Jesus

P 3039 You gotta dig to find gold.

/ DVH

“How enriched are they who find their strength in the Lord; within their hearts are the highways of holiness! Even when their paths wind through the dark valley of tears, they dig deep to find a pleasant pool where others find only pain. He gives to them a brook of blessing filled from the rain of an outpouring. They grow stronger and stronger with every step forward, and the God of all gods will appear before them in Zion.” Psalms 84:5-7 TPT.

I find the Psalms are such an enormous comfort in this life! There are times that I simply cannot cope with some stuff. I need Jesus, and the precious Holy Spirit. And if you think that sounds pious or something …you would be wrong! The Holy Spirit’s Presence comforts me, and whispers things I need to hear into my heart, when I am angry. Like:“Why not suffer wrong?….” Jesus can say that to me because He lived His life that way long before I was ever born! 

When things get difficult, or I’m tired, or I have had a series of unlovely events that were not my fault — that is when I can get tetchy. Suddenly I can’t hear Him clearly. And yes, there are also times when I can hear Him fine — but I still get cranky anyway. That’s the time I know I made a choice … it was the wrong one …but I know I definitely made a choice! 

This life to me, is a battlefield, and there are seasons when we end up in the firing line. The thing is, it is not good to beat yourself up when you fall off the wagon, and you end up needing to deal with your own temper – as well as whatever caused it to flare up! Sadly, that response can add to an already difficult situation. Rules don’t help me then, they are too easily discarded. Instead I pray:  “Please help me Holy Spirit!” I have found He is so utterly dependable –  He always answers that prayer. Take a pause and a deep breath, so you can let Him help you through whatever is happening. 

The bible says this in Proverbs 25:28: “A man (a person) without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” It is way too easy to put self-control right down the bottom of the list of things that we know we are going to need. Other spiritual graces sound so much sweeter …but self control is an important key to everything else. This is the digging part of Psalm 84:5-7. We have to dig down into what we already know about Him, to help us withstand what is going on externally. 

After a while, like the Psalmist says, we also need to cultivate and develop a habit of going to Him first. Even when all you have is a desperate cry for help! That choice is ours. We have to choose to believe He will answer us. But whether we feel His Presence in those moments or not, He is always with us – that is where He promised to be!  It’s in the book. Sooner or later we all hit the very difficult wall that says — “do we believe our experiences, or lack of them — or do we believe in Him because of Who He is, and what He said?’

That’s what Lordship is. It is the place where the rubber hits the road and we choose to go His way instead of ours. That’s also the place where we will need to start digging deeper. Eventually our tears and heartache will create a pool that can comfort others. Finding our strength in Him takes perseverance. And when that Grace is cultivated within us, it will produce His fruit, in its season. Holiness isn’t what we eat or drink or do – holiness is in Him.The more we trust in Him and put our faith on the line, the more we will end up walking like a child of the King. The Spirit of God within us, rises up to help us.

Some people think of Grace as something that comes upon them. That is not true. We stir it up from within us, we don’t pray it down. Listen to this:  “Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He replied to them by saying, The kingdom of God does not come with signs to be observed or with visible display, Nor will people say, Look! Here [it is]! or, See, [it is] there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you [in your hearts] and among you [surrounding you].” Luke 17:20-21.

You and I, together with entire Body of Christ, are the display case of the kingdom of God for the rest of this world. Yeah, that’s kind of a bit daunting isn’t it? We will allow this kingdom to grow within us as we choose His ways over ours. And let me tell you, in  my experiences, those opportunities will always come at the most inopportune times!  

Maybe somebody just jumped all over your feelings, or a pet theory and then …watch out … what you can potentially display is either His kingdom, or your own bad temper! Yes, you have a reason to be angry, yes you may want to strangle the offender, but if … at that moment … you ask for His help, and pause, and pray, and then you will be empowered to give a kingdom response.

That’s what grows that fruit we are always on about. Growing fruit is vastly underrated. However to grow a fruit tree, like a lemon tree, or a cherry tree – you will have to dig deep. You have to make enough room for the roots to expand and grow. We have to dig to produce His fruit! It  is eternal, it’s golden, it’s forever. So we gotta dig out the weeds of our old life and let the tree He plants in us grow!  Bye. 👋.

P 3038 Let’s stretch what we understand.

/ DVH

“This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.]’ Matthew 6:9-13.

I decided to spend some time this morning, looking at something so familiar it becomes easy to just rattle it off without thinking about it. For the purists – yes, I know that that prayer does not necessarily stop there. In some versions it adds – “for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”  I really don’t care WHAT kind of other manuscript that phrase came from – any opportunity to Praise God for Who He is should be taken. It’s actually good for US! Just FYI – this prayer shows us the Lord Jesus’ focus – God first!

In Western countries, most of the time, only the poor amongst us have to pray for ‘their daily bread.’ However, in other places in this world that’s the only kind of prayer they pray. They need food, as well as some sort of roof over their head, plus clean water!  Oh, and the poor often pray with great passion for their sick and starving children. They may be forced to throw in a desperate prayer for others to stop dropping bombs on them! That stuff doesn’t apply to most of us. We just go to the supermarket and pick up a loaf of bread without thinking.

Ever since the Lord told me to watch out for the little words, I can’t seem to see anything else – those little words pop out at me like mushrooms in a field. The word for today is “AS!” That’s a little word, big on meaning. Here is  a question…do you think that the Lord has trouble getting His will done in heaven?? No?? Me neither. But it’s pretty obvious to everyone that God’s will is going down the plug-hole in this world. If His will was done, the afore-mentioned starving, homeless, bombed out, physically assaulted poor people would be fed and housed, and safe – automatically!

On we go: my next point is  … And forgive us our debts, AS we also have forgiven our debtors.” That kind of kicks the whole idea that God forgives everyone all the time, in the bucket doesn’t it? One little word, two little letters and it changes the whole ball-game. I checked that out in a whole lot of versions, and guess what … AS is actually the word used everywhere!  ‘As’ explains that the first thing can’t happen without the second.

Yeah, that’s a sobering thought that sent me straight to the knees of my heart to make sure I wasn’t holding anything against somebody else! Being loved is a given but – our forgiveness is conditional. It’s not an optional extra – even if somebody else did something so dastardly we feel can never ever forgive them. We quite simply …  must..

Sin has no power to hold us captive, now we live out our lives under Love’s jurisdiction. Sin can only have power over us when we LET or ALLOW it. It’s a choice. Christians simply must learn the difference between ‘how I feel’ and ‘what God said.” The only power in how I feel, is the power we choose to give it – and yes I am a dud at that too! 

However, we live in another kingdom now, that’s why we pray “Your kingdom come!” WE get to bring it with us! We can choose to stand around in satan’s backyard wondering why we are getting clobbered, OR we can take back the higher ground that already belongs to us. The power, the choice, is now in our hands.

Lastly: ‘deliver us from evil ’ means so very much more than the vague hope that God will stop me from doing bad things! As if the Lord would need to do that – He already thoroughly did it, 2000+ years ago! Now, we have our free-will and His power to help us overcome. We quite simply need to stop ourselves. Sin can no longer hold us captive. Sadly, we will never progress in the Christian life while we choose to give our enemy power over us that he no longer has.

“Deliver us from evil” can also mean: “please Jesus keep me away from those things that are sent into my life to destroy me. Please make me aware of them – keep me alert to the enemy’s tricks. Show me the holes in my life that give him permission to torment me.” Amen.

Let’s learn to stretch what we already think we understand. You and I have probably heard hundreds of expositions on what the Lord’s prayer means, but that does not mean we have exhausted what it can say to us. Press the refresh button in your daily reading – a new fresh revelation awaits us all. Bless you! 👋

P 3037 Praying the bible.

/ DVH

Hubby shared the following verses with me the other day, and this morning I want to encourage you to use them for prayer – because that is the way he sent them to me. I am learning to do it when I can’t think what, or how to pray. It kind of ‘primes the pump’ so to speak. 

“Grant me to be strengthened with power through Your Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith as I encounter Him in Your Word. Root and ground me in His love, so I would have strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that I may be filled with all of Your fullness, O my God.’ Amen. Ephesians 3:16–19.

We need to know, that we absolutely know — that we are dearly, passionately, LOVED, by God Himself. It is not enough to just know that in our heads, we need to be rooted and grounded in that love spiritually. We must hold tight to that fact in the good times, and, in my way of thinking, especially in the bad ones! To be grounded in His love means it goes right down inside us, comprehensively covering every part of who we are. The bits that are seen and unseen.

Then it will flow out of us when we are squeezed tightly by this life. Lately at my house, that seems like practically every other day!  If I were attending baseball practice in the nets – the pitching machine has gone insane, and I keep getting bopped on the head by the multitude of random, erratic balls flying at me. Not fun. I want to yell: “Will somebody please turn that rotten thing off?” Stuff just keeps happening! Sometimes it seems like there is no time to take a breath. 

You know, a big dollop of curiosity is a valuable thing in this life. It helps me to step outside the same old same old routine and look at them differently.  I used to take things apart when I was a child. Fortunately they mostly still worked when I put them back together again, or I might have met the hand of great disapproval on my delicate rear end! 🤣

Once, when I was about 9 or10, I took apart a pair of pyjamas I particularly liked, and used the bits as templates to make another pair. I hand-sewed both pairs back together again and I had two pairs of pyjamas instead of one. They weren’t Chanel – but they worked! Another time I took a watch apart … but that’s a whole other story with a less happy ending. However the watch still worked! Curiosity is just part of my nature.

So, whenever I read the bible, that’s what comes out, and one of the first things I want to know is… “why.” There are times I also want to know …“what on earth were they thinking?!” Or even; “what does that mean?” Then the ‘game is afoot’ and off I go. The Lord points to something and I start researching this and that, fitting bits together like a big jigsaw puzzle.

Sometimes I suspect that In His great kindness He indulges me, because He knows I like that kind of chase. He just drops one word or a phrase into my heart and tells me to go look it up. Then I am off like that artificial bunny running round the greyhound track. My step-Dad liked to gamble, so I went to all sorts of interesting places I’d rather not talk about, when I was a kid. 

Moving on … Jesus helps me with the process.  He gives me the strength to get up and sit at the keyboard tapping away writing this blog. Some days it feels like I would rather be a contented carrot in His garden — not mindful of anything! Yet every single time, when I read His Word, things just leap off the page and off I go again. Meanwhile there are days when I get lost trying to accomplish the task, instead of just simply walking with the Holy Spirit. He is wonderful at helping. The moral of that story is ask for His help immediately!

When we pray the bible over ourselves, we are doing more than just reading it, and agreeing with it. We are acknowledging its power. This book is incredible. It has within it, the power to change our minds. I don’t know exactly when this happened to me, but after years of reading, praying and doing, now I find myself using the bible as the reference point for everything else! I bring absolutely everything up against what His book says and chuck anything out if it doesn’t fit. I didn’t set out to do it, BTW, I just left secular understanding behind somewhere back there, and now all I care about is: “What does Jesus say about that?” 

In the above verses, I particularly like the phrase:“so I would have strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that I may be filled with all of Your fullness…” Boy do I need that kind of strength. My comprehension of love is so limited by my life experiences. Have you ever noticed how our enemy likes to reinforce negative stuff? I’ve  become aware of a little kink in my thinking that just slightly colours everything so that I miss out on LOVE.  Yes, I’m praying about it!

You and I are in a race. Some of us aren’t as fit as we used to be, and some of us weren’t fit in the first place! I  understanding most word meanings, but the word love, the way it is used here, often escapes me. It’s bigger than I am. I have nothing to tie it into, no reference point. My own personal experiences of love have darkened its meaning for me. So I have to start with the fact that I need His help to even begin to understand the kind of love the Holy Spirit describes in the book! It is much too easy to revert to;  love means I get what I want. 

At those negative times I desperately need His power to understand what the Lord has freely given us. That’s why I pray the scriptures over me. Otherwise I can very easily get stuck in error, subscribing to the age-old system “if you do something wrong you will be punished.” Jesus was punished in our place and Almighty God paid an incredible price for us to know how very much we are loved individually and corporately. Wouldn’t it be incredibly sad, if we missed it because we don’t understand how anybody can be that loving, and care that much about us?

I want to encourage you today, to see the bible as a resource for your prayers. Especially for intangible things like love, joy, peace. Find a verse that says what you would like to say, and pray it for yourself. Bye.👋

P 3036 Upside down thinking.

/ DVH

Christians can have some upside-down thinking when it comes to the Lord. We inadvertently blame God for the bad things that happen to us. Or at other times we take the higher path and accept that we are being disciplined —without understanding what it really means. Our God will never leave us. Because He is holy, He wants us to share in His holiness. He tells us in Hebrews to look at Jesus, Who never doubted His Father for a second.

Hebrews 12:3-10: “Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart…… In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son?  My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness.”

We know that God loves us, because He disciplines us, and His discipline will always be for our good. He is encouraging us into His Way of Holiness. In other words – if we want to be holy like HE is, this is how you get it! We need to trust Him and learn to endure in the hard bits. That is not the same as gritting your teeth and waiting for the hard time to be over. Trusting Him and learning endurance happens, when we hold fast to His goodness, and His astonishing ability to work even terrible things together for our good. He is not mad with us, just because our little bit of this world has gone upside down. The reality is, we are birthing something of His kingdom into our lives that we cannot get any other way. When we respond in faith to difficulties and trials. Christians often gravitate far more toward things that inspire us, instead of things that challenge us.

We listen and observe through ears that filter things by whether it affects my life or not! Those things are anchored into the world of ME! My comfort, life, and my salvation. It all gets filtered through my perception of how spiritual things are meant to work. If I happen to like a certain biblical teacher, then that teacher also provides me with a part of that filter. When writers and speakers say things we like, we assimilate them into our theology. I absorb their revelations often without praying about it or searching out the matter for myself! It’s kind of a short-cut approach to growth. But we must also learn from the Holy Spirit, who speaks “ME” intimately.

Almighty God has an Eternal Language called Love. When He disciplines us, the bible says: He disciplines us because He loves us! That can seem like upside-down thinking!  In our way of thinking, when people love us, it means they are for us, and they wouldn’t dream of hurting us. It seems that our ideas of discipline today mean punishment, and they must not to be tolerated. That’s not true in the bible. Sometimes we don’t get the depth behind the Lord’s words. “God disciplines those HE LOVES.” In other words — His discipline in our lives, is one of the ways we know we are loved by Him! 

Now if you are like me that thought automatically leads to: “I wish you wouldn’t discipline me quite so much, thank you, Lord!”…B-u-t … I probably wouldn’t say that out loud. That’s because I am misreading the word discipline. The Lord wants to correct us with His eye on us. Our wonderful Father God is not just randomly walloping us when things get difficult or we do something we know we shouldn’t – He is showing us He loves us. We simply don’t understand His language. We need to move into maturity. Our Father’s aim is holiness, not just our comfort. His Love values intimacy with us above our idea of a happy life.

Father God has promised He will never leave us, even when things are terrible. He loves us so much He is leading us on into deeper things – so the next time something bad happens, we will have something concrete to stand on —  assurance of HIS LOVE!  God does not send the trouble but He will use it for our good. Jesus took all of our punishment on Himself, but we still need transformation. Embracing His holiness in our lives will totally change our perspective. Jesus was absolutely holy – but He didn’t float about with shiny gear on and a halo!  He showed us His holiness by only doing good from a pure heart – then He took the punishment that belongs to us. Yielding to God’s ways under fire, means we will not be burned, we will be spectators.

We must make it our aim to accept, and be blessed by God’s discipline, He is saying to each one of us:“You are Mine. I love you. Come up higher.” By all means, ask for trouble to be taken away! But if it remains, then God is doing something else. He is saying to you — “come closer, let’s talk.” That is not upside-down thinking, it’s thinking that has turned the right way up. Bye 👋

P 3035 What eternal love looks like.

/ DVH

“The mature children of God are those who are moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit. And you did not receive the “spirit of religious duty,” leading you back into the fear of never being good enough. But you have received the “Spirit of full acceptance,” enfolding you into the family of God. And you will never feel orphaned, for as He rises up within us, our spirits join Him in saying the words of tender affection, “Beloved Father!” For the Holy Spirit makes God’s Fatherhood real to us as He whispers into our innermost being, “You are God’s beloved child!” And since we are His true children, we qualify to share all His treasures, for indeed, we are heirs of God Himself. And since we are joined to Christ, we also inherit all that He is and all that He has. We will experience being co-glorified with Him provided that we accept His sufferings as our own.” Romans 8:14-17 TPT.

These verses in Romans clearly show us the depth of God’s passion for humanity … we are His. Jesus died to remove every single barrier between us and Father God. It’s like Song of Solomon 2:16 says:“My beloved is mine and I am His…”  That fact is irrefutable and repeated over and over again, throughout the bible. When we give our hearts, minds and lives to Jesus, He accepts what we give Him – what a privilege that is! We can only do this because He made us worthy. Don’t be like Esau and let someone, or anything else steal your birthright.

We belong to our Heavenly Father – because of Christ’s death and the choices He made – not by our own feelings or circumstances. Often our circumstances are far from ideal! What Jesus did for us, the price Father God paid, is where our faith needs to be anchored – not in what goes on around us. He paid a high price to call you His! This earthly life, good or bad, does not change what He said — “You belong to Me and you are Mine.”

We were made ‘good enough’ because of what God Himself did, Jesus paid a debt we could never pay. “But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool. For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy, the bible says.” Hebrews 10:12-14. I like that last sentence, verse 14, very much. I am “…being made holy…” That means I ain’t there yet, and …neither are you. However, our imperfections are not the feature film here … His great love is! It would be such a shame to miss out on the main feature because we are distracted by the local news’ highlights!

Jesus did more than simply save us from our sins — it was an exchange. He gave us His holiness – His righteousness, His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We simply need to take Him at His Word and act on that Word, daily. We’ve been reborn into His family. The fatherless now have a Father. The orphan has been adopted. In the meantime, we need to be about our Father’s business, too. 

There is a short-cut that will help us find out why we are here, and what we have been chosen to contribute for the Father’s kingdom. People want to find out what their “gifts” are – and the best way to do that is to choose to walk the Way of LOVE.  We deliberately choose to be guided by how Jesus defined love. His  Love lasts. It quite simply can’t run out, because now we have entered into the eternal! It doesn’t care if nobody sees it in action, it hopes for the best in every situation – no matter how negative the situation is. The good news is His Love can’t fail. Our gifts will be manifested when we walk in love.

Sometimes I get stuck in my thoughts about the Body of Christ. I look at Jesus’ Bride and I get puzzled about the way we are going. We do not look like a Bride Who is getting ready for a wedding. Instead we seem to be focussing on the here and now, and not on eternity – eternity is the marriage! We are now eternal beings. Let’s look forward to seeing our Bridegroom — even in the middle of all this stuff down here – the stuff is temporary, heaven is not!

When human beings love someone, our thoughts about them are all positive. However, our flesh cannot define God’s Love nor can we define our worth by our standards. The God of all the universe, Who loves His Son … and loves us –– let Jesus be mistreated, badly spoken about and slaughtered! That’s what eternal love looks like! Now we need to live in that greater reality. Right here, right now. These present light infirmities are nothing in the light of what He died to give us. It seems to me that sometimes we really don’t understand the magnitude of what we’ve been given.

We should never even entertain the thought of not-being-good-enough, even for a second … look at the price He paid to buy us all back! Jesus took our never-will-be-good-enough to the cross with Him …“…having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved…” Ephesians 1:5-7. We are dearly loved, and made good enough by SomeOne Else’s voluntary sacrifice – now we live this life receiving, rejoicing, and giving thanks for God’s lavish love. 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 3033 Love’s Way.

/ DVH

God’s Love manifests itself in a different way to our love. Human beings often hand out love to others like it is a prize for pleasing us. Or we think it needs to be bestowed upon people we really really like. That is not God’s Way. God’s Love exists far, far above our human behaviour, that is why our love will not do!  His love seeks to bring out the best in us. It does not hold grudges, or remember the past, it does not self-protect. Think about it. Jesus hung on that cross for all the world to see, yet He was totally innocent of any crime. They had to make something up to even capture Him. At the same time, He chose to suffer injustice to provide us with Mercy.. 

Every single thing that was said about Him by His enemies was not true. He IS God and what He said was not blasphemy. Our lack of understanding of what God would look like, and what He would do – caused people to misjudge the Lord. And yet He still stood there, accused and silent. He suffered through a terrible, unwarranted death, and He went through all of it unprotected by His Father, or thousands of angels, or even the men that followed HIm. He allowed Himself to be murdered and made a mockery of, for humanity’s sake. 

Peter actually tried to protect the Lord by chopping off someone’s ear, and the Lord immediately spoke to him about it. Jesus’ response amazes me, because even when He was under so much threat and pressure —He still responded with LOVE. He repaired that man’s ear, and taught Peter a lesson, right in the middle of the worst time of His life. He was suffering from terrible betrayal, by those He loved best. Jesus virtually said to Peter: “That is not the way I want you to live! You will die if you live like that!” Meanwhile God does not need our protection. A useful thing to remember. 

Love is far more powerful than revenge or hatred or even self-defence. To me, this makes learning to love the way God loves incredibly important. Otherwise my motivation can become pretty suspect because it comes from an ungodly self-centred motivation. I can convince myself that I am doing something or other for you, and at the same time, I can ignore the way I am doing it and how it hurts you. The point is —I can’t trust my own judgement! I need a Helper to help me to transform my thinking to be like His. Even though I am actively renewing my mind, my judgment can still be impaired by the way my thoughts and feelings have framed everything else that has happened to me. I need an outside reference – Jesus Himself is that reference.

Here’s a tiny bit of ?useful? info. It is not always true — however I have observed many times in my life that people do not do bad things TO you … they do those things FOR themselves. In other words it ain’t personal! Those hurtful things may not be aimed AT you … those people are protecting themselves, or ambitious for themselves etc. They could use you as an excuse for their own behaviour,  but that can mean that you have somehow threatened them. 

Let’s look at what happened to Jesus. The ruling religious people could not find fault with the Lord’s behaviour, but they were scared witless that what He taught and did, would take away their own little world, where they felt important … They were scared and jealous. They recognised that Jesus was SomeOne with more authority than they had, and He was able to do the kind of things that grabbed the attention of the people. Meanwhile fear only produces chaos and we can’t afford to give in to it. We must voluntarily choose to learn to be perfected in Love.

In difficult situations  when we can’t easily sort things out, look for the fruit produced by what has happened. Don’t look at what someone else said or has done – review your own behaviour. Look for the log in your own eye. What is, or what has been the result of the situation? Do people love each other more? Do they trust each other more? Instead of excusing your own behaviour, and accusing others — look for opportunities to give Grace room to show up! All sorts of nasty little minions hide under the heading of FEAR. The good news is His perfect Love throws fear out and He replaces it with Himself.

The cross released a flow of Grace and Love that is still flowing today, 2000+ years later. But we need to choose to jump into that river and let love win. We need to stop standing on the banks of all that living water, telling each other “isn’t that lovely, doesn’t that look pretty?” Christianity is a participatory lifestyle not just a collection of pretty, sometimes useful thoughts. It is a WAY to live — and that Way is called the WAY OF LOVE.  

The Lord Jesus showed all of us how to live that lifestyle. You never turn it off! And the Holy Spirit will walk with us and remind us of how love thinks and behaves. Every circumstance is an opportunity. As we move on through this life we cannot afford to have a thought in our heads that Jesus would not have had in His. That means, especially for me – I’m going back to school, even at my age, because I simply must learn how to live by LOVE’s Way. Bye. 👋.

P 3032 Live this life mindfully.

/ DVH

How do we walk with the Holy Spirit? Mindfully. We pay attention to our responses in this life and live aware of Him. And if the world around you descends into chaos, and you still feel peace, then we choose to realise Who is helping us and we start thanking Him! We need to recognise when He has clearly inhabited our difficult situations because the Holy Spirit isn’t a brass band, big fuss kind of a Person – He will come and go and we can miss Him.

It is such a joy to know that the Holy Spirit understands our humanity. Romans 8:11 MSG explains this.“But if God Himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of Him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome Him, in whom He dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God Who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He’ll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!”

Sin was dealt with, 2000+years ago, literally when Jesus died, we died. Dead people don’t worry about sin – they are dead. Dead people don’t have opinions… they are dead. You can’t hurt a dead person’s feelings be-ca-u-se … they don’t have any they are dead! All that stuff we accumulated throughout our lifetime is now dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead …ALL DEAD. We live a new, different life now, and the Holy Spirit will guide us daily into the Father’s Ways.

The Holy Spirit is the One Who made us alive in Christ – we call that being born again. It’s a biblical term for a spiritual reality and it focusses on our new life in Christ. Step by step, as we choose to follow His Ways, He will lead us away from everything that imprisoned us before, and those things will no longer have the same appeal. There are times the old self is so deeply imbedded within sinful ways, that we will need to walk closely with the Holy Spirit to walk away from that stuff. The bonus buy when we do that is that we get to know Him better! 

“Do two walk together except they make an appointment and have agreed?” Amos 3:3. That’s the secret … to walk with the Holy Spirit, we must learn to agree with Him. Sometimes we may even have to let go of things that we think we know about right and wrong, because the human being who taught us was teaching from their own experience. But God’s Ways are higher than ours. The Holy Spirit knows what the Father likes, and He is delighted to share those things with us now. 

This is how it works for me. I read the bible, it might just be one verse, it could be many chapters, but I am waiting for Him to highlight something for me. This morning He said to me: “Tell My people if they want to walk with Me they will need to choose to be mindful of my Presence in their lives.” We don’t have a series of rules we must follow and remember. We have a new Way to live. He has already prepared it for each one us, and because of that new way, we will grow closer and more in love with Jesus each day. It’s called the Way of Love.

When I read the bible, I try not to skip any bits that tell me things I don’t think I want to hear! Including the things I might need to change. This happens because I want the Holy Spirit and I  to walk together, in agreement. I ask Him questions and I remember to thank Him. His ways are now my focal point.  Even if I find something He does not like — I ask Him: “Do I do that?” Most of the time I get a very quick answer to that kind of prayer!

If you want to be humble, that will humble you! Especially if in your mind you have dismissed whatever it is as not being all that bad. I’ve found it is far too easy to think, “God won’t mind that,” – without even asking Him first. Bad plan. Let Him correct you with His eye on you. The bible is just great at pointing out stuff we would rather just gloss over. He knows how to stop something before it starts!

The glorious point of mindfulness, is that is not about digging around looking for SIN. There are simply times we can’t see through His eyes and He reveals to us what He can see. The sins are gone. It doesn’t mean we didn’t do whatever it was, it means Somebody Else paid the penalty for it! That sin was nailed to a cross all those years ago – when Jesus became our sin. What we need to watch out for is our own response to having the problem diagnosed by the bible. This response will show us where we have been hobbled by the enemy – then we do something about it. 

We can confess our sin to someone else, and He will help us change the way we think about it. The entire bible is a diagnostic heaven-sent tool. It doesn’t just teach us about the Trinity and sin, redemption and the past – it shows us how to bring that redemption into our own personal situations! So what we do now is bring His new life in us, into the darkness of this world. Starting with our own lives. We live now, today …mindfully! Be transformed – let Him change your mind about how to live each and every single day – living out the way of Love. Bye 👋.

P 3031 The Holy Spirit loves to remain.

/ DVH

Acts 3:11-12: “And as the lame man who had been healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch, which is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man walk?”

Peter himself says: ‘don’t look at me! I don’t have that power, and I’m not special.’ Listen to what he says to the beggar in verse 6: “Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” I think this illustrates clearly something that might lead us astray when it comes to healing and the power of God. Remember, these guys were fresh from the day of Pentecost, full of the Holy Spirit and His purposes. This is just a throw-away line toward the bystanders to sort out their wrong theology. However, Peter’s point is very clear – WE don’t heal people, GOD does.

My secondary point is that this healing is about the Holy Spirit’s character, not our ability to be holy! We will live our lives holy when we choose to remain in Him, and we let Him remain in us. It is about our heart attitude. Don’t go after holiness, you can end up in legalism that way. Seek His Presence whenever you spend time with Him, and then just follow His instructions from the book. EG: If you are angry – fix it. Attention to repentance is a necessary attribute.

At this time, Peter was absolutely overflowing with the Holy Spirit’s Presence, and ministered to the beggar’s need out of the overflow. THAT IS A GREAT PLACE TO TO AIM AT. Living in the overflow of His love. Peter doesn’t just give God glory — He SEES His glory everywhere! That’s what we need to see, God with us, everywhere. We can end up doing all sorts of things, claiming this, and praying that, because human beings need healing etc. — but the truth is that we only have what He gives us … and He gave us Himself!

What did Peter have if he didn’t have power or holiness? He had the ongoing greatly cherished Presence of the Holy Spirit within him. That’s why he could give away what He had! He imparted God’s presence to this beggar and the Presence of God made the man well. This is the reason, BTW, that I don’t much like the terminology “anointing” — the word “anointing” implies that the power of God is a thing, something incredible that some people have or do. Unfortunately we can use that as an excuse so we don’t have to be obedient. EG: “I don’t have the anointing, but that guy does.” Anybody can walk with the Holy Spirit if their aim is to make Him welcome in their lives.

The Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost and He has never left. Peter had a Person living within Him, teaching Him, guiding Him, the Holy Spirit not a thing or tool we can use! This man deeply loved and cared for the Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit remained with Him. Peter probably gave up many things, simply because he loved the Holy Spirit’s Presence more. Walking with the Holy Spirit is a matter of Who we cherish, not some special thing that we can’t do that someone else can. 

Here’s a small illustration: When we go to a restaurant, someone comes to our table to ask us what we would like from the menu … we tell the waiter and he tells the cook. The cook makes the dish, but the waiter is just the delivery person. In God’s marvellous ways, we are the vehicle, the waiter God uses to bring whatever He wants to those who are needy. 

Why is that so important? Because if we feel we must somehow have the power, or be holy …  or supposedly have the anointing before we pray for others— we can easily feel too intimidated to even try! Instead we end up  wandering about looking for feelings and signs and wonders to prove to us that we can do the very thing Jesus Himself told us to do! The bible says we can do this. Sadly, sometimes if we still don’t see anything we can also think –‘I can’t pray for the sick.’ Yes you can, because the RESULTS aren’t up to you. Jesus said “YOU lay hands on them and THEY will recover.” 

Like most Christians, you talked to Jesus this morning, about your life and the universe etc. You know His voice – through the bible, or in the depths of your heart when He speaks to you. We simply take that attitude with us wherever we go. We choose to be protective regarding our Beloved Friend the Holy Spirit, this means that we don’t do this or that, because He doesn’t like it.

You and I don’t have to have some kind of wonderful power to pray for others … (yes I know Jesus said ‘you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you’) but that POWER is a PERSON. We intentionally live this life – the only one we have – walking with His Spirit, and we follow His instructions. If the person gets well, He did it and if they don’t, all that happened was we tried to obey. 

We minister out of our own ongoing personal relationship with Him and that is an ever-increasing  developing thing. It grows like all relationships grow, by nurturing it, protecting and cherishing it.. The Holy Spirit’s language is LOVE.  We will see He is with us when we speak LOVE … and love is patient, kind, full of faith and hope etc. plus it is sacrificial. Love doesn’t resent sacrifice, because we don’t do this stuff for people or performance – we do it purely because we love Him.

We may need to sacrifice many things, actions, speech, attitudes – in order to maintain our relationship with the Holy Spirit – because this world we live in promotes the things He hates. But He wants to remain with us, that’s why we cherish and chase LOVE. At the same time, we cannot afford to define love, HE DOES. He’s the only One Who can be trusted to do it accurately. Don’t live chasing the symbol of His Presence – chase HIM.  Bye for today, 🥰.

P 3030 Put Him in charge.

/ DVH

Father God’s primary interest is our good, and we need to continually develop our faith in His goodness by exercising our faith in Him. He wrote down everything we need in His book. There are people who don’t want to try out what the bible says, because they are scared of going the wrong way. And there are others who don’t want to live with uncertainty, because living by faith is hard … and their question often is: “isn’t this meant to be easy?”  

Show me a scripture for that! I know that the bible says:“His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” What that means is this – when you walk with Jesus the total weight is supposed to fall on Him – He’s the Leader. I have checked out an ox-yoke in a museum, they don’t look too light to me!  Meanwhile it’s a yoke not a scarf! You might like to sit and chew on that for a minute or two, and try not to choke. I pray on the spot a lot!

The media tells us that this life is so terrific, it is meant to be fun fun fun fun fun! “You can win this, be this, go here, go there, do this and that. Just believe in yourself. And beautiful looking people are just going to love you and want to join in with you as you have fun. Even old people can have loads of fun in old people homes.’ 🙄 If you want that kind of reality go to Disneyland, it has a whole kingdom devoted to it. It’s called Fantasyland.

Here’s something I’ve learnt as the Lord and I’ve walked together…His kind of fun, His kind of Joy, His kind of laughter is way more fun than anything this world can provide. And it won’t cost you a fortune to go places with Him either!  Just make sure where you want to go is where HE wants to go and then you are off, having some sort of adventure.

We once had morning tea at a coffee shop, and a young lady who served us had so many tattoos she looked like she had been painted with black paint. Jesus said: “Ask her to tell you about those tattoos.” 20 minutes later, the kitchen staff came out to see ‘those nice people who have been talking to me’ and the waitress paid our bill. THAT was fun… trust me! The Lord is the best kind of fun!

The Holy Spirit has done an ACE job of describing what our Heavenly Father loves in the book. You can start with the Beatitudes and go on from there. Don’t just read it. Remember reading without doing, can make us confused, or it could give us a fat head. Instead ask Him what you can do about what you’ve read. That’s how relationships work, BTW, conversations go both ways.  

An well-known author who wrote great books many years ago was one of my favourites. He has since gone on to glory but he sure knew how to have fun! I found out much later that he had an incredibly grouchy wife who didn’t understand his Christianity or his attitude. Yet this man found joy in everything. I used to get so happy reading his books before bed, that I couldn’t sleep! He’s out of print now, but Amazon has some books of his. 

Here’s my version of something brother Harold Hill once said – “At first, when I started my walk with Jesus I decided it would be OK if He sat in the back seat of my car. Then He could talk to me and advise me if I needed it. The thing was, sometimes I couldn’t hear Him very well. So then I decided it might be better if He sat in the front seat with me whilst I drove. But that didn’t work out so well either, I kept having to take my eyes off the road to talk to Him, and well … I couldn’t concentrate or drive properly. I stopped the car and asked Him what I could do about it. Jesus smiled, one of those lovely big smiles, and He said: ‘Come with Me.” He opened the boot and said: “Get in. You’ll be much safer in here. I’ll drive.” 

The only safe driver of our individual ‘cars’ is the Lord. There are times that He will park us under a tree and wait with us while we rest. At other times He will give us a huge hug, a-n-d then we will probably need a very large box of tissues! The secret is to let Him do what He wants.

Just don’t get stuck anywhere, keep moving along as He leads you. We follow Him because He knows the road ahead much better than we do. Jesus walked many roads while He was here, the kind of things we walk through. He faced bad things happening and being misunderstood. He knows every single detail of where we are going and how to get there. We can trust Him to take us where we need to go and look after us.

“What if I mess up?” Well … what if you don’t? Both scenarios are an option. But if you end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, then that’s the time to remember our wonderful Saviour is also our very great Redeemer. He can take the worst sinner and transform them into a glorious saint and worshipper of God. He can redirect you in the middle of life’s turbulent traffic!

Always remember that: “God doesn’t break bruised reeds” Isaiah 42:3 & Matthew 12:20. When we get stuck in the mud of our own messes, Jesus will always come and get us out. Many dumb sheep wander off the pathway, but He’s the Good Shepherd. He knows how to rescue dumb sheep. Don’t ever be fooled into thinking that what you’ve done is so bad He won’t love you anymore. That’s a lie from the pit.  Let Him be in charge and He will amaze you. Bye 👋