Jealousy

P 3401 Be a happy doorman.

/ DVH

“If the Spirit is the source of our life, we must also allow the Spirit to direct every aspect of our lives. So may we never be arrogant, or look down on another, for each of us is an original. We must forsake all jealousy that diminishes the value of others.” Galatians 5:25-26 TPT. Taking the lowest seat without calling attention to what you’ve done can only be accomplished in Holy Spirit’s stealth mode. It may not happen  easily. It takes self-control and courage, to decide to be quiet, especially when someone has just provoked you, or they’ve said something that you feel is blatantly untrue. 

However, we can shoot ourselves in the foot and lose track of the Holy Spirit’s point, if we choose to defend ourselves and blast away!  By the way, an angry belligerent person probably needs some space … give them some. You can’t persuade someone like that to stop being angry. Remember, “a soft answer turns away wrath.” Proverbs 15:1. The Holy Spirit whispers scriptures like these to me when I am under pressure. Pay attention to what He says and He will help you too. Instead, say something sweet to poor old grumpy – they probably got out of the wrong side of the bed. Don’t be guided by how you feel in the moment.

When you go to see someone who quite obviously doesn’t like you, or maybe they don’t value the Lord’s truth – make sure you go with the Holy Spirit, under His orders. Don’t go into the lion’s den without the Holy Spirit! He knows the way to shut that lion’s mouth, without punching it in the face and irritating it further. He can turn a lion into a giant, friendly pussy-cat.

We can only truly hear the Lord and watch Him order our steps when we are prepared to do whatever He says – the way He says to do it. Many people want to hear the Holy Spirit, but a lot of the time they pick and choose whether they will obey Him or not. Maybe they have a lot of ‘buts’ or doubts. Choosing to obey when it doesn’t suit us, is beautifully illustrated by what happened to Jonah.

It did not suit that prophet to see the people of Ninevah saved. But God told this man to do something for Him. Let’s remember that Jonah was the Lord’s servant – like we are – we cannot pick and choose when it comes to obedience … Not unless you wanna end up in the belly of a big fish for a long weekend, anyway!! Thinking we can’t do it, does not mean it is OK to say no! 

Sometimes in order to escape we say unscriptural things like: ’God understands…He knows I am shy.’ Moses tried that tack remember? It didn’t work for him either. The fact remains, when God says; “Jump!”… We need to say: “How high?”  But what if it is not God speaking, and I do it? I could look like a goose! YES! …  … you probably will. And even that is good for us. Because we are told to humble ourselves before the Lord.

“But the tax collector, standing at a distance, would not even raise his eyes toward heaven, but was striking his chest [in humility and repentance], saying, ‘God, be merciful and gracious to me, the [especially wicked] sinner [that I am]!” Luke 18:13. Jesus liked this guy. He used him as an example of humility. “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” V14. 

Sometimes when we hear stuff like that, we immediately think about someone else we know who could do with taking down a peg or nine. The thing is we can’t afford to read God’s book for someone else. This is not a proxy book – the bible is a personal instruction book. Because we truly want to follow Jesus then we need to do what He would do. Jesus was never arrogant about the things He knew. He’s God. Almighty God is His DAD … He had a lot He could go on about! 

Meantime our task is to hear what God says, then DO. Obedience is a fantastic key. It is right up there with being saved and forgiving others. But we can’t learn to love others if we are holding a demand list against them! So let’s leave jealousy, suspicion, and unforgiveness behind us. Keep a short list of aughts against any. Actually… take your little list out into the garden and burn it.  Those things are a rock we can sometimes tie about our ankles that will drown us. Automatically forgive, then deal with your anger and pray about how to make things right again. 

Paul said this, and I love it …  “Follow my example, AS I follow the example of Christ.” So if someone you are following is not following Jesus … then stop following them! Duh! Love them, forgive them, but don’t do what they do and don’t look down on them either. Next time it could be your turn to be the empty-headed numpty. We all need direction, correction, humility, and an appreciation for others in this world. Let’s learn to be content with that. If we want to keep the oil of the Spirit flowing in our lives, then we must learn to follow His instructions. HE WROTE IT DOWN. 

Lastly, listen to this wise Psalmist who knew what was important and what wasn’t: …“For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand [anywhere else]; I would rather be a doorkeeper and stand at the threshold in the house of my God than to dwell [at ease] in the tents of wickedness.” Psalm 84:10. Great place to say goodbye. 👋

P 3105 Take regular BATHS in the Holy Spirit.

/ DVH

Isaiah 42:1TPT. “Take a good look at My Servant. I’m backing Him to the hilt. He’s the One I chose, and I couldn’t be more pleased with Him. I’ve bathed Him with my Spirit, my life. He’ll set everything right among the nations. He won’t call attention to what He does with loud speeches or gaudy parades. He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and He won’t disregard the small and insignificant, but He’ll steadily and firmly set things right. He won’t tire out and quit. He won’t be stopped until He’s finished His work—to set things right on earth. Far-flung ocean islands wait expectantly for His teaching.”

As you can see, Jesus is our highly recommended example of submission. Plus He is our perfect illustration of how to have a permanent, total loving connection, at all times with our Heavenly Father. He was not interested in publicity, or fame, He is always drawn to those people our society deems unlovely, broken, nasty, and unredeemable. Let us realise that legislating tolerance is not the same as loving acceptance. Father God’s will for our lives is loving acceptance. The Lord Jesus gave His all to obey His Father’s wishes so we could be accepted. 

Meanwhile, doesn’t the whole being bathed in the Spirit thing sound lovely??!! You and the Holy Spirit splashing away, having fun together! Hmmm. Way back in the ark we took baths to get rid of dirt. Are you still there? God’s grace, together with the Holy Spirit, will help us to deal with the stuff we’ve been ignoring, or overlooking because that pile of junk seems too hard and too big to tackle. But first we need to realise we need a bath! To get rid of dirt, grime, hypocrisy, jealousy, rage, and revenge, etc. – we need to regularly take a bath in the Living Water of HIS WORD. 

Our God is so good to us. He will always use His Word to encourage us when we are down, to free us when we are trapped, and to wash us when we are dirty. The following verse in Ephesians 5:26 talks about what the Word of God does in us and for us. “Husbands, you must love your wives so deeply, purely, and sacrificially that we can understand it only when we compare it to the love the Anointed One has for His bride, the church. We know He gave Himself up completely to make her His own, washing her clean of all her impurity with water and the powerful presence of His Word.”

There’s a bonus buy in this verse for husbands who are prepared to listen to it — if you follow the Lord’s advice in this verse you will have a happy wife. The advice is this: be like Jesus to your wife. That could keep some people busy until the next millennia!  And, ya might want to read that last sentence again and remind yourself that we will always need His help! Go to the gospels and see how the Lord Himself treated women. It is a sad fact that in the past men were only too happy to lead, but they kind of skipped the whole deeply, purely and sacrificially bit – not to mention love their wives the way Jesus loved the church!

A-n-y-w-ay! … Back to my real point today – deliberately deciding to take a daily bath in His Word. We can read verses like this, nod our heads and  agree with what it says, and still privately think …‘this stuff was written long, long ago, how can it be relevant today?’ The truth is it won’t be relevant unless you choose to make it relevant. Our personal decisions govern what we participate in. If we sow into the flesh—what we feel, or what we think might happen—we won’t even begin to see a harvest in the Spirit. The way to see what the Lord will do with obedience … is to decide to be obedient and get on with it.

Many of this world’s ideas are the exact opposite of our stated desire to be transformed and changed into the Lord’s likeness. You simply can’t walk with the Holy Spirit and disagree with the Way He does things! Father God is so good, He will not cross our wishes. However, what He has done is to provide us with opportunities to change our minds and turn around and go back into submission. Submission means our human mission becomes subordinate to His Heavenly mission. It means that He knows better than we do what we actually want and need – mankind is ruled by its appetites. God has a better plan, because of the Grace Jesus released at Calvary, the Holy Spirit can and will guide and lead us into His Ways.

Like I’ve said many times before – Jesus overpaid our debt. Now we have a bank of Grace that we can draw on, anytime, anywhere … under any circumstances… it is there to help us change! “…ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you …”  The problem is people have bashed on the door of this verse for years now to get stuff that they think they want or need. Things like expensive cars, houses, boats, trips overseas etc.etc.

This verse about asking was used to illustrate to us that we can have the Holy Spirit’s help anywhere, any time. Jesus is talking about receiving, welcoming and being helped by the Holy Spirit, not about me being given a new Porsche! When we allow God’s Word to wash us clean, our motivations become clean too. Let me put it this way – every interaction with His Presence changes us. If we mean it when we say,‘create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me,’  then we must choose to engage with His ways. Taking regular baths in the Holy Spirit means bearing in mind that we are looking to be clean — not just tick a box! That will change our hearts and transform our minds. Bless you. 👋

P 3058 A change is needed.

/ DVH

“I had to nurse you and feed you with “milk,” not with the solid food of more advanced teachings, because you weren’t ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready to be fed solid food, for you are living your lives dominated by the mind-set of the flesh. Ask yourselves: Is there jealousy among you? Do you compare yourselves with others? Do you quarrel like children and end up taking sides? If so, this proves that you are living your lives centred on yourselves, dominated by the mind-set of the flesh, and behaving like unbelievers.” 1 Corinthians 3:2-3.

You know, there’s a deeper place for Christians to live daily – simply because God’s GRACE is available to each one of us all the time. His Grace facilitates our new way to live. However, Grace can’t change a FAKE ME. By that I mean, who we are can be carefully hidden under layers of ‘pious sucking it up’ instead of true transformation. Real transformation means when somebody presses button “A” in our lives, we don’t explode anymore. OH for THAT day!! 

In our society today it seems the land of harder and worse is looming up right in front of mankind. Sadly, most of the time, instead of listening to our own reactions, we make excuses for our behaviour and get furious at someone else. But because of what Jesus did for us, we no longer have to be ashamed to acknowledge where we personally went wrong.

A lot of our time in this life is wasted by pretending we are managing – when we are not. The best thing about sin is that we have an opportunity to be saved and transformed from it, when we acknowledge it! Every person on this planet has sin in common. Realising that, can lead us deeper into the Lord’s incredible Love, we must understand that despite our sinfulness, He will not turn any of us away. It is always our choice … we can live in the need for revenge, or inner peace. You know, babies always need to be looked after, adults have a life to live. Babies are not productive at all, they are consumers.

It would seem from these verses in Corinthians that the Apostle Paul knew some undernourished fat-babies in his life as well! However! “There IS NO condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus…!!” Acknowledgement of our own sin will lead us into a wider, broader place … where I can love you no matter what you did, because I’ve learnt hating you is just as bad as whatever you did to me! Comparison of big and little sins is killing us – and our fake identities are muddying the waters of this life. There are higher places for every single one of us to go. I tell myself: ‘Every time I confront these things in my life, I’m building my faith muscle. Every time I humble myself I am stepping into His Grace.’

So we must decide, and choose to move on from the stuff that has held us captive for most of our lives, and believe what the Lord Jesus said. It’s all part of the same faith. “It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. The slavery comes in when we refuse to acknowledge to ourselves, that we were all born broken! Accepting the never-ending, all-encompassing love of God is available to everyone, changes our perception of things that appear to be stuck. Transparency helps us. We cannot afford to walk around with our noses in the air looking at others thinking: ‘they are more broken than I am!’

Let me be clear – the Lord won’t physically stop us, we must learn, through experience, to use our faith in His truthfulness, to stop ourselves. That’s what our faith is for – we are to live this new life we have been given, using our faith that what the Lord said He did, He did! Acknowledging our sinfulness puts feelings in second place, and at the same time we are telling ourselves that no matter how things look, Jesus has got our troubles or difficulties and He’s THE penultimate Redeemer. 

The door to that jail we lived in before we met Him – is now permanently open.There are no guards! They fell on their backs when He burst out of that grave! The enemy tries to keep all of us busy examining everyone else’s attitudes and actions for our entire lives. Unfortunately, if we put our faith down, and aim at excusing ourselves, we will continue to commit whatever sin we’ve been fighting that trips us up. Instead we must believe Jesus is telling the truth. He said He did it, so it is done. Now we repent and repair things wherever we need to, and move on.

Jesus said that while He was hanging on a cross in agony. “It. Is. Finished.” Every requirement for our new life is already in our account, it has been paid for, in full. Now we put aside the temptation to resent people, or to lie, to ourselves and others, or get angry and hate people. We simply go and do what Jesus would do. He came here to love people, so that’s what we do too! We are all pilgrims, we have not yet arrived: “but we press on!! …” 

There is incredible freedom in not excusing yourself and facing up to reality. There were times Jesus physically went up a mountain to pray. Here’s my little theory … I think He did that because He needed the spiritual, physical and emotional respite from the stuff all around Him. He need to find true REST in His Father.  Prayer and reading the bible are our spiritual life-blood – they gives us rest from striving. Listen as if God Himself was speaking to you, personally. What we need to change is our belief that your sin is worse than mine! Bye. 👋

P 3040 No job is too small!

/ DVH

Acts 6:1-6,8.”Now about this time, when the number of the disciples was greatly increasing, complaint was made by the Hellenists (the Greek-speaking Jews) against the [native] Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked and neglected in the daily ministration (distribution of relief). So the Twelve [apostles] convened the multitude of the disciples and said, It is not seemly or desirable or right that we should have to give up or neglect [preaching] the Word of God in order to attend to serving at tables and superintending the distribution of food.

Therefore select out from among yourselves, brethren, seven men of good and attested character and repute, full of the [Holy] Spirit and wisdom, whom we may assign to look after this business and duty. But we will continue to devote ourselves steadfastly to prayer and the ministry of the Word.

And the suggestion pleased the whole assembly, and they selected Stephen, a man full of faith (a strong and welcome belief that Jesus is the Messiah) and full of and controlled by the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte (convert) from Antioch. These they presented to the apostles, who after prayer laid their hands on them… … Now Stephen, full of grace (divine blessing and favour) and power (strength and ability) worked great wonders and signs (miracles) among the people.”

We limit God and His people, when we think that only the so-called important people among us can do miracles and wonders. Here is Stephen, who was selected by prayer and the Lord’s favour, to wait on the Greek-speaking Jewish  tables. This whole scenario was set off by one group of people complaining about another group. But the Apostles valued the Body’s corporate harmony more than anything else. Those Greek guys were really miffed, because the complainers were distressed by the way their families were being treated. The situation held within it the seeds of discontent. So the apostles set out, with the Holy Spirit’s help, to fix the situation. 

Nobody appears to have given the complainers a talk on how being left out could actually benefit them, because it would give them an opportunity to practise humility! Instead the Apostles fixed the problem prayerfully. They discounted their own personal participation in the solution, but they were more than happy to elevate someone else to take care of it. However, they didn’t just pick two guys randomly, they picked men whose inner and outer lives reflected their faith. That tells us something about God’s mindset regarding small tasks. 

Stephen and Phillip were chosen to be Deacons, and they were provided for the people whose noses were pushed sideways. The depth of that story just blows my mind! Mainly because it is so far away from the way we think today. There are some things in the bible that we really do need to meditate on. They are not just background material to this or that important story. Those seemingly lesser things are worthy of our attention. Now here comes the truly incredible bit of this story … 

“However, some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (freed Jewish slaves), as it was called, and [of the synagogues] of the Cyrenians and of the Alexandrians and of those from Cilicia and [the province of] Asia, arose [and undertook] to debate and dispute with Stephen..“Now Stephen, full of grace (divine blessing and favour) and power (strength and ability) worked great wonders and signs (miracles) among the people. But they (the grumpy guys) were not able to resist the intelligence and the wisdom and [the inspiration of] the Spirit with which and by Whom he spoke. So they [secretly] instigated and instructed men to say, We have heard this man speak, using slanderous and abusive and blasphemous language against Moses and God.” Acts 6:8-13.

Other men who were watching what went on, then turned around and attacked God’s duly elected gift. Jealousy and deception got hold of that group and they betrayed Stephen. The discontent within the Body, opened a door to worse things. It seems to me that their attitude toward Stephen’s gifts was caused by jealousy. And God’s hand on this spiritual man’s life also offended them. We need to be so careful when it comes to offence. That sneaky, slimy little weasel attitude slowly worms its way into congregations and creates schisms, hatred, jealousy and discontent.

In this case it caused Stephen’s death. We don’t know if the men who accused him and wanted to punish him, actually threw rocks at him – but they definitely lied and falsely accused him. And they started the landslide of hate toward this godly man. Stephen became the church’s first martyr.  All because God kissed what this man did, with His Presence, as Stephen chose to serve others. The bible talks about jealousy in Song of Solomon 8:6: “Set me like a seal upon your heart, like a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy is as hard and cruel as Sheol (the place of the dead). Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame [the very flame of the Lord]!”

Serving others seems very insignificant, until you look at everything Jesus did with His time, and deliberately go past the miracles and carefully look into the Lord’s day-to-day actions. All of the spiritually designated gifts are given to the body to help us grow and thrive, and that includes serving each other. We need to pay attention to the things the Lord values, and no job is ever too small. Bye. 👋

P 3034 Reparation.

/ DVH

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”Romans 12:17-21. This means we are doing something – I think of that as releasing Grace..

Jesus Himself warned us that: “A man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” Matthew 10:36. I pray that isn’t so for anyone reading this! However, making reparation or fixing things, has kind of fallen out of fashion within the church. I believe in it. It is not just about the other person, it is about what happens to you when you dismiss someone else’s pain, lightly. It is incredibly valuable to acknowledge our sin. Just because Jesus paid for our sins that does not mean we have nothing more to contribute. 

Because we value love, we need to take action, and He will help us to do it. However, the verse above makes it clear we can only do this when the other party is willing. But in order to know if they are willing, we will actually need to ask the person/s if there is something we can do to restore things! We need to tell them we want restoration. We have become – officially: ” …repairer(s) of broken walls, Restorer(s) of streets to live in.” Isaiah 58:12.

Here’s an example of how that works: “He (Jesus) entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. … … And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today…” So he came down at once and welcomed Him gladly.  All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”” …”Luke 19:1-10. 

That’s reparation. It flows out of a genuinely repentant heart. That’s why Jesus said what He said about Zacchaeus. This man clearly shows the turning around and going the other way, that repentance contains. For far too long we have contented ourselves with saying: “I’m sorry”… when perhaps a better response is: “Oh! I can see I hurt you. How can I fix this? How can I help us to re-establish our relationship in a better place?” 

Jesus’ visible love toward this funny little man changed his life. Being included by the Lord opened a door for him to change. This man was practically an outcast because of the way he conducted his business. Yet the Lord accepted him in front of everyone else, and Zacchaeus’ immediate response to the Lord’s undeserved loving acceptance, was to repent and repair. I believe those accusers’ comments against Jesus, on that day, cut Zacchaeus to the heart. Plus at the same time, the Lord’s reputation as a good Man was cast into doubt, simply  because of Zacchaeus’ sin.

This response is not just noteworthy, but essential to true reparation. We didn’t just sin against a human being – when we hurt someone else – we’ve sinned against Him! And now we need to: “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” Matthew 3:8. Things need to turn around and change with His help. Now we pray and follow the Lord through His processes for restoration. Our sin is gone – but we dare not leave our neighbour bleeding on the street, and wander away, comforting ourselves with the fact that Jesus has already forgiven us. That’s called presumption, and it is mean-spirited.

We must treat God’s great goodness toward all of us with humility and reverence. Our Father’s heart is right in the centre of His generosity toward mankind – Christ’s death cost Him everything. He turned His back on His beloved Son for our sake. Like I’ve said, many MANY times, Almighty God does not do things the way we do them – He loves unconditionally and that it is eternal.He is not a ‘sometimes’ God- only available on demand to people who know the password! We are privileged, whenever we knock on His door, it is always open to us. 

From the moment of our new birth, the Holy Spirit is watching over our hearts looking for Jesus’ likeness.  We need to whole-heartedly choose to become a people who seek to repair the schisms that occur in this life. It is part of our ministry to allow His love to enter into situations where anger, jealousy, spite etc. have prevailed. This means we go to people who have hurt us, or the ones we have hurt and say: “please forgive me,” and then we ask those people: “how can I help you to move on from what happened?” 

That’s what humbling yourself looks like. We aren’t obliged to do it — it comes right down to His selfless love inhabiting what we do, and inspiring us to be better! God promises to repay that other person for whatever they did to us, so let that be enough. Let the knowledge of His love for us, cover their sin. Reparation is costly —but Jesus did that for us, and we simply pass what we were given on to others. Bye.👋

P 2933 Joy is not just happiness.

/ DVH

I’ve learnt this truth from experience, even as I have grown older. When I was about 40 years old, I was misdiagnosed with liver cancer and told I had 6 weeks to live. To confirm that diagnosis I had to undergo a series of large needle biopsies to find the whereabouts of the cancer. A biopsy means you have a local anaesthetic into the area to start with, and then they poke a hole in the liver. If you’ve ever had a biopsy you will know what I mean. 

So the consultant did the biopsy and phoned for results. Negative for cancer.. So she did it again – negative. Apparently it is dangerous to repeat this test over and over, yet they did it 18 times on me, that day. My liver consultant, on the phone, insisted they were missing what he wanted, and he made the female consultant do it again and again, and the results all still came back negative. Even experts can be wrong. At the same time I had to lie perfectly still while they did this test.

After 18 times, the specialist consultant was crying, and so was I .. silently. Tears were pouring down my face but I couldn’t sob or cry out loud because the liver is a vascular organ, it bleeds very badly. So poking holes in it meant I could haemorrhage if I moved, so I had to lie still. In the end I heard this lovely lady yelling at the liver specialist that there was nothing there and she refused to take anymore specimens. Boy was I grateful!! 

They trundled me back to the ward, to lie on my side, doomed to lay there, absolutely still, for at least 8 hours. Fortunately the liver clots quite quickly, but because mine was not functioning properly it was more of a problem. The various liver specialists were so convinced that I had cancer, I had to have a major operation, so they could actually see the liver. It turned out I did not have it, I had an auto immune disease. That’s also when I learnt that joy is not necessarily happiness, because that was when I found out I needed a liver transplant!

Now, let’s look at a commentary, in Isaiah, about Jesus’ suffering: “I GAVE My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth Me; who will contend with Me? Let us stand together: who is Mine adversary? Let him come near to Me.”Isaiah 50:6-8.

The full details of the Lord’s crucifixion appear in Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23 and John 19. Those details reminded me today of that particular day in my own life, long ago. It powerfully reminded me about how hard it must have been for the Lord to keep still as He let them beat Him, shredding the skin off His back. Then they shoved those awful thorns into His dear head, pulled out His beard, and hammered those huge nails into His hands. He did not cry out in pain – the bible tells us He was silent as a sheep is going to the slaughter. He did not choose to retaliate against His tormentors or try to escape.

When the Lord reminded me about that time of difficulty I had, long ago, I remembered all I wanted to do was escape! Imagine the level of self-control Jesus must have had, the love, the patience, despite severe provocation, and the injustice of it all! My consultant, a perfect stranger, kept yelling down the phone: “This is not fair, it’s torture.” But Jesus had nobody to speak for Him. He LET those soldiers carve our names into the palms of His hands with those huge nails. He could have called for angels. Angels were present at His birth. But in this terrible process they were absent. He kept silent and still, and endured the cross because He could see all of mankind on the other side of it. I said all that to say this: “For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross.” Hebrews 12:2.

WE are His joy! His sacrifice made our transformation possible when He let those soldiers do what they were doing, even though they were tormenting and torturing Him beyond our imagining. Joy comes from completing the Father’s will. You know, the Lord Jesus did not deserve what happened to Him. It was deliberate, a malicious spite-filled action filled with hate, murder, rage and jealousy and death. 

Pilate himself did his best to walk that huge surge of evil, murderous emotion in the crowd, back. … But the Jews were determined. At the same time their prognosis of Jesus’ purpose was wrong! The same people who cheered Him and sang “hosanna”and threw their coats down in front of the donkey He was sitting on … cried out; “Crucify Him.” A week later!

Human beings are often evil, fickle and selfish, and despite all our best efforts we are often very wrong. As Christians we must learn to be pliable within His hands… even as we pray and believe for deliverance and release from any captivity. Almighty God promised us all far more than a nice car, a house, a good job, a perfect spouse, plus intelligent perfectly healthy kids!… He promised He’d make us like Him!🤔 JOY is not the same as happiness – happiness comes and goes. .

Happiness is this world’s answer to everything. True Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. That fruit grows in the face of sorrow and suffering. It grows even when you lose someone you dearly love, or someone betrays you, or even if the doctor is totally wrong. It grows as we let Him rule and reign in our lives. Bye. 👋

P 2739 Hot off the press …

/ DVH

Here’s a sizzle thought, hot off the press for today. Philippians 1:15-18: “It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defence of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” 

There’s a whole lotta stuff going on in Paul’s heart that some leaders today wouldn’t recognise, even if they fell over it or into it! We’d probably split most churches right down the middle in his circumstances. But Paul sees God’s good in this situation. And God’s good is wa-ay more important than Paul’s own ego. Think about it, this man had loads of really good reasons to BOAST – yet he always put God’s will and purpose above anything else – and nobody made him do it – he lived there.

I have the strongest feeling that if some of the previous generations of the people of God had lived with a wonderful attitude like Paul, we might have less denominations! We get so used to defending our territory, our revelations, our thoughts, our sound doctrine! — that we forget it’s actually His territory, His revelations, His thoughts, His sound doctrine – not ours! I am as much against error as the next guy, but we are slicing and dicing up the Lord’s church, His body, in ways that are not life-giving and good. By doing that we are arbitrarily stopping the life in the arteries or veins from reaching the flesh in another part of the body. A severed artery or vein loses blood, and the whole Body needs His blood.

This means that the flesh is prevailing in some church assemblies – simply because vain ambition has not been voluntarily put to death. His life giving blood is not getting to the whole Body. Church is about God being glorified – that means focus on Him is everything. Yet very few people are prepared to suffer wrong – on purpose. We attack other parts of the body like they are the enemy, and forget that Almighty God won an awful lot of wars and nobody helped Him! Fancy that! … Almighty God does not need our help! Pause and think on that for a minute or nine. 

There is such a huge attack on leadership today — the enemy himself — not to give him any credit, flings loads of horrible stuff at leaders. Then other people catch the junk and fling it at those poor sods as well. Plus a lot of throwers shove a rock inside for good measure! People seem to think that discovering that error may have occurred, means we must split up a church. They see doing that as the only way to resolve differences. Then they get so excited because half the church got up and followed them – so THEY must be right… That’s called pride if anyone is interested. Human logic is not meant to thrive in these situations, read the book. 

Let’s get back to Paul and his wonderful, generous attitude. Like James also said, selfish ambition and jealousy has ruined lives. What do you know, maybe Paul read his letter? Or maybe they both just talked to the same Lord. God is not divided. So if it causes division then guess what…?? You do the sum. Almighty God is not excited about division – He loves multiplication. And splitting a church is not the way to multiply the kingdom.

Here’s another verse that I love to bits:“For who regards you as superior or what sets you apart as special? What do you have that you did not receive [from another]? And if in fact you received it [from God or someone else], why do you boast as if you had not received it [but had gained it by yourself]?”1 Corinthians 4:7. Humility is like a cloak, you must choose to wear it, and not take it off. We wear it because our King wore it first. Some Roman soldiers saw the value in Christ’s cloak and they refused to tear it into bits because they saw its value! It was seamless. Is anybody out there listening?? 

I want to finish with another verse that I think pulls our focus off what we think we need, over into what He wants to give us. From John 21:21-22 Amplified Bible (AMP) “So when Peter saw Him, he asked Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man [what is in his future]?” Jesus said to him, “If I want him to stay alive until I come [again], what is that to you? You follow Me!” Isn’t that fabulous? Jesus tells Peter to mind his own business because Peter is all twisted up. He thinks John might live forever … Jealousy bit him… The Lord loves to simplify the things. “Follow Me” – He says to Peter, again… When in doubt follow Him, and remember, He never wants to tear up the town.

Today God is looking for an OBEDIENT PEOPLE, but we can resist Him, because we think we don’t like that theology. And we fall down smashing our head against its own inflated opinion of itself. Then we boo-hoo at God because we discover we’ve been walking in the spirit of stupid, again … Or we blame someone else like Adam and Eve did. Truth resides with God not us. HE is our reference point. Todays’ blog is hot off the press. Get rid of malice, resentment, slander, and divisiveness and cling to the One Who knows everything. I know we can only see in part, through a blurry window but after all, He knows the end from the beginning. It’s OK! God’s still in charge.

Bye. 😊

P 2738 Avoid at all cost.

/ DVH

“Jealousy is as strong as the grave.” Song of Solomon 8:6. This was the first scripture that I thought of when I began to think about jealousy. I think each of us may have experienced that things like bitterness, resentment, jealousy, rage, lying, etc. etc. aren’t good for spiritual health. None of these things are great traits to have, for quite obvious reasons. They can tie you up in knots long after the object of that stuff has left this world. I’ve found one thing leads to another and suddenly you are swimming in bad stuff — justifying yourself all the way.

“But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.”James 3:14-16. This scripture really impacted me, it exposed the thought that selfish ambition is a companion to jealousy. And James does not fiddle about, he calls it demonic – and unspiritual. Did you notice that this awful stuff goes right for our jugular? It attacks our hearts. Oh my! James goes on to talk about what real wisdom looks like, but I want to talk about the nasty bits today.

Here’s why. The jealousy bug has bitten me fairly recently. This thing that has happened involves people that are still with us, on earth, so I cannot give you details. However, someone appeared to be stealing something that was actually MINE. I know that intent counts because these people didn’t think it would matter, but unfortunately, when informed of my pain, they wouldn’t stop. That’s when I learnt that the desire to choke the living daylights out of someone who appeared to be stealing something that I know is mine — was sadly much bigger than the idea that I am a person of GRACE. I know I’m not perfect, by any means, but I honestly thought I was bigger inside than that!! Sigh. Reality rush.

Then I discovered why. Jealousy can have roots. This thing had its roots in my childhood. This rotten stuff can hide itself away, as it is actually stealing the life of God within us. It steals energy, focus, plus our very expensive, it cost-Jesus-His-life-to-give-it-to-us … PEACE. Here’s something to think on about that: “A peaceful mind gives life to the body, but jealousy rots the bones.” Proverbs 14:30. As if there is not enough going on inside my skin, daily! Thanks for bringing that up, James! Meanwhile I’ve now learnt from further study that our God is a jealous God. That thought made so much sense to me,if I bow down to, or give in to jealousy, then I am worshipping that thing, not the Lord!

At the same time, I also realised that I was working very hard to do something about my actual bones in the natural, older people have to think about that. I was physically prepared to take medicine, do weight-bearing exercise, and generally move around more to avoid bad bones. Yet, at the same time, I was also shooting all that effort in the foot, by holding onto something I could not change, because – hullo! Jealousy rots the bones!! All because it involved someone else’s behaviour!  That whole thing gave me an excuse to feel sorry for myself.

This stuff all transpired when I became obsessed with someone else taking something from me I didn’t know I valued until they took it! Even more sadly, the people involved had no comprehension of what they were doing – they thought they were helping me! Talk about throwing petrol on a grass fire! 🔥 Have you ever tried to change someone else’s mind when they think they are righteous? You may as well try to hold back the ocean.

I have had so much legally, legitimate stuff to be angry about, that I could have divided it into categories! And all this happened despite me repeatedly disclaiming the idea that the helpful people’s actions were hurting me, not helping. Whoosh! That stuff went way over their heads. It is good to know that it’s only truly helping someone else, if the person who needs the help actually wants it, right? DUH!! 

Sorry. After I wised up, and repented — I told the Lord that if He wants me to have what was being stolen, then HE would have to get it back for me. And then I stuck to that thought. Plus I had to add in repeated forgiveness, because they would keep harping on the so-called fact that what they were doing was good for me – bless them!!… Says she with gritted teeth. 😬  I repented of jealousy, anger, and wanting to whack people. Hmmm …you know, I just gotta say that I think it is a mistake to colour in bad stuff with a pretty pink pencil and pretend it is not what it is. Sin.

So I am on a learning curve. I’ve learnt that jealousy is to be avoided at all cost, because the ramifications to our spiritual life and well-being are not worth it. Bye. 👋

P 2582 More on a heart like David.

/ DVH

The Lord said of His servant David, that “this is a man after My own heart”. (1 Samuel 13:14) It seems to me it is comparatively easy to pray:“Oh Lord please give me a heart like David had!”…in a moment of love and passion toward God Himself … with no understanding of what that means!  Will we blame God for not answering that prayer – when we ignore the opportunities He sends our way?

Think on this: if you and I really want a heart like David had, then God Himself will need to send us the kind of opportunities DAVID had! Hearts are formed, they do not fall on us. Here’s quick revision of David’s life — this young man was overlooked in his family. His earthly father forgot he had him and obviously thought the boy was not as promising as his six brothers were!  Did David moan about that? No! Instead he learnt about God in the middle of a pasture doing a job that was beneath his stature. This was where he learnt about soaking in God’s ways. That’s where he learnt to make the Lord his priority. He wrote beautiful Psalms… instead of complaining about his lowly position and the weather.

David chose God’s ways over his own human desires, many times. We all know about his failure and the subsequent consequences, but there were so many other times that David chose to honour the Lord despite his circumstances. His responses to his life were way above most men’s natural tendencies. He did not do that to curry favour with God, BTW, he did it because that was who he was! Soaking in God’s beauty had shaped his heart, and his responses came from that heart of love toward the Father. 

So if WE want a heart like David, then maybe we will have to fight our own Goliath and WIN. We all have Goliaths in our lives, and we often feel ill-equipped to fight them. But David took what he had – which was belief in Who Almighty God is – and defeated his enemy. There may also be a possibility that we will have to honour somebody in our lives just like King Saul, David’s persecutor of 20 years. Simply because that person is God’s choice to shape US… by handing out constant oppression! Maybe our tormentor has been tormenting us for years too!!

Let’s look at David’s response when his little baby boy died… “After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. On the seventh day the child died …” 2 Samuel 12:15-18. 

After his baby’s death, David’s servants were reluctant to tell him the little one was gone, but he figured it out. Then he does an extraordinary thing — it seems almost totally incomprehensible. He gets up, washes himself, and asks for food. Why on earth would he do that? You know when I think about his response it blows me away. This man is so concerned about doing God’s will, God’s way, once the Lord’s plan is revealed – He leaves the whole thing alone and goes back into ordinary life, immediately. Boy is that living this life surrendered!  

Much later, David actively sets out to find someone left in Saul’s house … even after Saul and Jonathan had died. He wants to do his enemy’s family good. (Now there’s a grand illustration of doing good to your enemies!) Despite his warrior life, this man of God had such integrity before the Lord. It all sprang from his deep love for God, not obligation, or religious duty. Those Psalms he wrote came right out of his own experiences! Instead of cultivating despair, anger and jealousy – David cultivated a sweet heart.

It may be that we too have lost else someone so dear to us, like David did, when his older son Absalom died. But David was not able to mourn Absalom … imagine that! He’s a leader, his sheep come first! He puts his grief aside, in order to be a good leader and king to his subjects. Funny how God picks ordinary people like that quite often. Think about it.

These are just some ?highlights? After all David’s life was filled with war and betrayal! If we truly want a heart like he had, maybe we are going to need some panel-beating first! That, and a sweet, spontaneous heart-response under pressure. God Himself forges men and women in the furnaces of trouble, pestilence, war, sorrow and strife. We must simply choose to learn His ways, they won’t fall on us.

Here’s my last thought – right after the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost, persecution for the gospel’s sake broke out. But Father God had a purpose, He wanted the disciples to disperse to spread the gospel further. So, instead of becoming a jolly, happy, worshipping group, who enjoyed their new life together teaching the same things over and over again … persecution and bad experiences are now their teacher.

 We will have troubles and strife in this life, and this means God is working on our hearts. To have a heart like David we will need to be changed. 👋 “Create in me a clean heart O, Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.” Amen!

P 2580 Unblocking blockages.

/ DVH

As Christians we can experience spiritual blockages. So today, let’s look at attitudes that can get in our way, and sometimes we are almost unaware of them. Our God is not legalistic, we are forgiven. However, WE can block the flow of the Holy Spirit in, and through our lives by ignoring Him or choosing not to be aware of His ways. Or even by disobeying the things we don’t like! It is our responsibility to discover for ourselves what He wants from us, by talking to Him, reading the book and then doing it. At the same time, praise God, He is always willing to engage with us at any hour or any moment, of any day to help us whatever is currently going on. 

Here are some things that have helped me. If I find myself gossiping about someone, then the first place I go to is – am I angry with this person? If perhaps I get sick of somebody I know bragging about their skills, or their possessions etc. then I look at jealousy. Instead of blaming my attitudes etc. on others, the first place I need to look at is myself. Personally, I try not to excuse my behaviour, by saying ‘I’m tired or sick, or life has been a bit much.’ If I really believe that the Lord holds my life in His hands, then I need to see that everything that comes toward me is Father-filtered. But that does not mean I will not hesitate to tell the enemy to take a hike when oppression comes at me! 

The thing is, I refuse to let my sinfulness prevent me from running toward my Father, because Calvary took care of any legal requirements on my behalf, so now His Grace predominates. Grace frees people everywhere it is embraced – Grace is not ‘permission to sin!‘ Grace is ‘we have an advocate!’  Now I am free, Christ made me free and I’m the boss of what I do, say and think, and I can’t blame you! We can stop the flow of His life through us by our choices, actions and attitudes at any given moment. God gave us power, and that power can be used to help others, help us adjust our behaviour and theology – or … tune Him out! Paul wrote this in his second letter to Corinthians, chapter 12 verse 9!

“But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” You know there are days when I wish the Holy Spirit would just arbitrarily do this stuff through me, or to me, instead of me having to choose and apply myself? But freedom means choices. Dying to self is hard. The problem is this, a lot of the time, my ‘old man’ is trying to bring about an unlawful resurrection! That’s called necromancy. We can blame the devil if we want to, but really, the devil ain’t that big! Nobody can stop us from moving, but US. Seriously. Like the book says: “What then shall we say to all these things? If God is for us, who can be [successful] against us?” Romans 8:31.

The answer to that rhetorical question is ME. I can exercise my God-given power of choice at any given moment, and simply refuse to move on. I can take offence with something that God, or someone else has done, and spit the dummy and opt out of discussing it with Him. I can look at my circumstances and decide that I am too weak to fight, or I am sick of fighting my old self. Instead I can just feel sorry for myself and sit marinating in my sorrows.

This whole ‘walking with Jesus life’ is optional. And if we do not use every opportunity to get to know Him better and fall in love with Him, and the way He works — then we can be pretty sure we will eventually take ourselves out of this marathon race, in favour of comfort and safety! Some people, sadly, have even walked away. The good news is repentance will bring us back again!

There are areas in all our lives with big fat “KEEP OUT” signs on them. You and I put those signs there in some moment of desperation, angst or a fit of pique. Maybe someone hurt us and we feel we can’t get over it. My advice is to exercise the power of choice and … just get over it. Here’s why I think that. We can actually tie ourselves up like a loin of pork and wonder why we aren’t moving on spiritually. Or we can discover, by prayer, persistence and reading the bible, where we have put up stop signs. Blockages come from us, not from the Lord.

Christ took away every single road block between God and us, even though it killed Him. Brothers and sisters, there is so-very-much-more-of-Him-and-Who-He-is for us to know. Why waste time? Let’s go on a “seek and ye shall find tour,” and pull down, or starve out, every single one of those strongholds that are imprisoning us. Let’s throw away the balloons, cakes and streamers at our frequent pity parties and just get on with it. 👋