Imitators

P 3148 His Word has a whole world in it.

/ DVH

“The character of God is a tower of strength, for the lovers of God delight to run into His heart and be exalted on high.”Proverbs 18:10 TPT. This verse is like a potted version of most of the whole bible … yet we can run right by it, without even taking in what it says. We probably know it — in our heads— but in our hearts? Well that can sometimes be a whole other ball-game. 

When we read stuff like this in His book, we need to remember God is telling us something about Himself. These words have power in them. They are the Holy Spirit telling you and I what He is like and how much we can trust Him. Imagine that! Our glorious God wants us to know Who He is. I know some really great people who don’t ever want to be seen, intimacy is a bad word to them. But, our God is so strong, secure, and permanent, we can run inside Who He is and be blessed. We can know Him, and not be afraid because He has no darkness in Him. Inside His heart there is a place of safety for each of us. 

Some people that we meet, here and there, can be whimsical, or perverse, or just plain ornery —but whenever  we go to the Lord, we can be reassured of the One we will meet — because His character is unchanging. That means when He says He loves the world, He does not exclude your old fictional Aunt Lillian, who can be quite contrary and nasty! Or your ex who took you to the cleaners and left you with no money. Or your boss who expects you to do the work of ten people with not enough pay.

HIS Character doesn’t change. The world is resting on that fact. Malachi 3:6 says this: “For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” The fact that He does not change means we can count on His mercy whenever we need it. James 1:17 says: “Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning.” 

Here’s what I think that means – our God is purity in Himself, He is endless light — He is not whimsical, contrary, unreliable or frivolous. He won’t blow hot one day and cold the next!  That’s because His Character is an established fact. So when we meet anything questionable — like darkness, or deceit — we can be guaranteed that what we’ve met is not Him!  And when we meet something that pretends to be Him but it that seems a little off – it is probably a little off! 

Because we are blessed to have SomeOne so concrete and established in everlasting goodness as our Father – anything that does not resemble these qualities is not from Him. It also means that when anyone meets Christians they will find something good and unshakeable. We all need to think on that part!

This next verse from Nehemiah 9:31 gives us a few more examples of what His character is like: “But in Your great mercy You did not put an end to them or abandon them, for You are a gracious and merciful God.” Mercy is incredibly important to God. He has shown all of us mercy and He is looking for that quality to show up in His kids. Jesus Himself had off-the-chart amounts of mercy! Our God is reliable and trustworthy, so even our slight resemblance to Him in that area, matters. That’s what resemblance is like, it is visible.

We dare not use our experiences with Him, to negate His Word. When we do that we are standing on men’s theories and they will … and DO … fall down. This is why I like to use scripture, to read scripture. That’s the way the Holy Spirit has always led me. I call it following the thread. When He is making a point with me as I read the bible, He often uses other scriptures to help me understand the one I got stuck on. What a blessing!!

We are exhorted in Ephesians 5:1 to …“Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as His beloved sons and daughters.” Now there’s a tall order. I don’t think that we can do that by ourselves. This verse proves to me that we need the Holy Spirit, at all times, everywhere! It also means we have a choice. We are exhorted to ‘be’ an imitator – that fact is not fixed, it is optional. When we imitate our Father in everything we do, we are RE-presenting Him to other people. We are literally saying: “I’m God’s kid. You can tell what He looks like by looking at the way I conduct myself! What’s in my heart comes out of my mouth. The way I treat others is the way Jesus wants to treat them.”

Anybody want to head for the hills at this point?… I know this bus we could all get on … but it’s going the wrong way!  And then I read this verse  in Romans …“Our faith in Jesus transfers God’s righteousness to us and He now declares us flawless in His eyes. This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us.” 5:1 TPT.  When Almighty God looks at us, He sees Jesus. Jesus took our sin and gave us His very own right standing with God Himself. He voluntarily did for us the very thing we could never do for ourselves.

This is proof, that OUR GOD is a God Who keeps His Word! And every word that comes out of His mouth has a whole, brand new world in it. Bye. 👋

P 2525 Go after more!

/ DVH

Be self-motivated. Jesus Christ surrendered His will and His life for us, and now we voluntarily surrender our life —- the only life we have been given, to Him. We cannot afford to compartmentalise the Lord of all glory, into a designated time, place and space! The bible says: He is our all in all. We have the power to make that word, that God Himself spoke —- flesh… By doing it. Devotion to Christ is not an over-the-top concept – it is the reason we were saved!

“Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as His beloved sons and daughters. And continue to walk surrendered to the extravagant love of Christ, for He surrendered His life as a sacrifice for us. His great love for us was pleasing to God, like an aroma of adoration—a sweet healing fragrance.” Ephesians 5:1-2 TPT. 

This verse is telling us how we can please God, and smell good to Him. Forget Chanel, or Yves St. Laurent … death-to-self smells good to God. His only Son sacrificed His life, to give US life, and that pleased the Father. ‘Our lives are no longer our own, we’ve been bought with a price – paid for with a preciousness that is out of this world.’ Our own personal response to that incredible gift and invitation, matters.

After that we step through the door of deliberate obedience, into the world of the Holy Spirit. Those of us who may have been StarWars fans will know that famous line Yoda spoke. “Do or don’t do. There is no try.” Isn’t it amazing how the rocks cry out sometimes? There is no “try” in dying to self. We choose, we don’t try.  “We (deliberately) set our minds on the things above …” Colossians 3:2. In Christianity, there is no try. The thing is, it is way too easy to bail out of ‘trying’ when it gets too hard. We need to trust God with everything we have, because He gave us everything He had.

In the Old Testament smelling good to God included slaughtering and burning dead sheep, or a bull, a goat, or a turtledove. In my opinion, blood smells terrible. It has an ugly tinny metallic smell – ugh! Death smells even worse! Imagine the flies!! This was not a quiet gentle scene, with angel singing, and a holy hush! And yet our God loved it. “It is a burnt offering, a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” Ephesians 5:17.

His own precious Son, hanging, dying a terrible, painful death was pleasing to Him – Almighty God looks through pain to the holy results. We simply must stop making a God after our own image by deciding that of course He will like what I like! He is not there to please US – we are here to choose to please HIM. 

And the real truth is, we still sometimes don’t know what He likes, because we are still learning. His book, the bible, keeps unfolding itself before our very eyes day after day after day!  That’s why Jesus said “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6. We all need to go to church hungry and thirsty for more of God. 

Many people in our churches are now sitting back in their seats, arms folded, double-daring the poor pastor to say something they haven’t already heard! It is almost like they think God is lucky that they came there at all! Hebrews 2:1 says: “For this reason [that is, because of God’s final revelation in His Son Jesus and because of Jesus’ superiority to the angels] we must pay much closer attention than ever to the things that we have heard, so that we do not [in any way] drift away from truth.” My advice is to pray that we will always listen with our hearts open, even if we have heard some things before … maybe the pastor is not preaching new stuff because we are not doing what he has already taught us! Let’s selah that thought…

These pastors preach to inspire us to greater things. Their desire is to see us grow up into Christ Jesus’ likeness. Otherwise they are simply running a spiritual day-care centre. Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. With spiritual babies yelling play with me, feed me, make me feel important! No wonder these wonderful people, who are gifts from God Himself, can get fed up and quit the ministry! Yet Sunday after Sunday it can be so easy to thank this person for their sermon:  and still go home and kick the cat, yell at our spouse, and chastise our kids. And we kid ourselves that Jesus understands how hard it is to be us! 

We all need to mature. And maturation takes more than attending church meetings, bible studies, prayer meetings. It takes SELF-WATERING, plus the cultivated curiosity to get to know all three of the Trinity better. They are not just our ‘Suppliers’ of answers to prayer, or even wise life information. We have been saved to interact with the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. 

The Christian life is more than going to church Sunday by Sunday – it is a way to live. If we only ATE once a week we would rapidly starve. Most Christians are malnourished with some of the most brilliant meals in the world, right at their finger tips. We must grow up into the fullness of Christ. We will never realise our dreams for more, sitting about hoping it is going to fall on us! …  It is time to go after MORE.  👋🏻 Jeremiah 15:16.

P 2440 How do we smell to others?

/ DVH

“Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as His beloved sons and daughters. And continue to walk surrendered to the extravagant love of Christ, for He surrendered His life as a sacrifice for us. His great love for us was pleasing to God, like an aroma of adoration—a sweet healing fragrance.” Ephesians 5:1-2 TPT

Jesus Christ is the perfect role model – He is what active Love smells like! We can have this strange man-made idea of what love should smell, or even look like …depending on our personal needs, or favourite perfume, flower or plant. Christ’s love smells like obedient sacrificial death. It was His unconditional devotion to His Father’s will on our behalf, that was a beautiful fragrance to Father God. Jesus Christ conquered death, by what He voluntarily did, and that heavenly aroma is pleasing to God. Not the smell of death, BTW .. but the smell of sacrifice.

The Lord accomplished everything He did for us by that total obedience, plus He treasured every word that came out of His Father’s mouth. He acted on every single one of those words — even when it killed Him. Christ’s faith in our heavenly Father’s goodness, and His ability to bring life out of death was not only complete, it went into places we cannot begin to imagine. Right into the depths of man’s depravity, despair, indifference and disobedience. Jesus conquered it all – with a vibrant living faith founded on God’s truth. The smell in heaven must have been incredible on Resurrection Sunday!

And Jesus Christ passed that incredibly perfumed blazing torch onto US. “For WE are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.” 2 Corinthians 2:15-17. We smell like LIFE to those who are perishing in their sins!

We are definitely not perfume salesmen. Instead, I think that we are His perfume bottles. Some of us are short ordinary looking bottles and some of us are amazing feats of glass. That bit does not matter – it is what is inside those bottles that matters! It is the sweet fragrance of Christ that matters. The more we use our faith to obey His word, the more His perfume inside us is released, and then it becomes an appealing and sweet fragrance to God, and also toward others. 

Our living sacrifice of Love for Him, is precious incense toward Him. If you want to really worship God – present your body as a living sacrifice and follow that through! He trusts us to carry His sweet fragrance out into the world, where that glorious fragrance changes us and impacts others. Christ’s death was terrible to see, but it brought forth a fragrance that is still present all over this world today, in the hearts and lives of His laid-down lovers.

On another note, I want to take a brief moment to look at Esther. FYI, this young woman was already beautiful — that’s why she was chosen! For six months this lovely young woman was treated with oil and myrrh and for a further six months with perfumes and cosmetics. That was some beauty spa she went to!! After all that she was deemed ready to go to meet the king. (Esther 2:12) 

First of all, we can start cheering that we can go to our King Jesus with or without beauty(?) treatments, because His love toward all mankind is unconditional! We can come into His Presence whenever we like. After meeting Him, we can get spiritual beauty treatments from the Holy Spirit. They are optional, but effective.  Unlike Esther who had to get slathered and gussied up to even get into the room with King Xerxes!

At that time SomeOne just like the Holy Spirit came into her life, in the form of a eunuch named Hegai. That person knew exactly what Xerxes liked!Here are a couple of  brief sentences that I think have great significance in this true story. Esther 2:8&9: “Esther also was taken to the king’s palace and entrusted to Hegai, who had charge of the harem. She pleased him and won his favour. Immediately he provided her with her beauty treatments and special food.”

I believe that Hegai is a quiet reflection of the nature of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Likewise the Holy Spirit knows exactly what our King likes. He knows what attitudes and actions etc. will please the Lord Jesus, and He is so happy to share those things with us. Everything is free, all we need to do is to obey whatever He says! Like Esther, all we must do is be prepared to take His advice. Spending time soaking in the precious things the Holy Spirit has provided for us, will bring the smell of heaven into our lives and distribute it out into the world around us. 🥰 👋🏻

P 2351 What smells good to God?

/ DVH

“Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as His beloved sons and daughters. And continue to walk surrendered to the extravagant love of Christ, for He surrendered His life as a sacrifice for us. His great love for us was pleasing to God, like an aroma of adoration—a sweet healing fragrance.” Ephesians 5:1-2 TPT.

Jesus is our own personal visual aid for our lives here on earth. It is a mistake to think we can serve Him and live the same sort of life that the people around us live. We are not from here anymore – we are travelling through this world representing SomeOne Else, with the Holy Spirit’s help. Our home is elsewhere. Now we have eternal eyes, not just eyes fixed upon the immediate. The thing is, to stay in those places we find challenging and difficult –  we must fix our eyes on Him, not our circumstances.

Walking surrendered to Christ’s extravagant love means no matter what goes on around us, or what happens to us, we must never ever forget we are dearly, over-abundantly, loved. As far as this life is concerned, realistically speaking, it is hard to feel loved, when people are being mean, or you are in pain, or your circumstances have gone awry. But the Cross changed everything. Christ’s freely-given Grace is our ever-present help in times of need. The difficulty is this, we must learn how to fight our enemy for our God-given rights, as well as yielding to the Holy Spirit’s leading. 

There is no room for striving in yielding. We cannot afford to berate ourselves for our dumb remarks and our accidental, or even intentional, lack of response to His Will. Jesus Christ understands humanity – and the Holy Spirit is now with us to continually remind us that we can be our renewed self – with His help. However, we cannot give Grace away if we do not take Grace in!There are times that the way to fight for victory over our circumstances and feelings is to refuse to entertain the thoughts that we are somehow exempt from that GRACE. 

When the day to day earthly realities remain difficult… and God’s goodness comes into question – our resting position is to hold fast to the fact that He is good. Even if we’ve prayed and prayed to no avail, and so have other people, we must learn to stand firm. At the same time we aren’t denying the reality of pain and heartache, rather we face them with the quiet confidence that the Lord has a way through our current circumstances.

I have had many increased physical limitations after those falls I had, now I get very tired. Some nights I barely manage 4-6 hours of very broken sleep. Let’s be clear, I’m still praying, hubby is still praying for me even at 2.00am when I can’t sleep for the pain in my arm. PAIN has a plus, it keeps you honest! Other faithful people are regularly praying for us, including both our families. Yet we are still stuck going round and round. WHY? I dunno but our God is doing something I can’t see …YET! 

I just know that in order to cultivate eternal eyes, I need to deliberately keep my eyes on Him. I know that God is not the Author or the sustainer of my discomfort, but, nevertheless, it is still daunting and exhausting. At these times I have to watch over my feelings and thoughts and focus on the God I know – Who is always good! I can drive myself batty trying to figure out why this has happened or what can I do to escape or … I can yield and wait. 

I have found great comfort in the Psalms because good old King David doesn’t seem to always be cheerful when things go bad for him either. However I cannot recommend the ‘smash them, get them, squish them, kill them all dead … mindset’  he had either. 🤪

Now let’s look at what smells good to God – a life laid down for Jesus’ sake, no matter what our external circumstances look like, and yes, we do that without lying! We need to remember that the Lord God called some things a pleasing aroma. Things like dead burning flesh from cattle, sheep, birds  (Genesis 8:20,21;  Exodus 29 :18;  Leviticus 1:9) —  my conclusion is this —HE DOESN’T LIKE WHAT I LIKE!  My death to self may hurt me, but HE is pleased by it.

Ephesians 5:2 says: ‘Jesus’ death was a pleasing aroma.’ That’s hard to comprehend, but true. If we tell Him “I want to know You more”  then we must remember the journey Christ took – ‘He learned obedience through suffering.’  Hopefully, right now, that is what I am learning too! 👋🏻