the Gospel Jesus  preached?  Bye 👋. 

P 3416 Do you — everyone else is taken.

/ DVH

The Lord has given us a brilliant tool – the bible – to help us to tighten up this screw of doctrine that may be loose, and that bolt of our creed that rusted out or needs replacing. That’s what the bible is for — transformation. It’s been given to us to encourage us day by day, and to correct our course when we wander off chasing random butterflies. The Lord “.. knows the plans He has for YOU, plans to give you a hope and a future …”

Jesus Christ, the Living Word, came to earth and died for each one of us. At the same time I know that Jesus is still continuing to speak, through ordinary vessels in His body. What HE says is important, not the vessel. We must stop putting pressure on our leaders by expecting perfection from them when we haven’t even achieved it for ourselves! Remember, what you and I know about Jesus, personally, is our testimony, and I don’t have your testimony! Neither of us need to be eloquent, we just need to be truthful. His Word is indestructible and more stable than the earth we stand on. My words won’t last one nano-second, but His Word stands forever. 

Personally, I believe that we will still be reading the bible in heaven. Why? Because it tells real stories of His love for us, and lovers love to hear things about each other. My faith is not in me, it is not in you — it is not in some famous brother or sister in the Lord who, praise God, reaches thousands of people. My faith is in the living written Word of God, the Living Word Himself, Jesus Christ! The Holy One. The Righteous One. Whatever He says is true.

The Lord Jesus saw the people around Him clearly, and He went right to the heart of the matter in their lives. He didn’t even have to try.  Love just flowed out of Christ like water. … Until one terrible wonderful day they pierced His side and then water flowed out onto, and into, this earth. God’s Word can teach us, you and I, how to see Him through our own renewed grateful, worshipful eyes. Here’s what Paul saw in Ephesians 3:9-11.

“Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to His eternal purpose that He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul knew that Jesus had so much life in Him that one man was never going to be able to describe the Lord completely. So we have Luke, Mark, Matthew, John, Peter, James, John and Jude to help us. They are inspired by the Holy Spirit Who knows Jesus and our Heavenly Father personally. We can excuse our lack of sharing what we personally know about the Lord with others, by saying things like: “I’m not as eloquent as Paul ..” Who is??

The thing is, unless we choose to be someone who walks with Him, we will miss the blessing of holding the Holy Spirit’s hand and walking into brand new, and sometimes scary territory, but we will be taking that territory back for Christ. We are not just witnesses to what happened to Jesus, we are witnesses to what happened after He left this world! What He has done in your life and mine. 

We can’t beat any kind of fear by avoiding the things we are afraid of … we beat fear by facing it and doing whatever it is anyway.  And the glory of this whole administration of gifts is the Holy Spirit knows exactly how you should minister your gift. Someone else can point you in the right direction, but because the Lord knows you, inside and out, He knows how to walk you through truthfully witnessing and sharing His love with others.

God’s Word has millions of applications, and sadly, most of them are still hidden because the church just keeps right on copying the people we greatly admire. But everybody has something to contribute! Hubby recently kicked his toe on a skirting board at our house and he limped for ages. It hurt! He has nine other toes that didn’t hurt but when that one little toe met the skirting board it jumped up and down and made every other cell in his body aware that it was ‘not happy Jan!”

This is why I say: ‘don’t follow me, you’ll end up in a ditch.’ We can follow someone else the way they follow the Lord, but that is meant to lead to us into a bigger place, where we learn to be ourselves-in-Christ. This world doesn’t need clones, it needs real, truthful, testifying people. The Apostle Peter was very outspoken, yet you don’t hear a peep out of James, son of Alphaeus, who was also a faithful disciple – and one of the twelve. Yeah I didn’t know him either until I looked him up!

We have this incredible kaleidoscope of colour available to us and yet we keep painting Christ in monochromatic ways as we seek to influence this world around us. Let’s stop narrowing other people’s view of Him. Be the ‘you’ Christ meant you to be, sincerely walk with Him, and stay open to being transformed by being near Him. Do YOU! Someone else needs to hear you talk about HIM. Bye.👋.

P 3415 We simply need the right gear.

/ DVH

“We must wear faith and love as a breastplate, and our hope of salvation as a helmet.” 1 Thessalonians 5:8b. Faith and love protect our hearts. The helmet of salvation reminds us we are now new people because of what Jesus did, we don’t have to go back to our old ways anymore. The Lord is our ever-present, full-of-grace helmet, He helps us think right.

This verse means my active faith and demonstrated love for others protects my spiritual heart. How? Because these bits of clothing require that I do something. I have to pick them and deliberately put them on and then remember what I am wearing. I need actions to match my declarations. If I am in the middle of something difficult and I need reassurance that His love is always with me – I’m going to need protection for my heart. I pray that I will have this knowledge all the time. Salvation is not a one off gift … it’s the gift that keeps on giving! Jesus clearly tells me He loves me and YOU in John 3:16. That verse works great – even if you happen to be yelling at me! 

I dunno why some people feel they have to give you a piece of their mind. Speaking for myself, my mind doesn’t have that much spare stuff in it, so I can’t afford to give it away … under any circumstances. I’m far too busy paying attention to keeping my eyes on Him … !! So, I say to myself … “I can’t do this. HELP please Lord.” Free advice. Learn to be poor in spirit. God says we are blessed when we are poor in spirit. Don’t burst your boiler trying harder to be something you have already been given.

In Colossians 3:12 there are instructions: “Clothe yourselves therefore, as God’s own chosen ones (His own picked representatives), [who are] purified and holy and well-beloved [by God Himself, by putting on behaviour marked by] tenderhearted pity and mercy, kind feeling, a lowly opinion of yourselves, gentle ways, [and] patience [which is tireless and long-suffering, and has the power to endure whatever comes, with good temper].”

Who is ready for a rousing chorus of Man of la Mancha’s “Impossible Dream?” Me too. That’s when the Holy Spirit whispered to me: “Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with GOD all things are possible.” Matthew 19:28. And there’s the answer, right there. We can’t do it, but He can, and He already did. Jesus will help us – ask Him. He left this world so He could send the Holy Spirit back to us to be our very own Personal Spiritual Trainer.

Let’s be utterly ridiculous for a minute – Jesus could have stayed in this world. Imagine the impact that would have had on mankind … A MAN NOBODY CAN KILL! BUT, the Lord left this world to send SomeBody better back. And folks, we better start believing that! The Holy Spirit can be in a trillion billion places all at once, unlike Jesus, Who deliberately limited Himself to space and time.

The Spirit of the living God is so wise. Let’s learn to appreciate Him. If we need a hug, He’s there with a hug. If we need a smack upside-of-our-heads, He will do that too. There ain’t nuthin’ He can’t do!! And just to make sure we didn’t miss what He said in Matthew, He motivated Mark and Luke to put it in the bible too! Mark 9:23 & Luke 1:37. The Holy Spirit is talking about someone who takes what God says seriously. If He tells us nothing is impossible to God, three different times, then we need to start believing Him!  This means, WE are not impossible for God – He made a talking donkey, way before Shrek did.

It takes faith to go and see someone who has told you they hate you and will never like you, and why don’t you just … blah blah blah and disappear? Here’s the thing, people who say things like that have their spiritual eyes wired shut. To start with you can immediately start to pray for them that the “eyes of their hearts would be enlightened.” (Ephesians 1.) These people don’t know there is another way to live. We can give them bibles until they have so many they could open a bible store, but the best thing to do is … demonstrate His love toward them. And to do that we are going to need these clothes He talks about in Colossians!

We can go to our enemy’s house wearing a breastplate that says: “I don’t care what you think about me, I’m going to love you anyway.”  Here’s a helpful hint: you might like to take your hand and whack it across your mouth for the first few times, because when you are mad at someone and they are provoking you – you could end up saying something you wished you hadn’t. This is the voice of experience. Bin there, dun that … sadly it did not go well. I forgot I had a breastplate on, and flapped my mouth unreservedly. 

That response lacked faith, it was not good! It can nail one of your feet to the floor. This is why we need the helmet of salvation … because the dumbest thing might come out of our mouth!! Being saved is not just like someone pulling you out of the water when you are drowning … but if you are drowning you’ll definitely need that … being saved is like getting mouth to mouth ’til the medics come, and they use their happy little machinery on you and then they cart you off to hospital for further care. Being saved is coming out of that hospital so much healthier than when you went in there! 

Salvation is not just a free gift. It’s a way to live. When we live out the gospel we will not look down on anyone, because we still remember the bruises from the CPR they had to do on us! Jesus didn’t just save us, HE BOUGHT US. We belong to Him now. He looked at forever and said: “I pick you to be with Me there.” We don’t have to shout for Him to hear, He’s the Friend that’s closer than a brother. Let’s get the hang of making sure we have the right clothes and hat on, and choose our wardrobe carefully. Put on LOVE and remember you are SAVED. Bye. 👋.