Jesus

P 2715 Learning to love means learning to obey.

/ DVH

“This is how we can be SURE that we love the children of God: by having a passionate love for God and by obedience to His commands. True love for God means obeying His commands, and His commands don’t weigh us down as heavy burdens.”1 John 5:2-3 TPT.

Because we love the Lord — we need to consistently remember that to Him, obedience is everything. Seriously, I know I flog this concept almost to death, but it is the truth. The way to show the Lord that we are utterly and totally HIS — despite any current circumstances — is to read His book and deliberately find the things that He has asked us to do, or not do – and then act accordingly. In His book God is imparting His heart and His will for our lives. I believe that we particularly need to pay special attention to those things we haven’t done before! Those things that we quickly read around, or glance at, hoping it doesn’t apply to us! 

While all this is going on — we simultaneously need to bear in mind one of the prerequisites to participating in everything the Lord has for us, is that we don’t care if we look like an idiot to other people! We will definitely die to self when self doesn’t get a say! Daily we understand that because we have chosen to follow Him, this way to live is part of the cost. Remember, He will not leave us, we have the joy of His Presence every minute of every day. Today and every day, our love for the Lord looks like obedience.. At the same time loving God also means we love His kids, in ways that they can see and experience. ‘Not just in words, but in deeds …’ 

Here’s a fun story from this trip. Hubby had toddled off to buy himself a pie in a country town we were passing through … when a much older lady walked by our car. She read the sign on the car door: ‘You are God’s happy thought.’ She smiled at me, then she carefully read the licence plate on our car. She waved, I waved, and she walked slowly back to her own car. Meanwhile hubby came back with his pie and the Lord said to me: “That licence plate says ‘Love looks like something.’ She read it. So what does love look like to her?”  🤪 Quick as a flash I told hubby what had happened, I held his pie for him and he chased after the older lady and he gave her a bookmark. She immediately wanted to pay for it and he said told her it was free. Love looked like a free bookmark to her. She waved happily at us as we left. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

That day was long and arduous but we kept on smiling as we remembered that dear lady. The Lord has taught me to look for the good. Basically what the Holy Spirit said to me was this — ‘This life IS difficult. And IF you only enjoy it when everything goes the way you want it, you will waste a lot of the time you have been given by being miserable. FIND THE JOY I send you in every day and you will win.” So now I’ve made it my quest to find the joy!

It’s good to remind ourselves that God’s kids aren’t just the people who go to our churches or attend other denominations. His kid can be an enemy who keeps on hurting you! He wants you and I to reach out to them – this is how we learn to love the unlovely. His kids are also people you and I have never met before. We met Steven, a former Chinese national who owns a motel. Hubby gave him a pen and a keyring for his lovely wife. The dear man was worried the keyring was too expensive, but hubby reassured him it was a gift. The result was Steven heard the gospel for the first time, ever. And we left him with gospels for his motel – we are hoping to see him on the way back home. 

When I think about it, I am not sure that we have taught our kids that following Jesus will probably mean that this life will have battles sent to destroy their faith. We cannot keep teaching the popular theology that says the Lord is supposed to make our lives happy all the time, and expect our kids to take our faith seriously. They will become disappointed when they discover it is not true. In our efforts to be fair and reasonable to all and sundry, we have lost the kind of absolutes that matter eternally. 

We can end up failing the Lord if we don’t take His command to love Him and others seriously. At the same time we need to love and tell the people in our particular corner of this world about Him! What we preach will never win popularity contests, and it will not lead us into a quiet life of ease. We will find our rest in Him, alone!  But when we said yes to Jesus we said yes to a different kind of life. A life of sacrifice and love for those who do not deserve it. It’s part of the cost of obedience.

Learning to love others through obedience is tough, but fruitful. However, if we have a part-time God there is a chance we will never know what shift He is on! Bye … 🤪 👋

P 2714 “Blessed are they who mourn …”

/ DVH

In the Western world we have weird ideas about mourning and loss. We treat it like it is a terrible flu or something and other people stand by patiently waiting for you to get over it. If only. As if someone else knows how much grief is enough for you! The loss of someone close is not just a small thing – it can be devastating. I love the fact that in the Eastern parts of this world grief is allowed to be expressed, and passion for another person is not pushed away when they leave this world. Instead grief is expressed – loudly. I think that is quite healthy. Jesus told us that mourning is a blessing, so perhaps we need to revise our way of thinking. Grief is something we must go through, not avoid.

Grief comes in many different forms and has many different causes, like losing a career you love. Maybe you have been forced into a severely financially straightened life-stye. Perhaps you have been injured or ill, and you’ve lost your old way of life and you have to reinvent yourself. Or a much loved child has wandered so far away from everything good, right and worthwhile – you cannot even allow yourself to think about it… so your prayers turn into groaning. The bible says this for people who are so grief-stricken they can’t pray: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” Romans 8:26.

Thank God He is praying for us when we cannot!

There are also times that we can be suddenly dragged under into grief by things that have happened to people we love. Truly loving people means we share their sorrow. At the same time, other people’s actions and attitudes can also cause much grief. Or we can be greatly misunderstood personally, and not able to explain ourselves, and that causes the terrible pain of grief as well. Bin there, dun that! I think of grief as some sort of emotional drowning, and the surface of the water – where the fresh air is – seems too far away to reach and unachievable. Maybe we will never reach the surface again – that thought causes even more grief! Whatever the cause, grief, sorrow and suffering are all a reality, and we can get stuck there.

I have observed that grief weakens even the strongest people. I’ve known people who could not find their way out of a grief cycle. It was as if their grief was a terrible burden that horrible circumstances had tied to their backs. So they clung like mad to what they had lost, because their grief was all they had left! I’ve also known other people who carried their grief as proof of their love for someone else who has long since gone to their reward. Grief then becomes an unnatural tie that cannot easily be dealt with or resolved. How long is long enough to grieve?  I have no idea. I can only say that we need to pass through this process, one step at a time. If we hurry grief, we run the risk of postponing it – only to have it grab us by the throat unexpectedly.

What does God say about it? Actually grief made an appearance in the garden of Eden! We barely get to Chapter 6 of Genesis when this verse appears:“And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him to His heart.” It is too easy to pass off the Lord’s grief over mankind’s sin as something that He can absorb, because, after all – He’s God! But this verse teaches us something about Him, and us. The bible tells us that we are made in His image and we have shared characteristics with our Heavenly Father. That one line in Genesis shows us that under some circumstances, grief is normal – He feels it … we feel it. You can experience it after you have been betrayed. 

In Isaiah 53:4 it tells us that we can have grief because of our sin. “Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for His own sins!” Grief can be misunderstood, because our society hates pain of any sort – even the natural pain of aging! Unfortunately then we can easily miss the point of any grief we feel because of our own sin. That kind of grief is good. Grief, sorrow and suffering lead us to repentance. But at the same time we need to realise that because we feel those things, it means we have a tender heart.

In Matthew 5:4 Jesus says: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And in Revelation 21:4 the bible says this: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

These two verses tell me that Almighty God has a plan for those who are not completely comforted in this life. One day He will wipe all those tears away, forever. That’s how important our grief is to Him – He has a plan and He will deal with it. We know that even Jesus Himself stood outside Lazarus’ tomb and wept – yet only minutes later, that man was resurrected. Personally, I see what happened to Lazarus as a sign that dead to this world is not really dead. People may be gone from this life, but they are not just plain GONE. We are eternal beings, made to live forever!

Lastly I want to mention a verse in Ephesians 4:30 that has great meaning for each of our lives because it involves the most sensitive and dearest Person Who truly cares for us: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by Whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” The Holy Spirit totally understands grief, because people grieve His precious heart every single day. Seeking to cultivate His company is the greatest privilege we have been given, why would we cause Him unnecessary pain? We are blessed when we mourn, we learn that we are limited beings who need Him. 👋

P 2713 Learn to BOW low.

/ DVH

“IF you bow low in God’s awesome presence, He will eventually exalt you as you leave the timing in His hands.” 1 Peter 5:6 TPT. Now here’s the rub, we cannot ‘bow low’ and have a secret expectation that at the end of our so-called humility we will be exalted. I think we’ve been reading many, if not ALL scripture promises, with the expectation of ‘what’s in it for ME’ — and we can become disappointed when we think that God has not honoured His promises. Bowing low is not necessarily a physical position – it is the position of an undivided heart.

Those verses we grab for our own benefit are revealing something to us about Him – and we are missing it. Yeah. And aren’t you glad I pointed that out?! For instance, the verse: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you”tells us something about the Lord and what He is looking for from us – our participation. If we want to be close to the Lord we will have to go after Him first. I call this type of verse the “if” verses. If I do this then He will do that. And just who is in charge of that scenario?

In the past, many well-meaning people wanted to be seen and heard, perhaps because in their mind, it meant that others would hear or see what the Lord wanted to teach others.. They believed that meant that they would have a bigger stage to stand upon to speak His truth. Wrong! “For honour does not come from the east or the west or from the desert. But God is the One Who decides. He puts down one and brings respect to another.” Psalm 75:6,7. Recognition for us is God’s choice, not ours. We dare not manipulate others or even take advantage of situations, no matter how great the cause seems to be. Manipulation is not His Way.

Almighty God is interested in a great deal more than just our promotion and fame! Our new way of life is a spiritual way of life, it is not showy or competitive. Popularity or influence are not worth a hill of beans to the Lord. The Holy Spirit is the only influencer with a pure motivation, and we must learn to follow His Ways. It’s always our hearts that matter .. not popularity or influence. We can have thousands of followers on Instagram, or Facebook, and still have an impure ambitious, or even perhaps a needy heart. Philippians 4:19.

If I put one drop of poison into a glass of fresh, pure, spring water – would you still drink it? A pure heart wants what He wants and they are prepared to die to see that He gets it! That’s called devotion. But general applause, or even the size of any one congregation does not matter to the Lord. Jesus had hundreds of people who volunteered to be His disciples – yet Almighty God told Him to choose twelve. And one of them was not going to make the cut! 

Jesus trusted His Father and the Holy Spirit’s choices, that the men He chose would be the ones who spread the Word about God’s incredible love far and wide. And they did. Judas was the only one of those men with a divided heart. We are not told why he was like that, we are simply told that he handled the money somewhat carelessly. This is what I mean when I talk about having a divided heart – one of our regular prayers should be about not having one!

We cannot afford to let even little sin reign, even if it seems to be in a good cause … because sin will eventually drag us under and flavour everything around it. However, we always have a Way Out of sin. “You are my dear children, and I write these things to you so that you won’t sin. But if anyone does sin, we continually have a forgiving Redeemer who is face-to-face with the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One”. I John 2:1. Silently waiting for our spiritual abilities to be “discovered” is still an agenda! Our only aim needs to be to that others see Him.

‘Bowing low’ is our way of life. It means whether others think we are right or wrong – we bow down to the Lord’s wishes and let Him exonerate us when He thinks the time is right. People with a heart like this don’t care if our only service is putting out the chairs at church! We do what we do with all our hearts as though we were putting out chairs for Jesus Himself!

I have known totally devoted, utterly beautiful chair-putter-outer-ers! 😂 They did not see this task as a tiny task, and it was not menial to them. Instead they prayed over each chair that each person who sat on it would be blessed, healed, delivered and discover more about Christ. They treated that  task like the pastor treated His sermon – as devotion to Almighty God!“Whatsoever you do, do it with all your heart as though you were doing it for the Lord.” This BTW, is now one of my new all time favourite verses!

Let’s remember that pride took lucifer out of a realm of honour, and put him into the unenviable place of being a permanent enemy. And the best thing we can do when we discover any sort of pride is to humble ourselves before God, and others, as well as confess our faults. The true diagnosis of a proud heart is that they have secret agendas.  They have a desperate need to always be right, and other people’s needs are secondary to their own.

Bowing low is not just an outward action, it is an inner stance of our hearts. Bless you as you serve our King! 👑

P 2712 Our difficulties are actually stairs.

/ DVH

The every day obstacles, irritations and difficulties we face can be obstructions to living a new life … OR … stairs leading us up into all Christ’s blood bought for us. When we see things as obstacles, we face them with a different mental attitude. An obstacle must be avoided, or conquered or mastered, and all that involves effort and application. Stairs simply take you from one level to another. They take us from a lower place to a higher one. Today, I want to highlight the thought that the Christian life is meant to be one of progression, while we gain increasing humility, accountability, and wisdom, plus maturity. 

Nobody told me this stuff when I was a baby Christian. I was not taught that Jesus has faced every single obstacle I will ever have to endure, and that He knows the way through them. Instead I was taught to try harder… like it was a Maths test! So I just kept failing, and the harder I tried, the more I failed … I was taught I must somehow, by myself, transform myself into a new person. But Jesus actually died for, fought for and He won that battle for me. The thought that I was personally responsible to be different in my everyday life, nagged at me daily. I was supposed to be a good Christian witness to others, but I could easily end up shouting like a fishwife! 

None of the credit for starting to change my awful attitudes and actions belongs to me. All I ever needed to do was ADMIT that I can’t do any of this transformation by myself, and ask the Holy Spirit for His grace. And then – step up into it, using my faith.There are things that I know I used to do, almost automatically, that I simply don’t do anymore – I don’t even want to do them anymore. I asked for His help.

I wish I could say that when I’ve learnt something, and I’ve seen His grace in action in myself, that this means I will always act graciously! What a sad little laugh that thought is! Instead I have found that I need to practice practice practice trusting in His ability to get me through whatever He is teaching me, at every opportunity. Or I will lose touch with His grace, faster than a gambler can lose his quickly gained bundle of notes! However at the same time I have also noticed my thought patterns are changing too.

As I read the Word, and refused to accept what it said as something I would become some day – He began to teach me to act on it in faith. I started to understand that the things I dismissed as being only human, actually meant that I was not totally sold out to Jesus! Because me, myself and I – still became grumpy and nasty over the stupidest things. 

The Lord is so faithful. He revealed to me through the bible that He has already done all the work … so my part was to believe Him and step up into what He has already done, no matter how I feel.  Those things that accused me, and led me into looking after myself first, are the everyday, niggly little grumpy or sarcastic responses that the Holy Spirit loves to help us master. All we need to do is to step out of that bad mood or irritation, INTO His grace. After all, Peter stepped out of a perfectly good boat when Jesus said – “Come!” He didn’t think about it He simply obeyed!  Living this way is our birthright.

Sadly in the past, I did not have any idea that I didn’t have to live such a frustrated life, pretending to be something or someone, I wasn’t. I found, over time, that  a lot of what I was taught was a lot of theory, as well as unrealistic expectations – heaps of I “ought to be this or that!” It was not practical enough. Yet everything Christ taught was PRACTICAL. Because of what He has already done, my part is to take each attitude as He reveals it to me – then repent, repair and ask for His help. And then I simply followed His prompts, and they helped me escape from the temptation to let fly.

Jesus Christ’s death opened the prison door of sin we were forced to live behind, that place where we were trapped by our own anxious, fearful, unkind attitudes. We can even learn to resist provocation! We are no longer trapped by who we used to be. Freedom is more than a lovely song we sing passionately – it is a faith step. Freedom doesn’t mean I can do what I want – true freedom actually means I CAN DO WHAT HE WANTS!  We believe Him and what He has already said in the bible.

You know, in the natural, I have the worst trouble with real stairs, nowadays. Having fallen down our stairs a while ago, I am a bit intimidated by any stairs that have no railings. And so hubby helps me step up from one step to another, by giving me his arm. This is what the our precious Saviour does for us. We exercise our faith in the Lord’s Word, by taking His arm, as we choose how to respond to the daily irritations of this life according to His Word. We learn to lean on Him! And if we go under, like Peter did – Jesus’ strong right arm will lift us up again.

Psalm 119:133 “Direct my footsteps according to Your word; let no sin rule over me.” 1 Corinthians 10:13 TPT “We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature, and timing of every test or trial you face so that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust Him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously.”

If we want to follow Jesus and overcome every day irritations, obstacles and difficulties, as well as entering into our new life in Christ, we need to live this life with absolute humility. At the same time we need to be aware and open about our limitations. Let us not pretend to be someone we are not! Every one of our difficulties are actually our own personal stairs. My advice is to take the Lord’s proffered arm and walk up each step with His help. Bye. 👋 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3-12.

P 2711 Faith is not just agreement.

/ DVH

I’ve met plenty of people who agree that God is real, yet they have no visible faith! Some of them have what I call, fashionable faith. However what they say has no substance in their lives. God clearly values OBEDIENCE- read the book! Disobedience is not a viable alternative. So if we truly want our faith to grow, then we need to cultivate an attitude that is consistently, actively obedient. Faith has evidence. Our faith brings unseen things into the realm of things we can see.

Meanwhile, even the devil believes there is a God! (James 2:19) The only way we can showcase our faith is to use it – and not just when the sky is falling. Our evidence is always seeable. People ask both of us why we go on the road a number of times during a year? Because the Lord asked us to do it. Actually, He asks all His kids to follow His Son into a life of voluntary, loving service …it’s in the book! So why is it so hard to obey? Dying is hard! Everybody wants the benefits, but very few people want to be changed and transformed. FYI the older you get the harder transformation becomes.

We meet all kinds of difficulties when we are on the road. Hubby has to do everything. He does all the driving, then he has to pack and unpack the car … all by himself. Then he needs to set up our overnight stay. When we get to the destination, he can’t rest … he has to look after me. Showers, cooking, setting up the bed! If we travel every single day, then he does this every single day. He packs up in the morning, and then he sets up again that night. He only gets a rest from this kind of intense work when we stay more than two nights in one place. However, there is nothing special about this – he is just being obedient. Obedience costs us comfort and ease.

Jesus says this about a servant who works all day for His Master …I’ve put this scripture here because we need to pay attention to it as well as others like it. It always reminds me of my dear husband. Luke 17:7-10 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do?  So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

I have found that many ministers ignore verses like these these, because those verses aren’t what I call, popular theology. Most people like the kind of verses that support them – their personal lives as individuals. Jesus didn’t come to earth and do all He did for us to give us a happy life down here – He came to get us to HEAVEN. And when we pray for others – when we tell them what Jesus did for them – we are using our faith for good. Yesterday my hubby shared the gospel with a mainland Chinese gentleman who had never heard it before. What a privilege! Our God is our HOME. He’s the place where we put down roots. Of course, He loves to help us, He loves His kids — but He is not an elderly benevolent ga-ga Grandpa either!! 

When we simply mentally agree with what the bible says, that is not faith. Faith has substance and substance can be seen! Jesus bought and paid for the right to ask us to live that way. Living for Him will involve sacrifices too. We will end up living differently than the world around us. Sometimes Christians are like starry-eyed people who fall in love… they only want the romance, and they never really settle into the marriage. Marriage involves love and romance;  and also sacrifice and hardship. Deep relationships do not come cheap! 

Here are some other less popular verses: John 12:26:“If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there will My servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honour him.” Ask yourself, would Jesus prioritise leisure time or reaching-out-to-others-time? Galatians 5:13: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” There’s a lot of them if you want to do the research.

Salvation is not only about you and I going to heaven – we were saved to bring other people with us. That won’t happen if we do not practice obedience. There are enough instructions in those four gospels, to keep us busy for the rest of our lives!! We don’t have to wait upon Him to find special things to do – we have a book full of things we can do. We need to put aside the practice of simply memorising verses that promise US some sort of a special advantage over someone else, and start living by all those verses, so we can demonstrate them to other people. Real faith is not about just agreeing with the truth, it is about living by it. Every single day. 👋

P 2710 ‘Have good day, make good choices!’

/ DVH

“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:6-8.”Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”Luke 6:38.

Did you get that? If you want MORE of God – then give MORE to God! Our generosity or lack thereof, can limit the blessings God has flowing toward us like a river. They will float on by us and we won’t notice them. Meanwhile, He says we will have everything we need – not necessarily everything we WANT! But we can always ask – He’s a very generous Father.  At first glance these scriptures appear to be about monetary giving – but I also associate these verses with the way we live. Let me explain:  our LIVES are also our tithes and offerings. This means that we choose to serve others, 24/7. All day every day. Are you cheered up yet? 

If you are a parent you will know that there is no such thing as a part-time carer for your brand new infant. New parents walk about looking like zombies for months and months, and sometimes years! They accept that no sleep etc is part of the deal. Now if you are a nurse, bus driver, IT specialist, accountant, father, sales assistant, then your employment – the way you use your days – are not bigger than your primary calling as His child. EG You are not a nurse and a Christian … you are a nurse who IS a Christian.

Belonging to HIM is our first priority. Not our families, not our friends, not work-mates, not even our own relaxation. We have chosen Him, so we have chosen to serve Him! Yay! And we do that by serving Him and others, every single day. We give our love, our time, our efforts, our insights, our kindness, our patience AWAY, all the time. There is no such thing as a part-time Christian because there is no off button. We live this life sowing blessings and being one!

Meanwhile, burn-out is a symptom of not yet knowing all we can about how to REST in Him. I am not condemning anyone for it, I am just saying that this condition is a diagnostic tool of how much self-effort we are putting into doing what the Lord wants. We need to continually remember that ‘His yoke is EASY … His burden is …LIGHT.’ That’s not just a pretty word picture — it is a way to live! We simply must progressively let Him inhabit every single area of our lives or we will not be living this life, our only life, in His Presence. That’s where the power of God resides, IN HIS PRESENCE. That’s how Jesus lived!! Yes, it is costly, just like giving away money you need is costly, but the results have results in other people’s lives.

The verse from 2 Corinthians above, shows us we cannot live this way by force. We must choose and we choose over and over again. Otherwise we will either become incredibly angry and extremely rebellious — or we will quit Christianity and wander off into the wilderness, complaining our heads off and eating quails until they make us sick to our stomach. The Lord knows we are all weak – that’s why He promised to be our strength! Because we are HIS we have access to His perfection, which is what that verse in 2 Corinthians 12:9 says:“His strength is made perfect in our weakness…” or we can settle for little, instead of much. My premise today is this we cannot lose when we give! “God is no man’s debtor…”

We all love Jesus. But it’s probably pretty clear to everyone around us one way or another that we are not perfected yet, However we’ve chosen to follow Him and now we are straining to reach the goal. Are we always cheerful about it? Not always. But that lack of cheerfulness is a sign that we are in a process.  We don’t have to get it right, we just have to stay on the path – using our choices! (Repent and repair, remember?) And then we ask for His help to take every single opportunity He sends our way to choose Him all over again. When we choose Him and His ways – we are doing everything for HIM! ‘Whatsoever you do, do it with all your heart as though you were doing it for the Lord.’

We totally give Him our lives because He totally gave us HIS, first. He will guide, help, comfort, lead and teach us. If we sow sparingly into His kingdom and Jesus is not the centre of everything we do, then we will miss the blessing of provision He has for His kids. Only eyes of faith can see some blessings, because wrong attitudes block our eyes and ears. I once heard a mother say to her child: “Have a good day, make good choices.’ Amen! Bye. 👋

P 2709 We need Boldness.

/ DVH

We all encounter trials and difficulties. On this trip we have discovered that our health can sap our energy and distract us from the task the Lord laid before us. Plus when you are on a mission trip you can find a reason to argue with each other at the drop of a hat! We have been praying about these things, and asking the Lord what to do, and this morning hubby mentioned this story from the book of Acts. 

I love reading about other people’s faith, especially the faith of people like Peter and John who ended up in jail overnight for preaching the gospel – it’s in Acts 4.  Actually, they were in jail for using the Name of Jesus and healing someone (!), and for causing a public disturbance. Go figure! However, the Apostles merely used the opportunity they were given to preach to the crowd about Jesus. They drew 5,000 souls into the kingdom on the spot.

Anyway, the next morning, after spending the entire night in jail, they were hauled up before the oversight – the elders, the teachers, the Sanhedrin, Pharisees and Sadducees – and they were given an opportunity to explain. Hilariously, God short-circuited the leaders religious intention to silence His men, because the guy who got healed turned up at the hearing! So the powers-that-be mumbled amongst themselves, then they realised they had living proof of the power of God standing there and everybody could see it. That man was quite obviously healed – after all he used to sit in a very public place, crippled and begging! 

Then the leaders warned the Apostles not to speak about the Name of Jesus again. Those leaders were really stuck – what could they do about these two men, with all that evidence standing in front of them? So they let Peter and John go. The Apostles went straight back to the church and told them what had happened. And instead of skipping church that week, after their traumatic experience (!), these guys decided to make the whole thing a prayer point and that gathering ended up a huge prayer meeting. 

The people of God prayed an incredible prayer:“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak Your word with great boldness. Stretch out Your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.”Acts 4:23&24

Hubby’s first thought today was, we need to pray that prayer! So we did. Then I went back looked at the story again, and realised that the Apostles were already in constant danger of falling into the wrong hands … and then they went and poked the bear!! Which means they could easily have ended up in the land of worse! Why would you do that? TO OBEY GOD! So what did they do in the light of those threats? They prayed to be bolder! And then they asked the Lord to help them all to do more stuff in His Name. Think about it. They didn’t run, they didn’t hide, they did not stand down, they quite literally, asked for MORE. We need some of Your boldness Lord Jesus, every single day! Amen.

This whole story really impacted me. Mainly because I can’t ever remember doing that! I ask for His help all the time, but I don’t ever remember asking to be bolder. I figured out ‘why not,’ immediately! I’m scared of jail. Over the years the enemy has heaped ‘worse’ upon our heads quite a bit, and I am not at all keen on more worse stuff falling on us. I’ve quite literally been intimidated by circumstances, and fear has grabbed me. I started repenting right away!! And I praised God for the courage of His servants in His book and their witness. 

The church is barely in the shallow water of what our God will do in us and through us, in Jesus’ Name. And I think we have wandered back into a safer place through our own choices, probably because we saw sharks on the horizon and decided going out there into the deep, was not all that important … and not my job! Now, Thalassophobia is running rampant – we are ALL afraid of the deep!  So we tell ourselves that ‘somebody else can do it – this is too hard for me – God understands.’ 😳

What we actually need to do now is think about it the situation rationally, and realise this — we won’t see any sharks if we aren’t bothering our enemy! A lack of sharks does not mean we are safe, it means we are hiding. What should we do – hide or stand up?! Instead of standing down – we need to stand up! Wow. Food for thought.  Bye 👋

P 2708 Why would we limit the LIMITLESS ONE?

/ DVH

Let’s fervently pray for our understanding of Him and His ways to be stretched instead! Why would we settle for other people’s limited views when we can go after and know HIM personally. My best and only thought is kind of a small one – and most probably a big fat understatement! When someone asks me what God is like, I say: “He’s like Jesus!” That’s because Jesus clearly told us in John 5:19 that:‘He only did what He saw His Father doing, and only said what He heard His Father saying.’ 

Also Hebrews 1:3 it says: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”From those verses alone, I learn that Christ is indeed God stepping into time and limiting Himself to our ways. It blows my mind! At the same time, Jesus walked this earth and still lived within our normal human limitations, except HE lived a totally limitless life. Nothing stopped Him – nothing took Him by surprise. Read the book and keep on reading it. It will blow your mind, it always blows mine!

Our Heavenly Father speaks to us in many ways. He has so many more ways to speak than human beings realise. God speaks the languages of angels, as well as every human one – past, present and future! Even the sky shouts to us daily about Him. Plus the stars sing out His praises. Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” Job 38:7 “ …while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy …”

His Love speaks a language that doesn’t always have words, and His idea of faith reaches beyond mere human understanding into the supernatural. My point is – we are chasing after SomeOne unknowable, without help. We need revelation from His Word and the Holy Spirit. I think we can easily succumb to over-reaching if we think we can define Him without His help! Our finite beings are too small to understand the incredible complexity of Who He is..🙌

Today I want to talk about our limitless Heavenly Father, from this POV … we need to understand our side of this glorious endless relationship. There are times that we can think this prayer, or that question has remained unanswered and become disappointed with Him – although we probably wouldn’t say that out loud! It is imperative for us to understand that Almighty God always answers us … HE JUST DOESN’T ALWAYS USE WORDS! Continually pray for eyes to see and ears to comprehend His Answers – because even His silence has a purpose!

Sometimes our understanding of His Ways etc .can come later, perhaps retrospectively. But in order to walk with Him and grow, our faith in His goodness must conquer our doubts and disappointments. Otherwise we will impede our progress in our faith, and we may never reach our full potential. Jesus died to give us the capacity to be stretched and transformed, not because He finds us unacceptable, but because our personal and even learnt inclinations, limit our understanding of Who He is and How much He loves people.

The very best mutual language, the one that will always be understood, by Him and us, is LOVE. That’s why it is imperative that we learn how His kind of love works. How it functions  – what it produces. When we begin to uncover the mysteries of LOVE we will begin to understand Who He is.  I know I rattle on about that over and over again – but knowing His Ways is an important key to defining the way WE need to live.“How can two walk together unless they be agreed?”

We can’t walk with Him and be restored into the innocence and purity we were always meant to have – unless we put aside those things that weigh us down. Both personally and corporately, we are currently limiting ourselves. We allow a few men’s insight to rule many churches, at the cost of broadening our base by going after insight for ourselves. “In order that the many-sided (multi-faceted) wisdom of God might be made known now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places through the church,…”Ephesians 3:10. BTW innocence and purity were restored to us at the cross. It is time for us to fight this world’s definition of wisdom and freedom – and return to the simplicity and power of the cross. 

One of the things we will need to put down is accepting religious doctrine as representational of ALL of His truth. You and I are the only people who can limit the size and function of our faith. When we deliberately choose to learn to love as He loves, all sorts of barriers will blow away, our eyes will be opened;  and then we will look at others with the joyous word “brother” on our lips! 

This is when we will begin to “know one another after the Spirit”instead of eliminating others because of their beliefs. Only God Himself can take the muddle of our denominations and personal proclivities of faith in Him, and bring it into a cohesive whole. Defining God separately is a waste of our time … we must start learning what His love looks like and begin to fervently pray that we walk in it, toward each other. Why would we settle for a limited edition god when we can know the LIMITLESS ONE?  Bye. 🙏

P 2707 Somebody’s been at the Kool-aid again!

/ DVH

Have you ever heard someone prophesy in church, or had somebody give you a word and you thought: ’huh??’  Well that was a bit weird?’ At this point you may be tempted to run around yelling: ‘That person has their marbles scrambled – fruit-loop alert!’  Don’t do it … don’t do it …don’t do it! Resist the temptation. You might learn something,God taught one guy with a talking donkey, and Jesus taught His disciples with a tree! Now at this point a religious person could observe: ‘Of course when we act like that, that’s judgment.’ Oh right… thanks for your input! 🙄

I’ve asked the Lord once, about whatever it was that someone else said that sounded off to me, and He replied: “What’s that got to do with you? Your part is to follow Me.” Well, there’s me in my box with the lid nailed on. There are times when somebody who says they are listening to the Holy Spirit can get it wrong.They stand up and announce that the end of the world will be the last Friday of this month, and that Friday comes and goes … and!!!  … Nuthin’ happening here…!  Then people can start avoiding that person like they have the plague. Here’s a thought maybe we could let them learn from their own mistakes? We all make them!

We simply must refrain from slicing and dicing people with gossip and judgment etc., we need to repent, and ask for the Holy Spirit’s insight instead.  Why? Because even though someone’s word was not accurate, we can still learn something. Maybe the thing we can learn is this: it is not the height of wickedness to get a message scrambled, or to ‘hear’ the wrong morse code!  As a group we can become so lazy and put such pressure on other people to be ‘the mouth of God! We even do it to our pastors. These are human beings right? They put their pants on one leg at a time like you do!

The pressure to be always right and ‘speak for God’ is too big for one person.”Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.” 1 Corinthians 14:29. At the same time, we don’t have to go home and pack our bags, and make sure our wills are in order — just because Brother So-and-so announced the sky is falling. Ask the Lord – what’s in that for me to learn? Then quietly move on. Plus … try not to peer at the sky all day on that Friday!! 😳

Meanwhile, my take-away from what Brother So and so said is …“LIVE READY.” That way I’m learning to walk with Jesus and ready at any given moment. That’s in the book. Now if, by chance, that prophetic brother keeps on revising the date of the apocalypse – then PRAY FOR HIM. He obviously ate something that has disagreed with him. or maybe he has drunk too much Kool-aid! That can happen to all of us. That’s why unity is more important than being right. Sorting out that lost lamb is a job for the pastor, or an elder. You and I should just keep on praying for them.

Hubby and I have very different ministry gifts that enhance one another, and I am in awe at what God does with his obedience. I often watch him as the Lord works out His plans through him. Some of the time what hubby says to other people is like a bridge way-too-far-away for me. He’s so bold. I’d probably pussy-foot about and then say not very much of anything. I talked to the Lord about it and He kindly explained to me that my husband is His servant first. Well, that resolved that conflict! When Almighty God puts dibs on someone it goes straight into none-of-my-business basket. I learnt that skill the hard way. 

But what if hubby were actually wrong and his leading is inaccurate? Here’s what I’ve learnt. At times like that I can put my faith in God to redeem and transform whatever is going on for His glory. I’m no longer looking to be a smartie-pants who is always right, now I am looking for the Lord’s outcome. At the same time that doesn’t mean I can’t speak to hubby about it, lovingly. ‘…or how can two walk together unless they are in agreement?’ For the sake of unity we will need to come to a place mutually where we leave things to the Lord to sort us both out. Even if I am positive that I am right, a wrong attitude can discount love.

The bible says this is what love does — it suffers long. It believes all things, it hopes all things, it is not rude and … love can’t fail! If we choose to stand in love then we are putting ourselves on the Lord’s side. We need eyes filled with His love to see Him working. Our human POV won’t be enough, it is tainted by our own theological opinions. My point today is this – the only person who is right all the time is the Lord! The rest of us mostly muddle about.

We may find there are times when some poor soul has been at the Kool-aid – be kind. Maybe they are desperate to be heard. Whatever the reason – Almighty God is bigger than their mistakes – Jesus died to pay for their sins and errors too. Let’s practice “bearing with one another in love.” Otherwise we can end up even wrong-er than Brother So- and-so. Bye 👋

P 2706 My thoughts about prayer.

/ DVH

Matthew 6:5-15 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, Who is unseen. Then your Father, Who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”

“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.’ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Many people think of the Lord’s prayer as a model for prayer. I think prayer is simply talking to the Lord about the things that are bothering us, asking Him to help us. Rightly or wrongly I personally pray about temptation etc. when it comes up! Our Heavenly Father loves the kind of prayers prayed quietly, away from other people’s eyes, and approval. He doesn’t want long endless prayers, as a matter of fact, Jesus refers to that kind of prayer as the sort of prayer that is meant to impress God and others. Whatever someone’s reason is, praying quietly by yourself is a wonderful way to sit with Him. Jesus’ own prayers were personal and often private.  Moses talked to the Lord face to face, and sometimes Moses was ON his face, but it was personal!

The Lord’s prayer shows us our priorities in prayer. Our heavenly Father, and His role in our lives, then what He wants us to do in this life to bring about His kingdom. Our Father is not a just a title, it is a reality. If you think about that the next time you pray it will change everything! We are reminding ourselves of Who He is, and who we are not! After that we go on to pray for the people who sin against us. The thing is, we are praying because we see HIM as our Answer. We don’t need a list, we need connection. We are not going shopping, we are meeting with SomeOne Who loves us and is our great priority. We have been told that we can ask for the things we need. 

We all know that forgiveness is an ongoing need, it is an always optional decision to obey Him. What we do about someone else’s sin is carried out to honour Him. I have found that feelings come, and go, but prayer is like air – necessary. As I’ve said recently, I’ve been learning that we must simply let go of some people, as well as our expectations that they will change to meet our needs and make us more comfortable. Talking to Jesus, Who was a Master of letting go – is a fantastic idea. Praying for things means we have lost the importance of Who He is in our lives. He’s the priority – not just the answer!.

But what about when someone maliciously hurts you over and over again? Then we are suddenly at the pointy end of their jabbing stick. Forgiveness negates the pain of being prodded by memories over and over again. I’ve learnt to accept people from my past, as well those in the present, by letting go of their mean spiritedness, their attitude is not my business. We can easily have an unrealistic aim for others to be perfect. However, I know I’m not – so I can forgive you! Sometimes I have to let go of things and forgive, minute by minute, as well as daily. I make that decision FOR HIS sake, not the other people. I owe those people Love and I will receive that love by sitting in the Presence of the One Who did everything to restore me.

“…do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others” — it is not the size of our prayers or our ability to outtalk, or even outshine others, or present a good case— what counts is our relationship with the Lord – it’s Him we are talking to! He’s told us that unforgiveness cements us into a bad place. This whole thing comes down to what we care about the most. Our embarrassment, pride, or the desire to simply let go of the past – so we can all get on with our future. We injure ourselves when we hold onto things.

When we pray in secret this means we have become eligible for unseen blessings. Those things are only recognised by the person who prayed, unseen!  I don’t know if you have noticed this or not, but our wonderful Heavenly Father loves to do things in secret. When He asks us to pray that way, He is inviting us into a place where He often works, and at the same time we will get to know and understand Him in a new way.

If God knows what we need before we need it, it stands to reason in my peanut brain that if we do need it He will supply it! I have learnt to say to Him: “Surprise me!” and He does! Prayer is a privilege we all share because we love Him and we want to acknowledge Him first. Bye. 👋